Chapter 143: OF DEAD BONE

Chapter 1 of 2 today—and these are still last week's chapters. I'll be explaining the situation clearly in the Discord announcement, but there'll still be another chapter next week. Long short short, I overdid things a little and ended up with two full length chapters last week. Oops.

CHAPTER

143

OF DEAD BONE

Jieyuan

—∞—

The Heavenly Hall had barely materialized around Jieyuan—his arm still outstretched from picking a sphere—when Anren stepped in front of him.

“So?” she asked promptly, leaning in close, eyes bright as the sea of stars that only moments ago had hung above him.

Jieyuan felt his lips twitch; he didn’t fight the impulse and let the smile come out. Anren’s exuberance was infectious; not just that, this time around, he had reason to smile.

With the way she’s acting, you’d think I was picking a Concept for her.

“Death, Pain, and Fire,” he said.

Anren’s reaction didn’t disappoint. Her eyes went wide, then she broke out in a grin that dwarfed his own.

“Heavens, Jieyuan, your luck is something else. Now, please tell me you remembered my advice and picked Pain or Death.”

Luck, is it? Jieyuan wasn’t so sure about that. With how he’d ended up in the Absolute Sword Trial (dropped in it by none other than the Plunderer, who seemed to be the owner of the trialworld), he had a feeling that nothing about what was happening here was coincidental.

The only real issue with that particular theory was that Daojue hadn’t gotten a single soulskill so far. Anren had made sure to ask Daojue whether he’d gotten one before each of the challenges so far, and his answer was always a plain, stiff no.

Given that the one the Plunderer was interested in was Daojue (Jieyuan being supposedly a tag-along of sorts), it was curious that he hadn’t gotten any special treatment so far.

“I went for Death,” Jieyuan said.

Their first day inside the Tower, Anren had told him that Pain, Death, and Space were the best Concepts you could pick here; she hadn’t said why, only told him to pick them if they ever came up and not think twice about it. That had taken Fire out of the running; then, to choose between Pain and Death, Jieyuan had relied on Anren’s other piece of advice: to pick the worst from the best.

It hadn’t worked the first time around, what with how Spear didn’t appear again, but he was willing to give it another go. For the fourth stage, he could still make do with reaching just tenth difficulty in the pursuit phase. For the fifth stage onwards, though, the eleventh difficulty would become a must, meaning he was better off leaving the Concepts he was more confident in for later.

Jieyuan was familiar with Death. More than most, considering he’d even died once already, even if he had no memory of it. But Pain? He’d pursued Pain (even if unknowingly, at the time) from the moment he decided he wanted to be a cultivator, and he’d only grown more familiar with it since. He knew Pain well.

“Death? Good, good.” Anren nodded, looking pleased. “That was the right pick. Now, I think I owe you an explanation: why Death is such a good Concept to pick here.”

“I’m all ears,” Jieyuan said. If she hadn’t brought it up, he’d have mentioned it next. Clearly, there was something special about those three Concepts she’d mentioned, Pain, Death, and Space, and he wanted to know what exactly he was getting himself into here.

Daojue also looked interested (as interested as Daojue could look, anyway). Then again, Anren could probably talk about the weather and Daojue would still devote all of his attention and then some to her.

Around them, the Heavenly Hall was quickly emptying out. The other cultivators seemed to be in a hurry to get started with their pursuit phases; less than a dozen, counting the three of them, remained in the hall. Jieyuan was also eager to get started, but he doubted a couple of minutes would make that much of a difference in the long run.

“Deathwilling,” Anren said. “I mentioned it before. Just to be sure, you really don’t know what it is?”

“Can’t say I ever heard the word before,” Jieyuan said. He didn’t really mind lying, but it felt good to just tell the plain, naked truth every once in a while.

Anren gave him a long, scrutinizing look, then shook her head. “For the Heavens’ sake, Jieyuan. You really need to see about apprenticing under a new master, because this is ridiculous.”

She glanced at Daojue. “Do you know about it, at least?”

Jieyuan wasn’t particularly surprised when Daojue answered, “Yes.”

Anren nodded, then turned back to Jieyuan.

“All the soulskills you’ve gotten so far—it’s also possible to get them outside the tower, if your affinity with a Concept surpasses tenth-order. I think you’ve figured that out already.” Her voice was quiet; there were still some people in the Heavenly Hall, and it looked like she didn’t want them to be overheard.

