_SLAP!_

Elder Li's backhanded strike left a five-digit imprint on Lulan's cheek.

"WHAT DID I TELL YOU?" Lulan's uncle hissed. "Subtlety! Here is not our territory! We have no influence here in Shanghai. Why in the name of the Ancestor Jiang did you do that?"

"Uncle Luwei, Lulan was just—"

"Shut your mouth, Kusu!" Luwei turned to his disciple with a wave of anger that made the young man recoil.

"YOU LOST, and what's more, you lost a hundred or more of your inscribed daggers! How long did it take you to craft those blades?"

"Three years, Shifu." Her brother replied demurely. When dealing with their Sect Elders, respect was kinder than kinship.

"Well? Where are they?" Their uncle turned to Lulan. "You went to find Gwen Song, didn't you? Where are your brother's inscribed implements?"

Lulan touched a finger to her swelling cheek. A dangerous mist of pinkish oxide seemed to reach her eyes.

"Gwen Song says they are destroyed."

"And you believed her?"

"No."

Her uncle looked as though he was about to slap her again for good measure, but the chilling, murderous intent seep from Lulan's body dissuaded him from acting upon the impulse.

"I spoke to Second Brother earlier. Our Sect received a caution from the Tower! A Magister Wen made an official complaint. We received a _caution_! What do you think would happen if either of you were expelled or Blacklisted? You will never receive accreditation! You think another C-9 League University would take rejects from Fudan?"

Lulan bore the verbal beatdown without flinching. Her brother was less resilient.

"Stupid child! You don't know who Wen is, do you? Let me remind you: Magister Marie-Roslyn Wen of Henglong Laboratory is on no less than FOUR Advisory Boards, THREE Examination Councils, and is a regular member of the Accreditation Committee! I don't care if this 'Gwen' is an inbred DOG! She's Magister Wen's DOG! DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME? LULAN?!"

Lulan forced herself to nod even as the mana insider threatened to go haywire. Besides her, Elder Luwei had to take a breather before continuing.

"Who told you that Gwen Song was excommunicated from the Songs?"

"I heard from Pei," Lulan confessed, her voice hoarse with animosity.

Pei was the youngest son of the Patriarch, Dulian Li. Talented and fair of disposition, he was the Sect Master's favourite. There were already rumours that should Pei best his seniors when he came of age; he would become the inheriting disciple.

"It's true, Shifu," Kusu backed up his sister, stepping in front of her protectively in case his Master's hands itched again. Lulan, however, began to understand that they had been used. It was the unavoidable fate of orphans. Their Master, _San_ —a homonym for "Third Uncle"—perished at the Undead Front a year ago. Since then, Lulan's talent and unique demeanour had made a dangerous combination that seriously agitated factional politics in the Huashan Sect.

"Pei? What does Pei have to do with this?"

"He knows Gwen Song's brother, Percy Song," Kusu spoke in his sister's stead.

Lulan remained mum, knowing that she brought out the worst in her elders. It was the chief reason she was scorned in the Sect despite her talent.

"Go on."

"An important distinction," Kusu continued. "Percy told Pei that his sister was excommunicated from the family and made to give up her inheriting heirloom—a Kirin-Stone amulet. Pei further confirmed that he had seen this amulet worn by her brother. We'd thought that since she was expelled from the inheriting line entirely..."

"Guo Song disinherited a girl with dual Void and Lighting? She's got a Mongolian Death Worm leashed to her Astral Body!" his Master muttered incredulously. "Why didn't the two of you think of that? Huh? Do you think someone without backing just casually goes farming for pets in the Khitani Desert? That's a Centaur-ruled Black Zone! Not even the Undead venture there. Maybe the Ash Bringer escorted her? But he's an active Military member... then again..."

Her uncle scanned his Sect's two prodigies, checking to see if they were trying to fool him.

"Fine. I'll verify with the Elder. So, who's idea was it?"

It was a rhetorical question.

Lulan, who stood demurely behind Kusu, blanched.

For her, it was a rare moment of passivity, driven by the notion that she'd ruined her brother's chances at advancing his position.

"That's it? You acted on a rumour?"

"We studied the girl for weeks," Kusu continued to defend her idiocy. "She never spoke nor visited her grandfather even once. She saw Director Song three to four times for shopping trips and luncheons. Her primary focus seems to be training. Even when we confronted her a few weeks ago, she fled from us. She's not from the PLA Faction, I guarantee it."

"Hmmph!" Their uncle eyed the siblings with dissatisfaction. Lulan could see her silence continued to rub him the wrong way, especially when their stupid ploy sullied the name of the Huashan Sect. Thanks to them, the Elder needed to return to the Mount and inform the other Elders.

"Master Uncle?"

Luwei gave Lulan a stern and dangerous look. "Leave me, and keep your sister out of trouble. Tend to your injuries and write a reflection letter for the Patriarch. Leave nothing out. Explicitly examine every single ability Gwen Song has demonstrated."

"Yes, Shifu!"

"And a Letter of Apology to Magister Wen as well. Lulan, you're forbidden from contacting Gwen Song again."

"No." The word was out before Lulan could stop herself.

"Good, I—" Luwei stopped. For a moment there, her Master Uncle looked like he'd gone senile.

By now, Lulan's irises had turned the colour of red wine. A part of her realised that she was staring at Kusu as though in a trance. It was the red mist, Lulan told herself. But her brain was clouded in fog. Their old Master had said that it had something to do with excessive Yang energy. As he had predicted, Huashan's Ironheart technique wasn't composed with the intent of being practised by female disciples. Without a doubt, their Song Dynasty founder would have rolled in his grave if he knew that a woman could successfully manifest the Iron Sword technique.

Lulan felt her mouth move. "They're going on excursion soon to the Lost Districts today. I can confront her there. I'll get back brother's daggers," she stated. "Give me another chance. I won't fail."

"Lulan!" Their uncle's patience was hanging by a straw. "Enough!"

Lulan met her uncle's eyes with an expression of insubordinate defiance.

Her brother despaired.

_SLAP!_

Kusu flinched.

Another five-fingered welt marred the other side of Lulan's face.

When their uncle spoke again, his voice had more fatigue than anger.

"By the Iron Sword, there better not be another incident. Also, make sure that your implements are either retrieved or destroyed. Do not let them steal our Sect's arts. If it happens, I will personally disinherit the both of you."

Lulan tasted the iron in her mouth.

"Yes! Shifu!" Kusu bowed. "I will negotiate with Gwen Song."

Their uncle left, having done all he was willing to do.

"Kusu..." Lulan looked toward her brother.

"Oh, Lulu..." Her brother shook his head. "How're your cheeks?"

Kusu Li did his best to clean up his sister's bruised face.

Far better than his sister, Kusu understood the awkward position they now occupied in the Sect. Their Master, San Li, was dead. Lulu had to be brought to heel, but if she could not—

He dare not think of the consequence.

Kusu remained in place, bowing until his uncle's sedan drove away.

These days, he could barely recall the cute little sister that had hung onto his neck and refused to yield an inch. Even as his eyes wandered toward her, he could sense the raging mana within her, giving her irises that distinct rusty accent that so many feared.

Once, Lulu's eyes had been clear crystal amber.

Once, her skin had been fragile porcelain, not the snail sheen that she now affected, with the metal-afflicted mana stretched taut over a trained figure without excess body fat. If one looked carefully, one caught bruises and abrasions from practice and adventure that floated beneath her porcelain exterior, but these minor blemishes only added to her peculiar aura.

Hopefully, this was the end of the incident for himself and his sister. Their father might be the second-hand man of the Patriarch, but he was more so a scholar than a warrior, influential because he held the purse-strings, not because he could wield the Iron Sword over the heads of his enemies.

When it came to factional conflicts, Luming Li would not stand on the side of his children.

As for the Iron Sword of Huashan…

Kusu reached out with one hand to catch his sister's affirmation. Even as their fingers touched, he noted with shame that Lulu's hands were not like that of a girl's. She had the calloused palms of a swordswoman.

"Don't worry, I'll protect you," Kusu said to his sister, wondering if that was true. Who's protecting who? Kusu mused. Could he trust Pei to abide by his promise?

Then, abruptly, his fingers grasped air—where he had expected Lulan to meet his hand, there was only absence.

"Lulan?" Kusu looked up, expecting to find an unhappy sister.

The girl was gone. She had Misty Stepped away into the aether.

" _Wocao_."

Ten thousand llamas rode across the terrain of Kusu's muddy mindscape, farting as they sang.

Friday.

Excursion Day.

Gwen's Economic and Management essays were done and dusted with complete confidence, aiming for distinctions, meaning she was free to enjoy the lull in her studies.

The "Field Trip", as it was announced, would take up to three days, from Friday to Sunday, pending on the students' performance.

