The night stretched on without mercy. The stench of blood hung over Turtle Island like a shroud, and screams rose and fell in an endless, dissonant chorus.
Deep in a thicket near the island's center, Li Fei scowled and drew Dark Night, pinning a rat to the earth before it could gnaw another finger off. Her mood was thoroughly sour.
What a difference a day made. Last night she had been sipping soft-shell turtle soup and humming along to a song by firelight. Now she was fleeing through the dark like a hunted animal — the luxurious tent gone, the warm campfire gone, the plush carpet gone, the incense gone — nothing left but this unremarkable patch of undergrowth and a desperate prayer for fate's mercy.
If not for the odorless, colorless insect repellent Qin Zhihua had packed, the night would have been considerably more miserable.
"For the love of — do these Sea Clan bastards never sleep?"
Simon had done a circuit of the surrounding area with his reconnaissance-class Transcendent knowledge. He returned, voice low and face dark. "Fish-men everywhere. Sea Serpents circling overhead. At this rate, we'll be spotted by dawn at the latest."
"Viranean is vast. Hold on for a few more days, and Loxibrook's reinforcements will come."
Cowell said it with a calm smile, his voice low but carrying a steadying weight to it.
She had to admit — he was an exceptional leader. The kind of person whose mere presence made others breathe a little easier. Nothing like a certain someone whose mind was currently occupied entirely with the order of rearguard sacrifices and how to make them volunteer for it willingly.
Li Fei hunched over the map, brow creased, searching for any thread of hope to pull at.
During their desperate flight earlier in the day, the group had nearly been encircled. That near-miss had confirmed what Li Fei already suspected: this wasn't some brainless sea monster deciding the island was its dinner table. This was the Sea Clan — organized, premeditated, and utterly merciless. A coordinated campaign of retribution.
That conclusion was terrifying.
If it had been a handful of Transcendent creatures throwing a chaotic killing spree on a whim, she thought they might be able to hide-and-seek their way through it for a few days until Loxibrook's cavalry arrived. But an endless Sea Clan army conducting a systematic, sleepless purge — digging up every stone, sweeping every shadow — could they even survive until morning? And if they did, what then? The ground would be crawling with Sea Clan forces and the skies would be full of circling sentinels. How were they supposed to slip through a net that tight?
"Run — move!"
"Guk-kaa!"
"Augh!"
A sudden burst of shouts tore through the darkness, raising the hair on the back of everyone's necks. Li Fei recognized it immediately — another group of Loxibrook's Transcendents had been found, and not far from them. The Sea Clan army moved like a great deep-sea beast, consuming the island at a frightening pace. The ground they had left to stand on was shrinking fast.
"They're moving too quickly..."
Time had never felt so long. Li Fei let out a slow exhale, her expression soft with a tenderness that had no business being there, and fed the fairy cradled against her chest a careful spoonful of honey nectar.
Then she turned to Qin Zhihua, and hesitated before reaching out her hand.
Since Old Jiang's sacrifice, the smile had not returned to Qin Zhihua's face. She had been silent ever since, wearing the same blank, shuttered expression as Grace — a look that belonged on someone who had sealed themselves away from the world.
Li Fei closed her hand around Qin Zhihua's. The woman flinched — almost pulling away — but Li Fei held firm, her voice steady and gentle at once.
"I'm still here."
"And when we get back to Loxibrook — I'm going to ask your family for your hand."
— So you had better keep me alive, Miss Zhihua.
The rigid tension in Qin Zhihua's shoulders slowly, slowly crumbled. And then she threw her arms around Li Fei.
Pain flared white-hot in Li Fei's arm. The ordinarily gentle and composed Qin Zhihua was biting her — actually biting down into her arm, like she was tearing into the raw flesh of a sea monster.
Li Fei's expression didn't change.
She was terrified of pain as a rule, but teeth were a special exception. Middle-school girls in the throes of first love had always had a fondness for biting — not as a figure of speech, but in the most literal, physical sense. Back in her less-accomplished days of time management, Li Fei's arms had been covered in fresh bite marks every single day. One discovered mark had a habit of becoming two, then three. Under such vigorous and consistent encouragement, she had improved rapidly, outgrown the role of prey entirely — but her pain tolerance for teeth had been thoroughly, permanently forged. She'd gone from screeching at the slightest pressure to maintaining a beatific, gentle expression even while bleeding, a composure worthy of Guan Yu himself enduring the bone-scraping surgery without a flinch.
