While Nie Lie and Chang Hua were having a conversation, a young lady fell into a river. Just like Nie Lie, she was also from the southern parts of Dhī shén jì. The reason why she had fallen into the river, was because a Maire had grabbed her leg and dragged her from a cliff.
Ju Li was a someone who hunted after anomalies. She hunted after the weaker ones of course, because she wouldn't be able to handle the stronger ones. Ju Li was on the level of being able to handle remnants, but the reason why she couldn't suppress them was because she got cornered by a dozen of them into the river. The river wasn't a normal river, but one where Maires stayed in to swarm at night. The moment she entered the river, many Maires began to swam towards her to drag her to the bottom with them. Maires were human corpses that had some of its skeleton visible. The reason as to how they exist, is because of the strong regrets that they carried along with their death. They were like any other humans before they died, with the only difference being their not so happy life.
Ju Li kicked and pushed the Maires, as she swam along with the stream. She had already gulped water plenty of times, and if she wasn't alert, she would drown due to the Maires that were clinging onto her or dragging her down the river. At last, after kicking away more than a dozen of those Maires, she made it onto shore.
Ju Li had been hunting anomalies for more than three years. The reason for that, was because she hated how they were always after her since young. It started off with nightmares when she was a kid, and it became worse as she grew older. Remnants, skeletons, and imps would search for her wherever she went, which made her townspeople and family think of her as a curse. She became an outcast and was banned from ever entering the town.
From the age of sixteen, her whole life was spend running away and hiding from anomalies. But thanks to that, she was able to learn more about anomalies throughout those years. One important rule that she was able to learn, was to never enter a dark gloomy forest or woodland.
She had run into those areas a few times when she was cornered by the average anomalies, and what she met in such locations were a lot more times worse than the anomalies that would usually chase after her. Fortunately, she made it out alive thanks to cautiousness.
Ju Li didn't enter too deep into the forest, and was only able to see illusions, hear childish laughter, and unknown cuts would appear on her wrists. Even the anomalies that chased after her halted right before the forest.
Luckily, the stronger anomalies like those in the gloomy forests, were not attracted to her as long as she didn't get to close to their dominion. Sometimes it wasn't a forest of anomalies, but what resided in a few of those forests were the scariest beasts that couldn't be beaten by the average human. They were intelligent, and easily teared their pray with strange and terrifying abilities.
Other than the gloomy places, anomalies were at the right level for her to survive. Her running speed was fast enough, and thanks to them chasing her often, she was able to figure that their weakness were sun light and any light that had heat in it.
Her great experience was how her career of a hunter began. With torches as weapons, and bottles of flammable liquid that she would pour in her mouth to blast the fire from the torches.
On the shore, Ju Li struggled to get up due to the few bones of her that were broken from the jump. There was no time for her to relax, as the one problem that only occurred to her would soon appear.
The Maires that rarely go out of water, changed their common behavior and followed her. Because of her injuries she was desperate to ridden the Maires. She looked up at the sky, to see that it was still far from morning. While she continued her struggles, she would throw some of her tools at the Maires since they were used or useless.
The flammable liquid on her torch had vanished with the river, and the bottles were all used up in her fight with the group of remnants. Hundreds of meters had soon been passed by her.
As she walked, she didn't forget to scan her surroundings to find a weapon that could take care of the Maires. A few hundred meters were passed again, when she finally saw a spark of hope.
Sparkles of light shined brightly not too far from her, and when she was within the area where the lights seemed brighter, she felt an increase of gravity as well. It was her first time feeling such pressure, which made her worried about the fact that she might have been infected by an anomaly.
'I'm tainted!' She thought full of concern. With such concerns, her speed increased. Her assumption was to get closer to the light to purify her body, which was why she continued moving without paying attention to the Maires that had stopped following her.
'What's this thing…' She asked herself when she saw a sword so dark that it was absorbing the light around it. She felt that her questions would be answered and that her "curse" would bloom into a greater benefit after she removes the sword.
'Could this thing be what creates those vile creatures that follow me…? If I have this, wouldn't I be able to have those that follow me become my followers instead?'
Ju li was filled with such thoughts after a few hints of her long-life confusion were given by the sword. Ready to greaten her career of 'a hunted who became a hunter', she removed the sword.