The sudden stillness of the Weaver's District was more deafening than the clatter of a thousand looms. Lin Xiyao stood paralyzed for a heartbeat, her "Heavenly Forensic" System flickering at the edge of her vision, its sapphire light reflecting the cold dread pooling in her stomach. The silence was not the absence of sound, but the presence of a predator waiting for the perfect moment to strike.
"They aren't just guards," Lu Yan whispered, his voice vibrating with a primal frequency that seemed to vibrate through the floorboards. He stood in the center of the warehouse, the silver-gray 'Stability Pill' he had just swallowed beginning to weave its alchemical magic through his veins, suppressing the feral rage while sharpening his tactical mind.
Suddenly, the rhythmic scratching began—a sound of a hundred claws dragging against the brick walls of the sanctuary. It was the sound of a nightmare catching up to the waking world.
"System, scan the perimeter!" Xiyao commanded inwardly, her "Golden Finger" interface expanding into a three-dimensional tactical map.
[Heavenly Forensic System: Wide-Area Pulse] Threat: 32 Feral Mutations detected. Analysis: Failed alchemical subjects, Stage 2. Driven by 'Lunar Resonance' hunger. Tactical Advantage: The warehouse's vertical lofts and suspended silk lines.
"Lu Yan, the loft!" Xiyao cried, pointing toward the heavy timber rafters that supported the high-quality silks. "The Stage 2 ferals lack the neurological coordination for vertical pursuit. If we stay on the floor, we'll be buried in numbers".
Lu Yan didn't hesitate. He grabbed Xiyao, his movements possessing a terrifying, fluid clarity that he hadn't displayed since the curse took hold. The Stability Pill was a success; he was the Brocade-Clad Beast, but for the first time, his amber eyes held a human's surgical resolve. He leaped, his claws finding purchase in the aged wood as he hauled them both into the rafters, twelve feet above the stone floor.
"My pack, to the beams!" Lu Yan roared down at the three feral survivors. They obeyed instantly, their primal instincts sharpened by the presence of a stable Alpha leader who offered them a future beyond mindless slaughter.
Below, the heavy warehouse doors exploded into splinters. A wave of shadows poured in—men-turned-monsters, their skin translucent and their jaws unhinged in a permanent, agonizing snarl. They were the "trash" of Eunuch Wei's alchemical ambition, mindless predators unleashed to hunt the only man who could testify against the palace.
From her perch, Xiyao opened her medical chest. She hadn't just prepared pills; she had customized 'Sulfur-Phosphorus' packets designed to ignite upon impact.
"Target the cervical joints, Lu Yan!" she shouted, her system highlighting the necrotic vulnerabilities of the horde below in glowing orange markers. "If we can't kill them all, we cripple them. We need to buy time for the tonic to fully bond with your bone marrow".
Lu Yan lunged from the rafters, a silken line in one hand and a clawed fist in the other. He moved through the air like a legendary King of Swords, each strike delivered with the satisfaction of a predator reclaimed by his own mind.
As the battle raged below, Xiyao watched the data stream in her mind, her system disassembling the combat frame by frame to find a safer exit. The 'Stability Pill' was holding, but she could see the strain on Lu Yan's heart pulse through her sensing ability. This was the "weak-to-strong" evolution of their alliance; she was his eyes and strategist, and he was the blade that cleared her path.
"The warehouse is compromised," Lu Yan said, landing back beside her on a swaying beam, his breath coming in hot, measured bursts that smelled of ozone and ancient herbs. "The Eunuch isn't trying to capture me anymore. He's testing the horde's effectiveness against a stable Alpha".
"Then we give him a different variable," Xiyao replied, her gaze shifting toward the hidden hatch in the floorboards—a secret conduit used by the city's ancient physicians to transport forbidden herbs. "We're going into the Imperial Physician's Underworld".
Below them, the warehouse doors began to smoke as the horde's frustrated heat ignited the nearby flammable dyes, the night ending not with a victory, but with a descent into a deeper darkness.