> Rats! Rats! Motherfucking, Child Stealing Rats! Formation Eating Rat! SLIME SHAPED RATS! You are called here to brief this seat on the problems that are ruining the northern reaches of our duchy, of the elves that are raiding the sea ports for slaves and the bastard heretics in the mountains to the west. What of the war in the north, of our strike against that Everkind harlot and her whorespawn who usurped our Uncles Imperial Throne? Or an update on the campaign against the Sar Savages trying to plunder the ruins of Renwald?

>

> You are HERE TO BRIEF ME ABOUT REAL THINGS. ACTUAL THINGS! I DO NOT WANT TO HEAR ANOTHER WORD ABOUT THE FUCKING RATS IN THE SEWERS! Is that clear!

>

> They are just rats, we have investigated this time and time again. You blame every god forsaken problem on these rats; yet the motherfucking is just drunks, the Child stealing is probably some spiders, the formation eating is likely slimes, and you even admit here and now, that the SLIMES are pretending to look like rats. SO. IF. I. HEAR. ANOTHER. WORD. IN. THIS. COUNCIL. ABOUT. RATS. I WILL FEED YOU ALL TO THEM! Is that clear?

Excerpt from the minutes of a council meeting between the Heir to the Grand Duchy of Manaheim and his father’s Advisory Council. ~Speaker, Grand Ducal Prince Ludvig Helech Staniswald Manaheim.

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~ Arai & Sana, Exploring the Island City ~

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Arai smashed another of the weird bipedal rat-lizard hybrid beasts to smithereens with a qi-infused kick and swung her stolen bone sword in an arc blocking the attack that came from a larger armoured one. The attack had started without much warning beyond a sudden chittering howl and a bell-like sound that echoed through the city, while they had been checking out another of the dockland areas on the eastern side of the island.

Within moments thousands of rats, much like the giant corpses they had seen in the tunnels far below, had swarmed out of the buildings around them like a tide. Most were weaker than one-star qi beasts but several thousand of them was still more than either was willing to take head-on.

Scrambling down the street, trusting to her qi reserves to protect her from the roiling carpet of rats all around her, she turned a corner with Sana right behind her and ran smack into a second group of the bipedal rat-lizards. They were the ones doing the majority of the flanking, determined it seemed, to head them off from getting back to the plaza. Most of the small ones were broadly foundation establishment or something equivalent to that realm. Without any proper cultivation base, not that that helped much when there were hundreds of them swarming after them. Most carried throwing weapons; spears javelins or rocks, just to add to the general aggregation. They were also disturbingly coordinated, more than happy to block off routes by sheer force of numbers while both of them were mired up in waves of the ever-present swarm of four-legged critters.

“DIE already!” her sister snarled behind her, grasping one of the bipedal ones by the arm and turning it into a red smear of organs and fur on the wall beside her.

She bisected another that had tried to interject into their fight, badly, as Sana decapitated a further assailant with the leaf blade. Her skill with the martial form's attacks was growing by the minute, but she was still basically hacking at things for the most part.

The larger armoured rat finally returned to the fight, snarling at her vengefully and charging at her holding up its shield in front of it. It was mostly rat-like, but with spikey, scaly armoured skin covering its shoulders and back and a tail that had a venomous spike on the end. Its teeth appeared remarkably reptilian and were probably venomous. A previous one that had managed to bite her before she killed it had been.

She kicked the shield and they both recoiled backwards. Recovering herself, she smartly sidestepped another smaller rat wielding crude bone clubs that had just thrown itself off the roof at her. Lashing upwards with the looted blade she bisected the rat and grimaced in annoyance as its body collapsed. It was mortal, but her current weapon was nowhere near sufficient to support her qi. The stone it was made from was already fracturing, unable to support the sustained flow and purity of her qi.

The main threat screamed and lunged at her again, cutting down with the wicked bone and stone cleaver it wielded. The stone blade smoked ominously. That probably related to the purplish-green core inset into it. Crude corrosion augments to weapons were not what she wanted to see.

Blocking the blade by swiping it away and stepping outside the angle of its attack, she shoulder charged it and winced as several small rats swarmed up around her legs, trying to gnaw at her qi defences. Fortunately, their jaws were unable to do more than make her expend a tiny bit of qi to protect her skin, and her soft tissue; her muscles and skin were much tougher than normal anyway.

Her body collided with the rats and she spun past it, trying to get behind it, slicing upwards in a blocking motion that came straight from Elaria’s sword form. The rat spun, tracking after her, and in the opening, it had just provided, she struck with a thrust towards its neck.

Its shield caught the end of her sword and snapped the tip off, making her hiss in annoyance even as it tried to slam her again with the shield. Left with no other real option beyond taking the hit, she rolled backwards, kicking the bottom of its shield and making it stagger. Two more small rats landed behind her even as she rolled almost on the spot and lashed out with the sword at the rat’s legs.

It barely avoided the strike, losing a bone leg guard in the process as she felt rats flatten and squash beneath her.

Forewarned by her qi perception field, which was now worth every iota of qi she was giving it, she spun back and away from its tail which struck out at her. It was working wonders, now that she wasn’t fighting things that either hid from it or were so fast it didn’t matter. Her field also warned her of the bone club hissing towards her head, allowing her to duck it without losing any posture. Taking the opportunity again, she lunged forward and pierced one of the new arrivals straight through its head. Swirling again she killed a second by sheer happenstance as it came for her with the curving arc of the sword as she turned.

A small one crashed down behind her and tackled her in the side, its claws raking at her qi armour. She elbowed it in the head, ignoring the sickening crack its skull made and the squishy sensation of brain on her elbow.

The large, armoured rat roared and slammed its blade against its shield as two more minions scrambled out of a building, throwing smaller rats at both of them. Sana was a spinning blur of death. With the Leaf, all she had to do was wave it about and things lost limbs pretty much, and everything else knew it. Fortunately, she was also holding one side of the street as they fought forward, so she wasn’t being flanked awkwardly except from the roofs on this side.

She smartly sidestepped one as it stabbed forward with a very creditable spear lunge, elbowing it in the side of the head. It collapsed with its head caved in and she barely missed the follow-up strike on the other while chasing after the armoured one.

It was remarkable, really, setting aside the sword form in and of itself and her own physical capabilities, their performance so far was almost entirely down to the Evokation tome. Not for its arts, which were difficult, or the defences which were complicated, but because of the better understanding of how her body could and should control and emit qi energies actively. That the purity of the qi in her body was devastating beyond her expectations was a happy accident that she was willing to take without any questions.

Four more minion rats ran forward, flanking her around the armoured one, screaming and taunting her, trying to distract-

Her qi perception rippled. A spear somehow arrived at her back, targeted between her shoulder blades, even as the warning registered with her. She rolled making sure it didn’t hit her head-on. It cut through her qi defences with a little effort, leaving a faint scratch that healed immediately and clattered nearby. One of the flanking minions swept it up and threw it straight at her sister, who spun away and caught it, then started wielding it as a staff.

The armoured shield rat charged her again cutting down at her once more with its cleaver blade.

With an exhaled hiss of annoyance, she cut upwards at its wrist that held the cleaver. It blocked downwards with the other end of it knocking her sword aside.

She used the momentum to step away and recovered the strike to kill another of the smaller rats that was too slow to get out of her way-

Turning and preparing to cut at its exposed side, she found it had overextended its lunge carrying it between the two of them. Behind it, Sana kicked a minion into it and then tangled its legs with the spear even as it tried to dodge her travelling strike aimed at its exposed ribs. The spear punched through its leg, making it stagger and she shifted the angle of her strike, stabbing it through the neck and severing its spine in a single strike.

Before she could do anything dozens of smaller rats boiled over the corpse starting to devour it.

-No core from this one either then, she signed to herself.

In the moment of calm, even as a dozen more minions scrambled and leapt over rooftops to keep with them as they ran forward, her sister signed at her.

“I’ve learned more about melee combat in the last half hour than I have in the last two years!”

“Tell me about it,” she signed back with a grimace.

The rounded the corner and cut through a ruined side street, such as it was, jumping over rocks as their pursuers threw javelins at them which she scrupulously evaded. The bone javelins and spears might be crude, but they were fate-thrashed dangerous. It was clear that the rats made weapons out of any dead bones they found, and two, not counting that last one, had already gone through her qi defences before she got savvy to that.

