Chapter 149: VOID TO CAVE

Sorry about the delay! I ended up having to travel last week, and that messed up my schedule. This is last week's chapter. This week's chapter should actually be coming out tomorrow, Thursday at the latest (it's already half-done).

CHAPTER

149

VOID TO CAVE

Jieyuan

—∞—

The void blurred and sharpened back into solid matter around Jieyuan, and the first thing he saw was the Primordial’s prone, slumbering form.

Muyeshen’s hazy green body lay on the floor, curled into itself. Tendrils of viridian mist rose lazily from its body, curling and dissipating into the fainter mist suffusing the air. The beast’s head was facing the other direction; its massive antlers still rose into the air, proud and tall, but the rest of the creature lay almost flat on the floor.

Jieyuan’s senses slowly returned to him. It’d been a good while since he’d been in the eerie ambient glow of the viridian mist, immersed in its rot-sweet smell. He hadn’t missed any of it, that was for sure.

The recent events echoed in his mind like distant thunder. Tianzijun Juechen’s hypnotizing presence, his words, whatever it was he’d done to the Shifting Feathers. Jieyuan felt an itch in him to do something about that last bit, his hands inching toward the sheaths at his waist.

But the sight of the Primordial was a perfect reminder of where he was and just what he was dealing with, so he got himself under control and remained perfectly still.

Or at least he tried to. It wasn’t easy, given how his heart raced against his will, Huaxin sending over burst after burst of pure joy and relief through their connection. The unfiltered happiness bled into Jieyuan’s own emotions, distracting him. It was hard to be wary when he was feeling all bright and high.

I’m also happy we’re in touch again, buddy, Jieyuan sent back, fighting the urge to laugh and jump and howl in happiness that wasn’t actually his own. But now’s really not the best time.

Huaxin quieted down, but Jieyuan could still feel a faint, steady thrum of affection from it. It wasn’t perfect, but it wasn’t getting in the way anymore, so it would do.

A whole minute passed. The Primordial didn’t move from its spot or so much as twitch, not reacting in any sort of way to Jieyuan’s presence.

Should be safe, then, he decided, finally letting himself take his eyes off the great beast and look around the cave. He didn’t move from his place, though; he just turned his neck this way and that to take in his surroundings.

The cave was just as he remembered it: a massive chamber of rock. It was also empty besides him and Muyeshen; neither Daojue nor Meiyao was anywhere in sight. Not particularly good news, that.

His eyes back on Muyeshen, he risked a step forward. No reaction. A few more steps, some intentionally a little louder. Muyeshen still didn’t stir. All movement he saw from the great beast’s form was a slow, rhythmic expansion and contraction of the bulk of its body. Breathing, it looked like. It really did seem to be asleep.

Well then, Jieyuan thought, what now?

He couldn’t just leave; Meiyao would no doubt be returning to this place once she was done with the Primordial’s trials. Daojue, too, should turn up here, and in short order; he probably just wasn’t done with Chroma’s challenge phase yet. Jieyuan didn’t believe for a moment Daojue would fail it.

At the same time, though, Jieyuan didn’t feel all that comfortable hanging around Muyeshen. Daojue was the one the Primordial had wanted to kill, but Jieyuan wasn’t all that keen on leaving his fate up to the beast’s goodwill if it suddenly woke up.

He looked over at the tunnel leading to the cave, where he, Daojue, and Meiyao had come through months ago (though it sure felt like years). That seemed like as good a place as any. He walked over to it, glancing back at Muyeshen every few steps.

Once inside the tunnel, he took a few further steps in, though he didn’t go so far that he lost sight of the cave and Muyeshen’s sleeping form.

There, Jieyuan decided. That’d have to do. If Muyeshen woke up with murder on her mind, he doubted this little bit of distance would matter any, but it beat being right in front of her.

The first thing he did was confirm he had his artifacts back, given that all of them, save for the Shifting Feathers, had mysteriously disappeared when he was transported to the Trialworld.

