Wei Zhiruo was sitting down in peace, basking in the light of peace and contentment, when suddenly she felt a tugging consciousness coming out from the willow tree. She glanced over the cascading willow tresses, a little surprised. “Hush – she wants to say something.” She rubbed Marr’s white fur to make him silent and smooth out his ruffled hair.

He stilled and just looked at her instead – his ruby red eyes shining brightly.

“Don’t worry –maybe it's nothing serious,” she gave him a soothing smile and started listening.

The willow was really talking.

At the beginning it was a soft, attention-seeking nudge, and then slowly, it became graver and graver sounding, increasingly anxious. The tree sent her a very concerned ‘thought’, instantly arousing her alertness. Her own eyes involuntarily rounded and then became a shade colder.

“What’s the matter?” Marr asked. “Is it something troublesome?” He raised his whisker, shaking them around as if to sense and sniff what was odd about the wind, or to get a taste of the panic Wei Zhiruo had started feeling.

“I cannot tell. It feels odd and she is really panicked. I will try asking her for more details.” Wei Zhiruo said and straightened herself. “Right now, it sounds like some impulsive forewarning.”

She traced the willow’s rugged barks, trying to be as close to it as possible. She smelled its woody scent filling her lungs. Leaves crunched under her feet.

Marr’s round, intelligent eyes looked equally alert as he glanced around everywhere as if he was preparing to face a beast who would suddenly pounce on him. He’d climbed over her left shoulder, muscles taut and stretched and was shaking his tail. “Is it because of that alien creature again? If it is, don’t stop me – just show me where that thing is. If it's really made of negative resentment as you saw it earlier, I will take care of it.”

His animated eyes rounded in their feline ferocity.

“I don’t know. I don’t think it is that – but wait,” she patiently replied and started talking with the willow tree. “It is nervous about something approaching here, and it keeps sending me some gray images of the surroundings – or is that the pond? I cannot make it out, but she sounds quite alarmed...”

Soon she herself felt it – the heavy gloom settling over the land.

“It is not alone,” she said, this time talking in her mind.

It wasn’t just the willow tree who became restless; the whole area seemed to have come to a simmering halt. The winds, the grass, the rolling water in the pond and every little creature hiding from her eyes and ears, seemed to have started dreading something and were preparing to flee or arouse their neighbour’s attention. Some had even started burrowing into their holes and nests! Each sound, each vibration she sensed was unequivocally tense.

What was this restlessness, and why?

“I will go and check,” saying this Marr narrowed his eyes and disappeared, disintegrating into millions of droplets of blood, invisible to eyes, and started surrounding the courtyard. His formless figure rose in a red mist, flying first like a big swarm of bees – then he grew smaller, and smaller till all his traces were lost in the air particles. He started searching for the cause, scanning every piece of visible and hidden lands. He reported everything to her, but he couldn’t find anything strange either.

“Be careful, don’t attract any attention to yourself.” Wei Zhiruo still didn’t forget to warn him.

Her feet were not rising, and the exertion of just rousing her body from the previous sitting position had rattled all the bones loose and muscles out in their places, and a tingling sort of pain had started filling them anew. She didn’t feel well. Her Spiritual consciousness – having overdrawn too much on that – was left alone to heal. She was sure that if she tried using it right now, she would feel the most excruciating pain ever tasted.

What else could she use right now? Runes? But what medium should she use to write it? She would grow weaker and weaker if she kept using her blood or life-essence – and if the situation wasn’t something dire – as grave as life and death confrontation, she decided to save herself from such an easily expendable agony.

In the suspense of wait, she decided to keep talking with the willow and connect the small glimpses into an ordered, coherent message.

The willow itself was a towering weeping willow, growing exceptionally tall to a height of some one hundred and fifty feet, and its cascading branches surrounded a very significant portion of this courtyard. It wasn’t surprising when it showed an image from nearby pond’s shore, as it was able to overlook that area, peering past low boundary walls and crumbling houses.

Wei Zhiruo looked up into the willow’s canopy, and let her thoughts be silenced enough to grasp the vague shadows that were concretely forming in the willow’s thoughts, and then it appeared to her.

