**The Necromancer's Ritual**
J-Teacher's pudgy fingers moved with unexpected grace as he maintained the dark energy conduit. Sweat beaded on his triple chins, each droplet catching the eerie violet light emanating from the floating bck line before him. "Patience~" he wheezed, his gold-capped tooth glinting. "No bridge, no crossing." With a magician's flourish, he separated his palms—the half-meter energy line stretching like taffy into a shimmering vertical slit in reality.
The blood-drenched "Soul-Tether Hand" reacted violently to the newly formed portal. What had been a grotesque appendage now thrashed like a hooked eel, its obsidian nails scoring deep grooves in the courtyard's raked gravel as it elongated toward the abyssal gate. Guan Lan's back arched involuntarily, fresh blood frothing at his lips as the connection deepened. Each centimeter the spectral arm extended into the void transted to another liter of his life essence being siphoned away.
"Once it finds your friend in the Afterrealm," J-Teacher expined through gritted teeth, veins bulging along his temples, "it'll drag him back through the—" A wet cough interrupted him. "Ah... should mention... if you lose consciousness mid-process..."
Shan's nails dug into the necromancer's fbby arm. "Spit it out!" Her usually melodic voice held the sharpness of a guillotine bde.
J-Teacher's smirk revealed bloody gums. "Why... the tether reverses, of course." He licked his lips as Guan Lan convulsed, arterial spray painting the sand patterns crimson. "His soul gets pulled in instead. Poetic, no?"
---
### **The Banquet Interrupted**
The crystal chandeliers of Akatai HQ's grand dining hall dimmed as Yu Hang tapped his champagne flute. Three hundred utensils stilled mid-bite as the Director rose from the head table, his emerald-green dress uniform immacute despite the recent turmoil.
"Colleagues... and future colleagues..." His voice carried the weight of decades of command. "Today we celebrate twelve exceptional—"
A faint vibration at Qin Hong's earlobe interrupted the speech. The silver stud—a gift from Xiao Yu—pulsed with coded urgency. Under the linen tablecloth, his fingers traced a fractal pattern in the air. Space rippled obediently.
"Where?" Haruko whispered, her chopsticks hovering over sea urchin roe.
"Intel," Qin Hong mouthed before vanishing into his self-made crevice. Tiffany's violet eyes tracked the disturbance, her dessert fork pausing mid-rotation.
The training field's artificial turf greeted Qin Hong with its familiar synthetic scent. Xiao Yu's hologram materialized before his boots touched ground. "Took you long enough!" Her pixeted form vibrated with irritation.
"Details." Qin Hong's fingers were already sketching the reported route in the air—a glowing blue trajectory from Chaoge Tower to the Maple Leaf Vils. The confirmation that Da Fei traveled alone with just a driver sent his mind racing. Then—
**KA-BOOM!**
The explosion lifted him off his feet. Through the mushrooming fireball, Qin Hong glimpsed the castle's east wing disintegrating in slow motion—granite blocks tumbling like children's blocks, stained gss shards catching the inferno's light like deadly fireflies.
His return jump deposited him at the banquet hall's entrance just in time to see Fritt's body hit the marble floor. The bck-cd assaint's gloves squelched as they withdrew from the dead man's chest cavity, holding aloft a still-beating heart that pulsed unnaturally rge between his fingers.
"Told you direct works best," the masked figure crowed, shaking gore from his sleeve. Up close, the chemical burns around his goggles and the faint odor of nitroglycerin told Qin Hong everything—this was "Demolition" Dick, Bck Arm's walking armory.
A groan came from the wreckage as Yu Hang emerged, his perfect hair now matted with blood. "Dick... always the subtle one." Even concussed, the Director's sarcasm remained razor-sharp.
The bomber responded by hurling a dinner roll. The ensuing detonation shattered every surviving window—Qin Hong's world became a kaleidoscope of flying silverware and screaming trainees. Through the smoke, a new figure emerged: a woman in emerald bodysuit whose every step left sizzling footprints in the marble.
"Now now, hothead," Poison Kiki purred, running a gloved hand down Dick's chest. The silver serpent ring on her finger seemed to writhe in the firelight. "Colpse the building and we're digging for weeks."
Yu Hang's shield wall bloomed to life—a towering barrier of crystalline energy that bisected the hall. Qin Hong's Voidcutter hummed eagerly in his grip, but the Director's warning came sharp: "Evac first! That bitch's neurotoxins drop elephants in three breaths!"
Already, tendrils of viridian mist were snaking under tables. A first-year colpsed mid-crawl, his fingers locking into rigor mortis before he hit the ground.
---
### **Toxic Gambit**
Kiki's ughter tinkled like breaking gss as her poison engulfed Yu Hang's barrier. "Still relying on this old trick?" She pressed a palm against the shimmering surface, her toxins etching fractal patterns as they climbed. "How... predictable."
Dick lit a cigarette off a still-burning tablecloth. "Just let me—"
"No!" Kiki's whip-crack voice silenced him. "I want to watch his eyes when the first child chokes."
Above them, the shield's upper edges began weeping green droplets. Yu Hang's nose bled freely now, his crossed arms trembling. Qin Hong counted seven trainees still unconscious near the dessert table—their rescue would require passing through the kill zone.
Then—a hurricane.
"GALE FORCE!" Bel's entrance shattered every remaining window. The Category 5 winds she summoned sent tablecloths fpping like panicked ghosts, scouring the hall clean of toxins. Dick's cigarette became a fming projectile that embedded in the far wall.
"Took you long enough," Yu Hang gasped as his barrier flickered out.
Bel rubbed the goose egg on her forehead. "Sorry~ Somebody's bomb concussed little ol' me." Her giggle died as she locked eyes with Kiki. "Oh. It's you."
The venom mistress hissed. "Still crashing parties uninvited, cyclon bitch?"
Dick interrupted by lobbing a lit grenade at Qin Hong's evacuation team. Yu Hang's reflexive shield spell saved them—but the backsh sent the Director to his knees, his skin now matching his emerald uniform's sickly hue.
"Go!" Bel ordered, her winds coalescing into a spinning dome. "Before his liver fails!"
Qin Hong's spatial rift swallowed Yu Hang just as Dick's molotov cocktail arced toward them. The explosion painted the ceiling bck—but not before the bomber got a faceful of his own shrapnel.
"Dick!!" Kiki abandoned her elegance to crawl to her partner. As she ripped away his shattered mask, Qin Hong caught his st words before the rift closed:
"That brat... he's Illya's priority target..."
The void sealed behind them, leaving only the echo of Bel's gathering storm.
