Basement level B7.

Market Quarter.

Gwen had expected a scene from the undercity of Fritz Lang's Metropolis. What she saw was a Saturday Bazaar from Market City in Sydney relocated into a tunnel network, inundated with customers and traders.

Originally built to move heavy-plant, the tunnels were impressive in height, with a diameter of close to seven metres. Criss-crossing passageways further served as junctions where stands and stops met, densely populated with people who now stared at Gwen and company with grinning faces.

"Nihao! The Boss said yer was coming," a greasy fellow with an indistinct face hidden behind grease and grime hailed them. It was impossible to tell if their guide was man or Goblin, but given the time and place, Gwen and company gave him the benefit of the doubt. "Come this way, Mister and Missus Bosses."

Gwen wrinkled her nose. There was a faint smell of sewerage, musky human sweat, and pressed body odour that oppressively hung in the air. Thankfully, the Mages had come prepared for such a thing. A little Prestidigitation about their attire and mundane foul odours could be held at bay.

Health aside, the NoMs here had been supremely industrious, with wooden structures built into the sides of the tunnels and even hanging from the ceiling. Huts, shanties, shops and shelters in stacks of three or four piled five or six deep against the slanted curvature of the walls, defying gravity. Up top, glimmering Light spells in lanterns likewise hung from every surface of these structures, painting the scene with vivid hues of soft ambience that played softly through the smoke and steam.

The stench aside, the B7 Market ward was strangely aesthetic—a far cry from the urban decay of Blackheath. It felt as though the people here had decided that since the upper tiers were out of reach, they may as well make life below tolerable, feasible, worth living, rather than fall into the sort of abject purposelessness she'd seen in ghettos elsewhere.

To her old-world sensibilities, the under-slums here felt more Mumbai than Calcutta, especially the heartache of the Shibpur district that Gwen had regretted touring.

"Stick close," Richard advised. "If you have to move around an obstacle, move no more than four meters from my side."

"As expected, there are Mages here," Mayuree said suddenly. "One low-level mana signature, two o'clock."

"I see them," Kitty whispered.

"Don't look," Mayuree advised.

"Lea," Richard said softly. "Greet our friend."

Something invisible moved through the space above the Mages.

The student Mages followed their guide further into the markets.

Around them, the residents alternated between wanting to gawk at them, especially the girls, and being too afraid to raise their head in case the subjects of their curiosity grew wrathful.

Gwen once again applauded her foresight of earth-pastel and pants, wondering if Kitty's free fashion was a symptom of her naive decision-making in Blackheath.

Of course, Mayuree's garb, though not flashy nor suggestive, was the most attention-seeking. Unlike Gwen, Richard and Kitty—she didn't have a single spec nor splash of mud or dirt on her. In a place where Magic Items were hen's teeth, it was self-evident to the keen public that her attire was magically enchanted from head to toe. Thereby, Gwen wondered if any NoMs were unwise enough to risk life and limb for potentially enough HDMs to feed their family for the next decade or two.

Next time, Gwen thought, the team could coordinate outfits to appear less like a touring band and more like working Mages.

When they next passed a particular junction with a delicious smell, Gwen couldn't help but be drawn to the sound of sizzling fat.

She soon caught sight of the smell's source, slabs of mystery meat on skewer smoking famously over charcoal.

"What is that?" Mayuree enquired as the party came closer.

"Looks like…" Gwen moved to block her view because her eyes caught the origin of the mystery skewer.

An old cook, grinning happily at her, reached into a cage and produced what must be a mole of some sort, or a rat, or a gerbil, Gwen couldn't tell in the dim light. With a deft swing of something like a switchblade, he gutted the squealing thing, threw its offal into a bowl, then used a three-pronged iron skewer to crucify the carcass so that it looked as though the hamster was being propped like a sock-puppet.

With the lemming's adorable face frozen in stunned disembowelment, the man flashed it over the charcoal; its fur fell away, revealing a rapidly crisping body of pink flesh sizzling with fat.

"Hey, Beauty! Free for you!" The man offered the visiting Mages a free sampler—generous because nothing was free in the undercity, least of all food.

Mayuree looked as though she would faint right there and had to be supported by Kitty.

If Gwen were still her Sydney self, she would have battered the skewer away. After almost half a year in Shanghai, though, she was a veteran culinary traveller, seasoned in outlandish gastronomical ventures from China and beyond.

Seeing that she was not adverse, the man heavily seasoned the greasy prize and spun it until its flesh was al dente—chewy but still tender.

Gwen took the skewer and thanked the man.

What had Magister Wen said?

She was _immune_ to all mundane diseases and infections, right?

Watched by her companions, she took a bite.

"Tastes like chicken." Gwen chewed. "Hmm, a little slimy, but satisfying. I'd call it an acquired taste. The spice tastes a little cumin and pecan, with a delightful crunch. You'll learn to like it, I am sure."

Her friends declined Gwen's offer.

As they passed, the seller began to holler.

"Best Rat! Best RAT in B7! Mage and Sorceress Approved! Get your RATS here! JUICY RATS! FRESH! 50 MSK!"

The party soon passed another stack of shacks.

"Oh, Jesus." Gwen heard the moaning before the spectacle sullied their eyes. "Mayuree! Cover your eyes!"

"I am older than you!" Mayuree snapped at Gwen, realising way ahead of her companion what lay ahead. "You've never even had a boyfriend! Shouldn't you be covering your eyes?!"

It was only reasonable that the oldest profession in the world would thrive in a place where human life was cheap and abundant.

Their first sight of the four-storey abode of negotiable affection came in the form of a diaphanously dressed woman who waved at them, her sensuous flesh undulating passionately as the Mages rounded the corner.

Richard's eyes lingered for a few appreciative moments, then moved on. Mayuree, however, stared at the flapping flesh with her lips parted in frustration.

"Udder madness!" she muttered to Gwen. "Monstrous! Monstrous, I say!"

As the group passed the brothel, the door opened to reveal an intoxicated patron whose eyes lustily fell upon Gwen's party.

"You young ladies new?" he blurted out before one of the working girls could drag him back in.

The space around the patron grew instantly plentiful as his adrenaline banished the alcohol.

"Cao! S-sorry! Please forgive me! Master Mages!" He fell to his knees, covering himself in the silt of grim and wastewater, slamming his head against the ground.

Gwen had a mind to stop her companions from acting out unnecessarily, but there was no need. Kitty, who was about to throw a Bolt at the intoxicated NoM, shook her head with disgust before pushing Mayuree ahead of her.

The group moved on, leaving behind rime rimmed puddles where Kitty had entertained the thought of punishment.

"We're close," their guide stated, taking no heed of the commotion. "The Filtration section is just up ahead."

"How're our guests?" Gwen whispered to Richard, taking advantage of the distraction to check up on their watchers.

"Following rather inexpertly through the crowd, I am spotting at least three. Lea says there's four."

"Six." Mayuree's voice rang beside their ears. As a middle-tier Diviner, she could utilise Mass Messages with "silent" options at will, functioning as a mobile Divination Tower. "You guys have no idea how easy it is to spot Mages in a place with virtually all NoMs."

"Are they after our party?" Gwen asked.

"Looks like it," Mayuree reported. "They're convening and talking about us. Wanna hear?"

"You're serious?" Gwen interjected. "You can…"

"Clairvoyance or Scry, take your pick."

"What's more discrete?" Richard laughed.

"Clairvoyance. I am casting it now. Keep moving."

As the group continued to move, Mayuree opened a second channel in her Message array.

_"Status report."_

_"Almost at the entrance."_

_"What's team two doing."_

_"On standby. Near the target."_

_"Waiting on them."_

_"Is it true they doubled the fee?"_

_"Yeah, triple for if they're alive."_

_"They're from Fudan, though…"_

_"If they resist…."_

_"I like the tall one."_

_"We should kill the guy. The girls we can keep around."_

_"As if. Nephres is moving out the merchandise immediately."_

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

_"I don't know. Fudan has powerful people up top."_

_"Go home then. I wonder what Nephres will think of your cowardice."_

_"We can buy enough food for half a year if this succeeds."_

" _Slavers_ , or robbers, or Triad," Gwen stated coldly, her voice harmonised by Mayuree into their Silent Message array. "I've dealt with them before. They regularly abduct the local Neophytes who awaken and sell them as parts or merchandise. Sometimes, they find someone with a rarer talent, and they get a little ambitious."

"How daring." Kitty frowned, likewise sceptical. "Marong would kill every man, woman and child here if something were to happen to Mia. Hell, I would do it too if they dared lay a hand on her."

"Let's not go that far." Gwen's scalp crawled at Kitty's nonchalance. "It's not like the citizens here are trying to harm us."

"The NoMs are in on it too," Kitty said. "Why do you think this area is so prosperous? Where do they get the money for the mana? The water? The food? The wood? You think they can mine for crystals here?"

