The Roots of the Breach
Ruyi navigated the overgrown, mist-covered pathways with deliberate caution. Her senses remained dialed into every vibration in the air, tracking both the erratic movements of roaming beasts and the heavier, coordinated pulses of guild strike teams fighting in the distance.
She kept Rion and Leo close behind her, steering them through narrow maintenance corridors and dense botanical hedges. Her priorities were clear. First, she didn't want the responders to be distracted by three stray civilians mid-combat—in a Class-2 zone, a split-second distraction meant dead hunters. Second, she didn't want Rion to witness any more brutal slaughter than he already had.
And finally, there was Leo.
If it had just been Rion, Ruyi wouldn't have cared as much about hiding her strange abilities. He was her brother; they shared the same quiet blood, and he had just awakened a shield of his own. But Leo was an unknown variable. A scared, talkative high school kid with a loose tongue was the fastest way to get herself dragged back into Vance’s cold interrogation room at the guild facility.
To keep her secret, she had to act like an extraordinarily quick, exceptionally lucky civilian. Nothing more. Even if it is hard to say as there might be a next time.
As they neared the edge of the central conservatory, however, Ruyi’s step slowed. Her amethyst eyes flicked toward the shadowy treeline.
The density of the monsters wasn't decreasing as they approached the perimeter. It was increasing.
Small, low-tier creatures—Razor-Hide Hounds, Iron-Claw Jackals, and oversized venomous arachnids—were scurrying out from the underbrush in unnatural, frantic waves. They weren't hunting in organized packs; they were spilling out like water overflowing from a clogged drain.
Ruyi’s mind pieced the anomaly together instantly.
Everyone who paid attention to basic dungeon mechanics knew about Spawns. Normal dungeon breaches produced a set number of creatures that scattered until hunters cleared them out. Once killed, the gate stabilized.
A Spawn Core, however, was a far more dangerous threat.
Unlike a standard gate that eventually ran out of momentum, a Spawn Core was a localized, parasitic tumor embedded in reality. It continuously birthed waves of weaker beasts at a rapid rate. While the individual creatures were relatively frail, their overwhelming numbers eventually broke perimeter lines. Worse still, if left unchecked, the compressed mana inside a Core would eventually cause one of the weak spawns to mutate into a far more lethal, high-rank alpha beast.
Until the Core itself was located and physically destroyed, the zone could never be cleared.
Ruyi stared deeper into the fog toward the eastern glasshouses, where the purple spatial tear hung thick in the air. She could feel a faint, rhythmic tug deep within her chest—a subtle, hollow suction that mirrored her own void ability. Her spatial instinct was telling her exactly where the Core was nestled beneath the roots of the central exhibit. She felt, with unsettling certainty, that if she walked over there and opened a localized void seam over the root system, she could scoop the Core out of existence in less than three seconds.
"What a troublesome thing it is then..." Ruyi muttered under her breath, a rare expression of deep annoyance crossing her features.
She could do something about it. But she wouldn't.
There was a massive difference between having the raw capacity to handle a problem and risking her life—and Rion's safety—to play the heroic savior. Erasing a Spawn Core in front of an active guild strike team would guarantee her a permanent spot in a research lab or a guild vanguard unit.
She wasn't going to trade her freedom for a headline.
"Sis?" Rion whispered nervously, clutching his arm where his barrier ability had left him feeling thoroughly drained. "Why'd you stop?"
"Nothing," Ruyi said smoothly, turning away from the glasshouse. "Keep moving. The perimeter fence is right ahead."
Using a fallen stone pillar to hide their approach, Ruyi led the two boys toward the maintenance gap near the transport trucks. The moment the blue police lights flickered through the trees, Ruyi deliberately altered her posture. She let her shoulders slump, loosened her grip, and allowed a convincing layer of breathless, exhausted relief to wash over her face.
As they pushed through the overgrown bushes, Darren was the first to spot them.
"Movement by the fence!" Darren yelled, drawing his sidearm before freezing in absolute shock. "Wait... Mark, look!"
Mark bounded around the side of the transport truck, his weapon raised, only to stop dead in his tracks.
Ruyi stumbled out into the open, supporting a limping Leo with one arm while keeping a protective hand on Rion's shoulder. She looked thoroughly worn out, her clothes stained with dirt, her hair messy—the absolute picture of a civilian who had barely dragged two kids out of a nightmare.
"We found a maintenance tunnel near the shops," Ruyi said, her voice raspy, expertly playing into the cover story she had dictated earlier. "I was hiding near the commercial sector when these two stumbled past. I managed to drag them out."
"Holy shit," Darren breathed, rushing forward to help lower the trembling Leo onto a paramedic stretcher. "You actually brought them back."
Leo, still terrified and remembering Rion's warning cuff to the back of his head, nodded frantically. "Y-Yeah! She found us by the shops! She saved us!"
Medical staff immediately swarmed the two high schoolers, wrapping them in shock blankets and checking their vitals. Rion caught Ruyi's eye over the shoulder of a medic, giving her a subtle, knowing nod. He played the part of the traumatized, exhausted survivor perfectly.
While the paramedics were distracted with the boys, Mark stepped up to Ruyi. He offered her a fresh bottle of water, his sharp eyes scrutinizing her face for any signs of deceit.
"You've got absurd luck, kid," Mark muttered, though his tone held a rare note of genuine respect. "Or you're the stealthiest civilian in City CC."
Ruyi took the bottle, drinking a slow sip before leaning against the metal side of the transport truck. She lowered her voice, keeping her gaze fixed on the glowing purple gate rising over the trees.
"It's not luck you should be worrying about right now," Ruyi said quietly, ensuring her voice didn't carry toward the paramedics or other guards.
Mark’s eyebrows pulled together. "What are you talking about?"
Ruyi tilted her head toward the treeline where the swarms of low-tier beasts were still pouring out in endless, frantic streams.
"The responders are fighting a losing battle at the main promenade," she murmured, her tone dry and matter-of-fact. "Look at the spawn rate. They aren't spreading out—they're crowding. That isn't a simple stray gate."
Mark stiffened. He was an experienced responder; he knew the signs, but the high-ranking guild officers inside the command tent were still treating the breach as a standard Class-2 stray.
"You think it's a Core?" Mark asked, his voice dropping into a tense whisper.
"I think if your strike team keeps treating this like a normal cleanup, they're going to get surrounded in less than twenty minutes," Ruyi replied smoothly, capping her water bottle. "The beasts are spawning faster than they can kill them. Tell your commander to stop pushing the front line and check the root system under the eastern glasshouse."
Mark stared at her, deeply unsettled by how calmly an 'unawakened civilian' had just analyzed a high-level tactical disaster.
"How do you know it's under the glasshouse?" he demanded softly.
Ruyi gave him a cold, unbothered look, completely stepping back into her cover. "Because that's where the smell is worst. And because I want to go home without this district getting flattened."
Before Mark could press her further, Ruyi turned on her heel and walked toward the ambulance where Rion was sitting, leaving the stunned responder standing alone in the flashing blue lights.