It wasn’t hard to figure out why. Surpass tenth-order. This had to do with that surpassing perfection business she’d told him about before. Jieyuan couldn’t help but be aware that there were two members of the Absolute Sword Sect still in the Heavenly Hall, though neither of them was the woman who seemed awfully interested in them.

“Death, Pain, and Space are different,” Anren continued. “With them, reaching seventh-order affinity gets you a new soulskill. For Death, it’s Death Will Emanation. Deathwilling. The ability to emanate your killing intent. Or rather, greater deathwilling.”

Killing intent. Jieyuan tensed. It wasn’t a term he’d come across all that often in his current life, but it had been well known to Amyas, what with how often it came up in the books Qiyun, Maeva’s insufferable husband, would have him read.

And if it worked anything like it did in those stories? Then Jieyuan would be very interested in getting his hands on that power. He could feel the expectation building inside him already.

“See,” Anren said, “all cultivators can deathwill, regardless of Death affinity. Even mundanes can do it, assuming they’ve got any affinity with Death. But for the most part, it’s something that happens on an unconscious level. Both emanating it and feeling it. But for those with high enough Death affinity, their deathwilling can be so potent that you can consciously feel it. Third-order’s generally enough for that, assuming their killing intent is sufficiently strong.”

Now, only the three of them were left in the Heavenly Hall.

“Ever felt an inexplicable chill? A cold, freezing sensation, seemingly coming from someone?” Anren asked. “Chances were that they were deathwilling. That you were feeling their killing intent.”

Jieyuan had to keep himself from frowning as he combed through his memories and found more than one instance of something along those lines. And he’d only ever felt it from three individuals: Daojue, Dajinzhi Qingshi (or was it Liangshibai Qinghsi, considering he was apparently Palace Head Yiming’s son?), and Liangshibai Yunzhu.

He glanced at Daojue, whose eye didn’t stray from Anren. Daojue, he could understand. He had fourth-order affinity; maybe he’d already gotten third-order affinity with Death. Jieyuan knew nothing about his past, after all.

Qingshi and Yunzhu, though? As far as he knew, Qingshi’s heavenly affinity was second-order; Yunzhu’s, first-order. They shouldn’t have been able to reach third-order affinity with death.

Anren wasn’t done. “That’s lesser deathwilling. But if you reach seventh-order affinity with Death, you can do so much more with your killing intent. Greater deathwilling. Because of that, such cultivators are called deathwillers.”

“Deathwillers—that’s what we call cultivators with at least seventh-order Death affinity—can do all sorts of things with their killing intent. They can use it to empower themselves and their weapons, to directly attack others—physically, mentally, or both. It can even be made tangible. With greater deathwilling, killing intent becomes nearly as useful as chroma.”

Jieyuan liked the sound of that. In fact, Anren’s sounded better than music to his ears. He was plenty happy with the three soulskills he’d gotten so far from the trial, but greater deathwilling seemed to be on a different level altogether. It sounded more like one of Meiyao’s absurdly powerful bloodskills.

A flame sparked inside him. Jieyuan had to make an effort to keep himself under control, to stop himself from just rushing to the door behind him and getting things started.

To qualify for the fourth stage’s trial, he only needed to reach fourth-order affinity, only needed to make it to the tenth difficulty. There and then, though, he decided he’d be going for seventh-order affinity instead. This time around, he’d conquer the eleventh difficulty, even though he didn’t need to.

There was just no way he was passing up on a soulskill like that. He’d be walking out of the trial with greater deathwilling in his pocket.

It was a done deal, as far as he was concerned.

—∞—

Glistening black blades cut at Jieyuan from all directions.

He danced between them, dodging, evading, doing his best to survive under the assault of the eight bone-men. Cuts and gashes riddled his body; his robes hung in tatters.

It’d been a few hours since he’d first tried his hand at the tenth difficulty of Death’s pursuit phase; as best as he could tell, less than a day had passed since the start of the fourth phase. He hadn’t gone for the eleventh difficulty yet; he had his plate filled as it was. But if he wanted to reach seventh-order affinity, something would have to change.

Using Twin Serpent Cognition, Jieyuan had half his doubled mind working on keeping track of the eight creatures, full control of his body given over to it; the other half focused on Path Glimpse Divination, searching for a future where he killed them—glimpse after glimpse of outcomes flashing before his mind’s eye.

