Felutina scooped a spear off the ground, leveled it, and thrust — one clean, unbroken motion.
Her actual skill was nothing to write home about, but the Borisin, dulled by the effects of Dynamic Strength, still couldn’t react in time.
The spearhead lanced out, swift and silent, and punched straight through the chest of the towering shape blocking the girls’ path.
Blood sprayed.
The mountain of a body toppled backward.
Felutina flicked the spear, shaking the last of the blood off the tip.
“Damn, I’m strong.”
She said it with real feeling.
Great stats, great mechanics — she could tank, she could deal damage, and she came with healing on top.
Any way you sliced it, she had to be the Ultra edition.
Mission complete, PV screen time secured.
Three seconds might not be enough to go snuggle up against the little gray-hair, but things were looking up.
“S-Sister Felu…”
Jingliu, huddled behind her, spoke in a small voice.
All this blood was more than she could stomach.
Which made sense.
She was only a child.
“We’re safe.
For now.”
Felutina reached over with the hand that hadn’t gotten too bloody and ruffled Jingliu’s hair.
Popping champagne at halftime was never a good habit.
Pulling herself out of the daydream, Felutina made herself think about what came next.
She looked around.
The crimson demon star called Rahu, Devourer of Worlds, was giving off a strange sound — like a wail of grief, or maybe a song.
Every soul in Cangcheng except Felutina and Jingliu was writhing and thrashing in despair, golden tendrils sprouting endlessly from their mouths, their noses, every opening in their bodies.
There was nowhere for any Xianzhou native to run.
Everything within sight was being swallowed and spat out again, dissolving and reassembling over and over.
“…”
Felutina tore a strip of black cloth from her hem, turned, and gently tied it over Jingliu’s eyes.
If it turned even her stomach, what hope did a girl barely past ten have?
Better not to see it at all.
Blinded, the girl pressed instinctively toward the one solid thing beside her, fisting a hand in Felutina’s ragged hem as though that scrap of fabric could give her some pitiful measure of safety.
“We should go.”
The World-Devouring Rahu hadn’t touched the two of them yet, but who knew how long that would hold.
Standing still and waiting to die had never been Felutina’s style.
Keep moving forward, and the road keeps extending —
“Jingliu.”
They had walked for a while, hand in hand, when Felutina stopped and spoke the girl’s name.
Blindfolded, Jingliu couldn’t see the Borisin that had closed a ring around them at some point, but she felt the pressure all the same, thick and nameless.
“Once we get out of here, what do you want to do?”
“…Huh?”
Jingliu blinked behind the cloth.
“It’s a normal thing to talk about, isn’t it?
Dreams for the future, that sort of thing.”
Felutina tapped the tip of Jingliu’s nose, then straightened up and tightened her grip on the spear.
“No rush on the answer.
You’ve got plenty of time to work it out.”
“Now step back.”
She’d said it already: waiting to die was never her style.
She held her breath and steadied herself.
ROAAAR!!!
With that howl, a Borisin hurled itself at her.
Felutina’s pupils shrank to points.
Spear up.
Thrust!
The point drove wildly into the creature’s head, sliding in through the eye socket and into the skull.
One down —
[Dynamic Strength activated.]
The familiar prompt flashed again.
The Borisin didn’t drop.
It raised a hand instead and seized the shaft of her spear.
Well, shit.
She’d killed a few of them already, and their power had scaled right back up.
The Borisin lifted its free hand, claws stabbing straight for her.
She clamped down on the shaft and threw her whole body weight into driving it downward — dodging the claws and wrenching the beast’s head violently upward at the same time.
She rode the motion, pulled the spear back, and jabbed it under the creature’s jaw, again and again.
She was really getting into it when a cold wind cut in from her flank.
On reflex she turned the shaft crosswise and caught the claws dead-on.
Too caught up in the fight.
She’d almost forgotten she was being mobbed.
Something enormous slammed into her side.
It felt like being hit by a car at full speed.
Her body left the ground entirely, flew backward, and smashed the nearby wall into rubble.
The Borisin didn’t stop.
It kept walking, straight past her, toward what lay ahead.
Jingliu was there, curled in on herself.
The blindfold had slipped a little, baring eyes like rubies.
She watched in despair as the mountain of a shape reached her, and lifted its claws —
Whoosh!
Something flew, loosed like an arrow from a bowstring, and cracked into the Borisin’s forehead.
This time it was the Borisin that went down sideways.
“You think you can kill me?!”
Out of the rubble limped the girl, red eyes so like Jingliu’s own narrowed against fear and pain — but mostly against fury.
It hurt.
She was furious.
Felutina raised the shaft.
The head, snapped off by a Borisin’s blow, had just been the thing she’d thrown.
Half a pole was all she had left.
And so, under Jingliu’s blank stare, she lifted that broken half-shaft and charged the Borisin again.
Flesh and blood flew.
Time passed.
How long, she couldn’t say.
Until there was barely any strength left in her, and she could only prop herself on the shaft to stay upright.
She had killed several more Borisin by sheer brute force, going full Chicken-claw style.
But that seemed to be where it ended.
Her wounds were closing far more slowly now.
Even a Pathstrider had limits.
She just stood there.
And even the Borisin, famous among the Denizens of Abundance for their savagery, didn’t dare move.
The standoff held.
Until one Borisin, murder shining in its eyes, could stand it no longer and flung itself forward with a snarl.
In almost the same instant, a thread of light swept down from the sky like a silver swallow.
The lunging Borisin held its pose, unchanged — except for the thin blood-red line that had appeared across its middle.
Felutina looked up at the sky, let out a breath, and lost the last of her strength.
She tipped backward.
Jingliu stared, dazed.
Only when the red flow of blood reached her feet did something snap back into place.
She lunged forward and caught the girl’s body in her arms.
“Sister…
Felu…”
Her voice shook first, then broke into sobs.
Tears fell onto the girl’s face and ran together with the blood.
It was her fault.
She had gotten Felutina killed.
Felutina was strong enough — she could have held out alone until help arrived.
If she hadn’t been dragging along dead weight like her…
Jingliu held Felutina and wept without a sound, and little by little her own strength drained away, like someone drowning.
Still she held on tight, the way you clutch the only reed floating within reach.
Then she closed her eyes too.
…
[Mission complete.]
[Acquired: rights to five seconds of high-definition screen time in Interstellar Journey!]
[Total opening cinematic runtime: 1:43.
Host may select the placement of her screen time at her discretion.]
[May this journey lead us starward!]
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