The trap had been set with precision born of exhaustion and necessity.
Qingran crouched low behind the warped tal shelves of the pharmacy, her breathing shallow, her hands steady despite the bruising ache in her ribs.
Glass shards, ripped wiring, and scavenged accelerants, all arranged in a tight kill zone around the entrance.
The mont the first cultist broke through the doorway, the trap went off.
A blinding flash.
Then a shriek.
The explosion tore through the entrance with controlled fury. Shrapnel burst outward, catching the first wave of cultists in the throat and chest.
Three dropped instantly, their cries cut short by the jagged remnants of Qingran’s trap.
The others, startled, stumbled back, coughing in the rising smoke.
She moved.
With her azure flas coiling low and silent in her palm, Qingran launched herself into the fray before the shock wore off.
Her body scread with every impact, but the rhythm was familiar now.
Burn, dodge, strike.
A cultist’s sleeve caught fire; another scread as a blade of azure fla pierced his abdon.
[Six down,] Lingquan reported, voice tight. [They’re still pushing in. You’ve got maybe seventy left outside. They’re spreading out around the building.]
One cultist lunged from the side, a masked woman with too-wide eyes and a glass syringe in hand.
Qingran twisted to intercept, slamming her knee into the woman’s gut. The syringe slipped—
—but another grabbed her from behind.
"Got her—!"
Pain lanced through Qingran’s neck.
The syringe stabbed into her skin, too fast for her to avoid. She jerked violently, flas flaring out, incinerating the man behind her, but not before the burning liquid had been pumped into her bloodstream.
"Damn it!" she hissed, staggering back.
[Qingran—!]
Her vision tilted.
The world throbbed, blurred.
She slashed upward blindly, forcing the others back. Three more went down as her flas surged.
Her breath ca in harsh, short bursts. Her limbs tingled.
"What the hell did they inject with?"
[Unknown compound. I have no idea what it is. I’ve tried running an analysis, no results..]
Qingran blood ran cold. "My God.."
She clenched her fists, they were still so many people outside. She couldn’t stay here.
"Im going to burn this place to the ground. So if you don’t want to die. Get out right now.."
The flas in her hands grew brighter, licking everything and anything they could find.
Shelves toppled. Bottles burst. Alcohol-soaked gauze ignited with a hiss.
The fire spread like a living beast, feeding on the pharmacy’s dry remains and the volatile chemicals stashed inside. Smoke billowed up in choking waves, black and thick, curling toward the ceiling and oozing through the broken cracks of the second floor.
Qingran didn’t wait.
She burst through a side passage, kicking down the remnants of a barricaded door and ducking into the debris-strewn hallway. Behind her, the roar of the fire masked the cries of wounded cultists and the muffled chaos of those still outside. So tried to push in, but most backed away. Their job had been done: she was marked, infected. That was all they needed.
They didn’t chase her.
She didn’t care.
She ran.
Her boots skidded over cracked tile and soot-covered stairs, slipping once as the hallway leaned dangerously to one side — a sign of the building’s instability. Her lungs burned from smoke and exertion. Her vision wavered, pulling double for split seconds before snapping back.
She didn’t stop.
Down through the back stairwell. Out through a collapsed window. Her arms scraped against rusted tal as she crawled through. Then out into the open — air thick with smoke, but freer than the flas that clawed at her back.
She ran.
Her legs obeyed on instinct, pounding across broken concrete, ash swirling around her ankles like dead snow. The pain started at her spine — a searing thread that curled upward and downward in opposite directions, wrapping around nerves and bone like a snake. Her steps faltered.
She kept going.
Only when her body hit the treeline, where the cracked city t overgrown brush, did her legs finally betray her.
Qingran collapsed.
Her body hit the dirt hard, but she didn’t feel it — not through the burning scream that now flooded her bloodstream. Her breath ca in shallow, high-pitched pants. Sweat poured from her temples, soaking into her collar, but she was freezing.
[Qingran—]
"Stop," she whispered. "Don’t talk. I can’t think—"
[You’re not okay. You need to neutralize it—]
"I don’t know what it is," she snapped, teeth gritted, her fingers digging into the dirt. "Neither do you!"
[Trying to help!]
Her hands shook uncontrollably. She ripped open her space and yanked out painkillers — two, then four, then six tablets.
They hit her tongue.
She swallowed dry.
And scread.
The pain spiked violently. A thousand blades scraping from the inside, curling under her ribs, slicing through her spine. Her breath stopped entirely for a mont. She could only writhe.
[Qingran, Qingran—!]
She choked, curled into herself, her fingers gouging at the grass as the first tremor ripped through her body.
Her vision was bleeding at the edges now. Blurred. Grayed. Like drowning under ink.
"I can’t— I can’t—"
[The compound’s reacting with your system energy. It’s feeding off it.]
"Then suppress it— Do sothing!" she rasped.
[I can’t. I can’t touch it. It’s not system-based. It’s like— it’s like Rift rot but alive.]
Alive. Mutating. Changing her from the inside out.
She coughed violently, and the taste in her mouth turned to copper. Blood splattered onto her wrist.
[Qingran—Qingran, stay awake—!]
But she couldn’t.
Her body had nothing left to give.
Her pulse faded to a low, staggering rhythm. Pain still clawed up her spine, but her nerves had stopped registering it clearly.
Only fog remained.
And the faint voice of Lingquan shouting her na.
[QINGRAN! Dammit, I can’t fucking help you if you’re unconscious. Wake up!] Lingquan begged, he changed to his car form, licking her face but she wouldn’t wake up.
[The only way I can help her, is to send soone her way..]
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