Lightning, fire, formations, traps, and salt. In order, that’s what you should use to hunt any Yokai. Don’t bother with poisons or a straight fight, they’re stronger than you are. The average Yokai can take three or four cultivators of equivalent cultivation because of their magic and improved core. And, quite frankly, because they’re our natural predators. –Famed Yokai Hunter, Hei Kya

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I stumbled towards the door. The qi was thick and scalding in my nose and throat. It made the deathly miasma of the Lighthouse Shade look like a gentle summer fog.

“Nice try, but I let you escape once before!” she shrieked. The growling of freshly raised corpses filled my ears. The Witch’s powers filled the room, pulling the bodies of the priests upright like puppets on her strings. They lunged for the door, coming to stand between me and my exit. Their eyes were dull and filled with malice, even if the bodies hadn’t started to decay, and they waved death infused claws at me.

“And this is why I should never have agreed to being the bait,” I muttered. If the Witch weren’t so crazy, I’d have made one of the others do it. After all, Pharyx and Pollen were stronger than me, both wielding the strength of Iron cultivators, while I was still stuck at Bronze thanks to my connection to Tenri. I would really need to get him to Iron when I got back to Saikan. I absolutely refused to remain this pathetic forever.

I pulled my bow from my back and knocked an arrow to the string. Time was short with the death qi in the air, but I stubbornly gritted my teeth and breathed as little as possible.

“Get him!”

The corpses of the priests lunged forward, but I was ready. In one swift motion, I drew the string back, breathed void into the shaft of the arrow, and released. Black mist streaked towards the first corpse, driving several inches of the shaft into the man’s chest before the mist began to eat away at his body and clothes from the inside.

I raced towards the door. Flash Forward warned me of the direction from which the second priest would strike, and I dropped to the ground, sliding under its grasping claws and coming to a halt by the still-twitching body of the first. Figuring there was no sense in wasting arrows, I yanked the projectile from the first body, put it to the string, and fired it straight into the back of the corpse that had just missed me. The force of the arrow knocked the corpse clean off its feet, as a hole began to form in its torso.

“Ugh, of course you ruined them,” the Witch muttered. “It’s so hard to find good help these days.” She turned to a third corpse, one which had not died in a convenient place to be useful in the battle. “Go and rouse the family. He’ll try to run into the streets next.”

“As far away from you as I can!” I shouted back as I yanked the door open. I sucked down fresh air in gulps as I raced across the garden and through the front gates. I spotted Pollen and Pharyx waiting nearby and nodded to them both. They readied their weapons while I took my position in the center of the market square.

The trap was set, the bait had dangled before our prey, and now we just had to wait for the spider to tumble into it. I cast a wary glance at the ground around me. Faint chalk lines had been drawn on the ground in several places around the market, but they wouldn’t work if I accidentally destroyed them with a loose bit of void qi. I set myself squarely between three of them before nocking another arrow to my bowstring.

The wood of the weapon was holding up surprisingly well, despite the fact that Pollen hadn’t had a chance to infuse it with any reinforcement arrays. Whatever new wood the fletcher had crafted it from was fine indeed. It might not hold up to the strain of a cultivator’s qi for long, but hopefully it would be enough for this fight.

I focused my thoughts, willing Flash Forward to extend out further than the next few seconds. Normally, the ability provided somewhere between two and five seconds of warning for any possible futures that could end in injury. However, with effort, and a commensurate cost of lunar qi, I could push it further in length and scope. Now, I searched for the possible outcomes where the spiders would strike.

It took several minutes of waiting. The Witch had to rally her kin, after all, but, by the time the moment came, I’d witnessed a dozen potential realities, nearly exhausting my supply of moonlight. In ten of the twelve iterations, they swarmed over the walls from the left and right. The Witch herself was less consistent, sometimes joining her kin, sometimes striking from a different angle.

After calling out instructions to Pharyx and Pollen, who adjusted their stances accordingly, I retracted my blooded technique back to its standard form. I wouldn’t be using any lunar blades or haunting moonlight in this fight, not with the Lunar Hunt so close by, but I was still relieved when the drain on my core was reduced back to normal levels. It would take time to recover that qi, but I’d manage with my void techniques.