“No! YueMarr, Marr! Come back. It is a soul. For god’s sake, don’t approach that thing!” She finally understood what was going on. Goosebumps rose, and dread clutched her heart in its tight fist.

How could a stray soul appear here? Wei Zhiruo wondered, and despite the pain that plagued each of her pores, she held a close branch and slithered hurriedly over it. Maybe the sudden panic had made her forget all the pain or the rush of approaching danger had dulled some of her senses, she easily climbed branches upon branches till she was leaning against one of the highest branches. She leaned over and looked all around herself.

“That thing doesn’t look weak. You will be found. Come back and be quick!” She said, scrutinizing every direction. Her new eyesight easily provided her the greatest extent of visibility, and despite the distance, she looked towards the shore and caught a glimpse of the emerging soul clearly.

“It’s an alien soul.” Marr appeared near her and informed her.

“Yes, it is.”

Both of them studied the flying object by the shore, which had just appeared from the depth of the pond. Not a bird, nor a kite, but a soul – a human soul. As surprised as Wei Zhiruo felt inside, she didn’t wait for long, but started climbing down the tree with the same agility.

“We are in trouble.”

It wouldn’t have mattered if it was a mortal soul, she would have been surprised that it survived the forces of the living world, but that would have been none of her concerns. But this anomaly – what could explain the pressure, the feeling of danger emanating from it? All her instincts were shrinking from fear of having met a predator. “Not good. It’s no good –”

There was no mistaking that enormous power and pressure that soul was vibrating to its nearby surroundings; the ants were panicking in their holes, the snake somewhere hissed and bowed his head to hide, while all the birds were nowhere to be seen – those who had just been rushing madly to find a shelter had long disappeared somewhere.

“It's someone who knows the art. If not magic, something akin to it.” Wei Zhiruo said, her pale blue eyes turning a sharp iridescent azure. “What is it doing in this mortal world? There is no question of this world being anything other than a sleeping world, and before you ask what that means – a sleeping world is usually a world where magic hasn’t penetrated its fabrics and become a piece of its reality. This world, I thought, was for sure just that. Weird, oh so weird – how could such a powerful soul appear here? And it's not a monster either…We cannot be discovered by it. I don’t think anything good will follow if we are found by that thing.”

“I don’t know about hiding, but I think that thing is moving this way.” With a halting, suspicious tone Marr said. He also shared his vision with her.

It really was moving in their direction. Wei Zhiruo speechlessly narrowed her eyes.

“It is. It’s headed this way.” Wei Zhiruo affirmed softly. "But why?"

They were communicating in their minds, there was no question of them being discovered by the sound they made. But the next instant she became sure that the soul had discovered them. The red tinted, shared vision easily showed how that soul fluttered around near the shore and then decidedly floated closer towards this courtyard.

“It found us – what to do? What should we do?” Marr grimly echoed, wrapping around her neck.

“Prepare,” Wei Zhiruo didn’t even think for a moment and pronounced her heart's deepest choice, “Let's prepare for a battle. First, test its intentions and then see whether it’s an enemy or a friend.”

“We cannot face it head on, Wei Zhiruo, think of some other way. That soul looks like a mage – but even then, it must be higher up in the hierarchy. Not counting the grim pressure, which truly speaking is way more than any Apprentice mage will ever have – even if it’s the best of scenarios, we will be facing an Apprentice level mage with a battered body! It’s not a mortal, Wei Zhiruo. You cannot scratch her face and call it a day!” Marr reminded her and flew off somewhere before she could stop him. She knew he must have gone to observe the intruder up close.

“Come back! You are putting yourself at risk!” She shouted in her mind, but he was gone.

Feeling irritated, Wei Zhiruo rubbed her face. He was right. Facing off with her current state was like seeking death. But…She had a very bad feeling about this whole situation. The way that soul was hastily flying over in her direction, she had a very, very bad thought take hold of herself. She tried hard to convince herself that it was just another spasm of a pessimistic view getting her – yet her instincts won’t let her have it that easy.

