Raika is half overjoyed and half overwhelmed when it comes to her new powers. On the one hand, some things feel like direct upgrades: overclocking her system allows her to multiply her strength without needing to waste time and power on transforming over and over, and her new brain matter gives her a serious improvement in her ability to perceive the world and improve her overwhelming senses. Additionally, she could feel Qen Hou’s flames, burning into her with pinpoint focus, and felt the vast majority of them fall against her reinforced curse, her body rejecting the Qi outright, forcing any energy to have to almost dig its way into her through her resistances.

On the other hand, there are still pieces missing. Upgrading her biology and defenses are both well and good, but eventually Qen Hou got through, and there’s still much she needs to optimize to be able to overclock ideal systems, rather than improvised or those designed inefficiently. Her “core”, despite how powerful it is, fusing the highest-tier pieces of her powers into something exponentially magnified, is overwhelming, messy. It seems to magnify anything she absorbs the energy from it into, but not in a way she can control, or even fully understand yet. Additionally, there’s still that slight inconsistency, that sense that there’s something she’s missing with her Truths.

And then, of course, there’s the fact that she has no long-range or Qi intensive options beyond throwing True Flame around.

Plenty of possibility, lots of room to grow… but she needs to continue improving, continue growing. Before she starts adding new pieces, she needs to complete and upgrade what she already has, but she will need to add new pieces eventually as well.

Li Shu is there, tending to Qen Hou, who’s still smiling and steady but plenty bloodied, while she herself takes her time force-melting the overgrown flesh that her “core” spawned from her. Off in the distance, she can hear the kid, the sounds of his breathing tinted orange-yellow and tasting of fear and bright-sweet citrus. Hao Nera, meanwhile, schlumps onto the ground next to her, watching his two beaus taking care of the backlash from Qen Hou’s techniques.

“I admit, I wasn’t expecting you guys to go that all-out. Starting to make a guy feel left in the dust!”

She snorts. “I’m hardly a good metric to be measured against. And considering how hard he bottoms for you, I’d say you’re above Qen Hou more often than not!”

“Shush!” he laughs. “You’ll make the poor lad self-conscious! And right after he does some absolutely insane bullshit, too! Hardly fair, that. Pretty sure Li Shu’s going to give him a proper lashing later for that sort of impulsive behavior. Wasn’t expecting it from him.”

“He was a cultivator well before he met any of us,” Raika says. “And ever since meeting us, he’s just been reminded of the frog in the well. I’m not surprised at all that he’d keep growing. Still… last time I saw a kind of Domain, it was Taurus doing it, and he’s at the very edge of Warrior realm. I’m pretty sure he’d make the next sect prince if he went back to the Purple Flame sect now, unless that prettyboy asshole fixed his attitude.”

Hao Nera shrugs. “Can’t speak to a sect, but he could head a hell of a bandit clan in any mountain range I can think of.”

“There a lot of those?” she asks.

“Not so many anymore,” he says. “Still find a few, but the only ones that last are the ones that stay small and on the move or the ones that pay enough to the Empire that they look the other way. Hard to pay more than a sect does, though, so unless they’re being groomed to take over, they usually just burn out. Any of the ones too strong for a sect to wipe out get the Guard called on them, which is never fun.”

“Speaking from experience?”

Hao Nera is quiet for a moment, before his signature smile comes back. “Yeah. Not Guard, but a sect thing. I was born into a bandit clan, actually. Grew up in the mountains for a while, but my mum got me out of there, sent me to live with an uncle in a little village. Got older, wandered for a while, eventually made my way back to my mom and her boss… only lasted about another month after that. Our first big job since I showed up, and it went to shit.

“Wasn’t exactly popular with the folks that were left, so I went solo. Groups came and went… and a few years later I met those two.”

“Is that why you chose your particular style? The whole forgetfulness thing?”

“Yep! Good on you for figuring it out. You go invisible, someone tracks heat, go silent, someone has a radar thingie, go intangible, someone throws a ghost at you. But if they can’t even remember you’re there…”

“No, it’s smart. I approve heavily. No idea how you’re cultivating it, honestly. You impress me almost as much as Li Shu with that, if it’s self taught.”