“Here they come!” I shouted in the instant before the first leg appeared over the wall. As soon as Pharyx spotted it, he lunged upward with his lance, driving it straight into the creature’s unprotected underside. The spider shrieked in surprise and pain before it curled its legs in and tumbled dead to the ground.

At the same time, on the other side of the wall, a whirlwind of flower petals erupted around Pollen. I watched her, curious to see how this land artist fought. As if without a care in the world, Pollen plucked a petal from the cloud and hurled it at the first spider that crested the walls. It sliced a leg clean off the creature, which tumbled to the ground. Several more petals streaked towards the creature, slicing off more limbs until it was completely immobilized and left to bleed out on the ground.

Growling drew my attention back to the gate, where seven corpses were stumbling forward, emboldened by six spiders cresting the walls on either side. Pharyx’s lance shone bright as he dealt with one, and Pollen flung her petals to take down two on her side. I released my arrow, felling one of the corpses before the queens could be overrun.

Knowing that more enemies would soon come, both spirit beasts retreated away from the walls, running across the emptied market towards me. The spiders raised a small cheer as they sensed their victory close at hand. After all, they had dozens of kin and corpses, and we were only three strong.

They learned their folly quickly. The first spiders rushed forward, and Pollen smirked. The snap of her fingers rang loud and clear over the square. Pink petals exploded around the first set of spiders, shredding them with sharpened edges. A moment later, another snap, and another group of spiders fell before the Queen Bee’s intricately drawn arrays.

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“Well, that’s just rude,” the Witch said from behind us. We whirled around to see her and another corpse.

This corpse looked different than the rest I’d seen her raise. It was quiet, but its presence was imposing. In life, he was a man dressed in a cultivator’s robes, though now they were tattered and torn from exposure to death qi. His hair hung limply around his face, barely hiding glowing red eyes.

“Well, lookie here,” Pharyx sneered. “I guess we didn’t stab her hard enough last time, eh, Tsuyuki?”

“This is the Witch?” Pollen asked incredulously. “She doesn’t look like much. Her body isn’t even real.” The Witch’s face flushed red with fury, and she trembled.

“Well, some of us aren’t lucky enough to have the resources and extra qi to create humanoid spirit beasts the normal way!” she growled. “Some of us have to scrape and steal everything we have, unlike you lucky little queen bees.”

Pollen laughed. “Well, then I guess we know who the superior insects of the forest are.”

“I’M NOT AN INSECT!”

“Yeah, two too many legs, and all the lesser for it.” Pharyx held out a hand to Pollen who looked at it for a long moment before shrugging and taking it in a show of solidarity. The hornet beamed with pride and his lance started to glow with sunlight.

“You vile little…” The Witch snapped her fan open and hid behind it. “No matter. You’ll both be dead at the hands of my knight before the day is done.” Her eyes turned upward as she gazed at me over the edge of the fan. “Don’t worry, darling. You’re still prettier than this oaf, and I’ll replace him with you soon enough.”

“Is that supposed to be enticing?” I asked, drawing back my string and firing the arrow straight at the Witch’s head. In the blink of an eye, she snapped the fan shut and used the tool to slap the arrow off course.

“Leave the handsome human alive, but do what you wish with the insects,” she ordered the fearsome corpse.

“Your Majesty, keep focused on your arrays,” Pharyx said, stepping forward. “We have a score to settle with the crazy spider.”

Pollen nodded and turned back to the spiders. During the conversation, they’d become more cautious and were fanning out to find holes in the defense. However, Pollen had been extremely thorough in their creation. They were both difficult to see and scattered in a haphazard pattern that she swore made sense to her, but was a complete mystery to both Pharyx and me.

The Queen Bee lazily swished her whisk over her head. “Just try not to let it crawl back into the woodwork this time.”

“Certainly.” Pharyx readied his lance, and I knocked two arrows to the string.

