“I understand that you were successful… but did you need to bring her heart with you?”

“Yes.”

“That… You cultivate the element of fire, right? Just burn it outside or something. I don’t really want to see this kind of thing right now,” Luo Lia Kun instructed.

The hunt was easy, but it had forced Wei Yi to trek quite far to locate her target, resulting in her returning the morning of the next day, at which point she headed straight to the vice-leader before the heart that she had decided to use as proof began to rot or otherwise became unpleasant to keep in close proximity to herself.

She hadn’t seen any clarification of the proper method of confirming the demise of a target, so she acted as Wei Yi the Warrior would have done, performing that persona’s favourite execution.

“Alright. I’ll be right back,” she nodded, as she wasn’t too keen on keeping the heart to begin with.

Due to the vice-leader’s office being only a short distance away from the leader’s sealed chamber, and due to that being within reasonable distance of an entrance to the building, she was able to come and go within two minutes, barely giving Luo Lia Kun the time to gather her thoughts, or so it seemed based on the somewhat conflicted expression of the vice-leader when she returned. That wasn’t something that her brutish persona would recognise, so she just carelessly entered and sat down on the chair on the visitor’s side of the vice-leader’s desk, waiting for further instructions.

“I see you rushed off the moment that you could, huh?”

“The three I was staying with were too… strange, at first, at least, so I decided to get a different itch out of my system first,” Wei Yi confirmed, “By the way, why were you so concerned that I’d sleep with one of them?”

“Mostly because I hadn’t had to deal with Mo Zhouquan in some time, so I’d forgotten the impression that she gives most people. Also, you’re strange enough yourself, so I figured you might like one of the three,” answered Luo Lia Kun as she wrote something down on a document and stored it within her desk, leaning onto it afterwards while she looked into Wei Yi’s eyes, “Listen, do you remember how I had told you to keep some things secret? How have you managed with that?”

“Well, Long Huang asked about my physique, but since that sounded important, I only said the type of physique that I had…”

“Yes, that’s good. You can share some things with the Brotherhood of Power, but remember to be careful with other groups and organisations,” she clarified, “The reason I had asked this is because I wanted to tell you something, and I was curious whether you’d be able to keep it to yourself. What do you think?”

“To myself? I’m really good at doing that. What is it?”

Luo Lia Kun looked onto her with sceptical eyes, but she had clearly already resolved to share this secret piece of information with her and thus continued nonetheless, “First of all, do you know of something called the War of Yin?”

If not for her great control over every aspect of her body – and the fact that she had long removed all hair that originated below the neck so that she wouldn’t need to deal with impervious leg hair or something of the sort – every hair on her body would have stood up as the pace of her heart would have raced past anything resembling normality. With those things under control, and the minimization of the dilation of her eyes, she managed to reply as an ignorant person might.

“I don’t think so. Why would anyone want to fight over yin, anyway?”

“The name might be slightly unrepresentative of the true nature of the conflict, but it has some accuracy. You see, it was a war between two factions, neither of which I can name, to obtain and keep a forbidden skill by the name of the Paradigm of Yin. It had the power to threaten the aggressors of the conflict, whom you must only ever address as Them. Do you understand?”

‘Paradigm of Yin… I don’t think that I’ve ever heard the name itself, but I do know something about the war. Great Dark and Great Light had participated, and they were entities of absolute yin,’ she considered while answering, “Maybe?”

“One faction was led by a man by the name of Great Earth. He was a master of inscriptions and his physical body contained immense power due to him training it from a very young age with an ancient training set. He had found the technique and learned that it was so closely tied to the true nature of reality and the Great Dao that it would be able to oppose Their abilities despite the usual gap between Them and normal people. In order to cultivate it, he even split himself into two, naming himself Great Dark and Great Light for one contained the brighter aspects of yin while the other held the darker side. Are you following so far?”

‘This… I regret not being able to scan their bodies properly back then. A forbidden skill that could threaten the Greats enough to start a war… If this is true, then I technically possess something of a similar nature, so the moment that Ning Wu and Chen Wu share that fact about me, I will be in far greater danger. Fortunately, they think me to be from the Yi family, and thus likely believe me to bear the surname of Yi, which should confuse them for a short while,’ Wei Yi’s mind was slowly accelerating once more to comprehend and use the information that she was obtaining, as well as to check it against what she knew to ensure that no falsehoods were being fed to her under the guise of the sharing of secrets, but on the outside, she just nodded as if she was barely understanding this.

