Waterstrider

Basements, Tseludia Station, Pantheonic Territory, Fourthmonth, 1634 PTS

Cinto sprinted through the warren of hallways, horrified out of her mind. She had thought that Cyrus would simply become a normal madman, likely kill her and all those around. Not… whatever it was that had just occurred. Rachel had described it as him having surrendered. Surrendered to what?

She couldn’t help but shudder at the thought. It was bad enough when the man was mad. The way he had been emitting so much miasma… it was unnatural. Unorthodox and evil, in the truest sense. And yet, if he were to die, her position and that of all the others in the Redwater Sect would fall. She couldn’t truly bring herself to wish for the ruin of herself and the others.

The man truly was demonic. One who was simply evil like Hidoro had become did not tax her mind in such a way. She couldn't help but wish for both his success and his downfall at the same time.

Her feet padded against the ground as she quickly made her way back to the lobby. She had memorized the path they had taken, and the labyrinthine maze of corridors was unable to confuse her strong sense of direction.

As she tore through the warren that was the retirement facility, Cinto passed a great number of scientists who had begun milling around in panic. It seemed that they had started to realize that something was wrong. She was honestly confused about the matter.

Just how had he prevented the alarm from being sounded? There had been no mention of hiring a spy to assist or some Staiven hacker to break into the systems. Her mind went to Rachel, the mysterious extant practitioner who had appeared from nowhere to be the Riverfiend’s right hand. She was an odd person, and casually referenced technologies and cultural details that Cinto knew nothing about.

While she was clearly a martial artist, at times she acted like an alien. Had she been raised by or among aliens on some foreign station, and learned technological skill beyond that of her own people? This would explain some matters if so.

Brushing aside the issue, Cinto decided to simply accept that somehow the alarm had not been raised yet. She was very lucky that her spacial awareness was so strong. She had the fortune of learning more than one martial technique, and one of hers was a technique that allowed her to enhance her senses using the particular attributes of genesis miasma. The technique was basic, and merely held the name ‘Sensory Amplification Technique’, but as it worked on all senses, including balance and soul sense, it was even more useful than Cinto’s standard physical enhancement technique. With it, she was able to navigate through the compound without any of the beads of light that Rachel had summoned around herself. The darkness was oppressive, but unable to even slow her. In just a few minutes, she had found her way back to the lobby.

The lobby looked very different from how it had been when she left it, and was much dimmer, as it seemed that one of the beads of light had winked out already. The room was covered in Staiven bodily fluids, as well as some occasional splashes of blood from its two defenders. Rubble was strewn across the room, and several of the hatches were wrecked, clearly blasted apart by explosives. One of the apertures had been blocked by debris from what had once been the secretary’s desk. Near the elevator, Kein and Ran leaned against the wall, their chests heaving with exertion.

Kein was covered in his own blood, his muscles and skin clearly expanded by a reinforcement technique. His was clearly much stronger than Cinto’s, and she could tell he was relying on it just to remain upright. Ran was similarly injured, though less so. Genesis practitioners could deal with injuries far better than any other type of martial artist, and these two had clearly taken advantage of this trait to continue defending the room against the entirety of the security force that the Staiven facility had.

Even if no alert had been raised, the force had clearly been alerted of the intrusion by word of mouth if nothing else.

The two rapidly got into martial stances as the hatch opened, but they relaxed when they saw it was just Cinto. Kein sighed, leaning back onto the wall.

“So you’re back. Where is the Sect Leader?” asked Ran.

The expression on Cinto’s face must have alerted them, as her and Kein’s gazes turned sharp before she could even reply.

“Did something happen?” he asked.

Cinto couldn’t help but let out a dark laugh.

“I get the impression that that individual stopped being Seiyal long ago.”

Ran raised an eyebrow.

“...The Vice-Sect Leader?”

Cinto chuckled, feeling slightly feverish.

“Her too, probably. She’s strange as well, as you know.”

Kein scoffed.

“Enough of that. Just tell us what happened, Cinto.”

