SECTOR 17B — HIGHWAY OVERPASS. AREA 001.
Twilight bled into the sky, a vicious, tallic red. The overpass lood above the empty suburban sprawl like a half-eaten carcass, rebar twisting from its sides like broken ribs. Concrete dust shimred faintly in the dying light, disturbed by the occasional groan of the unstable rift warping the atmosphere.
Sowhere above, faint howling threaded through the sky—not quite wind, not quite voice.
A low hum vibrated across the quarantine periter. Spirit anchors, installed by MSR field engineers, blinked green in rhythmic pulses—flickering slightly every ti the rift flexed. The jade glow marked their divine-legal status as recognized stabilization points.
But even with anchors in place, the veil was thin here.
Thirty minutes ago, the last evacuation shuttles had pulled out. Civilian evacuation complete. MSR maintenance squads had been ordered back—too risky to let unarmored mortals in a zone tagged A-Class.
Not a single mortal remained.
This was Strike Team A's hunting ground now.
ng Yao stood at the front, immaculate as ever, black suit and silver braid whipping in the distortion winds. Her gloved fingers tapped across her wrist console with sharp, chanical precision. Barely visible, a pair of rabbit ears flickered above her crown—an unmistakable sign that Tactic mory was active.
Through her retinal overlay, terrain fractures mapped themselves in clean lines. Seal degradation rates scrolled down the right. Rift heartbeat pattern pulsed on the left. Crosswind pressure, residual spirit traces, vibration frequencies—all rendered in cool, elegant trics. She absorbed it all with terrifying stillness.
Behind her, the squad spread out, checking gear one last ti.
Yeeko, mask halfway tugged up over his nose, coughed lightly.
"Air's already tainted." His voice was dry as sandpaper. "Whatever's coming, it's been leaking longer than reported."
Finn grinned, already flicking explosive talismans between his fingers. "Doesn't matter. It's gonna die either way."
Runan, expressionless as usual, cracked his knuckles once—faint glimrs of sealing runes etched along his knuckles catching the last light. Beside him, Chewie flipped the scanner blade in her palm absentmindedly, watching the distortion ahead with unreadable eyes.
Then, the air split. A thin crack appeared midair—just a hairline fracture at first—before yawning open with a sickening lurch.
Sothing dragged itself out of the rift, one limb at a ti.
Ash flaked off its body in choking clouds. Bone-white armor sloughed from its fra, revealing fangs the size of human torsos—molten and jagged. A skeletal titan, cobbled together from the remnants of corrupted spirit minerals and half-lted demon cores.
The Ash-Fanged Warden.
Across the scarred overpass, a single translucent screen buzzed alive, unfurling glowing letters:
[Mission ID: RSP-A-1124]
Priority: Urgent
Assigned Unit: Team A – Fast-Response Rift Suppression
Target Location: Sector 17B, Abandoned Highway Overpass
Threat Level: A-Class Rift Entity ("Ash-Fanged Warden")
Objective: Eliminate entity core within 15 minutes of breach.
Tools Authorized: Full combat seal-loadout. Jade-tier spirit anchors permissible.
Notes: Possible secondary collapse. Speed critical.
The ground underfoot trembled as the Warden slamd a clawed hand onto the ruined highway, the corrupted energy leeching into the asphalt. Everything it touched began to desaturate, greying out like a dying mory.
Finn moved first, a gust of wind lifting his frizzy bangs to reveal dichromatic eyes. He tossed twin talismans that blossod into roaring detonations at the Warden's exposed knee joints.
"Easy!" he crowed.
The Warden roared, and the very sound warped space. Shards of broken asphalt lifted into the air, spinning into a spiralling spectral storm.
Finn's cocky grin faltered—
But before the attack could reach him, Runan blurred into place, intercepting the blow with a flawless open-palm seal burst. The force bent reality itself for a half-second, enough to shove the attack wide before it could decapitate their striker.
"Idiot," Runan muttered under his breath.
Behind them, Yeeko was already moving, slipping along the flanks with eerie silence. He slapped miniature demolition talismans onto key fracture points along the highway—not enough to collapse it entirely, but enough to force the Warden's movents.
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And above them all, ng Yao's voice cut through the chaos like steel wire:
"Anchor it at the eastbound girder. Chewie—cut the right forelimb first. Yeeko—sector eight charges ready on my mark."
Her ability flooded her with real-ti schematics, down to the micro-fractures under the overpass asphalt. The entire battlefield bent under her optimisation.
"Copy," Chewie said simply, her blade expanding into full lethal mode with a hum of ancient runes.
"Charges in place," Yeeko rasped.
Finn, flipping another talisman into his palm, turned to Runan. "Bet you ten jade stones I tag it before you can even blink."
Runan looked at him with dead eyes. "You'll be unconscious before you finish blinking."
The Warden lunged, faster than a creature its size had any right to move. The squad split like water, their practiced synergy kicking in without hesitation.
And then among them all, Chewie moved.
Like a bullet from a silent rifle.
The eleven-year-old blitzed forward—a flash of crimson and steel—slipping beneath the Warden's swinging claws with inhuman agility. One second, she was crouched behind Finn's forward cover, and the next, her blade arced upward, slicing into the Warden's corrupted shoulder joint with surgical precision.
A spray of molten ash burst from the wound, hissing against the cold night air.
Across her exposed arms, for a split second, intricate scars—old, ancient war markings—flickered to life. A reminder of a much older, far more terrifying identity buried beneath her borrowed flesh.
ng Yao sidestepped debris and spoke into her comms without so much as glancing up. "Secondary fracture detected at its sternum. Finn, reroute your seals."
