The Last Dainv

Gale observed the Chinese hat lady. She wore the same black robes with red trims as the others they had encountered. The same uniforms as the one called 'Blood Blade Sect'.

It was a fitting name for a sect that used something called Blood Qi as their common theme for all their attacks. Just like how the dark hunter used darkness as a common theme for his own attacks.

Definitely.

The only reason they managed to take her down was because of their trap. The plan that Erin helped execute by hiding the sandworm's signature until the last moment. On two occasions during the plan, it almost failed because Rachel got mad at the twins for making too many references and jokes non-stop. Even Lily almost got infected by her anger.

The twins were truly... terrifying entities.

It was definitely a plan not put together at the last minute.

Definitely.

Now, they had the main culprit of this whole operation, and the interesting was that this hat lady protected her own disciples. She even threw herself at a Late-Mystic divine beast to buy them time to escape. It was a contradiction to what Rachel said about the sect. Usually, they would use their own disciples as meat shields.

And just now, she said they were just children, probably around his age.

Gale extended Presence Between's tendrils toward her heart. The rhythm was steady, but weak. No spikes of anything,anything; in fact, her entire cardiac rhythm felt more relaxed than ever before, except for her heart pressure. That was slightly high. For some reason. Who knows.

"What's your name?" Gale growled as the dark hunter.

"Zhou Xinyi."

"You're caught by Team Hunter. Powerless. Empty of Qi. Unable to escape to freedom. What say you?"

"Gale..." Rachel muttered.

Xinyi's hand moved to the back of her neck, rubbing a specific spot. "I really don't know," she said. "Where can I even go? I won't be welcome back into China now that this happened. The sect probably thinks I'm dead. If they find out I'm alive and the mark is gone, they'll hunt me down."

"What about the disciples in the cave?"

Xinyi's heart skipped a beat. "They still have their death marks on them. Their death marks might've already transferred to the Grand Elder above me."

She pushed herself up onto her knees, wincing from the effort, and knelt down in front of the team. She continued, "Please, don't kill them. They're just children. None of them wanted to be Blood Blade disciples."

Lily moved closer to Gale. "Negatively aligned Jiuling sects are known to steal kids and force them into servitude."

"We won't kill them. But why are you so personally insistent on this?" Rachel asked.

Xinyi looked down at her calloused hands. "I want kids of my own. But being an elder in Blood Blade Sect, that can't happen. You're not allowed to have a family, nothing that the sect couldn't exploit. I've wanted children since I was 20, and now I'm 33 and I've never even had a boyfriend." She forced a laugh. "It's just a soft spot. Nothing that you care about."

Gale looked at the twinkie on the ground. The same one that Clyde had thrown at her face earlier. At this point of time, food was always the best comfort. Picking it up, he opened the wrapper, and held it over her mouth.

"Eat, Ms. Chinese Hat Lady Ma'am."

At first, Xinyi avoided the twinkie, but it followed her until she finally stopped. Gale smiled at her, nodding. She took a small bite. Her eyes widened slightly. Next, she took a bigger bite that devoured half of the twinkie.

Once again, food always comforted the suspect. Food was always the answer.

"This is delicious," she smiled while chewing. "Very American."

"Eh, yo. She knows her shit," Clyde said, pulling another Twinkie from his pocket, dangling it over her head. "You can have more of these if you tell us what we want to know."

Xinyi swallowed. Her eyes tracked the dangling twinkie. "My life is yours now. You can ask me to do anything. But I'd really appreciate more of the sweet things."

"We're Canadian, not American though," Kyle said.

Xinyi's expression slowly opened up, smiling softly. "That's even better. I've heard lots of great things about Canada. Free healthcare. Maple syrup. Except..."

"Except what?" Clyde asked.

"The traffic."

"You get used to it," Kyle shrugged.

"Wait. Are you serious that you want to join us? Why?" Lily asked.

"Nothing wrong with that," Clyde said. "We're the cool kids. Everyone wants to join the cool kids."

"Cool and special," Kyle snickered.

Xinyi looked at Rachel. "The Ann Heiress removed my death mark. It's only natural that I want to follow my saviours. I have nowhere else to go and..." She paused. "Maybe I'll even find a boyfriend in Canada."

