A few longstrides into the river bank area east of Winderfield. This region of Neo Prism City was called Burmington and the southern part of it included both the Santana River as well as a coastline for the Endless Sea to the east. Past the southern tip was the Prism Bay that also abutten Neo Prism’s southeast area called Brookshield. About a quarter of Burmington’s area were docks, warehouses, and the low-income area which eventually turned to slums. Only the district that was close to the bridge could be considered affluent.

North of Burmington, a few leagues away, was Trinity Valley. Strips of farmlands and marshes separated it, though the latter was towards the coastal region.

Yuriko followed her nose along the riverbank road. She veered away from the actual river and more into industrial storage areas, and the farther she went from the water, the more desolate the area felt. Well, not that it was deserted. It was already evening, though the Sun hadn’t fully set. It cast long shadows and coupled with the tall and wide warehouses, the haulers parked along the road, and the occasional tall trees…

There were more than a few workers unloading the haulers that picked up cargo containers from the ships, but just as many had already finished their shifts and were leaving to go home. Yuriko pulled out a hoodie she kept in her scooter’s storage compartment and threw it on. She tucked her hair underneath the hood and used her kinesis to braid it so it wouldn’t get in the way; her hair wasn’t as long as her true body’s, so a simple bun or ponytail would do. It was a good thing she wasn’t wearing a skirt on the way back, but a pair of worn sturdy cotton jeans.

She noticed that about one in three warehouses looked abandoned and neglected. Broken windows, cobwebs visible in the corners. The scent of daemonfyre grew just a bit stronger with every pace her scooter travelled down the road.

Eventually, she could feel—and vaguely see—the thick daemonfyre in the air. Chaos Sight showed it as a dark mist with glimmers of crimson, and it clung to several men and women loitering around the area.

She stopped her scooter fifty paces down the road and walked it down an alley. There, she parked and locked it. Then, she made her towards the warehouses, though she kept to the shadows, using only her perception to scout.

She could extend her perceptive reach by three times… no, nine times her normal reach here. It must be the density. Either way, she couldn’t quite envelop the entire warehouse, but she did find broken windows on the upper floors. She slipped her perception through it, but behind the windows were closed rooms.

She heard murmuring from behind the doors, however, and they made her spine tingle with irritation. The voices grated against her Anima, heightened her irritation further.

“Tsk.”

Yuriko clicked her tongue, then she blinked when she felt someone arrive from above. The figure landed on the roof across the warehouse, but the person, or Altered Human she supposed, wasn’t looking toward the warehouse. Not at first, anyway. But rather, he peered down the alleyway above her. She gave no indication that she noticed him, which wasn’t that difficult since her head was facing the street.

The figure was clad in dark, tight-fitting clothes that revealed almost every nook and cranny of his body. He also had thick ropes wrapped around his waist and around his shoulders, the ends of which were flailing around in the air. A moment later, the loose threads wove around each other and tucked themselves into the wrappings.

He looked at her for a long moment, then across the street. The presence of the creatures hidden within human skin must have set something off with him since he pulled back from the roof’s edge and took out a phone. Unlike the smartphones in common use, this was a black brick that had actual buttons and a tiny screen. He typed out a message to a predetermined number. She couldn’t quite understand the message he sent since there were only sixteen buttons on it, and he sometimes pressed one particular button several times in quick succession. After he was done, he put his phone back into his pants pocket and moved to the roof’s edge and stared down at her.

Hmm.

She waited for him to look away again, and the moment his sight line left her, she moved towards the wall of the building he was on, then leapt up.

“Whoa!” He yelped loudly and staggered back when Yuriko appeared right in front of him. She held herself still in mid-air for a moment, before she stepped onto the ledge. His exclamation drew attention from the hidden daemons and a couple of them looked up towards the roofs. “Divines, you almost gave me a heart attack!” His voice was muffled but somewhat familiar.

“Well, Mister Stalker, why are you following me?” Yuriko asked snidely.

“Huh, don’t be too self-centred. I’m not following you.” The lie was easily heard.

“Hmmm, you have been. Since Winderfield.” Yuriko hummed. “So, it was you, after all.”

“What are you talking about?” His voice was nervous.

She smirked, then heard his heartbeat jump. Ah, so she could see through the shadows of her hood. Well, it wasn’t as if this was an actual disguise. “So, who are you pretending to be?”

She could practically feel the indignation roll off his face. His head was covered in what she assumed was a balaclava, but he also had some kind of mouth and nose cover so that the cloth didn’t press against his face. His eyes were also covered by some kind glass or plastic. It was shaded black and she wondered how he could see through it. The rope ends on his back began to unravel and they stretched downwards to his feet, probably in an effort to catch her off guard.

“Weavemaster,” he finally said sourly.

“I see.” Yuriko’s grin widened. Weavemaster, indeed. Ah, it must refer to his thread kinesis.

At the street level, the daemons poured out of the warehouse and they yelled to each other. “Show yourself! Come out! You can’t hide!” Several voices, some sounding guttural.

“So why are you here?” Weavemaster asked.

Yuriko jerked her head towards the warehouse. “Them.”

“Gang members?”