Her qi perception rippled, giving her a few seconds forewarning before a small wave of actual rats boiled over the ruins of a one-story building to their right and tried to submerge them in chittering bodies.

{Flickering Steps}

She triggered her movement art, but not very seriously, using it to batter through the tide, scattering ruined rats in puffs of red mist and tatters of fur. It took her out into the street, ahead of them, with Sana a pace behind her.

Their sudden exit from the alley caught a line of minions who had been skirmishing across the street towards them off guard. Boosting her momentum slightly she shot through the middle of the line and cut one in half with the blade before it could react, spinning to take out two as Sana barrelled into the line behind her.

Caught between them the dozen or so minions scattered in every direction.

She got one in passing with an upward strike and beheaded a third with a sideways flick. It was a touch scary just how instinctive some of those moves were after close to two hundred repetitions of Elaria’s Martial Form. Part of her was a little sad that she was so… unperturbed about this carnage though. On the other hand, the rats had shown no quarter, attacked first and with overwhelming numbers and only kept coming. If they stopped fighting they would get swarmed, and they were already fleeing for the plaza in any case. The final point in favour of fighting while running was, as her sister pointed out the need for this kind of experience.

They were explorers, guides, recovery specialists, whatever you wanted to label it, not soldiers. They both knew martial forms and such but had never really practised them diligently beyond their footwork elements. They were of little practical use against the threats you tended to encounter in the High and Inner Valleys. Standing and fighting was never the answer up there. In here, however, they needed those skills, and now they were in this situation, fighting opponents who were actually of a realm with them, she agreed absolutely. Every one of these they killed deepened their grasp of Elaria’s Martial Form and the ones they had already learned. They were cultivating just by killing things using that form, and they needed strength right now.

Blocking a stray spear swipe and cut down its length, she lopped an arm off that rat before reversing her posture 180 degrees and side-stepping to cut down another that had been charging at her from the side.

-Always keep moving…

Centering herself once more she parried another spear strike, deflecting the incoming weapon across its wielder while, slipping past and half disembowelling it in the process. Her movement carried her through the gap between two more who were both charging towards Sana. With a hissing downward cut she bisected one of them and turned on the other, taking off a tail and a leg with a rising forward strike before either rat could react. A moment later Sana impaled it through the head with her spear.

-The sword art was impressive, there was no way around it, she thought shaking the blood off the stone blade.

It was its economy that was keeping this weapon intact at this point. It was incisive in its footwork, which held their own subtle mystery she was only just starting to grasp the edges of. The strikes were similarly incisive and economical, designed to kill efficiently and hit vital points while protecting the wielder in the process. It was also tailored to fighting multiple opponents; unflashy, flowing footwork, an emphasis on centering, cutting at opponents from angles disadvantageous to them and entering into opponents space and breaking their formations and stances.

She lashed out with the sword, one-handed this time and caught two more unarmed rats with limb crippling blows-

Another javelin hissed down from the rooftop, thrown by a rat that was already ducking-

Narrowing her eyes, she kept its location in her mind’s eye as she made a complicated gesture for the firebolt from the tome and half threw, half lobbed it at the roof.

{Fire Bolt}

There was a flash of heat and light and the lightly armoured javelin thrower threw itself off the roof having barely evaded her attack.

-Well, the book claimed it had limited homing potential, she thought ruefully.

She sighed and cast it again, sending another orb hissing towards it, just in time to hit the lead minion of a second group with clubs that had come from that alleyway. The javelin rat threw another spear at her which she avoided, but that was unimportant because by this point there was a small carpet of dead rats everywhere to ignite.

And ignite it did, with a flash of fire that rapidly spread from corpse to corpse, killing two of the minions and delaying the others by a few moments.

There was a loud roar and a large rat-man with lizard’s chitin across its head like a helmet and scales down its forearms and forelegs like armour made its presence known. Sweeping small rats out of the way it stomped out of the alley, scattering the fire as it went. It surveyed the scene of carnage and then pointed at her with its large two-handed stone mace and snarled again, bearing its teeth threateningly.

Darting in, she struck at its clawed hands. In response it barrelled forward at her, clearly trusting the armour on its limbs to-

It staggered and crumpled sideways as a spear still flickering faintly with qi sprouted from its midriff, courtesy of Sana.

{Flickering Steps}

Snarling, it plucked the spear out of its side even as she charged forward with her movement art and slammed her sword through its neck, levering it backwards and putting her foot on it at the same time to stop it struggling. The sword sheered through its body and scraped off the scales which were qi-resistant. Shaking her head, she pushed qi into her hand and grasped into its rib cage, ripping out its heart before it could explode itself – one of them had already done that to Sana in the opening engagement and she saw no reason to feed the cores to the rats.

The energy within it was already dissipating so she used the symbol to grasp what she could. That the rat-men were cultivating somehow as certain it seemed. This one should have been early Qi Condensation if she was guessing correctly. The main distance between them and their attackers at this point seemed to be in qi purity. Their shared reasoning at this point was that they were in early-stage Qi Refinement, having opened up dantian’s and that their physical cultivation was something approaching Physical Foundation, for all that it was behaving closer to how she understood manta seed would. After a heartbeat, it was fully drained and she cast the desiccated lump aside. At least it replenished the qi going to her qi armour that the mortal rats were steadily whittling away.

“We are four blocks away,” Sana signed, disentangling the spear from the corpse.

Looking around, they had unexpectedly hit a lull in the combat-

As if to make a mockery of that thought, another tide of rats rolled around the buildings ahead of them and piled out into the street. After them came another large group of the minions and several larger rats carrying crude blades and clubs and a scattering of bone armour augmenting their lizard-like mutations.

She parried a crude strike with a blade as two more minions tried to tackle her.

Punching one and sending qi through its body, turning it into bits she kicked at her attacker who danced back and sliced at her leg.

-Faster huh, she thought as it once again adroitly dodged.

Taking advantage of the opening she slung another Fire Bolt and grabbed a minion by the arm that had no weapon and threw it down the street as hard as she could. It screamed as it barrelled through a dozen of its compatriots who scattered and scrambled forward with if anything, renewed ferocity.

-Whatever else they are, they are not cowards, she had to admit.

Another projectile, a spear this time hissed in an arc over the blocking group making her roll and kick another scrambling minion up into the air in an attempt to block it. Sadly her timing was off, so the kicked rat avoided getting impaled on the spear and instead crashed down flailing in a nearby building. Plucking off a smaller rat that was trying to bite the back of her neck, she shook herself, intensifying the qi she was feeding through her skin momentarily to dislodge the others and briefly clearing a space around her-

Two more bone javelins made her dodge to the side, closing down the open space she had just won. With a grimace she contemplated using an array to clear out the rats, they were getting to be a proper nuisance now. However, her instinct told her that they were not yet a focus of this invading force, and something that loud might attract stronger rats, which certainly had to be leading this bunch. Instead, she expended a bit of qi and blurred forward, using her movement art, and scattered the smaller rats.

Sana followed after her casually taking limbs off where she passed. Her sister had grabbed half a bone spear from somewhere and was using it as a short spear now.

Reinforcing the qi around her again, she ploughed straight into the dozen or so more minions that charged her down fearlessly, screaming in fury. Even though they were basically all foundation establishment at best, she could feel the strength of their conviction bleeding through into martial intent.

Exhaling she pushed her own intent out with her breath and imposed actual presence on the group. It wasn’t that effective, but that wasn’t the point, two spears cut through her qi defences as she dipped her tip-less sword through one of the minions, relying on the qi to do the damage. A bone club crashed into her shoulder, thrown from nearby and then their line fractured as Sana ruined two spears and in a blur of motion carved three of them up like they were rotten fruit.

Ahead of them, the second line was already massing to charge, minions hurling masonry from the rooftops and occasionally javelins-

Another spear nearly hit her in the head, arcing down like a lightning bolt and travelling through her qi perception so fast that she was barely reacting to aftershocks of its path. She rolled to the side and it hit the ground, quivering. Grasping for it she nearly did a double-take, because it wasn’t there.

One of the blade-wielding rats leapt from the nearby roof and smashed down between them, charging at her with a speed that was significantly better than anything she had seen so far form them. Dancing backwards she vaulted up onto a nearby rubble roof, swiftly scanning for whatever had thrown those two spears.

