An instant after the pile of muscles landed cracking the stone tiles under its feet, I found myself flying through the air. The nerve signals telling me I was slapped arrived at my brain moments later. Then I hit the wall and bounced off it like a rubber ball, which just sent me further down the street.

  It was a weird experience ragdolling down the road when it didn’t even really hurt.

  Pulling myself off the ground, I tried to stand, only to topple over when my leg didn’t do the thing it was supposed to. Looking down, I realized that my leg was bending in the wrong direction.

  Ah, that’s why it doesn’t hurt. I’m in shock. Great.

  Except it didn't feel like being in shock should, my vision wasn't affected, and my hands weren't shaking. Instead, it felt like my role wasn't done in this scene.

  Which meant I needed to focus on the fight.

  Makesi was using that odd blue fluid to block blows from the six-armed lump of muscles wielding six swords, but if his mental state was anything to go by, I was pretty sure he was going to run out of juice soon. Aisling was unloading her anti-materiel rifle into it, but that was effectively doing nothing. While Vivi looked frustrated from the sidelines, occasionally throwing a fireball or attempting to close in with her sword, having already chewed through most of her magic and burned through her cost to the point that Makesi had told her to stop for the day.

  I didn’t want to see what Vivi would be like if she just went wild and ignored Makesi’s advice. That’s what caused the disaster in Velgrait after all… or at least it was part of the cause.

  The mind of the pile of muscles was a blasted plain filled with soldiers who had already long since died, still hacking each other apart. The being was so filled with rage that if I wanted to do anything beyond surface edits, I’d have to spend hours working its narrative. Luckily, that still meant I could do surface edits.

  “The soldiers’ blades could not sustain their fury and began to shatter. Losing their implements of war, they were forced to loot the dead for steel to continue their endless conflict,” I narrated in an attempt to force the thing to stop hitting Makesi for a moment.

  The next series of impacts rang wrong. Metal screeched, then the blades exploded, bursting into fragments of steel.

  That wasn’t really what I was going for, but it worked. Maybe the fact that the creature was made out of thought allowed more direct manipulation?

  It froze when the blades broke, and Makesi closed in, forming dozens of spearpoints out of the blue magic that pierced through the creature's thick hide. The being’s mental space froze, the soldiers stopped searching for weapons and turned to look at something in the sky.

  Oh, shit!

  “Get back!” I yelled out to Makesi.

  He didn’t retreat in time before the creature began to grow and flush red, its lower hands lashing out to grip his suit of armour, and the upper arms began bashing his helmet, releasing a series of explosive bangs. Vivi slammed into the creature and Makesi from the side, throwing them both into the remains of a building that then collapsed on them.

  Aisling remained outside, clearing out the approaching wights that heard the conflict.

  Fuck! Stupid leg not working properly. What am I supposed to do?! The pain should have fucked me up by now, but I can’t even feel it yet. Why am I still in this scene?

  Opening the Stream, I tried to search for anything that could possibly help and came up with nothing.

  Letting out an exasperated breath, I pulled my gun and brained a few wights that were crawling towards me from the cracks between the buildings. Pausing when I saw something weird.

  Or maybe I should say I saw something that was the opposite of weird, so opposite that it was clearly out of place. Hiding under a pile of rubble was a tuft of white that I felt myself losing interest in the longer I stared at it. With a shove, I broke through the illusion that was hiding a white fox from plain view.

  That was the only reason I was still conscious; I still had a role to play here. A role that involved the fox in some capacity.

  Its mind still consisted of a discordant music track, one that couldn’t seem to choose a single genre or even a style to stick to. The music it was playing was so quiet that if I were perceiving it with my ears, it wouldn’t even be audible.

  I could fix this on my own, but I didn’t trust Makesi to survive while I tried to figure it out. Instead, I went with the pricier option. One that would align with what I guessed the fox represented last time we came in here.

  You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

  Something I can use from here to allow the fox to comprehend and form a union with an appropriate Dao that will help save my teammates in the best way possible. Emotional resolution: Clarity

  I purchased the first item on the list, ignoring the Dust price and received what appeared to be a talisman with Mandarin scrawled over it. Maybe I should have read the instructions before purchasing it… Whatever, it’s fine! I can improvise.

  Reading the script on the talisman aloud, it began to glow, and I held it up in the air, repeating the chant as something began forming in the air around the slip of paper. Suddenly, it was wrenched from my hand and flew towards the fox; the creature yipped and tried to run. The talisman landed on its forehead before it could even leave its hidey hole, and it went dead still.