A quick check with both eyes and soulsense revealed everything to be just as he remembered; he was even still wearing his gauntlets and greaves, somehow. The only thing that was different was the rope he had been using to tether himself to Daojue and Meiyao; it was still wrapped around his waist, but it was cut clean through.

That settled, Jieyuan turned his mind to recent events, particularly the few moments he’d spent in the presence of Tianzijun Juechen (not just Juechen, but Tianzijun Juechen, because those might as well have been different people).

A chill crept up his spine at the memory. Jieyuan suppressed a shiver. The problem wasn’t Tianzijun Juechen’s presence itself. Rather, it was the way it had affected him.

At least when Muyeshen had exerted her power on him, Jieyuan had still been aware of it all, even if he hadn’t been able to move. With Tianzijun Juechen, it wasn’t his body that had locked up but his mind; Jieyuan had been completely at the man’s mercy and none the wiser for it. That was much worse, the way Jieyuan saw it.

That was in the past, though, and while Juechen’s words about a future meeting had Jieyuan a little uneasy (not to mention that bit about death not sticking), there was something else he was much more concerned about right now.

Gingerly, Jieyuan slid the Shifting Feathers out of their sheaths, then held the pair-forms up in front of him. Neither half of his trusty amphis looked any different, each made up of a gold shaft and blade, one embedded with rubies, the other with sapphires. Showy weapons that looked more like ornamental pieces to be put up on display than instruments of death.

Jieyuan squinted, carefully tracing his eyes over every inch of surface. But he found no hints of the glowing, vein-like red lines that had appeared all over the pair-forms when Tianzijun Juechen had held them. Physically, the Shifting Feathers looked just the same as always.

That didn’t mean they were the same as before in every way, though. Tianzijun Juechen had clearly done something to them. There were two obvious pieces of evidence proving that, and now that Jieyuan had gotten his physical inspection out of the way, he focused on them.

One was the Shifting Feathers’ spirit-shadows: they were no longer tenth-shade red to Jieyuan’s soulsense. They were orange now—first-shade orange.

The other was their presence. Jieyuan could now sense the pair-forms in a way he couldn’t before. In the past, he’d been aware of them like you’d be aware of any other bonded artifact; an extension of himself, something he could exert his soulforce on, but nothing beyond that.

Now, though? Now there was a presence that hadn’t been there before. An awareness, coming from the Shifting Feathers. Two presences, one for each pair-form. Prodding at Jieyuan’s mind, curious and exploring.

Jieyuan’s knowledge of ego artifacts was pretty limited; he only knew that chromal artifacts could acquire sentience through some mysterious means. Before, he’d only known of three such artifacts: Gleaming End, the Fatebloom Heart, and the Sword Tower. Now, apparently, he could add to that list.

It was with narrowed eyes that Jieyuan considered the facts at hand. Tianzijun Juechen had transformed the Shifting Feathers into ego artifacts—and raised them to first-sign Orangesoul while he was at it. The fact that Jieyuan could still sense them despite them being at a higher realm meant that his bond with them remained; his soulsense wouldn’t have picked up on them, otherwise.

Frowning, Jieyuan directed his mind to the fledgling egos hovering at the edge of his awareness. They felt fainter than the Fatebloom Heart. Weaker, just pinprick presences brushing against his mind. They also seemed to be simpler, if not rudimentary. As he concentrated on them, he got a little burst of curiosity and affection and not much else.

Feeling rather curious himself, Jieyuan joined the Shifting Feathers as one; the moment the shafts connected, their separate egos bled into a single one. He got a little bit of confusion and disorientation from the newly merged ego, but then it started radiating curiosity and interest again.

With rather complicated feelings, Jieyuan regarded his newly upgraded weapon.

On the one hand, he now had his own Gleaming End: a higher-realm weapon that could grow stronger. He liked the Shifting Feathers plenty, and he more than welcomed the idea of them following him through the realms, possibly all the way to Violetsoul.

On the other hand, he had Tianzijun Juechen to thank for this transformation, and from what he understood about the man, Jieyuan had every reason to be wary about anything he’d had a hand in.

