Under normal circumstances, he should have been vaporized. The air in the alley still shimmered with released heat, smelling of ozone, scorched brick, and the coppery tang of fresh blood. Qin Mianfeng lay in a smoldering crater, the Green-tier breastplate across his chest glowing with a fading, sickly jade light—a dying star on a field of ruin. The skin of his hands was blackened and blistered, the stench of cooked meat rising from them. Through a haze of agony and shock, his survival instincts, honed by conflict and guided by an unseen hand, sparked. His mind, a slurry of pain, grasped for a spell. Cooling… no. Counterattack.
His blistered fingers twitched, beginning to trace a sigil in the air. Then his pain-glazed eyes, rolling upwards, caught the movement. The dark silhouette was descending. Not falling, but flowingdown, and around it, a nimbus of pale blue and sullen red light coalesced—the telltale aura of a spell being woven.
She's casting!The realization cut through the fog like ice. The spell on his lips changed, the somatic components twisting mid-flow with a brutal, instinctive grace that spoke of either madness or prodigious talent. The aborted cooling cantrip warped into something violent. A sphere of crackling, purple-tinged fire the size of a robin's egg—a Level 4 Storm-Ember—coalesced above his seared palm. Lying broken on the ground, he flung it upward with a desperate, backwards curl of his wrist.
Yao, descending on her nearly invisible Gossamer strand, saw the lethal orb rise to meet her. Aerial evasion was supposed to be impossible. But her body was no longer bound by mundane physics. A thought, faster than the spell, tugged at the silken line anchored high above. The strand went taut, then sangwith tension, yanking her sideways in a breathtaking, parabolic arc. The Storm-Ember shot past, close enough for her to feel the static raising the hairs on her neck, and detonated against the alley wall in a shower of shattered brick and acrid smoke.
Tap.
Her boots touched the grimy ground, the sound absorbed by the ringing in her ears. She had landed in a crouch, and her chant, begun the moment she had leapt from the rooftop, did not falter. It was a complex, layered incantation, weaving three disparate threads of magic into a single, brutal tapestry.
Qin Mianfan, struggling to push himself up on ruined elbows, his mouth opening to form another spell, felt the ground beneath him stir. Not from explosion, but from growth. From cracks in the pavement, thin, whip-like tendrils of dark wood erupted, glowing with a faint emerald light. Forest Thorns. They latched onto his ankles, his wrists, coiling with surprising strength, their thorns biting through charred fabric into flesh. He roared in fresh pain and frustration.
The thorns were the frame. The painting was fire and wind. Even as the vines secured their hold, a Level 3 Arcane Missile, denser and faster than any she'd conjured before, shot from Yao's left hand. A heartbeat later, a roiling orb of compressed flame—Level 2 Emberburst—followed from her right. Wind and Fire, guided and amplified by the Wood's entangling grasp.
The alley ignited for a second time. This was not the singular, concussive whumpof the Gremlin, but a sustained, roaring holocaust. The Wind-Fire-Forest Triad unleashed its fury upon the bound figure. Flames, fanned to white-hot intensity by the wind, clung to the thorny vines, which themselves burned with a magical, hungry fire. The smell of ozone was overwritten by the stench of superheated stone, vaporized organics, and searing flesh.
In the heart of that miniature sun, Qin Mianfeng truly tasted death. It was a dry, asphyxiating heat that scorched the lungs from the inside. His protective breastplate flared once, then the jade light began to fracture, overwhelmed.
"Now! The escape protocol! I cannot shield you from this!"the spectral elder's voice shrieked in his mind, thin with strain and fear.
But the pre-programmed short-range teleport failed. The spatial anchor fizzled, disrupted by the violent magical turbulence.
"The backlash… the matrix is unstable! I need a direct conduit, a pure energy source to stabilize it!"the elder cried, a note of real panic entering his voice.