And Marr did, indeed fly closer to the soul, almost touching the air surrounding the floating fragment of the soul. The moment he was in the close range of its inner circle, he felt a trepidation settling over himself, and his whole being shivered in a recoiling fury. Something like a gaping mouth of darkness, like a black-hole, opened up and was just waiting to suck him up. He got a hold of himself hastily, and removed all his traces. He escaped and flew back.

“It’s headed here. We cannot face that woman!” Marr gasped sitting over Wei Zhiruo’s shoulders taking in deep breaths to shed off the panic that soul caused inside him. His hair was all raised and shouting of his present terror.

It was only when he met with Wei Zhiruo’s serious looking blue eyes that he somewhat settled down his growing urgent heart. “I have never felt anything like this. In no way is that thing just an Apprentice level mage – the moment I got closer to her, I felt like she was going to suck me in! You’ve got to be careful. We cannot face her in our broken state in any way – that can no longer be seeking death, but outright attempting suicide. No, I won’t agree. How about running away to hide somewhere? There is still some time. There are so many humans here, and I don’t think you will be easily discovered by that thing. Let’s go – hurry!”

“I cannot – she seemed to have sensed us. Or rather me. She keeps moving in our direction – haven’t you wondered what anchored her this way? We haven’t used our Spiritual consciousness, nor our voices. Nothing outward but just a few paltry heartbeats and there are many humans around us with beating hearts, and falling and rising lungs – she is only moving towards me. It's quite intentional by this point.” Wei Zhiruo wasn’t being pessimistic when she said this but instead, pointed her fingers towards the sky in an unexpected signal. The moment she did that, the cat’s pupil enlarged in surprise and then narrowed abruptly. He hissed.

“Go on – explain it to me.” The cat urged and sat down.

She too sat down over the thick willow branch, dangling her feet down. “Look she is purposefully heading in this direction. I must remind you – the dead are the most conscious of living but not to such an extent. She has something else guiding her to me. If we hide elsewhere, we will just arouse her interest some more and play a game of chase. No – it's too late to go back anywhere.”

“So, are we going to wait and bet that she isn’t a villain?”

“No. Ambush. She might not be aware of our abilities.”

“In your state -? That doesn’t sound reliable.”

She rolled her eyes and explained – “What do you think that thing is searching for? A living body, right? So, will she kill us first or play with us till she is done playing and then erase our spirit and occupy our body? Does that sound familiar? It’s the most common way a body-snatcher works – it's written in their instincts, somehow. If her intention is impure, she will hardly try to kill us outright.”

“But why you? There are so many humans here…what makes her notice your body directly? Is it because of proximity? Or she sensed something different about your bloodline?” He couldn’t understand.

“I don’t know but proximity can hardly explain this. Maybe she is sensing something she wants and it is in my body. Soul – they are magnificent when controlled to such an extent.”

The cat hissed again, sounding displeased.

Wei Zhiruo saw the soul, as it shined bright purple. Each wave coming out from it was like a huge ripple, unsettling its surroundings. The rage, the strength, just the way it moved – one could glimpse the control it had over itself.

Wei Zhiruo marvelled at the perfection with which the soul had controlled its outward manifestation, and shivered in a strange delight. And then mocked her own sentiments shrugging them away. But it didn’t go away – the sweetness was at the tip of her tongue. She tasted a new smell, and furiously felt it entering her body.

She fell into an introspective spell – things faded from her eyes and invisible golden gossamers – tangled mess of them called out to her from the deepest of her core. Or was it elsewhere? She couldn’t discern, neither cared for the origin – as if a veil had covered and dulled her intelligence, she grew hungry for blood. Rage, anger and killing intent filled her pores, and swelled in her breast, becoming one with her heartbeat.

Instincts raged. In the boiling storm of emotions, her soul, her body protested together and every atom of her being raged with a pulsing hatred – the intruding soul was now no longer just a common enemy, it was her nemesis! It was a thing she abhorred with all her being. It was a ‘beast’ that should be killed, erased!

This line repeatedly swelled in her mind like a self-repeating curse.

