CHAPTER 70: CHAPTER 70; UNDER ATTACK 2

Blood from her wounds was trailing in dark ribbons through the water, and she knew predators could sense it. Every instinct screamed at her to run, to escape, to survive.

But beyond that door was Lu Yuze carrying an unconscious Yuyan. Beyond that door were innocent patients who had no idea what was coming. Beyond that door, there were doctors and nurses who were highly needed by the patients; she needed to handle the situation.

Shuyin adjusted her grip on the wire, feeling the weight of it, the potential.

"Alright then," she whispered to the nightmares surrounding her, her jade eyes blazing with defiance even as blood continued to stream down her face and body. "Let’s finish this."

A massive falcon, larger than the others, clearly their leader, dove from the ceiling with talons extended. At the same moment, something broke the surface of the water behind her, jaws opening wide enough to swallow her whole.

Shuyin moved.

The wire became a blur of motion, striking high and low in a pattern that seemed impossible for one person to execute. The alpha falcon met the wire mid-dive, its body bisected cleanly, both halves splashing into the water. Without breaking momentum, Shuyin spun, driving the wire backward like a harpoon.

She felt it punch through something solid and fleshy beneath the water’s surface. The creature, some kind of serpent with too many fins and a head that split into three separate jaws, thrashed violently, its death throes creating waves that slammed her against the wall.

Her vision swam, dark spots dancing at the edges. She’d lost too much blood, taken too much damage. But the surviving falcons were regrouping, and more shapes were rising from the depths.

There was a sudden, violent pounding at the door.

"Shuyin! Open the door!" Lu Yuze’s voice, muffled but desperate.

"I told you to run, you idiot!" she screamed back, parrying another falcon strike.

"I’m not leaving you!"

"You have to! Yuyan needs...."

A water creature lunged from her blind spot, its lamprey-like mouth attaching to her side. The pain was indescribable, like being burned and frozen simultaneously. Shuyin grabbed it with her bare hand, her fingers sinking into its slimy flesh, and ripped it away, taking a chunk of her own flesh with it.

She was fading. She could feel it. The water was at her chin now, and she was running out of room to fight, running out of strength to keep going.

The pounding at the door intensified. "Shuyin!"

More falcons dove. More creatures circled. The water rose higher.

And somewhere in the chaos, Shuyin made a choice. If this was where she fell, she would take every single one of these abominations with her.

Her jade eyes began to glow; the power she’d kept suppressed suddenly began to flow free. The wire in her hands started to pulse with the same light, becoming something more than metal, something closer to pure energy.

"Come on then," she whispered to the darkness. "Let’s see which of us is the real monster."

The temperature in the room dropped thirty degrees in an instant. The water around her began to crystallize, ice forming in impossible patterns. The falcons hesitated, sensing the change, sensing danger.

They should have run.

Shuyin raised her arms, and the wire exploded outward in a thousand fragments of blazing light, each one seeking a target with unerring accuracy. Falcons fell from the air, frozen mid-flight. Water creatures were impaled, their unnatural bodies unable to withstand the assault of pure, concentrated will.

But the power was consuming her, burning through her life force like wildfire. She could feel herself being hollowed out from the inside, the price of using abilities she’d sworn never to touch again.

The door suddenly burst open.

Lu Yuze stood there, his eyes wide with shock and something that might have been fear, or awe, as he took in the scene: Shuyin standing in chest-deep water that was rapidly freezing around her, her body covered in blood and wounds, her eyes blazing with inhuman light, surrounded by the frozen corpses of nightmare creatures.

"You... you should have run," she gasped, the light beginning to fade from her eyes.

"Never, I wouldn’t..." he said simply, wading into the room toward her.

"The water... it’s too dangerous..."

"I don’t care."

He reached her just as her legs gave out, catching her before she could slip beneath the surface. The last of her power faded, and the ice began to melt, the water returning to its liquid state.

"Yuyan?" she managed to ask. This man cared about his daughter the most.

"Safe. Ah-Ling has her. The entire floor is evacuated." Lu Yuze’s arms tightened around Shuyin, his voice rough with residual fear and adrenaline. "What were those things? What the hell just happened?"

"Hehehe... Nothing happened!" Shuyin’s voice came out breathless, strained in a way that was completely unlike her usual composure.

She closed her eyes, and her consciousness reached outward, commanding the element she’d been born to control. The water responded to her will like an extension of her own body, the torrents that had flooded the corridor, the moisture saturating the air, the dampness clinging to walls and floors.

Immediately evaporate.

It was a silent command, spoken in a language older than human civilization, enforced by power that had no name in any modern tongue.

The water began to shimmer, to steam, rising from surfaces in wisps of vapor that dissipated into nothing. Within seconds, the flooding that had nearly swept them away was simply... gone. As if it had never existed.

Lu Yuze felt the change, the sudden shift from standing in ankle-deep water to standing on merely damp tile. His mind struggled to process what his eyes were witnessing. Water didn’t just disappear. Physics didn’t work that way. Reality didn’t work that way.

He didn’t know if he should be frightened or assume he hadn’t seen anything, because, no one would believe anything if he spoke of what phenomena had occurred.