  The volume of the music in its mind was cranked up to eleven, and the track that was being played rapidly switched through different options until it landed on a single instrument. A flute playing a clear melody with the sound of waves lapping against the side of a boat.

  Every single hunter that had been dismantling the town within my eyesight froze, their heads turned to where the fox… or what had been a fox was. Even Aisling turned to look at what it was for a moment before going back to keeping the wights away. A job that was much harder once they all started rushing in this direction.

  Where what used to be a fox was a woman with white hair and fox ears, wearing blue Daoist robes with a furry white tail poking out of the back. She emerged from cover and looked my way, highlighting me with her spotlight for the first time. Giving me a short nod, she held her hands skyward and closed her eyes. Black lines appeared in the air connecting everyone here to the wights, a blue light emerged from her hands, and all of the connections were severed all at once.

  The hungry ghosts that had been rushing towards us all stopped, and their bodies began turning into ash as their karmic loop was severed.

  Vivi exploded out of the top of the building, laughing maniacally, a crazed smile on her face. The pile of muscles flew right behind her, connected by a red tie to both her and Makesi, one that was very one-sided. It felt like this universe saw the only possible outcome of the fight was Vivi’s defeat. The fact that it was physically impossible to kill Vivi when she was going all out didn’t seem to matter; it was more like fate had already decided the outcome.

  The two collided in the sky, and an explosive wave of air was released from their collision that knocked down nearby buildings and sent each flying off to opposite sides of the town. The pressure wave nearly threw me into the air, forcing me to clutch a pile of rubble to remain where I was.

  The woman who used to be a fox ran to the line connecting the two that ran through the centre of town. On contact with it, she pulled the weight of fate from the muscle’s side over to Vivi’s.

  Just on time as Vivi came barrelling through the centre of town like a bullet. Every building in her path was levelled, and on the other side of town, the creature followed the same path to her.

  When the two met this time, instead of being thrown back, Vivi’s sword cleaved through the flesh of the being of fury. Carving it in two and smashing the sides into the ground, pulping the once invincible creature. A wave of Dust poured out of the being and into Vivi.

  Vivi, with no opponent in front of her, let out a screech and threw a fist at the ground, which gave way like a hot knife through water. The ground underneath me shook, and the stone-tiled street exploded upward from the seismic shock.

  “Nap time, Vivi, your job is done,” I narrated, then hit her mind as hard as I possibly could. I watched her collapse on the spot as reality started to blur together, my Luciditry dropping like a stone as I paid my cost.

  From there, I saw a blur of images. Aisling picked me up at some point and moved me. I saw that Makesi was alive, half of his helmet was gone, it looked like it had been torn off in the fight.

  When my mind came back to me, I found myself lying next to Vivi, her head leaning on my shoulder as she snored loudly.

  A couple of metres in front of me, the once fox, now a woman, was sitting cross-legged with her eyes closed on what appeared to be a scrap of cloth. That blue energy I had seen before flowed through her body, collecting in her chest where her heart should be.

  Before anything else, I checked how much Dust I spent on the talisman.

  -1500 Dust

  Dust: 1393

  Eligible for Grade Advancement 0 -> 1

  Oh, come on, really! Why was it so expensive? Do we at least get to keep the fox girl? I'm going to be so mad if we can't keep the fox girl.

  I almost pulled out Aurin to complain to her when I realized her eyes were open and staring at me. The blue energy no longer flowed through her, but when I glanced into her eyes, it looked as if she was already bursting with it.

  “Thank you, oh regal spirit beast, for the aid you rendered,” I said in Mandarin. Trying to remember the cultural lessons Makesi had made me go through.

  I was fairly certain she was a huli jing, a fox cultivator that shapeshifts into a woman when it reaches a certain age. Or in this case, Dao comprehension, I suppose, as not everything in the overlap was tied directly to what the myths said. It was a messy affair of mixing old folk myths and whatever the Class Four felt it needed to be.

  She let out a light laugh, “You might even say you're in my debt?”

  A line connecting me to her appeared, with more weight on my side.

  “I never explicitly requested your aid… but that doesn't matter, does it?” I asked.

  “We do need to talk more, but I believe you had something else to attend to,” she said, pointing at my broken leg.

  The moment she did, the pain hit all at once, and my vision went black as I recoiled.

  Then she said the last words I would hear from her today, “My name is Hu Xinyu, I am happy to be joining you on your journey as we work off your debt. I will see you soon.”

  Her voice didn't sound in my ears; it was like a bell tolling inside my head. The meaning was imprinted directly into my mind while I writhed on the ground and desperately tried to control my breathing.

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