Too late
*A moment earlier*
Claire watched over Tim's back as he moved to throw the vape away. Once he was far enough, she sighed and dropped her shoulders.
'What am I even doing?'
She resisted the urge to cover her face in her hands, because what if Tim was to look back?
Ever since the meeting started, Claire felt all weird with just how much she had to change for this event.
Rather than her usual, comfy clothes, the mere presence of her father forced her to sort through all of her clothes just to look the place. What's more, it was a rare moment of the two actually spending time together, with how rarely Chihiro took a break from extremely diligent if not overindulging cultivation.
And so, when Tim revealed slowly revealed his creation to the two of them, Claire couldn't help but fall deeper and deeper into her confusion.
'I knew he was special, but again..' She looked up, Tim still only half of the way to the bin. Claire's lips curled as the same sense of annoyance filled her mind.
'He's the reason! It's his fault!'
A genius wasn't like a normal person. And cultivators knew it better than anyone else.
From this perspective, Tim's antics almost appeared… justified?
'No,' Claire pursed her lips as she looked up to Tim's back again.
A genius wasn't like a normal person. A normal, even if talented, person like Claire herself could never fully understand a true natural talent.
And yet, somehow, Tim's back didn't look all that big as he reached out to throw the vape into the bin.
'Still…' Claire hesitated, watching the device drop into the trash. "It's actually happening. We are going to live…'
The girl raised her eyes right as two nicely dressed men covered her view of Tim as they walked to the nearby car.
The next thing she saw, was those two men in suits suddenly accelerated…
And grabbed Tim from behind, only for one of them to instantly eat a gnarly fist with their face.
'WHAT?!'
It took her only a second to process what was going on. But in that single second, a third man came and pressed some device to Tim's back.
'Shit!'
Firing up her cultivation, she exploded it all over her body, using the shockwave to fill her flesh full of spiritual energy. The moment the tips of her fingers energized, she was already squatting as she booted up to launch.
The distance was of no concern. The timing was plenty. Yet, the very moment Claire decompressed her body to cut through the distance and slaughter the attackers…
The whole world suddenly darkened, as if all the light was suddenly banned from this reality.
'Wait, that pressure…!'
Before the homing restraint could fire up, though, Chihiro casually dropped from the sky, whipping out a weirdly flapping talisman.
"Hei!"
Claire's dad looked majestic when he slapped the talisman onto the floor, instantly opening up a seventh-grade hunter-killer formation.
'Tsk,' recognizing the device, Claire nearly hissed in frustration.
Her father going lightweight into this encounter meant the opponent was of lower rank already. Meaning, a sixth-order cultivator of a core establishment rank. A mere one stage above the girl… but still more than enough to suppress her!
The difference between the two ranks was just… too big.
Being on the fifth stage, Claire was still in the process of actually creating a proper core. Her opponent, on the other hand, her opponent already sought to establish their core as a whole new way to mold the spiritual force.
A difference of conceptual kind rather than regarding pure might itself.
Nevertheless, Claire's father was as low-key as he was ruthless.
The formation he deployed didn't want to fend off the attack. It was designed to locate and eliminate the threat.
Before Claire could even think, the force suppressing her vanished, returning the light and color to the world around them…
'Tim!'
It was still a massive shock to witness a scene of this kind right out in the open, amidst the civilians of the town.
Regardless of their pride, there was a perfectly valid reason why cultivators were absolutely terrified of breaking the accords that would force them out of the modern world and into the spiritual realm.
Cultivation aside, the majority of the spiritual population still wanted to peacefully enjoy their casual, mortal lifestyle.
Strength be damned, long live Cola and the Internet!
And so, when people came and threatened to cause disasters that could endanger the feeble status quo existing since the end of the restoration era and only waiting to erode away into the second coming of the decade of annihilation…
In spite of all of this, someone actually dared to attack a powerful cultivator during a kidnapping!
Just that alone was enough to warrant the reaction of her father, turning it into an attempt at preserving the delicate status quo… But there was so much more.
But as everything unveiled in mere seconds, her father's formation already tracked the source of the spiritual force locked on her and fired back, frying the attacker's brain before Claire could even realize what was going on.
Still, Claire's eyes instantly snapped to Tim.
'We are just sidepieces in this!'
The sixth-level cultivator was here just to ensure the smooth ride of the operation, only reacting when Claire was about to stop the attempt.
By now, however, Tim was nowhere to be seen, with a speeding car instantly drawing both Claire's and her dad's attention.
Where Chihiro hesitated, likely concerned about the damage in case of a chase, Claire did not.
'You fucking dare…?!'
For the first time in what seemed like ages, she found something interesting. And now those fuckers were trying to take it away from her?!
The Qi in Claire's legs exploded, a force she patiently gathered ever since she was ready to jump. And in a single burst of power, she jumped ahead.
Faster.
Quicker.
Hastier.
But by jumping, she could only use more of her spiritual energy as she accelerated through the air. Thankfully, by moving over the street, there were no pedestrians or obstacles in the way of her target, save for some cars she could easily jump or outright fly over.
Yet, the closer she got, the faster the car went, quickly slowing down her gains before reaching the point of equilibrium only to then start to increase the distance again.
Pouring more and more of her Qi into her movement technique, Clarie could nearly feel parts of her soul breaking as she, with full awareness of the act, broke through more and more common sense taboos.
Still, by reaching right below the range of her power that would make the act a criminal one, she managed to speed up just enough to get closer to the car…
BOOM!
An instant infinitely quicker than the perception of all but the greatest cultivators. An explosion so powerful it blew the whole car into extremely small pieces…
Pieces the size of a fingernail that Claire saw flying all over the place at great speeds before crashing everywhere.
Between the distance and her deployed spiritual power playing the part, she somehow ended up unharmed by the incident, but…
Her hands trembling, Claire looked up at the huge wreckage of flaming pieces of the car.
There were so few pieces bigger than a ball, that it hardly made sense for those remains to be enough to make up an actual vehicle.
And looking up, Claire just stood still.
Amidst all the despair, disbelief, shock… There was but a glimmer… No, a mental itch Claire just couldn't scratch.
'But that explosion… wasn't even all that big, though? So how…?'
This made no sense.
Those results couldn't be the reality. This couldn't be the end of this awkward, tense yet ultimately interesting moment she enjoyed just a few seconds ago!
Just this empty street with burning pieces of rubble scattered all over. Not even the sound of the cars coming to a screeching stop at the edges of the rubble.
An event of this kind was bound to attract a lot of attention. It was only a matter of extremely short time before all the world's eyes would be on this spot of land.
And yet, as Claire's shock forcefully calmed her mind into a state of near-apathy… she noticed a faint glimmer of something… familiar?