The remaining Silent Gale Hunters, their work nearly complete, with only three Ferals remaining, also paused, turning towards the descending woman. 

Their posture was not surprising, but rather silent, as if their queen had just arrived on the battlefield. 

They subtly shifted, creating a clear space around the cult leader, gathering behind the woman.

While the remaining three Ferals stood behind the masked Cult leader.

As the woman flew down, her feet barely skimming the rubble-strewn ground, hovered a few paces from the cult leader. 

For a long moment, they simply faced each other, an island of stillness in the heart of the devastation, suffering, and chaos of injured people.

The wind swirled gently around her, making her storm-grey robes ripple, but her winter-sky eyes never left the shrouded figure before her.

The cult leader, in turn, seemed to drink in her presence. 

The obsidian knife, still clutched in his hand, pulsed with a deep, crimson light, the veins of absorbed lifeblood throbbing obscenely.

A voice, raspy like grinding stones and belonging to someone hidden beneath a heavy hood, mocked, "Hahaaa… if it isn't my talented little sister." 

It was a voice twisted, yet with a faint, chilling echo of familiarity. "You finally came. I was beginning to think you wouldn't dare come to my little party."

The woman's calm expression didn't change, but a slight bit of sorrow passed through her eyes. 

"Big brother Lin," she replied, her voice calm, yet carrying a weight that resonated through the ruined street. 

"Must you always choose the path of needless suffering? Look at what you've done. For what? For whom?"

He let out a harsh laugh, a sound devoid of any real humor. 

"Who?" he sneered.

"Hehe… he..haha… Who? You ask?" His voice turned into fanatical roars as he continued speaking.

"He is the Master of the Unseen! Harvester of Screams! And Lord of Shadows!"

"He who offers power, true power to all!"

"Something our… royal family, with all its strength, traditions, long history, and pretty words, could never understand."

"And suffering? Where is that?" He gestured dismissively with his free hand at the carnage around them. 

"This is merely the stage I designed for you, my dear little sister."

"All of this… was to bring you here. To finally prove to that old bastard that I'm better than you."

He had been waiting for her arrival, ready to take revenge on her. 

He had killed everyone, deformed himself, sacrificed so much, just to confront her and, in his twisted mind, kill her to prove his own twisted worth.

As they were momentarily frozen in this bitter exchange, the blood-fed obsidian knife in his hand finally reacted. 

The glowing red veins on its surface began to writhe and spread, like parasitic tendrils, slowly creeping from the edge of the blade onto the cult leader's hand. 

They crawled up his arm, visible even beneath the dark fabric of his robe, and then onto his chest, the crimson lines glowing with a sickening light. 

He didn't stop it; in fact, a tremor ran through him, and a low groan that sounded almost like pleasure escaped his lips. 

He seemed to enjoy the improvement in his strength as the knife pumped him full of dark, spiritual power.

His shoulders straightened, and an aura of even greater menace began to radiate from him.

The woman watched, her expression unreadable. "That power isn't yours, big brother Lin. It will consume you."

"Let it!" he roared, and as the last of the blood veins seemed to fully integrate with his heart, he suddenly let out a furious, inhuman scream, breaking the silence.

The sound was high-pitched, painful to hear, like metal tearing. 

He gestured wildly with the now almost fully integrated knife.

The Ferals, those mutated hybrids that had been momentarily stunned by the Silent Gale Hunters' assault, now snapped to attention. 

The Ferals, those monstrous hybrids that had been waiting for his orders, their bodies already thrumming with predatory energy, now turned their glowing red eyes towards the Silent Gale Hunters positioned behind the woman. 

They snarled, their grotesque bodies tensing, muscles coiling as they prepared to leap towards the Gale Hunters, eager to tear them apart. 

But before the woman with storm-grey robes could make her move, before she began her attack, one of the figures who had gathered behind her, clearly a deputy, stepped forward. 

This Hunter was also a woman, her body well-built with large breasts, a plump body impressively encased in tight-fitting, wearing a tight fitting dark nano armor that gleamed faintly, clearly not hiding her hourglass figure. 

She moved with a surprising grace, her steps barely making a sound on the debris, and leaned in to whisper to her Captain.

