Chapter 267: The Doctor's Vision
After an ordeal that felt like an eternity, her body a canvas of scrapes and bruises, Chuychu finally stumbled, panting, to the edge of the pit's exit.
Hope, however, shattered the moment it appeared. The opening was completely sealed by a dense, suffocating tangle of vines, woven into a thick, purple net that pulsed with the corrupting aura of the Hollow. Her only escape route was gone.
"No…" Chuychu's breath hitched. She hastily drew the sharp shortsword from her waist—a tool meant for self-defense and gathering herbs—and, mustering what little strength she had left, slashed at the thorny barrier.
Clang!
The jarring sound of metal striking something impossibly hard echoed in the confined space. The blade only managed to leave a shallow, white scratch on the vines before the impact sent a violent vibration up her arm, numbing it to the elbow. The toughness of these plants was beyond anything she could have imagined.
At that same moment, heavy, dragging footsteps echoed from the shadows behind her.
Chuychu whirled around. A tall, monstrous figure was slowly emerging from the darkness at the bottom of the pit. It retained the mimetic form of a Mitachurl, but its eyes were vacant, lifeless pits. Instead of elemental power, it was wreathed in a condensed, dark-purple Hollow energy, and vine-like patterns seemed to writhe just beneath its skin. It was a Deep Abyssal Blight.
There was no way forward, and a powerful enemy was closing in from behind.
Chuychu pressed her back against the cold, unyielding vine net, her breath coming in ragged gasps as sweat trickled down her temples. Her stamina was nearly gone, and her weapon was useless against the obstruction.
Despair, like a cold tide, threatened to engulf her once more.
But in the next instant, she snapped her head up. Those eyes, usually filled with a gentle physician's concern, now burned with an unmatched flame of determination. She was a doctor, a warrior who protected life. Even in the bleakest of circumstances, she would never simply lie down and wait for death.
"Come on!" she growled, her knuckles white around the hilt of her shortsword. She fell into the defensive stance her older sister, Chasca, had taught her—the one best suited for short weapons.
The mimetic Mitachurl let out a low roar, brandishing a great-axe crackling with Electro energy as it charged. The heavy axe blade tore through the air with a sharp whistle, crashing down toward her.
Chuychu didn't try to meet it head-on. Her petite frame, like a willow catkin caught in the wind, slid sideways at the last possible second, the axe blade missing her by a hair's breadth. At the same time, the shortsword in her hand shot out like a striking viper, precisely and swiftly carving a gash deep into the monster's axe-wielding arm. A dark-purple, viscous liquid, like corrupted tree sap, oozed from the wound.
With one successful strike, Chuychu didn't hesitate. Exploiting the moment the monster's movements slowed from the injury, she ducked under its arm and thrust her shortsword backward into the soft tissue behind its knee.
Her fighting style was devoid of any flourish. It relied solely on a doctor's precise understanding of anatomy, combined with the simple, lethal moves Chasca had drilled into her—techniques born from the raw instinct to survive. She used her nimble movements to weave and dodge under the attacks of the monster, which far outmatched her in strength, each flash of her blade leaving another wound in its wake.
But this was her limit.
After constant running, exploration, and the immense mental strain, her stamina was critically overdrawn. Her movements began to slow, her breathing sounding like a worn-out bellows. One of her dodges was half a beat too slow, and the fierce wind from the axe grazed her shoulder, leaving a bloody gash. The searing pain nearly made her drop her sword.
The monster seemed to sense her weakness, and its attacks grew even more frenzied. It raised its great-axe high, violent Electro energy gathering on the blade with an ear-splitting crackle. The next strike would be devastating.
Chuychu looked up at the giant Electro-infused axe, poised to cleave her in two, yet there was no fear in her eyes—only a clear, unwavering resolve. She channeled her last ounce of strength into her shortsword, preparing to meet the blow head-on in one final, desperate struggle. For Natlan, for her tribe, for everything she fought to protect.
It was in that moment, suspended between life and death—
An unmatched sensation, like a new sprout breaking through hard earth, suddenly surged from the depths of her heart. A cool, liberating power, as if it had just broken free from some long-standing restraint, instantly flooded her limbs.
She felt something heavy and warm materialize at her waist, but she had no time to look.
Following her instincts, Chuychu faced the descending great-axe not by blocking, but by swinging the ordinary iron shortsword in her hand forward with all her might. She wasn't relying on muscle, but on guiding that newfound, joyous power.
An invisible, yet incredibly condensed blade of wind, its edges glowing with a sharp green light, shot out from the tip of her sword. It sliced silently through the air, its speed exceeding the limits of sight.
The wind blade grazed the Mitachurl's neck without a sound.
The monster's forward charge froze, its raised great-axe suspended in mid-air. The next moment, its grotesque head slowly slid from its body as dark-purple "blood" gushed out like a fountain. Its massive body toppled backward like a collapsing mountain, the mimetic form failing mid-fall as it disintegrated into a pile of twisted vines and dense Hollow energy.
The wind blade, its momentum undiminished, continued onward, striking the massive vine net that sealed the pit's opening.
The very same barrier that her sword hadn't been able to scratch was now torn asunder, a gap large enough for a person to pass through ripped clean open. Air from the outside—tainted with the scent of gunpowder but feeling impossibly free—rushed in.
Chuychu stood stunned. She instinctively looked down and saw it: a Vision, radiating a soft, greenish-blue glow with an Anemo Sigil emblazoned in its center, was hanging quietly at her waist. It hadn't been there a moment ago.
'An awakening? At a time like this?'
There was no time to process it. The instinct for survival and the duty to deliver her report overshadowed everything. Without hesitation, she scrambled through the gap, returning to the relative safety of the surface.
The moment her feet touched solid ground, she used the Wind Network to contact Mavuika, her words as concise and clear as possible. "Lady Mavuika! Anomaly confirmed in the southeastern forest pit of Qiaozhi Cliff!"
"Hollow power is polluting the environment, whispers are eroding sanity, and it's guarded by a large number of active vines and mimetic monsters! I suspect it's a significant source of pollution or a hatching nest! Requesting immediate deployment of heavy troops to deal with it!"
However, she didn't know that when a Deep Abyssal Blight's mimetic form was defeated, it wasn't truly dead. Its true body remained hidden within the vines, capable of rapidly absorbing energy to regenerate or launch one final, fatal strike.
Just behind Chuychu, at the torn gap in the vines, countless dark-purple tendrils began to wither at a visible rate, turning to dust. But the Hollow energy they contained was converging wildly toward a single point deep within the gap, like a hundred rivers flowing into the sea.
Just then—
"Chuychu!"
A cry filled with anxiety and worry cut through the air from a distance.
Chasca, riding her spirit spear like a meteor, was rocketing toward them at maximum speed. She saw Chuychu standing at the edge of the pit, seemingly unharmed. The heart that had been lodged in her throat was just beginning to settle, and she couldn't help but call out her sister's name.
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