Chapter 2 Rui
Rui
Eighteen years later
“Stop!” Ada hissed. “We have to put up the barrier first.”
Rui shook her head at her best friend and schoolmate. “Not until we’re closer to the nest.” She took a step, and Ada hissed
again.
“We agreed to go on my cue.”
“We can dawdle, or we can go on offense,” Rui snapped, tightening her grip on her swords. “I’ll take down the Revenants myself.”
“You and what army?” Ada sniped back. “It’s a nest.”
“I said, myself.”
“Gods, Rui. Are you trying to make up for yesterday? When I kicked your ass during our spell-casting session?”
“You got lucky. Don’t forget who holds the top score on—”
“Children, kindly stop shit-talking each other.” The strong baritone of Ash Song, their proctor, crackled over the speakers of the
Simulator. “You’re supposed to be on the same team.”
Ada chirped, “Yes, sir.”
“Whatever,” Rui muttered at the same time.
“I heard you, Cadet Lin,” Ash said, sounding unamused. “Get rid of that crappy attitude or I’ll make sure your application
to the Guild gets mysteriously lost.”
Rui rolled her eyes.
It was an empty threat. As her evaluator and mentor at Xingshan Academy, Ash might have some say in her final assessment when
she graduated, but Rui was the best all-round cadet the Academy had produced in her cohort. Even Ash couldn’t deny that fact.
More importantly, the Exorcist Guild couldn’t afford to lose any promising cadets. Not when the Blight had been running rampant in recent years.
As the supernatural virus attacked, more Revenants formed, and more Exorcists were needed to vanquish them.
Problem was, not everyone was born with a strong spirit core and a high level of yangqi like Rui or Ada.
Not everyone could train to be an Exorcist. As far as Rui was concerned, it meant she was valuable.
In a year, she would graduate with top honors, join the esteemed Exorcist Guild, and rise in its ranks.
That was the plan. Unless she got killed first, of course.
“Roo-ee, tell him you’re sorry,” Ada whispered urgently under her breath. “You don’t have to mean it.”
Rui sighed. Ada was right. It was best to stay on Ash’s good side, considering he was a descendant of the illustrious Song
family. His grandfather was Head of the Guild, and rumor had it that Ash was on track to follow in his footsteps. Ash’s lineage
was peppered with famous names; his father was a hero who died battling Revenants . . . while Rui was descended from a family
of nobodies: a deadbeat dad and a mother who was long gone from this world.
Rui kept her distaste down and coated her tongue with a layer of sugar. “My apologies, Captain.” Long live the Song Dynasty, she added in her head.
“Accepted,” Ash said. Rui could hear his obnoxious smirk. At twenty-two, Ash was already a Captain—the youngest Exorcist ever
to be made one. No wonder his ego was the size of a small whale. “Carry on,” he instructed. “Cadet Senai, on your lead.”
Ada nodded. “Yes, Captain.”
“Make sure you watch the clock, kiddos.”
Rui glanced at the blinking LED numbers on her training watch.
4:09
4:08
4:07
Today’s simulation training program was set in a cargo terminal of a port.
Huge metal containers were stacked like toy blocks, one on top of another, creating narrow zigzagging lanes to form a maze.
In four minutes, the simulated moon would peak and the yin energy in the area would shoot up.
Revenants siphoned yinqi to grow more powerful.
If she and Ada didn’t move quickly, the tables would turn, and they’d become the hunted.
“You ready?” Rui asked.
“Let’s do this,” Ada replied, pulling out a talisman. She was the superior protective spell caster between them.
Rui was the attack dog.
As Ada whispered the incantation, the yellow paper in her hand began to smoke, and the red ink on it disintegrated. The air
seemed to split. A glowing dome rose above them, sealing off the perimeter—a barrier spell.
Ada signaled with her fingers. Your three o’clock.
Rui moved right. Ada split left, her bright magenta ponytail swaying as she went. Soon the shadows swallowed her up and Rui
was alone.
A trickle of unease grazed Rui’s skin. She had woken up this morning with a strange buzz in her head. Something was different
today. Maybe it was because it’d been exactly four years since—
She stopped in her tracks, ears pricking.
