Against a backdrop of hellish carnage, the breathtaking dark-haired woman drew her sword — the blade sang a clear, brook-and-willow note as it cleared the scabbard, yet carried within it an incomparable killing intent.
Li Fei leveled the tip of her sword at Yusura, her voice sharp and cold:
"Was this your doing?"
Yusura had not yet changed out of his white robes. He leaned on a long wooden staff, his deep, weathered eyes giving the impression of profound wisdom.
Faced with Li Fei's accusation, his expression remained utterly calm, his voice without so much as a ripple:
"That's correct."
"Why?"
"When you set foot on a new continent, you naturally bury the rotting, bloated old vessel with proper ceremony."
A look of sorrowful compassion crossed Yusura's face. "I could not bear to watch my own kin suffer and toil in this cage — so I helped them find release, and bid farewell to the pain of this world."
"Then let me help you find release too."
Li Fei's eyes took on a killing light. She raised her sword and walked toward Yusura.
She didn't dare run — if she moved too fast, Grace might not be able to hold her back in time, and the whole performance would fall apart.
Faced with a killing intent cold enough to cut bone, Yusura showed not a trace of fear. Instead, he spread his arms wide, presenting himself like a man ready to be taken into custody:
"I was under the impression we had already reached a mutual non-aggression agreement."
"I'm breaking it."
Li Fei halted, her voice resolute. "Even if the Principle Contract turns on me — even if I'm left a cripple for it, tormented by the curse day and night — I will see justice done for every soul that was wronged here. Otherwise, I cannot live with myself."
"No."
Grace seized Li Fei by the shoulder. "This is not your fault."
"Let go. Am I, Li Fei, the sort of person who clings to life out of cowardice?"
Li Fei spoke with righteous conviction: "Grace, there's no need to stop me. My mind is made up."
Grace stubbornly shook her head and gripped Li Fei's arm even tighter — but said nothing as pointless as "let me do it instead."
This old half-orc was mad, certainly, but he was no fool. He would never have left something as glaring as "I won't kill you, but if my companion does it's none of my concern" as a loophole in the Principle Contract — he would never have allowed Li Fei the luxury of killing by proxy.
In fact, one of the contract's clauses read: "to protect the safety of Yusura's family to the best of one's ability within one year." This meant that if they died of illness, old age, or in circumstances beyond Li Fei's foresight, she bore no responsibility — but if she deliberately plotted against them, or knowingly allowed harm to befall them when she had the power to prevent it, that would constitute a breach.
The consequences were severe. After all, it was hardly ideal to keep making Tinbao clean up her messes — who knew how much effort that flower-queen would need to spend making up the deficit.
"Ah!"
Suddenly Li Fei heard a sharp cry. She spun around to see Kenan — tears of blood streaming down his face — shove his new bride aside. In silence, he hefted his axe and walked toward Yusura, as though he intended to follow in Arthas's footsteps and pay filial tribute to his father in the only way left to him.
"Kenan. Don't forget what I told you."
Yusura's voice was measured and guiding. "Don't forget your purpose. Consider the cost before you act."
"Is this the cost you paid?"
Kenan's face contorted. He pointed at the carpet of tribal bodies behind him.
"Is that a problem? Surely you weren't actually planning to take everyone with you?"
Yusura appeared genuinely surprised. "Were you?"
"Then why did you kill them!"
Kenan let out a roar.
"What gave you the delusion that being chieftain meant you could freely dispose of all the wealth this tribe has accumulated over generations?"
Yusura let out a slow sigh. "In order to remove unnecessary obstacles and achieve the final goal without impediment — one must always make trade-offs."
"Was all of this truly worth it?"
The blood-tears had matted the fur on Kenan's face into clumps. His voice was trembling.
"When I was young, I thought being able to eat until I was full without a care in the world was the greatest happiness there was."
Yusura let out a long, quiet sigh, his tone gentle, as though telling the young Kenan a bedtime story: "When I was twelve, an accident gave me access to knowledge left behind by the ancient ones... Before long, I stood out in what was then a tribe of only a few dozen people, and managed to eat two full meals a day. But I found a new source of misery — the chieftain's daughter had me thinking about her every waking hour and lying awake every night."