The corpse didn’t move. It stood perfectly still, as if waiting. Pharyx’s patience didn’t last. His lance flared with brilliant sunlight, and he lunged at the corpse. As soon as his attack was in motion, it moved, ducking inside the effective range of the lance and landing a clean palm strike on the hornet’s chest. Pharyx sailed backwards, twisting in the air to land on his feet. As he skidded to a halt, burning solar qi erupted from his back, forming a pair of insect wings which unfurled and began fluttering. Buzzing filled the air as Pharyx rushed forward again, this time leaping high into the air. With a cry of fury, he brought the lance down.

Solar qi met death qi in a small explosion of light. The corpse’s arms were raised in defense, but Pharyx’s overwhelming strength was slowly pushing him back. So long as he was fending off the hornet, the corpse’s defenses were open!

I fired off four arrows in two quick bursts. Each one was laced with void qi, and the corpse grunted as each arrow hit its mark. Four holes began to burn away at his clothes, but the corpse remained strong.

“I think you’ll find this one is stronger than the rest, aren’t you, Master Administrator?” The Witch laughed as the corpse growled. It’s muscles bulged with qi, no doubt surging along meridians created by the cultivator in life, empowering him. He surged upward, knocking Pharyx back several meters into the sky.

The hornet narrowed his eyes. “Don’t you know it’s stupid to swat at a wasp? It just makes us angry!”

Three more arrows made their homes in the corpse’s legs as Pharyx fell upon the corpse with the burning fury of a solar flare. He stabbed, feinted, then stabbed again, darting around the corpse with incredible speed. I didn’t dare shoot at the two, for fear I’d accidentally hit the hornet. You’d never think that he was actually slow for his kind…

However, I wasn’t at a loss for targets. The Witch watched the fight with great interest, not doing battle herself, but it was her qi that fueled the undead cultivator. An arrow sailed towards her, trailing a comet tail of black mist. She knocked it aside, just as she’d done the first one, but I had never expected to actually hit her.

Instead, I used the opportunity to close the distance between us. My arrows were ineffective, but I had other tools. The fan swept to the side to knock the next arrow from the air, but the distraction allowed me to close the gap, striking her arm with a fearsome palm strike.

She gritted her teeth. “Are you so eager to die?” The blow had landed weak upon her, confirming my suspicion that she was higher than Bronze. However, given the power she’d displayed already, she couldn’t be more than Iron. There was a limit to the corpses she could raise and the power they had. Only after the rest had been slain had she entered the fight with her champion.

The witch clawed at me with death-infused nails, and I ducked under the blow before following up with a Disintegrating Touch that slammed into her stomach. She coughed and stumbled backwards. Even if she was Iron, her martial prowess was clearly lacking.

An enormous burst of sunlight and heat washed over me as Pharyx howled in anger. His lance sank into the corpse’s back and the cultivator gurgled.

“Finish it!” the hornet shouted. In an instant, my arrow was nocked and filled with the void.

“No! Don’t!” The Witch tried to grab at my sleeve to disrupt my shot, but it was too late. Between the unbridled power of sunlight and the all-consuming hunger of the void, the corpse was burned and disintegrated until nothing remained but ash.

“Watch out!” Pollen cried. Flash Forward provided more context for her warning. Two streams of sticky silk streaked towards Pharyx and I from different directions. I ducked out of the way, but the hornet was less lucky.

His wings became tangled in the sticky fibers, and he tumbled to the ground. A moment later, Pollen’s razor-sharp petals eliminated the spiders who’d shot them.

“Sorry, they temporarily slipped from my net,” the honeybee said. “Won’t happen again.”

With her champion defeated, the Witch twitched several times in surprise. Then she turned with a terrified squeak and fled down the streets.

“S-stop them!” she called to her kin. More spiders, a whole nest of them, swarmed down the buildings towards us.

“Did they move the whole colony here or something?” Pharyx muttered, raising his lance.

“Doesn’t matter, we can’t let her get away this time,” I said. I drew two arrows back on my string, breathing void into each one and aiming towards the Witch.

But, in that moment, my breath caught. The Bronze band around my core squeezed so tight, I thought the poor thing might split in two. I released the string, my hands suddenly twitching in shock, and the arrows went wide, slamming into several buildings instead of my target.

I fell to a knee, wondering why it had suddenly become so tight. What was going on? Was Tenri alright?

I heard Pharyx call out in alarm before darkness overtook my vision and I was swallowed by suffocating nothingness.