"A third power then? An outsider party?" Richard asked. "We met the bosses upstairs, right? They would be kneedeep in shit if they tried to impede or harm us. Secretariat Choi would skin them alive."

"Boss Yi is playing both sides then? Do you think secretary Choi knows?"

"Choi did offer 20 CCs for... something else," Richard said thoughtfully, then shook his head. "No, this is too stupid. It's just not worth it. I could solo these guys. With the four of us, they wouldn't even last five spell exchanges."

"Shush!" Mayuree interrupted them suddenly. "Something's happening. Two guys just came down another tunnel. They're saying something."

_"Fuck. We need help. Some crazy-biaozi is carving the place up on B2."_

_"Impossible. How did the girl get in? Is she Triad?"_

_"They're getting too close to the target site. Mistress says the Fudan Mages take top priority."_

_"Fine, take Liu to intercept. We're proceeding to the original meeting point."_

_"We don't have enough people!"_

_"Tell the NoMs to go."_

_"They are spell fodder."_

_"Leave them. Nephres said she'll take care of it. We have a job."_

_"No! We need at least another two teams. Send me Lu! That bitch killed Lin and Pan already! She—"_

_"Shut up. Don't make a scene."_

_"S-Sorry! It's just that—"_

"What do you think?" Mayuree asked her companions.

"Well, I am personally a big fan of ambushes. Especially reverse-ambushes." Richard grinned. "Gwen?"

"Let's see what they have in store for us first, shall we? Mia, how far can you Scry?"

"Not very far if I've never been there—I can send out an Arcane Eye. We'll see everything, but it'll take longer."

"Any chance we might get detected?"

"None, I don't sense a Diviner near. There're also no Divination Relays in here, by the way—no Message Devices either. I am routing your Message spells through my Sigil with a Silent-spell suffix applied. I don't think their Mages can talk to each other except face to face."

"Poor sods," Gwen noted.

"Alright", Richard cracked his neck. "Say, reckon some of those CCs could be for busting a Slaver's syndicate?"

The rest of the party chuckled. Even Kitty couldn't help but smile.

"Can you contact our Seniors going to the West section?" Gwen asked.

"Too far," Mayuree replied. "We're too deep."

"Let's hope for the best then." Gwen couldn't help but feel that bringing along a bloodline Diviner like Mayuree was cheating. Mia might lack damage, defence, and buffing, but her omniscient intelligence made up for raw power ten-fold. To know one's enemies' progress, locations, and tactics, even listen in on their planning sessions? Insanity!

Ahead, their hired guide glanced behind as the student Mages conversed silently, occasionally grinning foolishly.

Gwen noticed the man smirking.

Whatever their plan might be, she would soon be a part of it.

Nephres was not a happy woman right now.

Moments ago, her NoM scouts had reported that Gwen Song was now physically progressing toward the trap they had laid for the Fudan Mages.

Then, one of her backup crew just informed her that a third Fudan party had just barged in.

According to witnesses, the intruder was a lone-wolf Transmuter from Fudan making her way towards Gwen Song's party. She wasn't on the dossier list, but from the blabbering tongue of the survivors, the girl was trying to reconvene with her companions, and she wasn't opposed to ultraviolence.

Witnesses said that the Transmuter had freaked out when confronted by some of the undercity's less than savoury residents, who had mistaken her for a whore from Madam Lams. Now, she was hacking her way through the natives like a red-hot knife through rancid butter.

Usually, Nephres wouldn't care—the NoMs could all die tomorrow from a Cloud Kill, and she wouldn't shed a tear. But she couldn't allow anything to intervene with her grand plan of ascension. Nephres wanted to return to her mistress' side, or at least _not_ be stationed at a place as run down and filthy as the Lost Districts. Therefore, Gwen Song was a God-given opportunity she could not afford to miss.

Thereby, Nephres arrived at the B5 Guardhouse with her bodyguards in tow—a Senior Evoker and Sui, who was an earthen Transmuter, invaluable for a place with so much concrete.

"How's it looking?" She asked a bloodied survivor.

She could smell the stench of blood even before she entered.

Inside was a dozen mangled bodies, alive but groaning. Nephres clicked her tongue.

"Tell me what's happening."

One of the Mages spat out a mouthful of clotted blood onto the floor.

"S-She came through the vents on B4—just fell right on top of us. I don't know who she is, but her spells look like Signature spells from Sword-Sects. She conjures iron slabs, which she uses to attack up close and at a range. The damned things blocks projectile spells as well."

Nephres furrowed her tapered eyebrows. She hated fighting bloodline-Mages, whose abilities were always outside the reasonable scope of easy solutions.

"What is she, a Magus? A Magister?"

"Her destructive potential is Magus level." The man winced, then persisted in coughing up more blood. "Shit, the healing potion was subpar. Cao! Mao-damned local injectors!"

Nephres sighed. There was no helping it.

"Mass Cure Light Wounds!"

As much as she loathed helping these useless meat bags, they were still valuable. With a simple chant, she suffused the surrounding space with Positive energy, causing jolts of emerald mana to seek out their targets within the spell's range, restoring the wounded Mages.

Slowly, the fresher wounds closed, bloody stumps grew staunched, and the pain ceased.

"Thank you, Boss!"

"Thank you!"

"Mistress! You've saved my _pi-gu_!"

Words of praise from trash such as these meant little to Nephres, who took their compliments with a smile.

"I hope you're not just throwing yourselves at her like roasted lemmings. Where is she now?"

Nephres received her answer in the form of a crashing cacophony close enough to be audible.

"Is there a vantage point we can see?" she asked. Not having access to Divination was a pain. Any Diviners in the Lost Districts was a great taboo that Secretary Choi enforced with an iron hand—and when the iron fist of the CCP descended, it seldom landed without splashing blood.

"Yes, Missus Boss, this way."

Nephres followed the street Mage until they were at the service tunnels caught between B4 and 5.

Closer, the sounds of something dull and iron striking concrete became more prominent as they approached their destination. At the next junction, Nephres saw first-hand the scene of the intruder's butchery, filtered through slitted vents corroded by the acrid air.

Below the vent, she saw a lone, female Sword-Mage, soloing Nephres Mage-team.

The Clanner wore a stained-white singlet and what looked like biker's leathers, from the looks of which was enchanted against wear and tear. Her hair was now wet with gore, her twin irises concentric rings of rusty red. From the way she swung the heavy iron blade through the air without a care, the girl seemed to Nephres to be not entirely conscious of her actions.

_Hmm_ , Nephres made a note of the girl's strange demeanour. The girl below reminded Nephres a little of the infamous Blade Dancers from the Temple of the Jackal God back in her homeland. Those women too could manifest themselves as engines of whirling destruction, aided by their faith in the Jackal-headed and a potion that momentarily took away pain and fear while inducing a sublime euphoria.

With a deft swing of a hand or her arm, the Sword Mage summoned a massive chunk of rusted metal roughly in the shape of a sword but more akin to an oxidised slab of rough-hewn metal.

"Broad Strike!"

"Thrust!"

"Sweep!"

_CLUNG—!_

Nephres observed the girl. As an experienced healer, she could use a Clerical form of Detect Magic for medical diagnosis. From what she could see, the girl's conduits were a mess. Observing the mass of rusty mana swelling about her person, Nephres could see that the Sword Mage had a catalyst agent embedded into her chest, infused with her body.

_Interesting_. Nephres thought. Another potential treasure to be unearthed. Body-changing techniques that messed with the mana channels a Mage naturally developed were ancient and rare. The girl would make an exceptional specimen, dead or alive.

Not far from the girl, Nephres' Abjurer was holding her off with Walls and Shields, sending the Sword Mage into a frenzy of futile frustration. They were trying to tire her out! Nephres sighed with appreciation. What faithful employees! Even risking their lives, her minions were thinking of the bottom line.

Then the Sword-Mage began to holler.

"GWEN SONG! WHERE ARE YOU!"

"COME OUT! YOU BITCH! STOP HIDING!"

The girl's cries reverberated through the lower levels, ricocheting off the walls with a metallic jangle.

"ARRRRGH—!"

She hurled a length of iron toward one of the Abjurers, striking the Earthen Shield with such force that it penetrated the exterior and would have crushed the Mage cocooned within had the Sorceress been sufficiently lucid to direct her aim.

_Merciful Jackal!_ Nephres exhaled. That's some striking power!

Her Mages weren't the likes of those in Fudan—they were independents who attained tier 3 and 4 without instructions from caring Elders or wise Lecturers. As a result, their spells lacked speed and finesse, but their mastery was more pragmatic and practical.

_Clung—!_

_CLANG!_

Across the service tunnel, the Sword Mage continued to swing tirelessly.

Nephres watched the girl hammer away like a blacksmith, her mana barely diminishing.

