Chapter 48 Yiran
Yiran
Had he wandered too far? In the heavy mist, everything felt farther apart as Yiran sprinted back. Half-built buildings in
the distance rose like giant tombstones amid the gray and brown landscape.
A flash of pink. Muffled sounds of a fight.
“Eddy? Ada?” Yiran shouted, pulling out his talismans. “Ada?”
Tiny explosions. Bursts of light. Then a big one, cutting through the mist.
He finally saw them: Ada twirling her whip, fighting two Hybrids who were tag teaming her—and—
Eddy impaled to a tree.
Eddy bleeding.
Eddy dying.
Yiran flung a talisman in the air, yelling out the incantation. It burst into flames. Crimson arrows shot across the air.
The taller Hybrid screamed as three arrows found their target.
The other Hybrid—a young man with a shaven head and tail-like thing sticking out of his back—screamed with her. “Ling! No!”
Ada snapped her whip at him, pulling him back into the fight.
“Yiran—again!” she yelled.
Another talisman. Another slew of arrows.
Yiran’s insides were heating up, but he didn’t care. He recited the incantation again.
More arrows shot through Ling. The Hybrid writhed as yangqi burned into her flesh.
“Felix, Felix—it hurts . . .” she gasped as her jaw started to melt.
“Ling!” Felix dashed to his comrade.
But he was too late.
And Ada was too fast. The deadly hook of her whip pierced Ling’s chest. Ada channeled a blast of magic.
And pulled.
Felix screamed. He lurched, falling onto the ground, crawling to Ling. She was turning to ash, and he cradled her crumbling
body with a tenderness that felt wrong.
He’s a monster. They both are. They shouldn’t feel anything.
Yiran turned from them and ran to Eddy.
The violet spikes pinning him to the tree were disappearing. They must have belonged to Ling, and with her death, the yinqi
ceased to exist.
Yiran caught him as the last spike holding him up vanished, and laid him gently on the ground. Blood leaked from the many
puncture wounds.
“T-told you not good at . . . magic,” Eddy wheezed. “Can’t fight . . . either.” He was clutching a small metal device tightly
in his trembling hand. “Tried to steal s-sensor . . . they want . . . they want our tech—can’t let them know . . .”
“Shh, stop talking, you’re okay.” Yiran pressed his hands on Eddy’s stomach, trying to stem the flow of blood. “You’re going
to be okay.” He repeated the words again and again, willing them to be true.
“Yiran.” Ada was limping toward them. Her clothes were torn and bloody, one of her eyes bloodshot and swelling. “Yiran, we
have to finish the job.”
“He’s going to be okay,” Yiran told her. “He’s going—”
Behind them, Felix let out a feral roar.
He was standing, face distorted with anger and anguish. The tail-like thing behind him rose like a serpent. He flung his arms
out. Hundreds of violet spikes fanned out from his tail in a semicircle on either side, like the hood of a cobra. He drew
his arms close, fingers pointing at the three cadets.
The spikes detached.
Yiran had seen this attack before. He knew what would happen next.
“No!”
He punched the sky with his gloved fist.
Crimson light exploded from it, forming a massive dome over the area with Eddy and Ada and him in the center. The Hybrid’s
spikes pelted down like a torrential downpour.
But Yiran’s shield held.
A searing heat was spreading throughout his legs, his torso, his arms, his mind. But Yiran gritted his teeth, channeling everything he had into his shield.
And still the violet spikes came raining down.
And still his shield held.
His world went white. He couldn’t see anything, couldn’t feel anything. The heat was unbearable.
Gunshots rang in the air. Shouting and the clang of metal.
Through half-closed eyes, Yiran saw two familiar figures sprinting toward him. Felix turned his spikes on Ash and Teshin,
but he was swiftly overwhelmed.
Yiran released his shield and pressed his hands on Eddy’s stomach again. The red pool around him had grown.
“Eddy . . . Eddy? Hang on, we’re getting you help,” Ada whispered, kneeling beside them.
Eddy’s face was so pale, it was almost translucent. His eyes fluttered open and found Yiran’s.
“That was . . . a-amazing . . . Yiran. Must be nice . . . your gift of magic.”
He made a sound, like a soft sigh, and closed his eyes again.