“Bastard… that really hurts.” She rubs her throbbing head, complaint rising like steam from a kettle; pull someone into a strange place, drop them from the clouds, even Lian feels it.
She looks up—no ceiling, only a river of stars pouring across the dark; on any other night she’d sip the view like tea, but urgency hums like bees.
She has to find a way back fast, or Alicia will worry, a shadow on her heart like rain piling on a paper lantern.
She pushes up from the ground, joints creaking like rusty hinges, twists her sore waist, and lets her gaze sweep the world like a hawk over reeds.
Emmm… this looks like a maze, every wall stacked stone, ribs of rock boxing in the night, a spine that refuses to bend.
Did she step into some hermit’s ruin, a hidden court of moss and silence, the kind storytellers whisper about under willow lamps?
By novel logic, you find the hermit’s treasure or legacy, then go fight, like a river that always bends toward war.
But what’s that to me? I’m not short on power, my mood flat as a still pond.
Her eyes go dead-fish dull, disdain a faint ripple under the face; her pink loli fist slams the wall, a hammer falling on winter ice.
The surface ripples like water, then something snaps like spun glass; her knuckles punch through, yet the wall doesn’t shatter, keeping its cold bones.
It’s just a hole, like a finger poking cardboard—too small even for petite Lian to slip through, a keyhole taunting the key.
Lian frowns, lines like little streams cutting her brow; she knows she broke a barrier, a skin of light stretched thin.
Not a simple veil, but a great barrier woven from countless layers, like silk on silk, a cocoon of spells hugging stone.
This single wall would need dozens of punches to open a loli-sized door, effort piling like bricks in a kiln.
Worse, the barrier drinks magic like sand drinks rain; throw spells, and the wound will knit, the hole sealing like moss over stone.
She could brute-force it, flood it with raw mana till it pops like an overfilled balloon, force smearing like paint.
But she refuses; the ruin has hooked her, curiosity purring like a cat in her chest, claws soft but sure.
Whatever it guards, she wants to see, a firefly of wonder bobbing in the dark.
“Alright then—let’s have some fun,” she says, voice light as wind sliding over bamboo.
She turns and steps into the maze, twin walls identical like mirrored reeds, a corridor of patient stone.
Most would wander till their minds fray like old rope; Lian sketches routes in her head, abacus beads clicking like rain on tiles.
Traps and beasts sprout like thorns from earth; her loli iron fist delivers justice, a thunderclap under a silk sky.
Monsters start circling away like fish from a shark, fear rippling over them like cold current.
Only mindless traps keep springing, and her fist breaks them like clay jars, shards skittering like beetles.
After long exploring and tight calculations, Lian slips out of the maze like a fox leaving brambles, tail high.
“Hoo~” She lets out a long breath, the sound misty as dawn fog, and flicks a monster’s severed head onto the ground.
Why a head, a strange lantern for a stranger night? Simple: the path went dark toward the back, a mouth swallowing light.
While she grumbled about the blind road, a beast whose eye shone like a lantern stepped out; she took its head and used it as a flashlight.
It worked great—wide beam, bright core, nuclear vibes—now only one loli coin, a street hawker’s cry under neon.
Leaving the discarded “flashlight” where it lies, Lian lifts her gaze to a massive building, a sleeping giant holding its breath.
Fresh from maze, straight into a mini-boss—whoever built this was an RPG diehard, bones of design stacked like tiles.
Knowing a boss waits, she still walks in, feet light as wind, heart steady like a drum in fog.
Her soles cross the threshold—Bang—behind her, the door slams, thunder locked in stone, classic as dungeon dust.
She lifts her eyes to a horned monster holding two greatswords, steel like twin rivers poised to flood.
The horned thing stares back, eyes dull as wet ash; it moves like a puppet, strings whispering like night fog.
It breaks the silence first; its voice grinds like gears, cold oil clinging. “Human? No, outsider… why intrude upon our sacred ground?”
Lian’s heart sparks like flint; talkative monsters mean proper pre-fight banter, a stage lantern brightening before the clash.
She slips into the hero role like a cloak. “Monster, I’m here to slay your Demon King—step aside like reeds parting.”
The creature tilts its head, confusion hanging like a crooked moon. “Demon… King… what is that?”
“Emmm, think of it as your boss or your master, the hand on your leash,” she says, voice calm as tea.
At “master,” his eyes ripple, dullness lifting like mist from pines, a breath finding shape.
“You… seek… Master for what?” The words fall like stones into a well.
“As I said from the start: total—annihilation,” she answers, each syllable an axe biting wood.
Silence presses like snow on branches; the horned monster shudders, that tiny spark flaring like tinder catching.
His slow breath turns rapid, bellows dragging air; “kachak”—chains snap like ice breaking at thaw.
He rises; every vein whips under skin like blue rivers, muscles thumping to a drum you feel in bone.
Only now does Lian note how massive he stands, a mountain with horns, shadow thick as stormcloud.
He snorts thick smoke from his nose, a furnace venting heat; he pins Lian’s petite shadow with a stare, blue anger burning.
He lifts his blades; the voice that comes is heavy and smooth, like a falling stone turned to song. “Say… that again… I dare you.”