“Alright. Unfortunately, the War of Yin ended in the loss of Great Dark and Great Light, both of whom went into hiding, perhaps together, perhaps not. Most members of the Forces of Yin were captured, slain, or otherwise made non-dangerous for Them, but this does not apply to every single one of them,” Luo Lia Kun said, “Some remained, and call themselves the Remnant of Yin. They seek to regain power in secret, and to face Them once more.”

“Is that good?”

“Listen, Wei Yi; do you hate bad people? Oppressors, brutal and unjustified killers, those who would lower the entire world into dirt just to be able to dominate it?”

“I certainly don’t like them, and I suppose that it could be construed as hate…”

“Then I wish to extend a proposal to you, as vice-leader of the Remnant of Yin – join us, and ensure with your own hands that They, a group of great power and greed, do not maintain their grip on the world for any second longer than necessary.”

“Eh… Do you mind if I ask you some questions first? For example, why are you telling this to someone who has only been part of your organisation for two or three days? Also, are you really the vice-leader of both the Brotherhood of Power and the Remnant of Yin? Are those two the same, or is there some difference?”

“I don’t know why you had asked for my permission when you clearly didn’t need it, but… I am telling you this because you are immensely powerful, and because the mission you took yesterday involved ending the life of someone on the side of Them. Likely without even knowing it, you took care of one of their agents, even if she was significantly weaker than any of their true members. Still, I think that you have the chance to succeed where many do not,” said Luo Lia Kun, “I do happen to be the vice-leader of both, but I hold my position with great pride. Finally, as you should have already noticed, there are indeed some differences in the two organisations. Not all members of the Brotherhood of Power are part of the Remnant of Yin, and vice versa, just as you weren’t a part of the latter when you joined.”

“I see…” Wei Yi was tempted to ask whether she would be permitted to tear out hearts if she did join, but such a moment did not seem to allow for such an action, regardless of how tactless she pretended to be, “Still, don’t these kinds of things first require a great amount of trust?”

“You see, Wei Yi, you are… straightforward. Yes. That’s a fitting word for you. As a result, you don’t tend to lie, which is a pretty good thing in a world of secrecy and trickery. Furthermore, They wouldn’t expect an entirely new warrior to have joined our side, so you would also have an advantage when it comes to catching them unaware and executing plans alone that would otherwise require far more people to handle due to some of your strengths and talents.”

‘Calling someone simple as a compliment… It’s what I was going for, again, but it is still surprisingly effective,’ she pretended to consider this for a while, “What would be different if I joined your Remnant of Yin?”

“Rather than getting common missions, I would specifically assign those involving Them to you, and you would receive more payment and rewards than if you had chased these targets normally. Furthermore, there are several chambers within this buildings, and outside of it, reserved for us Remnants, which you will be able to access and benefit from so long as you do not abuse their resources, as that would force me and others at our side to bar you from using those chambers,” the vice-leader explained, “Additionally, I can increase your reward of failed talismans, if you still insist on having them and not something else.”

“I do want failed talismans specifically, yes…” she said, dragging out her words to delay for as long as possible, “Can I leave if I don’t want to remain?”

“I am sure that you know the answer to that. This information is too secret, so if you refuse now, I might not even be permitted to let you go, unless you can swear several oaths and permit yourself to be cursed,” Luo Lia Kun admitted, “However, you won’t regret siding with us, no matter what you do or believe in. If we truly succeed, now, or ever, it will be for the best of everyone in the continents.”

Since that was already said, Wei Yi had no reason to refuse, “I don’t have much of a choice, then.”

“No.”

“I guess I’ll join, then. Do I get anything to commemorate the occasion?”

“No. You would have received the talismans regardless, and neither I nor anyone else from the Remnants would be able to give you anything exclusive to us without having you prove your loyalty, since a single seemingly insignificant word from you could easily expose us and ruin everything that we have been working towards for so long,” she admitted, “Eventually, you will be able to ask for quite a lot of things, like knowledge obtained from the Paradigm of Yin and mostly forgotten techniques, but not yet.”

“Alright then, I’ll wait for that. Is there anything else that you wanted to tell me, or can I finally get the failed talismans?”