The ground was jagged rock the color of pitch, and the skies above were half-dark, filled with clouds of bruised purple, all of it cast in the deep red glow of a setting sun—one that never left its position just over the far horizon, never sinking out of sight, never rising higher into the sky.

A burnt, acrid stench filled the cool air, thick and cloying. Oily and rotten. The stench of death mixed with something else, something dark and twisted, something horrible.

The bone-men—as Jieyuan had taken to calling them—were nightmarish creatures. They were spindly, grotesque things, like human skeletons bent at impossible angles. Their bodies were made out of some substance halfway between bone and metal, as black as a starless night, glistening under the ever-dying light.

Not two of the bone-men were the same. Their heads formed shapes that had no business sitting on the top of a living being’s body (twisted, angular shapes Jieyuan didn’t even have names for), and the rest of their bodies didn’t have a set form.

They could twist and reshape their limbs, forming new ones at will, crafting appendages into every weapon Jieyuan could imagine—blunt or bladed.

And they put their malleable bodies to good use; they were nearly as fast and as strong as the sword-fiends he’d faced outside the tower, and a great deal more sentient.

One of the bone-men lunged at him, its mantis-like sickle-ended arms cutting at him; Jieyuan jumped away, then whirled around, snapping the Shifting Feathers back into single-form before spinning them sideways, blocking two incoming attacks from opposite sides.

But that was only three bone-men covered out of eight—and one of the remaining ones charged at him from behind.

Jieyuan heard its footsteps, metal-bone feet scraping the dry rock underfoot, moved to disengage and retreat, but he wasn’t fast enough, and a barbed blade ripped a gash into Jieyuan’s back.

The temptation to leave the room was great. Jieyuan resisted it, though, pulling away, trying to open up some distance. He needed the experience, needed to persist as long as he could, if he wanted to make it to the eleventh difficulty. The bone-men didn’t let up, four of them charging straight at him, two from the front, two from the sides. Jieyuan fended off their attacks as he kept retreating.

He didn’t strike back—not once. The bone-men only had very specific weak points; if he struck there, they’d crumple to dust. If he hit them anywhere else, they’d regenerate the damage in a split second.

Those spots didn’t have a fixed position; they had been, back in the first three stages, but from the fourth stage onwards, those weak points seemed to gain a life of their own, shifting from moment to moment around the bone-men’s body.

Worse still was the change introduced by the seventh difficulty: the bone-men didn’t just regenerate if he struck them in the wrong place. Any non-fatal blow would result in the chipped off pieces of metallic bone spawning more bone-men.

It hadn’t taken him long, the first time he’d tried out the eighth difficulty, to end up surrounded by several dozen bone-men. It was the closest he’d come to death in the Absolute Sword Trialworld so far.

That was why he had his second mind searching for a future where he got a kill in. He didn’t attack back otherwise; he’d learned his lesson many times over.

At least something good had come out of this: his new soulskill. Jieyuan didn’t know what it was called (he’d probably have to wait for the echo to reveal it in the upcoming challenge phase), but what it did was simple enough: it let him see fatal spots. Where to strike to kill a target. It appeared over the target’s body as a mark—lines to cut or break, points to stab or crush.

Death marks, he called them. They were void-black, darker even than the bone-men’s bodies. He could track them easily on the bone-men’s bodies as they advanced on him: several dim, shifting spots stark against the oily black gleam of their skeletal forms. Focusing on the marks gave Jieyuan an intuitive sense of what he had to do: whether he was supposed to cut or hack or thrust.

He didn’t need to do anything specific to activate the soulskill, but he’d found the death marks only appeared when he was fully concentrated on the target to the exclusion of everything else, emotions included. When all that was on his mind—or on one of his minds, as it was—was the cold, heartless intention to kill

It wasn’t the best fit for a Firesoul, but Jieyuan couldn’t complain. If it weren’t for the soulskill, Jieyuan reckoned he’d have to hack blindly at their bodies, hoping one blow landed on a weak point, because there was no indication otherwise of where he was supposed to strike.

Considering how attacking the wrong place made more bone-men appear, Jieyuan wouldn’t have stood a chance getting past the seventh difficulty without the soulskill. Not even Path Glimpse Divination would’ve been enough; even now, he was only holding on because he was using Path Glimpse Divination together with his ability to see the death marks.

