Yung didn't have a plan. He struggled to keep his legs from shaking, his mind a complete mess.

All he could do was take one step at a time, channel his faith qi into his spear artefact, and retreat to a happy place in his mind. A place where Ling, Maque, Gangkai, Chun, and everyone else were still alive.

One step at a time.

A place where Nanya was coy but not cruel.

She was his girlfriend. These bastards wanted to harm her. So, of course, he had to punish them.

Kill them.

Even if they were sapient beings, perhaps with their own hopes, dreams, families, and friends.

So Yung took a thousand shaky steps forward after telling Floofy and Silky to hide.

His hands burned with the intensity of the faith qi injected into the Imperfect Heaven realm spear, the weapon shining as bright as his sword when he accidentally castrated the Dusk Valley Lion King.

When Maque was laughing, Ling was shocked, Chun hiding her scowl, and Gangkai watching on with a grunt.

I wonder, will Brother Chao blame Nanya when he hears that Ling and Chun are dead? Would he even care? Would he still love Nanya? Would I? Should… I?

Yung hated to admit it, but he still loved the vixen.

Her seduction was very thorough; her goodwill towards at least him had no lies in it. Or that was what her Empathic Link always read.

Until now, she’d kept her promises.

So he had to save her.

If she died, she couldn't keep her current promise.

What promise? At this point, Yung didn't know and was pretty sure some of him didn't care. If Nanya died, he might too. No, he definitely would.

Perhaps, with his stealth and heart qi reserves, he could sneak out of the cave and back into the city.

But with Nanya gone and the Su fox clan’s goodwill running dry, who would protect him from the powers that be, both the local snakes and the global dragons, from absolutely ending his puny life?

He could only be his silly self with modern 21st-century Earth morality because Nanya was there.

So was he trying to save her because he loved her? Or because of selfish motivations? Was he a solipsistic hypocrite?

It didn't matter now. Yung could rationalise all he wanted: why to hate himself, why to hate her, why to save her.

Reality wouldn't change because of it. A choice had been made upon which he shall now act.

“Nanya, can you get free?” The boy asked.

"You are afraid, my dear servant," Nanya smiled. There were tears in her eyes and a cute blush on her face.

“Can’t you turn your body into that strange goo and slip out?” He asked again.

"My hero, my heart. Why did you not run away? You had no reason to turn back, yet you did. Oh, how proud our Madam Floofykins is of your courage." Nanya continued on.

Yung's arms quivered, the spear threatening to slip from his grasp as the dead body of the Beheaded Bow Fiend finally dislodged from the tip. But dropping the spear would be a waste. Although he had a large ‘effective’ heart qi reserve, it was only because more worship was constantly coming in than his body could naturally spend, whether that was for converting it into True qi to increase his cultivation base with the Foxfire Creek Heart Sutra or keeping his basic abilities like Link Sight constantly. It was the reason he needed the Pink Heart Ring in the first place, to manage the excess worship. Because no matter how much worship he could accumulate, that was unfiltered faith qi, marred and corrupted by both the positive and negative emotions and desires aimed at his and Silky’s Fortune Fox Totem. Unless he fed such emotion-rich worship to a unique Epic Class Mystical Artifact like the Pink Heart Ring or actively processed it with a cultivation technique for hours on end—minutes if he was ‘cultivating’ with Nyanya—he couldn't abuse it. Even storing it in his body would make him queasy, and as if he was bloating on eight different emotions every waking second.

Yung, only an Imperfect Heaven 1st Realmer at the Median Stages, had a base faith qi capacity—not effective—that was paltry compared to truly talented cultivators like Nanya. A strike of such magnitude that could actually pierce the flesh and bone of an Imperfect Heaven peak 2nd Realmer and kill them still took almost one-third of his qi. He was already readying another strike, this time for Youjin Fuqiang, and releasing the spear now would cause the qi to fizzle out, a waste he couldn't afford.

“You know, I can only strike like this two more times,” Yung said to Nanya, “I don’t know what will happen to my stealth art when my faith qi reserves go dry. If you can’t get out yourself, we are dead.”

Yung had tested his unique abilities before. He knew that when the duration of his stealth with Empathic Isolation ended, the Empathic Links that he had severed would reconnect automatically. But right before that, if he used his faith qi, he could keep the links from reconnecting for a while longer, albeit with an exponentially increased cost. He had reached qi depletion a few times while testing this.

But he had never tested what would happen if his faith qi reserves depleted while he still had duration left on his stealth.

