Clap.Clap.Clap

  But Shuren didn't turn around. She didn't need to. She pulled another cigarette from her pack with one hand, rolling it between her fingers as if nothing in the room had changed.A flame sparked. She lit it calmly, inhaled, and let the smoke curl from her lips.

  "Impressive, not only did you break her arm, shoot off her ear but you still found time for comedy. I must admit you're something else."

  Shuren exhaled

  "At least I'm not a fraud who lets my subordinates die while I watch from a chair."

  The room was silent once more. Zheng Yan rested his chin in his hand and looked up, his green eyes sparkling slightly with curious, rather than affronted, intent.

  "Death, that's a pretty interesting term."he repeated thoughtfully.

  His face smiled a little more.

  "But I think we should… twist your words a bit."

  Shuren's brow furrowed.

  "…What do you mean?"

  Zheng Yan pointed lazily at the entrance with two fingers.

  "Why don't you take a look for yourself?"

  Shuren turned. She strode toward the doors, her pace unrushed but her instincts screaming. Her hand stayed near her weapon as she reached for the handle.

  Crunch.

  A wet, rhythmic sound, sounded like chewing. Her fingers froze and slowly, she pulled the door open. Outside something massive was standing tall

  .It was the plain abomination of human skin in a place it didn't belong, sewn and fused into an obscene mockery of muscle and shape. Human faces adorned the torso of the construct, limply and lifelessly, their mouths open in perpetual scream.

  The thing raised its head, with blood dripping from its jaw. In one hand, it held Taura or what was left of her. The thing tilted its head as if curious, then proceeded to stretch its mouth impossibly wide to swallow Taura.

  Shuren didn't breathe, and she didn't blink. She just glanced back at Zheng Yan's location, her face expressing a slight boredom. Then out of nowhere Shuren shot the door and the illusion broke many pieces.

  "If you're that desperate to trick me then you're going to need some time, kid." Shuren said

  Zheng Yan was pleased with what he just witnessed making him clap his hands yet again. To him that was the fastest time someone escaped his illusion.

  "My curiosity is getting the best of me, you know but I have to ask. Are you a Sionel by any chance?" Zheng Yan asked.

  "And what about it? It's not like if I am a Sionel that would make any difference. So are you a Sionel?"

  Zheng Yan nodded to Shuren's statement, even though he had to admit that what she was spouting had some truth in it.

  "You are correct but I'm so sorry to tell you but just because I just used an illusion on you doesn't make me a Sionel as well. I'm just a simple user of the internal energy that our dear goddess provided us with."

  Shuren tilted her head in confusion, clearly not understanding what Zheng Yan just said.

  "My apologies for speaking in a formal tone. By internal energy I am talking about Qi…yes I'm a user of Qi like the other residents of our world."

  Shuren's eyes widened, her mouth widened making her active cigarette fall to the ground. Zheng Yan gave a smirk seeing Shuren's reaction.

  "Oh why are you shocked? Using the simple illusion arts to attempt to play with your mind made you react like this?"

  Shuren was still shocked and couldn't even properly answer Zheng Yan's question. What Shuren couldn't believe was that she knew that all Qi uses should not even exist. At least that was what she heard, so how is a Qi user standing right in front of him and just used one of the illusion arts on her.

  Shuren slapped herself to get herself out of the questioning stage.

  "Your right I am shocked because from what I was told the concept of Qi was erased and people had lost the ability to do their said techniques. But I guess the information I was given was false then."

  Zheng Yan let out a chuckle, which was light and undisguisedly amused, as if she were pleased she had made such a witty remark.

  "Erased is such a dramatic word," he said.

  "Qi was never destroyed. What your records call 'history' is merely the version that survived censorship."

  Shuren's eyes narrowed.

  "Then everyone else was lied to.Including you." Zheng Yan finished calmly.

  He stopped a few steps away. Close enough that she could see the faint glow beneath his skin, subtle, restrained, like heat under glass.