A future-glimpse caught Jieyuan’s attention, and he braced himself.

Two of the bone-men came at him; he dodged both their attacks. Then he split the Shifting Feathers and swung one of the pair-forms at the bone-men on the left, aiming at a spot right above the angular, jagged line of its waist.

There was no death mark on the region when he began the swing—but one appeared the moment before his blade struck it, just as he’d seen in the glimpse.

The blade of the Shifting Feather cut straight through the bone-men as its body erupted into a cloud of black dust. Jieyuan immediately rounded on the other bone-men. The bone-men that had stayed behind reached them then, jumping back into the fray, and the dance of death resumed.

He bided his time, waiting for another glimpse; his blood flowed down from his many, many wounds, each of them a throbbing knot of agony, but Jieyuan paid them no mind. They were flesh wounds. As long as he could move, he was in the game, and nothing was taking him out of it.

He took down the bone-men one by one, until there was only one left. Jieyuan didn’t take his time with the sole bone-man remaining. There was no point in trying to cheat the trial; his affinity with Death only increased when he was giving it his best.

As soon as a glimpse of death came to him, Jieyuan struck, driving his Shifting Feather into a death mark near its left knee. The bone-men exploded into dust.

Jieyuan stayed standing in place, letting his Shifting Feathers hang down for a moment, as the clouds above him darkened, going from purple to black.

And then it started raining. But a thick, black oil, instead of water. Jieyuan didn’t try to avoid the foul, disgusting substance as it fell on his body; he’d discovered early on that there was no point. As soon as it struck his exposed skin, it simply flowed down his body, pooling under his feet.

It didn’t cling to him; it was like oil on water. Or, as Jieyuan suspected, like life and death.

He gave it a few moments, then took a few steps back; in front of him, the black, glistening oil raining down from the sky gathered together into eight black pools on the ground. The rain stopped after a few moments.

And from the oil pools rose eight new bone-men, their bodies still wet, slick with the liquid from which they spawned.

Jieyuan took a deep breath, watching as the bone-men turned and twisted in place, flexing their skeletal limbs, like newborns discovering their bodies.

He felt rather light-headed; the blood loss was getting to him. He didn’t think he had it in him to handle another wave, not in his current state. He’d need to return to the Heavenly Hall and regenerate.

But before that, there was something he wanted to try. Wanted to know.

Before the bone-men fully came into themselves, Jieyuan reached for the Concept of Death, sitting inside his chest.

Eleventh difficulty.

He wouldn’t stand a chance, of course. But he wanted to at least know what it was like, how much further he still had to go before he was ready for it.

In front of him, the bone-men, which had just turned to face him, froze.

Then their bodies shimmered and twisted, thickening, gaining mass. Their heads, on the other hand, shrank, collapsing into themselves. For a moment, all eight creatures were little more than shifting, roiling black shapes.

Jieyuan watched, eyes narrowed, heart racing, taking in every little detail.

Moments later, he caught other flashes of color. Shades of gray bloomed among the black, and then even streaks of white, particularly in the region of their heads.

Some moments more, and the frantic twisting and swirling of their bodies started to die out. Jieyuan saw that they were much more human-like than before. Their limbs the right length, their bodies the right thickness. Some of them took the shape of men; others, of women.

And then their forms stabilized fully, and Jieyuan’s breath caught as their new heads were suddenly revealed. And the new faces they boasted.

Faces he knew.

Daojue and Meiyao stood at the center. And around them, other cultivators he knew. Most of them by name—Yongyi, Qingshi, Yunzhu, Yiming—but a few he recognized only vaguely, from his time in the Gleaming Stone Sect.

They all wore armor like the bodies of the bone-men, and there was no color to them; they were all cast in shades of gray.

As one, the transformed bone-men extended their arms forward, and their armor flowed forth, transforming into weapons. A spear for the Daojue lookalike, a saber for Meiyao, a sword for Yunzhu, Yongyi, and Qingshi. The same weapons that the people whose appearance they took wielded.

Jieyuan’s stomach sank.

He had a very bad feeling about this.

—∞—

As it turned out, Jieyuan had been right to be concerned.

Jieyuan stared, blankly, at the grayed-out, handless steel door in front of him. Just moments ago, he’d been in the trial, having just gone for the eleventh difficulty—and now he was back in the Heavenly Hall, by no choice of his own. Which could only mean one thing.