"By sixteen, the chieftain's daughter had given birth to our second child after we wed. By then, my ambitions were already burning — I was fighting for the chieftain's seat."
"At nineteen, I led my warriors home in triumph, laden with grain and prisoners. But when I returned in high spirits, I found that while we were away, my dozen-odd children had been dashed to death by cave-dwellers; my wife's hands and feet had been staked into the ground with wooden spikes — not a single patch of skin on her whole body left intact, her eyes frozen wide open. All seven of my concubines had met the same fate. It was then that I swore to exterminate every last cave-dweller."
"Gradually, I ran out of enemies. The tribe grew ever larger... everyone respected me, everyone was grateful to me. The entire tribe — no, the entire world — was mine."
Yusura's voice grew heavier and heavier, edged now with madness:
"But do you know — apart from those first few years, nearly every single minute of my life has been torment."
"Everything in the tribe is mine to command — yet whether it was the females who threw themselves at me, or the gratitude and reverence of my kin, all of it made me feel... bored. Bored! Bored!"
The old half-orc's face twisted into something savage. "Rather than drag out my existence in a world this tedious, I would sooner burn along with the tribe until we are utterly consumed, and go out in a blaze of magnificent ruin!"
"I want to defeat those stone monsters at the end of the river — to see what lies beyond with my own eyes! That is the one and only reason I have left to live!"
Having said this, Yusura paused — then suddenly let out a short, self-deprecating snort:
"Through conversations with outsiders and years of probing, I have come to understand that even if I raised ten thousand well-trained, fully equipped warriors, victory would still be far from certain. I also know that even if we broke through the stone monsters' line and charged out — death would still be waiting on the other side."
"But that doesn't matter!"
"As long as I can get out — leave this damned cage — even for just one second, I would willingly pay any price. Any price at all!"
After that hoarse, ragged roar, Yusura's agitation slowly subsided.
He fixed his gaze on Kenan, his eyes dark and fathomless:
"A pity time was not on my side — and so there was you."
"And now, in this moment, when I had already given up and could only entrust the dream of my remaining years to descendants of my bloodline... I see hope."
"To seize that hope, any price is worth paying."
"My child, you should understand... everything I have done has been in service of a greater good."
He extended his hand toward Kenan:
"The ship of the old age has capsized. Come with me to the new world."
Kenan stared blankly at his father. That familiar face looked, in this moment, utterly alien to him.
The father he had been proud of since childhood — the tribe's strongest and cleverest warrior, the hero who had swept away every external threat and brought prosperity — had now, for his own selfish desires, destroyed with his own hands the very tribe he had once fought to build.
"Heh... haha... hahahaha..."
Kenan seemed to break. Tears of blood streaming down his face, he laughed a broken, wretched laugh.
In an instant, he raised his stone axe with every ounce of his strength and charged at Yusura without a moment's hesitation.
And only when the axe swung down toward the father he had worshipped and depended on since he was small did Kenan finally let out a hysterical, anguished cry:
AOOOO!!!!
...Please don't let this old bastard get hacked to death after all that buildup.
Li Fei had just finished savoring the sight of a hero turning into the very dragon he once slew. She narrowed her eyes and closed her hand around her sword hilt, poised and ready.
Through the shriek of cleaving air, the son's axe-blade descended toward the father's skull.
Facing the roaring axe, Yusura merely gave an almost imperceptible shake of his head. He tilted his upper body with a minimal shift — a movement so small it was barely anything — and sidestepped the all-or-nothing strike. At the same moment, his right hand balled into a fist, power condensing into a single concentrated force; with a torque of his shoulder, his arm shot out like a coiled spring and slammed into Kenan's abdomen, then pulled back with a dull thud the instant it made contact.
"Keep a cool head in combat," Yusura said mildly, admonishing his son — who was doubled over, clutching his stomach and shaking.