The faint, spreading taste of iron brought Qin Zhihua back to herself. She buried her face deep into Li Fei's chest, and her shoulders began to shake — and very quickly, the warmth of tears soaked through Li Fei's collar.
The muffled, suppressed sound of weeping turned the others' heads. Exhaustion and grief mingled in their eyes — a sorrow not entirely their own. Whatever else might be said, Old Jiang's last stand had saved all of their lives too. And they were still not safe.
"Get inside — move!"
Suddenly, rapid footsteps crashed toward them through the undergrowth. Li Fei barely had time to process the sound before several figures — so drenched in blood they looked like they'd been pickled in it — came tumbling into the thicket.
"Someone's here!"
The newcomers had barely pushed through the leaves before they spotted Li Fei's group. The man at the front raised his spear, killing intent blazing in his eyes.
Li Fei's group turned as one. Even Qin Zhihua — tear-streaked as she was — quietly closed her fingers around her sword hilt.
"Avje."
Cowell's hand settled on his greatsword without so much as shifting his expression, as he sized up the party he recognized — the same Transcendents who had worked alongside them the day before to clear the ogre village, before a disagreement in principles had seen them go their separate ways.
Yesterday, they had been swaggering and ambitious, a group of nearly twenty cutting through the island like they owned it. Now there were five of them left, and every single one was wounded.
"It's you lot."
The spear-wielder had a handsome face under better circumstances. Right now it was split open and bleeding, his hair matted, his expression twisted into something almost feral. His eyes were so shot through with red they barely looked human.
Behind him stood a dwarf warrior, an orc with a spiked mace, a lightly-armored human woman, and an elven mage — all of them caked in blood, breathing hard, still riding the aftermath of some brutal fight. The mage was in the worst shape of the lot, wheezing with every breath, his robes soaked through with sweat. Keeping pace with the warriors at all had clearly cost him everything — and the only reason he'd managed it at all was because elves had naturally stronger constitutions than humans. The other short-legged mages in the group, apparently, had already been left behind.
"Do you know each other? Even better."
Li Fei registered the hostility in their posture, but kept her voice even. "I think we can all agree something's gone very wrong on this island. Every one of us is prey right now. Unity is strength — one more body is one more chance. So. What do you say?"
She had every reason to be confident she could talk them around. They were all in the same trap, after all.
A larger group drew more attention, yes — but in exchange, when everything finally fell apart and everyone scattered, more "allies" meant more bodies to absorb the enemy's notice. Her own odds of survival could only improve.
What Li Fei had forgotten, however, was that wisdom is the union of reason and emotion — and no intelligent creature maintains perfect rationality under perfect duress.
"You make a reasonable argument."
Avje stared at Li Fei, something brewing behind his eyes. "But I decline."
His voice came out louder than it should have. Li Fei's eyes flicked instinctively around the surrounding darkness, worried the sound would draw something in. Cowell spoke, voice low and measured:
"We have our differences, but nothing between us rises to the level of a blood feud. Work with us. If we make it out alive, drinks are on me — call it an apology."
"Make it out alive?" Avje let out a short, sharp laugh. "Forget it. By tomorrow at the latest, the Sea Clan will have turned this entire island upside down and shaken out everything inside. Doesn't matter where you run. City Hall's high-Sequence bigshots are probably all dead by now. You're going to die. We're going to die. Everyone dies. Ha. Hahaha..."
...This one's cracked.
Li Fei reached that conclusion without deliberating, and stood up without hesitation. She was already calculating the next hiding spot.
"In that case, we'll be going. Best of luck to you."
No hesitation, no hand-wringing. Li Fei turned and walked. The others fell in behind her in silence. They had taken barely two steps when a voice drifted after them, quiet and strange:
"Wait."
Li Fei's stomach dropped. She turned back, keeping a smile on her face as she scanned the group.
"Was there something else?"
Avje's lips split into a grin. His eyes swept across the faces of the women before him — faces that could unhorse kings — with an obscene, deliberate hunger.
"Cowell, you and your people can go. The women stay. Once we're... satisfied, they can leave."