"Captain Yao!"

—----

A few minutes back, before the woman with storm-grey robes could begin her descent, the city's emergency response that followed her was already in full, impressive motion. 

Even as the Silent Gale Hunters had made their dramatic entrance, and before the Captain had fully descended, other, less conspicuous teams had been moving with swift precision. 

These were the city's emergency response units, a mix of uniformed Night Patrol guards and highly advanced, sci-fi medical teams.

Sleek, white-and-red rescue skiffs, with the universal medical symbol '+' intertwined with Monster City's insignia, had begun to silently and swiftly appear at the periphery of the Emberlight District. 

These weren't just ambulances; they were mobile triage units, their engines working with a quiet efficiency that belied their speed. 

Sci-fi medical teams, wearing light-blue jumpsuits and equipped with advanced diagnostic and treatment gear, were already deploying.

The Combat Medics, their armor lighter than the Night Patrol's, moved with the same focused intensity as the Hunters but were armed with medical scanners and stasis field emitters instead of blades.

Their first priority had been the civilians caught outside the initial energy barrier, the ones like Su Mu and Xu'er, who had been thrown back by the shockwave when the lightning bolt shattered the dome. 

Su Mu and Xu'er, though shaken and bruised, hadn't been severely injured. 

Xu Er had a nasty scrape on her arm, and Su Mu's shoulder ached fiercely where she'd hit the wall, but they were mobile. 

A medic, a young man with calm, reassuring eyes, had quickly scanned them, confirmed they had no critical injuries, and then firmly guided them away from the immediate combat zone, towards a rapidly forming collection point.

"You two are coming with us," the medic said firmly but gently. "We've got a larger camp set up just a few blocks over. We'll get you checked out properly."

Other civilians weren't so lucky. The medical teams were already dealing with a stream of injured. In a nearby square, a temporary medical camp was materializing with incredible speed. 

The atmosphere in the surrounding streets, just beyond the immediate ring of destruction, was chaotic, yet the members of Night Petrol quickly controlled it. 

Fear still lingered, but it was now mixed with the frantic relief of escape and the hushed awe of witnessing such a terrifying event. 

Newly arrived media drones, small, hovering discs with glowing lenses, zipped through the air, their operators, teams of medics, also fanned out. 

They moved with remarkable speed, setting up inflatable, self-sterilizing medical tents that turned into temporary aid stations within minutes. 

Bright, portable floodlights pushed back the encroaching gloom, illuminating makeshift treatment bays where rows of collapsible stretchers were being laid out.

The air soon filled with the low sounds of medical scanners, and the sound of medi-gel applicators, together with the calm, reassuring voices of the doctors and nurses, tending to the injured one by one. 

Those with minor cuts and bruises from flying debris were quickly cleaned, treated, and moved to a designated safe zone further away. 

More serious injuries like broken bones, concussions, and deeper lacerations were stabilized with advanced field equipment or by powerful awakeners with medical skills before the injured were carefully loaded onto the waiting rescue skiffs for transport to more established medical facilities.

Neither Su Mu nor Xu'er was in a state to argue. 

The sheer terror of the cultists' ritual, followed by the apocalyptic arrival of the Silent Gale Hunters and the powerful woman, had left them drained. 

They allowed themselves to be guided towards one of the waiting skiffs, the sounds of the ongoing battle fading slightly as they moved away from the immediate vicinity of the ruined mechanic's shop. 

As they were helped into the transport, Su Mu caught a last glimpse of the scene. 

The media was being kept at a distance by the Night Patrol, but their lenses were all pointed towards the center of the destruction, where the Captain now stood facing her brother, the wind whipping her robes, making her look like a powerful sentinel in the midst of the storm.

Soon, Su Mu and Xu Er were taken to a larger, more organized temporary medical camp that had sprung up with astonishing speed in a cleared plaza a short distance away. 

Here, hundreds of injured civilians were already being tended to with that same calm, quick efficiency.

It was from this relative safety, as a medic was gently cleaning the cut on her lip, that Su Mu would have still been distantly aware of the intense spiritual pressure emanating from the confrontation zone.