A soft mewling was coming from where Ada had pointed, disturbingly similar to a baby’s cry. Rui knew she was in a simulation
program, but the hairs on the back of her neck still stood.
There.
A faint silvery wisp floating against a rusty metal container like a slime-track left by a snail. It was something no ordinary
human could see. But for those like Rui, who had cultivated their spirit core and spiritual energy, the spirit trail of a
Revenant’s yinqi was clear as day.
Rui drew a deep breath, clearing the meridian pathways in her body. Her limbs relaxed, and her yangqi condensed. At the next
inhale, she crossed her arms and swung her swords outward, emptying her lungs quickly.
A familiar, feverish eruption flooded her mind and body. Crimson light shot from the dual swords in her hands as her spiritual
energy infused the weapons. They lengthened, the tips of the blades transforming into jagged edges like a lightning bolt.
She grinned.
Yin versus yang—this was how you fought a Revenant. Revenants fed on the yang energy of humans, but this same energy could
be refined into magic and used to kill the dark creatures.
Feeling the thrill of magic pulsing with each heartbeat, Rui spun her swords, striding confidently forward. This sense of
power, of absolute control—it never got old.
As she rounded the corner, a flash of magenta moved closer from the opposite end.
Ada. She had stopped in front of a metal container with a big hole punctured in the middle.
The Revenant nest had to be in there.
Question was, how many monsters had already formed? The mewling from inside grew louder. Something like feet scuttled.
Rui adjusted her swords, bracing for whatever was coming.
Several Revenants crawled from the nest. Their hairless bodies and heads were a mottled gray like they were afflicted with
disease, which wasn’t far from the truth. They varied in size, some as large as a tall adult human, others smaller like children.
Some stood on their legs while others crawled on all fours, their scraggly limbs spiderlike.
Ada leaped forward first, her wicked-looking whip lashing out as she twirled. Not to be outdone, Rui homed in, swords ablaze.
The first few Revenants were easy game. A quick slash here, a light skewering there. The creatures shrieked, vanishing into
puffs of acrid smoke and cold air.
Blood pumping, Rui continued her assault, advancing toward the nest, taking down every Revenant that emerged. Adrenaline sang
in her veins. This was what she lived for. The fight. The kill. The moment of glory.
“Pace yourself,” Ada warned.
“I’ve got lots of spiritual energy to spare.” Cocky but true. Rui did possess an unusually high amount of yangqi. She only wished it hadn’t cost her mother’s life to discover this.
“This is too easy. I’m barely breaking a sweat,” Ada said, swatting another Revenant with her whip. “Something’s up.”
“We’ve trained for years; we’re good at this.”
But at the back of her mind, Rui knew Ada was right. Although they were seniors, they were still cadets, and they had only
done neighborhood patrols under the watchful eye of a mentor. This training program was testing their readiness for an actual Night Hunt, a dangerous expedition where Exorcists raided Revenant nests across the city.
The other senior cadets who’d gone through this simulation were sworn to secrecy about the details, but they had returned
to the dormitory a little green around the gills, exhausted from expending their spiritual energy. One of their classmates,
Teshin Mak, had slept for two days straight.
So far, the test was too easy.
There was a loud beep.
Rui swore under her breath. The zeros on her watch were red. They’d run out of time.
The moon shone bright above them.
Ada shot her a grim look. “The real test is starting.”
She’d barely finished her sentence when an unearthly howl echoed.
A diaphanous humanoid form emerged from the nest. Slowly, its shape filled in, solidifying into a woman with dark eyes and
long hair. Unlike any of the other Revenants that had come before, she looked too human. As human as the Revenant that—
“Watch out!” Ada shouted.
The Revenant clawed at Rui’s face.
Rui dodged. Barely. Snatching a talisman from her sleeve, she yelled out the incantation. Something tugged in her spirit core,
and the paper lit up in flames. Crimson spirit ropes appeared next to her, sparking as she channeled her magic. She pointed.
The ropes shot through the air, wrapping around the Revenant. A strong burning smell wafted in the air as the Revenant screamed.
Rui ran forward with her swords, and the screaming stopped.
“Poof,” she whispered. Each dead Revenant dulled her pain. It was like medicine, an opioid she was addicted to.
