Yao took what was hers—what she could reasonably carry—and vanished. She didn't spare a glance for Aqi or Gronk, nor for the dazed survivors left amid the carnage. There was no time for farewells, no need for shared loot. Her exit was as clean and abrupt as the rest of her performance.
She didn't flee the dungeon immediately. The thirty-minute grace period wasn't just a courtesy; it was a rule, a window for final scavenging. It also served as her alibi. As the dust settled behind her, the first coherent thoughts finally pierced the survivors' shock.
"The treasure chests! The dungeon core rewards!"
"Right! We almost forgot!"
"By the stars, that was… terrifying."
"A bloody-handed demon, that's what she was."
"What did you just call her?"
"Nothing! I said nothing at all!"
"Relax, I just think the name fits rather well."
Unaware she'd just been bestowed a rather grim moniker, Yao was already piloting her flyer away from the ruined farm. Her destination wasn't the Brood-Prime's original lair—Lin Qing's team would have scoured that clean, and their "inheritance" was now safely in her possession. She was after the secondary, temporary nest. A creature that could spawn five elite lieutenants in such a short time frame had to be using some kind of catalyst, a resource-boosting item. And according to dungeon logic, such items were rarely consumed entirely; they'd be left as loot, hidden for the cunning.
Her lightning-fast wrap-up was the result of meticulous groundwork. The all-nighter spent weaving her Gossamer web across half the farm hadn't just been for mapping enemy movements; it had been a sensor net, eliminating possibilities. The Brood-Prime hadn't been in her search grid, which meant it had to be in the remaining, unchecked areas. Simple deduction. A few minutes of focused searching later, she found it—a concealed burrow in a small, wooded gully.
Meanwhile, back at the farm, Aqi's sharp mind had kicked into gear the moment Yao disappeared. While others were still gawking at the wreckage, she grabbed a still-chattering Gronk. "The lieutenants' nests. Now."
"Huh? Oh, right! The loot! But hey, why didn't Captain-sis group with us? I mean, not that I want her stuff! We could've helped, taken out a few more ourselves…"
Aqi shot him a look as they moved. "She didn't group with us because, at her core, she's a decent person."
"Huh?"
"Killing Lin Qing's lot? No major repercussions. Maybe a reputation as ruthless, but that's it. But crippling a Xie, a JingyangXie, on their home turf? That's a declaration of war. The family won't let that slide. If we'd been in her party, even if we had nothing to do with it, the Xie would have hauled us in for questioning at best, or made an example of us to save face at worst. She kept us out of the line of fire. Decent." Aqi's voice was matter-of-fact.
Gronk's furry face scrunched in thought, then cleared. "Oh. Yeah. Makes sense. Still… we're just not strong enough yet."
"Jingyang is a small pond. Survive long enough, and you'll see all the world has to offer. Eventually, you becomethe spectacle others see. Now, can you check that mound?"
Distracted, Gronk reached a paw into a suspicious-looking pile of dried dung and insect husks. His paw sank in. He pulled it out, covered in foul-smelling muck. "Ew! It's poop!"
Aqi nodded, a ghost of a smile on her lips. "Just checking if you'd really fall for that again. Seems you do."
Gronk's eyes went wide with indignant fury. He hopped up and down, shaking his filthy paw. "You! You tricky human female! I'll—oh." His tirade cut off as his fingers closed around something solid within the muck. He pulled it out—a palm-sized, lustrous ruby that pulsed with a gentle, verdant light.
"A… Regenerative Core? Green-tier! This is incredible!" Aqi's eyes lit up. "Your luck is something else. But it's just one. How do we split it? My overall contribution score washigher… unless you want to settle it with a duel? Surely, finding a second one would be fairer."
Gronk stared at her, his whiskers twitching. "...You just want me to stick my paw in more poop!"
"It's not about the poop. And besides," Aqi's smile turned a little softer, "you were the one who insisted on grouping with 'two sisters,' weren't you?"
Gronk froze, his earlier exuberance dimming. He looked away, suddenly quiet. "I… I didn't see her whole face. Just… half. When we were in the water… And I'm not a weirdo! I didn't 'group with sisters' on purpose!"
There was a story there, a small hurt he wasn't ready to share. Aqi regretted pushing. Time to pivot. "Change of subject. You have… dung on your paw. And you just scratched your head with it."
Gronk looked at his paw, then at the clump of fur on his head. His face fell in utter horror. "Aaaargh!"
Seeing she'd successfully, if somewhat cruelly, derailed his melancholy, Aqi got back on track. "Anyway, she's not necessarily in as much danger as it seems. If the Xie can't find her, they'll need a convenient target for their rage."
Gronk blinked, the poop momentarily forgotten. "Oh! Right!"
"The Teng family. She didn't touch a single one of them. Didn't even scratch them."
A neat, ruthless piece of framing. The Tengs, utterly innocent, would now have a devil of a time proving it. The Xie wouldn't care about proof; they needed a scapegoat, and a rival family fit the bill perfectly. Two Xie were dead, after all.
"But… I don't get why she didn't just kill that Xie Guangyu guy," Gronk mused, wiping his paw (and head) vigorously on some grass.
Back in the temporary nest, Yao's new, semi-developed insectoid senses tingled, leading her to five chitinous marrow-crystals buried in the walls. A good haul, but not the prize she was looking for. She scanned the earthen floor, the walls… then stopped. Human thinking.She was looking at the ground. The Brood-Prime could fly.
