Qianchun’s group sprinted through the spatial passage like arrows loosed into a tunnel of light, yet a Blood Heir snapped in behind them within two or three heartbeats.
The plan had landed like a spear in the dark; the Blood Heir was forced out, other channels succeeded, but those two squads were scythed down, barely one in ten standing.
Under Blade’s orders, they had to scatter the pack like wolves split by fire, hold till liquid nitrogen arrived, while Magic Cannon crews rained aid like distant thunder.
Qianchun’s team took light cuts like cat-scratches on bark; the wounds stung but wouldn’t fell them, which meant support would flow elsewhere like water seeking cracks.
They had nothing that truly checked a Sanguine Blood Heir, a mountain half-veiled in fog, not crushingly absolute, but far beyond what their hands could move.
So Qianchun chose to weave and harry, using the newborn housing blocks like a paper maze, trading concrete for time the way oars trade sweat for shore.
Other squads understood that brick is cheaper than breath; buildings can be rebuilt like sandcastles, but a life is a single thread on a single loom.
By Blade’s and the other handlers’ word, they kept Blood Heir from Blood Heir like magnets forced apart, afraid the pack would fuse into a true Cantata Two.
If they merged, the beast would rise past Cantata Two like a storm leaping the seawall, enough to make the Twelfth District’s Magic Maidens swallow a pot of bitter tea.
Thank heaven the Sanguine Blood Heir’s wits were dull as a blunt knife, or they wouldn’t be playing hide-and-seek; with its strength, a wipeout would be a hand-swipe.
Qianchun pressed her back to cold concrete, a river-stone under her spine, caring nothing for dust, counting only its footfalls and the wind of its wings.
Two teammates had melted into the pavement like spent candles, chests heaving like broken bellows, too drained to run, too shaky to even shoulder a gun.
Qianchun was nearly there too, but her stamina bar was a longer braid; Mana had once washed her bones like spring water, leaving her tougher than most.
She leaned out, a reed in the wind, and saw the Blood Heir patrol the street, low growl under cloth, bat-wings flicking like a moth toward distance.
Headed to join the other Sanguine Blood Heirs, like a stream seeking a river?
Not on her watch, a blade laid across a throat.
She wouldn’t let it leave; her backup was spent like wrung rags, so she’d kite this monster alone, the last hope of the whole village carried in her breath.
She squeezed the trigger; sparks spat like fireflies, the bullet punched a red hole that closed like a mouth, as if her will never touched it.
It traced the bullet’s thread back to her like a needle finding cloth, then pivoted and pounced, an arrow snapping off its string to fill her sky.
Qianchun fired again, quick as flint, but the gun bit like a toothless wolf; she turned and ran, legs coiling like springs on a drum.
It bellowed, and its wings beat up a rank wind like wet iron; a claw flashed, and with a squelch her left arm flowered blood.
Her face drained like paper in rain; she staggered and slipped the scythe, but her offense was ash, right arm not healed, left arm newly torn, grip sanded away.
“Ah!” Her cry tore like silk; its claws raked her scapula, pain like a white-hot nail, blood speckling her thin clothes like dark plum blossoms.
She swallowed the pain like a stone, found a second wind, yet the Sanguine Blood Heir clung to her back like a shadow until gunfire cracked from both sides.
The support pair rose from behind concrete like ghosts from a kiln, sweat shining, faces waxy; the corridor fight had burned them out, a short rest barely a thimble of water.
Still they held the line like fence posts in a gale, SMGs coughing heat-haze, Array Patterns dim as embers, the guns tired and the people more so.
The Blood Heir paused mid-kill, a dog at a fork, then chose its prey and wheeled back, but Qianchun had evaporated like dew under noon sun.
It turned on the two gunmen, but they’d bolted into the nearest concrete hive; the Blood Heir reached their spot and spun like a headless fly, baffled.
Realizing it was being toyed with, its eyes filmed red like lacquer; it exhaled a scarlet fog that blanketed the low blocks like pond scum, its body shrinking as payment.
“Cover your nose and mouth—whatever this is.” Qianchun saw the tide roll in, pulled a mask and towel from her Spatial Box like tools from a hidden drawer.