Nothing stood out but that was expected really, which was probably not good.

Two more rats with blades scaled up the side of the building, throwing smaller rats at her. Ignoring them, she turned and leapt off the roof to meet the one with the blades that had chased after her. They crashed into each other in mid-air, hitting the street below with a bone-shaking thud, the rat’s blades biting into her qi armour and making the wound itch briefly. More poison.

Ignoring that, she head-butted the thing into the ground as it tried to bite at her. It stabbed ineffectually for a moment longer before she got purchase on its arms and broke them both, stamping on its chest for good measure as she scrambled up, dragging it snarling with her and sending the symbol infused qi into its body. It twitched and juddered for a moment before perishing from acute qi poisoning, delivering a decent chunk of energy back to her in the process. It had been close to qi refinement.

Sana, who had discarded her spear for a blade got her attention and pointed down the street.

“Spider!”

Turning, she did a mental double-take as a spider mother the size of a small horse scrambled out of a building twenty metres away and scuttled straight for them. The source of her shock was the much more heavily armoured rat-lizard man seated on its back, wearing carapace armour made of spider chitin.

The spider swept other rats out of the way, uncaring and spat an orb of acid at her even as she threw herself backwards over some rubble to get cover, expecting something like that. Several unlucky rats behind her shrieked and half dissolved as the orb arched over and splashed down behind her, scattering corrosive miasma across half the street. It made her skin blister and itch rapidly, totally ignoring her qi armour.

“Soul Foundation?” her sister signed from across the street.

She could only nod at that, it was of a size with the one they had fought in the depths, but that had been an enclosed space, and they had basically gotten the jump on it, for all that it was doing the ambushing.

Minions scattered, strategically vacating the street as the rat wearing spider armour stood and made a snarling gesture. It wore a male spider head as a helmet she couldn’t help but notice from her pile of rubble. Dedication to a theme if nothing else, and it probably did make good armour. Just not against the leaf blade or a sword made from the qi-repelling stone, but that was its problem.

Sana threw her qi infused blade at the armoured rat, while she grabbed a nearby spear on the ground and did the same, hoping it was one of the better ones.

The spider deflected both easily into the ruin of the street as dozens more minions and a few armoured ones moved up behind the spider.

“Run for it!” she signed to her sister, picturing the route to the plaza in her head,

“Agreed,” Sana signed back.

Without any preamble, she triggered her movement art to its full extent, leveraging her mantra to get the very most out of it. The world blurred around her slightly as she crashed through the line of minions that was boiling out of the crossing ahead of them.

Cutting through them like a scythe with the ever more damaged sword blade, she didn’t need to look behind her to know that the spider was just sauntering after them without even trying to move fast. It spat another orb of acid, this time aimed at the street closer to the plaza, turning it into a miasma cloud. Rats screamed and redoubled their determination to get away, by going through the two of them it seemed.

Turning left she blurred through a ruined complex of buildings and out on to the next street across-

A hulking rat-lizard wearing spider armour breastplate and a bone club inset with male spider fangs landed in the street and bounded straight at her with a speed comparable to her movement art.

-Great, so the proper ones are finally here, she groaned in her head.

She kicked its leg as it struck at her with a blurring, two-handed, overarm strike. Twisting away from it she grunted as two spears slammed into her, hitting her over the left breast and in the side. Neither penetrated deeply but the brief moment it took to rip them out destabilised her enough that her attacker was able to pivot and with a single armed, upward strike land a solid hit on her with the club.

Male spider fangs shredded her qi armour and the impact sent her crashing down into a group of oncoming minions. Immediately she was swarmed by oncoming rats stabbing, biting and gnawing at her. Gritting her teeth she managed to make the hand gesture for the firebolt, casting it point-blank.

The pile of shrieking biting rats turned into a conflagration in an instant, freeing her just in time to find the hulking rat already swinging down at her with the club. She rolled away and barely avoided the hit, by luck as much as anything. Nearby she briefly saw Sana splitting the head of a carapace wearing rat with an axe made of spider fangs. Grimacing she scrambled up on her feet even as three more minions grasped at her. Triggering her movement art she charged the club wielder, closing the angle off so he couldn’t smash her at full reach again.

As she expected, it welcomed the weaker opponent coming at it and charged her back. They collided, which went as she expected. She was hurled across the street feeling like she had just been hit by the club; it was clearly a lot stronger than her. What didn’t go as it expected was the pulse of qi she managed to send into it, carrying the symbol's intent with it. Her attacker stumbled forward drunkenly for two paces and collapsed on its face, dead.

The spider mother’s limb pressed against her chest, trying to pierce her through.

-Fates take you nameless spawn, she swore at it as its limb caved in her chest and rolled her down on the ground.

At point-blank, it spat venom in her wound.

She screamed, because it was painful. However, it wasn’t even at the level of the spider queen’s ichor, so while all the rats around howled in joy, she let the mantra neutralise the poison, grabbed the spider by the leg and imprinted the qi dispersing array on it.

-Sorry to disappoint you little rats, but I’ve been here before, and the spider was bigger, she thought drolly.

The rat on the top of the spider snarled as its mount recoiled and bounced backwards shaking frantically. Standing up it stabbed at her with a familiar spear.

-Ah, so you are the spear thrower, she thought grimly.

It made sense, the recovery of the spear wasn’t something that a Qi Condensation or even Qi Refinement cultivator would be able to do, unless it was a special artefact. This close she could also see that the tip of the spear was actually a spider's limb claw. That explained how it had shredded her qi defence at least. She grabbed for it, and was thwarted by the erratic movement of the spider who was still trying to recover itself.

Her perception warned her as a carapace-wearing rat carrying a shield made of a spider thorax and wielding something akin to a scythe made of male spider fangs charged at her. Without really thinking, she grabbed the club which was next to her and met its shield charge with an uppercut that had all her strength behind it.

Shield and club met and the fangs wedged in it and ripped it out of the rat’s hands. She tackled it and literally spat her blood, infused with her qi and the symbol in its face. It screamed and writhed but didn’t die, trying to hack at her with the blade. She rolled with it, disarmed the sword and sent another pulse of qi directly into its body. They came up and she hammered its head into the ground, gouging for an eye even as small rats piled on them, both biting and scratching desperately.

After a moment of further grappling, she rolled over its blade arm, made the sign for a firebolt and shot it into the creature's face point-blank. It shrieked and spat blood. Grimacing she sent a second and then a third bolt at it. Individually they were not that effective, given it was a basic art and this was clearly not a basic rat. However, it gave her an opening to use another qi disruption array. It spasmed and she felt its qi-

She hit a wall and spat blood on the floor as she rolled over some very jagged rubble.

-Shoulda seen that one coming, she thought shaking her head.

Either the rat had exploded itself, or the destabilisation symbol made those below soul foundation explode due to their qi running out of their control somehow? Either way, she wouldn’t try that again in a hurry.

Rats were already attacking her. The spider mother had also recovered and was attacking her sister, who thanks to the leaf was faring just a tad better than she had. Grabbing a chunk of masonry she hurled it through the scrambling mass ahead of her and then sent two more firebolts after it for good measure, killing a reasonable number of the scuttling horde that was a constant drain on her qi defences.

Sadly her respite was short-lived as another rat-man appeared, dropping down from above into the ruined half building, followed by half a dozen minions with spears and… clubs. This one carried two blades that were male spider fangs with bone handles and had no armour beyond a male spider skull on its head. It leapt for her and she found that its lizard adaptation was its tail, which had scales and spikes on it. The daggers stabbed into her, making her hiss with the pain. In return, she grabbed it by the head and imprinted a lightning array on it. It twitched and its body smoked, crumpling to the side.

Shaking her head she pulled out the daggers and stabbed one of the minions who had somehow survived in the head. That sorted, she carved open the dagger wielder's chest and refined its heart, which just about made up for the qi she had just used on the array.

The angry hiss of another armoured rat, this one wielding a bone spear, -no, polearm with spider fangs -arriving from the street cut her moment of recuperation short. Several spear-wielding minions came in ahead of it snarling at her. The battle outside was still chaotic and noisy as the spider mother spat acid all over and Sana tried to take another leg off it.

Rather than wait for them, she ran straight at them, feigning some tiredness. They took the bait and she ran, ‘stumbling’ at the last minute before dodging to the side and stabbing them with the short blades even as she leapt straight for the polearm-wielding rat.

