Chapter 223 - A Cut-Scene

The creature roared at her and ran towards her.

Cheng Xiu smiled, and sheathed her sword at the last minute.

The Queen's eyes widened. She guessed what the next step of actions from the girl would be. That damned fire!

"Ghost Flame!" Cheng Xiu screamed, her palm extended towards the creature.

The black flame burst out of her hand and engulfed the creature.

The beast roared in pain. What was left of it was ashes on the ground.

She turned her head towards the Queen. "I killed it."

The queen stared at her and then at the creature that was nothing more than grey ashes in discontent. She thought of the spells and things that she could do to counter act against the girl.

"There is something that I really hate about humans like you," the Woman said, "you are too resourceful."

Cheng Xiu bowed her head. "Thank you."

She raised her hand threw the Ghost Flame that was still in her hand at the woman.

The woman laughed.

She dodged to the side.

The flame hit the wall of the corridor and disappeared.

The green robed Queen looked at the wall with a curious gaze. "You flame…it is limited to things that contain Qi."

Cheng Xiu pursed her lips. She guessed that the woman might have already guessed what her weakness was.

"And it is the specific Qi that exists in living things," the Queen continued, "it will not consume the Qi in the air or even the Qi of spells."

Cheng Xiu tried to keep her face neutral.

"And every time you use the spell," the Queen continued to say, "Every time you use it, you are sacrificing a large portion of your power to create it. If it kills things, you get Qi in return, otherwise, you loose a large portion of your Qi for nothing!"

San Zhe stared at the woman and then at Cheng Xiu. From the near non-reaction that Cheng Xiu was giving, it really seemed to be the case.

The woman let out a delighted laugh. "It is not a skill, is it? It is a creature!"

Cheng Xiu frowned. "What?"

"How can there be such a great skill?" the woman asked. "It is a creature! And that too from the Chasm! That is the only place that I can think of, where this creature could come from!"

Cheng Xiu narrowed her eyes.

San Zhe frowned. Though he was curious about the girl's powers and its sources, he worked out that they needed to finish the mission in a timely manner.

San Zhe tried to attack the Queen while her attention was on Cheng Xiu.

There was a flash of crimson and a burst of flames.

Cheng Xiu blinked in surprise to see that San Zhe attacked the Queen.

The side of her cheekbones were singed.

Cheng Xiu jumped forwards, using the moment that the NPC was screaming in pain to attack her side with her sword.

The creature jumped to the other side, only to be met with San Zhe's trident again.

She screamed again. "Why! I even gave you a chance to leave safely!"

Cheng Xiu shook her head. "I told you before. We have a mission to complete and I have a curse to break."

"I-I can! I c-can remove that Hua sibling's curse!"

Cheng Xiu stilled for a moment.

That was enough for the Queen to dash away.

Cheng Xiu cursed and ran after her.

San Zhe and Yaksha followed her moments.

"What if she is telling the truth?" San Zhe asked.

"What are the chances that she has that kind of means?" Cheng Xiu asked instead of giving him a direct rebutal.

San Zhe nodded. That was right. Why would the curse even exist if the Queen could just remove it at will? And even if the woman could, What if there was some other price to pay for doing that kind of a favor though? What if the price to pay is something even worse than the Loophole curse that Xiao Hua put on the girl?

"It was a trap?" San Zhe asked her.

"Bingo," Cheng Xiu said. "Now run faster!"

"You don't want her to meet up with her brother," he said with a gasp.

"We have seen how powerful these twins are together," Cheng Xiu said to him, "The chances of the two killing us with a snap increases with them meeting each other. We have seen it with the first set of twins and Da Hua and Xiao Hua. Apart, they are manageable, together, they are on hard mode."

"You want to make the difficulty of the mission be low."

"Mmm."

"I think it is low already," San Zhe commented.

Cheng Xiu gave him a side glance. "Brother San, she is a witch and someone who knows our fighting style to some extent. That reminds me, hey! You!"

San Zhe looked on in fear as Cheng Xiu called Yaksha with a disrespectful tone. Then again, she did find out that she had to fight some great monster at her weakened state because of his meddling.

"I want to ask you," Cheng Xiu said in a strained voice. "Would the Queens have observed us as she did if it was not for you?"

Yaksha thought about it for a moment. "No. They would not have known about you until you have killed the three Rat Counsellors. But the reason that woman contacted you now is not because of me. It is because you released those Red Flames."

Cheng Xiu gritted her teeth. "So this chase was inevitable?"

"It should be a scenario," San Zhe said to her.

"A Cut-Scene?" She asked.

He nodded.

Cut Scenes were special scenes that were created to develop the storyline of the game, to reveal clues or even to just connect the mission targets in various ways. It meant that, anyone who killed the last Rat Counsellor would meet this woman. She would also leave them and join her Brother to attack them later if they refuse to leave.

Cheng Xiu understood and sighed. "So it wasn't your fault."

"The Pickaxe wielding Rat might be though," Yaksha said to her, "she only used that puppet under my insistance because they are a lot more controllable than actual NPCs."

"So the Cut-Scene can also be modified?" Cheng Xiu asked in surprise.

"Otherwise?" he asked her. "You must remember one thing about the Other World: There is no constant. Every NPC can change the way that they act towards a player according to the player's actions. While in olden games there were only one or two ways that an NPC would react...or even how the NPCs of other contemporary games react, even though they have more than 10 ways that they can go, the other world has 20 ways. Twice as many. No player would get the same reaction out of the same NPCs. It all depends on the missions that you have taken, and your overall experience in the game."

Cheng Xiu nodded in understanding. This was something that she had gathered a bit of from the comments that the players had put in the blogs and vlogs of the game articles, but she was still surprised.

"So I guess the NPC meeting her brother is inevitable," San Zhe said with a sigh.

"Not necessarily," Yaksha said. "After all, what applies to the NPCs and Cut-scenes must also apply to the dungeons themselves and the game world itself."

San Zhe frowned. "You mean…the game will modify the dungeon?"

"Why does this game seem so unstable?" Cheng Xiu asked. "For a game that is five years of age, it seems too…flexible."

"And that makes it interesting," Yaksha said to her.

"I suppose."

"Lets see if you can catch up to the NPC then," Yaksha said with a laugh. "I believe that see is almost there!"

Cheng Xiu gasped and ran forward, increasing the speed.

San Zhe looked at her as she ran faster and faster, ahead of him. Her skin had started to have a luster to it.

He realised what she was doing. She was imitating Qi Burst to increase her physique.

San Zhe ran after her desparately.

Behind the two, Yaksha ran a bit faster, when he saw that he almost reached San Zhe's back, he pulled back a bit. It took a few seconds for him to adjust his pacing and run in tune with San Zhe, maintaining the distance.

That was correct. Yaksha was going at a much slower pace than he was used to so that he could stay behind the two of them. And he found it so difficult to do it without gaining the two players' attention to it.

The green silhouette of the Queen became visible to the three of them as they took a corner.

"Stop right there!" Cheng Xiu said. She knew that was a useless thing to say but she was fine with it. If it worked it worked.

San Zhe ran after her and was surprised by her words. But what he was surprised the most about was the fact that the woman actually stopped. Did the brother come in search of his sister? Did the other twin come already? Would they have to fight with the two of them now?

***

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