As expected, Gwen was joined by a jubilant Mayuree, an indifferent Kitty, and finally, a tired-looking Richard who likewise saw the excursion as a big break.

She was also happy because the Lulan situation was done and dusted. While pumping two cubes full of the tenebrous energy of extinction, Gwen had told Magister Wen of her troubles. Petra's Master told her she would put a word in with the Tower, which should be the end of it.

Confident in the Magister's promise, Gwen turned her attention to the excursion.

She took stock of her Adventuring Gear:

One pair of leggy double-lace Boots of Flying.

One civilian-class Chameleon Cloak—stowed.

One pair of tactical underwear from dad.

One Ring of Evasion.

And she had her usual passive items, such as her Ioun Stones and Gunther's Contingency Ring. She furthermore possessed in her Storage Ring a Vitae Fruit and Petra's gift of Tier 8 Regeneration.

Six healing injectors.

Six mana injectors.

Her problem now with Mana potions was that the mundane variety restored less than half of her mana, while the 'greater' variety was almost ten times the price, at nearly 60 HDMs. Possessing virtually no alchemical skills or talents, she was prone to potion fatigue on her by the bottle, meaning she could get three-quarters of her mana per day back, once.

Comparatively, their real "MVP" Kitty was an all-rounder, requiring virtually nothing to supplement her enviable Spell List of everything from Haste to Fly, Frost Armour to Blizzard. Unlike Gwen in her button-tab blouse and grey-blue' skort', the pixie-like Mage was perfectly prim in her shorts and blouse.

Richard, meanwhile, wore jeans, a lumber jack's flannel, combat boots and white inners. He had also taken to acquiring a beard after Gwen mentioned just how much manlier Jun looked than Morye with his circular beard, though her cousin's five-o-clock shadow made him more thuggish than handsome.

Mayuree, finally, was decked out in Fu-er-dai splendour.

Two enchanted Rings on each hand.

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

An Amulet of Health at her throat.

A white, inscribed knee-length dress that repelled dirt, dust and elements effects, paired with Boots of Flying that, according to her smug boast, was Water-Walking as well. The Diviner also showed off no less than three Combat Wands: A Wand of Magic Missile, a Wand of Scorching Ray, and a Wand of Stone Shape, each with ten charges.

"Are we anticipating something?" Gwen asked the Diviner. There must be a reason why Mayuree was equipped to clear out a Hobs' Den.

"Who knows?" Mayuree shrugged mysteriously. "It's good to be prepared, you know?"

"Can I get a heads up?"

"I'd rather not."

"Alright." Gwen made a mental note to tail her Diviner closely. "How are we getting there?"

Their answer came in the form of an anti-climatic, rented municipal bus.

There were about forty students on the bus to the first District - an area once known as Chonggu-Zhen, meaning 'Hamlet of the Clan Chong-Gu." But both Clan and name were lost to the shifting sands of Dynasty and epoch until all that remained was a misnomer for the 'model' city's official designation— _District_ -35.

As the bus rolled out, Gwen realised shamefully that this was the farthest she had ventured from Shanghai's CBD since arriving some half a year ago. There was so much to see, but she had done none of it. It was the equivalent of an expatriate in New York never going past Queens or a Sydney-sider having never gone beyond the Shire.

As the superstructures of Shanghai's central districts fell away, the roadsides began to transform. The concrete city mortared in steel and glass began to shift into brick and tin until finally, only stunted apartments with blasted windows for eyes and busted doors for teeth zoomed past the ring road.

"Reconstruction Zones," someone on the bus said helpfully. "Mao, they're filthy."

After three-quarters of an hour, the Third Orbital Ring reached its farthest boundary. Suddenly, the landscape changed again.

The roads grew straighter; power poles began to make a regular appearance, and trees made their presence known once again. In the distance, they could now see District-35 and its megastructure looming overhead, coming closer as their bus hurtled down the highway.

Coming closer, Gwen could see that the District-Zones were just like her memory of the infamous Kowloon Walled City. Behind a concrete barrier four meters high, the stacked rectangular blocks appeared packed back to back, wall to wall, floor to ceiling. In a fashion unique to Asian culture, laundry, not architecture, dominated the scene. An endless array of laundry kilometres long and forty stories high covered every conceivable space on the building's exterior, giving the place the appearance of a pirate-fort made from stilts and canvas rather than rebar-reinforced concrete.

The bus pulled up at the gate, where a PLA trooper hailed the driver and examined their clearance before opening the gate. The massive concrete barriers were like the walls of a dam, opening with agonising slowness as the students waited silently in the bus.

"I can see a lady's brasserie from here," someone remarked jovially, pointing upward toward a window choked full of laundry. "Impressive size."

The crowd burst into laughter, dispelling the nervousness of entering a world where NoMs were the norm.

Soon, the bus moved into the courtyard following their guide, where the driver told the students to disembark.

After so much time in Fudan, Gwen felt as though she'd stepped into another country.

One by one, the student Mages emerged into the lazy heat of the afternoon with her companions. As soon as she disembarked, Gwen became aware that she was being watched; that is, she was being attended by an endless multitude of curious, prying eyes.

The entire District had turned out to watch the Fudan Mages!

There were faces in every window, hanging from every winter garden, gawking from every rooftop, nook and cranny. Women, children, grannies and lasses all looked upon the rare visitors below with gleaming eyes full of wonder and worship!

University Mages! They must be telling one another. The Mages are here! Not just any student Mages either—but sorcerers and sorceresses from Fudan! Mages who would one day stand at the front, protecting their lives and the lives of those from the Hive city selected for Conscription! Mages, whose effort and favour meant their loved ones lived or died, survived or perished!

That's all thanks to the propaganda, Gwen thought sadly. The citizens likely never knew anything else. A necessary achievement of any successful regime is to create orthodoxy—for orthodoxy removes any need to think and question what was self-evidently the norm. In both her worlds, new and old, China never lacked indoctrination.

"DISTRICT 35 WELCOMES OUR DELEGATION FROM FUDAN!"

A sudden burst of symphonic propaganda almost took Gwen off her feet.

She had to suppress a choking bout of laughter as the absurd sight of a giant red banner unfurled in Chinese from the rooftop that read:

'DISTRICT 35 WELCOMES SAVIOUR MAGES'

While another on the adjacent building read:

'UPHOLD IDEOLOGY OF SOCIALISM

MAN AND MAGE HAND IN HAND.'

_Jesus Christ,_ Gwen scoffed. Do they think it was that easy—

Then the children came.

_GOOD-GOD!_ Gwen would have screamed were it not for the need to maintain decorum. Children, cute little children, were rushing out, dressed in red, to bring the Mages wreaths—handmade, origami flower wreaths!!!

The kids streamed past Ma and the Administrator. Little bodies surrounded the students three to a caster and began bestowing upon them 'handmade' presents.

"Miss, you so pretty!"

"Oh Miss, you so tall!"

"You must be important, Miss!"

Her prideful heart melted as the children's praise stroked her ego like a cat.

The same story was being told everywhere, and the Mages from Fudan grew instantly drunk on the praises of little boys and girls with their innocent, worshipful eyes.

_The children_ —Gwen's cynicism melted away. The children were too adorable!

Gwen couldn't help but pick one up, scooping the child expertly until she held the little girl in her arms. With an adorable tilt of her hand, the girl placed the red and gold wreath around Gwen's head.

A dozen little boys and girls had Richard dead to rights and tried to overpower him with handicraft. Mayuree, meanwhile, had entered nirvana, squealing and laughing uncontrollably. Kitty was the best of them. She ignored the first and engaged an aura of rime which informed the kids not to push their luck. After the first left dejectedly, the rest avoided the Ice Mage and congregated around Gwen and the others.

Amid her euphoria, Gwen looked past the crowd and saw Professor James Ma standing with the Administrator from earlier, smiling conspiratorially.

What an absurd display! Gwen was not sure whether to laugh or cry. What the hell is this? Is this what she had geared up? The kids were too much! Gods! She felt as though she was overdosing on oxytocin. The little girls were beyond delightful! Oh! Mayuree's little one was a cutie as well! _Arrrrgh!_ Richard had three hugging him at once! Beware of jealousy! For it is the green-eyed monster—

"MAGES! WELCOME!"

Finally, the man next to Ma began to speak.

"I am Yuhan Lai, Secretariat of District 35. I welcome you to our humble abode."

Collectively, the Mages bowed.

It was an impressive display, and the crowd ascended to a new level of fiery participation.

"I hope that you haven't had lunch yet! Because you will now meet your hosts and enjoy a bountiful meal cooked by the matriarch of the family!" Lai declared.

The children took Gwen by the hand and began to lead her away.

Gwen looked toward Richard alarmingly, but Mayuree came between them.

"It's safe," her Diviner companion assured her. "Enjoy the lunch. A little breeze told me that the excitement is to come in another District."