Behind him, he heard the Sword Tower’s ego words, “You have one hour before the challenge. Prepare yourselves.”

Jieyuan was out of time.

“Jieyuan?”

Anren’s voice. He ignored it. Still staring at the steel door, Jieyuan sent his focus inward, searching for the Concept resting in his chest. And though he already knew it, he still felt cold as he got his answer.

Fifth-order.

Two orders shy of the target.

A couple of seconds was as long as he’d ever managed to last in the eleventh difficulty at a time; just as he’d suspected, the transformed bone-men were as skilled as the people whose form they took. The Daojue bone-man alone would’ve probably been too much for him, let alone seven others, Meiyao among them.

He wouldn’t be getting greater deathwilling—not any time soon. It was out of reach to him, maybe forever.

He forced himself to take a long, deep breath before slowly exhaling.

With how he’d gotten one soulskill after the other so far, he’d thought he had it in the bag this time around. Thought that he’d be leaving the Death trial with two new soulskills: the ability to see death marks, as well as greater deathwilling.

But it turned out he just wasn’t good enough. Turned out he couldn’t depend on himself to earn a new soulskill; the one he did manage to get was gifted to him, like all the other ones so far.

A pair of hands fell on his shoulders, jerking him, forcing him to turn around. Jieyuan resisted it on instinct, but it’d come too suddenly and too strongly. He wasn’t surprised when Anren’s face filled his vision, her gaze locking into his. Her hands stayed on his shoulders, holding him firmly in place.

He’d known it already, but she really was outrageously strong. Probably as strong as Daojue, if not more. Bloodrights were something else, all right.

She stared hard at him, her eyes narrowing. “Let me guess. Sixth-order— No. It was fifth-order, wasn’t it?”

Jieyuan frowned. “How—”

“You’re not grinning like a loon, so it’s not seventh-order. The ego didn’t kill you, so it’s at least fourth-order,” Anren said, simply. “So. You didn’t get a soulskill. Deal with it. Stop feeling sorry for yourself. You already got three—”

“Four,” Jieyuan said. Anren blinked. He smirked.

He’d been pissed at himself, sure, but he wasn’t the one to stay down for long, and he’d snapped out of it pretty much halfway through Anren’s little pep talk. So when he saw a chance to turn it around on her, he took it.

“Not three,” he said. “Four.”

Anren let go of his shoulders, took a step back. She looked confused. “Four? But I thought— Did you reach seventh-order, then? No, that doesn’t—”

Her eyes opened wide.

“You didn’t reach seventh-order but still got a soulskill,” she said. It didn’t sound like a question. Her wide-eyed look turned into a glare. “Oh, that’s just not fair. And you have even less reason to act all sullen. Four soulskills. This is absurd. What is it?”

Jieyuan gave her a brief explanation; he also described just what his pursuit phase had been like. Anren whistled when he was done.

“It’s not as good as greater deathwilling, but it definitely seems useful,” Anren said. “And your pursuit phase… Those bone-men you faced, I think I’ve heard about something like them. But I’m not clear on the details. Something about an Absolute Sword Sect disciple gone rogue, ages ago.”

Jieyuan had to remind himself that Anren was a Violetsoul and that her definition of ages was probably tens of thousands of years, if not several hundred thousand.

“You’re saying that the bone-men actually exist?” Jieyuan didn’t like the sound of that. They hadn’t been fun to face, and everything inside the Tower, as far as he could tell, was reduced to mundane parameters; if the bone-men really existed, chances were they’d be Violetsoul-level.

“Maybe,” Anren said. “I could be remembering it wrong, and like I said, I’m not clear on the details. Anyways—that’s besides the point.”

She rounded on Daojue, who, as usual, was standing to the side, silently watching them. “And don’t think I’ve forgotten about you. How did you do?”

For the fourth stage, Jieyuan knew from their conversation after the Heavenly Selection, before they’d left for the Heavenly Rooms, that Daojue had picked Spear, and Anren, Poise.

“Seventh-order,” Daojue said. Making it the fourth time in a row.

Jieyuan didn’t let himself react to it.

Anren shot Daojue a smile. “Good job. We still have some time before the challenge begins, so we should probably just rest up, and—”

“Before that,” Jieyuan said, “could you tell me about Pain’s soulskill? I’ll probably be picking Pain next. You said something about soulburning, I think?”