“Maybe. Probably former members. Or the disenfranchised of the city.” Yuriko said. “Those who wouldn’t be missed, I assume.”

“What…?”

Yuriko looked over to the warehouse and said softly, “There’s something in there, and I could feel it. Those people down there…are not human.”

“Alright?”

Yuriko stared at him for a moment. “Don’t get in my way,” she giggled as she hopped over the edge and dropped down three storeys to the road, right in front of the daemon gangsters.

“Wah!”

The daemonic shapeshifter reacted quickly and grabbed her, but she ducked under his grubby paws, then kicked his ankle just hard enough to break a mortal’s bones, but here, it was barely enough to knock the daemon down. She drove a Radiant-infused kinetic fist into his gut.

“Argh!”

The Radiance and the pain broke some of his control and half of his body shifted into something monstrous. Thick, leathery skin, spiky protrusions, and thick fingers on a palm the size of a dinner plate.

“What the?!” Weavemaster gasped. He’d run over to the edge almost as soon as Yuriko jumped over and he caught full sight of the partial transformation.

“There’s another one!”

“Oh, dang,” Weavemaster grumbled as a couple of daemons leapt up to the roof, fingers and toes turned to sharp claws as they dug into the concrete wall. A single bound sent them halfway up the wall, and another one sent them right over.

Weavemaster somersaulted back, agilely getting back on his feet less than an instant later. His threads shot out and snapped against the first daemon, then entangled its claws. Another set of threads slapped the daemon on the face. Another set of ropes unravelled and swung towards the second daemon, entangling limbs before it could take another step.

Yuriko danced around three daemons as they tried to grapple her to the ground, smoothly avoiding each lunge without making any attempt to retaliate. She could feel more of the creatures rushing out of the warehouse, and already, there were a dozen on the street, with another dozen coming from the side alleys.

Once there were six of them around her, and there wasn’t any room for more to gang up on her, she held out her fingers into the sword pose and allowed herself to resonate with her glimpse of the Ennoia of Swords.

The next time one of the daemons attacked with claw and fang, she traced her fingertips across its shoulder, twisted around and did the same for the opposite limb. A moment later, his arms fell off with a cut so clean that for a moment, she could see a perfect cross-section of muscle, bone, and blood vessels. After that moment, blood gushed out from the stump and the creature howled in pain. She kicked him away and did the same to the other five monsters.

On the rooftop, Weavemaster’s threads struggled to contain the daemons. Their innate strength nearly burst their bindings, but he slackened his grip at an opportune time, then tightened them back up. Next, he reeled one towards him and snapped a right straight at his jaw.

Crack!

That wasn’t from the daemon’s jaw. “Ah!” Weavemaster yelled as he stumbled back and cradled his knuckles. It didn’t look broken though, good for him. Then he grabbed a telescoping baton from his back pocket and repeated the move, but this time, he used the momentum to smack the tip of the baton at the daemon’s chin.

Snap!

The daemon collapsed on its feet, clearly dazed, but not quite unconscious. Weavemaster did the same to the other daemon, but this one learned from the first and tried to lean away from the smash. Except Weavemaster’s control over his ropes thwarted its evasion.

Snap! Thud.

Weavemaster hogtied the two daemons while they were stunned, looked over the roof at her and the bloody mess she made, shrugged, then kicked the daemons off the roof. They slammed into the asphalt and cracked it, sending small pieces of gravel flying. The pebbles sliced into another daemon’s skin, but its partial transformation saved it from lacerations. He then jumped off the building, though he sneakily used his ropes to secure himself to the ledge and slowed his momentum just before he splattered on the road.

“Not very heroic, are we?” Yuriko teased.

“You’re one to talk.” He shot back, pointedly glaring at the cut-off limbs. But the stricken daemons, being shapeshifters, had already closed their wounds. The blood loss incapacitated them, however.

“What? I disarmed them.” Yuriko shrugged as she did the same to the next six. She spun away from the blood spatter, not letting even a droplet touch her clothes.

“That’s a bit too pithy for gruesome work,” Weavemaster said dryly. “And how are you doing that?”

“Doing what?” Yuriko asked innocently as she carved off another couple of limbs.

“That! How are you cutting? You’re not holding a blade!”

“And how are you manipulating those threads with your Will, eh?” Yuriko asked with much amusement.

“I… Oh, Divines, I don’t know,” he growled. “And what are these things anyway? You sure they’re fine just losing limbs?”

Yuriko looked at him oddly. “If you lost both of your arms with you be fine?”

“Ah, point taken.”

“Save your mercy,” Yuriko sighed. “I believe you’ll find your answers inside.” With merely two dozen daemons disarmed and writhing on the ground, screaming their heads off, she was sure all of those who could come for help had already gone out.

“…ladies first.”

“Ah, a gentleman, how rare.” Yuriko chuckled as she strolled into the warehouse, her perception aura already filling the space. She found something, alright, and it might even be something she didn’t know to expect.

In the middle of the empty floor was a ritual circle, though this one was nearly ten paces wide. And on the five cardinal points, was a flayed corpse. In the middle of the circle, was a tear in the fabric of reality.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep