Some time after Anna joined Tir in slumber, Shui entered the shared courtyard in front of their home. He used spiritual sense to check on them and quickly figured out their identities as well as their current situation. He was reluctant to read the minds of friends and family, but their living conditions and his understanding of the city's circumstances allowed him to make a good guess about what happened. He had left the care of the other survivors of the Heaven clan to Yur, but Broc was a fellow disciple of Uncle Bartos, so he couldn't ignore their plight.
Shui had no lack of coins, so he left them ten thousand black gold coins along with a note that said to reach out to the Riot clan and state his name if they ran into trouble. He could have left more money, but too much wealth could easily attract greedy thieves that might act before they had the chance to seek help. He knew Anna was a proud and capable woman from how Broc described her, so he believed that his assistance would not be wasted.
The next day, Anna would wake up to see a space expansion bag on top of a note. Once she read the name on the note and saw the amount in the bag, a tear ran down her right eye as she recalled the face of the young boy from the Heaven clan. They rarely saw each other, but Broc had asked him to hold Tir after he was born, so she had an impression of him. At the time he had been in a wheelchair, but he still carried himself with dignity. She had heard many stories about him from her late husband and Yur, and she hadn't thought much of them, but now she understood just a bit about the admiration they had for him.
"Mommy? Are you okay?"
Hearing his drowsy voice, Anna wiped her eyes and turned around to face her son with a smile.
"I'm fine. I was just thinking about your Uncle Shui."
Meanwhile, Shui had returned to the Riot clan estate for breakfast and to secretly deliver the secrets he obtained from Marco to the Riot clan chief's office. He had planned to stay in the city for another day or two to check on Fatty Zain and Serina's cultivation, but circumstances suddenly changed.
[Master! Cyrus is being invaded!]
…
Going back to a week after the fallen was sealed under Silver City, a cloaked young woman looked at the protection array covering the scene of the battle.
"Seems this was a bigger deal than I thought."
There were three Sky Realm experts nearby to ensure that no one got too close, but the young woman was a good distance away, so she didn't attract their notice. She hadn't seen the calamity for herself, but with her keen sense for nature energy, she was able to tell that something ominous was sealed behind the barrier, and it continued to draw energy from the land.
"Looks like they weren't exaggerating about this being a calamity."
As one of the few who picked up on the hidden danger that remained, the young woman also knew that she didn't have the power to deal with this threat. At least not yet.
After taking a good look at the scene, the young woman left the site and returned to Malirin Forest. Once she was under the cover of the trees, she removed the hood of her cloak, and Kate's face was revealed. However, she possessed an extra feature that hadn't been there when she was in Silver City. The whiskers on her face twitched as her nose picked up a bloody scent in the forest, proving that they weren't simple illusions. Though she managed to regain herself after nearly losing control in her battle against Mater, she couldn't completely avoid the side effects.
When she first regained proper consciousness after her battle with Mater, she found patches of fur all over her body, and it was only after much effort that she was able to rebalance her internal energies and get the side effects down to these whiskers and the occasional feline urges. It was mainly due to this issue that she hadn't gone to see her friends before they left Silver City. It would be one thing to show up injured, but she found it too embarrassing to show her face in her current state. She still needed more time to settle the lingering effects, but with the calamity of Silver City slowly encroaching on the rest of the region, she knew that this wasn't the time to worry about her face.
She thought it would be nice to see Shui again but planned to leave the Four Paths Region after visiting her mother in Cyrus. She was sure he would be stronger the next time they met, so she couldn't be too far off. To aid in her training, Kate went through Malirin Forest to reach Cyrus. She didn't go deeper than the edge of the beast lord's territory, but her route still crossed through the dominions of several high beasts. Even defeating a single high beast that attacked with its pack required her full power, but there were occasions where she had to face multiple high beasts at the same time. Nonetheless, Kate's fists punched a way through in the end.
Incidentally, Cin had taken notice of her but chose to avoid conflict since he knew of her connection to Shui.
On the day she left the forest and entered the range of the bright sun, Kate spotted Cyrus in the distance. Her battles in the forest helped her maintain her physical condition and reflexes, so in combination with her stunning control over nature energy, she was at least as strong as she had been when she defeated Mater. Her whiskers also shortened to finger-length, so she hid them with her hair and covered herself with a cloak.
Compared to the other cities of the Four Paths Region, Cyrus received the fewest migrants. Though it was relatively far from Silver City, Pemacreba was the farthest, and yet it had more refugees. The main reason was that Cyrus was perceived as the clear weakest of the remaining cities and had no known Masters within its walls. Most of those who evacuated from Silver City and chose to stay in the region still had the calamity fresh in their minds. For various reasons, they didn't leave the region, but they still wanted to be somewhere with arms strong enough to catch the sky if it fell.
As Kate made her way into the city, there were few travellers entering with her. Kate could still use her identity as a former Storm Sky Manor core disciple to enter the city at no cost, but she chose to pay the entry fee instead. Shui had told her where to find Lilia, but since sunset wasn't far off, Kate made excuses to herself and chose to leave their meeting for the next day. She shouldn't need to fear her mother, but she wasn't sure if she would be blamed for making so much time pass without contacting her.
She had been sleeping outdoors for the past few months, so Kate rented a room in a fairly high-class inn. It was inferior to her residence at Storm Sky Manor, but she wouldn't have a problem relaxing a little. She had hope that she could let her guard down inside the city, but something about the atmosphere didn't sit right with her. Still, this was her first time here in a long while, so she didn't think it was serious enough to warrant an investigation. At most she would pass a warning to her mother. Unfortunately, her suspicions would be confirmed before she had a chance to give that warning.
The very next day, Kate was awakened by the news that the city was being invaded.