Her aggression clearly threw it off pace and she was able to get inside the range of its weapon, sliding both blades down the haft of the spear. It made the choice she hoped it would and discarded the weapon, rolling back.

{Flickering Steps}

She arrived on top of it even as it was standing up and drawing a blade from its side. It was fast, almost as fast as her in fact, but the moment of lost initiative was its undoing, allowing her to plunge the blades through its wrist and into its side.

It screamed and lashed at her head, even as she felt its body spasming from the poison still in the fangs somehow. Ducking, she winced as its stone blade clipped her a glancing blow, drawing blood and making her head ring. From the corner of her eye, she could see hair and blood on the blade.

“DIE eating monkeyshit!” she snarled at it as she ripped the blade in its side upwards, opening it from stomach to shoulder.

With a final, vengeful stab through the neck, she killed it, even as three of the minions with bone clubs all struck at her simultaneously. The bones made her qi defences ripple. Ignoring them she tore off its breastplate and refined the heart to recover a bit more qi. That dealt with, she lashed out at the nearest attacker, decapitating it, and then spun to the side body-checking a second, stabbing it in turn before eviscerating a third-

The spear nearly hit her in the head directly, leaving a finger width gash on the left side of her face and taking most of her ear with it on the way past. She spun to the ground snarling with pain. One of the bone club-wielding minions tried to opportunistically hit her and she sliced its legs off. The other one leapt for her, tackling her even as she stabbed at it, making her stumble up the slope in the-

-FATE-TRASHED-SPIDER-I-WILL-BURN-YOUR-SOUL-AS-AN-ANCESTRAL-OFFERING!

The acid orb exploded in the air right above her, the corrosion blinding her briefly. Thankfully her qi perception was unimpeded so she could stab both the rats that came for her and stagger to the wall-

The spider leg clawed around the gap grasping her and dragging her out of the building in one smooth movement. She stabbed at it with the dagger-

An armoured rat dropped over the edge of the roof and stabbed her directly between the breasts with a spear. It skittered off her ribcage, rupturing a lung and sending a wave of qi into her that was clearly designed to make her day very terminal. Unfortunately, for her attacker, the symbol did its thing even as she touched the spider mother and used another qi disrupting symbol on it. Its body convulsed and the attracting force that had been allowing it to drag her on vanished.

The spear-wielding armoured rat discarded the spear and stepped forward striking at her with a brownstone blade. She spun away from it, using the spear through her to disrupt its momentum. Grabbing it she tore it out, wincing as it scraped on bone, and thrusting at the rat with the same movement. It grabbed the spear and shook it, clearly intending to lift her off her feet.

The pain of the wound it left as it exited her body was buried in her mantra as she ducked under the spear and stabbed it in the side, managing to sever its spine on the way past.

This time she didn’t bother refining it and scrambled up out of the half-ruined building. Just in time as well, as a horde of rats dropped off the roof above her. She dodged the worst and charged for the spider mother, stabbing at the point where its thorax and abdomen met.

The spider mother, even stunned as it was still managed to twist away as its rider fought to get it under control again. The trailing leg sent her sprawling. In the same instant, there was a crippling pain in her side as the spear from the rat on its back hit her went halfway through her.

She was swarmed by rats the second she hit the ground, buried in a pile of shifting horror as she rolled away. Their strategy was good, try to swarm them in every empty moment and make her exhaust as much qi as possible.

-If they come with these numbers of the minions we are going to have a problem, she grimaced to herself.

Fortunately, this hoard of sub-one-star ranked critters was basically environment hazard that the symbol was able to deal with passively even without her enhancing it via the sword art for the most part. They also couldn’t blot out her Qi Perception so she saw the spider mother, barely within her range, recover and jump at her location as well.

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

There was a spike in her mind. Hungry devouring intent she was coming to associate with actual soul attacks at this point.

-So you are Nascent Soul then, she acknowledged with a groan, registering that the leaping form had no rider.

The pile of rodents around her turned into a pile of bloody mist and a cold chill permeated her limbs as a ghostly spider half the size of the spider queen loomed over her, at the centre of a small crater of rodent gristle.

Its phantom limbs stabbed into her body as if her qi armour wasn’t there and a raging qi that was all Yin Fire and Yin Life pulsed through her meridians. Her mantra and the symbol surged back and the spider shade abruptly recoiled and flowed backwards through space, fleeing from the symbol, leaving her gasping and numb in the middle of the crater.

The spider mother, now on the building above her, waved its limbs from side to side in what was not a rather familiar gesture.

“May your Nine Generations also die of Inborn Disease as well!” she shouted back for what it was worth.

It did the gesture again but more emphatically, and the rat on its back laughed and waved a carapace armoured hand. Sana looked over at her briefly but had her hands full fighting another bone club-wielding rat man and two others who were both continually flanking her, keeping clear of the range of the leaf and the blade she was currently using.

{Fire Bolt}

The spider mother swatted the bolt away contemptuously as the rat on its back laughed. It then replied in kind with a glob of acid spit. Having eaten three of these already, including one to the body, she just let it hit her. The symbol devoured the qi, purifying it.

For good measure, she made another obscene gesture at the spider mother, from amid the swirling cloud of miasma.

In her head, she was still trying to work out what in the fates they were going to do now. This thing was between them and the plaza, and so fast that they had no way to outrun it to get there, even if she burnt her Vital Qi. They had killed one of these in the tunnels but there its mobility was hindered and she suspected that one had barely been in Soul Foundation. This was clearly a proper five-star monster able to manifest a soul form and use it outside its body. That also, finally, put paid to the hope that things here were suppressed to Golden Core.

The spider tried another soul attack as the rat-man sat on its back just looked bored and watched her.

Sana suddenly flickered across the street, using her movement art to traverse the distance in the blink of an eye, stabbing at the rat on the back of the spider. She winced in sympathy as she kept recovering qi in the miasma. Her sister smashed into the ground nearby, in the same instant that the spider, which had negligently struck at her with a leg, shook in pain and sent a directionless soul attack everywhere.

A limb fell away from its body and the spider’s Nascent Soul shifted out of its body and dashed for her sister with a speed close to teleportation.

‘Spirit. Blessed. Bestow. Body. Day’

{Flickering Steps}

Leveraging her mantra to the fullest, she executed her movement art to strike at the rider. She was a hand's width from him, hand outstretched, intending to use a lightning symbol on it when it just turned its head to look at her and the world slowed around her. She could only stare blankly as it swatted her hand away and, with its other gauntleted claw, grabbed her around the neck, looking faintly amused somehow.

The soul attack sank into her and the symbol ate it like a bottomless pool.

She got to register a flicker of surprise on its rat face as she smashed the dagger into the side of its helmet, drawing on Elaria’s martial form for the strike. The blade didn’t bite all the way through sadly. Its eyes shifted sideways and widened again slightly. It dodged backwards, still holding her by her neck and grabbed the blade and her hand with its other gauntleted hand.

Gritting her teeth, she did her best to resist the terrifying crushing force it was exerting as it mangled her hand. Her bones were durable, but the rest of her flesh was nearly stripped away. It ripped the blade from her and discarded it. Then it tried to pierce through her left breast with its gauntleted hand. She spat a mouthful of blood in its face, imbued with the symbol's intent, which made it flinch even as its gauntleted fist ground off her ribs, seeking purchase between them.

She finally did scream when it conjured some kind of acidic qi around its hand while pushing inwards, making her ribs deform as it aimed for her heart. While it wouldn’t be lethal, like the creature probably expected, the destruction of a core organ would be a serious inconvenience right now. The damage to her bones, however, was much more ominously problematic, even with the adaptions in that regard she had recently acquired. She was already pushing her limits, and having them lowered in that way…

With her free hand, she flailed for a few moments, hitting its arm, then its hand and then slapping it in the face. With that slap, she sent a lightning array straight into it and was rewarded with its face twisting in pain. Tendrils of energy hissed over its body, interfering with it enough to stop its attempt to crush her neck.

Before she could do anything else though, there was a strange empty pain in her chest and she saw the green leaf blade imbed itself in the rat’s chest, having just travelled through her without her even…!

-It was messing with her qi perception somehow?

