Gloria looked down. It was not the aqua weeds that were spread almost everywhere on the scene, but a hand.

A hand and an arm, bloated and full of sores, some of which were even showing exposed bones. It was a severely disfigured person, with only the upper half of their body and long hair splattered all over the swollen, broken and puss-covered face. Its lips were like two wrinkly leeches, oozing foul, thick liquid through the cracks on it.

“Save me.” This person had the voice of a young woman. “Please.”

Gloria forced herself to calm down. Some kind of chilling energy was creeping into her leg through her pant leg. Even with the protection from her Qi, the energy still began to gradually numb her muscles and tendons.

“Save me.” This woman whispered again: “Save me… please. There’s so much water…”

“I’m sorry.” Gloria pulled her leg away from this woman's grasp: “But you’re already dead.”

The woman froze for a moment, then her heavy and chunky eyelids lifted and cracked open, revealing a pair of almost liquified eyes. “Then… Stay with me… Stay with me…” She changed her words, with a gradually louder voice: “Stay with me. Come - come with me! Come with me! COME WITH ME!”

With a rope made out of weeds and grass tied to her exposed, broken spine, this woman lunged at Gloria with her arms extending forward.

Gloria grunted, she tried to jump back and dodge. But the numbing, chiling energy remaining in her left ankle prevented her from fully moving away. She tumbled and almost fell onto the ground. A sharp pain shot through her body from her right shin, followed by a stream of similar chilling energy rushing into her body. She was scratched.

“Come with me!” This woman wailed, crawling on the ground towards Gloria and leapt into the air using her two arms.

Gloria pushed herself again and jumped out of the way. Her Qi was flowing through her legs, trying to stop the cold energy and push it out of her body. It was difficult, but she was doing it. She searched her pockets while trying to move further away. In the inner pocket of her jacket, that was where she kept one or two talismans folded up just for emergencies like this.

“Come! Come with me!” Somehow, when this woman failed to grab Gloria once again and splashed some of her face and the skin on her forearms on the ground, she started giggling. When she turned around and faced Gloria again, almost half of her face was gone, revealing the gray, stained and cracked skeletal bones underneath.

Just when Gloria clenched the two folded talismans in her right hand and readied herself for the next incoming attack, the woman sunk into the ground, leaving a few ripples behind.

The woman’s figure disappeared, but something else did not: a small part of the rope made of weeds and grass connected to her broken spine remained on the surface. Before Gloria could react, the rope sped through the ground through the space between her legs.

Gloria felt the hairs on her back and the back of her neck stood up. She immediately turned back, thrusting her right arm forward with the two talismans infused with her Qi.

Shockwaves and fire exploded when her palm made contact with the half a woman’s forehead. Her feet were lifted off the ground, her entire body was thrown into the air. Her face and her right arm were burning, along with other parts with exposed skin. But one benefit she did not expect was that the chilling energy in her body seemed to be instantly weakened from her close range exposure to this explosion.

She tried her best to control and maneuver her body midair, and only managed to land her right leg. This was enough for her. Taking advantage of the enhanced jumping and balancing ability granted to her by the Spirit Cat Style, she bounced herself in the air, right across a corner of the electric substation and to the side of the concrete road not covered with dirt and mud.

This time, she was able to land on both feet and with much better composure. Her right ankle felt slightly weak and pained with a tingling sore from the burst of maneuver she just performed. But she did not have time to care about that. She needed to get away and get back to the Fragrant Chrysanthemum Temple.

“Come with me!” The woman reappeared in front of Gloria, but this time her entire body was fractured, exposing dark tendrils and some sort of dark knot made of grass and weeds in the chest cavity. Dark smoke arose from the cracks on her body, her eyes and her mouth, as she sped on the street with her two barely recognizable arms.

Gloria kept running. Her right ankle was feeling weaker and weaker. The numbness in her left leg lingered. She could not go as fast as she wanted, and she could feel the cold aura and the foul smell from the woman behind her inching closer.

Her eyes scanned the ground in front of her, and at the foot of a wall on her right, there was some broken glass on the ground. From the look of the shards they looked like they were from either a broken stained window or a shattered beer bottle.

She forced herself to jump toward and grab the broken glass shards in her hand. With the protection of her Qi her palm and fingers were not injured by the sharp edges. The next moment, she pushed her Qi inside, making the light green shards glow in an ethereal purple color.

“Come with me! Come with me!” The woman’s wails had become more throaty and hoarse, Gloria could even hear some traces of bone cracking mixed in.

Gloria spun around, flinging the glass shards in her hand infused with her Qi using all the might she could muster up right now. The glowing glass shards blasted the half of a woman right in the face, their edges infused with Qi shredded her face and some of the tendrils in her chest cavity.

This half of a woman let out an ear-piercing scream as she recoiled on the ground, her arms covering her wounded face like an actual human. This did not make Gloria hesitate for even one second. Instead, she concentrated the rest of her Qi on the tips of her right index and middle fingers and thrusted them at the woman’s forehead as if she was using a dagger or a short sword.

The tiny light blue blade made of Qi extended from her fingers impaled the woman’s forehead. Her Qi disrupted and destroyed something within this woman’s skull. And after a very brief moment of immobility, the figure of this woman exploded. Foul ashes as well as wet and rotten aqua weeds splashed all over the place.

Gloria wiped her face. Then turned around and tried to limp away. Every muscle in her limbs was sore, but it was not the time to rest yet.