“First, is this room safe? Did you kill them all?” she asked.

While she was still somewhat scared by what had happened with Cyrus, she needed to prioritize her own survival if she wished to escape the facility. She really wished she had not been forced to participate in such a suicide mission.

“We’ve fended them off a few times. Last time they tossed some bombs in, but after we routed them again we’ve been able to rest,” said Ran.

Cinto was surprised that so many engagements had already occurred. It had been less than ten minutes since she had left. Still, that meant they probably had some time before the security returned. At least long enough to have a quick conversation. It would likely be better for Cinto to inform them.

“We entered the room,” she said “When we saw that the Staiven we wanted wasn’t there, something happened to Cyrus. He went mad, and started releasing miasma, but then he calmed down. He and the Vice Sect Leader then ran off and told me to return here and wait for them.”

“So he broke?” asked Ran.

Kein shook his head.

“No, I doubt Rachel would have run off with him if he had. She’s quite smart, and I expect she would be the type to abandon someone if they ceased being useful. She would probably have returned to us to escape.”

He looked back to Cinto to see her response, but Cinto simply held an impassive expression. He did have a point. As much as she found the woman odd, Cinto doubted Rachel would be so foolish. She clearly knew something that Cinto did not, and Cinto suspected it had to do with that term she had blurted out in surprise. Cinto turned to analyze the faces of the other two.

“Have either of you ever heard the term ‘surrender?’”

Ran chuckled.

“I’m assuming this is not in the context of a battle?”

“I’m afraid not.”

“Then I can’t say I have,” she replied. “Why, did one of them mention this?”

Cinto nodded, and glanced over to Kein, whose brow had creased.

“Did Cyrus surrender?” he asked in a small voice.

“You know what it means?” asked Ran, clearly very curious.

“I’ve read about it in an old book called Chronicles of the First War of Extermination. Rachel and I discussed it for a while. It was a story written based on the journal of a martial artist of Sunlit Hall who had fought in the war. This would be… roughly half a millenium ago? At one point he discussed a colleague who had ‘surrendered’ due to stress, and it was treated as some huge event. It was said he constantly emanated miasma afterwards, and soon after died in battle against the Reth. I had assumed it was folklore about unorthodox arts, but…”

His brow uncreased and creased again as he gathered his thoughts.

“But what?” asked Ran, eyes lit up with interest. Cinto couldn’t help but be interested, herself, though her interest was more rooted in fear. There was no other emotion she could muster for matters related to the Riverfiend.

“Rachel mentioned to me having read about it from elsewhere. She said it meant to fuse one’s soul into one’s miasma. I had thought she was still speaking of folklore.”

“Just what does it mean to do that, though?” asked Cinto.

Kein shook his head.

“That’s all I know about the matter.”

For a moment, the three were silent, hearing nothing but the hiss of air through the ducts. Cinto wondered whether they would actually be able to escape this coffin of a building.

Core Formation: [The third realm of martial arts. When a martial artist has finished carving their new meridians, they will find that miasma has a tendency to fill up the body. This ream is the start of the core formation realm. This miasma can be concentrated around one's dantians, setting up the foundations of what will become cores, structures that are reforged dantians. For most practitioners, the cores are small spheres similarly sized and shaped to the dantians they and merged with, but it is said the cores of sanguine and formless practitioners are a bit different. To fully form one's cores and reach the stage of spirit refinement, one must use one technique for each dantian, a heart, body, and mind technique within each of the relevant dantians. The technique will become one with it. While other techniques can be used in the spirit refinement stage, these three techniques will acquire great strength beyond what any other technique can hope to match, and become synonymous with the path of the martial artist. In addition, the more powerful the techniques prior to forming the cores, the more powerful the martial artist will be as a spirit refiner. Forming one's cores is the most dangerous bottleneck in martial arts, for not only do natural treasures need to be used to form them, but also because failure can result in shattered dantians, crippling one's martial arts. Many reach the peak of core formation and choose not to undergo the next step out of fear of this occurrence.]