In the inferno, through the agony, Qin Mianfeng's mind—the part that was calculating, ruthless, and utterly self-preserving—made a decision. His spiritual connection to the elder wasn't just guidance; it was a tether. A pipeline.
"You exist to serve me,"he thought, the sentiment not spoken but willedwith terrifying force down that psychic link. "Your purpose is to ensure my ascent. So fulfill it."
He didn't ask. He commanded. Using his privileged access as the System's "Bearer," he invoked a deep, binding function. The spiritual form of the old man, still linked to him, was violently yanked from its semi-autonomous state. A wrenching, silent scream echoed in Qin Mianfeng's soul as the elder's accumulated spiritual energy, his very essence, was forcibly siphoned. The green breastplate blazed with a final, desperate light as the stolen power reinforced it. Simultaneously, Qin Mianfeng funneled the brutalized remnants of the elder's spirit into the System's escape function.
"NO! You ungrateful—!"The protest was cut off, not by silence, but by a soundless unraveling.
The teleportation matrix, fueled by this sacrificial energy, flickered to life. As the fiery tempest around him began to wane, leaving him a broken, bleeding figure barely clinging to consciousness, a familiar buzzing filled the air. He was half-submerged in a column of swirling light.
Yao, seeing the telltale glow, cursed inwardly. Of course he has a second get-out-of-death-free card.Her spells were on cooldown, her Spirit reserves low. But 574 points of Agility demanded action. The Gossamer strand, still attached to her ring, became a lifeline. She yanked, not to ascend, but to propel herself forward in a flat, blindingly fast sprint. As the teleportation field solidified, she drew the short, wicked blade from the small of her back. The world seemed to slow. She saw the bloody stump of his arm, the smoldering pack on the ground beside him, the hatred in his one visible eye.
The blade flashed, aiming for the neck. Qin Mianfeng, even in his death-throes, convulsed. The cut meant to behead only severed the remaining strap of his pack and grazed his shoulder. But in that final, reflexive spasm, the amethyst bracelet on his wrist—another latent treasure—detonated. A jagged arc of violet lightning, thick as a thumb, forked from the shattered beads directly at her face.
Yao's enhanced reflexes saved her. She was already moving, the world a blur. She threw herself into a lateral dive, the lightning searing past her cheek, close enough to leave the smell of burnt hair. The momentum of her lunge, however, took her blade on its original course. It bit deep, not into neck, but into the junction of shoulder and torso.
There was a wet, crunching sound. A final spray of blood, darker this time. The teleportation field reached its peak with a deafening BZZZT-WHUMP, and Qin Mianfeng vanished, leaving behind a severed arm, a torrent of blood staining the cracked ground, and his abandoned pack.
Silence, heavy and sudden, descended, broken only by the crackle of dying flames and the first, wailing sirens approaching in the distance.
A prompt appeared in Yao's vision, cold and impersonal: [Primary Target Disengaged. Secondary Entity 'Spectral Mentor – Asei' Eliminated. Soul Core Acquired.]
From the space where Qin Mianfeng had disappeared, a wisp of profound violet light, shot through with aching blue, spiraled mournfully through the air. It condensed as it fell, resolving into a palm-sized crystal. It was breathtaking, a piece of captured twilight, its depths swirling with faint, sorrowful luminescence. A Sapphire-tier Soul Core, its value inflated by the rarity of its origin. She caught it. It was cold, heavier than it looked, and hummed with a potent, lonely energy.
He got away. The protagonist, with his plot armor and his willingness to sacrifice even his guides, had escaped. A cold fury warred with cold logic within her. He burned his greatest asset to survive. No more whispers in his ear, no more cheat-sheet for hidden treasures. He's crippled, literally and metaphorically. I've cut the puppet master's strings. Now he's just a boy with a stolen system and a lot of enemies.