Jieyuan turned his attention back to his soulsense, focusing it on the spirit-shadow. Ignoring the single-form’s curious, inquisitive ego, he inspected its spirit-song. He’d just meant to scan it, to search for any change in it, but his perception suddenly warped, a string-like array appearing over the body of the weapon, each string radiating a distinctive signature.

Natural Symphony Insight, Jieyuan realized, surprised. Out of all his soulskills, he’d used it the least, given it didn’t really have any combat applications, but he hadn’t forgotten how it worked. Within moments, he found what he was looking for: a collection of red strings that sang of blood.

There it is. A little apprehensive, Jieyuan focused on those spirit-song strings, taking in their different tones and the chord they formed. And just like that, he understood just what was different about the amphis, just what those blood-red strings represented.

The Shifting Feather could drink blood now and use it to empower itself. Both temporarily and permanently. He wasn’t quite clear on the details; he’d have to inspect it further, run some experiments. Natural Symphony Insight would make his job much easier; that much was for sure. It should take only a few days’ work, if even that. Without the soulskill, he’d have had upwards of months of experimenting to look forward to.

It wasn’t as bad as he’d thought, Jieyuan decided. In fact, it wasn’t bad at all; this new Blood-based property was pretty much a new gear-skill, and a powerful one at that. Jieyuan was still wary about Tianzijun Juechen’s role in all of this, but as far as he could tell, only good things had come from it.

Satisfied, there was just one thing Jieyuan needed to do. He gathered some of his chroma and channeled it into the Shifting Feather, trying to activate its gear-skill, to lower its weight. Nothing happened, but then the Shifting Feather’s ego perked up. Jieyuan felt a fraction of his chroma vanish, and the weapon’s weight dropped in half.

Ah. I see. It was what he’d been afraid of. He hadn’t forgotten how Daojue had explained, after their little adventure in Viridian Death City, how it wasn’t him that had used Gleaming End’s gear-skills, but rather Gleaming End itself.

He wasn’t sure if it was because the Shifting Feather was an ego artifact or because it was at a higher realm (he hoped it was the latter, but he’d only really find out once he reached Orangesoul himself, though Daojue might know), but he couldn’t use its gear-skill directly anymore. The ego had to be the one to use it, though it sacrificed Jieyuan’s chroma to do so.

Frowning, Jieyuan tried it a few more times, alternating between lowering and increasing its weight. Each time, the Shifting Feather quickly understood what he wanted and responded promptly, but it wasn’t nearly as fast as using the gear-skill himself, nor as precise.

He’d have to see about training it, later, to see if he could get it to react faster and more precisely. He could also sense there was something different about its gear-skill now that it had advanced to Orangesoul, that it could do more, so he’d also have to investigate that.

There’s also that artifact cannibalism ritual, Jieyuan recalled: the one Daojue had used to raise Gleaming End all the way to the peak of Orangesoul, sacrificing most of the loot they’d gotten from that jackal’s cave. He’d have to talk to Daojue about it. Or, more like, try to pry some answers from him.

It wasn’t too much of a priority, though. The only Orangesoul artifacts he had on hand were his glyph-stretch pouch and the three sealed-space rings that had been left over after Daojue was done feeding Gleaming End. He wasn’t about to sacrifice any of that; it wouldn’t be worth it.

Satisfied for now, Jieyuan split and sheathed the Shifting Feathers, sending a little affection back to their egos as he did, which they soaked up and returned tenfold. He’d take his time with them later. He’d accidentally used one of his new soulskills; now he wanted to check on the other ones.

Back in the Sword Tower, Fate’s echo had warned him that his soulskill would be harder to use in the outside world; Jieyuan was worried that what went for one might also go for the others. Something else he needed to make sure of was that all his soulskills had really carried over to the real Heavens. Jieyuan still felt that it sounded too good to be true.

Not taking his hands off the Shifting Feathers’ shafts, he focused a little, and there he had it: his mind was doubled, and his control over his body was split.

