Jiayin crouched low on the roof’s edge, her black bombardier beetle bow still faintly glowing from her last shot. She could be focusing on the two Spider Gods in the near distance, but instead, she scowled down at Alice standing nonchalantly in the rubble below, brushing sand off her crimson cloak like she’d just strolled in from an afternoon nap.

  “... Your senses still suck,” Jiayin muttered. “What were you doing this time? Napping through the chaos?”

  Alice glanced up and around with a cheery grin, her expression unbothered. “I was out on a date, actually! In the city!” She stretched her arms over her head, tilting her head back lazily. “Didn’t really wanna come here, you know? Don’t you have this situation under control?”

  Jiayin’s glare hardened. “Oh, of course. Because why would you actually do your job?”

  Without waiting for a response, she nocked an arrow tipped with sticky chemical explosives and loosed it down at Alice.

  Alice caught it mid-flight without flinching. The arrow’s ember tip hissed faintly in her palm, and just as she rolled her eyes and laughed, the delayed explosion engulfed her in a cloud of flames.

  Jiayin ignored the young girl as she continued laughing through the fire. The ‘Sun’ was back in bug-slayer mode. Jiayin snapped back to the two Spider Gods standing a dozen paces apart at the end of the street—their predatory postures were still tense and calculating, six arms bristling with the air of bloody violence.

  She raised her bow at them and nocked another arrow, her fingers steady.

  “Reinforcements are coming,” she called out plainly. “The two of you won’t get out of this desert alive. We’ve been tracking you since the Worm God killed the fifth sister.”

  Thracia shifted slightly, her dark, spindly form blending into the shadows of the broken architecture. Her sharp eyes flicked to the edges of the ruined town, scanning for movement, for the reinforcements Jiayin had promised.

  Jiayin smirked, her tone mocking. “What’s the matter? Don’t believe me? Did you really think we’d leave the Hasharana Entrance Exam this vulnerable? Every bug-slaying organization worth their salt on this continent is on high alert near the City of Feasts. You’re cornered. You’ll die here.”

  Thracia’s lips curled in a snarl, but she didn’t speak. Beside her, Apocia shifted, her massive, armoured form glinting faintly in the harsh sunlight. Jiayin’s voice dropped lower, her bow still drawn, her arrow aimed squarely at Thracia’s chest.

  “But humour me before you die,” she said slowly. “What are the two of you really trying to do here? You didn’t come all this way just to mess with some randoms in the city. You knew this was basically going to be suicide from the start—you knew there was going to be a trap for you—but you still chose to come here. Why?”

  Silence answered her. Thracia’s gaze didn’t waver, though her expression darkened.

  “... Nothing to say?” Jiayin shrugged, her tone dismissive. “Whatever. We’ll just kill you and call it a day.”

  Crackling amber blood swirled around the tip of her arrow, drawn from her aura, and flames roared to life on the black arrowhead. Below, Alice flexed her fingers, weaving a wickedly sharp glaive with thin crimson threads bleeding out from under their nails.

  But Apocia surged forward first, the air around her rippling with the shimmer of her aura.

  “Watch it, Alice,” Jiayin said lazily, firing her arrow.

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  Apocia’s response was instant. She thrust a hand forward, releasing a barrage of bristling blood-spines that tore through the air like shrapnel. They intercepted Jiayin’s arrow mid-flight, detonating in the air, but about a hundred more spines kept coming, dozens of them slicing toward her and Alice.

  If she were by herself, she might be in a little bit of trouble. However, Alice reacted just as quickly as well, tearing her glaive apart and instant-weaving a dense, giant wall just as the blood-spines struck. The collision sent a deafening crack through the air, followed by a plume of smoke and sand that swallowed the ruined oasis town.

  By the time Jiayin finished coughing and waved her free hand to clear the sand cloud, the only things left at the end of the street were the two molted carapaces of the Spider Gods.