“No, there’s nothing else for the moment,” Luo Lia Kun said, leaning back against her chair, “Remember that this is a secret, and unless you are certain that the person you are speaking to is part of the Remnants of Yin, you must not spread a single thing that I’ve told you today. Your talismans are in your room. Go outside before using them, no matter what you will do with them.”

“Sure, I’ll do that,” she shrugged, leaving the room.

Wei Yi managed to get as far as her shared room, which was currently empty, and sat down on Long Huang’s bed, not wishing to endure whatever the bed on the other side of the room had changed into, before she plunged deeply into thought.

‘So, this is not only extremely unexpected, but also rather strange. For the remains of the faction that was part of the War of Yin to be found here, actively operating within what must be the domain of the Great Luo, is incredibly curious, considering the fact that the Greats are typically extremely good at removing potential threats from everything that I’ve been able to observe. So many factions and wars must have been fought in the past, and yet this one remains… There are some possibilities here, and not all of them are necessarily good,’ she considered, looking through countless books within her library while she thought in order to confirm certain ideas and theories, ‘Fortunately, I seem like a dim-witted simpleton to the vice-leader of the entire group, and their leader is likely the same as for the Brotherhood of Power, so she won’t interfere for a while, although she may be fooled as well… I will need to continue observing, and then act the moment that I think I have to.’

She raised her head, looking into the prison realm with her consciousness while her eyes were faced with the monstrous entity that was Mo Zhouquan’s bed. Much like her hair, the bed seemed to pulse and breathe and shift around as she looked upon it, thus releasing the thin warm vapour, but it was truly moving, and as she was able to tell with spiritual perception, the underside of the sheets was covered in thin, numerous tendrils and cilia that weren’t moving for the moment.

For someone to actively sleep beneath something like this, and do so calmly, it was even more disconcerting when in combination with every single other action of the corrupted woman.

And yet, her cultivator’s senses were once again telling her something that she couldn’t yet comprehend, but it did mean that those who lived within this room were of some significance. Whether that was as enemies, allies, or forces of chaos that could destabilise any situation that they would be thrown into.

In part, she did know why such a sensation could be occurring. Mo Zhouquan was part of some organisation that studied something that she had very little understanding of, and something that could potentially allow her to inflict great damage to the plans of the Greats, depending on the true nature of the corruption that she and the group behind her specialised in. Long Huang had far more understanding of bloodlines than any regular person should be aware of, which, if Wei Yi was able to learn all of it, could potentially push some of her own plans forward by a great extent, and there was always the chance that she was also connected to an organisation with similar focuses to her own, like the Blood-tinged Church, which she had been interested in for quite some time.

Zhi Qiu Ya appeared less knowledgeable overall, but the wolven form that she possessed granted her great power without the requirement of cultivation or a physique, which was something that had great potential, especially if the strengths of her new form could be introduced into others without bringing along the canine mind, even if it required the body of a cultivator to develop the same wolven ears, tail and fur as she had.

‘I wonder if any of them will be willing to cooperate with me eventually. Mo Zhouquan would almost certainly want to use her corruption on me, Long Huang may try to feed me the blood of strange creatures, and Zhi Qiu Ya… I don’t think she had anything particularly strange about her, hopefully.’

The most that could be expected from the wolven woman’s particularities would be excessive attention to smell, or some attempts to mark her territory while in the animalistic state, which was somehow the least dangerous and annoying act out of those that could be committed by the three that would spend some time beside her.

If she was able to figure out how to excise the living plague from her body, or otherwise cull the wolven mind that occasionally surfaced within her, that would likely earn her a significant amount of gratitude and an ally without much of a requirement for the same kind of complex maintenance that the other two would necessitate, although her usefulness appeared to be limited to acting as a warrior or a heavy lifter, while the other two possessed far more potential to radically alter her approach towards defeating the Greats and reforming Yi City.

‘That is all while making the assumption that I will be able to successfully persuade them to side with me. If they are already on the side of the Remnants, and they aren’t lying to me, then it may be as easy as saying that I wish to bring them to a secret location to assist me in combatting the Greats…‘ Wei Yi recalled, feeling the stained bedsheet beneath her hands, the slight crusty sensation of the sheets not being pleasing to any of her senses in the slightest, ‘Best case scenario, I get all three of them, the vice-leader – as she is rather cute when I bully her – and perhaps the leader herself, worst case, I should get at least one of them on my side, even if it has to be done with some trickery or force. It is a little too important to pass up on this opportunity.’

