Xuanmiao's emerald-green eyes were exceptionally striking in the darkness. Her pupils had contracted into two razor-thin vertical slits, and the edges of her green irises shimmered with a faint golden halo.
Her gaze rested on the corrupted creatures still swarming past the territory's borders, her tail swaying rhythmically from side to side.
As if sensing Tongque's gaze, Xuanmiao withdrew her eyes from the window and locked onto her face.
There was only a calm, scrutinizing look in those vertical pupils.
For a brief moment, Tongque's mind went entirely blank. By the time she snapped out of it, a thin layer of cold sweat had broken out on her back, and goosebumps covered her skin.
“What's wrong?” Tiechui noticed her sister's stiffness. Following her gaze, she also saw the tiny black cat crouching in the shadows. “Why did Xuanmiao run over there?”
She was about to walk over and pick the cat up, but Tongque suddenly grabbed her sleeve.
Tiechui turned back in confusion, only to see Tongque looking at her and slowly shaking her head.
“...It's nothing.” Tongque let go of her sleeve, her voice so soft it was nearly drowned out by the explosions outside. “Don't disturb her.”
Tongque didn't know if normal kittens were like Xuanmiao, but she would never treat Xuanmiao as an ordinary creature again.
At least from that single exchange of looks, her intuition told her that the creature before her was not something she could afford to provoke.
Tiechui frowned. Though she didn't quite understand Tongque's reaction, she knew her sister well.
Tongque never got nervous for no reason. If she felt something was wrong, there was definitely a problem.
So, she stepped back, gripped her iron hammer tightly again, and turned her attention back to the battlefield outside.
Yet, Tongque's peripheral vision never left Xuanmiao.
Xuanmiao sauntered out of the shadows as if nothing had happened. Her pace was slow, and her tail was held high, its tip curved into a tiny question mark.
She walked over to a corner of the room where some unsorted clutter was piled.
Lowering her head, Xuanmiao extended a front paw and nudged the clutter.
A Corrupted Core the size of a baby's fist came rolling out.
Xuanmiao batted it in front of her with her paw, tilted her head to look at it, and then swiped it again. The Corrupted Core rolled a bit further away, only to be batted right back.
Tongque's pupils contracted slightly.
The Corrupted Core rolled back and forth under Xuanmiao's paw. Grayish-black mist swirled violently inside it, as if searching for a crack to escape through.
Yet, even though Xuanmiao's paw pads were in direct contact with the Corrupted Core's surface, the highly polluted mist showed absolutely no sign of corroding her.
Tongque nudged Tiechui's arm and gestured toward Xuanmiao with her chin.
Following her sister's gaze, Tiechui first saw the little black cat playing by herself, and then she noticed the object rolling around beneath her paw.
“Isn't that...” Tiechui rubbed her eyes to make sure she wasn't seeing things. “Isn't that a Corrupted Core unique to corrupted creatures?”
To Wu Yao, a Corrupted Core was merely the raw material for Niveya's Stone. But to ordinary people, it was a highly toxic, heavily polluted object. Direct contact would cause mana contamination, and prolonged exposure would lead to mental erosion.
Tiechui rushed over in three quick strides and scooped Xuanmiao up before the kitten could even react.
“Meow?” Xuanmiao looked up.
“You can't eat that!” Tiechui kicked the Corrupted Core far away and pointed her other finger at Xuanmiao's nose, lecturing her like a disobedient child.
“That's dirty! If you eat it, you'll get a stomachache, get sick, and die!”
She spoke with absolute sincerity, her expression as solemn as if she were conducting an important business negotiation.
Watching from the side, Tongque was almost amused by her sister's antics. But remembering her earlier observations of Xuanmiao, her smile faded before it could even form.
Xuanmiao stared at Tiechui for two seconds, then yawned.
After yawning, she leisurely hopped down from Tiechui, padded over to the other side of the room, sat down, and began to lick her front paw.
Incredibly aloof.
Tiechui froze in place, her expression shifting from solemn to awkward, and then from awkward to hurt.
“Is... Is she ignoring me?” Tiechui turned to Tongque for confirmation.
Tongque nodded silently.
“But you really can't eat that!”
Refusing to give up, Tiechui walked over, squatted in front of Xuanmiao, and kicked the Corrupted Core slightly closer to her again, trying to drive the point home with her actions.
“Look at the color. It's grayish-black and dirty! If you eat it, you'll—”
Xuanmiao stopped licking her paw and looked up at her.
Tiechui's voice grew softer and softer until she fell completely silent.
She silently placed the Corrupted Core into a small, sealed cloth bag, intending to hand it over to Wu Yao later.
'Xuanmiao must be hungry. Don't animals eat random things when they're hungry?'
Though she didn't know what cats ate... Goblins' staple food consisted of gray-moss mushrooms grown deep underground and protein-rich rockworms, but a cat probably wouldn't eat those.
To most surface creatures, the smell of underground mushrooms was akin to rotting wood, not to mention rockworms, which even dwarves found disgusting.
There was nothing else to feed her here, but she couldn't let Lady Wu Yao's cat starve either.
Tiechui hesitated, then pulled out a portion of her own rations from her Inventory.
It was a traditional goblin ration cake, made by drying gray-moss mushrooms from deep underground, grinding them into powder, and pressing them with mineral salts and a bit of fat. Grayish-green and as hard as an iron block, it had a shelf life of up to three years.
“Would you... like some of this?” Tiechui offered the ration cake to Xuanmiao, her voice laced with uncertainty.
Xuanmiao looked down at the grayish-green, block-like object.
Then, with light, graceful steps, she walked over to the doorway and sat back down by Tongque's feet.
Tiechui awkwardly withdrew the ration cake, comforting herself, “Maybe cats don't eat mushrooms...”
Suddenly, a rumble far louder than any of the previous explosions echoed from outside.
Xuanmiao, who had been licking her paw, raised her head. Her ears twitched toward the window, her emerald-green vertical pupils narrowing slightly.
Both goblins rushed to the doorway at the same time. Ignoring the pain as their shoulders collided, they gripped the doorframe with all four of their hands to peer outside.
Wu Yao was still on the roof, but she was no longer standing calmly in place and firing off spells.
Under the moonlight, her figure flashed at the edge of the roof before she drifted down like a fallen leaf swept up by the wind.
Adjusting her posture midair, her boots touched the ground lightly. Even before the hem of her robe could fully settle, her staff had already swept out in a horizontal arc of light.
Three Wind Blades shot out in a fan shape, slicing all the corrupted creatures in the area before her clean in half.
Then she bent down and quickly scooped something up from the ground.
It was a ground full of Corrupted Cores.
At least twenty minutes had passed since the battle began. She had slain eighty to a hundred corrupted creatures, and every single one left behind a Corrupted Core upon death.
These Corrupted Cores were scattered all over the territory, glinting with a dull, grayish-black luster under the moonlight.
Rate on N.U.