  "Qi still exists but in small fragments and as I said earlier thanks to our dear goddess who blessed us with these small amounts of Qi. Many martial masters didn't waste their time and came up with more techniques while reviving the other ones."

  Shuren tapped her head with her gun, processing everything that Zheng Yan was spouting. At first it sounded like a stupid lie, that's until he talked about their goddess. Which caught her attention.

  What would that goddess do to be involved and also if she did how did she do it? She does have the power to do so but how? Unless the goddess got some help from them.

  "You're in deep thought, maybe you found some truth and if so please…do share."

  Shuren stayed silent and did a deep sigh before staring back at Zheng Yan with cold eyes.

  "Not happening because you're going to be dead by the time I decide to share what I was thinking about."

  "Someone's mad."

  Shuren points her gun at Zheng Yan, her finger on the trigger ready to fire.

  Shuren's finger stayed pressed on the trigger.

  She squeezed it just enough to allow it to shift back by a fraction, but after that, she just stopped. She had rolled it, bored, once around her thumb before catching it smoothly in her palm.

  "Ugh, there's no point in doing this."

  Her gaze flicked towards Zheng Yan, her facial expression unmoved.

  "Killing you is the best option yea, but this?" she admitted casually.

  She waved her hand vaguely around the room.

  "This is way too half-baked for me."

  Zheng Yan gazed at Shuren in pure confusion.

  He had thought it all through many times in his mind, just the way her finger had been resting on the trigger…and then hadn't. The words she had mumbled to herself had not passed to his ears, but that hadn't mattered anymore.

  Time was running out.

  "Kinzau."

  Thin threads appeared around the neck of Shuren, almost invisible as they were drawn from reality itself. They immediately stretched tight, lifting Shuren's boots an inch off the floor.

  The eyes of Shuren grew

  "…Huh."

  Her hands went up, her fingers brushing against nothing. Her breath caught as she felt the strings tighten further. Then her gaze focused.

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  "Oh so that's what this is." She muttered hoarsely.

  Footsteps echoed down the staircase.

  A figure stepped out from the shadows above, coming down step by step until he stood next to Zheng Yan. He was tall, broad-shouldered, dressed in dark ceremonial garments but it was his face that stopped everyone in the room.

  The face of a black panther gazed out from under the hood, with golden eyes sparkling with hunting contentment. His left arm was raised. From the ends of his fingers, the same intangible strings trailed, quivering slightly as they constricted Shuren's throat.

  She looked at him sideways even when she was being strangled.

  "…Wow, I step into a mansion and suddenly I'm getting choked by Cat Noir's unemployed cousin."she said, voice strained but unimpressed.

  The strings tightened in response. Shuren coughed, then laughed breathlessly.

  "Relax, whiskers. If you wanted my attention, you could've just said hello!"

  Zheng Yan cleared his throat, seemingly dissatisfied with the absence of fear.

  "This is my personal guard, Kinzau." He said coolly.

  Kinzau did not say

  "And he's also a Qi user. Just like myself." Zheng Yan went on to add, with a slightly narrowed gaze.

  Shuren's eyes focused back on Zheng Yan under the pressure that crushed her windpipe. Her smile was thin, but dangerous.

  "…Figures, only a rich kid would need a magical bodyguard to do his choking for him." she rasped.

  "At least you're still alive," Zheng Yan said calmly.

  His voice now carried a note of curiosity, not threat.

  "Kinzau's threads kill on contact. Nerves shut down. Blood stops flowing. Consciousness follows. Yet, here you are. Breathing."

  Almost imperceptibly, Kinzau's fingers twitched, their delicate touch adjusting the tension.

  "You used something, maybe some technique. I'm actually impressed."Zheng Yan continued.

  He tightened up a little and leaned forward.

  "While you're still standing… mind sharing it?"

  Shuren slowly turned her eyes towards him, her expression flat, unimpressed, her hands still clenching the invisible threads just enough so they did not draw in further.

  "…You're kidding," she said.

  Her voice was husky, but clear as cut crystal.