All of a sudden, she turned to the doorway just as Zhi Qiu Ya leapt out of it, crashing into her and pinning her down on the bed in an instant.

“Zhi Qiu Ya, what are you-”

The moment that she heard a low growl emerge from her mouth, her elongated canines on display, it became quite clear that she was not in a state where questions would be answered with anything more than growls, roars or vague expressions.

Whether by accident or otherwise, Zhi Qiu Ya had grabbed both of her arms and pinned them to the bed, and sat over her stomach, much like the time that she had woken her up the day before, and just as she had done on that day, she drew her face closer to Wei Yi’s, sniffing at her scent, or, likely, the absence of it due to her frequent cleansing through physique energy.

Before she could do anything else, Wei Yi said, “Look, even excluding all of the ethical issues, I am not exactly fond of being on the bottom. As such…”

While the animal mind of the current Zhi Qiu Ya was distracted, she used the World’s Echo physique ability and momentarily flashed her arm out of existence. It appeared beside the wolven woman’s ears, at which point she began to follow one of Luo Lia Kun’s instructions and scratched behind her wolven ear.

In her youth, Wei Yi had never had the opportunity to play with any animals, whether they were ordinary or planar beasts, not that she would have had the opportunity to encounter a tamed planar beast regardless of the place or position she could have been in instead as taming of planar beasts was extremely unconventional and rare, and she hadn’t stumbled across many people engaging in this activity throughout her journeys in the prison realm and outside of the Yi District, so this was one of the few skills that she had never had the opportunity to practise or indirectly learn about.

That did not appear to bother the wolven girl, as she quickly began to show an ecstatic expression as she panted, her animal tongue hanging out of her mouth.

Zhi Qiu Ya’s grip on her weakened to the point that even a child could break free, but she did not do so immediately, instead freeing her other arm and using that hand to pat the woman on the head slowly, which was something that she did have a little more experience in.

It did not take long for the wolven woman to be entirely incapacitated and distracted, at which point she pushed her off and laid her down on the bed while she sat down beside her, continuing to scratch behind her ear absentmindedly while she looked at Zhi Qiu Ya and examined her unreserved expression of pleasure.

“Not what I’d expected to be doing today, but this is… fine…”

The wolven woman didn’t appear to even notice her words, as she was entirely consumed by what she was currently experiencing. Even if she was able to reply at the moment, she didn’t expect much more than some animalistic noise or an attempt to lick her, as canines were apparently keen to do.

“Tell me, how did you become like this? Did you act like this even with your human mind at first, or did you never get any bestial inclinations at the start?”

“I did…”

“Hm? Zhi Qiu Ya, have you come back?”

“When I… let go of you…”

“Oh, do you happen to enjoy ear scratches?”

“A bit…”

“Well, I suppose there’s nothing wrong with that. Should I keep going, or are you unable to answer any questions while I’m doing this?”

“I can… Just be a little slower…”

“Like this?”

“Yes~… Alright, you were asking whether I had… unfortunate inclinations at the beginning?”

“I was just a little curious, and I did want to figure out how and why you change from one mind to another. Also, it’s a good opportunity to practise scratching with claws, which I don’t often end up doing,” Wei Yi said.

“Y-You’re doing this with the claws? You… it shouldn’t feel this good…” Zhi Qiu Ya said in a conflicted tone, “I didn’t realise what was happening until I suddenly grew a tail… However, I had been feeling strange at times… My sense of smell had been getting very strong, to the point that I could barely stand near everyone in the town that lived in… They were all in the first and second realms, and they could never be bothered to wash themselves… The men, in particular, were horribly sweaty at all times…“

“My sense of smell isn’t as strong as yours, but I can still empathise. Spending a lot of time near Mo Zhouquan yesterday was quite painful, to be entirely frank.”

“Yes… she’s a total bitch, and yet she’d take that as a compliment…”

‘Well, she is far more free with her language at a time like this, I see. Far less guarded, too. What a nice, non-violent method of interrogation that I’ve just discovered for people like her. If the living plague has spread to people other than her, I could employ this method against the women against them,’ Wei Yi thought, “So, what happened then?”