The assurance was enough to affirm Gwen's resolve, and she allowed herself to be led away.

As it turned out, there was a perfect reason why the students were separated, and it had nothing to do with trying to separate party members.

It was because their NoM host's apartments could house precisely ONE Mage and the host family.

Gwen sat at the head of a table usually set for two adults, two children, and a toddler. The room she now occupied was stacked from floor to ceiling with versatile vertical space-savers. Fold-out beds, fold-out chairs. Fold-out cupboards. Fold-out everything. The entire habitat block measured four meters wide and five-odd long, forming a space for five people—three children, one grandparent, and a mother in her early thirties.

"Please, please make yourself comfortable, Miss Mage!" The woman, to Gwen's eyes, was quite beautiful in a homely sort of way, pleaded for her to be at ease in the cramped space of their abode. She was a recent mother, for she had that soft and feminine allure to her eyes, as well as a lingering scent of breast milk.

"Please, call me Gwen," Gwen insisted. "What's your name?"

"My name is Bai-Lian, Mistress," the woman replied. "I am delighted to be of service."

"Thank you for the luncheon, Bailian," Gwen replied kindly.

"Oh no, it's thanks to your presence that we are getting extra rations. Please help yourself." The woman bowed again needlessly.

"Big sister, please partake in this tea!"

The kids must have been touted, Gwen felt- because the six-year-old girl was expertly pouring out Jasmine tea for her into a cup, then presenting it to her with both hands.

"Thank you." Gwen took the cup carefully, terrified of spilling the tea on the little one.

"Please try these dates!" Another little girl presented her with a bowl of honeyed dates.

"Thank you!" Gwen was now fully occupied.

The mother left, then returned successively, bringing in a banquet of dishes until the table was laden with food. It was all mundane, household fair, but they looked delectable.

Egg with chives.

Braised Pork.

Steamed garlic bokchoi.

Eggplant and Mince.

Ginger and shallot fish in soy sauce.

Gwen expertly worked her chopstick, portioning the food and delivering it into the bowls of the children whose eyes were gleaming with such longing that Gwen forgot about her insatiable appetite. Bailian refused to dine with them but made no move to stop Gwen from giving her portion to the children.

She spent the next half an hour conversing with the single mother, but Bailian's answers grew vague once Gwen asked about her husband.

"He was Conscripted two years ago—" The woman put on a wane smile that didn't touch her eyes, then was silent.

Oh shit. Gwen realised she stepped on a Warding Glyph. It was no business of hers that this woman had a babe not yet two years old.

"Do you work?" Gwen asked.

Bailian nodded.

"I clean people's apartments and cook for them."

Gwen asked her how she was finding life, and Bai told her that she wished one of her three children could be a Mage. She joined with another young man because his great-grandfather had been a Fire Evoker.

The little girls looked upon Gwen with eyes that she dared not meet. She placed a hand on their heads and felt the softness of their hair, brushing the silky curls passing through her fingers.

_Mages_ , Bailian said. She wished her children were Mages.

Gwen thought of Sydney. She thought of the battle there—the dead Mages' bodies splayed across the streets, dragged away by the Mermen, eaten alive by impatient enemies too hungry to wait. She thought of Instructor Chen's maniacal glint as he laughed and laughed while the juniors vomited around him.

Was life so miserable here?

The grass was greener on the other side, but there in the greener bushes—the lions laid in wait.

Nephres Zalaam could scarcely believe her luck.

Gwen. _Fucking_. Song.

The report in her hand shivered, the mute paper quivering as though alive.

How was such an occurrence possible? Nephres' mind reeled with disbelief, unsure if this was boon or bane.

According to reports from Oceania, the culprit disrupting her Mistress' plans had disappeared after the junior Ravenport perished without rhyme or reason in Sydney. "Edgar" had gone to perform the Mistress' request, then the next thing they knew, Edmund Moore Ravenport was dead as a dodo. It was supposed to be a low-risk Mission. The Ravenport's young Master was a Dust Magus, and the Shield Station was full of Frontier Abjurers, for God's sake. AND he had an entire troop of Raven Guards with him! Four Senior Mages and two Magus, all gone.

But that's all in the past now—spilt milk and all that.

As the nurse-in-residence for Young Lord Ravenport, her dereliction in duty meant she had to flee the house immediately. For mercenaries like herself, failure held worse fates than death, for the wrath of a psychopathic Lord like Mycroft Ravenport belied the common imagination.

Another reason for Nephres' escape was that she had decided that her loyalty was first to her Mistress, then to the organisation, then to the family she once served.

Still— _Gwen Song_.

Nephres bit her lower lips, her eyes wandering back to the task at hand.

She was in Shanghai to pick up a supply of magically gifted youths to bring back to the Outlands—a word the Cabal preferred to the nomenclature of "Wildlands". After all, they were the _Others_ , and it only made sense that they weren't Demi-humans but men and women who chose to live _outside_ the ordinary human world. Besides, _Outlands_ rolled off the tongue better.

In all honesty, as a city girl, she found the whole ordeal pretty funny. A Cabal of Rogue Mages squabbling over power, dabbling in fucking public relations of all things. Who cared what the Mageocracy called them? That the Towers would accept them with open arms because of alliteration? Idiots.

Her gaze once more fell upon the report.

Her local sweetmeat, Boss Yi, had told her to lay low for a few days.

"Got Elites coming through from Fudan. Find the deepest hole you can and bury yourself in for the next week," he told her. "Maybe stay in bed, eh? We can make a child for sure. You feeling up to the task?"

"Go fuck yourself," she told him.

"Ha ha ha." Yi had fallen about cackling like an idiot, withdrawing from the silhouette of her sweat-soaked figure, smelling foully of sex. "I do love you so, you little minx."

"You expect me to believe that, do you?"

Yi toked on a cigarette as he wiped himself, then materialised a new set of clean clothes.

"Look, stay safe these few days, alright? Stay out of trouble. Keep your crew below and out of sight."

Nephres didn't dislike Boss Yi, but she wasn't an owned woman. Far from it, Nephres rather fancied the boss as her seasonal fling. A spot of both business and pleasure.

Love? To bear the man's child? Those thoughts never crossed her mind, not before and not now.

Gwen. _Fucking_. Song.

She still could not believe that the little bitch, after six months off the map, would fall into her lap like God's gift from the blue yonder.

What's more, she knew it wasn't a trap. It was serendipity that she had spotted the girl at all. Out of curiosity, Nephres had asked her contacts to generate a list of the 'Fudan Elites' visiting the Districts if one of them ended up causing trouble for their operations. As the list of Dossiers passed through her hands, she had paused at a striking face looking out from the page.

"You're shitting me!" she had clambered from Xi's chest. "Is this fate or what?"

Again, she quickly scanned the spartan dossier.

It was a stolen compilation thrifted from the University's registry of the candidates' family history.

Guo Song. MSS Committee Chair.

Klavdiya Song. Director 2nd PLA Experimental Hospital.

Hai Song. Unknown.

Helena Huang - Unknown.

So the girl was a Power Progeny, Nephres furrowed her perfectly tapered brows. That would explain a few things, but not why she was associated with the Sydney Tower and the folks at the very top. How were they even connected? How could they begin to know each other? The British Mageocracy and the PLA were at odds, were they not? The grandfather could be troublesome, but that was a problem for Boss Yi, not herself.

There was one addendum that was cause for concern.

Jun Song - The Ash Bringer.

Even as a foreign agent, Nephres had heard of the Hero of the Northern Front. The man was a walking engine of destruction, and if he should find out someone had taken his niece…

Poor Yi, Nephres chuckled to herself. She tried to imagine his face when The Ash Bringer came knocking.

Her eyes teared up as her slow chuckle escalated into rip-roaring, belly-aching laughter.

_Holy shit!_ If she weren't going to be on a cargo ship a hundred miles away, she would've loved nothing else than to watch the God damned Ash Bringer of all people ripping the District apart! What would be the look on Yi's face then! What kind of expression would he make? What would the man confess as his body transformed into necrotic ash, inch by inch?

Nephres turned over the file.

There were some loose annotations on the Mages' talents.

Void _and_ Lighting!

BINGO.

That was Gwen Song, alright. There's no mistaking a talent so rare.

Before returning to the Outlands, her Mistress said that the girl was instrumental to the Black Sun's collapse at the zenith of its success. Likewise, her connection to Gunther Shultz and the Scarlet Sorceress made her an invaluable hostage. Had the Cabal at Spectre not miscalculated the anger of a Land God, Sydney would now me a Mermen nest.

Unhappily, Nephres wasn't privy to more details, but she knew one thing for sure.

If she could get her hands on Gwen Song, then her stint in the shit holes of South Asia was over.

Whether as an offering to her Mistress or as a gift to another member of the Cabal, or even to Edmund's father...