  The ground shifted beneath her feet. She sprang backward instinctively, her boots skidding on the rooftop tiles as the molted carapace of one of the sisters came into view through the settling dust.

  “...Damnit.”

  Jiayin narrowed her eyes at the hollow statues at the end of the street. They loomed in eerie stillness, glinting faintly in the sunlight, their chitin plates, ridges, and spines frozen mid-motion. A lot of Insect Gods in recent years appear to have the same mutation—the ability to instantly moult and leave a part of their killing pressure behind so pursuers would be thrown off-guard.

  Obviously, doing so weakened them massively, but it simply made them that much more slippery to catch.

  “Cowards,” she muttered under her breath, kicking a loose tile off the roof. It clattered noisily down the side of the building, disturbing the heavy silence that’d settled over the town.

  Alice, however, glanced at the petrified shells, her gaze curious but unbothered. “They managed to eat a few more people in the city before coming here, didn’t they?”

  Jiayin clicked her tongue in irritation, drawing her bowstring back and releasing it with a sharp snap to vent her frustration. “They must’ve. Picked off a handful of unawares in the city when they shouldn’t have been able to. That’s the only reason they could afford to moult at all. They’ve regained a bit of strength—but they’re still weak, all things considered. Weak even for F-Rank Spider Gods.”

  “Really?” Alice tilted her head, smirking faintly. “They didn’t seem so weak when Apocia was spitting bristles everywhere!”

  Jiayin waved her off. “They’re part of the older generation of Insect Gods. Their growth rate’s pathetic compared to the newer ones.” Then she hopped off the roof, slung her bow over her shoulder, and beckoned Alice to follow her.

  Alice shrugged. “So, what now? They’ve probably burrowed into the desert somewhere. If they really want to escape from here, they can just pick a direction and—”

  “They won’t run,” Jiayin said plainly. “I can’t sense them anymore, but we don’t have to give chase. They’ll hang around. They won’t leave until they get what they came here for.”

  “... What about the reinforcements, though?” Alice said, looking around at the far edges of the town. “Shouldn’t we stick around to explain to them what happened here? Surely someone’s gonna wanna know about the two Spider Gods running loose.”

  Jiayin let out a dry laugh, shaking her head. “There aren’t any reinforcements coming. It was a bluff. As if I’d call random bug-slayers over to suicide against those two.”

  Alice blinked.

  And then she grinned from ear to ear, her mood instantly lifting.

  “Well, if there’s nothing keeping us here, let’s head back!” she chirped. “The second stage of the exam isn’t going to run itself, right?”

  Jiayin hummed softly, pulling an arrow from her quiver. Its fiery tip sparked as she drew it to the bowstring, and she aimed straight up into the cloudless sky before letting it loose. The arrow streaked upward, leaving a blazing trail in its wake.

  As they crossed the last stretch of the oasis town’s main street and exited the ruins, Alice tilted her head. “What’s the second stage of the exam, anyway? William’s been pretty quiet about it, and so have you! I want details!”

  “It’s going to be a simple retrieval mission,” Jiayin replied curtly. “It’ll take place under the city. William’s preparing the arena right now. That’s why he’s not here.”

  Alice’s face lit up with excitement. “Under the city? Fun! Can I tag along with the participants? What’s the retrieval target? Treasure? Eggs? Parasitoid cores?”

  … Does she ever shut up?

  My god.

  I worry for the girl she picked up from that Undertown.

  “You’ll find out soon enough,” Jiayin said, her tone clipped but amused.

  The moment they left the ruins behind and started returning to the City of Feasts, the fiery arrow Jiayin had loosed slamming into the earth, striking the heart of the town with pinpoint accuracy. The explosion was instantaneous—a thunderous roar that sent a shockwave rippling through the air. Flames erupted in every direction, consuming the abandoned buildings and setting the desert sands alight with a fiery glow.

  Neither Jiayin nor Alice looked back.

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