They were certainly not going to subdue her at this rate, she realised. _But such a temper!_ Did Gwen Song murder the girl's father or something? Nephres couldn't help but hope for a more coherent narrative. The girl's killing intent was so overpowering that she was tasting iron on the tip of her tongue.

"Oi, you!" Nephres turned to the Mage who had summoned her and shot the young man a look of contempt and displeasure.

"Does that look like someone who's the Fudan party's ally, you idiot?" she snapped at the terrified Mage. The problem with these Lost District Mages was that they were effectively Magically empowered imbeciles.

"She wasn't screaming like a psycho before." The man sulked.

Nephres turned back to the girl.

"How long has this been going on?"

"Almost an hour now, Missus Boss."

Nephres returned to the scene below contemplatively.

The problem was that if they were wasting personnel keeping this girl in check, who could guarantee that the operation in B7 would be appropriately provisioned? As a seasoned Slaver, she was experienced enough to know that these progenies of the powerful always had some trick up their sleeve—mostly Contingency Rings. Still, potentially, they could have scrolls of higher Magics, triggered Magic Items, or even means to summon extra-dimensional creatures. The only way to suppress them was through an ambush. To do that, she had to be personally present; there were no other Mages in the city with the relevant talent to keep her Mages and her Carrion Beasts topped up.

"Send a runner down there, tell them to hold their position until we engage the Fudan students. If our psycho-killer wants Gwen Song so badly, we're going to bring her a gift. Make sure our handlers are well hidden. They are not to reveal themselves without my express say so."

Her runner bolted at once.

Nephres stayed to watch the girl for a few more minutes. There was a trail of blood leading away from the Sword Mage and toward the dark recesses of the B4 complex. From the viscera that splattered the walls, it was evident that the girl was accustomed to the sight of blood; an average Student Mage would have lost their nerve upon seeing so much fresh offal.

Indeed, not even Nephres was immune to the sight of such coagulant gore.

Sometimes, a well-flung intestine tract could stretch for six to seven meters. Then there was the stench of ruptured stomach acid and shit, none of which was what a Mage from a walled garden could endure.

For now, she was confident that between Sui's Transmutation and Liu's Abjuration, they could lead the girl down two more levels toward the target zone. Then, all they had to do was wait for Gwen Song's party to arrive—then they could send this Sword Mage blasting down the tunnels in a red-eyed rampage.

Nephres couldn't help but allow a smile to touch her lips, happy that things were once more traversing according to plan.


"The Filtration section begins just ahead." Their guide bowed, moving aside to reveal the gnarly entrance. "This is where I must leave you."

Richard turned to Mayuree. Since their arrival, their Diviner extraordinaire had continued to empower their Silent Message array. From an outsider's perspective, it looked as though the Mages were moving their mouths and mumbling inaudible murmurs.

"How does it look?" Richard asked.

"Got a spotter, 7 O'clock, creeping in the ducting. There are probably other spotters, but if they're NoMs, I can't detect them."

"How're they communicating?"

"Message runners, from the looks of it. The mana signature registers as barely tier 1 in Transmutation. I am guessing he knows a few enhancement spells, probably Expeditious Retreat."

"How does it look, up ahead?" Richard asked. "In the filtration chambers."

Mayuree squinted.

"Sorry, Richard. I can't tell. The entire segment is lit up with too much residue mana of all sorts. It's like a solid block of illumination four storeys high, going on for about six to seven blocks.

Amazed by Mayuree's skill, Gwen wondered if she too could one day attain the sort of proficiency Mayuree had shown, feeling such pride that she wanted to squeeze Mayuree's haughty cheeks.

Sensing Gwen's interest, Mayuree explained that her Greater Detect Magic could distinguish the presence of other Mages up to a hundred meters away, assuming a clear LOS, and through walls about twenty or so. Outside of the staple spell, she could scout ahead with a magical eye or use her powers to listen in on the conversation of people they could see. Furthermore, given time and preparation, combinations of spells such as Scry and Clairvoyance, combined with Locate Creature or Track, also brought new possibilities.

To a laywoman like herself, Mia was an intelligence service equipped with all the right tools and could foretell danger should anything escape her notice. Unlike Gwen's mediocre senses, Mayuree could also pinpoint the direction of the threat as well as gain an understanding of the chronology of events to come.

In truth, Gwen could scarcely believe that this was the same girl who went from awake to asleep in Management within thirty seconds of Professor Ma opening his mouth!

"It would be nice if we had Tao here," Richard noted with a wry smile. "He could 'send' a team up ahead."

Mr Wang would probably burst into tears if he heard that, Gwen mused. Tao Wang—wanted and valuable. Aunt Nen might just burst into tears.

"Mister and Missus Bosses?" their guide craned his neck. "I leave you now, okay?"

"Thank you. You may go now."

They watched their guide leave. It was impossible to tell if the man was doing his job, leading them to a trap, or both.

The party turned to the bulkhead that led into the filtration section of B7. The excess mana that leaked from the area meant that there were unlikely to be NoMs within. Non-magically aligned humans could live in highly magically charged environments but seldom chose to, as quasi-magical diseases and parasites made short work of NoMs lacking the means to defend themselves.

At the entrance, Richard incanted the codified Glyph the Secretariat had given them. The door unlocked with a rusty clang of mechanisms moving out of and into place.

Next, a secondary set of banded-iron gates swung open, revealing interchanging nodes of light and darkness where decades-old Light glyphs struggled against disrepair. The District followed the adage of never fixing things that were not broken, which meant maintenance was a rare bird in the depth. Had not a 'Crawler' manifested somehow on the level, not even Acolytes of Fudan would have been given access to such an essential section of the city's livelihood.

"Arcane Eye!" Mayuree created an all-seeing eye of Divination capable of piercing illusions and seeing in the dark. The "Eye" itself was invisible as it shot forward, feeding the Diviner with borrowed sight. The spell was notoriously difficult to exercise, as it forced the user to perceive a 270-degree field of view that was disorienting in the extreme, especially in motion.

While Gwen exercised her imagination, Mayuree scanned the closest few rooms and the corridors, reporting that they were unexpectedly free of any Crawlers. When she skimmed the ground closer with her Arcane Eye, however, she spotted a trail of viscous, snot-like slime. Mayuree held her breath unconsciously, told the others, then followed the clues.

"What's wrong?" Gwen asked after a few seconds.

"I found the creature. Section 3-8. It's set up a nest of some kind down here. I can, oh Naga Goddess—I can see a few bodies mostly bloating and rotting. I don't think it's on B7, though. I had to move up the vent—B6?"

"What's it look like?" Richard asked.

"Like a white Caliban with moustache tentacles, maggoty, oozing pus all over. It's pretty big as well, about the size of a small car."

"Strewth!" Gwen suppressed her nausea as well, making a mental note that Caliban must not eat this thing. If Caliban could turn into a netherworld maggot the size of a VW Golf…

Mayuree's Arcane Eye continued its tour of the surrounding area.

"I got something," she continued. "Let me finish doing the round."

"Ooop, I found something!" Mayuree gushed. "Well, I found someone."

"Okay, steady..."

"There's another— _Oh Goddess_ —and another!"

After a minute, Mayuree's narrative tour continued as the Mages waited.

"Alright, Basement level 5, Section 2-3, 4-3, 3-6 and 4-8. Hostiles, a dozen NoMs armed with… nets? Why are they doing with fishing nets? There's a Mage with each group as well. Evocation and Transmutation from the looks of it— _whoops!_ One of them just looked at me. I am going back into the vents. Maybe they know Detect Magic?"

The party held their breath.

"... okay, I am safe. False alarm."

Using the entrance of the filtration quarter as cover, Richard asked Lea to create a miniature model of what Mayuree saw as the party convened for their next step.

"So, it's confirmed," he said. "An ambush. They were waiting for us to take on the Crawler, maybe. Those things are notoriously difficult to kill. As a magical aberration born out of God knows what, their bodies resist physical damage, and their slime has both paralysing effects and acts as protection against elemental damage. Word is they're from a _Far_ _Plane_ of sorts, like pocket dimensions in between the Elemental Planes."

"So was Gwen's right? There's someone responsible for this thing?" Mayuree asked.

"And laid a trap for us no less." Gwen tapped her chin. "What are they hoping to accomplish? They can't be robbing us. That's absurd. Ransom maybe? A kidnapping? That's beyond stupid..."

"Half the Undercity would cease to exist," Kitty scoffed, glancing at Mayuree. "They wouldn't dare."

"Then that makes even less sense. Are those Undercity Mages protecting the Crawler, maybe?"

"It's still a magical creature," Richard added. "A powerful one at that, tier 4 or 5 at least. Maybe they're looking to harvest its core?"

"Too much effort. With this many men, they could form a party and go to the Orange Zone," Mayuree dispelled Richard's hypothesis.

