Guinaifen ran through the streets of Exalting Sanctum with the ease of someone who had spent years learning how to move through environments that wanted to kill her.
And yes, she was definitely recording.
It was difficult to remember that she had become semi-famous for livestreams and street performances rather than combat, because there was very little of the entertainer in the way she carried herself when danger appeared. Her breathing remained measured, her posture stayed low, and her eyes moved constantly, not simply watching for pursuit but also measuring the environment around her. Distances. Materials. Obstacles. Blind corners. Escape routes. Things she had already touched.
Exalting Sanctum stretched around them beneath the false sky of the Luofu in all the composed grandeur expected of its administrative center, with broad roads of polished stone weaving between elevated walkways and towering structures whose curved rooftops overlapped one another like layers of lacquered scales.
Warm lanternlight flowed over carved railings and reflected across narrow waterways, while banners stirred lazily in a breeze so comfortable and perfectly measured that it seemed artificial even before one remembered that the heavens above were manufactured. Restaurants remained open. Food stalls continued to operate. Steam drifted through the air carrying pleasant scents. Families crossed decorative bridges while merchants laughed with customers and scholars wandered between pavilions carrying terminals and bundles of scrolls.
Nobody looked frightened.
Nobody looked confused.
Nobody looked toward the distant mountain where clouds churned and strange flashes of golden light and the crackling of thunder occasionally lit the horizon.
Life continued with such perfect normalcy that it became deeply unsettling.
That was the worst part.
If there was anything that Guinaifen knew for a fact, it was that there was nothing worse than abominations who wore the skin of others.
An old woman arranging flowers paused.
A worker transporting crates paused.
Two children in conversation paused.
One after another, people throughout the streets slowly turned their heads toward the three of them.
Their eyes settled onto Guinaifen and her companions.
And then they returned to whatever they had been doing.
No curiosity, recognition, or emotion.
Only awareness.
Guinaifen suppressed a grimace.
Where the hell were the jumpscares?! The clippable moments?! This was terribly disappointing...
Though, her views were skyrocketing. Maybe some gore would net her some views?
Behind them, armored footsteps echoed through the district.
Sushang risked a glance over her shoulder and immediately regretted it.
The group pursuing them had grown.
There were Awakened Cloud Knights mixed among mundane soldiers, but more importantly, there were Ascended among them as well, their movements faster and more controlled than the rest, their armor carrying subtle signs of superior Memories and stronger bodies. Hidden further back were several figures whose presence alone caused pressure to gather faintly in the surrounding air.
Sushang's face immediately lost color.
"Why are there Masters chasing us?!"
Guinaifen did not bother turning around.
"I'd send a Master too if I wanted to kill me."
Sushang looked scandalized.
"That wasn't confidence! That was me saying this is terrible!"
Huohuo clutched her fists tighter, gritting her teeth in terror.
"Shut up! I don't need to hear about who's chasing us or why! Ignorance is bliss, you hear me?! Bliss!"
Guinaifen raised a brow while continuing to run.
"Eh, well, if you say so?"
Guinaifen's attention returned to the environment.
Walls, columns, stone benches, decorative fencing, wooden supports.
'Time for some collateral damage.'
Her fingers flexed once.
Then she snapped.
The street behind them exploded.
There was no warning. No visible trigger.
One moment the road remained intact, and the next moment, pressure erupted upward with enough force to tear stone apart and throw armored bodies through the air. Chunks of polished pavement launched upward in violent arcs while heat rolled across the street and storefront windows shattered simultaneously. Several Awakened Cloud Knights were caught directly in the blast and thrown backward, their armor denting against debris while bodies struck walls and collapsed across fractured ground.
One landed badly enough that his leg folded at a disturbing angle.
Another hit the ground and failed to stand.
Blood spread beneath a third.
The Ascended soldiers suffered less severe consequences, mostly reduced to scorched armor and disrupted movement, but even they had to stop briefly to recover.
Guinaifen never looked back.
Sushang did. Her eyes widened.
She stared.
Then she stared harder.
She looked at Guinaifen.
"Couldn't you have went a little easier on them?!"
Guinaifen stuck out her tongue.
"They'll live."
One of the injured Awakened produced a noise that suggested otherwise.
Guinaifen considered it.
"...Most of them."
Sushang looked horrified.
People misunderstood Legacy Clans.
Sure, they were wealthy, wielded at least some amount of political power, and had plenty of prestige and accolades to boast about and show off.
But they existed because Legacy Clans produced Awakened capable of surviving.
Children born into them were not raised to become harmless aristocrats.
They entered Nightmares. They fought Nightmare Creatures. They learned to kill before they learned comfort.
Failure meant death.
Mercy came after survival.
Guinaifen had left that world behind years ago, replacing combat with performances and cameras, but the habits remained buried beneath her personality.
Her Dormant Ability reflected that upbringing almost perfectly.
Anything she touched could become a bomb.
Its strength remained tied to her own Rank, which limited its effectiveness against stronger opponents, but against Awakened...
It was enough.
Her fingers brushed a nearby support beam. Another explosion followed.
The pursuing formation broke again.
Sushang looked increasingly disturbed.
As they rushed around the corner, all three girls froze, bumping into each other in the process.