“Oh. That’s… Hmmm. It might not be a good idea, actually.”

“Why not?”

Anren looked thoughtful; then she nodded to herself like she’d come to a decision.

“With Pain, it’s a little different. Soulburning is something anyone can do. Getting your affinity with Pain to seventh-order doesn’t unlock it or give you a better version of it, like it is with Death and Space. Rather, what reaching seventh-order Pain affinity does is letting you safely use it.”

“But what does it do?” Jieyuan pressed.

She shook her head. “It’s better if you find out for yourself. Being a Firesoul gives you an advantage. Unlike other alignments, Firesouls can soulburn naturally, and it comes easier if you do it by accident than if you try to force it.”

Glancing at Daojue, she asked, “I assume at least you know about it?”

“I do,” Daojue confirmed.

Anren nodded, focused back on Jieyuan.

“Even knowing the name of it might be problematic, so you’re better off forgetting about it—at least for the time being,” she warned. “Don’t try to think too deeply into what it is or what it can do. It’ll come eventually. Trust me on this.”

If anything, that only made him more interested in it, but Anren clearly knew more about the subject than he did.

“I’ll defer to your wisdom, then,” he said, sketching her a mock half-bow.

“You'd better,” Anren said, turning her nose up, “when you clearly have no wisdom of your own. You’re the most sheltered cultivator I’ve ever come across, bar none.”

She held the act for only a moment before dissolving into chuckles.

Jieyuan couldn’t help but laugh with her.

Even Daojue had a faintly amused look on, though it might have been a trick of the lighting.

—∞—

Jieyuan was back in the plains of black rock, under bruised skies, bathed in the dying light of a sun that never set and never rose.

He’d just barely entered the strange, eerie zone, both Shifting Feathers drawn, when something caught his eye.

There was a throne across from him. It was massive, rising several dozen feet into the air, the base of it spreading and extending underneath the seat like a pyramid. It was pitch-black, oily and metallic, glistening, made from the same bone-metal substance as the bone-men.

Sitting on the throne was a woman in black robes. She was sprawled sideways on the seat, languid, her legs bent over and swinging across one arm of the seat, her elbow propped on the other arm, holding her head up.

She wasn’t looking at him; her eyes were scanning the landscape. She was beautiful, all sharp lines, reminding him of a Liangshibai. Her eyes and hair were both black, but not mundane; they were too black, unnaturally so, much like the empyrean’s in the first stage.

The woman didn’t seem to be an empyrean, though. Her skin, though pale, didn’t glow like the lunar’s had, and her features, though sharp, still looked human. There had been something distinctly inhuman, if not uncanny, about the empyrean.

“Home, sweet home,” the woman said, her voice like a whisper of the wind. “I was born in this place, did you know? I was killed here, too, which is only fitting. Cradle and grave.”

Her eyes dipped down to him. “Now, let’s see who it is that Death warranted important enough to bring me out of—”

She froze, her eyes wide as she stared at him. In one smooth movement, she swept her legs back to the front of the throne and sat up straight, alert.

“You… You have— You have his—”

She jumped off the throne, landing soundlessly just in front of him. Jieyuan backed away, arms on the Shifting Feathers, ready for a fight. She didn’t seem to notice, though; her gaze bored into him.

Or, more exactly, into his chest.

Jieyuan recalled something similar happening not too long ago.

What was it that held her attention, that provoked that reaction? The Fatebloom Heart? Or the darker color of his soul?

Suddenly, she threw her head up and laughed. The sound of it resounded throughout the black plains, high and strident. “Oh, the Heavens are whimsical indeed! To think that we’d meet like this, forgotten echo and blunted shard, bridged by—shshshshshshsh.”

Jieyuan blinked; whatever the woman had said at the end there, he hadn’t heard it. Her words had turned suddenly indistinct, muffled.  

The woman frowned too, giving him a searching look. Then she whipped her head up, toward the skies above. Her expression warped, twisting into a scowl.

“Plunderer, damn your maggot-ridden carcass!” she shouted. “Even now, you meddle—shshshshshshsh.”

She shut her mouth, but her expression stayed murderous. Then she took a slow, deep breath and focused back on him.

“Well, the powers that be have decreed silence; it falls to us to obey.” She spat the words, her voice dripping with scorn.