  "You think I'm gonna waste oxygen explaining my technique to the guy trying to strangle me in his own living room?"

  Zheng Yan blinked once.

  Then smiled.

  "Fair."

  He raised a finger slightly.

  "Kinzau. Change her direction

  Kinzau inclined his head slightly in a nod.

  The strings shifted.

  Shuren's body was moved, not roughly, but firmly, her boots scraping across the marble floor as she was turned to face the doors of the mansion. The hold on her throat never diminished, just sufficiently restrained to keep her lucid.

  "The hell are you—" she began.

  Her breath hitched. Outside the open doorway, someone was running.

  "Taura…?" She muttered

  Taura burst out from behind the trees, running at full speed, her breathing labored, her armor scarred and smeared with blood that wasn't entirely hers. She didn't dare look back, but she didn't need to.

  Something was chasing her.

  Five to Ten Minutes Earlier

  There was nothing outside the mansion.

  Assad stood by the iron gates, arms crossed, his eyes fixed on something upstairs in the mansion. The place looked like nothing had changed, just like it had before: dark, broken, decaying. If he hadn't known the place so well, he might suspect that Shuren had entered a deserted shell.

  Taura shifted her weight at his side, her boots crunching softly on the gravel. She rolled her shoulders, and then again.

  "It's been about ten minutes since Shuren went inside and we haven't heard anything," she said at last.

  Assad didn't answer immediately, before finally turning his head slightly. "Are you impatient?"

  Taura blinked.

  She actually thought about it.

  "…I don't know," she said honestly.

  Assad raised an eyebrow.

  "There are times when I get impatient, and there are times when I do not. Sometimes I can wait forever. Other times, five minutes can be like an hour." she continued, staring straight ahead

  She frowned slightly, as though not quite satisfied with her own response.

  "Well, so I guess I'm not sure."

  Assad blew out a soft breath. "That's the least reassuring answer you could've given.

  Taura shrugged. "You asked."

  "I never really got the chance to ask you," she said, eyes still forward. "Not back at the Hot Swan. Not when you got your first job."

  Assad gave her a sideways glance.

  "Why did you join the Sweepers?"

  He stiffened just a little.

  Taura continued talking, oblivious to the shift in him. "I mean, you do know the risks are real, right? Even when we're doing 'simple' detective jobs. Half the time it turns into clean-up for people who should be handling this stuff but don't."

  She let out her breath. "It just made me curious. Why are you?

  Assad's face was impassive. His pulse raced.

  'Why would she ask that now? Is she onto me already? Third day in this world and I'm already slipping?'

  He wouldn't say I joined because I don't belong here and I'm trying to get home.

  But he said nothing and looked down.

  That made Taura frown. "Hey did I say something wrong?"

  A second passed before Assad chuckled. He lifted his head and looked at her, his lips sporting a crooked sarcastic smile.

  "Honestly? I don't know myself." He said.

  Taura blinked.

  "After getting brutally beaten into a pulp by Shuren and somehow proving myself to her, I just… ended up here." he continued casually.

  He smiled. "Well, I guess you could say I was forced."

  But Taura looked at him.A bead of sweat trickled down Assad's spine.Until he felt a smack on the back, a searing pain across the back of his head.

  "Ow—what the hell?!" Assad yelped,

  Taura was laughing, like, actually laughing.

  "Dang we're really the same, huh?" she said, breathing heavily, wiping a tear away from the corner of her eye.

  Assad rubbed his head, looking utterly perplexed. "What do you mean?"

  "I didn't join because I wanted to either," "Long story. Involves bad decisions, worse timing, and someone way scarier than Shuren."she said, grinning.

  Assad stared at her.

  Then, against his will, he began to laugh. For an instant, the tension cracked. The dread loosened its grip. Two people standing guard, laughing at the unfairness of it all.

  That's until the air shifted and a low sound rose from the distance. Their laughter died instantly, Taura turned first and Assad followed. Both of their eyes widened at what they were staring at.