A dead end. Huohuo groaned in despair, patting her lower back in order to wake Tail up... just to remember that the Heliobus left to do his own thing. Guinaifen whistled:
"Hm... well, looks like we're cooked. Can't do anything without blowing ourselves up."
Sushang closed her eyes for a few long moments, before sighing. The brunette turned around, greatsword coalescing in her hand from white sparks. The determination in her eyes was so unconvincing that Guinaifen kind of wanted to laugh.
"Lil Gui, don't worry about me. Take Huohuo and run!"
"'Kay."
"Uh... your sacrifice might be remembered?"
Using her staff, Guinaifen vaulted over the wall. Huohuo, on the other hand, just jumped.
Sometimes, it was easy to forget that they were superhuman. Sushang blinked as the first Awakened turned the corner.
"...YOU BASTARDS!"
As Sushang tried to swing her sword — keyword: tried — she vowed to get her vengeance one day!
Then, she slipped, greatsword flying up into the air as she landed on her butt. The brunette's mouth hung open for a few long moments, before looking up.
Surrounded by a full squad of Awakened and Ascended, she helplessly smiled.
"Honestly... I don't think I can take so many guys. Uh, you too, ladies. Probably wouldn't even be satisfied. I mean, my last boyfriend said—"
SPLAT!
Something warm dripped onto Sushang's face, which paled drastically as she looked up at the mess before her.
Her greatsword, which fell out of her hands, managed to perfectly drop down on the head of an Awakened. Considering how heavy it was, well...
The poor guy was split in half.
A result of Sushang's Aspect, no doubt. Her Flaw made her unreasonably clumsy, but in exchange, her Dormant Ability gave her great luck, while her Awakened Ability made it so she can create weak points on people or objects.
So, this wasn't too uncommon of an occurrence, though, it was far messier than usual.
Cirrus, however, seemed baffled by the occurrence, gazing down at the corpse of one of their thralls through the eyes of the surrounding Cloud Knights.
Sushang, on the other hand, was already running up the building's wall, forgetting how she just split a guy in half in only a few moments.
'Better him than me!'
Well, maybe she exaggerated what they were going to do to her, but who really knew? Maybe the Heliobus was into that kind of thing...
Once she reached the top of the building, her eyes scoured around to find her traitorous comrades... just to find them sprinting towards her with alarmed expressions on her face. Sushang squinted.
'Huh?'
The building behind them... was melting into liquid?
...Aspects were so weird. What kind of person did one need to be in order to develop such an eerily specific and, frankly, gross Ability?
"SHANGSHANG! THERE'S TEN OF THEM!"
"WHAT?!"
"TEN!"
"TEN WHAT?!"
"WHAT?"
"I SAID TEN WHAT?!"
This back and forth continued until Guinafen and Huohuo reached her, the former grabbing her by the nape and carrying her off.
"We're going to fly, Shangshang!"
"What?! Why?!"
"Because there's ten of them!"
"You still didn't tell me what there's ten of!"
Guinaifen ducked under an arrow, before stepping on the head of a Master who phased through the building's roof as if it was air, using it as a spring. Huohuo kicked the guys head in panic, knocking him out as he sank back into the building. The paranoid Foxian lingered for a moment, before leaving behind a talisman inscribed with runes as she ran like her life depended on it.
The Xianzhou Yuque, another one of the Xianzhou flagships besides the Luofu, had a very strange General. That woman was simultaneously one of the seven Arbiter-Generals, just like Jing Yuan, while also being the Yuque's Master Diviner, the same position as Fu Xuan. Beyond that, she was so proficient in Runic Sorcery that she eventually created an entirely new branch, which had to do with inscribing the runes upon talismans. These talismans were mass-produced and turned into Memories, becoming commonly used across the Xianzhou Alliance.
What did this particular talisman do?
...Huohuo wasn't sure. They all looked the same to her. But it would probably help, right?
Guinaifen, who sent herself airborne, created an explosion from the bottom of her foot, blasting her off at greater speeds. She and Sushang flipped through the air a few times, the former laughing as the latter screamed, before crashing into a wall and caving it in.
They rolled through the debris a few times, before hopping to their feet. Guinaifen adjusted the camera strapped to her head, before following after Sushang.
"Is it just me, or is the breeze getting a little strong?"
"It's probably nothing—"
The wall suddenly ripped off, sucked in by the wind.
Both girls froze. Once they felt themselves getting sucked in, they quickly ran deeper in the building, hearing everything behind them being torn apart and pulled to a focal point. They leapt through a window, glass scattering around them as they kept running. At some point, the wind died down.
They ran into Huohuo, who looked up at them with pursed lips and wide, traumatized eyes.
"S—So, uh... I might have done an oopsie?"
Guinaifen and Sushang glanced at each other, before peeking out from behind the corner.
"Woah..."
"HOW IS THAT AN OOPSIE?!"
There was a grand crater where the suction force had been coming from. At the center of it all was a massive, compact orb of stone, wood, and other materials.
Oh, and humans. There was quite a bit of blood dripping down its edges, with pieces of flesh and bones poking out.
Huohuo suspected that the Yuque's General had a very twisted sense of humor.