It snarled and withdrew its hand from her chest, only for her to finally strike with her own qi and the symbol's intent. The rat staggered back, gasping and she took the opportunity to pluck the knife out of its chest. The contact hadn’t been great sadly. If its qi entered her body, she was sure the symbol would ruin it in moments, but it had been scrupulously careful while ruining her bones not to do that.

She smashed down into the street. A shadow hung over her as she struggled up, an unpleasant chill dulling her limbs even as the symbol dispersed it. The spider’s soul manifestation had abandoned messing with her sister and smashed down onto her, clearing every rat within ten metres. Resisting the attack put a huge strain on her remaining qi reserves, even as the symbol recouped some of it directly from the spider's attack. Ironically, the problem seemed to be that the qi she was leeching was simply not pure enough to make up for what she was expending.

It was also being scrupulous in avoiding sending qi directly into her body that was linked to it she noted.

-Cunning things, they had worked that one out fast.

On the other hand, that gave her an unexpected advantage. She used her movement art and charged at the spider’s physical body. The rider had recovered itself and unslung the spear from its back once more. She hadn’t seen when it recovered it either.

As expected the spider mother recovered quickly, pulling back its nascent soul and moving to block her, this time with a haze of spat venom. Unable to evade, she steeled herself as yin poison ate into her body as fast as the symbol could refine it. A soul attack came with it, spiking into her, aiming for her ‘body’ not her mind space this time.

-Fate-thrashed thing!

She swore extensively in her own head, even as she leveraged pure intent through the act of screaming at it inarticulately to force her way through.

The spider mother’s strategy was terrifyingly adept. That it was already able to see the pitfalls of the ‘symbol’ and find strategies to mitigate it was a grim reminder that any qi beast that had a core was sapient, and far from stupid, never mind those that had awakened actual soul manifestations.

Vast quantities of poisonous wood qi flooded her meridians from the mist. It was a lot stronger than before, although still nothing much compared to either slime or spider below.

Keeping the leaf flush to her arm so it was concealed, she hoped that the same possible reason the spear-throwing rat hadn’t seen it applied to the spider mother. Being underestimated was how you brought things like this down, that much was engraved into her from years of dealing with terrifying plants.

She leapt for the spider’s body with an arm outstretched and the spider mother finally miscalculated, using its superior speed to stab at her arm. The impact spun her around and made her crash into the spider mother directly. She stabbed it as hard as she could in the thorax and gouged with the blade as deeply as she could towards the rear of its thorax. Trusting to prior knowledge that this was where its beast core was.

It howled in pain and the reflexive and indiscriminate soul attack hit every rat within a block, killing most of the one and two-star ones instantly. It seemed to badly stun the armoured rat, who was promptly stabbed in the head by Sana.

The spider mother rolled, with her arm still stuck in it. All that succeeded in doing though was exacerbating the damage. Sure, it disarticulated her shoulder and elbow and sent her spinning away through the roof of a nearby building to crash into the ground. It also effectively cut the monstrous creature’s thorax nearly in half and severed half of one of its legs along the way.

With a silent howl that made her mind shake, its nascent soul form landed on the lizard-made building and demolished it completely in a massive pulse of destructive qi. In fact, the blast took out most of the street and the neighbouring buildings as well. A bunch of her bones were broken and much of the unrefined qi in her body was dispersed as the shockwave hit her at almost point-blank range.

-Fates, we should have run immediately, she groaned.

-As soon as the fate-thrashed rat tide came we should have fled for the spear, and trusted that what it said was true, that ‘evil’ would avoid it.

Dimly through the ruin, as she struggled to recover herself, she could see the wound on the spider already healing.

-Had we not suffered significant torment and sustained grievous bodily trauma before now that might kill me outright, part of her reflected as she tried to get a grip on her-

The spider landed on top of her with a snarl of rage and bit down towards her.

As it was, she had already started puppeting her own body, trusting that the symbol would protect her consciousness as the combined qi and soul attack came. The symbol's devouring intent tore through the poison, as she executed the strongest qi disruption array she could. The spider gave a gurgling gasp and collapsed on top of her as the leaf blade plunged upwards, eviscerating the bottom of its thorax and damaging its beast core, causing enough trauma in the process to stun the spider.

----------------------------------------

~ Sana, Ruined Street ~

----------------------------------------

Sana managed to get a third stab through the carapace armoured rats upper body before she saw the spider mother who had gone after her sister go berserk and start to tear up the street. Beneath her, the fate thrashed rat managed to recover a bit more of its sensibilities and took advantage of her momentary distraction to grab the arm that was stabbing her and try to break it. Shaking her head, she swapped the spear to her other hand, manoeuvring her body to make sure the things reach was obscured and stabbed it in the side, aiming for its dantian region.

The cut spear haft, which the leaf had made easy work of was superior to almost anything else she had yet to pick up, certainly superior to the male spider fangs at any rate. Sliced as it was to a razor point it made easy work of the carapace armour and its flesh as she gouged around inside as the rat flailed and screamed at her.

The only warning of imminent ‘calamity’ came from the faint constriction in the air.

Inexorably, she found her gaze drawn upwards as a colossal spider materialized over a building on the far side of the street. Feeling herself be physically drawn towards the ground beneath it, she desperately executed her movement art. Hanging in the air she watched in horror as the building where her sister was, then most of the street vanished in a slow-motion wave of ruined stonework and disintegrating rats.

The shockwave sent her tumbling, even as her qi armour ate up the damage. The spider’s physical body leapt straight for her sister and body-slammed her before crumpling in a twitching heap as the leaf shot through its thorax and into the air.

The wound behind it leaked green-black qi in an ugly fashion even as the spider twitched brokenly in the crater.

Still tumbling she gripped the spear and placed a foot on it. Air walking was impossible at this realm but there were other options available. Using her movement art, she kicked off the spear haft and shot forward at what she prayed was the right approximate angle to snare the Arborundum leaf out of the air. Thankfully, however, she didn’t misjudge its motion in her current state and lose a few fingers. Snaring the leaf successfully, she tumbled in mid-air, killing her momentum and plummeting downwards. Pushing as much qi into her legs as her meridians could hold, she smashed straight into the top of the spider’s abdomen, tilting it up.

The spiders Nascent Soul manifestation, looking rather fuzzy, appeared beside her, smashing all eight legs directly into her, even as her first stab opened up the top of its abdomen. Groaning, she spat blood and directed the mantra and symbol to focus on defending against the waves of qi and the things soul strength ravaging her body. It was weaker than she expected, she found as she continued to hack at it for a few more seconds. Whatever damage had been done was also messing with its soul’s ability to manifest properly. Eventually, it did get enough of a grip on itself to throw her away with qi alone.

She let it hit with the attack, dropping the leaf down beside its body as she flew backwards into the wall. A moment later a hand clawed out from under its still stunned body and grabbed it. With serious venom, her sister started to cut her way out from under the crippled body.

The spider’s soul twisted and howled, making her limbs grow cold again for a heartbeat, before darting back to its body. Presumably, it intended to puppet its physical form while its internal injuries recovered.

“No you fate thrashed don’t!” she hissed under her breath, rolling up on her feet and dashing back towards it.

Qi economy was no longer a thing, at this point. They had to down this thing before either it or its rider recovered, otherwise their fate would be miserable, and she was sure the other rats were already pouring towards this place.

Her movement art carried her over to its abdomen and she slapped a lightning array directly onto it. The spider flailed and twisted, its Nascent Soul blurring randomly through its limbs as the lightning messed with its ability to synchronise with its physical form effectively. Below it, her sister had half freed herself and was tearing viciously away at its underside carapace. Lightning qi washed over all three of them. The spider howled and executed another soul attack so she punched another lightning array into it and stabbed it in a joint with the spear, trying not to get thrown away as a limb smashed into her.

“Just DIE you wretched thing,” her sister half screamed, half gasped, finally squirming free and costing the spider another limb as she was finally knocked away by its flailing.

Staggering back towards it, she started to stab at the gap between its thorax and abdomen, looking like someone who had just had a building then a spider dropped on her.

Grabbing her sister by the arm, she linked a fire array and drew a bit of qi from her as she triggered it to keep her from being affected by the worst of the blaze. The heat was still infernal, but it was focused into the spider for the most part. The spider’s body thrashed as its wood qi fed the fire array. Arai carved open the side of the thorax and a moment later the spider’s spirit desperately struck at her, throwing her away.