"They can't leave the District, so maybe that's it. I still think they look like Slavers," Gwen stated unpleasantly. From experience, she had no difficulty believing the extent to which Slavers may go to capture a rare talent. "Any group that wishes to operate with the domain of the Tower would not dare antagonise Fudan. Assuming they're after one of us, they would make enemies of powers they cannot possibly contain. The presumption, then, I would suggest, is that they have help from powers outside of the CCP and the Towers. Perhaps Rogue Mages?"

The others considered her theory and concurred. It was the only logical explanation, given the circumstances.

"Well, how do you want to do this?" Mayuree asked, looking a little unsure. "Do we... umm..."

Gwen felt her whole body tensing.

There it was.

The moment of truth.

She studied the three-dimensional diagram in front of them—The enemy was grouped into four quadrants, one Mage to four to five NoMs. They were situated one basement level above the creature. From the looks of it, they had planned to attack the Fudan party as soon as the Mages had exhausted themselves against the worm, maybe catch Gwen's party unaware via some sort of environmental effects, like a collapsed ceiling or a flood of water. That would explain the fishing nets, Gwen surmised. The filtration systems could summon immense volumes of water. If they did not have Richard with them or Mayuree, she and Kitty could be caught unaware, unable to defend themselves or become injured enough to trigger their Contingency Rings.

"Gwen." Richard placed a hand on her shoulder. "Use Caliban well. Those Mages look tier 3 or 4 at best."

Gwen flinched at her cousin's suggestion, feeling her hands grow clammy. _Vents. Enclosed Spaces. Caliban. Fresh Meat._ It was a good plan. There was one Mage in each sector.

There would be no survivors if her creature descended upon her hapless victims in an ambush.

Then, it would be a repeat of Blackheath.

But worse.

Far worse.

Gwen felt her initial euphoria over Mayuree's Divined advantage transform into a cold and unpleasant epiphany. Earlier, when speculating about the battles ahead, she had anticipated that, like her prior experiences, they would be assaulted by parties who wished to impede or oppose them. In the heat of combat, she would wound, maim and if need be, kill her enemies.

But this…

They had a phrase for it in her old world.

_Premeditated Murder_.

"There's likely quite a bit of noise and vibration once you get down there," Richard continued to explain, perhaps sensing her unease. "With any luck, the other groups wouldn't hear."

Mayuree's complexion paled as well as Gwen's. Reaching out with a hand, the two clasped each other's fingers for some reassurance of sanity.

"If you can't. I'll do it," Kitty said without hesitation, her tone mocking and cold.

Gwen took a deep breath.

She knew the day would come, but not like this.

Not over something so trivial.

Not for scores.

"Wait!" Even if it was futile, even if these were maybe _Slavers_ , she wanted to steer her companions' minds away from one of bloodlust. "You're all forgetting about what the Secretariat's quest for us was! It's to kill this thing, right? It's to make this level safe from an aberrant beast! We don't have to go in there and kill everything and everyone. What would be the point? I know of a way to solo the Crawler. Single-shot artillery spell. Boom, and _smithereens_. Richard can defend me, Mayuree can keep an eye out, and Kitty, you can run interference if anyone comes to find us. Think outside the box! We're not going to benefit from killing these NoMs and Mages because it's not a part of our quest! This way, bang-bang-boom, five CCs. Done! Otherwise, we waste time and mana, get blood on our hands, and for what?"

"More pussyfooting around?" Kitty frowned, her eyes critical and unpleasant.

Mayuree pulled at her friend's sleeve. Kitty turned to the Diviner.

"I... don't want to kill the NoMs," Mayuree raised her voice, perhaps thinking of the NoMs in District 35 or maybe the lively scene she had seen in the market. Ma's thought experiment had struck her soundly. These NoMs were just people, desperate people trying to earn a living. To kill them in defence was one thing, but casually slaughtering them when an option for avoidance was available did not sit well with her lifestyle.

Gwen was opposed to murder, while Mayuree had no desire to be an accessory to murder.

Richard grinned his usual grin, shrugging. He would abide by Gwen's choice.

"You sure you can kill the Crawler solo?" Kitty pulled a face before turning to her fellow LCSS candidate. "Also, an artillery spell? Do you know an artillery spell? What are you, tier 4? 3?"

"I'll use Caliban it if I have to." Gwen's expression was full of hopeful determination. "As for your question, yes. I know an artillery spell. I worked it out with Magister Wen. We measured the maximum output between tier 6 and 7."

Kitty's pale eyes grew hard, impressed but not convinced.

"If you screw this up and they find us, I am not going to be soft-hearted," she warned Gwen. "My Path does not allow for such sentimental hesitations. Mao knows why you're trying to spare this trash."

"Of course. Thanks, Kitty," Gwen unwound the tension in her voice.

She knew that Mayuree's friend was the sort of person whose words were harsh and unforgiving, but having spent six weeks with the girl, Gwen knew better than to judge Kitty by her frigid exterior.

Nonetheless, it was still shocking seeing "good people" not thinking of killing foes as morally reprehensible. Had Kitty been blooded? She certainly acted the part. Richard? Gwen had no doubt. Conversely, Mayuree was a neophyte in the taking of human life. As for herself, Gwen could only abide by her lingering remorse.

At least for now, she had convinced her party to give her a chance to complete the quest without unnecessary bloodshed. If they still got attacked by these NoMs and Mages, her mercy was at an end.

She walked the Path of Violent Conflict, not the Path of Gleeful Butchery.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

"Gwen?" Mayuree squeezed her hand.

Gwen nodded. The time for thinking was over. Now was the time for action.

“Ariel!”

“Ee—EE!"

“Caliban!”

“Shaa—Shaa!”

Taking a deep breath, she faced the threshold, beyond which was the darkness beckoned.

"Right," she informed her companions. "I am ready."

Richard sighed internally.

As always, he chose to humour his cousin.

At any rate, the Slavers weren't going to be worth any CCs.

He could probably drown the whole room without making a peep, but what was the benefit? He had known that Gwen would be opposed to the killing. Likewise, he could have offered Gwen a reprieve, taking it upon himself to kill the men so that her little hands remained unsoiled.

But instead, he'd egged her on because Gwen needed instruction in matters more than just magic. Lord Gunther had told him as much when he left for Shanghai.

_"Now that you and I are both privy to Gwen's peculiar quality,"_ her Brother-in-craft had shared with him. _"Know that I am determined to see Master's legacy fulfilled in Gwen. Despite the trauma, her mind has retained clarity of purpose, her heart an unwavering moral compass. That is why Master loved her so. She's not like you and me, Richard. Gwen has a conscience of balance, just like her Void and Lighting, interesting, don't you think? Do recall that she's the one who said that the abuse of greatness is when the use of power is disjointed from remorse._ "

The two had shared a drink.

_"Keep her safe, but don't keep her sheltered,"_ the Magus had advised Richard. _"She will bend, but Gwen will not break."_

And so I shall prod. Richard thought to himself as Gwen summoned her Familiars. He regarded Caliban in its serpentine form, appreciating the obsidian serpent's smooth, high-gloss exterior. A double-edged blade, he thought to himself, a true monster.

A moment later, Lea returned from her discrete little adventure in the vents above as the others entered the filtration chamber.

Through their telepathic bond, the Undine informed him that the Mage in the vent had expired.

_Anyone else?_ He asked through their Empathic Link.

_The NoM who was watching us is unconscious_. Lea replied. _I spared him as you asked._

_Good girl. Stay out of sight._

Richard felt a light pressure to his right.

He looked down to see Mayuree, her face full of questions. Gwen and Kitty could not detect his invisible Familiar, but Mayuree could.

He smiled at her innocuously.

"What are you doing?" It was a Private Message.

"Doing what I can for Gwen," Richard answered without a hint of shame. "Paving the road ahead. Doing my best."

"Best for you or Gwen?"

"Is there a difference? I can't foretell the future. I am not a Diviner."

Mayuree's amber eyes searched his face for an answer.

"Why did you kill him?"

Richard's answer was as cryptic as it was chilling.

"You gave me cause."

"Me?"

"Aye." Richard paused, then gave Mayuree his brightest, beaming smile. "Because Gwen does not need to Consume low-level Transmuters."

The Diviner walked on ahead.

The party entered the filtration chambers.

The wastewater exchange nodes were rooms constructed from ferroconcrete, transmuted into twenty-meter width cubes. In each hub sat an enormous pillar inscribed with a combination of Transmutation, Conjuration, and Abjuration Magic held together by inscriptions and glyphs of the Enchantment School. A plumbing system was embedded above and below, taking fetid wastewater from above and then expelling it into the near-infinite space of the Elemental Plane of Water. Below, another node drew in fresh, clean water from elsewhere on the Plane of Water, feeding the purification junction in B2. Though exceedingly rare, the occasional Elemental creature used the link to steal into the Material Plane, causing havoc in the Hive cities where maintenance was neglected.