The thrum of repulsor engines grew louder. Time was up. She snatched up the discarded pack, her movements economical. Facing the grimy facade of a five-story hab-block across the street, she raised her hand. The Arachnid Ascension Ring gleamed. A thought, and a strand of near-invisible Gossamer, strong as steel cable yet weightless, shot forth. It struck a gargoyle's perch near the roof with a faint thwick. The strand went taut, and the ring' gravity-negating property engaged. She was plucked from the ground as if by a giant's hand, soaring up and out in a long, graceful arc, the ruined alley dropping away beneath her feet, the wind a cool kiss against her soot-stained skin.
On the deck of the hovering enforcement skiff, the lead tracker frowned at his display. The thermal imagers showed the alley as a pool of cooling oranges and yellows, the aftermath of fire. But no human-shaped blobs of white and red. "Magistrate Zhou, the thermal signature is gone. The target… vanished again. No residual heat trail."
Zhou Linlang watched the feed on her wrist-projector from the comfort of the Li fixer's captured shuttle, her expression unreadable. Twice in one night.On a backwater planet like X5, this was either staggering incompetence or they were dealing with a phantom. Her earlier assessment of Qin Mianfeng as a resourceful upstart was being hastily revised. "The docks are sealed. He can't leave by public transport. He's gone to ground. Activate the Sky-Mirror protocol. I want a real-time scan of every moving entity in that district and the surrounding twelve blocks. Thermal can be spoofed. Look for life-signs, mana fluctuations, anything."
As the powerful orbital surveillance spell washed over the ramshackle town, its arcane gaze missing nothing, Yao was already a block away, dropping silently onto a rain-slicked rooftop. She shed her dark outer layer in one fluid motion, revealing a dull, grey hoodie beneath. Flipping the hood up, she melted into the mouth of a different alley and stepped out onto a bustling night-market street.
The contrast was jarring, almost surreal. One moment, silent, lethal pursuit; the next, a cacophony of life. The street was a river of bodies, bathed in the garish glow of neon signs and floating glow-orbs. The air, thick a moment ago with smoke and blood, was now saturated with a hundred competing smells: sizzling mystery meat on griddles, pungent spices, sickly-sweet synth-confectionery, and the underlying, ever-present odor of unwashed bodies and decay. Stalls lined the way, hawkers barking their wares.
Yao shouldered the pack and joined the flow. She paused at a stall where doughy balls sizzled in hot oil, the vendor deftly skewering them with a stick. "One, please." Her voice was a normal girl's, slightly tired.
The vendor, a man with a face like wrinkled leather, glanced up as he handed over the paper-wrapped snack. The girl had a mask over the lower half of her face, but her eyes… they were startlingly vivid in the neon haze, a sharp, intelligent grey. For a fleeting second, they seemed to hold a glint of genuine, almost mischievous amusement, as if privy to a wonderful secret. It was a disarming, strangely compelling look.
"Here ya go, miss."
"Thanks." She flicked three copper coins from her fingers. They spun through the air with a cheerful, ringing clink-clink-clinkas they landed in the vendor's tip jar.
Back in the still-smoking alley, Zhou Linlang stood amid the forensics team. The analysis was swift, aided by diagnostic spells. "The elemental residues are clear, Magistrate. A Wind-Fire-Wood composite assault. Low-tier individual spells, but the sequencing and synergy… that's advanced combat theory. Someone with excellent tactical training or… exceptional instinct."
Zhou Linlang's mind raced. Qin Mianfeng? Could he wield such a combination? He'd shown Lightning and Fire affinities. To add Wind and Wood, and to this level of proficiency, was almost unheard of at his age and resource level. It contradicted everything. Unless the "spectral mentor" was more than just a guide…
"The blood," she said. "Results?"
"All matches the Qin Mianfeng sample you provided. No foreign DNA detected at the primary impact site."
So, Qin Mianfeng was here. He was hurt. Badly. And someone else, who left no biological trace, had done this to him. Someone who knew he'd be here, who invested significant resources (a JF Gremlin wasn't cheap), and who bore a grudge severe enough to orchestrate this ambush. Who, in this tiny, miserable pond, had the motive, the means, and the cold skill to nearly kill the most promising young Arcanist on the planet?
