The Rescue
"Call Yue Lan," Han Chen said, his voice cutting through the tension.
"I called her an hour ago—she said she was heading to check on Sophia's apartment. But then... nothing. She stopped responding through our connection." Hye Won's worry bled through every word. "I wanted to use your all-seeing ability, but it wasn't working. I was about to tell you and go myself."
Hmm. Of course it wasn't working—we were separated by a realm boundary. The functionality would naturally be limited to basic communication. Had this happened a month ago, well... I might've had to halt my cultivation mid-stage just to ensure their safety. It's unwise to let enemies persist when you have the power to eliminate them easily. But she wasn't in mortal danger yet—the protection I'd left on her hadn't been triggered.
"Check now," he said calmly.
Han Chen unfolded his spirit sense, and suddenly 200 miles of space lit up in his mind like a vast map. With just a glance, he found her—Sophia, bound inside some kind of facility. Yue Ming was there too, along with hackers and that eccentric researcher, Shan Yue. Dr. Sophia looked drugged, already had a bullet wound in her leg, and they were interrogating her while accessing her phone.
But their intrusion attempts kept hitting a wall—Han Chen had given Yue Lan a counter-AI device long ago. Smart girl. He listened in and quickly pieced together their goal: hijack Sophia's research, pass it off as their own, gather enough dirt for lawsuits. Now they were asking about Dr. Xia.
Yue Lan was 12 miles away, unconscious in a cargo van, heading toward the same facility. They'd either taken her down fast or used poison. "So?" he mused to himself. "Should I kill them from here, or just knock them out and let the police handle it with a little mental suggestion? Sophia's already revealed too much..."
"I'll kill him myself," Hye Won snarled, rage flaring at seeing her friend's condition. Their bond ran too deep to ignore this.
She took a breath, composing herself. "I'm close to peak grandmaster realm. Yue Lan's still at transformed Jin peak level, yet somehow they caught her. I told her so many times not to slack off... look where that got her. Her qi channels are sealed, but she's not even struggling."
She paused, calculating. "Their guards? Just two master-levels and one below that. You could help her while I deal with that devil Yue Ming. But listen—only Sophia's kidnapping is known to the authorities. You don't need to get involved in her rescue directly. I'll handle that. CSMA is already monitoring any connection between us and supernatural incidents. Getting you involved would make them suspicious and paint Sophia as a liability. I can fight normally, leave traces... make it look like a martial arts fight. Not everything has to end in killing and perfect cover-ups."
"You can fight, sure, but we can't just beat them up and walk away. They might've learned things about the enhancers, and besides..." He paused. "I don't plan on keeping him around much longer. So I'll wipe their memories—solve the immediate problem. I'll drop you off at Sophia's location. If anyone tries to leave that perimeter, I'll restrain them. There's no active surveillance inside, but there are voice recordings. Whatever you're planning, don't talk until I arrive."
Han Chen mapped the enemy building's layout with his spirit will. Hye Won nodded, her heart hammering against her ribs. He swept her up invisibly, shooting across hundreds of kilometers in under a minute. He temporarily reinforced her body to handle the g-force—thoughtful, really. After dropping her off, he stayed outside, watching.
Hye Won struck immediately. Two quick slashes to the guards' heads, and they crumpled, unconscious. Inside came a burst of shouting, followed by the crash of breaking glass and screams. She was handling things her way, alright.
Han Chen didn't wait around.
His Spirit Will swept in the other direction, locking onto Yue Lan. She was similarly drugged—dazed, her cultivation sealed by some crude acupoint technique. Within seconds, he disabled the block, unsealed her meridians, and activated the soul corridor, gently taking control to steady her unconscious mind.
Seeing through her eyes, he instantly purified the toxins from her system and had her spit them out, then unshackled her restraints. The attackers were baffled by the sudden change—seeing her aura flare up, they panicked. One grabbed her from behind to choke her while another came in swinging with a qi-enhanced punch.
But Han Chen was in control now.
She leaned back just as the thug's arm snaked toward her neck. Before it could reach her throat, she sank her teeth into his forearm, drawing a scream, then slammed her qi-hardened skull backward. Bone crunched as his nose collapsed. Without missing a beat, she twisted, wrenching his arm over the edge of the seat and snapping it clean at the elbow.
Another man's punch flew at her—her pentagonal qi shield flared to life, absorbing the blow and rebounding it with brutal precision, shattering his knuckles. She drove her knee into his ribs, then struck two precise acupoints—temple and sternum—sealing his energy channels like snapping off valves. He slumped instantly, limbs useless.
Han Chen, controlling Yue Lan's body through the soul corridor, moved with precision that defied even master-level instincts.