The words hit the air like a stone dropped in still water. The others who had been slumped on the ground catching their breath and wrapping their wounds were suddenly animated again — eyes sharpening, bodies slowly dragging themselves upright, expressions going ugly.
"There's no need for this."
Li Fei kept her smile intact, though the effort was becoming considerable. "Loxibrook's reinforcements will come. There's still a way out for all of us. When we get back, I'll buy everyone a round — your pick of any tavern in Loxibrook. What do you say?"
The mention of Loxibrook sent a flicker of hesitation through the eyes of the men at Avje's back. The city's strict rule of law had been branded deep enough into its residents that even here, cornered on a dying island, the name still carried weight.
"Do you have any f*ing idea how far Loxibrook is from here?"
Avje leaned on his spear, mouth curling in a cold sneer. "Every one of those b*ards at City Hall is dead. We're all dead too. Might as well enjoy what's left."
He had thrown everything to the wind. The knowledge that order had collapsed, that every exit was sealed — it had pushed him past the edge of reason entirely. And his companions were being swept along with him, their breathing growing heavier, the smiles on their faces no longer pretending at anything.
On top of that, Avje kept raising his voice. The threat in it needed no translation.
Are these people idiots?
Are these people IDIOTS?
They are absolute, categorical IDIOTS.
Li Fei's gaze dropped. A cold, ugly anger settled in her chest — the kind that didn't burn so much as calcify. She genuinely could not comprehend the mental architecture that looked at this situation and decided that this was the priority. Not fighting for the sliver of a chance to live. Not even trying. Just — this.
And of all the people it could have happened to, it had happened to her.
Li Fei stood in silence. She had built a comfortable, respected life in Loxibrook on charm and wit and relentless effort. And reality had just slapped her across the face and told her that none of it mattered here. She already pushed herself hard every day — and still she felt the bitter sting of it: why hadn't she pushed harder? Been more careful?
"I'll stay."
Su Ling'er stepped forward.
Her lips had gone white. Tears were running freely down her face. But the girl who had recently become almost insufferably bubbly and sweet had, in this moment, recovered every trace of the composed, capable composure she'd had back behind a shop counter — even through the tremor in her voice:
"If you try to keep all of us, the only outcome is a fight. And a fight means noise. And noise means the Sea Clan comes. I'll stay. Let the others go."
Li Fei seized Su Ling'er's arm without a word. Qin Zhihua's silhouette moved to stand between them without one either. Grace raised her longbow. Fufu stepped forward. Even Cowell and Sherlock tightened their grips on their weapons.
Zoller's eyes slid sideways. Simon quietly nudged Cowell with a look that said maybe we just slip out now — Cowell didn't even glance at him, his jaw set, eyes narrowing into something that looked a great deal like the desire for a fight.
Su Ling'er wiped her tears with her free hand, still trying to pull her arm from Li Fei's grip. The smile she forced onto her face was heartbreaking.
"I'm only dead weight at this point. At least let me be useful."
"How touching."
Avje let out a derisive snort. "But one isn't enough."
He took a single step forward, leveling his spear until the tip was aimed directly at Li Fei's chest. "She stays too. Otherwise you all die right here. Choose."
Shing.
Steel hissed from its sheath. Cold light traced the contours of Qin Zhihua's face — and even Avje's breath caught at the look in those eyes. Bottomless. Glacial. The kind of gaze that made a man's chest tighten without knowing why.
"I know you. Qin's Apothecary's precious young miss."
Avje raised his voice another notch. "Die with me if you want — or leave someone behind and get out. Your call!"
The answer was silence.
Several seconds passed. Avje, confident in his leverage, snarled and stepped forward — and found his path blocked by a figure built like a mountain.
"You really want to die alongside those two ladies?"
Avje tilted his head back to look up at Cowell's hard, unyielding face.
Cowell didn't move an inch.
And then Qin Zhihua heard it — the sharp whistle of crossbow bolts cutting the air. Three of them swept past her hair and buried themselves in the wheezing, wide-eyed mage before he could register the threat.
Li Fei, silent until now, raised her head. Her eyes had gone electric. From somewhere in the back of her mind, something vast and almost audible — like the distant echo of a dragon's roar — surged through every vein in her body.