He'd never bothered. Because with Nanya there, he was safe, and Qi depletion felt terrible.

“You were so right, Nanya. This world isn’t such a kind place,” Yung admitted, “I was too lazy. Thanks for keeping me safe all this time. If it weren’t for you, neither the Free Sparrow Gang nor the Youjin Clan would care if I lived or died.”

Nanya smiled sweetly, “Won’t you trust us?”

Yung replied confidently, “I don’t know.”

Nanya’s smile faltered.

The spear was at its capacity for holding faith qi, another third of his reserves gone. He had to strike soon, or it would burst. He wasn’t using any specific Numinous Art here, only brute force. He had never bothered to learn any offensive Numinous Art.

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Yung looked at Youjin Fuqiang. The old patriarch was covering the Occultic Foxball that acted as his crux. It was glowing in random patterns of rainbow and grey after he had tried to steal Nanya's one. He looked distressed, sweating strange purple fluids despite his skin comprising Foxmoth shells.

But he was careful.

The old patriarch had retreated and was now once again surrounded by the hooded cultists. Yung couldn’t reach him.

The boy tried his hardest to keep his mind in the happy place. He looked at the silk threads binding Nanya to the central pillar. Time was running out.

He raised his spear,

“Do not bother. You cannot snap these shackles, oh valiant boyfriend,” Nanya said, “It is an extension of a lost plane, another world. Even we, such powerful a warrior, cannot do so with grace. For the lost plane is inside us now, trapping us to its periphery like how mortal planes trap their moons.”

... and swung down, piercing straight through the head of the invisible dagger-wielding cultist sneaking up on Nanya, his dagger aiming right below her Occultic Foxball.

His Empathic Links did not connect to Yung, but that didn’t mean he could not see them.

"There is something!" Youjin Fuqiang yelled, "Be aware, my brothers and sisters, for an entity is among us whom we cannot see or feel. Leave the vixen; we shall let the lord milk her dry of qi and then extract her heathen core."

The dagger-wielding cultist gurgled as he fell, staring hatefully at Nanya. He did not accept such a death.

But his brain had a hole in it, so he had to.

Yung grunted in an effort to dislodge the spear again. These squid heads had strange biology; it was as if the spear was stuck in tar.

He then inspected the silk threads binding his girlfriend closer. In his Link Sight, they appeared as though made of qi itself, transparent and shimmering, with parts reaching inside Nanya and squiggling into messy knots around her Foxball.

Yung contemplated if he should ready another spear strike. He had more than forty minutes left of his stealth.

The excess worship was still trickling in. He saw another Imperfect Heaven 2nd Realmer cultist, this one with a serrated sword, crouching on top of a boulder about twenty meters to his right. Yung charged up his Pink Heart Ring and aimed at the foe.

Bullseye.

“How impressive!” Nanya cheered.

The cultist fell down in a shameful display. Yung took out his crossbow, breathed deeply, and fired a pellet.

He felt something stir in his dantian. His true qi? Some of it left, as if a part of his soul was being ripped out.

The crossbow pellet hit the cultist in his eyes, going inside his brain and exploding. The fellow died instantly.

An Imperfect Heaven 2nd Realm powerhouse, gone just like that.

Yung felt like he was one of those filthy no-lifers in video games that stacked crit.

“T-The depraved corrupted art! The devil, it is the devil,” Youjin Fuqiang said, gasping. He looked panicked; devils were known for their sinister tricks.

Yung fired another Pink Heart Beam, followed by a pellet. This time taking out a spear-wielding cultist. Unfortunately, this one was only a 1st realmer.

Still, Yung was lucky. His True qi swirled harder.

“Oh Yung,” Nanya said.

The Pink Heart Ring could directly use the unrefined worship, and each crossbow shot took a minimal amount of Yung’s own heart qi, perhaps not even a single percent.

He took out two more cultists before Youjin Fuqiang ordered, “Attack the empty space around the pillar! Take care not to hit our fellow siblings. If the devil likes to play cat and mouse, we will simply have to smoke him out.”

“Took them long enough,” Yung clicked his tongue. He ran and hid behind the pillar before the first volley of attacks arrived. They hit Nanya all the same; Yung could hear the pelting sounds against the girl’s flesh.

If Nanya's communicator had not broken during the fight, they could have whispered some plans here with her not giving it away.

Yung had less than thirty minutes remaining of his stealth.

The cultists, at this point, had mostly gathered around Youjin Fuqiang, so the attacks were coming from that direction. The back side of the pillar was still safe.

“Spread out! The devil could be hiding in the back,” the old patriarch roared.

