Going back the way she came was much easier when she didn’t need to hide behind random pieces of cargo. The dock workers just ignored her going through their work space, and she could just dodge through the various people walking back and forth from boat to dock and back again. From dock to warehouses were less crowded, because even with the same number of people they had to walk farther and as such wouldn’t be as densely packed into the space, but if Kepa Ying started moving out and away from the path she had taken to get to this place in the first place, she’d definitely get lost and never be able to find her way to the hideout ever again.

Once she managed to make her way back into the actual town part of the area, with all the muggers, shops, and random money laying out for anyone to grab, she resolved herself to put in a good deal of work arduously searching every nook and cranny of the area for her wayward beast. With its nature looking to be more aligned with a tree dwelling creature than anything else, it was likely it was going to be hiding on some rooftop or another. Since it had come to her in the alley from on top of the roof, and brought her along on its quest for loot along the way across another full set of high up places, it would make sense that it would be hiding above the sight of anyone who might have the ability to sense it.

Imagine her surprise when she ran into the beast running toward her.

He passes her quickly, and she starts to turn around to follow after when the beast’s tail wraps around her arm and starts pulling her along anyway. Apparently he had already been heading back, and she had probably thrown a knot into his plan by leaving instead of just waiting for him to get there and let her know what the plan was once they had reconnected. Well, just in case, she would still fill him on what she had found.

“I found the muggers down the docks, there’s a warehouse that doesn’t have anything anywhere near it, and that’s where they went. They want a password to go through the door.”

The beast says something in response, and then she feels something smack into the back of her head. A screen with icons, like the one on the helmet, suddenly appears in front of her face, with an empty box labeled ‘items’. To the right of the word items was a tab with the designation of ‘key items’, which seemed like a useful distinction to make. There’s the regular junk, and then the stuff that you actually need. It was a shame she couldn’t even convince anyone that the things she considered key items were that. Maybe if she tapped on that slot, and then tapped on an item, it would be labeled as important somehow.

Instead, tapping on the ‘key items’ tab changed the list from absolutely nothing to ‘Deadly Poison x1’ and ‘Metal Leg (Right)’. Was that in fact…

Tapping on the ‘Metal Leg (Right)’ causes a metal right leg to pop out of absolutely nothing in front of Kepa Ying, which is somewhat inconvenient when she is in the process of attempting to run in a dress. Catching a foot with her face, she grabs the calf and doesn’t actually slow down at all because her arm is still being held by the beast’s tail as it just kept running at full speed. It was just like at night, and she really hoped that this wouldn’t result in a repeat of that event. She wasn’t sure exactly why she wasn’t physically tired, but she did want to sleep at some point. Probably tonight, hopefully.

Unlike when she had gone down the docks, the workers actually dodged out of the way of the running beast. There was probably a slight difference in perceived threat between the two of them. Child, versus sharp toothed humanized beast with a high minimum rank. At least a few crates ended up smashing open as the workers dropped their loads and jumped out of the way, which was just more evidence to Kepa Ying that her master was clearly a very obviously powerful creature.

She did not notice the Chosen of Heaven chasing them.

“Hold on a minute, I have this leg armor and I want to put it on!”

The beast looks back for a moment, then starts running faster.

Without even giving her a second to prepare, the beast pulls Kepa Ying closer with his tail, and the leg flips down out of her face onto her torso on its own. She accidentally loses her grip on the metal, and the object drops, only to jump up as her right leg passes over in and clamp down like it was eating her from the bottom up. She doesn’t fall over, mainly because the beast keeps pulling her while the metal scrapes against the wooden dock, until it catches on a plank and shoots a massive blast of fire.

That launches the one leg forward, past the beast, who is dragged along through the air as the girl flies through the air like she had taken one giant leap for mankind, tail still wrapped around her arm. Seeing the warehouse over to the side, Kepa Ying points at the building, yelling “that’s the one over there!”

Then, her foot hits the ground and just starts sliding. Automatically, she tries to put her left leg in front of the right one to keep running, but the autonomous acceleration is too much for her physical form to keep up with and instead, her most of her ends up flapping behind as the leg just keeps speeding up toward the end of the dock. The beast pulls himself up onto Kepa Ying’s back, like a shoulder monkey of some sort, and the leg adjusts its trajectory without her input toward the closed door.

About two meters away from colliding bodily with the wooden portal, and probably breaking every bone in her body, the leg suddenly stops. Kepa Ying’s most of her does not, and she takes a single step forward as the beast crashes into the door, then through the door, then pulls her through the no longer actually a door. Most of her momentum still retained, she flies headfirst through the frame into the building, where the muggers are playing some sort of card game on an oddly shaped wooden table near a pile of treasures, including the helmet they had stolen from her.

Ahead of her, the beast lands in a forward roll, still holding onto her arm. Kepa Ying, not having bled off momentum through collision with a solid object, passes him by in the air, and is caught on the arm, flipping around to fly legs first toward the biggest mugger. Somehow the creature’s tail seems to lengthen like a bungee cord after the initial flipping, providing slack that pulls the beast along instead of dispersing more momentum. Instead, Kepa Ying hits the mugger with a flying, armored kick to the face while slamming a sharp-toothed beast into the guy sitting next to him like a flail made of meat that was still struggling.

Through the power of what she assumes is Heavenly Energy, the leg blasts another gout of flame into the mugger’s face upon contact, and he is shot flying backward into the wall of the warehouse, which, similarly to the door, no longer exists after contact is made. The beast is probably the worse off for that encounter, since the definitely not one of the muggers who had stolen from Kepa Ying earlier was completely unharmed by the admission of beast to face, and also had to deal with the fact that it was now being pulled back out of the warehouse through the doorhole by the sudden reversal of momentum.

That was when the Chosen of Heaven showed up at the entrance, and slammed them both into the ground with a rapier, carefully holding an assortment of playing cards and coins with the entirety of his left arm.

Smashing down into the floor boards, the beast seems to take just as much damage from the force of the slam as Kepa Ying does. Obviously, that was just the Chosen of Heaven’s granted cheat abilities taking effect. Everyone knew that the Chosen were able to easily fight against those of higher rank as though their more powerful cultivation was absolutely nothing. Well, it was a nice dream while it lasted. The Chosen were unstoppable. As soon as this one had them in his sights back at the mountain, they were doomed. She had only been deluding herself into thinking they could escape and keep running forever.

Before the final blow could come down though, the human that had taken the beast to the face flies over Kepa Ying, a wooden bat in hand, and slams the wooden pole into the Chosen’s face. He launches out of the building, hits the water, and skips over the waves three times before slamming through a ship, the cards and coins accepting absolutely none of the momentum and just falling into a pile onto the ground right outside the doorway. Turning back around at, or at least toward the general direction of, the two imprinted into the floorboards, the batter states calmly, “I’m sure that this is all Wang Yun’s fault, so I’m willing to forgive your unprovoked assault on my person, if you would in exchange do something for me.”