The ascension of Nephres Zalaam was at hand.


Gwen farewelled her host family.

She had felt sorry for the single mother but knew the danger of giving wealth to those who could not afford to keep it; though District 35 may appear tranquil and safe, Gwen wasn't naive enough to believe Shanghai could swallow the hype it sold.

In the end, she left the woman two self-injecting Healing Potions and a Potion of Cure Disease.

One dose was enough to restore haleness and health if the mother or children were sick or injured. Likewise, the potions could be bartered if the woman was unwise enough to trade them for money or gift them as favours. Either way, Gwen was under no delusion that she was a Samaritan. What she did, she had done for pleasure and ego. Her kindness was a repayment for the joy the children had brought her, however brief and choreographed.

When they returned to the courtyard, eight separate buses waited for departure, assigning the students to different Hive-cities, ranging from 108 and upwards.

The higher the number, Mia had hinted. The bigger the shit show.

While they waited, the residents above threw paper confetti from the top floors, showering the courtyard with a snowfall of colourful slips that made an undeniably enchanting scene.

Indeed, Mayuree was beside herself with unadulterated joy, waving happily to her host family, blowing them goodbye kisses, gushing as she tried to catch the falling confetti. Richard and Kitty, in juxtaposition, stood indifferently. Her cousin smiled awkwardly at his over-enthused host family, while Kitty needed no pretence to suggest her apathy.

When they boarded the bus to District 109, their assigned "Outer District", there only remained their party of four and another party of three seniors, two young men and an older woman. They had not seen these Mages prior except in passing during the lectures, and so the two groups snubbed each other, segregated to the fore section and back.

Finally, with a honk and the sound of earth-shattering applause in their ears, they were away. The buses returned to the highway, then ventured toward the furthest reaches of the Fourth Orbital Ring road.

After ten rumbling minutes on the highway, Professor James Ma's projection appeared, this time as a ghostly tour guide.

The trip to District 109 would take almost an hour. As an academic excursion, it naturally came with a lecture component.

"Hello, comrades in the Management course. I hope you have enjoyed the exemplar of prosperity, a city which, under good management, has successfully attained a balance between autonomy and compliance."

"District 35, a 'Model' District, accounts for a third of our current satellite NoM cities. Self-contained within the District is an escalator system of advancement where public education offered to the NoM Citizens ensures that they are capable of achieving lives outside of the Hive, where the best and brightest have opportunities to become civil servants; engage in productive labour for the state, or find work in the private sector. I hope you have enjoyed your first-hand experience of speaking with the NoM citizens. These are the people that will be under your care in the future."

"Next, you will be receiving a different educational experience. You will find out what happens when law and order diminish in a Hive city. You will come to acknowledge what is at stake, should you fail."

A slight murmur spread through the bus. This episode was no surprise to anyone. The student-Mages had all been warned by friends, alumni, family, Masters and Instructors.

"Young comrades, you will now be entering the Lost Districts. Your designation will be—Team 7 and 9—You have been assigned to—D-109."

There were glitches in the later recording, suggesting to Gwen that Lecturer Ma had been slothful and dubbed over an old Lecture with a few new lines.

When the lecture resumed, Professor Ma was in a different coloured vest, making Gwen chuckle with nostalgia. It was the sort of thing her old-world lecturers at Sydney University would have done as well.

"D-109 remains one of the largest of its kind, constructed in 1984 and designed to house 100,000 NoM citizens. Constructed as a mega-city platform, it stands today as a testament to the failure of social policy, which resulted in the proliferation of in-fighting, religious cults, the forming of violent gangs, and the infiltration of the Triads into the districts."

"In 1993, the PLA attempted purging _undesirable_ influences in the Districts. Though initially gainful, the operation ultimately failed to dislodge the unlawful presence. In reviewing policy, the CCP realised it was a mistake to convene such a scale of citizens, especially given that the Hive was equipped with food production and water purification operations. District-109 had become a microcosm, a city in a bottle with its own rules and regulations that seemed to exist almost independently from the outside world. What was initially a planned infrastructural system with the very best intentions for its citizens proved to be the very thing our Party loathed—a collection of civilians who no longer embraced the ideals of Chairman Mao, blessed be he in his crystal resting place."

"Faced with mounting tension and dissidence in how to deal with the Lost Districts, the Party formulated a new policy in 1996 under Premier Hu."

"Leave D-108 to D-128 to their own devices."

The lecture paused while the image drank a gulp of water.

Mayuree was already asleep in Gwen's arms. Richard rested his eyes against the window.

Professor Ma continued.

"It was then decided the Lost Districts would serve another purpose—as proving grounds for social experiments, Mage training exercises, places where samples could be collected, theories tested."

"Should a District resist, they had no way to prevent the PLA from destroying the sub-basement and thus, the entire eco-system of the Hive City. When the rogue citizens ran out of food and water, the survivors would naturally return to the embrace of order and law that was Mao's vision."

"In today's terms, it may be best to think of the Lost Districts as penal colonies. They provided their share of Conscripts—twice as high as any other Districts—and pay tithes of newly Awakened Mages. In return, they received autonomy to run their cities to the ground."

The vid-cast glitched again. Professor Ma reappeared wearing his previous vest.

"Within the Lost Districts, you will be effectively cut off from Shanghai. Your Message devices will not work outside of their natural range. In the process of completing your given tasks, there is only one thing you have to do— _observe_. Observe the consequences of those whose use of power is without remorse, whose abuse of Magic is without consequence. The residents of these cities may attack you, and you are well within your rights to respond. I urge, however, that you recall enough empathy to recognise that not all Mages and NoMs are born with the knowledge and privilege you possess— that you acknowledge how circumstance often drives action, not logic or rationality. Whatever your choices may be, I want you—as students of Fudan—as future Secretariats, Army Officers, Arbitrators and Tower Masters to evaluate how your actions, choices and decisions, hold the lives of others in your hands. Though you may be underground, you are not in a Dungeon. These are real people with real lives, aspirations, desire for life and living just as you do."

"Therefore—I wish you good luck."

With that, Professor Ma's vid-cast faded.

Gwen turned to her companions, her appearance paler for the warning. She was sure there was a mistake. Wasn't there something else Ma was supposed to say? Like, "DON'T MURDER PEOPLE?" You will be _penalised_ if there's a MASS MURDER?

"Is he saying we're going to butcher people in there? Kill NoMs that attack us?" She couldn't help but vocalise her anxiety.

"I would suggest that we 'may choose' to kill people in there in self-defence," Mayuree corrected her. "We don't 'have' to kill people."

"It's the NoMs' 'choice' to attack us." Kitty shrugged with indifference. "It doesn't diminish my right to defend myself to the best of my abilities."

"I'll incapacitate them if need be," Richard assured Gwen as her complexion blanched. "You'll be fine against NoMs, right? Sorceress of Lightning and Void?"

There was snickering from the front of the bus as well.

"I don't think they know how bad the Lost Districts can be," a voice sneered.

"It's a dog-eat-dog world in there, beauty!" one of the young men scoffed. "You're gonna have to stow your white gloves for this quest!"

Kitty rolled her eyes at Gwen's soft-heartedness.

Gwen ignored the others' snide remarks. She gazed outwards toward the retreating distance as her mind lingered on the memories of Blackheath.

She took her first human life there, guided by Gunther's hand. He had taken her into a world she didn't dare think possible. That was her first bloody step onto the Path of Asura.

Most saliently, her subsequent murder was Faceless, though he—She—It—deserved it.

Then there was the pigtail girl whose name Gwen had forgotten.

Would there now be another and another?

The mind was willing, but the heart—she wasn't so sure anymore.

"I see it!" someone said at the front, interrupting her thoughts.

The bus had passed some threshold on the highway. The manicured trees fell away, and the urbanscape again declined into dilapidation and neglect.

The students could see a looming wall in the distance, a barrier circuit that surrounded a block of concrete habitats rising into the air like grey mushrooms. As they came closer, precarious extensions of sheet metal and wood erupted from the facade's surface like wild fungi. The addition of laundry, far less colourful and far more numerous, made the collection of apartments appear as an amalgamated whole. From afar, the whole superstructure resembled a dark lesion across the landscape.

Painted across the gate were the Chinese pictograms for '109'. Below it, a defaced red logo of the sickle and hammer and slogans promising order and civility were scratched half-off. A smog of exhaust hung directly above the air, thick and miasmic, giving substance to its oppressive atmosphere.

"Struth," Gwen exclaimed. "The size of it up close..."

"Oh Goddess, so that's what it was," Mayuree muttered. "The smell, I mean."

The smell was the first thing on the mind of the students as the bus entered the compound. Mana, miasma and human odour lingered in the courtyard.

After the students disembarked, the driver immediately made a U-turn and left the malice-filled space of the courtyard.