Her gaze snapped upward. A few quick flicks of her wrist sent Gossamer threads probing the ceiling. Click.A disguised clump of dirt gave way, and a heavy, metallic object dropped into her waiting web.
She caught it. For a moment, her usually steady pulse quickened.
It was a disc, roughly the size of a dinner plate, but impossibly dense. Its surface was a labyrinth of intricate, interlocking brass gears, copper coils, and etched crystal lenses. It hummed with a low, potent energy that felt both ancient and impossibly advanced. It was a relic of the Gnomes, the premier techno-arcane race of the known spheres. A Genetic Evolution Matrix—Tier 1.
"So that's how it did it," Yao breathed, understanding dawning. A lowly Scorpid-Queen, out of her territory, overcoming a native Verdant-Brown swarm. It hadn't just gotten lucky; it had found a Gnome artefact, likely fallen from a passing vessel or a long-lost ruin. This device had allowed it to catalyze a genetic leap, absorb the rival chieftain's essence, and birth a super-charged hybrid egg. The ultimate get-rich-quick scheme, wasted on a bug.
"The energy reserves are only at half-charge," she observed, tracing the glowing insectile sigils etched into the central lens. "Species-locked: Insectoid. Incredible luck… and mine as well." Had she not already awakened an insectoid genetic trait, this priceless treasure would be nothing more than a very expensive paperweight to her. She could sell it, of course, for a staggering sum, but converting cash back into something of equivalent, usablepower was a fool's game. Power was the only true currency.
A genuine, fierce smile touched her lips. The dungeon had been a nightmare rollercoaster, but the payout… the payout justified every risk.
Now, for the official rewards from the Arcane Athenaeum. That opened a whole new chapter—a hub of power, knowledge, and far stronger Arcanists. Level 30s would be common, 40s not unheard of, even in a backwater like Jingyang. A new map to explore.
But first, loose ends.
She sped back towards the farm. The aftermath was crucial. The barrier would fall soon. Agricultural inspectors, Xie family enforcers, Teng representatives—they would all descend.
"The Ag inspectors won't care much as long as the crops are mostly intact. The Xie… well, Xie Guangyu is still alive, isn't he?"
A cold, calculated plan had already formed in her mind. Her brief interaction with Xie An had been enough. She understood the man's essence: cold, transactional, utterly self-serving. She could work with that.
Back at the farm, chaos of a different sort reigned.
"Hurry! Clean this up!"
"So many bodies… it's horrifying."
"Stop gawking and move! The Master! Stars above, has anyone checked on the Master?!"
The tenants, spurred by the stern Captain Liang, were frantically trying to restore order amidst the gore. Aqi and Gronk returned to this scene, overhearing the panic about "the Master." They exchanged a look. For all his wealth, Oaks inspired remarkably little genuine concern.
"We should check," Aqi said, her tone neutral. "His room took a direct hit. The heat… he could be injured." Her eyes flicked briefly to the corpses of Xie Yong and his son, but she said nothing. She led the way upstairs, Gronk and a few guards trailing.
The door to the master bedroom was closed. They knocked. No answer. Knocked harder. Silence.
Gronk's ears drooped. "He's dead? Then…" Then our sister got her revenge?The thought, while grim, held a certain satisfaction.
BANG!
Captain Liang, looking harried, finally lost patience and kicked the door in.
The room was a mess. Soot stained the walls near the shattered window, the air was still warm and carried the scent of ozone and burnt fabric. But it was empty.
Aqi's heart gave a strange lurch. If Oaks is not who he seems…
"Over here!" Gronk called from the en-suite bathroom. He'd pushed the door open with a foot.
They crowded to the doorway.
The bathroom was cavernous, a testament to the farm's spacious design and the former owner's indulgence. In the center of the tiled floor, dragged from the ruined bedroom, was a thick mattress piled with blankets and quilts. Nestled within this cocoon, snoring softly, was "Oaks." An empty bottle of cheap spirits lay on its side. A half-eaten loaf of bread, the remains of a fruit platter, and a stack of lurid-looking pulp novels were scattered around. Most damning of all, a small viewscreen was propped against the bathtub, frozen on a particularly explicit frame of a low-budget skin-flick. A small mountain of used tissues formed a snowy peak beside the mattress.
Aqi took one look, her face a perfect mask of blank disbelief, then turned on her heel and walked out.
The guards stared for a second longer, expressions cycling through shock, disgust, and profound embarrassment, before hurriedly following her.
Gronk was the last. He stared at the scene, his nose wrinkling. "Pah!" he spat, with all the disdain a fastidious rodent could muster, and pulled the door shut with a definitive click.
The moment the door closed, the figure in the blankets went still. The soft snores cut off. Yao opened her eyes, clear and sharp, all pretense of sleep gone. She sat up, rubbing her temples. Time was short, but not gone. She needed to sort the loot from the Brood-Prime, and if possible, begin integrating the Genetic Evolution Matrix. The process would be intense, but the barrier's fall was her deadline.
What she didn't know, as she began her work, was that beyond the shimmering veil of the Calamity Field, a ship was approaching. Not a common freighter or an agricultural inspector's skiff. This vessel bore the sleek, aggressive lines and distinctive identification codes of a House security cutter.
Had she seen those codes, she would have abandoned all pretense, loot, and evolution matrix, and run for her life.