Kepa Ying tries not to throw up inside the helmet as she stands in front of the ship. It rocks with the waves, and she can’t help but think that the beast was correct to want her to not follow him into there. She had not followed the instructions perfectly, having decided that she could deal with keeping her eyes open while they traveled to the ship. That had been an incredible mistake. The speed at which the planks flew by was beyond anything she’d ever experienced, and it was all she could do to not lose everything she’d ever eaten just standing still. Going onto that swaying, sinking sloop was a death sentence for her stomach.

Standing straight and steady, certainly not swaying, she watches as the beast struggles at trying to climb the bow of the boat, the wooden planks reject his advances, and he falls off the dock after scrabbling for a hold for several seconds.Sometimes he almost made her forget that he was an ascended beast, with all the instincts and instabilities that brought. Monkeys try to climb, when it would obviously be easier for him to have just jumped up onto the ship. Now he was going to have to swim through the sea into that hole down at the bottom, instead of either jumping up easily or using the plank she was standing next to in order to just walk up onto the deck.

Behind her, the fire spreads throughout the town. The beast may not be impacted by it, but those were still people affiliated with her territory being set ablaze. Granted, they were less affiliated than anyone on the mainland, since they traded constantly with the Grandmist Sect, and some of them were probably merchants from that territory anyway. So she didn’t need to be too invested into doing something about the fire, but it was still probably something a hero should look into. That did mean going on foot, and the leg armor was still concerning.

Apparently the thing could go off at any time, and there was nothing she could do to stop that.

That being the case, she was probably still safer while wearing the leg armor, as the amount of damage she would have taken from being hit by a Chosen of Heaven far outstripped the actual amount of damage, and the only thing she could think of to explain that discrepancy between what should have been and what actually occurred was the fact that she was wearing the leg. Besides, with how tightly it clamped onto her, she didn’t think she’d be able to get it off either way.

Deciding to risk the chance of sudden acceleration, Kepa Ying just runs toward the edge of the shore. The fire was starting to reach the docks, so regardless she was going to have to worry about that. Even if it was on top of a bunch of water, the floor was still made of wood. If she remembered her elements correctly, wood feeds fire. Water did extinguish fire, but she was pretty sure that didn’t help at all when there was nothing left to stand on, and the metal leg and helmet kept her from being able to swim.

Approaching the city, she sees a man standing at the edge of the docks to the right, a sphere of white metal floating next to him. In his left hand, he holds an arm of black metal, standing out from the surroundings lit up like the day had never left by the glow of the sphere from the fact that the black was not lifted a single shade by the intensity of the bright light, either from the metal or from the fire around them. He walks slowly toward the docks, every building around him burning.

“Hey, that’s mine,” Kepa Ying can’t help but yell out. This must be one of the robbers. She had gotten the helmet back easily enough, so retrieving the arm should be a simple matter as well.

It escaped her mind that it was in fact her master that retrieved the helmet, and that she wouldn’t have survived having a plant eat her from the inside.

“Oh? I have something to return to you then,” the man says, lifting his arm across his body. With that assured, the girl walks toward him, sure of his good intentions. When she is a step away, he swings the arm into her face, backhand slapping the owner of the arm that had previously struck him. Grabbing onto the incoming item as it approached, Kepa Ying holds onto the metal arm as she spins around through the air back the way she came, toward the boat. Ah, but a barrel roll made someone invincible while they were flying through the air. At least she had that going for her, even though the rapid rotation of the heavens and earth made her nauseous beyond all belief.

Smashing into the beast headfirst, she lands on the ship, tangling it for a moment in her flailing limbs. Quickly putting the arm and helmet into her inventory, Kepa Ying staggers to her feet and lets loose the contents of her stomach over the edge of the rocking ship, gripping the bannister type thing around the edge of the deck like her life was depending on keeping hold of the wooden rail lest she be thrown into the ocean and drowned in vomit.

“Oof,” said the beast, clambering back to his feet. He was still missing the one eye, but didn’t look like he was any more damaged than when she had last seen him, despite being in close proximity to a Chosen of Heaven. That was a good sign, so she takes a step forward and stands next to him, facing the Chosen as he holds his rapier toward her master.

“Let me guess, you’re the one that beat up a small child for his playing card,” the Chosen of Heaven states, a trace of sarcasm in his voice. Kepa Ying wasn’t sure where that was coming from, but the tone made her anger flare up.

“I did not! I found that card fair and square, and he tried to claim it was his,” she rages, pulling the card out of her belt. “I was the one who put in the work to get to it, and he thinks he can just say it was his the whole time? No way, like anyone would believe that kind of excuse! If it’s laying out in the open, it’s finder’s keepers, and-”

Shooting forward, the Chosen snatches the card out of her hand, then slices forward into the beast, smashing the hilt of his rapier into the beast’s skull. He dodges backward as the creature snaps at him with ripping jaws, sliding onto the gangplank leading out of the ship, which starts to change angle, growing less steep by the moment.

“Hey, get out of here,” the beast tells her, not looking away from the Chosen.

“Right, sorry, I didn’t mean to get thrown here,” she apologizes, staying back for the moment, “that’s the only way off though.”

“Alright, just follow me off, then run,” he commands, taking a couple steps before leaping toward the Chosen headfirst, hands full of poison and staff respectively at his side. The Chosen of Heaven dodges to the side off the gangplank, now almost level with the ship, onto the dock, and the beast lands heavily on the wooden panel. Capitalizing on his opponent’s overextension, the Chosen of Heaven stabs directly downward, skewering the beast through the heart with his rapier and pinning it to the deck.

Taking that as her cue, Kepa Ying runs down the gangplank, or up at this point, water starting to spew up through the opening to the crew quarters down below. As she clears the dock, the plank slides off the surface, joining its ship as the whole thing sinks below the waves. Rather than stick around and watch the rest of the distraction, Kepa Ying runs back toward the shore. Back where the man had been standing, the fire was mostly off to the right in the residential district. The shopping area seemed mostly untouched, so she ducks into the first door she sees.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, since its location is right next to the place where a massive number of sailors work, the establishment is a purveyor of alcohol. It isn’t a very large space, just the front room and a door to the back, but the walls are covered in bottles of various types, with a counter near the back with a keg of something or other next to a bunch of metal mugs. Figuring it would be a better idea to hide than anything else, she opens the door to the back and sneaks in.

There are crates of probably more alcohol piled up in the back room, with no reasoning behind their placement. A couple of nearly empty crates are off to the side, probably of the most popular item on display. Deciding that she had a moment to think and catch her breath, Kepa Ying takes the time to take the helmet and arm back out of her inventory. Somewhat surprisingly, the helmet shows up right over her head again, while she had the arm pop into existence in front of her. It’s a mismatch from the leg. That irritates her for some reason, but she consoles herself with the fact that now she can block from the left or the right as long as she remembers whether to use her arm or leg.

It might be worthwhile to practice a few techniques that made use of the lopsided limb usage, but she wanted to get stronger as fast as she could! There was no time like the present at least. Hidden in a safe place, she sits down to start meditating, drawing the Energy of the Heavens into herself. The sooner she could advance in rank, the better.

The beast crashes through the wall. He blinks, then looks around the establishment Kepa Ying had chosen to hide in.

“Nice. How much to live here?”

“This is a liquor store.”

“You heard me.”