Hao Nera preens, shimmying his shoulders. “Oh you flatterer! If I didn’t know better I’d say you’re a terrific flirt.”

“Wha- I’m a good flirt!”

“Please. You’re lucky you’re tall, hot, and a great cook, or you’d be hopeless outside of lesbian circles. Not everyone goes for intense and over-direct, beastie.”

She gives him a playful shove, her strength pushing him into a back-roll as he makes indignant sounds. She’s about ready to get up, sloughing off the last of the additional starfish-limbs and fractal armors, cracking her neck and stretching. She walks over to Qen Hou, who, with Li Shu’s help, is already washing off the blood leaking from his eyes and nose, his chest wound nearly closed.

“Good fight,” she tells him. “Think you could pull something like that off again?”

He laughs, tired and breathy. “Yes, but not anytime soon. It took a lot out of me. I think… I think it needs something deeper next time. It drew on something inside me, and it needed my Core Qi to do it. I am certain I’ll come to terms with it, though. Our honored healer is sure to provide me all the strength and support I need.”

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

Li Shu smacks him upside the head, still focused on closing his wounds with her Qi.

“See?”

She snorts. Even as she moves away, she can feel Li Shu’s Qi at work. Her additional brain is still fueling her synesthesia, so rather than just the scent of Qi, she can see it threading through Qen Hou’s body. The scent of scalpels and clear-scented flowers moves like drifting, minute threads, tying together severed muscle fibers and leaving droplets of blue-yellow jasmine in the wounded areas to speed up their healing. Considering she doesn’t have a Truth to support her, Li Shu’s control is stunning, nearly as detailed as Raika’s.

They’re all growing in their own ways.

She makes her way back to the cabin, picking up a large jug of water off to one side of the door. The kid is in hiding, and she can smell the mixed scent of fear and awe that she saw in his eyes earlier. It takes less than a second to deactivate her synesthesia and give the kid some privacy, before heading back to the others.

She’s only barely left the jug of water in reach of Qen Hou before her senses scream something at her.

She reconnects her brain matter immediately, the startling scent of blood and sharp edges re-manifesting as a steel-crimson haze flowing in from the east. She can feel the color on her skin, pressing against her like she can feel a wave of razor claws scratching into her flesh.

“Hao Nera, can you cloak more than just yourself?” she asks, her voice quiet but filled with an intensity that has him immediately look over.

“Never tried, I don’t think-”

“Do it. All of you. Qen Hou, recover fast, I don’t know what it wants.”

“What what wants-”

She’s standing alone in a field, the pond to her south, the cabin north of her, and an aura like a hungering massacre pressing in.

And then… nothing.

Nothing comes over the hill. The presence seems concentrated just outside the edge of the bamboo perimeter, like its testing the area, sending out waves of Qi and aura over the world at her.

And… nothing else.

She focuses, looking for the nuances of it. Nothing, especially not anything that powerful, should be flexing its strength so blatantly without some kind of reason.

The sensation of razor blades, of claws so thin they could filet flesh and stone to equal thinness, is… light. Like the edges are just kissing the skin, not severing anything, not cutting anything apart.

She lifts a hand, signaling around her for her allies to come out from wherever they’re hiding- ah, they’re back. Didn’t move from right next to her.

“Shit, Hao Nera,” she murmurs. “Getting better at that.”

“What is it?” he asks, even as Qen Hou and Li Shu look at each other, confused.

“Are you sensing something?” Li Shu asks, eyes following Raika’s gaze and seeing nothing. “I can’t sense anything.”

“I… think it’s an invitation. Trying to be polite. Hao Nera, you can feel it?”

He nods. “Instincts are screaming. Like a hint of Qi, something big, but it’s more-”

“The smell. Like claws that can dig through meat like jelly.”

“I was going to say something a lot less dramatic than that, but sure. Feels like there’s something big and scary that I just can’t really see.”

She nods. “I think it’s being polite. Announcing itself to me. Might be we drew some attention with that spar.”

“I thought the bamboo perimeter kept us hidden?” Qen Hou says.

