The classic villain's promise: Give me the money, and I'll let you live.Anyone with half a brain knew how that story usually ended. The ransom was paid, and the captive would be found floating face-down in a ditch a day later, a little poorer and a lot deader.
Yao didn't believe it for a second. But belief wasn't the point. Compliance, for now, was.
She had to hesitate. Just for a beat. A moment of convincing, gut-wrenching indecision.
Li Chengkai didn't wait for a second beat. His hand moved with the casual cruelty of long practice, snatching a coiled bullwhip from a rusted hook on the wall. It was old leather, dark with stains that weren't dirt. He didn't speak. He just stepped back, flicked his wrist.
The air in the damp cell seemed to hold its breath. Then came the sound—a sharp, dry crackthat split the silence like a bone breaking, followed by a softer, wetter thwipas the leather found its target.
Pain. It wasn't a single sensation, but a symphony of agony. First, a line of pure, white-hot fire across her back, so intense it felt cold. Then, a delayed, deep throb that seemed to vibrate in her very bones. The rough fabric of her tunic offered no protection; it split, and a warm, sticky wetness immediately began to seep through, tracing a hot path down her spine. She could feel it, a distinct trickle, pooling at the small of her back before gathering at her bound ankles to drip onto the cold, filthy stone floor. Plink. Plink.
The body might be Oaks's, but the pain receptors, the screaming nerves, were all hers. A product of a safe, sanitized world where the worst pain was a stubbed toe or a harsh word, she was utterly unprepared for this. The shock was so profound it short-circuited her voice. A choked gasp escaped her, her body instinctively trying to curl into a protective ball, an impulse thwarted by the cruel stretch of the bindings. She hung there, a pathetic, shuddering weight, feeling every ragged breath pull at the new wound.
"I'll… I'll tell you!" she finally managed to wheeze, the words tasting of blood and dust. "The copper notes… they're on one of the mechanical horses! But… but that specific steed… it won't come back without a command from my wrist unit. You'll never find it on your own."
"See? Was that so hard?" Li Chengkai's voice was a mockery of reason. He approached, the heavy scent of cheap tobacco and old sweat preceding him. "We're not animals, boy. We do what we must to survive. This unit?" He roughly yanked the communicator from her wrist, holding it up. "Input the command."
Yao summoned a last shred of defiance, letting it color her pain-roughened voice. "I input it… you get the money… then you slit my throat. Where's my guarantee?" She sucked in a ragged breath, pushing on before he could raise the whip again. "Beat me too much… I might just die. Then you get nothing. And if you're unlucky… if my family doestrace the guards' last communications here… you'll have lost the chicken and the grain."
She saw a flicker in his dead eyes. Annoyance, perhaps. She pressed the advantage, her mind racing even as her back screamed. "If my guards really were in league with your men… even if my father never finds my body… a Green-Blood clan has the authority to petition the Imperial Inspectorate directly. They can subpoena all prior communications from the guard squad. Tracing the link to your men won't be hard. And when they ask you what happened…" She let the implication hang, then delivered the final blow, her voice dropping to a pained whisper. "When I sold my assets to the Li Conglomerate… I overheard things. The Imperial Ministry of Economics has a new directive. They're launching a full audit of X5's mining operations. The conglomerates are pushing back, of course. But a dead noble scion, connected to bandit activity on a planet under investigation… don't you think the Ministry would leapat the chance to send in their own enforcement teams? A perfect excuse to stick their noses where the Li Group doesn't want them."
She was bluffing with specifics, but playing a strong political hunch. The tension between the throne and the mega-corporations was a slow-burning fuse in this world's lore. A spark like this could be all it needed.
The silence that followed was thick enough to chew. She could hear the drip of water somewhere, the skittering of unseen insects, and the pounding of her own heart. Li Chengkai's face was an unreadable mask, but his stillness was telling. A muscle twitched in his jaw.
Finally, he turned slightly, listening to a faint voice from a nearly invisible earpiece. He grunted, then without another word, turned and left the cell, the heavy iron door clanging shut behind him, plunging her back into near-darkness save for the guttering torch.
Outside, in a room that served as both armory and common area, Li Chengkai found his men sorting through Yao's meager backpack. "Boss," one said, holding up empty hands. "None of our boys' gear is in here. No tags, no weapons."
It was a small point, but it corroborated part of her story. If she'd ambushed and looted his men, their distinctive gear would likely be among her spoils. Its absence suggested a chaotic escape, not a premeditated massacre.
Li Chengkai grunted, flipping through the other items. "The brat's clever. Won't give up the goods without a fight." He relayed Yao's threat about the Imperial audit.
The bandits exchanged uneasy glances. They were wolves of the waste, fearless of local enforcers or corporate security. But the Imperial Ministry? That was a different beast entirely. An audit was just paperwork, but the armed inspectors that came with it were notoriously thorough and utterly merciless. To be the spark that brought that fire down on their heads…
"Damn it. Even if he's just a Green-Blood bastard… the timing's bad."