That’s Twin Serpent Cognition. Now, Absolute Death Sight.

Jieyuan thought about something he could focus on killing—and come up empty. He wasn’t about to risk testing the soulskill on the Primordial, in case it somehow noticed something was off. Some of the echoes had been able to tell, after all, and as far as he could tell, Muyeshen should be magnitudes more powerful than any of them.

He also couldn’t test Absolute Death Sight on himself; he couldn’t get in the right headspace to earnestly want his own death. He was many things, but not suicidal, notwithstanding that one time he’d stabbed himself through the chest. The presence of the Primordial also made him wary of testing the power on more abstract things, like the current situation, in case that also somehow alerted the beast.

Setting Death’s soulskill aside for now, Jieyuan pinched himself and focused on the sensation. He immediately sensed the very faint, yellowish pinprick presence of his pain, blooming on his forearm, where his fingers squeezed his skin. That was Hollow Pain Resonance confirmed, then. Good.

Next, he sent his attention inward and focused on the idea of Fire, resonating with it; in his mind’s eye, he saw his body as a swirl of different auras, emotions and abilities both. He didn’t burn anything, but he felt like he could do it with a thought, and that was enough for him; Sublime Fire Immolation was also working normally. This was a soulskill he’d have to experiment with a little more before he felt it was safe to use, though.

Jieyuan then focused on his blood: on the red substance rushing through his veins, pumped by his heart. He immersed himself in the sensation of it—and he had it. A new sense, this one of his own blood coursing through his body.

He couldn’t sense any other sources of blood, but he’d expected as much. Muyeshen was outside his soulsense range (which he was pretty sure applied to Binding Blood Resonance too), and even if he’d been closer to the beast, he wasn’t so sure he’d have picked up on anything, for any number of reasons.

No matter. He’d confirmed Binding Blood Resonance worked just fine. Given its name, Jieyuan felt like there was more to it than just sensing blood, but it was a matter for later.

Only one soulskill remained. Path Glimpse Divination. The one he’d been specifically warned would be harder outside the Tower.

Jieyuan envisioned himself walking into the cave and then turned his mind to that faint, ephemeral sense of the future, just as he’d done inside the Tower.

Nothing. Even after a few seconds, nothing came to him; in the Tower, the glimpse would have come immediately. But he’d known it’d be harder, and though nothing had come to him, that didn’t mean nothing at all was happening. There was no vision, but he felt a pressure building in his head. Like a headache, except deeper, more profound.

Encouraged, Jieyuan kept focusing on the future.

It was maybe a whole minute later that the glimpse came, a vision in his mind’s eye of himself standing there at the entrance of the tunnel, staring at the Primordial body, before walking forward. Nothing really happened in the vision besides him going into the cave, but he found that the longer he kept it up, the more effort it took to sustain the vision, the pressure in his head rising and deepening.

It wasn’t pain, not exactly, but something arguably worse. Pain he could handle; this pressure threatened to tear his mind apart. He managed maybe a half a minute in the glimpse, his vision-self making it halfway to the Primordial’s body—barely a second in the outside world—before he had to drop the soulskill. Immediately, the pressure vanished.

Jieyuan took a moment to gather himself. The situation with Path Glimpse Divination was much worse than he’d expected; what with how long it took him to get a glimpse and the effort needed to sustain the vision, it was completely unusable in combat.

It wasn’t completely useless (there were still situations in which a glimpse would come in handy, even with all the preparation it now needed), and he still had Huaxin’s Fatebloom Divination. But Jieyuan still felt it was a pity. Then again, he’d gotten so much from the Absolute Sword Trialworld that he felt like he couldn’t really complain.

Jieyuan then did something he hadn’t done in a good while; he reached inward, for a presence that wasn’t Huaxin’s or the Shifting Feathers’ or any of his new soulskills. Absolute Will Command, his realmskill. Focusing on it, he imagined a string connecting to himself.

