Bloodline
Stepping past the shattered maintenance fence was like walking into a different climate entirely.
The air inside the botanical gardens was heavy, cold, and saturated with the metallic tang of blood mixed with crushed vegetation. A thick, unnatural mist hovered at knee-level, drifting silently over uprooted trees and smashed concrete pathways.
Ruyi moved like a phantom.
She kept her posture low, using the overgrown hedges and stone fountains as cover. She wasn't here to play the hero, clear the gate, or rescue stragglers. Her singular objective was to find Rion, and doing that required staying entirely off the radar of both the roaming monsters and the guild strike teams currently pushing into the core zone.
Her senses, sharpened far beyond normal human limits, picked up the vibrations in the air long before she saw anything.
Fifty meters ahead, a pair of Iron-Claw Jackals—fast, mid-tier beasts that hadn't been listed in the initial guild briefing—were tearing through a shattered information kiosk.
Instead of opening a void seam and risk leaving behind another set of impossible, erased wounds, Ruyi opted for absolute efficiency. She slipped behind the first jackal, driving the heavy tactical spear Mark had given her straight into the soft juncture where the creature's neck met its spine.
Thwack.
The beast dropped instantly without making a sound. Before the second jackal could even turn, Ruyi pivoted, using the momentum to thrust the blade through its eye socket, piercing its brain.
She pulled the weapon back with a sharp jerk. The metal shaft groaned under the strain. By the time she encountered a third creature—a heavily armored reptilian stalker creeping along the greenhouse roof—the cheap, standard-issue spear couldn't handle her absurdly enhanced agility and strike force. With a loud snap, the steel blade sheared cleanly off the shaft.
Ruyi tossed the broken handle into the bushes without a second thought. "Useless," she muttered softly, wiping a smear of dark monster blood off her cheek.
She pushed deeper toward the western sector, using alleyways and maintenance tunnels to bypass the main clearing paths. The further she went, the clearer her expanded perception became.
Then, she felt it.
A distinct, familiar presence was moving through the mist near the grand pavilion. It was Rion—she knew his footprint anywhere—but wrapped around him was a sudden, unfamiliar pulse of pressure. A faint, stubborn vibration in the air that hummed with dense, protective energy.
Ruyi stopped on a shattered stone step, her amethyst eyes narrowing in disbelief.
Don’t tell me he awakened too? she thought, her pulse quickening.
The realization hit her like a cold splash of water. Two siblings, both awakening within a week of each other? The odds were astronomically low, practically unheard of without a direct genetic lineage of powerful hunters. But then she remembered the trigger.
A near-death experience.
Her eyes slightly darkened at the thought. The horror Rion must have faced—the sheer, absolute terror required to force a human soul to break its limits—made her jaw tighten in silent, burning rage.
She took a slow, deep breath, smoothing her expression back into a cool, unimpressed mask, and stepped around the ruined archway of the pavilion.
"Rion."
Her voice wasn't loud, but it cut cleanly through the quiet hum of the mist.
Thirty yards away, two figures spun around in pure terror. Rion, who had his hands raised and a faint, shimmering field hovering defensively over his palm, froze instantly. His jaw dropped as he stared at his older sister, who was casually walking over the debris of a crushed stone bench as if she were merely strolling through a city park.
"Sis?!" Rion gasped, stumbling forward.
Behind him, Leo flinched, clutching his swollen knee as he scrambled to follow. "Rion, wait! Is that a monster?!"
"What are you doing here?!" Rion demanded, running up to her and grabbing her shoulders, scanning her from head to toe in complete bewilderment. She wasn't bleeding. She wasn't crying. Her clothes were slightly dusty, but otherwise, she looked completely unscathed. "How did you get past the police line?! The entire district is locked down!"
"I came to look for you," Ruyi said plainly, as if stating that the sky was blue. "I'm taking you home."
She tilted her head, glancing past Rion's shoulder at the terrified, limping boy behind him. "Are you just with him?"
Rion’s chaotic energy immediately deflated, his expression darkening into a grim, haunted shadow. He looked down at the concrete floor. "We got separated from the rest of the class when the gate opened over the glasshouse. There were others with us at first... but..."
He didn't finish the sentence. He didn't have to. The bloody tracks dragging into the shadows near the fountain spoke loudly enough. He had watched classmates die.
Ruyi stared at her younger brother for a silent moment. She reached out, placing her hand on his head, and gave his messy hair a firm, gentle pat.
"You did well," she said softly, her tone carrying an anchor of absolute stability that made Rion's trembling shoulders finally relax. "Let's go."
Her plan was simple. She would lead them back toward the perimeter and hand them over to Darren and Mark as "survivors." Since she already had an official record as a civilian survivor who had managed to evade a beast once before, walking out with two high schoolers wouldn't raise too many eyebrows—as long as they kept their stories straight.
Ruyi turned to face both boys, her purple eyes locking onto them with a quiet, stern command.
"Listen to me carefully," Ruyi instructed. "When we reach the responders at the barricade, you two are going to say that you met me here completely by accident. Tell them I was at the commercial shops near the park entrance buying something when the breach happened, and I got swept into the zone while hiding."
Rion looked at his sister, his sharp mind immediately connecting the dots. He glanced at her empty, blood-stained hands, then back at her calm face. She was hiding her power. Whatever had happened to her last week—whatever impossible thing she had done—she was actively keeping it buried from the Guild. And she wanted him to help her cover it up.
"Wait, what?" Leo blinked, looking back and forth between the two siblings with a vacant, confused expression. "Buying something? But the shops are two miles away, how did she—"
Smack.
Rion cuffed Leo across the back of the head, cutting him off before he could start rambling. "Just shut up and do what my sister says, Leo. You want to get out of here or not?"
"Ow! Okay, okay!" Leo squeaked, rubbing his head.
Ruyi suppressed a tiny, faint twitch of her lips. She turned back toward the maintenance trail, her eyes sweeping the foggy perimeter one last time to ensure no guild scouts were watching.
"Stay behind me," she said quietly, stepping back into the shadows. "And don't make a sound."