When the device was first introduced to the Management students, Gwen almost spat out her coffee. How big was this Elemental Plane of water exactly? She wondered. What if some Aquatic Demi-God swallowed a floating log of human turd? Would they then desire to punch through the fabric of reality into the Prime Material Plane and end humanity once and for all?

Magister Wen later provided Gwen with some solace by informing her that the Elemental Plane of Water was of a scale measured in astrophysical terms. The amount of waste humanity injected into the Plane would not even account for a single particle of waste ejected by native creatures to the plane, such as the Mythic Leviathans, whose size was measured as continents, and whose turd, Gwen reasoned, would be the size of Tasmania.

The filtration system within the room was as Secretariat Choi had described. They were built in the eighties, and many of its sections suffered from disrepair. Parts of it glowed faintly; others had missing inscriptions. The lower pillars had plumbing failures, resulting in gushing pools of foul water that ran ankle-deep into water-worn crevices.

There was also a scent of death in the air, distinct from the heavy odour of human excreta. It was the sort of smell that was sour and acrid with an offending odour that watered the eyes. There was likewise a faint sound of buzzing in the distance, as though someone had thrown a wasp's nest into a room and then shut the door.

"We're close enough. We're smelling the Crawler because of the connecting vent above us." Mayuree marked the rusted entry-point above, where a network of ventilation shafts lay long neglected, used only by strange and aberrant creatures spawned from the chamber's connection to the Elemental Plane of Water, and now an Arcane Eye. "The creature's lair is one level above us on B6 and one chamber to the North. The Slaver Mages are on B5 above the creature, spread across adjacent rooms. My Arcane Eye is currently overseeing the creature. It's disgusting. It's got some sort of compound insect eyes too, and tentacles, and it's squirmy and slimy, and oh Goddess, it's got maggots in its maggot body! Arrrgh!"

"It'll all be over soon, Mia," Gwen promised. "Hold steady!"

She knelt and focused upon circulating Alumdj's mana until half of her Druidic essence congealed into a sphere the size of a ping pong ball.

"Ariel, come here."

"EE-EE!"

Ariel appeared beside her hand in a flash. With a snap of its jaws, it sucked up the ball of vital energy with an audible puck. As the emerald energy suffused its body, Ariel's serpentine, marten figure grew several magnitudes until it was almost the size of a hunting hound. Sparks of emerald lightning arced from its whiskers onto the concrete, gouging out a set of Lichtenberg figures across the pavement.

"EE-EE—!" it cooed at Gwen.

Her companions, Kitty included, felt the palpable intensity of the mana stored inside Ariel's body.

"Caliban, you're on back up," Gwen communicated to her Familiar that it should wait for Ariel to deliver its payload, then strike if the Crawler survived the lightning blast. "Stay in your serpent form until you're needed. Okay?"

"Shaa—Shaa!"

Gwen could only assume her infamous 'Mongolian Death Worm' understood.

"Okay, let's head up now. Mayuree?"

"Ready! It's still there. Our goal is to do this quickly and get out before the Mages can come down. Time is of the essence."

"That's right," Gwen said deliberately. "Let's make this clean and snappy."

Kitty scoffed. In readiness, the girl had put on an array of self-buffing Transmutations. Like a Valkyrie of ice, she floated through the air, hovering an inch off the ground, radiating an Aura of Frost that would slow any enemy that tried to close the distance to melee her.

"Richard?"

"Lea and I are good to go."

Gwen nodded.

"Thanks, everyone." She knocked her boots together. It wasn't necessary, but she had felt the gesture suited the effects of the magic item rather well. "Flight!"

Caliban coiled itself around her waist while Ariel rode on her shoulder. Gwen elevated herself carefully until she reached the height of the vent, near the entrance where Mayuree's eye had entered prior.

At about half a meter from the rusted ventilation, her familiars leapt into the corroded space of the metal with a terrific clang.

"I think it heard that. It's stirring." Mayuree kept a real-time tab on the Crawler with her face half caught in a suppressed gag. "Mao, that was loud!"

Rookie mistake, Gwen grimaced. The Arcane Eye was silent and ethereal. Physical movement through the vent was a drunken pub crawl at three AM.

Without hesitation, she channelled a jolt of Lightning mana into Ariel.

"Ariel—Haste! Go!"

Ariel disappeared in a silvery-emerald streak of light. Caliban slithered forward as well, traversing the vent in an "S" pattern. When Ariel reached the vertical section, it kicked off the sides with percussive _Clang!_ and made its way up.

As for Caliban, the Void serpent turned its faceless mien upwards, then requested the mana necessary to transmute legs.

Gwen obliged, feeling her blood run cold as Caliban assumed the form of the Javanese Death's Head Centipede.

Caliban stretched out its 29 pairs of newly sprouted legs and began its ascent with a rhythmic _tink-tink, tink-tink, tink-tink-tink,_ its carapace clanging as it went and its bulbous head and two grasping mandibles attached banging the vent like a cymbal.

_Clang! Clang! Clang!_

_Tink-tink-a-tink! Tink-tink!_

An unholy orchestra of noise reverberated and shot through the vent with such absurd cacophony that Gwen's party could hear nothing else.

"Mayuree." Gwen closed her eyes to avoid becoming distracted, turning her mind inward to feel her Familiars through their empathic link. Until her creatures took on Spirits or became higher-order existences, they would not be able to feedback visual and audio stimuli like Lea. "Mia, be my eyes."

"They're almost at the vent!" Mayuree shouted over the ding of Gwen's Familiars raking and ripping their way through the rusted vents.

"Ariel, faster!" Gwen's voice took on a tone of urgency, offering her pet another jolt of mana.

Through their Empathic Link, she felt Ariel launch from the vent into the corroded, slimed, covered filtration room where the Crawler had made its lair, skidding across the slippery pavement.

"Ariel's in!"

"Combat form!" Gwen released the limits placed on Ariel's marten form and allowed it to transform into its mongoose shape. "Keep it engaged while I ready the spell!"

"EE—EE—!" Her Familiar's battle cry echoed through her skull.

As Ariel enlarged, the mongoose became surrounded by a splash of blue-green energy that scorched the ground, ionising the fetid air into pure ozone.

From Mayuree's rapid explanations, the Crawler had been feeding on the filth that leaked from the malfunctioning filtration node, growing fat on waste and excreta. Now that Ariel was in the fray, Mayuree could see just how unnatural the creature had become.

The bestiary had stated that Crawlers measured up to a maximum of five feet, but this creature was nine-feet and then some, excluding its writhing tentacles. It had outgrown its innate instinct for carrion, for Mayuree could see that in the pile of amphibian spawn-sacks behind it were pale and bloated bodies of humans in various states of decay.

Ariel's fur fluffed into needle-like slivers as it blasted the creature with a shower of pins and needles, setting up a damage multiplier for Gwen's next assault.

Enraged, the Crawler vomited forth a spray of vile milk liquid in a frontal cone that covered a distance of almost four meters.

Ariel proved far too fleet for a creature used to tracking down unmoving prey, moving like living quicksilver. With a thrust from its powerful hind legs that pulverised the pavement, Ariel leapt from the ground, kicked from the walls, and used the three-dimensional nature of the filtration node to manoeuvre itself into the Crawler's blind spots, sending its compound eyes twisting and turning on their stalks.

Gwen, meanwhile, readied her artillery spell.

With Mayuree's panoptic vision, Gwen could alleviate her worry that Ariel lacked the intelligence to supersede its tunnel vision prey-sense, making it susceptible to ambushes.

One after another, with heart-in-mouth, she incanted the necessary patterns of the Evocation Sigil required to manifest Elemental Sphere.

Though the spell was still a tier above her, she had studied the magic enough to complete the circuit.

"Shaa!" Caliban suddenly sent her an empathic warning.

"Something's coming through the top side!" Mayuree abruptly shouted beside Gwen, her eyes wide with disbelief. "What in Mao's name? A Stone Shape is manifesting on the east wall!"

The intrusion was so sudden that Gwen almost lost her spell.

"Gwen, if you're going to do it, do it now!" Mayuree urged her to make or break. As the intrusion had posed no immediate danger to Mayuree, she had not foreseen it coming and was just as surprised.

Gwen caught her fumble and finished the last few syllables.

"Gwen! I think it's—" her final incantation drowned out Mayuree's warning.

"BARBANGINY!"

Gwen finished the last dozen syllables of her chant, feeling the strain on her Evocation Glyph dialled to eleven. Given a choice, she would have chosen Lightning Bolt, but only her new Signature Evocation AOE possessed the power to obliterate her target.

"— _My eyes!_ " Mayuree's spell sizzled.

Somewhere a level away, Ariel's ball of plasma erupted like a miniature sun manifesting within the tightly constrained space of the filtration chamber. Arcs of blue-green lighting running at a billion or more volts filled the room, turning the air into flames.