Her gaze fell on his chest again. “Still, to think that we’d meet—shshshshsh— Enough!” She shot another scowl up at the skies. “I understand, you insufferable relic! I’ll say no more.”

Then it was Jieyuan’s turn to be glared at, like he was somehow at fault for this situation. “You. Let’s begin. Death’s trial.”

“Hold on,” Jieyuan said, “the things you were saying—”

“Forget it,” she cut him off. “There’s no point. I can’t tell you anything worth telling. Like how you have—shshshshshsh.” She shrugged at him. “See? And I have a challenge to give, and you a challenge to face.”

She reached into a fold of her robes as if grasping at something, then slowly drew her arm out. As she did, Jieyuan saw a black blade appear out of her robes.

It seemed to appear out of nowhere; Jieyuan couldn’t see a sheath, and there was no way she was hiding one, given the angle she was drawing it out from. All he saw was more and more of the metallic, glistening black blade being revealed, until it was fully out in the open.

It was made of the same material as the throne and the bone-men, the blade sleek and slender, over four feet long. It was considerably longer than your average sword, and also much thinner.

“The challenge is simple enough,” the woman said, taking position, holding the sword in front of her, her body leaning forward, predatory. “All you need to do is kill.”

She rushed at him; Jieyuan was ready for it, though. He swung the Shifting Feathers at her, blocking her thrust.

His arms bucked at the impact, and he almost lost his footing; he disengaged. From that little exchange, Jieyuan learned one thing: she was strong. Way stronger than he was. Stronger than Daojue and Anren, even, and not by a small margin.

The echo didn’t follow immediately, just gave him a sly look and a smirk, before charging at him again.

This time, Jieyuan merged the Shifting Feathers together, swinging the single-form at the woman to stop another thrust.

The golden blade met the black one, and this time around, with his full body into the movement, Jieyuan held his ground better—but he still strained to hold her back. And this was a one-armed thrust against a full-body swing.

Jieyuan’s eyes narrowed as he retreated again. The right way to wield an amphis was to go on the offense and not let up for even a moment; retreating like this went completely against that. But he didn’t really have a choice right now.

The woman was even stronger than he’d thought; this went beyond bloodskill territory. She had to be several times stronger than he was.

Focus. Calling on Twin Serpent Cognition, Jieyuan doubled his mind. The woman came at him again, and he focused on fending off her attacks while he set his second mind to using Path Glimpse Divination, just like back in the pursuit phase.

He couldn’t see black marks on the woman yet—not in her real self, nor in the future glimpses—but that could be because he wasn’t in the right state of mind yet. To see the death marks, he had to fully focus on killing his target, to the exclusion of everything else.

He took a deep breath, narrowing his eyes, forcing all his emotions away, doing his best to clear his head. If he hadn’t gotten plenty of practice with it the past few days, he doubted he’d have done it so easily, being a Firesoul. But only a few breaths passed before he started seeing it: lines and points, all over the woman’s body.

A long line at her neck, a point over her chest. Another line across her waist, another point in her forehead. There were others, but those were the main ones. They didn’t seem to be moving around, either. Those were fatal spots; if he struck there, she’d die. Just like any human would, really. That was a relief.

Now all he had to do was pull it off.

“Oh?” The woman pulled back mid-attack. She stood up straight, giving him an appraising look. “Absolute Death Sight. You were granted it? You should have said so. There’s a chance you might pass this challenge, after all.”

She charged at him again, and this time, she was faster. It was only because his other mind had just caught a glimpse of it that he managed to react in time, leaning to the side as the woman’s blade stabbed where his shoulder had been.

“Another soulskill?” the woman said as she lunged at him again.

Was it that obvious he’d seen her attack ahead of time, or did she have another way of telling?

He only barely managed to block, arms ringing under the impact.

“Aren’t you just full of surprises?” she said. “Then again, you—shshshshshshsh—so maybe I’m wrong to be surprised.”

In his mind’s eye, he saw himself going at her again and again, trying all sorts of different attacks—but no matter what he did, he couldn’t land an attack, never mind a killing blow. The death marks were still on the woman; she could be killed. But that meant nothing if he couldn’t even land a blow.

He was supposed to kill her, she’d said as much, but he didn’t see how. She was too fast, too strong. The only reason he still lived was that she was playing with him; with her speed, he didn’t stand a chance if she went for the kill, even if he used Path Glimpse Divination.