Across from her, Ada was shooting qi-infused spikes from a one-handed crossbow. The spikes burned holes in the incoming Revenants,
destroying them immediately. Teshin’s experimental weapons didn’t always work, but the crossbow was more effective than Rui
had expected.
But the Revenants coming for Ada were normal ones, or what Rui had come to think of as normal. No human faces. No human expressions.
They were ghoul-like things that couldn’t speak intelligibly and possessed no emotion other than the desire to feed.
The Revenant woman that had just attacked Rui was different.
She heard a gasp.
A young boy was crawling to Ada. Was it Rui’s imagination or did he look like Aidan?
Ada lashed her whip. The deadly metal hook at the end stabbed a hole in the chest of the little Revenant boy.
Ada pulled hard, a wretched cry bursting from her throat.
The boy exploded into smoke and cold air.
Ada’s face was bloodless, her hands shaking as she stared at the empty spot where the boy had stood.
Rui ran to her. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” Ada said, but she looked on the verge of tears. “Let’s get the rest of them.” She sped off without another word.
Rui started to follow, but something stopped her in her tracks.
Behind you.
She spun around, swords raised, expecting another Revenant.
But instead—
One of her swords fell to the ground with a clatter.
It was another Revenant. Except . . . how could it be?
Rui had seen his face again and again in her nightmares: the twist of his sneering lips as his eyes watched her hungrily, the heavy set of his jaw, the scar running down his neck where the curls of his dark hair ended.
He was even wearing the same clothes from that night—jeans and a shirt with blue stitching.
Her mother’s screams filled her ears, and the scars on her legs itched. She was fourteen again, attending a mundane school
like any other normal kid.
It had been a full moon that night. There was political talk of a curfew in those days, but it hadn’t been implemented yet.
It was late, but Rui had insisted on making a detour to the Night Market for some rock candy. It was her birthday, and she
wanted her treat. She didn’t know she had a strong spirit core or that her high yangqi could attract Revenants more easily.
It had never happened before.
So when a man approached her mother and her for directions on a quiet street on their way home, Rui didn’t give it a second
thought, even though she felt a weird jolt when she saw him. After all, Revenants were supposed to be grotesque creatures;
they didn’t look human.
Then the man bared his teeth and lunged.
Funny how a split second can change a life forever. Her mother was gone, and Rui’s life was upended. If her mother hadn’t
given in and brought her to the Night Market, if Rui hadn’t thrown that tantrum . . . her mother would still be alive, and Rui wouldn’t wake up every morning hating the person
she saw in the mirror.
Now, the Revenant wearing the face of her mother’s murderer was staring back at her.
Hot tears burned her eyes. She had trained for this very moment. Trained to kill this bastard if she set eyes on him again.
Fourteen-year-old Rui had promised her future self this reward when she enrolled at Xingshan Academy.
But eighteen-year-old Rui stood still. Frozen in fear.
The Revenant smiled. “Remember me?” He grabbed her neck, cold fingers digging into her flesh. “I wonder if you’re as tasty
as you smell.”
Something sharp pierced her skin.
A chill set into her bones.
No, she screamed in her head when the realization dawned. The Revenant was drinking from her, sucking her spiritual energy dry. Was this what her mother felt when she was dying? Was this the fate she had saved
Rui from?
“Rui!”
The air exploded with light.
Ada was fighting her way over.
“He’s not real, Rui! We’re in a simulation—focus!”
Rui blinked.
Focus. The Revenant wasn’t real. None of this was real. The only thing real was that her mother was gone forever. Anger roused her
strength. This was her chance to kill her mother’s murderer. Even if he was an image, even if he wasn’t real, she had made a vow.
She dug deep, reaching for whatever spiritual energy she had left. Light flickered near her hand.
The Revenant lifted his head from her neck. “What are you doing?”
“Killing you,” she spat, and swung her arm.
Crimson light flashed.
Cold air gusted, and she fell to the ground, landing awkwardly on her shoulder. She was spent. Empty inside. As her vision
blurred and the world dimmed, she heard Ash’s mocking voice over the speakers.
“If this were the real world, Cadet Lin Ru Yi, you would be dead.”