“I got a tail… grew fur, ears… it was strange, but not too painful, almost making me think I was dreaming… But the people around me confirmed that I was not… some were fine with this, thinking that it was a physique of some sort, but most didn’t think so…” Zhi Qiu Ya released a satisfied growl involuntarily, “At first, I accepted their treatment, but over time… I began to hate it. I fought back, somewhat childishly… destroying thing that belonged to those that weren’t at fault… I regret it, and yet, I think I did the right thing when I finally escaped.”

“I don’t know exactly what happened, nor exactly why, so I can’t really comment with any accuracy, but I suppose that it’s fine so long as you have learned from any of your mistakes and strive to avoid them in the future. Can’t really change the past, after all.”

“I suppose… I miss my brother. He was a silly boy that, at one point, after being encouraged by his friends… He tried to peep on me while I was bathing, and failed so horribly that he had to be fed miracle fruits for a week…” the wolven girl giggled, “I hope he isn’t doing anything stupid like that nowadays… He’d get hurt again…”

“Miracle fruits? Is white and grey the natural colour of your hair?”

“No, that was the transformation’s fault… Why?”

“You said that he had to be fed miracle fruits for some time, but a normal town of mostly ordinary people would hardly be able to obtain a large number of them, even if they are the worst, least desired, and least effective of all.”

“I hadn’t realised that it was odd before I left… They just grew in our farms, and on our trees… However, you haven’t explained yourself yet,” Zhi Qiu Ya tensed up slightly, as if preparing to attack.

“It’s just that I think I might have seen him during my travels.”

“Oh. Oh? You’ve seen my brother?” she rose immediately, pushing away the hand that had continued to scratch near her ear absentmindedly, “Tell me what that person looked like, what he did, how he spoke like, everything! Tell me!”

“Eh… He had brown hair, dark eyes, looked thin and very young, carried a bag full of miracle fruits, and was rather lacking in caution and wariness despite being in the wilderness.”

“Yes, that must have been him!” Zhi Qiu Ya exclaimed, her tail wagging vigorously, “That silly kid would never pay attention to me or his parents. He has eaten the most miracle fruits out of everyone there, so he’ll probably be fine if he has any form of cultivation-”

“He does not.”

“That moron. Then again, he wasn’t ever good at anything to do with energy, so he probably decided that eating more fruits would be just as good as cultivating… That silly kid… He is a good person, however. When I was being mistreated, he was always on my side, making sure that I would always have enough food and be able to remain in our home, even if he was the younger one…”

“Seems like you had a nice time before the living plague… If I could look directly at your memories, I’d do so to enjoy that kind of experience…” Wei Yi muttered, doing that exact thing.

“You didn’t have family?”

“Not in the closer, more limited sense. My parents died when I was young, I had no siblings – not that I know of, anyway. Perhaps there were countless brothers and sisters that I knew nothing about, but I don’t think that really counts,” she replied, storing away the memories obtained through the spiritual will thread into a specific section of the Ascendant’s Library, “Out of interest, has your condition been deteriorating, or is it mostly as it was when the transformation initially completed?”

“Mostly the same. I don’t know what it depends on, but it changes on occasion. At times, I will change every few hours, for a few hours, sometimes there will almost be a gap of an entire day. The smallest amount of time that I have had between my animal mind stepping in was half an hour.”

“You did mention that…”

After a short pause, Zhi Qiu Ya looked outside and noted that the sun had already risen quite significantly, “Anyway, we have spent quite some time here, and I would like to do something else on my own. If there’s nothing else, I’ll see you later.”

“No, nothing. Have a good time and try to control your own state of mind. I’m sure there’s some way to correct your issue,” Wei Yi said, as the prolonged contact with this woman allowed her to gain a little more of an insight about the living plague and the effects that it had upon her, although she wasn’t yet confident in suggesting any actual kind of approaches to correcting or otherwise influencing it.

Perhaps the only thing she could be certain about was that cultivating spiritual will would likely lead to improvement, although it could empower both states of self instead and allow the wolven mind to develop into a secondary identity with its own set of memories, opinions and views, at which point it would develop into something classed as split personality disorder, which wasn’t something that she wanted to inflict upon the poor wolven woman, hence why she didn’t suggest it.

Zhi Qiu Ya departed, leaving Wei Yi to remain in her seat and ponder.