94 The Miasma's Source

The figure before her, slowly walking forward, became more and more distinct as it neared the light. Yun kept watch on it, waiting to determine who it was, but made sure to keep looking around as well to ensure she wasn't being approached from anywhere else.

Step by step the shadow grew, nearing the border of the light. Just the gait and motion alone told her that this was a member of her own race, but which species was still questionable.

Closer and closer, Yun's heartbeat sped up unconsciously as she anticipated the answer. The first foot finally stepped into the light, and with no surprise it was a paw. Two more steps and the lowest edge of clothing could be seen, and by now Yun had a pretty strong feeling that she knew who she was looking at.

A few more steps forwards and Yun knew for sure. It was Long Wuying!

Smiling, she prepared to greet him, but was stopped when she saw his face.

Surrounding Wuying's face was a dense miasma, and his eyes were blank, like he couldn't see anything in front of him. As he walked forwards slowly Yun was horrified by what had happened to her friend, but she wasn't sure what she could do for him either. The path behind her was seemingly gone, while her spear was already struggling with the current density of this energy field.

When he reached the main room and had left his doorway behind him, Wuying instantly accelerated towards Yun and tried to attack her. Swirling her spear defensively, she parried his blows repeatedly, sending him off balance to one side or the other. Step by step she retreated under his assault, trying to avoid hurting him any way she could.

Yun took this opportunity to probe her surroundings with her spiritual senses, but what she discovered when she did was that she was unable to pierce this thick energy at all. She could sense the space around her, but this was an artificial bubble created by the mysterious action of her spear. Without the ability to probe Wuying's condition, nor the ability to sense her surroundings, Yun felt she had been cut off from the resources she was accustomed to.

Dodging and parrying, Yun drew near to the dense purple cloud that covered the wall she had entered through. She tried a few times to strike out with the butt of her spear, but each strike came with a resounding clang sound, showing that her spear had impacted on stone. Yun began to worry she would never escape, and would eventually wind up like Wuying.

Frantically wracking her brain, Yun started observing her surroundings for anything that could benefit her. She tried striking out a few times at Wuying's head with the flat of her blade, but was unable to land a hit and knock him unconscious. Each time her spear neared his head one of his gauntlets would lash out unbelievably fast and smack the side of the blade, nearly rattling it free from her grip in the process. It was like whatever was possessing him was afraid of her spear, as the cloud around his head wouldn't even let it close.

After a few minutes of fighting to hold Wuying off Yun began to see a pattern in the miasma's movements, but she also thought that maybe she should try and incapacitate him another way. Thinking this to herself, she began to put her Lightning element energy into her actions using her spear, slowly building up a numbing shock in Wuying's body, interrupting his ability to control his limbs.

Strike after strike Yun poured lightning energy into his body, but it didn't seem to be having any real effect on his movements. She tried putting even more energy behind each contact, but it was just being ignored, even when it was built up enough to cause static sparks to light up from his gauntlets.

Frustrated, Yun stopped pouring lightning energy into him lest she cause damage to his body through an overcharge.

Yun instead began to focus on the environment around her, trying to figure out what she could do to minimize the threat to both of them while she tried to escape.

She quickly noticed some odd movements of the miasma near one of the broken doors, so she moved the fight in that direction, trying to find anything at all that could benefit them. The closer they got to the broken door, the more aggressive Wuying became. It was like it was a response.

Finally, after what felt like an age of fighting passively, Yun grew close to the door. Suddenly, she swept out with her spear and landed the flat of it hard against Wuying's midsection, putting enough force behind it to cause a minor injury and send him careening back across the room. She quickly grabbed a stone table and, tipping it up, barred the door as she stepped inside.

Within the room the thick miasma was almost physical. She could barely see anything anymore, and had to get out a second lantern from her spatial storage just to see both sides of herself. Cautiously moving forwards, she neared the center of the small space before she finally saw what appeared to be a source!

On the floor in front of an ancient rotted bed sat a young and unfamiliar skeleton. This skeleton was similar to herself, and about the same size, but the legs were shaped a little differently. At the end of the long leg bones there was a strange formation of bones before the foot stuck out in one direction, and the end of the foot was made up of five strange protrusions that resembled a hand.

In the center of this strange skeleton was a dark space that was swirling about. This dark space was roughly in a similar position to her Neidan, but it appeared that there was no core to it, just a deep space full of a strange Qi. This Qi was circulating strongly, repelling the miasma, but the miasma was also wrapped around this small core space like a cocoon. Around half of this space was a dark and viscous substance, from which all the miasma seemed to flow and be controlled.

This substance appeared to be attempting to engulf the core space of this strange creature and use it as a source of power!