"Those idiots, getting us mixed up in this…"
Li Chengkai listened to their muttering, his mind already made up. "The money," he said, his voice cutting through the worry. "We take the money." Eight or nine million coppers was a fortune, enough to buy luxury and anonymity for a year. "We make the horse come to us."
And then…
He returned to the cell. This time, his demeanor was almost paternal. "You make a persuasive argument," he conceded, spreading his hands. "A misunderstanding, from start to finish. Here's what we do. You call the horse back. I give you my word—no harm comes to you. We're thieves, boy, not butchers. Blood is bad for business."
Yao eyed him with well-feigned skepticism. "Your word? How can I trust it?"
"What choice do you have?" he countered smoothly. "And we have none either. We're all victims of those dead fools' greed. You give us the copper, we cover our losses. To avoid further… complications, we'll disappear from this territory. You go on to live your noble life. A clean break. Everyone wins."
The man was good. The logic was circular, self-serving, yet wrapped in a coat of reluctant reason. It was the speech of a seasoned con artist.
"…Alright," Yao whispered, sagging in her bonds as if defeated. "I hope you keep your promise."
She gave him the command sequence. Li Chengkai watched the wrist unit's screen intently. A map flickered, and a lone blip began moving swiftly towards their location. A slow, triumphant smile spread across his face. He reached down.
Yao's breath hitched. His hand went to the pistol at his hip.
Then, it moved past the weapon, to the keyring. He unlocked the manacles. The sudden release of tension made her legs buckle, and she crumpled to the filthy floor.
"Someone get our young Lord Xie to a room," Li Chengkai called out, not looking at her. "See to his… comfort. Make sure nothing happens to him."
He's actually letting me live?The thought was more terrifying than the whip. It felt wrong.
As two burly bandits hauled her to her feet, her suspicion crystallized into cold certainty. He hadn't returned the wrist unit. He was keeping the tracker. The leash.
They dragged her down a narrow, reeking corridor. The air was thick with the smells of unwashed bodies, mildew, and despair. She passed other cells. Shadowy figures huddled within—men and women, their eyes hollow, clothes hanging in rags. Human inventory. The sight sent a fresh chill through her, colder than the stone floor.
They saw her too. Their gazes were flat, exhausted, but a faint spark flickered in a few—seeing someone relatively untouched, perhaps hoping for a miracle, or simply savoring the schadenfreude of a fellow sufferer.
She was thrown into a dark, empty cell. The impact sent a fresh lance of agony through the whip-wound on her back. She cried out, a genuine sob of pain.
"Pathetic worm," one of the bandits sneered before slamming the heavy door shut, plunging her into absolute blackness.
Alone, the performative whimpers died in her throat. She pushed herself up, hissing as the movement tugged at the torn flesh. Her mind, however, was ice-clear. He's not letting me go. A noble's son who's seen their faces, knows their location? He'd be a fool.The political threat might delay her death, but not prevent it. The money was the key. Once he had it, her usefulness ended.
She twisted her bound wrists behind her back, fumbling until she found the crude knot. Positioning it against her raw, stinging palm, she closed her eyes in the darkness. She began to whisper, the syllables of the Arcane Missile chant forming silently on her lips. But she didn't conjure the orb. Instead, she focused the energy differently, directing the nascent, swirling wind not into a projectile, but into a focused, razor-edged current around her fingers.
Cut. Just cut.
A miniature vortex of concentrated air, no larger than a coin, whirred to life against the ropes. It was agonizingly slow, a faint buzzing sensation against her skin. She could feel the individual fibers straining, then parting. It was a drain on her already-low Spirit, a desperate, clumsy use of a combat spell, but it was her only tool.
In the main hall, the mood had shifted. The nine recovered mechanical horses stood in a line, being inspected for damage. The bandits' earlier tension was replaced by greedy excitement. Minor scrapes and dents. They'd fetch a near-perfect price.
"The last one's coming in now!" a lookout shouted from the entrance.
Li Chengkai set down his clay wine bowl, a genuine smile touching his lips. The little fool had come through. He strode out into the courtyard as the tenth mechanical steed trotted obediently through the gate, coming to a halt before him.
The bandits gathered around, eyes gleaming. Li Chengkai, as leader, knelt to access the primary storage compartment in the horse's belly. He entered the override code Yao had provided. The panel hissed open.
There were no stacks of copper notes. No gleaming jewels. Instead, his eyes fell on the horse's primary power core—the arcane engine. A small, digital display on its housing, usually dark, was now lit with a simple, blinking red countdown.
3…
Li Chengkai's brain, slowed by wine and triumph, took a fatal second to process.
2…
The color drained from his face. Not a retrieval command. A self-destruct sequence. The little bastard—!
1…
He moved with the speed of a cornered animal, his left hand shooting out, grabbing the nearest bandit by the collar and yanking him bodily in front of himself as a human shield.
He was a fraction of a second too late.
It wasn't just one explosion. It was ten.
The self-destruct protocols Yao had input didn't just trigger the returning horse; they synced with the other nine. A cascade signal, a death knell.
The world dissolved into light, sound, and pure, annihilating force.
The initial blast was a silent, blinding white—the core breach. Then the sound hit, a physical wave that compressed the air and shattered eardrums. It wasn't a boombut a deep, tectonic CRUMPthat seemed to originate from the earth itself. The fireball that followed was an angry, roiling orange, swallowing the courtyard whole. Chunks of metal, stone, and less identifiable things were vomited into the sky. The shockwave flattened the weaker wooden structures of the hideout and cracked the stone walls of the main hall.
When the thunder faded and the dust began to settle, the courtyard was a vision of hell. A crater smoked where the horses had stood. Scattered around it were… pieces. A boot here with a foot still in it. A severed arm clutching a melted rifle. The air reeked of ozone, cooked meat, and vaporized blood.
From the edge of this carnage, something moved. A figure, missing an arm from the elbow down, the stump a charred, blackened mess. His face was a mask of blood and embedded shrapnel, one eye a ruined socket. It was Li Chengkai. The bandit he'd grabbed had absorbed the direct force, leaving him maimed, burned, but alive. Barely.
He staggered to his feet, using his remaining hand to clutch his face. Through his single, swimming eye, he surveyed the ruin of his life, his men, his power. Understanding, bitter and total, washed over him.
The worm. The sniveling, pathetic worm… he outsmarted me.
Rage, hotter than the flames still licking at the rubble, surged through him. He spat a glob of black blood onto the ground. With furious, clumsy movements, he tore a strip from his burnt tunic and tied a crude tourniquet around his shattered arm. Then, fueled by hate alone, he stumbled toward a small, nondescript storage room at the back of the shattered hall.
In the cell, the explosion was a distant, muffled whump, followed by a tremor that shook dust from the ceiling. Yao had just sawed through the last of the ropes. She shook her numb, blood-slick hands free.
She didn't celebrate. She moved. Swiftly, she stripped the rough blanket from the solitary cot, bundled it up, and propped it against the wall in a vaguely human shape. She threw her torn, blood-stained outer tunic over it. In the profound darkness, it was a passable silhouette.
Then she slipped out of the cell door, which had been left slightly ajar in the guards' rushed departure earlier. She didn't run toward the chaos. She knew a man like Li Chengkai. He'd have a bolt-hole. A secret escape. And his rage would demand one thing before he used it: revenge.
She found the entrance to the hidden tunnel easily—the fine layer of dust on the storage room floor was scuffed near a particular shelf. She didn't enter. She pressed herself into a deep shadow in an alcove just outside, her breath held, her entire being focused on listening.
She didn't have to wait long. She heard the scrape of stone, a muffled curse of pain. Heavy, dragging footsteps. Then, the light from a small glow-stone illuminated the tunnel mouth.
Li Chengkai emerged, a grotesque, stumbling phantom of his former self. His one good eye, blazing with insane fury, swept the dark cell. He saw the huddled shape in the corner.
Without a word, without a sound, his remaining hand came up. A guttural, pain-slurred chant spilled from his broken lips. The air in front of his palm warped with heat, gathering into a swirling orb of molten orange and red—a Tier 2 Fire Arcanum, Searing Ember. It was a spell meant to not just kill, but to unmake.
He hurled it.
The orb of condensed magma flew across the room and struck the bundled blanket with a wet, hissing splat. Fabric and straw ignited instantly, a hungry pyre that lit up the cell, revealing the empty cot, the abandoned tunic.
In that flare of light, Li Chengkai's face contorted in confusion, then dawning, absolute horror. He'd been tricked. Again.
He started to turn.
From the shadows behind him, at the tunnel entrance he'd just vacated, Yao stepped forward. Her face was pale, smudged with dirt and blood, but utterly calm. Her right hand was already extended, palm outward. A small, perfectly formed orb of pale blue wind energy, no larger than a walnut, hovered above it. It hummed with a gentle, deadly promise.
There was no chant this time. No fanfare. Just a focused thought.
Thwip.
The Arcane Missile, pitifully weak compared to his Searing Ember, crossed the short distance in silence. It didn't aim for his armored chest or his back. It aimed for the side of his ruined, unprotected head.
It struck his temple with a sound like a ripe melon being dropped. Not enough to crush bone, but more than enough to scramble the fragile tissue within.
Li Chengkai's one good eye widened in shock, then went blank. His knees buckled. He collapsed to the stone floor, a heap of smoldering rags and extinguished malice.
Yao stood over him, her chest heaving, not from exertion, but from the sheer, terrifying release of tension. The man who had whipped her, who had planned to skin her alive, was gone. Killed not by a mighty spell, but by a basic cantrip, a distracted mind, and his own all-consuming rage.
She looked down at the body for a long moment. Then, slowly, deliberately, she placed her boot on the side of his head, the one the missile had struck. She pressed down, grinding her heel into the cooling flesh. It was a gesture of utter contempt, a final, wordless assertion.
In the flickering light of the dying fire behind her, Li Chengkai's remaining eye, already glazed in death, seemed to stare into nothingness, forever frozen in its final, incredulous moment of defeat.