Her gaze drifted south, towards the quieter residential zones. A thought, absurd and yet fitting all the jagged pieces, occurred to her. "Check the status of the Xie family shuttle. Has it departed X5?"
The answer came moments later. "Negative, Magistrate. It remains grounded at the private pad near the old uplink station."
A slow, thoughtful breath escaped her. How… interesting.
Five minutes later, her team stood outside the modest dwelling the "Young Master Xie" had so recently sold. The knock was authoritative.
The door was opened by a wary Xie guard. The sight of Zhou Linlang and a contingent of stone-faced inspectors wiped the professionalism from his face, replacing it with alarm. "Magistrate Zhou? Is there… a problem?"
"No problem," Zhou Linlang said, her smile benign. "We were in the area. Remembering Young Master Xie's… heroic actions, we thought we'd pay a visit. To see how his recovery is progressing." She didn't wait for an invitation, gliding past the sputtering guard with her team in tow.
Inside, the sound hit them first: a low, wretched, rhythmic sobbing. It echoed through the bare rooms, a performance of grief. As they followed the sound, Zhou Linlang's sharp eyes scanned the floor, the walls, looking for scuff marks, traces of earth, anything out of place. She reached the source of the noise and pushed the door open.
The scene within was a masterpiece of grubby pathos. Oaks—or the being wearing his face—sat slumped on the floor, cradling a funerary urn in one arm. The other hand was buried in a bag of synthetic cheese puffs. The recorded sobs, now clearly coming from a small player on the floor beside him, wailed on. The sudden intrusion made him jerk, inhale a cheese-dusted puff wrong, and dissolve into a fit of coughing that ended in a loud, undignified BRAAAPof a hiccup.
He was here. Physically present. Zhou Linlang's eyes, however, continued their sweep. No second set of footprints in the dust. No hidden compartments in the sparse room. No sign of the Arachnid Ascension Ring, or a pack smelling of the alley. Nothing.
At that moment, her earpiece chimed. The Sky-Mirror team reported, their voices laced with frustration. The only anomalous movement in the timeframe was a fleeting, high-velocity blur near the rooftops several blocks from the market, and a later, thermal-dampened figure in an alley who'd emerged as a female heading into the market crowd. Nothing linked to this location. The logistics were impossible without a high-level movement spell or a vehicle.
Her hypothesis, it seemed, was wrong. The evidence—or lack thereof—was conclusive. Yet, the dissonance remained. She allowed her polite mask to slip back into place. "My apologies for the disturbance, Young Master. We'll leave you to your… vigil."
She turned to go.
"Wait!"
Zhou Linlang paused, glancing back. The figure on the floor had mastered his hiccups and was looking at her with an expression of pathetic, hopeful avarice.
"Yeah?" she prompted.
He gestured vaguely with his cheese-puff hand. "The, uh… the midnight snack? You said you brought a snack? 'Cause I'm kinda peckish, and the cheese puffs are kinda… dusty."
Zhou Linlang stared. Midnight snack? Did I say that?The sheer, brazen gall of it, the utter lack of situational awareness or basic shame, momentarily short-circuited her usually impeccable composure. It took a conscious three-second effort to reassemble her features into a mask of polite inquiry.
"The snack," she repeated, her voice dangerously even. "What would you like?"
The creature on the floor didn't hesitate. "Lobster. The big, buttery kind. And Wagyu steak. You know, the good stuff."
Silence stretched in the cheese-scented room. Zhou Linlang felt, for the first time in a long while, a profound and deeply personal understanding of her subordinates' visceral loathing for this individual. It wasn't about his crimes, not in this moment. It was about his existence. The unmitigated, spectacular audacity.
A faint, almost imperceptible tic appeared near her left eye. She managed a final, flawless smile that didn't reach her eyes.
How utterly… exasperating.