And then a much softer wave rippled somewhere, jerking her to life. ‘Why, why are you so urgent –o heart?’ the voice echoed and questioned this craziness. No reply came. The voice replaced the growing fury and angst, coming from the depth of her mind, which reason couldn’t define or constrict; it kept repeating softly as if saying an ancient tale– ‘Hasn’t it already dawned on you? One after another – the steps being pushed under your feet. Have you asked, who arranged them? Was it really your choice that you woke up yesterday? Wake up – o heart. See if this is your own wish or not.’

Her instincts seem to be arousing her from dead slumber, her body convulsed. Another voice started whispering, alluring her. ‘Win, win this battle and you are safe– and if you don’t, you will lose everything –! Something is being written in the void, happenings and fate…and this is an enemy arranged for you…it comes seeking you. Kill her, destroy her. If she lives – you die.’

“Hah!”

Waking up from the strange spell, Wei Zhiruo didn’t speak for some time. Instead, she submerged herself in the impact. Unnoticeably, a mocking smile lingered on her lips as if laughing at something. She didn’t say, didn’t dwell on the sudden swelling of killing intent and desire or the thirst – raging urge in her breast – but instead looked up into the sky.

The stare was cold – as if peering past it and seeing things around her for the first time. Marr didn’t look up, neither did he ask her a word as if he was ignorant of such an episode. But he kept hissing intermittently. At the falling leaves, at his own paws. He looked disgruntled. No, enraged.

“Marr, do you have enough energy?”

“No, my energy is at its lowest. I spent everything on the last transformation.” Marr replied quickly without showing any weirdness. “Do you want me to act alone? I can help distract her for some while.”

“No, we cannot be separated.” Wei Zhiruo hurriedly refuted. She looked at the distance, thinking about how many seconds she could spend on preparation. Ten minutes till it arrives inside the courtyard; this specific area was at quite a distance from the pond. Finding, tracing and following her to this willow tree will definitely take ten or more minutes at its quickest. But that was the definite deadline.

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“Let’s lay an ambush. If we attack first, we will have the upper hand till it starts countering – but then we’ll have dragged it down to match our pace. If we are quick, we can overpower it by surprise.”

She didn’t tell Marr what she had just experienced – she knew he noticed.

Fate? That voice said. She believed in fate. Not the one dictated by others, but the line that stretched indefinitely in one’s own choices – a string of causes and their reactions. How could an action, which hadn’t even happened, show all its precise outcomes? Outcomes, dangers, and speculations of loss…as if it believed that fate could be worded in a single, accurate sentence like an oracle. Hilarious. Oh fate – what a magnificent enchantress she is! She keeps coming under her feet like a stumbling block. How many more oracles does she need to curse her new life? As if the past life wasn’t enough…

She smiled.

What was her current state right now? Weak, worn out. She was the most gullible, sweet lamb who couldn’t put in any protest – if someone demanded she let them have her body, what would any mortal in her current capacity do? Give it away, or die. Either of the choices sounded nothing like a real choice. Death was the only way left. In fact, every being a hundred miles from that soul was a suitable body that would hardly put any protest. Including her. Why choose her? Why at this time? Why say – she must fight? Couldn’t she decide to just run away and keep running away?

But Wei Zhiruo just thought of the last bit in a flash and dropped this thought quickly. The incoherent, chaotic nature of her thoughts didn’t straighten in a linear order, instead they were lost in endless voices of other creature’s ‘thoughts’ of fear, terror and peace. Many ripples were forming in them – and she knew someone might be struggling hard to keep an eye on her own original intentions. Would it succeed in discerning the murky pool of her mind echoing with thousands of voices in a small well?

She laughed out loud suddenly and whispered, “I just cannot fathom – the gap is so huge. But my courage is as tall as the sky and it keeps encouraging me to remain sturdy on my path. Marr, don’t you think I sound a bit crazy? I feel like that brave ant who wants to wage a battle against an elephant.”

“Did you just realize this?” Marr hissed and rolled his eyes.