A troop of soldiers in dark emerald-khaki, the uniform of the PLA military police, fanned out and made a perimeter around a man in an olive uniform.

"Students of Fudan! Welcome to District 109! I am the District Administrator, Secretariat Choi. It is a pleasure to meet some of the best and the brightest stars of the academy!"

The students lined up before the Secretariat.

"We thank you for having us, Sir!" One of the second years bowed. Gwen and the rest followed suit. It was easier to parallel their seniors to avoid a potential faux pas.

Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

"Let's talk inside," Choi advised. "The external courtyard is not the safest place to linger."

As they entered the city proper, Gwen noted the grimy scraps and dusty wraps of garbage that hung in every corner of the forecourt. Comparatively, District 35 had gardens with flower beds! Meanwhile, the courtyard here had puddles, potholes, and spots of muck, which indicated the filtration system below must be operating at its limits.

Gwen looked up. Above, the windows were closed and curtained despite the sunny disposition of the day. As they entered the shaded avenue of the Hive-city, the temperature immediately dropped by four to five degrees.

"Gwennie, we're being watched by A LOT of people." Mayuree's eyes glowed with the soft light of Divination.

Gwen redoubled her efforts to spot the hidden citizens above. As her pupils adjusted, she could see pale faces looking out from between the curtains and windows. Almost a thousand windows were visible from the central quadrangle that led into the heart of the city's habitat blocks, and their ambident hostility filled the air like the thrum of a living wasp hive.

"There are quite a few magical signatures, too," Mayuree added, pulling her white coat tightly over her shoulders. The girl had materialised a parka to cover her upper body, hiding her enchanted attire from prying eyes.

Beside her, Kitty protectively walked closer to Mayuree. The pixie girl must be drawing quite the attention in her shorts, though her confident gait hinted at abilities that yearned to be tested.

As they walked, Gwen couldn't help but feel hypersensitively violated by the gaze of her watchers. However, when she looked to the others, she stumbled upon an epiphany.

To put matters bluntly, her fellow Mages could not give a single shit about what NoMs thought. To her elite classmates, the NoMs in these cities were akin to decor, a sort of a feature, like lesser Magical Creatures in a Dungeon.

Ahead, their seniors kept to a group by themselves, pointing and speaking loudly to stress their uncertain bravado. Gwen empathised with their nervousness. It was one thing to read and hear about the Lost Districts; quite another to be walking through one.

The Administrator, flanked by his guards, began a semi-guided tour as they walked and talked.

"We're on the Ground Level," he began. "From which the basement extends fourteen levels below, tapping into a leyline that powers the filtration, water, and power systems. It's been many years since the old glyphs had seen maintenance—all intentional—the city itself has CCs it could exchange: only its residents have chosen not to."

"How so?" Gwen paced beside the Mage, whose figure was short and portly.

"Autonomy means the right to make poor choices," Choi chuckled, his eyes briefly scanning her figure. "I have given the Bosses, their Under-Bosses and the little tribes of people living here the choice of how to spend their CCs via a voting system, and guess what they spend it on?"

"Food and water?" Gwen inquired hopefully.

"Personal wealth, Magic Items, entertainment and HDMs for their Faction's Mages!" Choi laughed. "It would take only six months of the city's output to gather enough CCs to repair the filtration system. Another six months to upgrade it to the best system the PLA can offer. Who wouldn't want that? Better water, better living conditions, better health for everyone."

"But they don't?"

"Of course. That is the distilled nature of the scum that lives here. The 'lost' Hives exist as an exemplar. We give the people here the 'democracy' touted by the West. They can vote for what they want as they will. The only proviso is that their world begins and ends at the borders of 109."

So that's what's up: a little slice of Orwell and a little slice of Atwood, Gwen thought sullenly, horrified at the Secretariat's autocratic banter. These 'Lost Districts' were used to show the rest of Shanghai the pitfalls of not following the CCP's vision for China. Almost a million people, condemned to the crucible of abject poverty to show the other 90% that the alternative to the Mageworld's brand of benign socialist dictatorship was an exquisite kind of Capitalist Hell dominated by a warped, egocentric band of ruthless buccaneers.

"Has any of the Lost Cities ever improved their lot?" Mayuree asked beside Gwen. "Maybe save themselves? Return to the fold?"

"What do you think?" Choi eyed the Diviner bemusedly with a sideways glance, evidently with less enthusiasm than he had offered Gwen.

The tour continued.

"The superstructure extends across twenty-seven blocks, with an average height of forty storeys. The population is, as you can imagine, mostly NoM citizens, with roughly just under 0.02% of the population exhibiting magical potential."

"Mid-tier Mages operating within the city are mostly Enforcers or gang leaders of one sort or another. As for their abilities—most of them have never seen formal training. As elites, you should have little problem dealing with them, not to mention their priority would be avoiding you at all costs. Should they sufficiently delay you, let me know. They'll be on the next Conscription shipment to the Front."

"Over there, you can see a market. Yes, it looks derelict from here, but I assure you the interior is quite lively. There are over forty public market spaces for commercial ventures, operated by the gangs and the local merchant families, who could be just as vicious as the Triads."

"Which Triads?" Gwen enquired. She had seen enough Hong Kong movies have developed a cursory knowledge of Triads.

"The usual: Shao-chilou. Black Dragons. Jade Tigers. Woshin. Wo-phowo, Buk-pu so on and so on. Mostly NoM organisations with a few Mages at the top. It's nothing of concern, I assure you. They're kept in line by a triumvirate of Bosses - Yi, Kha, and Lam. You'll meet them soon enough. If you have questions, you can ask them yourself."

"We're meeting with Triad Bosses?" Gwen made a pouty "o" with her lips. Shouldn't they be fighting them? In all honesty, she had expected the "Quest" to be "subjugate Boss X". That seemed like a perfectly reasonable request for a troop of Mages consisting of no less than three LCSS candidates and a bloodline-Diviner.

The Secretariat chuckled.

"I like to think of them as my lieutenants, NCOs if you will. They're nasty people, but you need cruel and nasty managers for a place like this to run smoothly."

Was the Secretariat being self-depreciative? Gwen wondered as they arrived at their destination, and the man walked forward.

The group now entered a set of double doors. The interior was somehow worse than the urban decay of the exterior, with piles of garbage filling the entire corridor leading to the cargo platform.

One of the PLA guards pulled on a chain, and the sliding doors yawned like the maw of some toothless beast, sliding back above and below to reveal a levitation platform abused by neglect.

Accompanied by the din of grating metal, the lift took them toward the top floor. The group entered a corridor with worn carpet in maroon once the grated gate opened, leading forward until it reached a set of mahogany double doors.

The guards unlocked the doors and took up positions on either side. The student Mages followed the Secretariat into an open plan room with a vermillion motif. Behind a conference table sat the illuminated logo of the CCP, five stars soaring over the Forbidden Palace in red and gold.

Secretariat Choi took his seat and faced the student Mages, who stood across from their superior.

"Right, allow me to welcome you all yet again. I am Magus Choi, Secretariat of District 109 with the rank of Major under the People's Liberation Army's Shanghai Division."

The second-years saluted the Major. Their actions were quickly aped by Gwen and company, who snapped off dishevelled salutes with varying degrees of success.

"Per our agreement with Fudan, you will be given a quest to complete on-premise. Satisfactory completion of this request will give you 5 CCs per individual, though I am authorised to dispense up to 20 CCs pending your performance."

"I am at your service!" Richard instantly declared, saluting crisply. "Please point us in the right direction, Sir!"

Gwen smiled stiffly. When it came to CCs, Richard was a bloodhound. He was still leagues away from accruing the two thousand CCs needed to bring his parents over, an epic undertaking that would likely take him until the end of his University career and beyond, even with his applied questing credits.

"That's the spirit, good man!" Choi congratulated Richard. "What's your name, young Mage?"

"Richard Huang, Sir. Conjurer Abjurer, LCSS candidate.”

"I have high expectations for you, Richard."

"Yessir!"

_T-Ten points to Gryffindor!_ Gwen silently thought to herself. If only CCs were as easy to attain as House points. She wanted the CCs too, but she lacked the shamelessness to beg. From what she'd seen so far, the CC distribution was almost directly proportional to risk. 5 CCs to start meant the danger was likely minimal. If so - what was the 20 CC?

"What would you like us to do? Sir?" Gwen enquired.

The Secretariat's gaze lingered on her face bemusedly. Gwen couldn't help but think that Choi reminded her of an old and worldly weasel.

"Your job is to help these 'democratically elected' individuals with some of their problems down in the lower stratum. Bui! Send them in!"

Another set of doors opened on the far side, and in came three human-shaped stereotypes.

