Anyael squared off with Lingcai, stance set like a cliff bracing a flood, a back-to-the-river resolve hard as stone.
Her charged-foam spell prickled like nettles in a storm, and the magitek focus in her wand cut casting to zero, a rain of hits with no pause.
It braided water and thunder like twin serpents in one river, a composite art fit to rival master-tier spells, bite and burn wrapped together.
“You scared? Then come on,” she taunted, bubbles coiling around her like moonlit jellyfish with blue lightning trapped inside their bells. “Is that all you’ve got?”
The next heartbeat, her laugh died like a candle in wind.
Lingcai had a Black Tempest Nail Launcher assembled, its dark maw a tunnel of night aimed right at Anyael.
Click—like ice cracking on a winter pond.
Lingcai thumbed the barrel wheel until it kissed the firing port, the motion neat as a lock finding its key, then leveled it.
She spoke slow, words falling like stones in a still lake. “It’s not about me coming to you. It’s about whether you dare come to me.”
Old street wisdom rolls like dust on the wind: beyond seven steps, a gun is fast.
Within seven steps, that gun is fast and precise, lightning with teeth; when it’s speed we’re weighing, mages can leave the chat like smoke thinning in rain.
Anyael’s face stiffened as frost, her wand held high while her feet slid back like a crab from surf. “You bluffing me?”
“If it’s a bluff, prove me wrong—step closer,” Lingcai said, her voice flat as an iron pan left to cool.
Seeing the retreat, Lingcai advanced a step, the launcher steady as a hunting hawk riding a thermal.
“I’m not the skittish kind,” Anyael muttered, and she took one step, a gambler’s toe over a cliff’s edge, certain Lingcai’s finger wouldn’t squeeze.
She guessed right; Lingcai’s group eased back a step, distance kept taut like a bowstring.
One step forward, one step back—the board stayed frozen like winter wheat, no pieces falling.
“Wait, let’s talk,” Anyael said, a thought flashing like a fish under ice. “You want my bounty, right? I’ve got money now. Name your price—what buys your mercy?”
It didn’t sound like a losing trade, a silver carp flashing in shallow water.
Lingcai hesitated, then glanced at Scarlet Leaf, her tone dry as dust. “Leafy, your turn. My skin’s too thin—I’ll lowball.”
Scarlet Leaf chewed it over, voice unsure as mist. “Th-then… fifty thousand…?”
With such a fat lamb nudging the pen, Scarlet Leaf reached a little, opening with fifty thousand silver like tossing a net wide.
Joy fluttered in Anyael’s chest like a trapped bird; if Scarlet Leaf could name a number, the river of talk could flow. She still put on a frown like a mask.
“Fifty thousand gold… that’s steep,” she sighed, hand to brow like shade in sun. “I might not pull that much this instant.”
Thump—like a heart missing a beat.
Scarlet Leaf nearly toppled, then leaned to Lingcai with a tremble like a leaf in wind. “D-did you hear that? What did she say fifty thousand of? I heard gol—mmph…”
Halfway into her squeal, Lingcai clamped a hand over her mouth, gentle as a lid on boiling tea. “Shh. Don’t make us look like we’ve never seen the world.”
Ariex’s gold coins aren’t pure gold, the market rate a clean 1 to 10, like sun to shadow.
Do the math, and fifty thousand gold means five hundred thousand silver, a tide that could drown a village.
Half a million—enough to make Scarlet Leaf’s eyes go wide as moons.
Reading Anyael’s face like clouds for rain, Lingcai saw plenty of room to haggle, and her bid rose like a kite catching wind. “A hundred thousand.”
“Two people. Fifty each. Pay the hush fee, and this never breaks the surface, and I’ll see your husband stays unharmed.”
With Lingcai playing the bandit under bright noon, LilyBell finally couldn’t hold her breath, her voice soft as bells in fog. “Master, this feels like looting a burning house, and letting a villain go for coin… it isn’t very sage-like.”
“Relax,” Lingcai shot back without looking, words quick as sparrows. “We’re squeezing a bad egg. And don’t get it twisted—I’m not a good person.”
As Lingcai extorted under open sky, Anyael studied the launcher like a hunter studying tracks, noticing that trigger-finger never once bit down, doubt budding like mold.
“Hold it. That thing of yours—just for show? If it can’t spit nails, I don’t need to fear it. You want money? Fire two shots.”
Lingcai lifted a shoulder like a drifting reed. “Two shots? Sure. Your call—I’m only pulling the trigger because you asked.”
She raised the muzzle overhead like a torch—and squeezed.
The launcher screamed a sound like a fork raking a steel bowl, a note thin and vicious as a mosquito drilling an eardrum.
Screee—like glass being sawn by winter wind.
Everyone but Lingcai slapped hands to ears and folded, knees hitting dirt like hail on a drum.
Screee—eee—like chalk grinding bone on slate.
The barrel wheel spun like a millstone while steel nails stitched the air, that sound gnawing teeth to powder and nerves to threads.
Hair stood like pine in a storm; faces twisted like paper in fire, molars set to crack like nutshells.
LilyBell’s eyes bulged like lanterns; she curled on the ground and rolled, a cocoon of pain rocking on dust.
Anyael leaned into a road sign like a sailor to a mast, fist thudding the street like thunder with nowhere to go.
Scarlet Leaf snapped, hand shaking like a bowstring as she snatched the Crimson Cherry Blossom Blade, and she smashed down on the launcher with a roar. “Why are your inventions always demons out of a kiln?!”
Her full-force swing hit the rotating muzzle clean, sent it spinning like a black star into a window, glass shattering like ice before it vanished inside.
Half a gun lay limp in Lingcai’s hands, the screech snuffed like a wasp in smoke.
“Hah… hah… hah…” Breath tore from Scarlet Leaf in ragged waves, her palm slapping her shoulder like trying to shake off ants, chasing that crawling disgust away.
Slap, slap, slap—like rain tapping a paper umbrella.
This thing wounds a thousand enemies while bleeding eight hundred friends, a tiger trap with teeth on both sides.
Lingcai stared at the half-ruined body in her grip, heartache written plain as ink on rice paper. “My Black Tempest Nail Launcher…”
Scarlet Leaf’s face stayed wild, and she barked, sparks flying like flint. “Don’t bring that thing out again! I’ll die younger by years!”
Anyael saw the threat broken like a blade with no tip, and the gap gleamed like sunlight through shutters.
She reset her stance in a breath, wand rising like a spear, and fresh charged bubbles climbed her like ivy lit with blue lightning.
“Idiots,” she laughed, knife-cold. “You ruined your one opening with infighting. It’s three on one, so what? Let’s see you beat my magitek.”
Yet Lingcai, empty-handed, didn’t panic; she dropped the broken gun like a husk and looked almost sad, a lotus petal let go to the stream.
It wrong-footed Anyael like a step on a missing stair. “What is it? Giving up? Or finally scared?”
“Whatever. Broken is broken,” Lingcai said, brushing her palms like dust from sleeves, eyes lifting calm as a clear pond. “You’ve got a magitek focus. Taking you down is minutes’ work.”
Anyael braced, expecting some hidden blade, nerves tight as wire; her wand held steady, her stare clung to Lingcai like a hawk to prey.
One second, two, dropping like pebbles in a well.
Lingcai stayed unruffled as a cat in sun, and Anyael swallowed, throat dry as old bark.
She didn’t dare blink, tracking every twitch like a fisher watching ripples for a rise, ready to strike at any hint of motion.
Then, in the next instant, Lingcai slipped back like a fish into reeds, hid behind Scarlet Leaf, and shouted like a drumbeat.
“Leafy, hit her!”