“No – but the gravity is lost to me. Seven minutes to go. Ah – how the time slips.” She retorted in her mind and tried to form a stream of thought, framing her current disaster. Her other hand was mindlessly crafting one after another runes using blood.

The soul didn’t go anywhere else in the mansion, but started going after her – what was leading that thing closer to herself? Everything has an appropriate cause – some hidden behind clouds, some with definite chains of events. It would be unreasonable to blame her bad-luck for this…coincidence. But thinking that she was being arranged in a fixed trajectory – wouldn’t that be too paranoid? Or was there a simpler explanation? Like that soul having specific criteria for it to seek a body, and that soul knows she fits those criteria. Completely.

‘Or maybe – somebody else wants that woman’s death and is using me as the hunter? What a layered game. Unlucky Wei Zhiruo. She can only suffer the fate of being used as the huntsman...ha! Or is there a way to avoid this fix?’

Wei Zhiruo coldly watched the soul floating closer and closer as if searching for something. She was almost hundred percent sure that the soul had found something good in her body and discarded other choices in favor of going after her. No distance could now save her in face of this uninvited disaster. That was why she didn’t agree with running away. Greed. That was a heavy incentive.

But all this didn’t need to be clearly stated.

“We have to fight - there is no other way.” She stressed over the word. “We will do everything we did to face those magical beasts in the Abyss. Take this like enacting another hunting session.”

Wei Zhiruo continued saying in her mind while brushing her wounded palms against the rough ground on which she was writing. “With no spiritual energy I will focus on Runes. But you have grown up. Try to think of moves that come from inheritance that you can use right away without much practice – I hope having that small bud will open up more ways for you to fight. I haven’t checked what's been added, but see for yourself and tell me. I will think of other measures.” She started counting the seconds she needed to prepare. By now, she looked and felt quite calm.

“I can really distract her and earn you enough time to teleport away from here using your Runes.” Marr interrupted suddenly.

Teleportation?

“Teleportation…is possible – but do you remember the Runes I know which consist of teleportation? [Portal] and [Door] and others all need constant enforcement. A person being sent past it cannot maintain it – what do you think will happen to us once the portal breaks in the middle of our teleportation? Doesn’t sound pretty, does it?”

She stopped talking as she started counting the number of Runes she could use with just blood, and others which would need Spiritual consciousness to be enforced. Life-essence – it must be used again. Thankfully, her recently strengthened soul can supply some more of it…but does her enemy know of this? Or is the game-planner aware of each of her hidden abilities? A silent thought rose and was thrown instantly in the junkyard of ‘wasteful’ thoughts.

She stilled and waited.

The sky didn’t fall. Neither that urge to kill silence her intelligence again. ‘It looks like the game master cannot alter too many facets of the ongoing game - interesting.’

“These are some of the limitations of [Door] and portal runes which haven't been remedied yet. It needs a very good quality medium – life-essence might be able to carry it right now, but burning vitality to end up lost in a space crack with no way out – think of something else.”

“Okay, okay…I know your heart is the best guide. Ambushing is the way to go then!” Marr sighed, defeated and started immersing himself in preparation.

“Stay close to me, and support me. You’re going to take care of the rear – I’ll send you Runes and you are going to bombard them at specific times. As for me, I am going to use an illusion. We will confound her, attack her till she is weakened considerably. Then let’s see if we can drag her to death or we are pushed to teleporting away – betting that we will have a way to come out of that fix. It cannot be one on one, so earning enough time to drag her down is good enough at first. Ah. My head aches. Five minutes to go.”

As she wrote Runes, Wei Zhiruo desperately searched for another countermeasure. She saw Marr making rounds from left to right, pondering her words, immersed in his research of his own newfound abilities. Or maybe about the fix they were already in.

Wei Zhiruo couldn’t mask her vitality suddenly, that would need more preparation. A direct, sudden attack is the best way to appear at this stage, she thought. But she didn't even get much time to think of anything else. As if the soul had really sensed her, she felt it floating nearer and nearer to her hiding place.

