Considering I was currently in someone else's bed on a planet I didn't know existed just a few days ago, it was a miracle that I'd fallen asleep, period, let alone for however many hours it took to turn dark outside. I glanced around the bedroom, taking in the sights of my new home. The place was beautiful, sure, but for whatever reason, something felt off. I couldn't quite place it. Was it just that I still needed to get used to the place? No, that wasn't it. It was in the air. While not as oppressive as that feeling of being stalked that came in the Outer Plane, I still felt as if someone was watching me. Looking for me. Unable to shake the feeling after a few minutes of tossing and turning, I got out of bed and decided that I'd take a walk around the–
Bang!
"Holy shit!"
The sound came from… within the palace?! Unsure whether I was hearing things, I waited for a second–
Bang! Bang!
The sound was more pronounced now. Short, loud blasts. Bassy and familiar. Those were gunshots. Gunshots?! Was it Dai Yuhan? The System says she followed the Essence of the Gunsmith.
Bang!
Quest Received: The Yanlin Raid
Azure Tide is currently under attack by the Yanlin Clan. Fight them off before sunrise.
WARNING: ANY deaths on either side will result in the immediate failure of this Quest.
Reward: You will receive 2500 Renown as well as the Data Pack: The Yanlin Incident.
"Great, let me guess: one of Fang Leung's messes that I need to clean up?"
As if in confirmation of that, a voices from both outside of the palace and within began to chant a militaristic war cry: "Death to the tyrannical thief.". More of those sadistic purple fairy things flew about, playfully screaming about how terrified they were. Other red ones also floated about as well, looking out of the window and under the doorframe in search of… something. I knew after reading through a few more Data Packs that those things were called "Spirits", and that they were the physical manifestations of certain concepts. The purple ones were Spirits of Fear, for example, while the red ones were Spirits of Combat. There were more Spirits in Milkat than there were blades of grass, though they all varied in strength. There was a lot more to it, but I couldn't afford any of the more expensive Data Packs on them just yet.
The Spirits of Combat at the door chanted something in a language I couldn't understand, calling the other red Spirits by the window to join them at the door. Moments later, they were crowding around the door at opposite sides of the doorframe. Some looked to the door in anticipation, while the others looked at me with the same eagerness. Me? Why–
The door flew back, blasted off the hinges by an unfamiliar man dressed in black like a ninja. Before I knew it, the man sprinted at me like a man possessed. I sidestepped the following jab, copying my move against one of the Igrin and slamming him to the floor using his own momentum. I pushed my forearm into his neck.
"No conversations, then? Just getting straight to business?" I asked, taking the opportunity to analyze the man.
Yanlin Zan, Mystic
Teenage cousin of Yanlin Chen. Currently follows the Essence of the Shinobi, like most Yanlin Mystics do.
"Mystic. That's a rank below Ascendant. That means he's weaker than me, right?"
"I don't make small talk with thieving dogs like you, Fang Leung!" The Yanlin assassin, Yanlin Zan, spat. "Now die by my hand!"
The man summoned a clone of himself at my right flank and used it to kick me towards the door, freeing himself from my grip. The clone tried to follow after me, but a quick burst of electricity stopped that from happening. I rushed toward the main Yanlin Zan as his clone popped out of existence and struck him hard in the gut before he could summon another one. Sure, the System said the kid was a teenager, but when people had abilities like cloning, I couldn't just let him get comfortable.
I slammed a wind-aspected palm into the kid's chest, sending him flying into the far wall. The kid finally adjusted to the battle, throwing a flurry of knives at me, but the narrow space I ran through made it impossible to dodge all of them. This body was stronger than mine on Earth, though. I raised my arms in defense, a few knives piercing my arm, but the pain wasn't so great that I was incapacitated by it. By the time he'd finished throwing knives at me, though, I was stunned to find that the kid was… gone? Where did he–
Wham!
A swift jab to the face sent my head flying back.
Wham!
A kick to the stomach left me with no choice but to guard my midsection… leaving my back completely exposed.
The assassin slashed my back with what I could only assume was some other knife. A searing pain shot through me as the assassin continued to slash down at me, continuing the assault with punches and kicks from summoned clones. This whole time, the kid and his clones were invisible, making it impossible to guess where he even was! Left with no other option, I gathered as much wind aura as I could muster and shot a loud burst of wind out from every direction. The attacks stopped with that, but my problem wasn't yet solved. Yanlin Zan was still invisible, and I could feel him approaching.