“That was the theory,” Li Shu responds. “Still vague. I’ve never worked with a “dungeon heart” before, it may just be that you two overwhelmed it. Could be it was looking for you. Does it feel like a spirit beast?”

Raika nods. “Yeah. Reminds me a bit of the Divine Beast from the arena. Maybe it’s a sibling.

“...I’m going to go say hi.”

“That a good idea?” Hao Nera asks.

She shrugs. “Seems like the right call. Be a bit rude not to, if it was polite enough to knock. Li Shu, go check on the kid, Qen Hou, try and recover some Qi. Hao Nera, you’re with me.”

Hao Nera turns to look at her, eyes wide. “I’m what?”

“Use your technique. Keep yourself hidden. If something goes wrong, you get back to the cabin, tell them what happened.”

He nods, but he grimaces as he does it. “Fine. We going?”

“Yeah. Come on, then.”

She keeps her synesthesia active, her brain beginning to ache under the weight of her new senses, but if there was ever a time to interpret signals as clearly as she can, it’s now. It takes less than a minute for her to make it to the bamboo perimeter, alone, her system strained from the earlier overclocking but still more than capable of moving her across space incredibly fast.

She walks through the tall stocks, steps to the very edge of the perimeter… and then one step beyond it.

Instantly, something comes out of the woods.

Before she can even see it properly, it slips under the skin of the world like a blade into soft, yielding flesh, and slips back out right in front of her.

Its legs seem to emerge and dip back into itself, over and over, making it unclear how many limbs it has. Close to twenty feet tall even in an animalistic posture, the creature looks down at her with a single cyclopean eye, swimming with a dozen pupils, a mane of tendrils so thin they look two-dimensional as they frame its face.

It doesn’t use words. She’s not sure if it can.

But with her new senses, it speaks to her.

Acknowledgement, it whispers in shivering whiskers and slow blinks, eddies in its scent following with lighter colors and tremulous contact. Awareness. Tracked. Found.

She has no idea if it understands words, but… “Why are you here?”

Curious, it whispers in a language of hormones and subtle shifting of posture. Bright. Growing. Curious.

“I didn’t mean to draw attention,” she tells it. She keeps the Flesh still, her body aching to transform, to strengthen herself, to retreat, but that’s not what this needs.

Amusement, it sends to her, kneeling on its strange limbs and coming to rest like a big cat, leaning on its side. It sends a signal she’s not entirely certain of, the context of it feeling… familiar?

“Could you… could you ask that again?”

It blinks, long and slow at her. It ripples along its body, Amusement, and sends the second communication again.

Sibling?

“I… are you asking if I’m a sibling? Or if I know one?”

It doesn’t shrug, but she gets that impression from it. Indifference. Curiosity.

“I’m… I met one like you. Took a bite from them, even. I haven’t seen them in a few months, though.”

The entity perks up a bit at her statement, especially at the mention of a bite. It sniffs her, though she’s not sure how, as its face has no orifices visible besides the single, massive eye.

Sibling, it says. No question mark: authoritative. Hunter. Alike.

And then, like a seal diving down into a pool, it slips down into the earth, into the direction of “down”, and is gone.

Its presence, its scent, everything about it vanishes, leaving no trace whatsoever. Raika lets out a breath that the Flesh tells her they have been holding for a while.

Abruptly, like he was always there, Hao Nera throws a pebble at her, startling her bad enough that she flicks her hand out and cracks it in half in her grip.

“What the fuck was that!” he asks, eyes wide.

Raika shakes her head, slowly. “I think… I think it just came over to say hi.”

“Wha- I just sat here for five minutes watching you have a one-sided conversation with a fucking knife-lion, and you’re telling me it just came over to say hi?”

She idly picks up and fidgets with the tuning fork around her neck, looking down at the ground where it disappeared to. “It… it said something about curiosity. And… family? I’m not sure.”

“Well whatever the fuck that was, I’m going home. Twenty five years I go without seeing any crazy special beasts, I meet you crazy bastards and I meet two in a year!”

She nods, not really paying attention. She doesn’t even really notice when he leaves.

She looks at her hands, idly wondering at what that might have meant.

Sibling, it had said. Hunter. Alike.