The first was an obese, overweight man whose eyes kindled like lit-tinder as his gaze fell upon the girls in the room. Instantly, his eyeballs drifted past Gwen, then plastered onto the diminutive Kitty, remaining transfixed as he sauntered forward laboriously.

The second Mage was a middle-aged woman who looked like someone's heavy-handed in-law had wandered into the wrong place. From the rigidity of her body language and the stocky solidity of her stout body, she was likely an accomplished Earthen Mage.

The last man was huge, a hulking figure almost seven feet tall. He was shirtless and heavily tattooed with writing and images from either Thai or Chinese scripture. The man possessed muscles that seemed to be grafted on top of muscles, indicating his Mage-class to be a CQC Transmuter.

Secretary Choi indicated to the middle-aged soccer mom.

"Mama Lam."

He pointed to the half-man, half-papaya.

"Mr Kha."

Then to Asian Schwarzenegger.

"Mr Yi."

The three bowed: first toward Secretary Choi, making a ninety-degree arch of their spine, then again toward the Student Mages to a lesser degree.

Once they straightened, three pairs of eyes licked over the students, notably Mama Lam, whose lips curled when she greeted Richard. _What are we, meat?_ Gwen thought to herself, pondering the outlook of their present company; then again, what did she expect? Melt away their waxed exteriors, and the city's elites would have the same naked expressions of lust and greed. Indeed, she should applaud these people for their raw, undisguised honesty.

Out of curiosity, Gwen glanced over at Secretary Choi.

The PLA Major was smiling happily in his chair, his eyes formed into twin elongated slits.

_It's a bloody game to him!_ Gwen realised at once.

To the "Bosses", this was a test of their allegiance and ability to hold down their followers. Choi had no uses for underlings who could not toe the party line.

To the students, this was a test of their character, an opportunity to dip their feet in the mud.

But to Choi—they were a goddamned reprieve from the monotony of governing this shithole!

D-109 Eastern Boundary.

The thrum of a Sai-Ron White Ghost quietly rested against the chipped concrete wall. As the engine plinked against the cooling air, its lone female rider dismounted.

With impatience, she disconnected both ties and folded the chassis.

Lulan Li placed a hand upon the still-warm engine and allowed her mana to envelop the vehicle.

_Pssht!_

The bike disappeared.

The large Storage Ring was a reward from one of her Subjugation quests in an Orange Zone, an item that made many young Mages in her Clan glower with jealousy. When she first demonstrated its conveniences in front of them, materialising and storing her bike—another spoil she had won, she had enjoyed watching their faces twisting with avarice.

Her favourite part of the pedantry was that her brothers-in-craft couldn't take it from her. The ring was attuned to her alone as a reward from the PLA Tower. Should she perish, her items would return to the Tower and not the Huashan Sect; thereby, their impotent jealousy had provided her with endless delight.

Her one regret was that she could not gift it to Kusu, who still used a Medium Ring filled with his implements.

_Ah!—Her brother's daggers!_ Lulan gnashed her teeth as the memory once more dominated her vision.

From that reminder came the thought of Gwen Song's smug face and then the scene of Kusu's humiliation, of his priceless implements being swallowed. She also saw herself fleeing from Gwen Song when the red mist cleared from her head. Then there was Pei's smiling face as he told her of the "great" plan to kelp Kusu. Then her mind looped back to Gwen Song once more.

Cao! The _bitch_!

A taste of iron filled her mouth.

She had to do something.

She had to make Gwen Song capitulate.

She had to make her apologise to Kusu in public.

She had to get Kusu's implements back. Else her brother would be weakened for years to come!

She had to make right their reputation in the Clan!

She had to put the two of them back on to their Path!

Lulan's irises grew increasingly vibrant until they were twin circlets of Shiraz under lamplight.

Within her petite body, the Iron Heart empowering her with supernatural strength and constitution pulsed with mystical energies.

She placed a hand on the wall.

"Stone Shape!"

The transmuted concrete, rebar and all—obeyed her will and parted.

For the average Earthen Mage, rebar concrete was impossible to navigate, but not so for Lulan, for her talent with stone was empowered by an equally powerful affinity with ferrous metal.

In front of her Transmutation empowered body, the ferroconcrete moved aside as though it was water and her surroundings were hydrophobic.

_Sha... sha... sha... sha..._

The concrete melted away like wax, peeling back its fine sediments.

Lulan traversed the two-meter-thick barrier, moving downward through the earth, concrete, and steel.

She had to hurry.

Somewhere within, her quarry had already arrived.


Secretary Choi carefully drank his Eight-Treasure Congee.

The chef at the Traditional-Medicine branch had told him it was too potent in Yang energy, but Choi enjoyed the kick and the richness of the rice-broth.

"Sir, we have a breach on the Eastern Quadrant," his head of security, Bui, roused his attention with great care.

Choi continued to sip his congee with an expression of absorption.

"Suspect is female, late teens. She was seen riding a compactable bike, and she owns a large Storage Ring. Our informants describe her as an Earthern Mage, but she could Transmute the metal within the concrete."

Choi paused.

Staff Sergeant Bui gulped.

"I did offer an extra 20 CCs for extra labour for our Fudan Mages, did I not, Bui?"

"You did, Sir."

"And you have distributed Magister Wen's Dossiers to our hot-headed gangsters?"

"I have, Sir."

Choi took another sip from his soup.

"Our unexpected Guest? Sir? Should I send a team to..."

The Secretariat drained the pot. "Bui, you've been with me for what? A year now? Do you know why Fudan keeps sending their most talented Mages into this shithole? Year after year, incident after incident, casualty after casualty?"

"Experience, Sir?" Bui had a dark expression. The last time Fudan had sent over a troop of Mages, they had left behind a dozen corpses. To Bui, the citizens of D-109 may be residents of the Lost Districts, but they were also citizens of Shanghai. To have them offered up for slaughter to blood some young Masters and Mistresses was the precise reason he loathed the old powers—not that he would risk his skin to make a difference.

Choi played with the clay pot in his hands.

"Bui, do you know what a Gu is?"

"Sir?"

"In Lingnan, several bloodlines of the Miao Clan remain, you know, the ones rumoured to have coupled with the Yuan-ti."

"Sir." Staff Sergeant Bui inclined his head slightly, informing his superior officer that he knew of the second, but not the first.

"They have very particular bloodline magic involving magical poison. To Awaken their junior Mages, they first create a monstrosity of supreme toxicity by placing five or six, up to a dozen, poisonous Magical Creatures into a poison crucible."

"Once inside, a special incantation is used to make the creatures wild with hunger. They begin to hunt and kill one another, while the crucible's magic ensures that they cannot die from wounds, only from toxicity. Yet, as each creature consumes the next, it grows and grows in potency and power until one remains - one that possesses a superior venom drawn from all the others."

Bui's face paled.

"Then, they get the Awakening Mage—usually a girl and usually a virgin—don't ask me why—and they have the girl place her hand inside the jar."

"Sir?"

"The Gü bites the girl, and she either awakens as a Poison Mage, or she dies, becoming a boil covered mass of flesh consumed by the poison. Her corpse becomes so necrotic and deadly that her remains are harvested to be applied to weapons, darts, whatever have you."

"That's terrifying, Sir."

Choi chuckled.

"D-109 is a _Gu_ , Sergeant Bui," Choi clarified for his pale subordinate. "The entire city, infested with Triads, NoMs, Slavers, Gangs, cults; now an unfriendly rival. What a wonderful bug pot for our student Mages to get bitten."

"But..." Seargent Bui wanted to ask why a Magister would give out information on her students.

"Sergeant." Choi shook his head. "If you ask too many questions, you'll never make Lieutenant."

"Sir!"

"The thing with a _Gu_ ," Choi instructed his young officer patiently. "When there are so many vermin in the pot, Bui, who would notice if we slipped in one or two more?"

The Secretariat cackled to himself.

"It's not every day you get sanctioned killers from the upper echelon who ask no questions and know no one to clean up our mess!"

Gwen stood in the cargo elevator with her companions, enduring the ancient gravitation platform's groaning and shifting as it descended toward B7.

As expected, her party was operating independently from their seniors.

"Well, what do you think?" Richard asked the rest of them. As the eldest and the most experienced Adventurer, he was their de facto leader. "I want your individual opinions before we proceed."

To Gwen's surprise, Kitty was the first to speak.

"Carrion Crawlers don't just appear out of nowhere. Someone's bringing them into the sub-levels, breeding them, that's my opinion." Kitty continued. "According to Aldous' _Urban Bestiary_ , Carrion Crawlers are found among excess carrion. They should be large, between five to six feet long on average. They secrete a paralysing ooze found in their saliva and bodily fluids, paralysing the creatures they touch. Usually, they do not prey on living beings, though if they become large enough, they are known to attack humans. Their medicinal—"

"Thank you, Kitty," Richard nodded affirmatively at the pixie girl. "That was very useful. Mayuree? You wanted to say something?"