[Silencing Earrings]
Equipment Rating: Crescent Moon
Attributes: Mana Recovery Rate +15%, Cast Time -15%
Enchantment Effect: Silence (Lv5)
Silence (Lv5): Conceals all sounds and mana fluctuations produced during spellcasting.
She dropped the spent crossbow without looking at it. Then she took up her staff — the one that made sensible people rethink their choices — and stepped forward. The leaves beneath her foot were ground to pulp by the force of it.
"Finish this quickly."
The words came low and cold. Li Fei's eyes were like winter water as she launched herself forward, black hair whipping out behind her like a war banner.
She hadn't even finished speaking before Qin Zhihua moved — as if she'd read Li Fei's mind. Her sword thrust forward in a single motion, blade-light diffuse and quiet as a solitary star falling, carrying not one breath of human aggression, its tip aimed directly for Avje's throat.
Cowell followed a half-beat behind, pivoting at the waist and bringing his greatsword down in a great cleaving arc, battle-qi spilling from him like a river overflowing its banks, angled for Avje's neck.
Clang! Clang!
At the threshold of death, Avje's eyes went wide as split seams. Something deep and animal detonated in him. His spear lanced out at an impossible angle — deflecting Qin Zhihua's thrust by a hair — then wrenched upward to catch the descending greatsword with a crash that set the very air ringing.
He coughed blood. The force bearing down on him drove him physically smaller — his knees cracked against the earth with a sound like snapping wood, and he sank into a half-kneel.
In the same instant, three poison-tipped crossbow bolts tore through the dark. The mage, already wheezing like a dying bellows, had no time to dodge. Two bolts went wide — the third buried itself in his calf with a wet, decisive thud.
That was the advantage of striking first. In the space of a single lightning flash, Avje's group had been thrown onto the back foot.
"Then we all die together!"
Avje screamed it — ragged, hoarse, the sound carrying impossibly far through the dark island night.
The next sword stroke silenced him forever. It went in through his brow.
"You all want to die together?! Come on then!"
Behind Avje, the dwarf — beard soaked through with blood — roared and swung his greataxe in a wide arc, the sheer force of it sending small gusts of air fanning outward in all directions.
"Then let's all go down together!"
Li Fei's expression was stone. She didn't so much as flinch at the glittering axe blade coming for her. Her slender frame was already moving — carrying the momentum of her charge, she launched herself upward, rotating half a turn in the air, and let the full accumulated force of her descent pour into the staff. It carved a vicious, killing arc through the night sky, the bone-white skull at its crown seeming to come alive for a moment, radiating something that made the throat close.
"Yes!"
The dwarf warrior felt something stir in him at the sight of her — that wild, forward-plunging charge, black hair streaming, not a trace of hesitation. A kind of involuntary battlefield respect.
But he was a veteran, not a showman. He wasn't going to mirror some mage girl's flashy aerial acrobatics — even a mage girl who clearly had access to combat-class Transcendent knowledge and Staff Weapon Proficiency. The ropey muscle across his body surged and swelled, battle-qi igniting like a furnace, every ounce of power he had left channeled into his mountain-cleaving axe. He swung it at Li Fei's midsection, the blade blazing with fierce light as it split the darkness — aimed to cut her in two.
The Sequence 7 dwarf warrior pushed every last scrap of his potential into that blow. It struck Li Fei at the waist.
And disappeared into her like a stone into still water.
...?
Weren't we supposed to go down together?
The dwarf stared up in dawning, absolute horror as the heavy, unyielding staff came down like a falling pillar of heaven and connected with the top of his skull. His body shuddered. Blood began to flow from his eyes, his ears, his nose, his mouth.
"You... don't fight... fair..."
For a warrior who had crossed into the mid-Sequences, he was genuinely tough. Even wounded, even after taking Li Fei's full-force strike directly to the crown of his head, he was still standing — just barely, swaying — as he spoke his last words. His skull was considerably more durable than a Moonlight Wolf's, that much was clear.
You couldn't break through a Crescent Moon-rated Guardian Mage Robe. That's your problem. Not mine. Maybe next time, get noticed by a mage who's both gorgeous and loaded.
Li Fei felt no guilt whatsoever. She drew Dark Night and drove it through his eye socket.
"Charisma," she said coldly, "is just another kind of power."
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