But just as he opened his mouth to call on Maeva, to talk with her about everything that had happened and bounce some ideas off her (he’d also be lying to himself if he said he didn’t miss her, even if it wasn’t really her), Daojue appeared.

There wasn’t even a shimmer in the air. One moment, Jieyuan had an uninterrupted view to the Primordial; the next, he was facing a broad, black-robed back. Daojue reappeared exactly where he’d been when the Plunderer whisked him away, just a few feet from the entrance of the tunnel.

Wary, Jieyuan looked past Daojue to the Primordial. Muyeshen was still lying on the floor, seemingly asleep; Daojue’s sudden appearance hadn’t disturbed it.

Daojue turned around, then. Black eyes met Jieyuan’s, set in a cold, perfect face that could’ve been carved from stone. And then violet bloomed in Daojue’s eyes, starting from the pupil, spreading outwards, until it was Daojue’s true eyes Jieyuan was looking into.

Daojue said nothing, just walked into the tunnel, coming to a stop beside him. Jieyuan kept looking at him; there were all sorts of questions he wanted to ask, but he’d noticed something else that held his attention. Now that he had access to his soulsense again, he could pick up on Daojue’s soul.

It was ninth-shade red. And that didn’t make sense. They’d both been at seventh-sign Redsoul before the Absolute Sword Trialworld; Daojue had only broken through, in fact, while Jieyuan had reached it a little over a week prior.

Jieyuan had cultivated in Pain’s pursuit phase, and broken through to eighth-sign in the challenge phase. Then, in Blood’s phase, while sitting in the blood pool, he’d also done some more cultivation, but he was only about a third of the way to ninth-sign, while Daojue had already broken through to it.

Ignoring Daojue’s cool, silent regard, Jieyuan ran the numbers. He could see Daojue cultivating during Pain’s pursuit, too, and maybe also during Chroma’s; Daojue hadn’t really explained what it’d been like, but Jieyuan wouldn’t be surprised if Daojue had found the opportunity to cultivate in it, given how much chroma had to do with cultivation.

But… No. That didn’t add up. Daojue would’ve needed more than twelve days of nonstop cultivation to advance nearly two full soulsigns. Meaning Daojue must’ve cultivated in multiple pursuit phases—and, despite that, had managed to reach seventh-order affinity each and every time.

Daojue had just arrived, hadn’t said a single word, hadn’t really done anything at all, and already Jieyuan was reminded of the gap between them. It was really something of an art, the way Daojue could make someone feel inferior just by existing.

“How—” Jieyuan started to say, but then he noticed something. Daojue’s gaze had dipped down to Jieyuan’s waist. To the sheaths attached to this belt.

To the Shifting Feathers, Jieyuan realized.

Could Daojue sense them, even though they were sheathed? Could he sense that they were different, that they were now at Orangesoul? That they were ego artifacts?

He recalled how Daojue had been drawn to Gleaming End, back in the Gleamstone Valley, and later, to the greenseeker jackal’s burrow and its piles of Yellowsoul, Orangesoul, and Redsoul artifacts.

Jieyuan glanced down at Daojue’s gauntleted hands, and he saw how Daojue was absentmindedly rubbing one of his fingers. He had seen that motion before. If it weren’t for it, he’d have been sure Daojue’s ability to sense artifact was a bloodskill.

But Jieyuan knew what was on that finger Daojue was rubbing, beneath the gauntlet: a red ring. And it made Jieyuan suspect Daojue’s artifact-sensing power might come from another source.

“Daojue?” Jieyuan asked. “Is something wrong?”

He spoke quietly, keeping his attention split between Daojue and Muyeshen the entire time. But the beast still showed no signs of awakening.

Daojue’s gaze moved back up to Jieyuan’s face. “Your weapons…”

Daojue frowned slightly, but said no more.

Now Jieyuan was really concerned. This was, to his knowledge, the first time Daojue had ever trailed off mid-sentence. Daojue always seemed to know exactly what he wanted to say before he spoke.

“Yes?” Jieyuan pressed.

