"What do we do?"
Xīng Hé's voice came out sharp. "How do we save them?"
Yao looked at her with something that might have been pity.
"Save them?" She shook her head. "We annihilate them."
"No."
The word escaped before Xīng Hé could stop it. They could bring the contaminated teammates back to the compound. Keep them separate. Find a way to cure them.
Even if the mentors won't help, I could heal them. With Restoration. If I evolve far enough—
"We could isolate them," she said. "Find a way to—"
Yao's fingers snapped.
The two contaminated children collapsed.
No screams. One moment standing, terror dawning on their faces. The next, on the ground, expressions frozen.
Dead.
Two more lives ended.
Xīng Hé moved.
Her body launched toward Yao, fists swinging with all the strength her evolved form possessed. She struck the woman's chest, her arms, her face—hitting with desperate fury that had nothing to do with strategy.
The other children froze.
This was suicide. You didn't question a divine existence. You didn't touch them without permission. You certainly didn't hit them.
Even looking at them wrong could get you killed.
But Yao didn't move.
She stood there, absorbing the blows. Her expression remained neutral—not angry, not amused, not even particularly interested.
Just patient.
The contaminated could still function. Could still live, even corrupted. Detention might work. Isolation while Xīng Hé evolved, while her capabilities grew strong enough to undo whatever had been done.
She'd lost too many people already.
But Yao had seen battlefields. Had witnessed what happened when contamination reached places it shouldn't. The rules existed for a reason. You didn't bring infected beings back. You ended them before they could become vectors for something worse.
Who could say the corruption wouldn't spread through concept? Through divine sense? Through any of the countless ways power flowed between beings who had transcended mortal limitations?
An entire civilization had fallen here. Contained within this space, isolated from the greater world.
If a divine existence carried it back...
Killing them now was mercy.
But Xīng Hé couldn't see past her grief.
"Let's go," Yao said quietly.
The words cut through Xīng Hé's rage. Her fists slowed, stopped, fell to her sides. She stood there, trembling.
Yao pulled out a concept stone and crushed it.
The world twisted.
---
✦
They materialized in the general hall for missions.
Crystalline walls stretched toward a ceiling lost in shadow. Officials moved between stations, processing arrivals, recording outcomes. Other children began to notice them. Whispers spread.
Seven of them.
Seven out of thirty.
The crowd parted as Yao approached. She walked through with the same lazy indifference she brought to everything, unconcerned with the stares that followed.
"I'm at the manor," she said, glancing back at Xīng Hé. "Rest up. His Eminence is expecting you."
Then she was gone.
Xīng Hé stood in the midst of curious onlookers, feeling their judgment, their relief that they weren't the ones who had failed so spectacularly.
She walked to the reception station and took a concept stone to her manor.
She didn't look for Hongyu.
She didn't speak to anyone.
She just left.
---
✦
The manor was quiet.
Familiar walls. Familiar empty corridors. Familiar silence that pressed against her like cold water.
She walked to her room, closed the door, and let herself break.
The tears came without sound—great sobs that shook her entire body. She wept for the twenty-one who had died. For the two Yao had killed at the end. For the girl who had believed she could save everyone.
She wept until exhaustion claimed her.
Then she slept.
---
End of Chapter 59