She threw herself back at the spider and rammed her arm into the wound, desperately grabbing for the core. By some fate-sent miracle she found it, and immediately pushed the symbol to try to refine it. Her qi met the spider's like two immovable forces colliding. Its superior realm stymieing her own purer qi’s intrusion. Taking a deep breath, she focused on her mantra and turned its intention over as the mnemonic shifted from working inwards to travelling outwards.

{~Bestow~}

Her qi became an extension of her body briefly, moving as a vehicle for her intention. It was weak, but the spider took the ‘bait’ and pounced on it, striking back and allowing her to drag some of its qi, carrying its own soul and intent into her body with its qi, finally making the bridge she needed.

There was a blur in her mind as her qi and the symbol's intent ripped through the spiders own soul strength, shredding it like it was damp paper. Because she was already basically touching the core, her body became the connecting link and the symbol's intent jumped straight across and flowed into its core. The spider’s soul faded away with a final agonising howl of resentment and fury. She cancelled the refinement of the core by her qi as rapidly as she could, before too much of it flooded into her body. Her sister was going to need much of it to heal anyway she suspected.

Turning her head, she found her sister hauling her battered self out of the ruins of a demolished wall. It took mere moments to rip the core out, having done it a few times to spider mothers down below she had a good grasp of the anatomy around it now. Dragging it over, they both knelt down and pushed their symbols into it, purifying the qi jointly, as fast as they could.

Compared to how it was before, the refinement speed itself was not much quicker, but what had changed, was the quantity of qi they could rapidly draw from it. Within ten heartbeats the core grew dim and started to frost and flake. By thirty it was fully depleted and cracked into several pieces.

Qi flooded her body, knitting her wounds back together. She could visibly see her sister healing as well. Sitting back she breathed in and out a few times, getting control over the huge quantity of qi in her body. It was nowhere close to the amount crammed in from the spider queen, but it was still enough to make her feel bloated and a bit drunk.

“What now?” she asked, mostly rhetorically, recovering the spear haft from the spider as her sister checked her wounds.

“Out of here? Fast?” her sister said, looking around.

“I mean, yes, obviously that,” she said rolling her eyes as they left the building and took stock of the street.

“Where the fates did they spring from anyway?” her sister muttered under her breath.

“You ask me, but who do I ask…” she said with an eye roll, getting her bearings.

There were dead rats in every direction. The spider’s indiscriminate howls of soul power had done a lot of damage it seemed. Even so, there were live ones staggering up here and there. She stepped on one and stabbed it in the head without pausing. Flicking the blue-stone blade up with her foot, she caught it and tested if it could sustain her qi. Happy that it would last a few dozen blows at least, she tossed it to her sister who caught it with a nod of thanks. It wasn’t amazing, but it was better than nothing.

“The fact that our qi is so pure it cracks stuff like this is becoming rather inconvenient…” her sister grumbled, stabbing another rat that was still twitching on the ground and ripping its heart out to refine it.

“And armour seems kind of pointless except as a gesture towards modesty unless you want to try carving it out of the qi-deflecting stone…” her sister added, cutting another heart out of the fallen, Qi Refinement, armoured rat-man with lizard arms.

“Not feeling a draft is kinda nice though,” she muttered, eyeing what remained of her garments, which had been crafted into a crude knee-length skirt mostly tied around her waist now and a pair of arm guards encompassing both the scrip and a sliced slab of qi-repelling stone, bound within more luss cloth.

Her sister was right though, almost everything in this place was fundamentally ruined; whatever the stele had done having compromised not only its extant, innate qi, but its ability to retain or channel qi in any permanent manner. Probably they could carve something crude from the few bits of stone that were somewhat okay, but it would be time-consuming and still be difficult to wear.

Looking around she picked up a piece of spider carapace armour and bent it glumly. So far, only the armour worn by the rat who had ridden on the spider seemed at all durable. She tried a few more pieces before just giving up. almost all of what she could see here would ruin itself within the first engagement, not to mention most of it was too small.

Tossing the last bit aside, she finally made out a familiar tower in the humid misty haze and got her bearings. Waving for her sister to follow, she headed down an alley towards the central area. There was no point in being sneaky now, so she used her movement art at a reasonable level to flicker across the streets. Dead rats extended for a few hundred metres around their battle place.

“The suppression here is definitely… not...” her sister grimaced as they ran on, still encountering dead rats.

“Yeah… I thought things were suppressed below, but it doesn’t feel that way up here. Most of these are qi condensation or worse in any case,” she observed as they cleared another street.

She had deliberately not been dwelling on it much up to this point, but here and now, after that battle, she was forced towards a deeply concerning realisation. This place, above ground, at any rate, might not have any real realm suppression. That spider mother had been a Nascent Soul, and while she hadn’t fought a Nascent Soul Qi Beast outside of the high valleys, she knew what unsuppressed nascent soul strength felt like-

The sound of distant drums stopped her musings on the suppression.

Skipping up onto a roof she looked into the haze. It was raining on the western side of the island now, a weather front that would soon reach here making the environment even more wretched. Everything already stank, and the rain turned the streets into rivers of decaying corpses and ruined detritus of the lizardfolk. Thousands of rat corpses would not help that.

“That seems to be our cue to test how ‘safe’ the area around the spear actually is I guess. Because those are coming from everywhere,” Arai said, arriving beside her and looking around vainly to see where the echoing sound was originating.

“Yeah…” She hopped back down and grabbed a bunch of likely looking spears off the ground.

They rapidly looted a few other useful-looking throwing items and then fled, hopping over rooftops straight for the central plaza.

Not a moment too soon either, as it turned out. They made it two more streets before looking left to see what she could only describe as a whole warband of rat-lizard men advancing towards the sight of their battle. They were spotted almost as soon as they themselves spotted the forerunners.

Not even pausing for thought, she leapt across the street and triggered her movement art, with her sister in close pursuit. Behind them, the scouting groups for the warband all raised the alarm and within ten heartbeats a veritable horde of rats came pouring after them at a dead run.

This was a proper band as well, the minions were armed in the same ad hoc manner, but in terms of numbers, hundreds if not thousands were charging after them. In comparison, there were very few of the actual rats, and quite a few more armoured rats in there than she was comfortable with given how things had just played out.

“They have banners,” her sister signed as she jumped across the next gap beside her.

Glancing to her left, she saw the banners her sister had just noted. Crude things made of what looked like lizard skin and with spiders and weird runes daubed on them.

“Great, so they also have force organisation,” she muttered under her breath as the outer limits of the inner city appeared before them in the haze.

There was an ominous hiss in the air and a decent-sized rock smashed into a building across the street from them. A few seconds later several more smashed down at random in their vicinity.

“And mechanisms…” her sister grimaced.

“Or something big enough to throw rocks that far that hard,” she signed back, which got an obscene sign in return.

They made it all the way down the main street before dozens of smaller rats with light weapons boiled out of the intersection ahead of them. Unwilling to lose momentum, and seeing they had nothing really over Qi Condensation, she charged straight for them using her movement art.

The first unfortunate minion physically exploded as she crashed through it, knees to face, using her much purer qi and her mantra to transmit explosive force through the point of contact. The next two she stabbed with her spear and the leaf. Behind her Arai followed, using her new blade and Elaria’s sword art to clear out others in quick succession. Kicking another as she passed, she found she took a certain relish in watching its limbs go in different directions. Killing stuff didn’t come easily to her, but the rats were determined to kill or capture them or so it seemed.

Spinning away she made it to the start of the next block, kicking punching and stabbing in a blur of movement as they charged like a wrecking ball through the mass of minions. An armoured one blurred in front of her, and she kicked it in the leg, even as it stabbed for her with a spider fang mace thing. It stumbled backwards, its limb broken and she finished it with a stab to the face. This combat was also slowly impressing on her, as she observed the strength of her opponents with her qi-enhanced vision, just how much stronger she was now. In spiritual terms, she was close to where she would have been outside of Yin Eclipse, before she ever entered here, despite being almost a full realm lower. In terms of physical strength, she was approaching the hitting power of Mantra Seed experts she had occasionally seen practising in the Military Barracks, and probably more durable than the average Golden Core Body Refinement cultivator, or maybe even a Mantra Seed cultivator.