Yung ran, leaving Nanya and the pillar behind. The vixen's remaining eye still looked at him, her deformed face showing a pout. For some reason, she was able to protect her Occultic foxball; that area of her chest seemed relatively unharmed except for the cracks. Maybe the cultists were purposefully avoiding it.

Yung reached the edge of the cavern, now behind the circle of cultists.

He could escape.

The cultists were busy pelting the area around the pillar with their void qi-laden attacks. Youjin Fuqiang was busy giving orders. Nanya was busy pouting.

It was a good chance.

Yung readied another charge of the Pink Heart Beam and got as close to Youjin Fuqiang as he could without the cultist crowd getting too dense, then fired. This time, the swirling True qi made him cough out blood.

"Oh, Yung!" Nanya's strange voice still reached him.

I see. So these are miracles… I wonder which of my worshippers are ‘praying’ to me? Do they want the cultists to die that bad?

The beam hit the patriarch right on his sides.

“By the lord—aghhh!” The old guy keeled over, his robe made out of foxmoth wings collapsing into a pile of carapace parts. “W-What manner of—D-Devil accursed b—”

It was glorious. First, he threw up purple bile, then his legs buckled, his scaly butt pointing up at the ceiling.

Weird fuzz and smoke kept discharging from the cracks of his abomination body.

“T-This humiliation, I will not—bleurgh!"

The hooded cultists noticed immediately and surrounded the patriarch again, temporarily stopping their attacks.

One of them fell over, the crossbow pellet meant for the patriarch hitting her instead. The cultists didn’t die, cursing in a young voice.

Yung ran back to Nanya and the pillar and repeated his earlier strategy. But this time, it didn’t work. No more True qi was spent, and although he could hit the cultists with his Pink Heart Beam, when one went down, the others would cover their vitals.

Yung had fifteen minutes remaining to his stealth. He had about twenty percent of his faith qi reserves left.

He took out the spear again and injected about 10 percent of his remaining heart qi into the weapon.

“It shall not work. Why won’t you trust us, Ziyou Yung? Our words are not meant to be defied as such!” Nanya sounded sad while uttering those words.

"It's hard when I don't know what you are thinking. I wish I could trust you unconditionally. I really do, but then, everyone died."

“You care for these villagers this much?”

“They are my friends.”

“So your love for them is unconditional, but for us, it is mired by rules and presets?”

“My ‘trust’, not love. I don’t trust them either, but I love you unconditionally. Trust and love are different. But I admit, having trust makes loving so much easier. Because you know what?” Yung shouted. He was afraid. He was angry. He couldn’t bear to stand Nanya’s composure despite the situation. “I hate mind games! If you want me to do something, tell me directly. This is nothing but you testing me, forcing me to display some sort of grandiose proof of love. It ruins it, you know? My pure feelings. It feels sour.”

“We—”

"I know! You probably have more secrets than me. Some you can't say. Is it a heavenly vow? A Blood Spirit Contract? Or something stronger? You want me to know about your secret because this is some twisted attempt at you being honest. And you also want to know what I would do if pushed to an extreme. Would I betray my feelings for you or stay and die with you like an idiot?"

“That is not—”

"It is!" Yung swung the spear down. It hit the threads, and sparks flew out. It was as if he was tussling with an invisible, infinitely flexible rubber band. His spear tip cracked and shattered. An opposite force of void qi and fear qi came rushing in.

Yung cried out, spitting up more blood as his skin took a sickly hue. He took shaky steps back but didn’t drop the spear.

He was injured, but the silk bindings remained unharmed.

“So you did tell me the truth,” Yung said, wiping off the blood.

"H-How I will kill you, your nine generations, you-rr, no mercy," Youjin Fuqiang had recovered, murder in his eyes, "Devil, I will skin you and feed you to the beasts." The voidfiend foxmoths screeched, and the cultists raged.

Nanya was crying with half a smile and half sorrow.

“We… are sorry. We shall not do this again. Ever.” She apologised.

Yung took a look at Ziyou Maques's headless, tattered corpse.

“Apology not accepted.” Yung said, “Nanya, if we live after this, we need to have a long talk.”

“Okay.” She squeaked.

Yung wanted to say on the spot that it was too late. The damage was done. But the Empathic Link coming from Nanya still showed absolute confidence in getting Yung out. It read guilt, remorse, hope, happiness, and just a bit of fury. A righteous indignation that somehow pissed Yung off even more.

Yung had five minutes remaining and less than ten percent of his faith qi.