Looking at this hat lady, Gale found himself nodding. She fought against the divine beast to let her disciples escape. She liked kids, and adults who liked kids were always good people. Most importantly, she accepted the sacred twinkie.

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"I like her," Gale said, turning to Rachel. "Can we keep her?"

Rachel facepalmed. "That's a human, Gale. Not a pet. You can't just 'keep' people."

"But she's special."

"She's definitely not staying at my place. Grandma would have questions."

"I live with my parents," Lily said. "So that's out."

Kyle and Clyde exchanged glances. Their super secret telecommunications network activated for a brief moment before they both turned back to the group.

"We live together," Kyle said.

"Maybe Ollie?" Clyde said.

Rachel shook her head. "I don't think that's a good idea. Ollie's..."

Gale looked at Xinyi. There was only one question in his mind, especially since she was Chinese. One question to determine her fate. "Can you cook lemon chicken?"

"Lemon chicken?" Xinyi asked. "Probably? I love cooking. I can cook you any dish you want, especially Shanghai dishes. Have you had xiaolongbao?"

"Then you can live at my place."

"NO!" Rachel shouted. "She's not living at your place!"

"Why not? She can cook lemon chicken."

"Because... um, no. JUST BECAUSE!" Rachel shouted.

"Are you and this one a couple? If so, I won't impose," Xinyi said.

"We're not!" Rachel said. "Well... Maybe kind of. More than friends. Good friends that are close."

"Shut up, Rachel," Clyde said.

Kyle waved his hand dismissively. "Look, hat lady. You can live at our place if you're okay with living with two guys. We have 3 bedrooms, but one of them is a gaming room right now."

"She has to be our maid though," Clyde said, reaching into his pocket and pulling out his phone. He scrolled through his photos for a moment before holding up the screenshot of a maid outfit bought 2 years ago. "I have a maid outfit."

"Clyde, why do you have a maid outfit?" Lily asked.

"Pfft, tsk tsk tsk, Lily," Kyle said.

"We already knew we're eventually going to get a maid," Clyde said.

"I hate you," Lily said.

"Is that normal in Canadian culture?" she asked. "To wear maid outfits while cleaning?"

"Very normal," Clyde nodded.

"Mandatory, actually," Kyle said. "It's in the constitution."

"The Canadian constitution mandates maid outfits?"

"Of course it does," Kyle said.

"Stop asking stupid questions," Clyde said.

Lily smacked both twins in the head. "Shut up! Both of you!"

"Ow!"

"What was that for?!"

Lily turned to Xinyi, crouching down to meet her face to face. "Look, if you need a place to stay, you could live with one of the Blue Witches instead."

"That's probably not a good idea," Xinyi said immediately.

"Why not?"

"Jeanne probably wants to kill me."

"Were you in Guatemala before?" Lily asked. "Before this mission?"

"I was."

"During the incident?"

"I fought her and kind of injured her."

"Oh, you were the one that got her that mission..." Lily muttered.

"I'm sorry."

"It's... we'll deal with it later."

Kyle cleared his throat. "So, Blue Witches are out. That leaves us. We can clean up the gaming room. Move the PC setup to the living room."

"She can have the spare bathroom too. The one we use for storage," Clyde said.

"This is ridiculous!" Rachel shouted. "We're supposed to be on a mission! What happened to getting the materials back?"

"It is not ridiculous!" Erin spoke up, drawing everyone's attention. "This is the act of recruitment to the group. Xinyi possesses Late-Harmonic cultivation. Her firepower may prove useful in future operations."

"See?" Gale said. "Erin thinks we should keep her."

"Correct," Erin said.

"Let's get to business," Kyle said, crouching down to Xinyi's level, cracking his knuckles, earning him a kick from Lily. "Why is the Blood Blade Sect here?"

"We're collecting the blue-green gems for a ritual," Xinyi said.

"Fraedium gems," Erin said. "That is the proper designation for the material."

Xinyi glanced at the floating blue woman. "Fraedium gems, then. The Grand Elder discovered them 6 months ago when the rift first opened. He's been obsessed with mining them ever since."

"Why specifically for a ritual?" Clyde asked.

"It's for jiangshi."