"What's wrong, Fang Leung?" A voice called from the left corner of the room.
Wham!
A punch to the face from the right.
"Aren't you an Ascendant? Aren't you the strongest?" A voice called from the right corner of the room.
Wham!
A kick to the gut from the left.
I backstepped into the wall as Yanlin Zan summoned even more clones, each of them hurling insults from different places in the room. My hands were up, but Yanlin Zan's ability to clone made it impossible to keep every part of me protected. If I didn't figure out a solution to this battle, I'd be dead before I could even step foot outside of this palace.
And yet, there was an option. A supercharged combination of electricity and fire had killed five Igrin. It was all I needed to do: cross that hurdle and be done with this battle. But then what would happen? Would that make me like Fang Leung? The System itself said that murder would cause failure, but the only real consequence of that was having more Igrin. Was that the only thing holding me back from crossing the line? Consequences?
No, it wasn't. It was me. I didn't want to kill this kid. First off, I wasn't a goddamn sociopath. Second, while each of his attacks certainly hurt, he wasn't as strong as the Igrin in the Outer Plane, nor was he as fast. Those things could kill me. This kid would kill me… if I completely dropped my guard and let him. He didn't hit that hard; his attacks were somewhat slow in that brief exchange we had, and odds were he was currently expending all of his aura here to try and end this fight before I could counter him. When I looked at it like that, this fight became easy. Magical ninja or not, Yanlin Zan was just a kid.
"Are you done yet?" I groaned, adding as much faux disinterest to my voice as I could muster. "I still have to deal with your buddies, and you're holding me up here."
"Excuse me?! You dare insult the Yanlin even as I let you live at my mercy?!"
I took a deep breath, allowing my aura to surge with the exhale. The technique was named "Enhance", and it was the only real technique that Fang Leung had in his arsenal. The technique has two key abilities: it gave me a significant boost to my power, and it granted me more freedom with how I manipulated elements. A byproduct of that first ability, though, was that it enhanced each of my senses—allowing me to see exactly where Yanlin Zan was.
"Y-you think I–"
I closed the gap between us in a single step, grabbing the real Yanlin Zan who'd been standing before the center window.
"That was fun and all, but I really do need to be going."
"The Yanlin will avenge me! We will die before we let you bring us to ruin! Death to the tyrannical thief! Death to–"
I chopped him behind his neck, knocking the kid out cold. He fell to the ground and didn't get back up.
"Ayyy, Y-M! The hell happened here?" A somewhat familiar voice called. I turned to find a girl who looked like Dai Yuhan, except her hair was scruffy and blonde instead of straight and black. She had a scarred nose, gray eyes, and was a few inches shorter.
"Are you a clone of Dai Yuhan?"
"Yup! Name's Blondie'. Nice to meetcha!"
"Y-yeah. Anyway, I woke up, heard some bangs, got a Quest to save Azure Tide from the 'Yanlin', fought this kid, and now I'm here."
"Oh, prob'ly woke up because of these," She said, flashing two antique-looking pistols at me. The clone gave me a wide smile. "Essence of the Gunsmith! These babies are my pride n' joy! Really, that's what I named 'em. We all have names for 'em. Raven calls her shotgun the 'Bloodletter', Lady calls her rocket launcher thing 'Kalina Ann', and I'm pretty sure number one calls her rifle the 'Gravedigger'. Anyway, that all that happen? Woke up, heard us put in work, then ya beat up one of the guys we missed?"
"Pretty much. Oh, yeah. The System said this kid followed the Essence of the Shinobi like you guys used to."
"Yeah," She shrugged. "Number one sucked at it. Mom said her clones were 'imperfect'... Crazy, right?"
"Shocking."
"See? You get it. Anyway, the bosslady found us after and got us on the Essence of the Gunsmith. Ain't look back since! But that's enough about me, you have a job to do, babe. You focus on killing those assholes, and I'll focus on cleaning up in here."
"The System said not to kill! Please tell me you haven't been doing that."
"Course not! That was just a figure of speech! These babies are nonlethal." She looked away from me and muttered, "When I want 'em to be."
"What?"
"Nothing! You don't wanna start any wars, and I don't wanna have to deal with any Ban Clan guys starin' me down while I'm trimmin' the hedges! I get it! Like I said, I'll take care of the guys in here, and you take care of the guys outside. One'a the girls'll take ya where ya needa be, okay?"
"...'Trimmin' the hedges'?"
"You wanna have a village to rule over or not?! Go on, get the fuck outta here!"