‘No, this wouldn't do.’ There was no time to think about anything else. Fate or no fate – if she wasted these precious moments in silent deliberation, she was sure that she would die. She stared coldly at fifty or so Runes she had forged by this moment with her blood.

Wei Zhiruo picked up a little bit of soil from the ground. She cut open another deep bleeding wound on her palms, mixing it all into a muddy red liquid and rubbed it all over her face.

After putting the horrible disguise that wouldn’t even cover her features, she wrote a word [Conceal] on her forehead. She then looked at the nearby rolled piece of cloth. She looked at it thoughtfully and picked up the wet cloak. The dust and dirt clung on to its wet surface, a few dried branches and leaves too. It looked in no position to be worn again. But it could be used elsewhere…she thought.

She proceeded to use her own life-essence and her blood as two different kinds of medium and bent down to write. Many simple Runes emerged one after another.

Blood-Runes were easy, simple ones because they manifested with the slightest presence of power. Life-essence was, on the other hand, a high-level medium that could work and structure elaborate chains of Runes and create more mechanical works out of themselves.

Like this one, this elaborate Rune over the cloak. It was made of three words, intended to be linked together to make a puppet. She could pull its string from behind; this way she wouldn’t have to appear in front of that unknown stranger. Judging the intentions, at least will be made easier this way.

A circle held blood red [Threads], written under an elaborate work of complex looking letters [Same race] and [Shape] merging the three of them to form a [Puppet] with no soul. The final word linked them together to forge a golden, sparkling Rune becoming a part of the clothes' very fabric.

Wei Zhiruo rolled the cloth into a doll and hung it over one of the willow’s branches. She stepped softly over the ground and got closer to willow bark. Putting her hands against it she asked - “May I?” She wanted to use willow bark as a surface.

She asked for permission to use the willow spirits body, promising its safety to the greatest extent. “I will protect you. I promise.” The vow was uttered and registered in her mind, like a seed digging into the soil.

Feeling a bubbling happiness, she knew the willow spirit had agreed.

She sighed and turned away saying, “We will just judge whether she harbors any ill intention using this puppet. If she is aggressive towards this puppet, she is an enemy. While she is busy conversing with this doll, we will have some extra ten more minutes to write down more Runes. Either way, we cannot just walk away now. She knows I am here, and she knows it’s a human child – the surprise is just that she is wrong on both counts, but that can hardly save us from her chasing us. Marr, attach yourself with other water droplets in the air – we will need to have a greater grasp over the vision. Restrict yourself to the courtyard and I’ll help shield you behind [Illusion] and [Shadow]…or let’s just turn this whole courtyard into a domain...that will be much better.” Wei Zhiruo mumbled softly in her mind, and then began hurriedly setting all things in order, rushing to write down all the major Runes to create the perfect illusion.

“You are using your life-essence like water. It’s slow poison - you know we will die if our vitality is drained away like any other being? Our life-span is not like our ancestors, if you might recall.” Marr hissed at her.

“There is no choice.” She didn’t have any Spiritual Consciousness power left in her body, having spent too much to undergo the recent Awakening but she had life-essence; she could only drain that and get a chance to get away from this soul. Her brain hurt doing all this, but there was hardly any alternative. Creating that doll had cost her another six months’ worth of life. She didn’t know how much she would have left by the end of this ordeal…

“It's endless - previous life and this one too! You seem to always invite endless pain…and here I was hoping for an early retirement. Tch.” The white cat tutted and flew over the tree branch and hid into the air. “I hope that soul is a good lot. A false alarm…cannot it be that…?”

Wei Zhiruo felt differently. From all the signs she had been shown and forced to experience – everything seemed to be telling her to fight against this oncoming intruder. A game had been arranged – how could a single palm make the clapping sound? So, both the hands should meet – if that soul wasn’t aggressive enough, how could the future scenario develop as the game planner deems fit? She hardly held any glimmer of hope.

At just that moment, the soul shifted in the direction facing the courtyard door.

