Races: Online

The creature tilted its head at Han Jing for a couple of moments before it started to move away from him. It moved like a cat, its paws pattering down the street and went down on its merry way. And when it was finally gone, it was in that moment that he let out a breath. 

Han Jing raised a hand to his forehead and wiped the cold sweat off his brow. He glanced at his screen and almost expected that he'd unlock [ Skill - Terrain Camouflage ] but that wasn't the case.

That would have been too easy, even for him. 

It wasn't like he had blended with his surroundings either. He was literally just standing outside of the door. And yet this still gave him the creeps. What was he supposed to do now? He wasn't going to be stuck in this place would he? He had multiple sources of inspirations to draw from, media, games and series—something like this would have been familiar wouldn't it?

He had passed through a street and then everything changed.

Not everything, but he got what he meant. Han Jing pulled out his phone from his pocket and opened his browser—he hoped the internet worked. And thankfully it did. Wherever he was, it didn't stop the influence of Races: Online on him and he hoped that it would remain that way. He wasn't in their world, the escape word he used didn't work at all.

And this place resembled his world.

It was still his world.

But it wasn't his world. A fairytale came to mind, the image of a little girl passing through a mirror and ending up in another world that simply looked like the opposite of his world. Han Jing sighed but that was what came to him for some reason. "Through the looking glass…" His [ Mana Sense ] still presented itself as Active despite him not actually sensing anything.

It was a magical phenomena to him. 

And yet how was he going to escape?

He looked at the street that he had passed through… would it be as simple as retracing his steps back?

.

.

.

The staff crashed against the monster's head and sent the creature reeling backwards into the building. The pink-haired man backed away from it, crossing several feet as he bit back down a curse. He clutched his bleeding arm and held out his staff in a defensive position, "Any time now—"

Dai Song Lan's spear barrelled down from above him, it sped towards the monkey-like entity and struck against its head. Something exploded as its remains scattered all over the city, a rain of entrails that soaked the streets in its blood.

A ghostly apparition appeared and then faded away from its body. A creature like that would return once it had gathered spiritual energy again, but for when they'd gather enough to maintain a physical form again. That would take some time. 

Mou Gu scrunched up his nose, "I really don't like clean-up duty."

The sound of someone landing down beside the pink-haired man made him sigh as he glanced at the taller man. They had come down from the four-storey building to have a better and unrestricted aim, it forced Mou Gu to act as decoy. "You messed up its head, you can clean that up for me."

"Are you okay?"

Mou Gu pursed his lips and looked at the long scratches that ran down his arm, it had hurt like a bitch but he wasn't going to whine about it. "I'm alright, I really do wish that we made someone else do this. Isn't the new brat supposed to handle this? Where'd they go?" He was going to whine about something else though.

"He's in university." Dai Song Lan shrugged.

The short and terse replies that his partner gave him was always something that he had to get used to. Mou Gu sighed and placed his staff into his storage bracelet, "Excuses, that didn't stop me from helping out when I was a culinary student. Aren't you still studying?"

The man didn't have a reply for that.

Mou Gu was right and the man couldn't argue about that. Not that he would, his friend had their own little world. "Is this all?" Dai Song Lan looked around their vicinity.

Mou Gu's eye twitched, "Are you still looking for monsters to destroy, geez. Youth." The headquarters only spoke of one incident and he hoped that it would remain that way. What was a monkey-beast doing in their city even? It didn't make much sense, but he needed to remain vigilant.

He clasped his hands together and concentrated.

He activated his spiritual sense and spread it across his immediate surroundings—and even further than his usual reach. Even if it was faint, any strange and foreign qi or spiritual creature within the premise of their city had to be searched and hunted down.

Mou Gu ignored the most normal spiritual creatures that lurked across the city, they were usually harmless, he moved past the Heavenly Jade Pavilion, its people were always registered and he tried not to encroach his senses on the districts that didn't belong to the Shen's. If they had a problem in the black market lord's territory, it was for them to resolve.

The man didn't actually plan to check his own shop that much, nothing lingered much there except for the occasional spirits of animals and the qi of the inhabitants… but he did it and noticed a strange entity loitering around his shop. He opened his eyes and rubbed his face, "Who's that?" He turned to see Dai Song Lan already harvesting the remains of the creature. "Hey, I'll leave that to you, I gotta get back to my place."

Dai Song Lan didn't even ask why.

Mou Gu wasn't even in the mood to be flirty. He wagged a finger at them, "There's someone at my place—so if I don't make it back here in twenty minutes, come check on me!" This was simple protocol but the guy needed to be reminded of that.

"Hmm?" The other man raised his head, holding the spear in his hand to filter and poke through the body parts. If there was any beast core in it, then the spear-bearer would have his lucky day. It probably would have fetched a good price at the market.

Materials and resources were rare nowadays.

Mou Gu shook his head, "Forget about it." He wasn't one of the Four Pillars of the Shen for nothing, even if he was the least combatant ready. Pooling the qi around his feet, the man made his way back to his shop's premise to find the intruder.