The Crawler creature made a single screech before its mucus evaporated, its flesh charred, and its soft innards boiled. Already pin-cushioned by Ariel's lightning-charged spines, the volatile energy sought a path of escape, finding itself drawn to the creature's body, obliterating it so entirely that it split from top to bottom in an eruption of superheated mucus.

Then the first stage of Elemental Sphere ended, and the second stage began.

A secondary burst of electricity in emerald and cobalt smothered the room in a cleansing tempest, scouring every inch of its surface with plasma, flaying the necrotic air with heavenly fire until only ozone remained.

Gwen retracted Ariel and Caliban the instant her spell connected.

She quickly realised she had made another rookie mistake—this time, there was too much gunpowder in the cannon.

She wanted to make sure the volume of vitae spent was a force multiplier for the Crawler.

However, her calculations were way off the chart.

Having spent weeks practising Ariel's lightning manifestation, as well as record metrics with Magister Wen, she had developed an acute internal sense for the strength of lightning produced by her Evocation Sigil.

Week after week, she had felt the intensity and power of her Evocation Sigil increase in proficiency little by little, like water carving out a pathway through stone, becoming more fluid and fluent.

Still, she had underestimated Almudj's gift.

From the rush of heat exploding from the vent, her spell appeared to have ignited the residual mana within the room, left by the broken Enchantment of the filtration system.

She couldn't help but shiver.

If her friends had been in that room, and she had no idea that her lighting was powerful enough to ignite the excess mana—then the ramifications would have been catastrophic. Therefore, she couldn't help but applaud her choice of avoiding the Slavers.

"Goddess above and below!" Mayuree struck out her tongue at Gwen. "What did you and Magister Wen create?!"

Gwen touched a few fingers to where her heart was threatening to tear from her chest. "Thank God we sent Ariel! No one else got hurt, right?"

Mayuree's expression grew strange.

"I don't know about that."

Mayuree recalled the sight she'd seen as the spell erupted. She was sure that a sorceress had come through the wall, which meant that—

"—GWEN!" Mayuree issued the warning before Gwen's Divination Sigil could shriek in protest.

The two Diviners instantly took up defensive postures.

"Richard! Incoming!" Gwen warned her cousin, guiding his eyes upward.

"Above us!" Mayuree's warning was far more precise. "It's coming through the bulkhead!"

"Shield!" Richard formed a water barrier in front and on top of his companions. Her cousin had been working on his Abjuration for the last six weeks, focussing on both the speed of his manifestation and the endurance of his protective barriers.

Just as Kitty readied an incantation, the ceiling began to churn.

_CRACK!_

_CRACK!_

_CRACK!_

Something heavy was pounding through the ferroconcrete structure. The whole chamber seemed to ripple and tear from a Shockwave spell as dust and debris descended.

Suddenly, the ground lurched violently.

"Mia!" Kitty cried out. "Watch out!"

Slabs of concrete fell.

The ceiling moved as though suddenly liquified.

The concrete surface directly above them suddenly opened, revealing recoiled rebars that folded back as though commanded by a supernatural force, like the inverse-bloom of a flower.

Four pairs of eyes turned skyward.

A rusted blade, two-feet across and a full ten-feet long, shot into the filtration chamber where Gwen's party readied themselves.

_No, not a blade,_ Gwen thought as it punched through two layers of Richard's Water Shield then struck her non-newtonian mana Shield. That's a _fucking slab of iron!_


Before Gwen could react, Kitty intervened, sparing her from finding out whether her non-newtonian shield was capable of absorbing the impact from an iron girder falling from a high-rise.

As the frontal lobe of Gwen's Shield cracked, taking on the likeness of frosted glass, Kitty instantly completed the circuit for a Wall of Ice which erupted underfoot from her barrier, diverting the momentum of the terrific blow aside, shattering as it consumed the kinetic energy.

The foursome then turned their gaze upward, where the transmuted aperture of the ceiling gaped like a dark maw with folded iron for teeth.

There was first a smell of burnt flesh. Then a girl-Mage descended through the air.

" _Lulan Li?!_ " Gwen spluttered with shock and bewilderment, her Divination Sigil screeching like a cat dragged across a chalkboard. "What are you doing here? Were you in that room?!"

The girl was half-naked and half-baked; Gwen's baptism of lightning had destroyed her riding leather to charcoal. Lulan's dark head of hair was a burnt mess, smoking in clumps and missing most of its mass. Her eyebrows were gone as well, giving her a comical expression, while her skin wept from a dozen wounds gooey with mangled heat-rash. There was blood seeping down from her ears and her nostrils, but even so, her irises were two glowing orbs of molten iron locked solely onto Gwen.

When she opened her mouth to speak, Gwen swore she could see smoke billowing from Lulan's throat.

"Gwen Song… Daggers… give me back brother's daggers," the girl murmured, spitting splutters of scarlet with every rise and fall of her chest.

Gwen felt an instant impulse to lie—to delay until they had the time and convenience to sort out Lulan without a dozen Slavers rushing toward their location as they dallied. She did not doubt that the other Slavers knew their monster was a smoking mess of ravaged offal by now and coming in hot.

"Lulan, are you... okay?"

"Cao! We don't have time for this." Kitty hissed. "Glacial Spike!"

A conic missile of ice materialised with a crinkling clatter of frigid air, then launched itself with terrific velocity toward Lulan.

"Parry!"

Effortlessly, Lulan raised a hand, forming a slab of iron that deflected the blast. A rush of cold air filled the space between Gwen and Lulan as Kitty's spell exploded, half covering the blade with rime.

The blade barrier barely moved.

Kitty's brows knitted.

Gwen gulped. That was a tier 4 Evocation spell, and Lulan wasn't an Abjurer. Was the girl using the weight of her blade as a form of defence? How stoic was a slab of iron ripped from the bowels of the Elemental Plane of Earth!

Still, she attempted to disarm the girl verbally.

"Lulan, listen to me. Now's not the time to discuss Kusu's implements. If you could just calm down for a minute—"

"Don't lie to me!" Lulan's face was a mask of anguish and pain, livid with suffering. "THRUST!"

Another girder of iron took a split second to materialise, then sped toward Gwen's Shield with the momentum of a rockslide.

"Fuck!" Richard snapped; his cool finally depleted. Gwen felt his frustration, for Dick's water Shields were weak against a specific type of magic—and it just so happens that Lulan specialised in that same form.

He had wanted Gwen to continue her training - but it looked as though circumstances had rapidly changed for the worse.

"Gwen, LEAVE HER! Regroup! Back to the tunnels!" he shouted at her.

"Lea! Elemental Form!"

Silvery Conjuration filled the air as Richard's Undine manifested in full. It was the first time Gwen had seen Richard Conjure Lea in her entirety—and the effect reminded her of when her Master brought forth Sufina's full power.

A resplendent goddess in blue materialised, hovering six feet from the floor, instantly drawing every mote of elemental water toward her consolidating form. First, a head full of rope-like cobalt hair distended, followed by a long, elegant neck, a serpentine waist and two pale white stalks for legs. As her elfin form solidified, motes of bean-green mossy liquid dripped from her toes. In Gwen's eyes, Lea's appearance, ethereal and elven, was equally cruel and beautiful.

"Human! Release your weapon and begone!" the Undine commanded Lulan, her fluttering, inch-long lashes opening to reveal sapphire-blue eyes without pupils. Her voice was ethereal, unearthly, informing the young Mages in front and behind that indeed, she was a higher-order being, a resident of the Elemental Plane of Water.

_SCHWING—_

What greeted Lea was a _sword-strike_ , cutting her watery torso in half.

Water was the most harmonious of all elements. The very weakness that ensured Richard's Shields could not block Lulan's attacks—but that also implied Lulan could not harm Richard's familiar.

As expected, Lea scoffed.

"Lea!" Richard urged his Familiar to focus on attacks and belay her love of posturing. As a fellow Conjurer, Gwen knew Elemental manifestation consumed mana at an atrocious rate.

Lea's eyes flashed.

She opened her mouth, and what emerged was a string of strange invocations innate to creatures of her Elemental race.

The Undine was a creature connected to a place of infinite mass and space. As a creature of the estuary and the river, Lea's link was to the brackish flow of streams fecund with life.

Lulan affected another swing.

Once again, Kitty diverted the strike with a grunt.

With a simple gesture, Lea opened an elliptic portal four-foot in diameter. A jet blast of water, forced under the immense pressure of the near-infinite tonnage of the watery Plane, erupted horizontally and struck Lulan across the chest, blasting her off her feet and launching the unsuspecting Sword Mage into the furthest concrete wall.

Four seconds later, Richard was stumbling.

"Lea!" He called out weakly. "Come back."

Sullenly, his Familiar returned.

Dark and tenebrous waters thick with reeds and silt, now knee-deep, sloshed back and forth across the filtration room. The party turned their attention toward the concrete wall, where Lulan's pressed into the rebar-reinforced concrete.