Kyle and Clyde once again exchanged a glance, then at Rachel, then at Lily, then pausing their eyes at Gale who absolutely did not know what that even was.

"Jiangshi doesn't need a ritual," Kyle said. "They just need cold energy or yin qi or whatever. Standard cultivation BS. Why the gems, huh, punk?!"

"What kind of jiangshi?!" Clyde asked.

"The Blood Blade Sect is known for their ability to create blood corpses. Xue Shi." Xinyi said.

Kyle whistled.

"How many?" Lily asked.

"87 blood corpses."

Rachel gasped. "That's way too much. That's not a ritual, that's an army."

Gale looked at Rachel, who had just given a strong reaction. Now he was out of the loop. He never did read those Chinese novels that came into the orphanage. The western fantasy books interested him more.

"What's a jiangshi and a blood corpses?" he asked.

"A jiangshi is like an undead. Blood corpses are a different type of jiangshi," Rachel explained. "They're stronger, faster, and much harder to put down. Even burning one with fire took a long time. A properly cultivated blood corpse is about as powerful as a Mid-Harmonic."

"87 Mid-Harmonics?" Gale asked.

"If cultivated properly, yes."

He'd only ever seen several Harmonic Aurians in the coliseum. Imagining 87 in one place felt terrifying. Would the major faction even let that happen? The Jiuling doesn't seem to be doing anything about it as well.

"The Fraedium gems can hold enough qi to instantly add cultivation base to each blood corpse," Xinyi said. "The ritual array the Grand Elder designed would channel the stored energy directly into the corpses during their creation. No need to spend decades cultivating them one by one. Instant army."

"And this army is for...?" Kyle prompted.

"The Beggar Sect. Blood Blade wants to take their spot as the 9th major sect in the Jiuling hierarchy."

"Called it," Clyde said, mouth full of twinkie.

"We already knew that," Kyle said. "Gary told us."

"Who's Gary?"

"One of your guys. We captured him earlier. Nice dude. Wants to move to Canada and marry a white girl."

"Wang Guang?" Xinyi asked.

"Sure. Gary."

Gale's Presence Between caught something on Xinyi's person. At first, he thought it was just something weird in her ear. Now that he looked closer at it, that was a Fraedium gem.

"Why do you have a Fraedium gem on your ear?" he asked.

Xinyi's hand moved instinctively to her ear, touching the small earpiece she had carved from the gem earlier.

"It helps stop the whispers," she said quietly.

"What kind of whispers?" Erin asked, floating closer to Xinyi.

"It's nothing. Just the whispers of the Grand Elder. He uses Blood Qi to communicate long distance. He's trying to keep tabs on me, make sure I wasn't planning to escape."

"State the whispers' purpose."

Xinyi avoided Erin's stare. "The whispers... they offered me power. Said they could help me reach Mystic stage in less than a month. All I had to do was listen to them, follow their guidance."

"And you refused?"

"It felt like a trap. The Grand Elder has never offered anyone anything without wanting something bigger in return. I figured he was trying to make me dependent on him, or testing my loyalty, or..." She trailed off. "I don't know. It just felt wrong. I found this gem helps with a lot of things so I carved this earpiece to block them out."

"Has the whispers revealed a location to you?" Erin asked.

"The westward tunnels," Xinyi said. "It kept telling me to go there. It said I would find what I was looking for and that the unknown is where the fortunate venture."

"Did you go?"

"No. I ordered those tunnels sealed 3 days ago. My disciples reported something wrong with them. A taint that seeped from the walls. A miasma that made even Blood Qi feel clean." Xinyi shook her head. "I wasn't about to walk into whatever trap the Grand Elder had set up."

"Have any of your other disciples heard these whispers?" Erin asked.

"I didn't ask. But most likely not. I only started hearing them after drinking a cup of tea with the Grand Elder poured during a private meeting about this mission." Xinyi rubbed the back of her neck. "I assumed he put something in the tea. Some kind of Blood Qi connection that let him communicate across distances or even in rifts."

Erin stared at her for a second before a magic circle appeared in front of her eyes as if to examine Xinyi.

"Erin?" Rachel asked. "What's wrong?"

"We must figure out the identity of these whispers posthaste," Erin said. Young lamb, the corruption is at large in this rift.