>>5456314“Insolence!” Whitesteed cries as his spear descends upon you like a falcon diving towards the grand earth to snatch its prey.
Your eyes carefully follow the trajectory of this supposed coup de grace, the defiance in them not one bit faded. They dart from the spear’s tip to your health bar, above which the durations of status effects afflicting Distant-Cloud are indicated.
[Stunned]: 0.4 seconds remaining.
Of course, none of this registers in your mind as concrete quantities. You don’t even know if there's enough time to react to Whitesteed’s attack, but your instincts - sharpened on the grindstone that is years of experience - scream to you that it is so. Your hands begin to move faster than you’ve ever consciously willed them to, almost like you’ve been possessed by some spirit of survival. Tyrant’s Will arcs from the ground up, narrowly making contact with the incoming spear. The clash causes vicious bursts of air to radiate from the point of impact, blowing back surrounding players by a few steps. Catching Whitesteed off guard for a brief moment, you crouch down and thrust with your dagger-axe, striking him squarely in the abdomen, and with all the stamina you have remaining, throw him off to the side.
Without much thought, you proceed to make a break for it, but not without snatching away Skyfrost and Autumn-Moon’s weapons from their corpses. Luckily, they didn’t get converted into trash items when they died. Only when you fly through the city gates do you notice your rapid heartbeat.
“I got your weapons, boys.”
“Really?” Autumn-Moon asks, his excitement only growing more intense when you send him a quick screenshot of his pipa in your inventory. “Holy shit, thanks a lot, man.”
You quickly meet up with Skyfrost at Autumn-Moon at the city bank to pass them their items, still struck with incredulity that you managed to get out of that situation alive. There are so many things on your mind right now that you don’t even know how to begin organising your thoughts. First, you can’t ignore the fact that you just abandoned the Steelport Society to their deaths back there, but with how events unfolded, they can’t exactly blame you for retreating. Secondly, who is Whitesteed, what is his relationship with Skyfrost? And just who exactly is Skyfrost? Unable to contain yourself, you finally ask those very questions.
“Let’s head over to Spiritwalker’s workshop first.” Skyfrost suggests instead of answering.
“Uh, sure.” You don’t have any objections. “What about Autumn-Moon? Are you coming?”
“Might as well. I am a tad bit curious about that Whitesteed fucker now. It's been a while since I've had a proper death.”