Kenan spat up two mouthfuls of blood. He looked half-crazed. Howling, he straightened back up and swung his axe — the stone axe known as Grief of Frost — in a wild frenzy, his crimson eyes looking ready to tear flesh.
"Your front is open and your rear is exposed."
Yusura sighed. The long staff that served as his walking cane swept upward in a vicious arc, angled with cruel precision, and with enough force to leave an ordinary man unable to father children for the rest of his life.
Without any surprise, under that strike — so very full of a father's love — Kenan folded at the waist and crumpled to the ground. Yet even then his mouth continued to murmur the same words over and over, slurring but relentless:
"Kill you... kill you... kill you..."
Hiss... this old bastard actually has some moves.
Having observed the heartwarming display of father-son bonding, Li Fei suddenly realized that Yusura — who had been fighting for the better part of his life — had long since honed his combat technique to a razor's edge: vicious, precise, and ruthless. Even aged and diminished, he could make Kenan understand what "the older the ginger, the hotter the bite" meant with a casual flick of his wrist.
It was obvious that Kenan taking on ten men singlehandedly at the wedding had involved some degree of performance. But if Yusura were returned to his prime, he could probably do it for real...
Li Fei regarded Kenan with a wary eye — and saw, in him, a vision of what she herself might one day become.
Maxed-out stats with godlike gear made grinding trash mobs easy — any idiot could manage. But against an opponent of comparable raw strength, it came down to technique. Li Fei made a quiet inner vow to carve out time for practical combat training when she got back, lest she ever be knocked flat by someone with inferior attributes and equipment. That would be truly, profoundly embarrassing...
While Li Fei's thoughts were drifting, Kenan's wife had already run to her husband's side, tears pouring down her face — whether she was pained for him or anxious about the state of their brand-new marriage was impossible to say.
Li Fei took an unobtrusive glance at the newlywed wife — built like a wall — then looked away.
Half-orcs. Not because she couldn't. Simply because she very much did not want to.
"Forgive the spectacle."
Yusura smiled at Li Fei with considerable grace, resuming the appearance of a kindly, honest elder. "Shall our arrangement continue?"
"I've thought it through," Li Fei said.
She gave a light pat to Grace's hand where it gripped her arm — a signal to stand down — and said coldly: "Someone like you isn't worth burning myself to the ground over and leaving those who care about me in mourning."
She raised her index and middle fingers to her own eyes, then pointed them at Yusura. "But once we're back in Loxibrook, I'll be watching you."
"If you ever dare commit such an abomination again, I will take your head — no matter what it costs me."
Old bastard — he's got talent... I'll need to make some proper arrangements.
Li Fei made a quiet decision.
"As you wish," Yusura said, smiling pleasantly.
"Within three days, I'll get you both out of here."
Li Fei dropped those words, took Grace's hand, and turned to leave without a backward glance.
...
The night passed without incident.
When the sky brightened, Li Fei reached out and touched Grace's cheek, her voice gentle: "You can stop pretending to be asleep."
Grace opened her eyes. The moment she moved to sit up, Li Fei pressed one finger to her chest, pinning her in place.
A warm fragrance drifted close. Grace felt a warmth bloom on her left cheek:
"That's a good-morning kiss."
Then her right cheek warmed in turn:
"And thank you for talking me down last night — this one's your reward."
"Of course, this is strictly friendship — just friendship, mind you! No funny business!"
By the time Grace came back to her senses, Li Fei had already slipped out of the tent, leaving behind only the bright trailing notes of her laughter.
Breakfast was bread with vegetables and meat. Over the past few hours, Li Fei's mood seemed to have settled somewhat — she chatted and joked with Grace as they ate. Both of them, by unspoken agreement, made no mention of the half-orc tribe.
She has to bring someone that deranged back to Loxibrook with her own hands... she must be suffering terribly inside...
Grace watched Li Fei putting on a cheerful front, and quietly ached for her.
A quarter-hour later, a broom rose into a clear sky, carrying two fully prepared young women — and left the ruined, death-scarred land steadily behind.