"The Filtration System are exchange-pillars using Conjuration and Transmutation glyphs. So, the Crawler could be holed up down there because of the mana-rich environment. Given enough time, a broken column could collate quite the mass of mana. At any rate, if you can get me within twenty to thirty meters of the thing, I can tell you more."

"Clairvoyance?"

Mayuree shook her head. "There is too much interference in those rooms. I'll have to send in an Arcane Eye."

"I see. Gwen?"

Gwen had been silent the whole trip down because she had been thinking about Boss Yi since they left the conference room.

Secretary Choi issued the edict for the purge, but Boss Yi had provided them with the details. The gangster had told them that Filtration Column B7-4-3, located on Basement 7 extending to Basement 4, had been out of commission for almost three months. The NoMs that made a living down at the sub-levels reported seeing a giant slug of some sort—pale yellow and worm-like in appearance, lurking in the general vicinity. It had supposedly been snatching up the sick and infirm at night and dragging them back into its lair.

Watching Yi's face, though, Gwen suspected that the big man wasn't telling the whole truth. The reason being that he had glanced at Secretary Choi's face about four to five times while they conversed.

To test her theory, Gwen had turned to ask the Secretariat why the PLA didn't send any Mages down to investigate. Choi joked that if they had done the job, what need would they have for students like Gwen.

Unperturbed, Gwen continued to question Boss Yi, who was forthcoming and liberal with his information, almost as if he was reading from a script. The area, he informed them, was out of their zone of control and, therefore, not their responsibility. Yi controlled the west towers of the Hive City, Lam controlled the East, while Kha controlled a section near the middle. Though their influence extended below Ground Floor in theory, the lower levels were usually inhabited by NoMs who had lived there for generations, becoming cloistered into a kind of incestuous tribe of 'Undercity' degenerates who had grown to love the shelter of the darkness. Ergo, they needed a third party to go down.

"Are you serious?" Gwen demanded of the gangster.

Choi explained with laughter that there were people like these in every Hive-City of the Lost Districts. Once a few generations had passed, such groups tended to lock themselves into a cycle of self-abuse and poverty.

One time, the PLA tried to root them out, to 'help' the fallen citizens of D118 back into normalcy.

Instead, the 'Under-folk' chose to immolate themselves, destroying three levels of the lower strata, trapping close to 4000 souls in a boiling hell of choking miasma before the Tower Mages moved in and purged the whole section.

"A Lost District within a Lost District, hilarious, no? Microcosms within microcosm! A crucible for the human condition!" Choi appeared in love with the catchphrases, positively delighted with the elegance of his Chinese prose.

He told her that since the incident, the PLA rotated lower strata citizens by lottery—elevating families to the surface levels, sometimes even the mid-levels, to offset any desire at entrenchment into the sub-basement.

Families who resisted the benevolence of their autocratic leaders simply disappeared, evaporated, _moved away._

But no such systems existed within the Lost Districts.

"In my opinion, there are bigger problems down there than a loose Crawler, that's for sure," Gwen began, informing her party about her suspicions. "Boss Yi has told us a lot—where it is—what it is—what we should be expecting. But he averted every question as to how it got there, where it came from."

She felt herself shiver at the memory of Blackheath.

"Let's say I am being paranoid, its entirely possible it spawned due to an abundance of magic or a tear in the Prime Material; it would still mean that something is creating carrion down there. I doubt this place can afford to waste food. Crawlers are omnivores, but they feed on necrotic flesh, right? There's no agricultural industry here, there's a protein farm, but that barely keeps up with demand, which leaves us with an unpleasant prospect."

"Someone is making carrion, dumping bodies. Someone is rearing these things intentionally. YET, our quest is just to kill one of these things - a specific creature in the location Yi gave—what do you guys suppose that implies?"

"Eww..." Mayuree made an unpleasant expression.

"They're hatching targets for us to kill?"

"That's my theory, anyway." Gwen pieced together the circumstantial evidence. "Additionally, I am not sure what the other 20CCs are for."

"Maybe we will run into more than one Crawler?" Mayuree asked.

"Or other trouble," Richard added. "The Crawler's 5 CCs, what do you suppose could be worth 20?"

The party members regarded one another.

"Let's keep an eye out," Richard informed them.

"Agreed."

"Yep"

"Fine."

"Great." Richard turned to the door. "We have to go through B7's residential zone first. Eyes wide open. Mayuree, we're in your safe hands. I'll take the point. Kitty's on second. Mayuree's third, Gwen, bring up the rear."

"Detect Magic! Detect Invisibility! Detect Poison! Detect Trap!" Mayuree launched into a dazzling array of self-buffs as the lift slowed and finally stopped.

"Lea!"

Richard's giggling Undine appeared in mid-air, half-clad in water.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Kitty's eyes enlarged with self-evident longing.

"Lea, can you keep watch as well? Mayuree takes precedence. She has the weakest Shield."

Lea inclined her head haughtily, shot Kitty a snide glance with her pale blue orbs, then shimmered before becoming invisible. As a high-ranked Spirit and a demi-Fey, she possessed both Flight and Invisibility at will. Richard once joked that he could have Lea hold him up and pretend instead of learning Flight himself.

The cargo lift opened.

Suddenly, Fudan's darlings were in the middle of basement B-7.

"Mistress Zalaam, they should be arriving. As you suspected, they're headed for the area where Yi asked us to plant the Crawler."

"Shukraan, Sui. Tell the others to be wary of the tall girl's Void spells. Get the handlers to send in the Crawlers first. Remember—I need her alive. The others don't matter."

"I shall endeavour to keep them 'all' alive for you, Mistress." The woman known as Sui replied humbly.

"Where's Zuyao now?"

"He was last seen proceeding through the western sewers, Mistress. The passage there should be safe before the rains hit."

Nephres nodded with satisfaction. Everything was going smoothly so far. Her messenger to the Organisation was safely away. The trap-within-a-trap was set. AND her naive lover had unknowingly sent the Student Mages her way. Best of all, when it happens—and it will happen—the blame would fall on Boss Yi. The aftermath of losing Gwen would also bring down that conniving Choi, the PLA hound guarding this place. _Perfection_.

She rechecked the Dossiers.

Richard Huang—Wate—Abjuration-Conjuration. His parents were not even citizens—a true nobody.

Mayuree. There was no last name, nothing on the girl other than her role as a Diviner.

Kitty Liang—Ice—Evoker-Transmuter, a sponsored Mage from the House of M. The girl could be problematic, but her talent also made her a prize.

As for the senior Fudan students, Lam had sent them elsewhere.

Nephres had hoped the reports were more detailed, but this wasn't the Frontier. Here they couldn't work their numbers into the stratum of the administration. Nephres recalled that her Mistress had mentioned Faceless was dead. The loss of the shapeshifter was a significant blow to the Organisation, for the creature had many identities that remained untapped. Nephres wondered if Faceless had been unique or if her Mistress had more Doppelgängers under her command. When they had met, she was sure Faceless resembled the result of some infernal Conjuration, some nightmare made flesh, like in the Odes of the Abyssian from Egypt's legends, borrowing the skin of loved ones to fuel their malevolent desires.

She thumbed the papers once more.

Nephres couldn't help but feel her nerves fray.

It wasn't a foretelling Divination, but she felt the unshakable buzz of peril. Call it instinct, perhaps, or a woman's intuition. Trusting her feelings, Nephres had enjoyed an outstanding track record of escaping harm so far.

Once more, her eyes fell upon Gwen Song's Dossier. She would have to be extra careful with the girl in transit. It wouldn't do to have what happened to Edgar happen to her. Perhaps a drug? Or maybe a Stasis Unit. Yes. A Stasis Unit would be safest.

Nephres smirked.

The girl would look lovely hog-tied and placed in a Stasis Unit.

In front of her, Sui waited patiently for the Mistress' orders.

"Sui." Nephres' voice was the promise of milk and honey. "Go, I want you to oversee the operation personally. May Anubis guide you."

Her servant touched her forehead to the ground and kissed Nephres' feet. "I will do as you command, Mistress."

Nephres teach down with a finger to feel the softness of Sui's lips. She wondered if her faraway Mistress of the Void ever missed her company. How beautiful her Mistress could be! Unlike her honeyed skin, the Mistress's complexion was always pale and flawless and _cold_ as though Nephres was touching her warm lips to hoarfrost.

Hopefully, with this redemption, she would be seeing her Mistress soon.

While she waited for her mana to recharge, Lulan Li began to have second thoughts.

She had travelled all this way out of the CBD because there was no opportunity to confront the Void Sorceress within the PLA Tower's public domain.

And Gwen Song was a Power Progeny connected to the PLA, she was the Dean's favourite, and she was protected by more than one Magister from the university, a true heir of nepotism.