“Three minutes to go.” Wei Zhiruo mumbled. She forced a bit of life-essence to use the [Puppet] Rune. Her eyes fell on blood dripping palm, and fingers too scarred with numerous cuts. Using blood to write continuously over the willow’s bark had scarred it further; it felt painful to even look at. But instead of stopping, she increased the intensity of writing.

“I will summon enough energy to cast three attacks – [Blood-Sword], [Blood-Arrows] and that can be used up twice. The last is going to be [Blood-Rain],” Marr let her know, “but I cannot be sure that it will have the same putrefying effect as it does on physical objects mentioned in the description. I’ve never used it before. They all belong to the new inheritance. It says these will have an additional affect over mortal bodies – doesn't the soul count as immortal one? It is supposed to act like a vitriol, swallowing away the figments of the physical body so…I am worried. How furiously it will act is to be seen and determined.”

“Just do what you can, maybe something will get her.” Wei Zhiruo walked closer to him and picked him up, saying this almost distractedly. She soothed his hair and felt his warmth. “I am more reassured with you here. Either way – we will have to face it. Having you accompany me is the greatest pleasure of my life.”

“Um…I will follow closely. Relax, we will find a way.” Somehow. Wei Zhiruo felt him saying the last word in his mind, and turned away smiling. This time, a real, soft smile.

Wei Zhiruo wrote the last Runes. The moment they turned golden or silver, she would release them into the air. By now some hundred concentric circles holding the Runes were floating around her in a floating, huge loop of runes and moved as she moved. It acted like a halo around her, giving her face silvery, golden and red flickering sheen – the hues of them sublime enough to contour her young features and force out a not so child-like spirit through her face.

“I am done – this batch is the last.”

[Encampment] was quickly linked with another Rune of [Shadow], [Illusion] and [Mist] to convert the whole courtyard into her own domain.

Each of these were newly created Rune's, created by her when she started her Rune-forging journey after copying from the greatest of masters in the Middle world. It sounded very powerful, but was just empty words, full of loopholes. Early works could hardly be expected to be perfect and these were the weakest she had ever created. But she didn’t know the level of their enforcement once they were reinforced with life-essence. Maybe, the various default weaknesses will be covered up by the sheer power of life-essence itself?

She had tested each of them in the Abyss and knew that this formation was the strongest she could lay down with her limited strength at this moment.

“Time’s up.” A death knell sounded somewhere.

“She is here. A second and she is in.” Marr announced.

“Release [Encampment].” She ordered.

Wei Zhiruo herself released most of Runes. The [Encampment] stood for a 'boxed enclosure', which wouldn't allow anyone stepping inside to step outside easily. Except her, no one could get outside of this domain without her permission. Only by breaking the enclosure with force could one get outside – the force required one third the amount that the soul could exert at this moment.

After being linked with [Illusion] she could control this domain as her own; anything that entered this 'box' will see what she showed them and hear what she herself wanted it to hear.

‘And this piece of cloth -? Let it be transformed into a girl. What should she look like? Gullible, small, unremarkable features and brown eyes – cannot forget the brown eyes.’

The puppet finally transformed completely.

"The idea is good till now, but have you thought clearly about what you are aiming for? The moment the soul even gets a little clue about your existence, it will be upon you. So don’t drag the process for long. You cannot out-run that thing in your weak state and confounding can work in the beginning but the moment it straightens things out a little, we will be caught in a difficult position. Wei Zhiruo, your current body cannot use this strategy. What if she looks through your illusion and finds your body first and then the enclosure will become a headache for you." Marr didn't like the sound of the plan.

"I know it's a risky move,” Wei Zhiruo said. “There are some limitations…I am thinking of. I cannot confront it face to face - not from the beginning, I can’t. I can only drag on from the shadows. But do you have any idea? Think of some other links that can ensure better ways to keep hiding and attacking.”

“What about linking a [Gate] Rune over this domain? isn’t that another portal rune you know? Think about it. We still use your strategy but instead of dragging it painfully, let’s just send it off somewhere else. You understand what I mean…We will earn ourselves enough time to hide.” He replied.

‘Why not? If she could fall in a space crack…why couldn’t others be shoved into one?’ Another thought that was instantly thrown into the junkyard of thoughts.