The transformed Jin thug raised a pistol—far too slow. A flick of her finger and the barrel twisted inward, the metal turning molten, wrapping around his hand like soft wax. He shrieked, unable to drop the weapon. She vaulted the aisle, her foot slamming into his chest, launching him into the van wall with a violent thud. The whole van rocked.
Another attacker lunged from the side, trying to grapple her with some refined technique—he got thrown back into a seat and pinned there by a glowing qi spike through his thigh. A conjured shield from the master cultivator flared up, but Yue Lan's foot, burning with Han Chen's refined inner energy, tore right through it and hammered his gut, folding him in half.
One tried to bolt toward the front—she snatched his collar, slammed his face into the floor, left him bleeding and groaning. The last man drew a blade; she caught his wrist, twisted it until something snapped, and rammed the hilt into his throat. He dropped like a stone.
Breathing steady, surrounded by groaning bodies in the flickering interior lights, she stood completely unfazed.
Han Chen's voice echoed through her mind, cold and smooth: "Now hold steady. I'm not done yet."
She was just a transformed Jin cultivator—but fueled by Han Chen's inexhaustible energy, she'd countered every strike with supernatural precision. If he'd handled this personally, they'd all have died like brittle glass. But this? This was far more entertaining.
Blood streaked the walls. Bones had crunched. The driver, panicking, tried to stop and escape—only to find the steering wheel fusing with his hands, locking him in place as the van kept moving forward like it was possessed. Pure chaos.
Finally, a hand punched clean through the partition between rows. Yue Lan slid into the front seat, bloodied but wearing a faint smile. "Hi," she said to the wide-eyed driver, tilting her head almost playfully. "Please drive fast."
The blood on her clothes wasn't hers, of course.
Inside her mind, Yue Lan was stirring—disoriented—only to be hit by flashes of violence mid-battle. Blood, broken bones, chaos. She was fighting like some kind of demon, her own body a blur of lethal precision. It felt surreal, like she'd been dropped into an action film she didn't remember auditioning for.
Then she heard his voice, calm and infuriatingly casual: "Yeah, I took care of your problem. It was Yue Ming who kidnapped your friend Sophia. We're already en route—you'll be there in twenty minutes. Don't worry, no checkpoints ahead. I checked. See ya..."
Wait—what just happened? she thought, completely stunned.
"You fought bravely, girl," he replied with that faint laugh of his.
As full awareness returned, she gasped and looked down at herself—blood-soaked, breath heaving—then at the wreckage around her. Unconscious men, limbs bent at unnatural angles, thick and heavy silence. The van reeked of scorched metal and sweat, but oddly, not a single drop of blood stained the floor. He'd even vaporized the mess.
She shuddered.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the compound, Han Chen stepped inside to find Hye Won already standing over a pile of defeated bodies—some groaning and spitting blood, others completely limp. She'd moved with ruthless efficiency, unshackling Sophia, who was still muttering nonsense about retroviral sequences under the drug's influence.
Three others—a pair of hackers and some jittery researcher—tried to flee. Han Chen's Spirit Will locked them down mid-step and dragged them back like rag dolls. A quick strike knocked them unconscious. The remaining conscious staff watched in horror as their lab got dismantled by an unseen force, their systems fried, communication lines severed.
Han Chen, still invisible, fried their systems, checked for backups or outside communications. Found none. Clean sweep.
They waited. Minutes later, the sound of tires crunching gravel announced the arrival of a van at the compound's front entrance.
Yue Ming stirred on the floor, dazed but awake. Relief flickered across his bruised face—his reinforcements had finally arrived. Maybe now the tide would turn. That woman might've taken down one master, but surely not all three?
Then the side doors of the van opened.
Out stepped Yue Lan, absolutely soaked in blood—not hers—her expression carved from stone. The terrified driver scrambled away, swinging open the rear doors to reveal a scene of utter carnage. Yue Ming's hope died in his throat.
Yue Lan's gaze flicked past Han Chen's invisible presence and landed squarely on Yue Ming. Slowly, deliberately, she picked up a pistol from the floor—then lowered it. No need for that.
Han Chen released Yue Ming's restraints. The man turned to bolt.
Too slow.
She lunged, slamming him into the ground and unleashing everything she'd bottled up for months. Her fists rained down until he was unconscious and barely recognizable.
Moments later, the three martial masters and the driver were dragged in behind her, unconscious and thoroughly battered.
Shan Yue, the lab's eccentric researcher, tried to wedge himself into the silence with a forced grin. He hadn't seen much—just two women absolutely tearing through his colleagues. He cleared his throat nervously.
"You're Yue Lan, right? I figured, with all that rage." He tried to sound confident. "Smart girl, though. See, I set a trigger—if I don't check in every thirty minutes, our people come running. That guy you just crushed actually mocked me for being so paranoid. Well, joke's on him now, isn't it? Timer's almost up."
He gestured weakly toward his phone. "Hand me that, and just... walk away. Everyone wins."