“Be careful,” Daojue said, glancing down at the Shifting Feathers again. He stopped rubbing his finger.

“Hmmm.” Jieyuan nodded. That was the confirmation he needed; the Shifting Feathers were dangerous, then, even if he hadn’t been able to sense anything particularly bad about it. Good to know.

Setting the matter aside for the moment, Jieyuan returned his attention to Daojue’s advancement to ninth-sign Redsoul. After a moment’s thought, though, he decided it didn’t matter how Daojue had pulled it off. There was another, more pressing issue. “Did you do it, then? Did you beat Chroma’s challenge?”

“Yes,” Daojue said, to Jieyuan’s surprise. Before their time in the Trialworld, with Anren, that was the kind of question that would have Daojue just staring at you in response.

It could be Daojue hadn’t actually mellowed out, though; maybe he was still off-balance because of the Shifting Feathers.

“And what happened?” Jieyuan asked. “Did you get the wish?”

A wish granted: that was, according to Anren, the reward for getting first place in the Absolute Sword Trials. She hadn’t elaborated on the subject and waved it away as something that always went to someone from the Absolute Sword Sect.

But now that Jieyuan knew she was from the Absolute Sword Sect herself, the odds were high she’d been telling the truth.

A wish granted. That somehow sounded like both too much and too little.

Daojue stood there, silent, staring at him. But just as Jieyuan was starting to think an answer wouldn’t be coming, Daojue said, “I was offered one. I refused.”

Jieyuan blinked. “You refused? And— I mean, what were the limits? What could you have wished for?”

“I was told I could ask for anything,” Daojue said, his voice cool, his words measured. “I refused, because I have no need for a wish. Whatever I want, I shall achieve through my own power.”

Jieyuan opened his mouth. He closed his mouth. He stared at Daojue, and Daojue stared back at him. Jieyuan wasn’t sure what to say to that. To begin with, Daojue saying so many words at once was shocking in and of itself.

“That’s… fair,” Jieyuan said, suddenly realizing he wasn’t so sure what he’d have done had he been in Daojue’s place. “Who offered you the wish? The Plunderer?”

“Yes.”

Jieyuan gave a slow nod. “All right. What about a soulskill? Did you get one after all, from Chroma?”

“Yes.”

Jieyuan waited, but then realized that, as unusually talkative as Daojue was acting right now, that still didn’t mean he’d go out of his way to volunteer information. “And what is it? What does it do?”

“It is called Sovereign Chroma Control,” Daojue said. “It allows me to manipulate ambient chroma.”

Jieyuan’s eyes widened. His mind was already blasting him with possibilities. “Can you sacrifice that chroma?”

Because if he could, then that meant Daojue would never run out of chroma.

“No,” Daojue said.

All right. That’s more sensible. Pity, though. “Can you materialize it?”

“Yes.”

Jieyuan’s thoughts raced. The main way cultivators used chroma was to cultivate and to power artifacts and realmskills, but chroma itself had its uses, particularly when made physical. There was just one issue with it: you had to draw chroma from your soul before you could do anything with it; that meant cultivators could sense you gathering it and using it from the get-go and react accordingly.

With ambient chroma manipulation, though, Daojue could just physicalize the chroma around someone into a cage. Or spawn chroma weapons at point-blank range. Daojue might even be able to cut off the flow of ambient chroma and deactivate self-sustaining artifacts. It could even mean Daojue might be able to do away with a harvesting hymn and pull ambient chroma directly into his soul now.

Those were just ideas off the top of Jieyuan’s head, and already he felt like Daojue’s Chroma soulskill was better than the seven ones he’d gotten combined. Not to mention that Daojue, unlike Jieyuan, had also reached seventh-order Death affinity and unlocked greater deathwilling, which, from what Anren had told him, was an awfully versatile soulskill.

He’d have to see both Daojue’s new soulskills in action to properly understand just how they worked, of course, but they both promised to be inordinately powerful.

Envy, barbed and biting, made itself at home inside Jieyuan. He sighed. There just was no helping it.