The Sword Mage's arm was twisted in impossible directions, broken in two places, one leg now hung limply. She slid from the wall into the water with almost comical slowness like a mannikin with its joints smashed. The only indication that she was still alive was the dull glow of wine still circulating in her eyes, glaring at Gwen with a dark and unwavering passion.

Lulan attempted to move, but a racking pain seemed to overcome her twisted body, sending a jolt of agony into her face despite her most ardent effort to remain stoic and impassive. When she attempted to lift herself from the floor again, a torrent of blood erupted from her nostrils, indicating extensive internal damage.

"Jesus, Dick." Gwen winced.

The others likewise could scarcely believe Lulan was alive as well.

Richard's eyes moved from Gwen to Lulan, Kitty and Mayuree, pondering the possibilities.

Her cousin seemed to withhold something he wanted to say.

"What a waste," Richard muttered under his breath. "Okay, let's regroup."

Lea returned to Richard's side, again becoming ethereal and invisible. Manifesting Lea in her full glory was no easy task for a Conjurer without the necessary expertise to control a high-tier humanoid Spirit, much less utilising her innate ability to such a degree.

Her cousin materialised a mana potion and injected himself in the thigh. Alchemy fatigue implied that his next dose would only be half as effective.

"Gwen, you alright?" Richard asked.

"Y-yeah. Jesus…" Gwen muttered, still shaking herself from the rapidly escalating events of the last two minutes or so. "Bloody impressive spell, Dick."

"You tanked that sword with only Shield," Richard replied. "Isn't that more impressive?"

"Are we finishing her off?" Kitty turned to Gwen with impatience. "Your enemy, your choice."

"Gwen," Richard coughed. "Waste not, want not. Caliban's around, right?"

"GWEN—!" Mayuree's warning came on yet again before Gwen could catch on to Richard's suggestion. "AGAIN!"

Gwen looked up bewilderingly while Mayuree directed their attention toward the hole Lulan had come through.

"Something's coming!" Mayuree shouted, moving to the side.

"Shield!" Richard called out to his familiar. "LEA! MAKE A DOME NOW!"

Lea instantly formed an umbrella-shaped Shield large enough to cover both himself and Gwen, but still, the flood of milky white liquid that came from above splattered off the walls and splashed on the shield, frothing as it slid into the knee-deep water.

Besides Richard, Kitty had done for Mayuree what Richard had done for Gwen, erecting a wall of ice that momentarily protruded from an adjacent wall while she effortlessly dodged the incoming tide.

When the foursome looked up, they could see five aberrant silhouettes imposed against a blinding backlight of Dancing Lights descending toward them.

Five Carrion Crawlers, each more massive than the one Gwen had slain, were roving downward toward them, adhering to the smooth sides of the hole shaped by Lulan when she had earlier intruded into the chamber.

_Fucking Five?!_ Gwen felt her mind reel with an unpleasant realisation. _So they were breeding them!_ The monster wasn't just a single creature being reared for whatever nefarious reason! There was a large-scale professional set-up! They had all underestimated the criminal undercurrent running under the ferroconcrete of the Lost Districts!

_But wait!_ Gwen sensed her rationality challenged by their precarious circumstance. None of this made any sense. What would some ruffians from the Triads gain by attacking them? Did these fools have a death wish? Are they not afraid of Purges? They were LCSS candidates! Students of Fudan!

She scanned his companions.

She couldn't see any reason a District would risk a Purge for her friends. Were they here for her? Did the Slavers have a network where they communicated and exchanged information on _rare specimens_ akin to how collectors traded the location of exotic Magical Beasts?

Her eyes gazed past the monsters covered by the glittering mass of Dancing Lights to the hole beyond. Was this group the ones who they'd seen before? Or were they another party? How should she fight them now?

Would it have been wiser if she had murdered them in cold blood?

Lulan felt the red mist fall away.

The berserker's haze had not departed by choice. It was forced to retreat by her battered body, now incapable of sustaining the stress put on by the Heart Iron.

Then the pain struck.

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Searing, burning, scalding pain that oppressed the breath in her body.

Barely lucid from her torturous injury, she watched the Water Mage with Gwen erect an impressive dome that splashed the milky liquid all over, splattering the walls and herself. Where the liquid touched her bleeding body, it quickly frothed, eating into her skin.

Numbness, paralysis, and incapacitation, Lulan recognised the symptoms but was glad for their anaesthesia. Without the chemical insensibility, she would have likely perished from the shock.

In her consciousness, she recognised the beasts as Carrion Crawlers—specially bred variants with a highly potent dose of the paralytic saliva. From the bestiary, she knew that despite the horrid nature of the Crawlers, they were often bred for the many medicinal agents extracted from their glans. Their saliva could be distilled to become poison, used as a replacement for morphine, or synthesised into alchemical gas for use in the battlefield against troops of Demi-humans like Orcs or Hobs. Likewise, their ichorous blue blood was a precious reagent used in healing magic or even distilled to produce a potent opioid.

Somewhere between her thoughts drifting, she acknowledged that she was bleeding out.

With a wet plop, a Crawler landed beside her.

She was covered with wounds, on the verge of death, and unable to fight.

That made her its favourite sort of prey.

The pallid-fleshed aberration approached. From either side of its teeth-lined maw extended two pairs of suction-cupped tentacles barbed with jaundiced teeth-hooks.

Lulan felt the birth of a new awareness press upon her brain, one that she understood in its entirely—despair. The despair of knowing one died for nothing.

Was this how her life was going to end? Like a dog with its legs snapped, fed to a monster like carrion?

_Kusu…_ she had caused him no ends of trouble.

As the Crawler's tentacles grappled her flesh, Lulan wondered if her brother would cry.

Gwen's team had made it no more than a dozen meters back the other way when they ran into the ambush party that they had seen in the upper chambers of B4, ratifying Richard's worst fears.

The Mages in the enemy party immediately opened up with a barrage of Flaming Hands, Magic Missiles, and Scorching Rays. An Abjurer in the ambush party brushed away a few Water Bolts Richard sent his way, erecting a half-dome Earthen Shield, forming a pincer attack with the Mages from the other side.

"Shit!" Richard now understood the meaning of one step wrong, and every step was a foot deeper into the grave. He had placed too much faith in Mayuree's detection spells and vastly underestimated the complexity of the tunnels that had been worked into the basement by the locals.

Mayuree's demonstration of her prowess had proved too impressive. Her seemingly omniscient knowledge of the lay of the land had made them all lower their guard. Locating the creature and scouting the tunnels that lead to it was one thing—but they should have had the patience to scout out the other tunnels with her Arcane Eye. That their team stopped at their quarry was his mistake, for he was the oldest and the most experienced.

Then there was Gwen's proposal.

Was it her fault then? She was the one who had urged that they immediately slay the creature and extract themselves from the level for five quick CCs.

Or was it Lulan's fault, or were more extraordinary powers at play?

He glanced over at his cousin, who was firing off Lighting Bolts at the Crawlers. As usual, her spells were supremely effective against Magic Creatures, and the deranged worms screeched and screamed as they fried.

Kitty, likewise, was flitting back and forth through the air, nimbly firing off darts of Glacial Spike that on impact snapped off tentacles and slowed the Crawler's movements.

Mayuree now exhibited the classic weakness of the single-class Diviner. She had to rely on her expendable Wands, blasting away at the Crawlers and keeping them at bay with Scorching Ray and Magic Missiles. In addition, it was up to Richard as the Abjurer to protect her, as Gwen wasn't yet proficient enough to be both Abjurer and Evoker.

"Gwen! Can you get us out of here?" Richard implored his cousin. "I can keep us Shielded while you work the Dimension Door."

Gwen could teleport one of them at a time, with her mana pool; she should be able to take Mayuree and Kitty to safety. As for himself, Richard was confident that should he flood the tunnels with Lea, he could at least escape.

"I can—"

_WHOMP—!_

Gwen's answer was lost as a blast of explosive air discharged in the middle of Richard's Shield, displacing the flowing mass of water for a split second. To his cousin's horror, a few splattered drops of the nasty, creamy Crawler phlegm landed across his face and arms.

"Fuck!" Richard immediately directed a stream of clear water to his face and limb. His timely action was sound, but the venom was most potent.

Gwen watched as Richard's face drooped, losing all expression.

"WEER!" Richard called for his Familiar once more, his voice mangled by the injury.

Lea manifested and took over Richard's Shielding of his companions, demonstrating one of the top reasons Creature Conjurers were unmatched. He fumbled in his ring, produced a Remove Poison injector, and slammed it into his thigh.

"Garrrgh!" He grunted as the magical adrenaline dispelled the paralytic alchemical effect. " _Fuck_!"

"Blizzard!" Seeing Richard taking a hit, Kitty could no longer hope to preserve her mana. She turned upward the front of the party where the second group of Slavers were trying to close in, then opened up a long-range, wide-radius AOE.