She wet the towel, clamped it to her face like a seal, and lay low in a corner like a turtle under a rock, pain humming in her bones.
The two supporters did the same, found towels, soaked them like rain cloth, pressed them tight, and went still in a room’s shadow like foxes in a den.
The blood-fog spread like a red veil, draping their sector; inside it, the world was a sealed jar, and its trick was a knot they couldn’t see.
“All is—” One tried to report, but as his mouth opened, a blood-spike sprouted from his heart like winter thorn, then punched through his throat.
Blood sprayed the other like ink, her scream reed-thin; the fog hardened into spikes and grew from within, taking their lives like a reaper in tall grass.
The mist was a piece of the Sanguine Blood Heir, a seed in the wind; once breathed, death took root like ivy in an old wall.
The radio kept only their screams, a cold bell in the ear; no guessing was needed: they were gone, and Qianchun closed her eyes in a silent bow.
She was the last to be swallowed by fog, a lone leaf in an eddy; she barely dared breathe, and from their ends she pieced the mechanism like frost lines.
She thanked them in her marrow, gratitude warm as tea; without their lure, she would’ve been a smear under that monster’s heel.
Hoo— The fog reeled back like a tide; Qianchun gulped air, peered out a window like a sparrow, and pulled binoculars from her Spatial Box at her waist.
The Sanguine Blood Heir had fattened on fallen blood like a leech; its bright red now stained with a black that was really deep crimson, ink bled into scarlet.
It scanned the streets like a hawk and headed toward the nearest Blood Heir, a stream racing to join a river, hunger showing in its gait.
The nearest squad to Qianchun was a reserve team, the parent river of one supporter; Blade said they’d started with seven and were down to two, still rowing in chop.
That Blood Heir’s body had several obvious changes, from one or two patches— and the thought cut off like a wire.
Qianchun downed a potion, the burn stopping her blood like a hand on a spout; there was no time to mourn, only to put on her roles like armor.
She was new Aklatia’s member, its secretary and acting boss, a reed in a storm with no certainty, an ant pushing a tree that wouldn’t move.
But she could not let those two Blood Heirs fuse, or the death-tally would spike like wildfire, climbing walls and leaping streets.
Two magazines left; she held hope in one hand and fear in the other, a lantern and a shadow walking together down a narrow lane.
She wished it would chase her like a cat after a string, and feared it would catch her like a trap closing on a hare.
She heel-cocked the weapon, the dark muzzle a well aimed at its skull, but it sensed the ripple and, as she lifted, stood only feet away.
Sweat beaded her brow like dew, but she didn’t blink; she pulled the trigger with the finality of a bell.
Bang— The report slammed the hollow street; the stink of iron spread like rain on rust; a hole opened in its head and healed as it moved.
A black-red claw fell toward her like a meat guillotine, the arc of death bright as lightning in a night field.
Death stood an arm’s length away, a cold door ready to shut.
She closed her eyes, and in that instant fear and hope drained to a clear lake, no ripple left, no grief, no dread.
If I still had that Magic Stone, would everything be different, like a star dropped back into my hand?
In the calm, a ripple of refusal rose like a fish; she could’ve done more, once the shield, now—without the Magic Stone—she hid behind others.
She had prayed to miracles like a child to a shrine, but none had answered; without the Magic Stone, no mercy fell like rain.
Blade sat inside, eyes nailed to the screens like pins; a corner-camera showed the Blood Heir about to split Qianchun, and she stood, hands clamping the monitor’s edges.
The claw fell, and then the feed went black like a candle snuffed by a sudden draft.
Blade dragged nearby cameras like nets; only the stairwell cam caught the Blood Heir and concrete shattering in one blow, a black shadow skimming past, and then nothing.
She ran the frames through a neighbor machine, combing them like a sieve, and what came out was a wash of pure white, a snowfield in a single pane.
That white lit a coal in her tired eyes, a thread of hope laid across night like a pale ribbon.
“Could it be… she’s back? She didn’t die?!” The words rose like steam, barely dared.
If she still had strength to spend, like a blade remembered by its own sheath.