Daojue watched him. Jieyuan wondered if Daojue could tell what he was thinking. Maybe. Jieyuan had gotten much better at reading Daojue; maybe the reverse was also true.

“Right,” Jieyuan said. “Well, you’ll have to show it to me later. Greater deathwilling, too. I’ll help you come up with some uses for them.”

The silent, impassive stare Jieyuan got in response had him thinking that Daojue might not quite take him up on all his ideas. A lot of what he had in mind was rather underhanded, and Daojue’s approach to combat was as straightforward as it got.

Heavens, that kind of power really is wasted on Daojue.

“Anyway, for now we stay here,” Jieyuan said, glancing back at Muyeshen’s sleeping form, “and wait for Meiyao to come back.”

Left unsaid was that they had no way of telling when Meiyao would be back. It wasn’t like they could just leave, though; the Dome was outside, and without Meiyao, they had no way of navigating it. And they wouldn’t have stood a chance on their own, not with Violetsoul beasts roaming the area.

Even if they could’ve left, though, Jieyuan wouldn’t have. He’d keep waiting for Meiyao no matter what; if she took too long to appear, he’d just have to wake up the Primordial and try his luck.

Wordlessly, Daojue sat down on the ground and closed his eyes. Jieyuan removed his gauntlets and greaves and put them away—they would just be an unnecessary drain on his chroma here—before sitting down beside him.

This time, he wasn’t interrupted as he tapped into Absolute Will Command and murmured to himself, “See Maeva.”

Just like that, he wasn’t in the cave anymore, but in Amyas’s old room, and Maeva was sitting on his bed, facing him, a book on her lap. As usual, she wore her yellow sundress with her white lab coat over it.

The window above her was open, sunlight streaming down on her, making her seem like something set apart from the rest of the small, mundane room. Something higher.

Maeva beamed at him, bright blue eyes gleaming in the glow of the sun.

“Finally,” she said. “I’ve missed you, little brother.”

Jieyuan couldn’t help but smile back.

He really had missed her, even if it was all a lie.

—∞—

Jieyuan was sitting on the ground, cultivating; he chanted his imbuing hymn over and over under his breath. He was at the height of the First Pain, his whole body burning far beyond what should have been possible.

But he didn’t get lost in it; after what he’d been through in the Absolute Sword Trialworld, not even the Second Pain could rid him of his sense of self anymore, let alone the First Pain.

He’d spent the first five days after his arrival recovering his chroma reserves. He’d been topped up before the Absolute Sword Trials, but he’d used up a prismful to break through to eighth-sign, and his breakthrough had increased his capacity by another prismful, so he had two prismfuls to harvest and attune before his soulprism was full again.

After that, he’d been planning on dividing his time between cultivation and experimenting with his soulskills and the Shifting Feathers. But on the sixth day, Daojue broke through to tenth-sign Redsoul (meaning Daojue had spent even more time cultivating during the trials than Jieyuan had originally assumed), and Jieyuan changed his plans.

It was one thing to be one soulsign behind Daojue; it was another thing to be two soulsigns. He’d had the lead in cultivation before the Absolute Sword Trials, and now Jieyuan wasn’t about to be left behind like that again.

It had already been a few days since, and Jieyuan was already halfway through to ninth-sign Redsoul. His soul, after his breakthrough to eighth-sign, was closer to the right shade of red than it had ever been, its darker tint very faint now, like the black had been diluted by all the red in it.

Jieyuan still had no idea why his soul was the wrong shade, but he was glad that particular problem seemed to be fixing itself.

With his soulsense, Jieyuan felt something shift. Though he could handle the First Pain now, it was still distracting, so it took him a few moments to understand just what had changed: Daojue had stood up. Abruptly, too, he realized as his mind caught up. That wasn’t normal.

Jieyuan shut his mouth, stopping the chant, and the imbuing ritual cut off, the First Pain fading like it had never been there. Jieyuan opened his eyes.

And he found Meiyao standing in the middle of the cave, before the Primordial—who was awake again, and back on its feet.