Tang Xiya didn't let him finish. She threw the empty pistol at his face. As he flinched, she closed the distance and drove the jagged piece of pipe she still carried into his thigh. He screamed, dropping the keycard and the walkie-talkie. She slammed his head against the wall, and he slid to the floor, unconscious.
She snatched the keycard and swiped it. The cell door hissed open.
The captives inside flinched back, pressing against the far wall. They saw a demon—a girl splattered in blood and grime, her eyes burning with a feral light.
"Listen to me!" she said, her voice raw and urgent. "My name is Tang Xiya. I was a captive like you. The men upstairs are dead. I'm getting you out."
A man with a shaved head stared at her, his eyes wide with a mixture of hope and terror. "Dead? All of them?"
"All of them. But there could be more. We have to go. Now."
She led them out of the cell. "Is there an armory? Weapons?" she asked the bald man.
He nodded shakily. "Down the hall. The guards' locker room."
She found it. Inside were several rifles, pistols, and boxes of ammunition. She tossed a rifle to the bald man and another to a woman who stepped forward with a determined glint in her eye.
"Do you know how to use it?"
The woman nodded grimly. "Hunting with my dad."
"Good. You're our rear guard. Everyone else, grab a knife, a pipe, anything you can use. We're not going back the way I came. There's a service tunnel this way."
The system's path glowed blue, leading to a ventilation shaft large enough to crawl through.
It was a tense, silent exodus. They emerged from a grate a kilometer inland, deep within the jungle. Tang Xiya led them on a brutal forced march, pushing their weak, malnourished bodies to the limit.
"Where are we going?" the bald man gasped.
"A road. Military patrols pass there at dusk. It's your only chance."
Finally, they reached a ridge overlooking a dirt track. "Here," she said, her own body screaming for rest. "Hide here. Wait. They will come."
The woman with the rifle looked at her, her face pale. "You're not coming with us?"
"I can't." The reasons were too complex—the system, her debt, the horrifying lab that hinted at a much larger conspiracy. Her path was darker and lonelier.
She turned to leave just as the first military jeep appeared in the distance, kicking up dust.
"Thank you," the bald man called out, his voice thick with emotion.
She didn't look back. She melted back into the jungle as the soldiers spotted the group and scrambled to secure the area.
**[Preliminary Mission: Shepherd the Lost - Complete. Karmic imbalance partially corrected. Host's negative balance is reduced by 300 Points. Current Debt: -205 System Points.]**
The message floated before her, but it felt hollow. The real weight was the memory of those vacant eyes in the lab. This island held a secret far darker than simple trafficking.
As she moved deeper into the jungle, a new, secondary objective pulsed softly on her system interface, a quiet, insistent pull leading her away from the coast, towards the island's mountainous heart.
**[Secondary Objective Updated: Investigate anomalous energy signature. Origin: Unknown. Priority: High.]**
She had a debt to repay, and it seemed the island wasn't done with her yet.
.....
The system's pull was a relentless itch in the back of her skull, a compass needle pointing true north into the island's deepest, most unforgiving heart. Tang Xiya moved like a wraith, the borrowed skills from her trial world keeping her silent and unseen. The jungle here was ancient, the canopy so thick it felt like twilight at noon.
After hours of pushing through dense undergrowth, she found it: a rough, heavily tread path cut through the jungle, wide enough for vehicles. It was a scar on the landscape, leading towards a distant, mist-shrouded mountain. This was the source of the anomalous energy signature.
Crouching at the tree line, she watched a battered truck rumble past, its bed covered with a tarpaulin, armed men riding in the back. Their rifles weren't the old models the traffickers had; these were modern, powerful, military-grade. This was a different league entirely.
To investigate further was suicide. She was one woman with a single pistol and a body pushed to its limit. But she had to see.
**[Peripheral Utility Available for Loan: Long-Range Binoculars (Basic). Loan Cost: -15 System Points. Confirm?]**
Another debt. Another line of red in her account. Gritting her teeth, she confirmed. The weight of the binoculars materialized in her hands, sleek and cold.
She scaled a massive Kapok tree, its broad limbs offering perfect cover and a vantage point. Settling into a fork high above the ground, she raised the binoculars to her eyes. The world zoomed in with crystal clarity.
The path ended at a massive, open-pit mine gouged into the mountainside. It was a hive of horrific activity. Hundreds of emaciated figures, covered in mud and filth, moved like ants, hacking at the rock with primitive tools under the scorching sun. Overseers armed with whips and rifles walked among them. Guard towers dotted the perimeter, each manned by a sniper.
This was no simple crime. This was industrialized slavery on a massive scale.
Her gaze swept to the cluster of buildings on the mine's edge. They weren't just ran-down warehouses; they were a small, fortified compound surrounded by a high fence topped with razor wire. Heavily armed patrols walked the perimeter. This wasn't a territory; it was a fortress. A flag hung limply over the largest building—a black serpent coiled around a broken sword. The symbol of the cult. The same symbol from the lab that had killed her.
A cold dread, deeper than any she had felt before, washed over her. This was a node of the very evil she had sworn to destroy. But it was a dragon, and she was a barely-armed peasant. Charging in now wouldn't be vengeance; it would be a meaningless delivery of her own corpse.
She had to leave. She had to get stronger, gather resources, and understand the scope of this nightmare. This was a battle for another day.
Climbing down silently, she melted back into the jungle, putting as much distance between herself and that place of death as possible. The binoculars dematerialized from her hands, adding their cost to her growing debt.
She walked away, her mind already plotting her next move, her path off the island. She felt the prudence of her decision. It was the smart move. The only move.
Unfortunately, Tang Xiya had no idea what she had just missed. That single, rational decision would haunt her for the rest of her life.