Grace sat astride the broom to steer, while Li Fei sat sideways behind her, arms wrapped around that slender, firm waist, head resting on her shoulder, legs swinging idly as she spoke in a languid drawl: "You know — once, someone took me flying and we had a mid-air accident... It left me terrified of sharing a flying mount with anyone. I'd be on the verge of a breakdown."
"But when you're carrying me, I feel completely at ease... Why is that, do you think?"
A barely-there smile broke across Grace's otherwise impeccable poker face. She turned her head toward Li Fei and opened her mouth to reply — but the deeply safety-conscious Li Fei immediately shoved her head back forward, feigning indignation:
"Eyes on the road!"
Grace's cheeks puffed almost imperceptibly:
"Trust me."
"You already know I'm a witch, you know."
Li Fei tilted her head with a faint, coy shyness. "Doesn't that count as trusting you?"
"It counts."
"Right then — swap when you're at half mana. We take turns on the broom and keep a reserve in case of emergencies."
"Mm."
In easy, unhurried conversation, the broom pressed onward.
Somewhere along the way, without either of them quite noticing, they had traded positions: Li Fei now rode at the front steering the broom, while Grace sat carefully behind her, holding her waist with the delicate constraint of someone afraid to overstep.
"Look."
Li Fei suddenly pointed downward.
On the ground below, patches of miasma were drifting and spreading. Viewed from above, they looked like pale-green splotches of paint scattered across a lush green canvas.
Grace lowered her gaze, watching the miasma being left behind beneath them stretch after stretch. Her mood gradually dimmed and grew heavy, tinged with something that refused to be suppressed.
According to the markings on the map and the case files, the miasma only appeared in the second half of the river's course — which made Grace realize that this Folded Space journey was drawing to a close, and with it, her time alone with Li Fei.
Back in Loxibrook, she would be someone else's girlfriend again...
"Don't worry."
Li Fei seemed to notice the shift in Grace's mood, and reassured her with breezy confidence: "I'm very steady on a broom — there absolutely will not be an accident!"
"Besides, this miasma isn't lethal to us. A few breaths of it is no big deal — and even if we actually did fall, we could easily find higher ground and keep clear of it."
"Mm..."
Grace gave an absent-minded reply, drawing her arms a little tighter and pressing the two of them more closely together.
— Time to act.
Having just raised her flag, Li Fei began scanning her surroundings.
She quickly spotted a picturesque little hillside ahead.
The slope was carpeted in rich green grass, bathed in warm sunlight, with a cheerful stream trickling nearby — and the hilltop was free of miasma.
Meanwhile, the miasma cloaking the lower hillside formed a perfect barrier against outsiders — Li Fei and Grace could pass through that poisonous fog-belt with ease, but to half-orcs and cave-dwellers, this place was an unmistakable forbidden zone.
If Yusura's plan of "assembling a force of ten thousand to challenge the final boss" were ever to be carried out, it would require sending scouts years in advance, mapping the miasma's patterns, stockpiling enough herbs and several days' worth of provisions, and carefully threading through the densest miasma zones — all before the army could even reach the river's end, battered and spent, to face the merciless "stone monsters."
This hillside... is quite the gem.
Perfect for camping. For a picnic. And for something a little more wild...
Li Fei narrowed her eyes with considerable satisfaction and touched the Silencing Earrings.
Here. Right now!
Having made up her mind, Li Fei fired two Stone Skin spells into the air in rapid succession — and since she forced the second cast before the first spell model had cooled, there was only one possible consequence.
A sharp, throbbing pain at her temple. The backlash-induced dizziness surged instantly through Li Fei's mind.
Because she had cut off the second cast in time, the backlash was not severe — but it was more than enough to drain all color from Li Fei's face in an instant.
"Oh no — the after-effects of my soul damage are acting up!"
The ashen-faced Li Fei let out a sudden cry of alarm, her body lurching unsteadily.
The broom, as if losing control, began pitching and nose-diving straight toward the hillside.
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