*Klooooonnnngg*

A deep, discordant echoing resonance made the air hum all around them. The symbol rose in her mind abruptly, cancelling out the strange sense of unease that came with it, even before it could take hold in her mind.

Even as the echoes faded away hundreds then thousands of small rats flooded out of the alleyways and over the ruined buildings to their right. They flooded the road behind them, even as the minions scrambled to attack them. Whatever the sound was intended to do to them, it drove the rats and rat-lizard people into even more of a frenzy somehow. Rats screamed, muscles cording on their arms and their eyes turning bloodshot as they almost started fighting each other to get at them in the scrum.

Exhaling, she swung a spear off her back and flipped it over in her hands smashing it into two minions. She couldn’t claim to be any kind of expert with a spear, but their father had taught them both the basics, even if he now seemed to favour swords. His spear art was subtly different to what she knew of the Military Bureau one that was publicly available for study, focusing more on travelling forward in stabbing arcs and with sweeping sideways strikes to clear space.

Holding the leaf flush to the spear haft, she stabbed through two more rats and then smashed a third in the side, even as she kept charging forward. Thankfully, Arai’s progress behind her was keeping her from being too badly flanked. Hissing in annoyance as the spear finally broke under the strain of supporting her qi, she considered another and then swapped back to wielding the bone spear haft as a short spear and the leaf as an offhand to just stab things again.

Despite the lack of a reasonable form for this kind of thing, as short blades were not designed for mass melee combat, the leaf made things easier than they might have otherwise been. Its capacity to cut everything, near enough meant that blocking and attacking on her left side became the same thing. Her speed of killing was only limited by her reaction time, how much focus she gave her qi perception and how efficient she wanted to be with the qi she was feeding to the spear haft.

She stomped the torso of a larger rat-man that had been pushed down, wincing as her bare foot went right through its guts. It grabbed her leg trying to slow and interrupt her use of her movement art in death. The conviction in its bloodshot eyes made her sweat slightly, even as she pulsed qi through her meridians and hurled herself onwards.

Behind them, two hulking rat-men with lizard arms riding large rats skidded around the corner and charged up the street towards them. They recognised the rat-dog things from the subterranean depths.

-Great, just what we need, she complained in her head. And both of them are inscrutable to me.

Inhaling she pushed qi around her meridians more forcefully. There was no point in messing with her mantra at this point, it was already doing as much as it could. The symbol was focusing on keeping her qi stable somehow and replenishing what it could from their surroundings.

Breaking through the lines, at last, she focused as much qi as she felt she could and planted an array on the ground around, hiding it primitively and leaving it to trigger on contact with any qi but hers. The rat horde just rolled over it and the lightning lashed out incinerating hundreds.

“Should have done that earlier,” her sister signed with a symbol implying self-mockery.

Arai followed suit, having made it ahead of her in that momentary pause to plant the array. A moment later her sister signed for her to just run right over it. She sprinted past the activation trigger, stepping left and right to evade minions while just letting the leaf cut anything and everything as Arai followed her.

Clouds of corrosive mist billowed across the street melting flesh and driving rats and minions in every direction. Behind them the horde pursuing them split as best it could. Even then, inertia condemned dozens and dozens of pursuers, as those behind failed to respond in time. The screams and howls of the dying behind her made her shiver slightly as they used those precious moments to set down a few more arrays and then get past the boundary of the buildings clad in qi-repelling stone.

With a deep sigh of relief, she noted that this area was largely rat-free as they sprinted up the short collonaded street and through the gate to the spear’s plaza. Moments later there was an immense detonation and the air around them charged enough that she could feel her skin tingling. Glancing over her shoulder, she could see the mists shifting outwards, the humidity being swept ahead of the detonation. It washed over them both, making her stumble and her eyes sting slightly.

Staggering into the middle of the plaza, where the spear sat, looking very spear-like, she turned to look properly behind them. An initial rock smashed into the gate followed by another into the roof of a building, but no rats, minions or the armoured rat-lizards displayed any obvious intention to enter in.

“So it is just like the spear said,” she mumbled.

Her sister shaded her eyes and watched another rock crash down on the edge of the plaza. “Yeah… I wonder what actually prevents-”

{Big Auntie's Aura} the spear spoke, interrupting her. {It repels them on an instinctual level}

They both looked at the spear, it was speaking… normally? Well, ‘normal’ was a maybe a stretch, there was still a strange intonation in there that made her think of someone pinging a glass cup after every word.

“You... can speak… our language… more clearly now?” she managed to string that together in a way that didn’t sound either gormless or offensive to it she hoped.

{Somewhat, for a bit, but it is still taxing on me} the spear said, again sounding slightly dissonant.

“Ah, so that was what was off, the intonation,” it added after a moment.

“Before I was fuzzy if you will.” Its voice settled properly, no longer making her ears ring. Now it sounded faintly feminine and a touch childlike.

“My strength is not... stable and the aspects of me that had to be devoted to… this kind of conversation… were... are...still adjusting.”

There was a pause as if it was considering something. It was a strange experience because the sensation of ‘pause’ was actually transmitted through its presence somehow, along with its silence.

When it finally spoke again it sounded a bit tired. “I have had time to stabilise myself a bit, and come to terms with my accumulations, both willing… and not.”

Another rock crashed down on the edge of the plaza, scattering across a surprisingly large area.

“Is there definitely no way they can get in?” her sister asked, as two more dropped in near the gate.

There was another a long pause as if the spear was considering something difficult before it replied.

“The authority in this place will sit for years. They will not enter physically,” the spear paused again, then continued more confidently. “Between my presence here, the arrays in these buildings, the harmony of this place and the fact that Big Auntie’s aura is still in this place, unless one of their leaders arrives they will not risk entering here."

“I see,” she nodded gratefully.

The implication was clear enough at least. The rats were afraid to come in here because of the aura of the other spear that lingered somehow and also because of the presence of this spear.

“What did you mean by the arrays in these buildings? Lady Spear Spirit” she asked, curious.

“Ah, I think it is the wrong word maybe, what do you call auspicious arrangements that manipulate the natural order of the world?” the spear asked.

“Feng shui?” she suggested.

“Geomancy?” her sister supplied.

“It will not be geomancy, I think,” the spear mused, before growing silent for a moment. “Feng… Shui, perhaps this fits. Yes, the Feng Shui of these buildings is such that their kind find no harmony here, so they will avoid it. That statement feels harmonious, so it is probably right.”

She eyed the spear, which was suddenly sounding exactly like an actual Feng Shui master in the way it was talking about things…

“In any case, I am happy to be able to converse, even it if is only for a short while for now. If you have other questions I can try to answer them, in any case, you should be safe from the Undren here. They will eventually grow bored of throwing rocks and leave I think. That tended to be what they did before.”

“Before?” her sister asked.

“Their raids were a periodic hassle back before the disaster.” The spear mused. “This land is, they would hold, rightfully theirs. They believe they were created to be the masters of this place. Sadly that is all I really know of that. My knowledge was more towards being… me if that makes sense?”

-Does that explain why they fought like rabid dogs?

-Do they associate us with the people who made this place? she found herself wondering.

“Oh!” her sister clapped her hands, before wincing as a rock smashed 40 metres away scattering stones halfway across the plaza with a crack.

“Oh?” she raised an eyebrow, even as she ducked herself.

“The books, Lady Spear Spirit,” her sister said smiling wryly.

“Books?” the spear paused, “Oh, those things in the chest, made of parchment.”

“Yes,” she nodded, pulling one of them out and holding it up.

“Ah… yes… things of the people who built this place,” the spear said, sounding confident again and also a touch surprised. “It is surprising that some have survived. The Sar’katush must have fished them out of somewhere and stored them here.”

“Are they…?” she wanted to ask if they were actually of any value, but the spear beat her to it.

“Are they special?” the spear sounded pensive again. “They are technical books on arts, basic, and nothing particularly special, but they could hold valuable insights for beings of your strength.”

“I see,” she nodded.

She wasn’t unhappy with that answer if she was honest with herself. That the spear considered them useful to them was probably enough for now.

Another rock crashed down by the gate, splintering off the stonework like a raindrop off a rock, reminding her of the other thing that had sort of occurred to her just now as the spear was speaking of the books.

“You… called the four-armed lizards… Sar’katush? Lady Spear Spirit?”

