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From across the holographic screen, Duanmu Xinqing’s beaming smile greeted me. “Yahoo~ Now, this is a rare sight. Ke, you actually called your aunty Xinqing – are flowers going to bloom on palm trees now?”

She teased me ruefully.

“A– Xinqing, I’ve been really busy lately… you know why…”

“Yes, yes. But, Ke, it’s rude of you to address your aunty by her name like that. Remember to add on the “aunty” next time.” Duanmu Xinqing gave me her signature teasing smile. “But your aunty is a little happy that you addressed her by her name. Right, Ke, when are you coming home? Your aunty misses you so, and my precious daughter, too, of course.”

“I’ve already located the mastermind behind this virus. I will go back when I’m finished dealing with him.” I avoided answering her directly.

However, she could already see that something was up, especially given that I had deliberately kept a distance from her this past month.

“Ke, are you trying to avoid us?”

“No… not at all.”

“There’s no need to repeat yourself. Your aunty might always have her head buried in some research, but she still has eyes.” Duanmu Xinqing did not press the issue, but a sigh escaped her lips. “Ke, your aunty does not know what is troubling you, but she hopes that you understand that we will always be behind you.”

“Mhm.”

Her decision not to pursue the matter relieved me greatly, but seeing as there wasn’t much to say at that point, I quickly cut off the feed, spread my wings, then took off towards the skyscraper.

After a full month of stewing, the city was a giant graveyard, if said graveyard did not bother to bury the dead. Technically, I had a special method of blocking out this stench, else I would have gone mad from the smell.

I zipped through the dead city, the streets somehow felt even quieter than usual. Barring the usual mindless zombie straggler, there weren’t any other undead, like those skeletal beasts, to be found anywhere. I wouldn’t be surprised if Karlston had just decided to recall any undead that showed any modicum of power. But that also meant that he had been monitoring me, and knew that I was about to knock on his door.

As expected, I spotted a horde of skeletal beasts waiting for me at the doorstep of the former Life Unbound Biotech’s headquarters. Flying skeletons, crawling skeletons, even tunnelling skeletons. They were all there.

“Nether flame lioness.”

That familiar gate of flames appeared on command; a blackish-red lioness rushed out a second later in a shower of dancing flames. And as I started to descend, the lioness caught me on its back, but its nether flames did not hurt me in the slightest. In fact, it protected me from any potential danger I could face.

“Dive into them.”

The lioness acknowledged the command, opening up with a blistering barrage of nether flame spheres, following which it dove right into the horde.

Any undead that dared to take a hit from these flame balls were instantly dealt a severe blow, often having their limbs vaporised in the process. The shockwave from the impact alone was enough to blow away countless lesser skeletons in the vicinity. The skies above darkened from the sheer rain of bones falling down upon the pavement, heralding my climatic entrance.

Yet before I could step through the door, a surge of mana came emanating from deep beneath the ground.

Another enemy? I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that Karlston would have an undead hideout beneath me. Typical villain.

Before that, however, there was still this horde to deal with. Even so, these undead were nothing but leaves to the hurricane that was my nether flame lioness.

I quickly made my way to the focal point of this mana emanation. It was a pitch-black room, spacious, and bearing an odd-smelling black pool in the center. A blood pool would have been the more appropriate term, given that there was no way an undead villain like Karlston would soak in water. Plus, there was a faint outline of a corpse floating in that pool. The room itself was airtight, creating that pungent smell that hit me like a truck.

My nether flame lioness wasn’t one for entering through the front door, thus we smashed through the floorboards, landing in a similarly dramatic fashion as before.

Towards my explosive entry, Karlston was less than impressed. He was seated on a bony throne in the middle of that blood pool, left hand wielding a bony staff that seemed to almost quiver at my presence… Seems like our undead boss is a little tense.

Or maybe it’s just my overwhelming presence -more like Ferti’nier’s…

I jumped off the comfy back of the nether flame lioness and glared quietly at the black-robed skeleton. “It’s time we settle this debt.”

“That we should.” His staff shook a little as he slowly raised it in preparation for what seemed like a spell. “But it will be your debt that we collect on.”

Even though I was incensed by the mere existence of this nemesis of mine, I actually had something to ask him. A pity he wasn’t in the mood for talking at all.

I mustn’t let him cast his spell so easily…

Against a mage, the tried and tested method was always to just charge him and give him a good beating. Which I did. I flipped onto my lioness once more and broke into a blistering charge.

“Land of the dead… overturn the wheel of reincarnation… feast of the souls…”

“That’s a forced teleportation spell, Exile. It can throw another person into a separate dimension. Useful, but the side effects are severe, thus its categorization as a forbidden spell. In all likelihood, he’s trying to kick you out of Gaia, that greedy ******* is planning to keep this treasure trove all for himself.”

A forced teleportation?! No! I can’t let him get this spell off.

Karlston quickly finished his chant as I rode my nether flame lioness swiftly into him.

However, my desperate attack was suddenly interrupted when countless bone spears pierced through the ceiling and ground in a pincer attack.

My first instinct was to dodge, but with my nether flame lioness protecting me, I came to the conclusion that even that was unnecessary.

Yet all it took was that single second of hesitation as Karlston managed to cast his spell. There was only a meter separating us. Our eyes met in a storm of murderous intent…

But amidst that overbearing emotion, there was calmness. His spell had been completed, and this whole sequence of events seemed to have been planned by him. All that was needed now was that final chant…

“Tear down the void of space… Exile!”

“It’s too late… we messed up…”

At that point, everything went black. All I could remember was Karlston finishing his chant, at which point the black pool of blood gushed upwards into a massive array.

“Don’t worry, little brother, your Big Sis will protect you…”

Those were the last words I heard…

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