Jet black skyscrapers jabbed into the night sky like the jagged legs of insects. A blood red moon stared down upon the world like a demonic eye.

In one of the buildings, Phobos leaned her back against the wall beside a broken window and panted for breath. Her yellow eyes glowed dimly in the dark as they darted nervously across the room, taking in the thick layer of dust, the cobwebs blanketing the ceiling, the peeling plaster… all of them illuminated by the scarlet moonlight streaming in through the window. It had been a long time since this room had been lived in.

A broken bed, a desk and a chair had been piled up against the door at the far end of the room. The wood of the door was splintered and cracked… riddled with jagged holes that gave glimpses of the unlit corridor beyond. The previous occupants of this room had barricaded themselves against whatever had wanted to force its way in.

Phobos took a deep breath and released it slowly as she tried to rein in her racing heart. She had managed to give it the slip… for now.

But it was only a matter of time before it found her again. Then their chase would begin anew. Before then she had to recover as much of her mana as possible.

Sitting down cross-legged on the dusty ground, she closed her eyes, forcing herself to calm down and fall into the familiar rhythmic breathing pattern of meditation.

Stilling her mind, she pictured herself sinking further and further into a formless darkness. She imagined the shadows seeping slowly into her body. Her arms, her legs, her torso… her very sense of self being eaten away by the darkness like a sketch rubbed out by an eraser. As the last shred of her ego was wiped away, her rate of mana regeneration doubled. It was the perk that came with her Mastery of the Aspect of Darkness.

Silence filled the room.

Suddenly, a thousand eyes made of yellow fire opened in the darkness behind her lids, all of them seeming to peer right into her soul, jolting her out of her meditative trance. Her eyes flew open and she leapt up into a wary crouch, cold sweat beading on her forehead.

“Damn!” she cursed under her breath as she noticed a eye made of bright yellow fire staring at her through the jagged crack in the door.

Spinning on her heel, she crossed her arms and burst out of the window in a shower of glass, mere moments before the burning eye slipped into the room through the crack and exploded, sending bright yellow flames jetting out above her as she plummeted down.

Her scalp felt hot. It had been close. Too close.

As she fell, she crossed into the shadow cast by the building and her figure merged into it… reappearing within a dark alleyway on the street below. Gasping for breath, she rubbed her forehead as the consequence of exhausting the last of her mana hit her.

It was a magical game of cat and mouse she was playing. And despite her feline bloodline, she was the mouse in this scenario and the cats: a horde of floating fiery eyeballs. She had to hide herself from them in this complex dystopian cityscape. And the penalty for failing to do so? An explosion to the face!

“Damn!” she cursed again as she looked up to see streams of yellow fire converging on the point of the previous explosion. Another characteristic of the eyes, she had found, was that they would swarm towards any spot where their brethren exploded, turning the surroundings into a crisis-filled zone.

And the eyes were endless.

She had to avoid detection and keep track of her mana expenditure at the same time. She could feel her stealth and mana management skills rising steadily. She had to give it to Ceres and Hei Lian. The dreamland they had cooked up for her training was effective.

A bit too effective if you asked her.

Gritting her teeth, Phobos pushed past the splitting headache and staggered deeper into the alley. The shadows swallowed her up.

---

Deimos turned her hand this way and that as she inspected it. She was missing a few fingers.

Mastering the Raiment was a difficult proposition. Splitting her attention between several strands of razor wire and controlling them was one hell of a challenge. There was as much chance she would injure herself as her enemy. As of now, maybe even a bit more.

That was why her progress had stalled in the real world. Beyond some simple operations of the strings, it was way too much of a risk.

But this wasn’t the real world. It was a dream.

She blinked and her fingers were back. Making an experimental fist with her hand, she nodded in satisfaction. Perfect.

Turning back to her target in front of her – a metal training post – she took a deep breath and focused.

The long sleeve of her Raiment unravelled as her mana infused the Cloudsilk thread making it up. Spinning on her heel, she flung her arm out in an arc. The string shot out, gleaming in the diffuse light of the dreamland and forming a sector of blue radiance that sliced through the post without any resistance… then continued on, the supernaturally sharp thread trying to swing around, wrap around her waist and slice her in half.

She hurriedly retracted her mana and the thread lost its gleam and coiled around her harmlessly.

Deimos let out the breath she had been holding. Even though this was a dream and it didn’t hurt, getting bisected by her own thread wasn’t an experience she wanted to repeat. (Yes, she’d experienced it already. Several times.) The dreamland was rather realistic, after all.

Behind her, the top half of the post slid off to the side and dropped onto the ground, revealing a mirror-smooth edge where her string had sliced through it.

Another burst of mana and the thread coiled back like a spring, reforming her sleeve.

Looking down at her hand, she sighed. Her index and middle fingers were missing. Well, at least it was only two this time, not three. Hurray for progress!

Shaking her head, she focused back on her training.

She’d get the hang of this, she promised herself. Even if she had to pile a hill of her fingers to manage it.