"It's a good idea." Wei Zhiruo tried to remember the whole map of Jinghai and thought of the most appropriate place to send that soul away. It shouldn't have another mortal human nearby, nor should there be weak people in its proximity… a place where people seldom visited…? What else could it be?

“Let’s send it to this graveyard.” Wei Zhiruo drew another Rune over the willow.

Having decided on the last bit, she watched coldly as the soul entered the encampment and lost itself in the mist.

‘This wouldn’t do. This is not enough.’ Wei Zhiruo hid her own nervousness in the layers of preparation, afraid to worry Marr more than he needed to be. But she wasn’t optimistic about her current preparation. There was this stifling fear gripping her heart. This uneasiness felt natural to her so she heeded to it more calmly.

She closed her eyes and looked into her inner world.

She faced the vast Sea of consciousness. The ocean thundered majestically. She hoped she didn’t have to use this specific Rune but the circumstances were dire – she was going to experiment again and most probably lose more than a decade of her life doing just this.

Wei Zhiruo thought of using an Origin Rune again. She didn’t think she would be successful on her first attempt but if this didn’t succeed right away, she would have no way out. Things were getting trickier than she liked.

“Sigh.” Wei Zhiruo closed her eyes.

She faced the sky of her inner world, eyes closed, feeling her aura melt into millions of shards, calling out to her to just do as she wished. Freedom. Wasn’t that all she had ever asked for? Was misfortune something aligned to her fate wherever she went?

Surveillance, surveillance – she hated being watched the most! And being shoved with unfounded thoughts dressed as her own? She abhorred, hated it! But would she give up? Never. She opened her eyes which had turned a shade golden and observed everywhere inside her mind.

Found it.

There was a drop of something that shouldn’t be there inside her mind. When it infiltrated her inner world and started observing it – she couldn’t tell. But she knew this was the intermediary – the link – that was being used by that game planner. He could drag her in his plans, because he saw her potential. Or rather, he wanted both of them gone. She would kill that woman – and die fighting. If he could influence her thoughts, why couldn’t it lead that woman towards her? Possibilities, endless swamp of doubts froze her mind…she looked away.

She clutched that drop and used God's speech to write down [Ablaze]; fire engulfed it and burned the drop to ashes.

Wei Zhiruo flew down to the center of the whole boundless inner world. She quickly sat down and carved. Five successive ‘God-words’ were written and submerged under the ocean bed. She chanted the hymn she had felt closest to and then saw with her own eyes as five golden chains formed a dome in her mind – creating a spectacle of furious hues merging together.

Then finally she wrote the last letter.

“If this works...” She said to herself but stopped from completing the sentence.

[Expel] the word that is said to have been uttered by the Gods when they drove any ‘sinner’ away. It was the carrier of sins to the realms of hell, and acted as the chains put on the hands of a prisoner. If she successfully incorporated its various facets in here - not much but just the bit about driving away the ‘sinner’ of her mind - she will have the last line of safety assured. No outwards surveillance could now peer through this inner world – here at least, she dictated how she felt and thought!

Wei Zhiruo felt fifty years of her life being sucked away. She was spending precious vitality like water…

“It's me,” Marr rubbed against her feet. “Don’t panic. It's not like we have never faced such a situation before. Weren’t those telepathic mages just like this thing? They changed how you thought, influenced your thinking and peeked at your secrets – but did we let them succeed? Each of them died strangled in the trench of your mind. Nothing can be omniscient – at least, I don’t think what we are facing is an omniscient being or how else would it fall down to such lowly means of disguising his intentions as your thoughts?”

“Of course, it’s just a coward. But take care of it when we go outside, don't arouse too much suspicion. We will face-off against that soul as it wants us to. But the actual battlefield – how could it be outside as decided by it? Greed – the falling of mankind. She will herself walk inside this trap.” Wei Zhiruo said looking around the grand prison she had made in her inner world and burst out laughing. “Right – like always, I’m thinking too much. Maybe she is better than that…”

The waves raged and thundered. The Origin rune’s shimmered and flashed coldly.