Instantly, shards of ice and slivers of arcane frost pelted the Abjurer's Shields, turning the ground to slush and rime.

"Gwen! Help Kitty!" Richard howled.

By now, Gwen had taken enough of a pause to resummon both her Familiars. Whatever impacts Caliban might have on her body, the situation was now life or death.

"Caliban! Keep them off us! Clear a path!"

Caliban had taken on its most mana-efficient form, the scorpion-spider.

Her netherworld fiend leapt into being, taking with it a chunk of her vitality no longer offset by her waning supply of Druidic essence, then charged the crawlers with its scything limbs.

"Ariel!"

Gwen's marten emerged in its Mongoose form, doubling the firepower of her Evocation Lightning.

Between their Glacial Spikes, Lightning Bolts, Wands and Richard's Shielding, the second ambush party slowed to a proverbial crawl, becoming entrenched by their defence.

As for the other side, the Carrion Crawlers were fighting a protracted battle of attrition.

"Blast BOLT!" His cousin gritted her teeth and channelled a sizeable portion of her mana through both herself and Ariel. The twin blasts of arcing electricity connected with the group of Crawlers, striking three in a row.

Immediately, the tunnel filled with fumes reeking of cooked flesh.

"SKREEEE—!"

The creatures' screech was like a mob of insane infants.

In the next moment, the party had expected the things to explode, or fall, or topple over.

Instead, the whole group of Crawlers glowed a shade of emerald, then came on again.

"Healing Magic!" Mayuree cried out in dismay. "They have a healer with them!"

"Oi, you gotta be shitting me!" Richard gnashed his teeth.

The party regarded one another with looks of doubt and disbelief, hesitant at this new information, A Combat Healer? The Slavers—ruffians and scoundrels of the undercity—had a battle-ready _Cleric_ with them? It was already absurd that some mid-tier Mages from the Lost Districts were pinning them in a tunnel with sedan sized maggots. But now they also have a healer capable of casting ranged area heals? That would make the healer at tier 6 at the very least!

At once, Richard thought about Secretariat Choi's offer of 20 CCs.

If this hidden prize was what the CCs were for, it made perfect sense.

The problem now was that they were stuck between concrete and harder concrete. The escalation of the party's already dire circumstances meant they could be injured and sent back in disgrace.

As for _death or capture?_ The risk was not high.

Gwen could escape by herself, though she would refuse. Her mana pool and her Dimension Door made her the least likely to be caught.

Kitty could also escape by herself, but likewise, she would not leave Mayuree.

Moreover, Gwen could take one of them with her, which meant Mayuree.

As for Richard, he would do his best.

The problem was if one of them were caught alone by the paralysing slime of the worms.

Had Secretariat Choi anticipated this? Would the smiling villain come to their rescue? Most importantly, would he be held accountable if the students were maimed? As far as Richard could deduce, fear of disadvantage to himself was the only reason why the Major would send someone to aid them.

_CRACK—_

The student Mages became aware of another impending crisis. The walls and the floors were shifting, boxing them inward.

"WOCAO!" Even Mayuree was losing her cool. "Someone's using Stone Shape on the walls! They're trying to box us in!"

The Diviner quickly materialised her Stone Shape wand and countered with borrowed Transmutation. Comparatively, her wand was at the minimum tier required for the spell, possessing only ten charges, meaning a maximum of eight odd minutes. The opposing Transmuter, assuming they were of average talent, could keep casting until they were OOM, furthermore restoring themselves with injectors.

"Kitty?" Gwen turned to their Transmuter. "Can you Stone Shape?"

"I am an ICE MAGE!" Kitty snapped at Gwen cattily. "AIR and WATER!"

_CRACK— CRACK—_

Their fighting space just narrowed by half a meter.

"By the Naga Goddesses!" Mayuree swore. "I can't hold them, Richard!"

"Gwen! Take Mayuree out of here with your Dimension Door!" Kitty yelled.

"We'll be fine!" Richard affirmed Kitty's call for an expeditious retreat. "Pop a potion, take Mayuree, and get out of here. Go!"

Gwen looked toward Mayuree, who shook her head angrily. "I am not leaving the two of you!"

"Now's not the time, you idiot!" Kitty was losing her patience. "Richard has Lea, and I can fly and Blink!"

_Crack—Crack—CRACK—_

The walls closed in.

FUCK! Richard's mind screamed with frustration. How dare these bastards fuck with them? _God damn it!_ He should have killed the fucking lot of them as soon as they entered the Districts.

He needed to get them out of there somehow.

ELEMENTAL SWARM—he thought immediately.

Gwen could use that.

The Void variety.

But a Void Swarm was a double-edged blade.

Or Elemental Sphere? The AOE was too small to encompass both front and back, not to mention she now lacked the Druidic Essence for the version Ariel had manifested earlier.

The walls shuddered.

Richard made up his mind to take his cousin out. Damn the others.

"DICK!" Her cousin turned to him with the light of an epiphany shining in her electric eyes.

“I am going to get Lulan! She got us into this, and she can get us out of this!" She shouted over the ding of Crawlers, the crumbling tunnel, the splashing of poison on Shields, and bursts of blizzard and ice to their front and back.

"How do you know she's not with them?" Kitty shouted back.

"You think Lulan is capable of laying a trap like this?" Gwen fired back. "We need her absurd offensive abilities—there's no time! I am going to make her an offer she can't refuse!"

"Don't waste your fucking time, get Mia—"

"Kitty! _SHUT UP!_ " Mayuree screamed at her friend, causing the girl to flinch. "Gwen, go! You can do it. I know you can."

Richard was amazed that Kitty had the extra energy to glare at her friend, who looked apologetic, then glower at Gwen with her jaws clenched in vexation.

"Gwen, are you sure?" Richard asked. "I can manage one more push with Lea. We can bullrush the rear. What if Lulan is dead?"

"She's alive," Mayuree said suddenly. "I can sense her still. Also, I can tell this is a... safe strategy."

The party turned to Mayuree.

"It'll work," the Diviner reminded them cryptically. "I have a good feeling about this."

"Thanks, Mia." Gwen turned toward the direction where she had last seen Lulan. The girl had been wounded badly, but Gwen had a solution for that. So long as the Sword Mage still had breath, Gwen was sure she could bring her around. "Caliban, distract them! Ariel! You help!"

"Shaa—Shaa—"

"EE—!"

Her cousin stabbed a mana potion into her thigh, shuddering as her mana pool refilled. Meanwhile, her pets bolted forward, taking advantage of the enclosed space to confuse her foes.

Gwen shook out the tension paralysing her body, feeling the empowering magic encompassing every sinew and muscle, then produced her Chameleon Cloak and wrapped it around her shoulders, covering the top half of her body.

"If Lulan dies or refuses—" Richard affirmed his cousin's valour. "Come back and Dimension Door Mayuree out first. I can get away through the water without drama."

Gwen affirmed his wisdom with a nod.

Richard redoubled the rigidity of his barriers, then commanded Lea to offer a distraction by misting the surrounding air.

"Dimension Door!"

And just like that, his cousin was gone.

Gwen was confident her plan would work.

It had to.

Her choice was a win-win for herself, for Lulan, and her party. If Lulan Li was idiotic or thick-headed enough to refuse, then the onus of what happened next was no one's fault but her own.

As she conjured the courage to venture outside Richard's barrier, her chest felt on the verge of bursting. But there was no recourse now. She was the one who got them into this mess, and now she had to dig them out of this hole. She had to become stronger. And she had to take responsibility.

"Dimension Door!"

With her growing command of the translocation spell, Gwen knew she could teleport further and more accurately. Therefore, she had calculated precisely the distance to where she had last seen Lulan before releasing the spell.

Her exit had been a slight wrinkle in space, but her arrival was a tenebrous burst of inky Void. Though precarious, she preferred the Void version of her Dimension Door because, unlike the lightning's thunderclap, the vitality-expanding variety was whisper quiet.

As expected, she appeared a safe distance away from the slavers. Very quickly, Gwen orientated herself and looked down toward Lulan's body.

_Holy shit!_ Her mind reeled and recoiled as she caught sight of the Sword Mage a few feet away, half-submerged in the brackish water.

Lulan Li was missing an arm and half-covered in viscous white-goo. From the looks of the stump, one of the Crawlers had chewed it off a few moments ago. Were it not for the fact that somehow, Lulan's reinforcement Magic still coloured her pale complexion with a reddish shade, Gwen would have teleported back already.

She materialised a thick blanket without further hesitation, ready to wrap the girl. The only part of Lulan's corpse-like form that moved was her eyes.

From a blanched and disfigured face, pupils the colour of wine glared at Gwen with a resentment that could set the world on fire.

Gwen met those eyes without hesitation.

"Lulan Li," she spoke with absolute certainty. "Come with me if you want to live.