“Yes, they are the ‘Katush’ race or maybe people. They emerged in the ‘Great Desert of Sar’, thus the name Katush of Sar, or in the common manner; Sar’katush.”

“So these rats are…?” the spear had referred to something called Undren, but there was no harm in asking for confirmation.

“They resemble Undren Kin, for all that they are not approaching close, and I am not willing to waste energy peering at them. The Undren were a low people of the world where this place, originated. However, these are not as they were, those were more akin to beast folk, these are more unruly if anything.”

“The lizard mutations? Lady Spirit,” her sister asked.

“Possibly,” the spear conceded. “They may have mutated in some way, or consumed the flesh of the Katush, theirs was a vile and unspeakable fate. The thing that holds their dreams now is a thing that can only corrupt others. Do Not Ask Me Of Them. It is a Taboo.”

“Taboo?” she echoed dully.

“It is a Taboo to you and your kind, you will bring a calamity even Big Auntie will not be able to deflect.”

The spears tone was emphatic as it re-iterated, even though that wasn’t really what she had been asking. The warning was stark enough in any case, the Sar’katush or the thing behind them were bad.

*Klooooonnnngg*

*Kuhlllooonnnngg*

Two more echoing sounds swirled through the twilight haze and damp mist of the plaza.

“What are those?” she asked, shaking her head to try and shift the echoes, even as the symbol shifted slightly again.

“A thing of control, for the beast tide,” the spear replied with a somewhat more subdued tone. “They are unpleasant and disruptive to almost any other thing. Even I find their edge unpleasant, it is a sound of control, not of harmony.”

“Returning to the books, Lady Spear Spirit,” her sister said, as she pulled out the one that had ‘Evokation’ on it.

“Yes?” the spear said sounding pensive. “I can answer a little more, but…”

“What is the relation between the two symbols on the tomes?” her sister asked carefully.

She blinked and then got what her sister was subtly asking about. It should have occurred to her to ask as well. The symbol sets were one thing, but those two symbols appeared to have a similar relationship between them as some of the more basic symbols.

“Ah, hmmm…” the spear grew distant for a moment. “That is actually a good question, an interesting question.”

“Er… thank you? Lady Spirit” her sister said running a hand through her hair and looking a bit abashed.

“Evokation and Invokation. Two halves of the same thing. They are lesser aspects of… the people who built this place would call them an Archetype. In this case the Etheric Archetype. Unified Advancement of the State of All Matter on a Fundamental level.”

Clearly seeing their blank looks, the spear sent a sensation that was like a mental sigh. It was one she was familiar with from their discussion about Physiques. Perhaps they would have been better asking about those again, if it was going to be limited in the times it spoke to them?

“It is not a simple concept, even to me it is a thing of immensity, and I am just a little spear, with far to grow,” the spear sounded almost amused. “In terms of how it reflects in your system… you are, well I do not know of your world, but in the place where this place originated there were ones such as you, people... beings, who followed the ‘Heavens Path’, this Archetype would be a fundamental part of that Heaven's Path. To compare the two directly is not… easy. ‘Archetype’ is a philosophical… approach… to understanding… comprehending, the order of the Greater Cosmos.”

“Like a…” she grasped for the word, that explanation was hauntingly familiar in some way.

“Most aspects of it relate, broadly, to State Transformation of one kind or another and how those interactions integrate or don’t integrate, with the physical world.”

“State?” her sister asked, flicking for something on her tablet that was showing shimmering lines of text in the air.

“Turning water into ice, turning rock into dust, turning wood into heat, light and noise this kind of thing,” the spear said, after a further pause.

“Turning one element into another?” she asked, looking for clarification, thinking of the arrays she had made in the depths.

“No… that is… different, It is not ‘Evokation’.”

“Evokation is… explosions,” the spear eventually said lamely.

“Explosions…” they both echoed.

“As I said, it is not an easy thing, or simple," and my own world view is different.

“But it relates to elements and the five elements?” she pressed.

“Hmmmmm, it does have a relationship with the five elements system… but also spatial manipulation, balance transformations of matter and conceptual intent, physical manifestation, domains, principles, natural laws… even truths relating to the physical state and development of the world around you… As I said, it is a philosophy, a path rather than a direct…”

“Like a Grand Dao!” she finally managed to make the intuitive link she was seeking, courtesy of some half-remembered talks with Ling Yu!

“Yes, it is a means to a Grand Path…Dao as you call it,” the Spear almost sighed, its relief palpable. “But what you have before you is only the tiniest of tiny steps towards it.”

“Sorry… I can only be so helpful, I was made as I am.” It said sounding a bit frustrated now.

“Sorry, Lady Spear Spirit” she bowed to it in apology. “We are the ignorant ones asking difficult questions.”

“No… questions are good, and proper, without questions we cannot have answers, and without this, there can be no growth,” the spear muttered. “I am simply not… in any case if you have no other questions?”

“What… what realm would we need to be to overcome the spirit up above?” Arai asked suddenly.

“….”

The spear was silent for a good twenty seconds before replying.

“Hard to say, I could not achieve it, certainly.” The spear said with a sad sigh. “Big Auntie, or Big Uncle, or Ancestral Sister could crush it like the vermin it has become though, in their own manners, if they were given means to touch that place.”

“Big uncle? Ancestral sister? Lady Spear Spirit.”

“How many questions do you want to ask?” the spear sniffed faintly, sounding… tired suddenly.

She winced, they had been asking a lot, but their ignorance was crippling at this point, so…

“I do not know your system, I can see your language through the… timbre of your qi and the fluctuations… of your… spirits. By that, I can judge you to be somewhere in the Second ‘Circle’ or thereabouts. The Spirit in the library is a ‘Spirit Arcana’ of improper origin that is probably in the twelfth ‘Circle’… It was also messed with at a fundamental level by some of those who facilitated the fall of this place. It can touch the laws of the world if that helps. That… is all I am aware of from my limited interaction with it before it participated in the sealing of Big Auntie and… disposed of most of the survivors of the fall into this place.”

“Laws of the world…” Arai frowned, looking vexed.

She sighed, feeling a bit helpless as well. They knew the names of realms up to… Dao Immortal, but how anything really progressed for things beyond the Immortal Threshold… Laws were something Dao Immortals did things with? The realms above that were just names and titles to them both. To her knowledge, she had never even seen a Dao Immortal. Golden Immortals were already rare in West Flower Picking. The only one she knew of for certain was the Military Authority Captain. Even in Blue Water City. High officials had that kind of cultivation, but few were showy about it. So while she knew for example, that the vice headmistress of the Blue Gate School was a Dao Lord, what that actually meant in terms of her powers or the specifics of that realm was non-existent beyond the blindingly obvious.

“In any case… my… my… my capacity to maintain this conversation is becoming limited, unfortunately. My attempt at untangling what was done to the depths of the arrays in this place, that I am… connected… with… have… not yet allowed me enough freedom to…

The echo and the sense like a tone that had been there initially returned to the spirit's voice, even as the pauses grew more haphazard.

{…Consistently control such a refined link to you}

{It is not that I mean to be dismissive… simply… Difficulty. Recuperation}

The spear sounded, not vexed but frustrated and perturbed. Its words returned to singular ones with intention behind them and even that was somehow fainter than she recalled before.

“That... uhh… no. Sorry… we bothered you...” she mumbled, feeling bad now that they had dragged this on with random questions.

“Thank you… Honoured Spear Spirit” Arai muttered, looking equally abashed. “Uh… do you have… name? Or do we just call you ‘Lady Spear Spirit’?”

{I do… But Personal…Self/Maker Compact, Personal. Calling me… honoured spirit…} it sounded amused at that.

{Spear Spirit, Sufficient. Respect, Formality, Considered, Happy.}

With that, its presence went strangely mute again. They both winced and then bowed politely to the spear.

“Well, at least we learned something,” her sister said, sitting down on the crate.

Three more rocks smashed into the perimeter buildings and exploded, scattering rocks everywhere and making her sigh.

“Well at least they don’t seem to be able to drop them in the middle of the square for whatever reason, so that’s a plus!” she said as another two rocks crashed down on the far edge.

“The feng shui of this place?”

“Probably…” she agreed, sitting down near the chest with a resigned expression.

All they could do now was probably sit here and recuperate, and hope that the spear's words could be taken as directly as it had intended them and that these Undren Kin would eventually just give up and leave.