If Lulan were to challenge her within the teleportation range of the Tower, even assuming she succeeded in humiliating the girl, there would be hell to pay for her Sect.

But here in the Lost Districts, she could fight her fair and square. Lulan could issue a challenge, and they would fight. There were no Magisters here to interfere.

That was what Lulan had thought at first, at least when the red mist came down.

Now the mist had thinned, and gone was the zeal that had compelled her to traverse Fourth Orbital Highway to District 109.

_Should I return?_ A voice of reason whispered faintly in the dark.

_No-NO!_ She needed to show Gwen Song the difference in their power!

Maybe then, Gwen Song would realise the error of her ways and return Kusu's daggers, or at least offer reparations if she had destroyed them.

_Mao_! She wanted to smash the girl's pretty face inward.

Somewhere at the back of Lulan's head buzzed the idea that all of this was folly, that she was going to make things worse or make a fool out of herself, but each time that thought surfaced, it was overridden by a scene of Gwen Song standing over Kusu's unmoving body.

She thought of Uncle Kwon screaming.

She thought of Pei giving them that smirk that he always affected.

She thought of her father shaking his head and saying they took after their mother.

She thought of Patriarch Li slapping their father on the back approvingly, then turning to Kusu with disapproving eyes.

Her bruised cheek burned.

Her jaws ached.

Her blood was up before she knew it. The red mist came on as dense as iron. It always felt the most potent when using her Sect's unique talent.

Again, Lulan found her body in motion before she could think clearly. Brother had told her that it was the Yang energy. The more proficient she became with the Iron Sword technique, the more she was prone to these episodes.

After some time and some indiscriminate destruction, her mana once more needed recharging.

While holding an HDM, Lulan became aware of her surroundings once more.

She was in one of those warren-like corridors in the lower strata. She was sure that this was still Building 3. Assuming Gwen and her friends went to the central area, she needed to find Building 10 or 11. Comparing the appearance of the strata from her previous visits to the triple-digit Districts, Lulan estimated that Gwen's party should be in Basement 2. The concrete layer between the levels shouldn't be nearly as thick past the foundation.

Her eyes scanned the corridor.

She was being watched.

"You!" Lulan broke her trance and strode toward an adjacent door, where a face quickly disappeared behind a shoddy wooden door. "Come out!"

It only took her a second to approach the barrier. As she arrived, there was the sound of a bar sliding into place.

She turned to the next door. Her eyes met something dark in the dimness of the corridor.

"Dark Vision!"

Her eyes glowed like that of a nocturnal carnivore.

A quick self-buff and she was staring down a corridor a hundred meters deep and filled with just as many pairs of eyes staring at her with a mixture of fright and curiosity. However, they shrunk behind their barriers whenever they saw her face and slammed closed their iron-wrought door. As her scarlet orbs swept across the darkness, the sound of doors closing ricochetted down the corridor until it turned from her view.

How do these people see in the dark? Lulan felt equally impressed and disturbed by the acute timidity of the undercity's denizens.

She then knocked on a few more doors to no avail.

Lulan resisted the urge to kick down the door. It was better to play it safe in a place like this. There was an ambient sense of hostility in the air that made her scalp crawl, and the stank of acrid ammonia caused her eyes to water.

"Iron Skin!"

Her complexion took on the colour of rust. Where her fingers touched the rough walls, it raked and chipped the surface.

Building 11 was northward.

Maybe she could find someone deeper in who could tell her where the Fudan party had gone. Lulan sauntered down the twisting passageway, her footfalls heavy against the pavement like the beating of a telltale heart.

Abruptly, her progress was interrupted by the scraping and screeching of floating platforms moving in the distance.

_There!_ Lulan's heart soared. In the Districts, movement between the layers was rarely undertaken by the magically operated lifts. Only important guests, outsiders, and the building's administrators used the platform.

"Haste!"

Lulan shot down the corridor, barging past the trash and the debris strewed across every surface. There were barricades too, but she ploughed past those with a single swing of her Conjure Blade.

"Stone Shaping Strike!"

The concrete walls parted.

An NoM family stared at the Transmuter, mouth open, as she appeared in their room, shattered their dinner table, then disappeared again.

A dozen ruined homes later, Lulan could no longer hear the lift.

She did become faintly aware as she ascended into the deeper levels of the East Wing that there was a great deal of groaning and moaning happening somewhere above her. The noise wasn't the groaning associated with stressed metal, a sound she knew well.

There was also the tinnitus wail of those weeping in despair.

Lulan grimaced. She must have missed a critical turn.

There were whorehouses in the Districts. As much as Kusu would like it, she wasn't _that_ innocent.

As fitting as it was for Gwen Song to inhabit one, Lulan wasn't going to find her there.

The lift had been going down.

Lulan had run Quests in the Districts before and knew that it wasn't unusual for creatures to spawn in the magic-dense spaces below, no matter the warding put up by the Enchanters.

From the lay of the strata around her, she could infer that somewhere below was a centre line that ran from one side of the superstructure to another, usually used by maintenance crews to access suppression systems or the underlying plumbing quickly.

"Stone Shaping Strike!"

The concrete parted.

Lulan descended.

When she broke past a concrete barrier into what she hoped was B-3, she appeared to have fallen into what seemed to be, for the lack of a better word, someone's home, raising a cloud of dust and debris.

She used the word 'home' lightly because she was in a cubical, one hollowed out from what was once a tiny tunnel, padded and built up with salvaged wooden planks and painted over with what appeared to be tar. The resulting construct was a 'room' with a door, and now she had sliced through the roof and was standing in the 'abode' of whoever owned this place.

The door in front of Lu opened, revealing the filthiest man Lulan had ever seen. There was a sort of encrusted grime on the man that had almost become a part of his skin, making the man appear more southern than his Han facial structure first suggested. His clothes were likewise filthy, layers of unwashed stink piled upon one another until they were almost fused into a sort of cloth armour.

She felt immediately ill.

As the man opened his mouth to speak, a foulness Lulan dared not believe possible assailed her nostrils.

"EH? How did a beauty like you get in here? You from Madam Lam? Wocao! My house!"

"S-Shut up!" Lulan hissed. Madam Lam? The man thought she was a whore?! The nerve!

"Me, shut up?! Who the FUCK you think you are? EH? Sha-bi! You want to fucking die!? EHH—!" Unafraid, the filthy creature hurled a torrent of abuse toward her.

Lulan had never been treated this way in her life. Not even the Elders spoke to her like this when they beat her for insubordination.

Perhaps taking her timidness to mean she was afraid and helpless, the man came closer, made more brazen by the fact that she was a girl.

Suddenly, inexplicably, Lulan grew self-conscious of her leather pants her simple white singlet. Against her exposed skin, the man's gaze felt like slathered paint.

Did the man not recognise that she was a sorceress? Shouldn't the man flee for his life?

Wasn't someone like her a Deity-like existence for these denizens of the deep? She might be covered in dust and grime, her clothes soiled by passage through the ceiling, but hadn't she broken into his house by rending the concrete?

Lulan's eyes widened in horror as the man reached out with scaly fingers, his parched lips dividing to reveal rotten teeth. The redolence was so ripe as to make her dizzy with disgust.

The mana insider her exploded.

"Conjure Sword!"

From a torn slit between the Elemental Plane of Earth and the Prime Material Plane, an iron slab burst forth in the rough shape of a poorly smithed sword.

As it slid forward, the metal crashed into the body of the tramp, punching through flesh and bone with the ease of a stiff finger of reprimand piercing a sodden strip of tissue paper. There was a sound of crunching bone, wet and sudden, as the weight of the blade was freed, dipping forward and smashing tip first into the concrete floor, cracking the pavement.

Several inches into the concrete, it stuck there, embedded into the floor, singing a song of violence.

Behind its rusty edge, guts and viscera cascaded over the singularly shattered rebar slab, splattering and splashing with a grotesque cacophony.

The man's door earlier opened remained ajar, hanging from a nail.

A dozen pairs of blood-rimmed eyes stared in horror at the gore-soaked girl inside their companion's abode; their mouths parted in terror.

"Monster!" someone screamed.

"Find the Boss!"

"Block her in! Don't let her escape!"

"YAAAAA!"

Discondordant noise abruptly filled the shack-strewn corridor of Access Tunnel B-7, the sound of clattering feet, screaming voices, beating sheets of galvanised iron, women's hysteria, men crying blue murder, every noise in the world filled the echoic space of the tunnel's circumference.

To Lulan, it felt as though the world had suddenly gone insane. Why couldn't these NoMs just _shut the fuck up?_ How was she going to find Gwen Song in all of this chaos?!

Her face felt sick with filth.

There was a sudden taste of iron on her tongue, as well as Mao knew what else was inside the man.

With a vengeance, the red mist descended.