"Got it, boss lady!" Finn chirped.
"Don't call that."
While reloading, Finn grumbled audibly enough for Runan to smirk.
anwhile, above the furious roar of the crippled Warden, ng Yao spared a glance at Chewie during a the brief lull.
"You've adapted better to this vessel than I expected."
Chewie gave her a side glance, not even breaking stride as she pivoted into a second strike. "Takes practice. Didn't choose it... But it works."
ng Yao's mouth twitched—not quite a smile.
"Suits you quite well."
"I didn't ask."
With the creature boxed into a kill zone, Finn's mid-range talismans and Runan's palm seals drove it downward like iron stakes through an ancient beast's heart.
Across the battlefield, Chewie ducked a corrupted claw swipe and vaulted up the beast's armoured spine. As she drove her blade deeper into the Warden's exposed ribs, she thought, half amused:
If Eathan saw like this, he'd probably shit his pants.
And with that cheerful thought, she drove her blade straight through the creature's central core, igniting a roar of collapsing energy that ripped across the crumbling ruins like a sonic boom.
The Warden's final screech ripped through the air—then shattered all together. A sickly shockwave pulsed outward, rattling their bones. Ash fluttered down like filthy snow.
Chewie landed lightly from her last strike, blade dripping luminous ichor. Yeeko's perfectly tid detonations collapsed the overpass's last support struts, cutting off its escape route. Runan sealed the west flank with fluid strikes, anchoring every secondary rift trying to bud off.
The rift, gnawing the sky open monts before, collapsed in a muted whoomph. Spirit anchors along the overpass flared steadily green, stabilizing the wounded sector. The spiritual static in the air lightened almost imdiately, leaving only the heavy scent of dust and half-burned ozone.
ng Yao's wrist console beeped once.
[TIR]: 00:12:06
She clicked her tongue softly.
"Thirty seconds faster next ti. Finn, over-extended your second volley. And Runan, too conservative on your third anchor shift."
"Understood," Runan said curtly, without a flicker of offense.
Finn, wiping a sar of blood off his collar, smirked lopsidedly. "Hey, still beat the clock. What did I say—" he flicked a glance at the slowly dissipating rift, "—easy job, right?"
Yeeko coughed lightly into his sleeve, muttering sothing about jinxes.
As they regrouped under the crumbling archways, Finn cocked his head as he suddenly recalled sothing. "Wonder how Team B's doing. Heard the intern's got so... special attention?"
Runan, still cinching a wrist seal taut, shook his head. "Only a fool guesses the commander's plans."
ng Yao shot Finn a flat, glinting look—the kind that promised paperwork drills if he kept yapping.
Finn shut his mouth imdiately.
***
HQ. AREA 001.
Deep within HQ's restricted zone, reality itself buzzed faintly.
The air inside was cool and heavy, insulated by dense layers of enchantnt and modern tech.
Taeril sat languidly at the far end of a dim conference room, the soft blue light of a semi-runic channel washing over his posture.
A steaming cup of black coffee rested at his fingertips.
The encrypted semi-runic link lit up, and across the channel, Li Wei's feed stabilized. The man crouched haphazardly over a battered holopad, chopsticks dangling two strands of soggy instant noodles mid-bite.
Taeril, sipping slowly, arched an eyebrow: "You look well."
Li Wei, noodles dangling, squinted: "...Can you not?"
Deciding to ignore the white-haired man's reaction for his well-being, Li Wei clicked onto a half-dozen holographic windows floating in front of him. The tabs were filled with RealmNet traffic graphs, sentint trackers, and—sowhat hilariously—a betting pool spreadsheet marked "Council Collapse Odds."
"Heated is an understatent," he muttered. "RealmNet's turning into a cosmic casino. So of the immortals are even running bets on who gets voted out first."
Taeril humd lowly. "Lady Foxfire?"
"Top contender," Li Wei confird grimly, scrolling past another of Great Peng photoshopped over a stock image of a CEO getting fired. "Council's weak right now. One swing seat already empty. If you fall, they'll scramble to install replacents—aning the Jade Deity'll have to intervene."
He pushed his laptop aside and leaned forward, more serious now.
"Ao Bing, Wen, and Qiongqi are all banking on it. It's a perfect storm for a power reshuffle."
Taeril simply nodded, as if none of it concerned him directly. Li Wei tapped another tab open. The screen shifted to more covert reports: tadata, transmission flags, node interference rates.
"Also. Council dogs left fleas in your house."
aning: sabotage agents. Already burrowed in deep.
Li Wei's mouth twisted into a thin, sardonic line. "No obvious proof. No smoking gun. But the patterns are there. Small sabotage, operational leaks, misreported equilibrium readings. Enough to chip you apart slowly without looking suspicious."
He shrugged.
"They're betting you'll bleed yourself dry before you even see them."
Taeril set down his coffee with a soft click. For a mont, only silence ruled the room. Then, his voice erged, light and casual as a scalpel sliding beneath the skin.
"Good. Saves the trouble of hunting."
Li Wei blinked. "...I forgot you're insane."
Taeril didn't argue.
A shadow converged near the door fra. A knock, and ng Yao appeared outside the glass doors a mont later, back from her sector report. She bowed crisply, a cigarette case in her gloved hand—a habitual offering.
Taeril glanced at it, amused, but waved her off. Instead, he rose fluidly to his feet, the shadows stretching long behind him. His expression didn't change, yet sothing older was stirring beneath his skin.
Words soft, almost gentle, trickled into the air:
"Prepare the list."
His eyes glinted—not with rage, but the cold, amused precision of a predator who had been waiting far too long.
"Tonight," Taeril said, "we clean house."
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