It didn’t make sense. The fourth stage’s challenge couldn’t be this hard. He couldn’t see how anyone could kill this woman; not even Daojue should have been capable of it.

“Come on, I already said what you need to do,” the woman taunted, playful, just as he dodged another attack that’d have cut through his sides. Non-lethal, like all of her attacks so far; she really wasn’t trying to kill him.

But why? What was she trying to do, and what was he supposed to do?

“Kill,” she said, stabbing at him again. “That’s all there is to it.”

“I’m trying,” Jieyuan ground out, his voice shaky, his arms ringing as he clashed the Shifting Feathers against her black sword again. “You’re not making it easy.”

“Oh, I’m making this laughably easy. You just aren’t seeing it.”

Seeing. The way she’d stressed the word… She was trying to tell him something. Seeing. Absolute Death Sight. There was no way that was a coincidence. But he was seeing death marks already… unless he was looking at the wrong place? What if they weren’t on the woman?

All you need to do is kill.

Kill.

Jieyuan parried another attack. Leaving one of his minds in charge of surviving the woman’s attack, he had the other one stop trying to divine the future, and instead had it thinking things through, turning the echo’s words over in his head.

Kill.

She hadn’t said what he was supposed to kill, had she?

His goal here was simple: to pass the challenge—

It was a good thing he’d left his other mind in charge of his body, because the realization he’d just had would’ve made him freeze.

He wanted to pass the challenge. To end it. To… kill it.

Just as the thought crossed his mind, something subtle shifted inside him. The death marks over the woman’s body remained, but he caught something else, at the edge of his vision, pulling his attention down.

Putting some distance between himself and the woman, he risked a quick glance down.

Death marks. On his body. The biggest and clearest of them was on his chest.

The woman didn’t lunge at him; she stayed put, eyes both bright and dark as she studied him.

“There we go,” she purred. “There you have it. You see it now.”

All you need to do is kill.

He’d focus his intent to kill on the challenge—the situation—itself, and death marks had appeared on his body.

She hadn’t specified what he was supposed to kill.

Or, more importantly, whom.

Jieyuan’s eyes met the woman’s. She didn’t make a move, kept looking at him expectantly. He couldn’t see himself killing her.

But killing himself… that was a different business.

He called on Path Glimpse Divination again, and in his mind’s eye, he saw himself do exactly what he was thinking: stab himself in the chest with a Shifting Feather. The pair-forms weren’t really meant for thrusting, but they could get the job done well enough.

He kept the glimpse going, past his dying moments, to see what came next—but he saw nothing. Only darkness. Even after a while, that was all he saw.

Darkness. That could mean any number of things. Most bad, sure, but some good.

And he could feel the presence of Death inside him, stronger than before, like it was urging him on, encouraging him.

I really hope I’m reading this right.

Because if he was wrong, then he couldn’t think of a dumber way to die.

Under the woman’s expectant gaze, he split the Shifting Feathers, sheathed one of them, reversed his grip on the other, holding it with both hands, the tip of the blade pressed against his chest—and before hesitation could catch up to his actions, he drove the blade inward.

Just like he’d done in his mind’s eye.

He didn’t take his eyes off the black-robed woman as the blade broke skin, slid between his ribs, and pierced his heart.

“Yes,” she said, softly, eagerly. “There’s no bigger tribute to Death than to embrace it.”

Only moments had passed, but Jieyuan already felt cold. Weak. His vision swam, darkness creeping in from the corners. The pain from what he’d just done—broken bones, shredded muscles, ripped nerves—didn’t even get to settle before it was already fading. Blood slid down the blade to his hands, warm against his cooling skin.

Jieyuan’s legs gave out; he dropped to his knees. Still, he kept his back straight, craning his head up, keeping the echo in sight. He didn’t even know why; his vision was blurry, the echo looking more like an indistinct dark shape now.

Her voice came distantly, like he was underwater.

“Oh, this is simply beautiful, J—”

The darkness took over him.

The next thing Jieyuan knew, he was back in the Heavenly Hall, standing in front of a steel door, unharmed.

A little out of it, Jieyuan couldn’t help but notice how this was the third time he’d been stabbed in the chest and survived. First in the Fatebloom Woods, then in the Gleaming Stone Palace, and now here.

Jieyuan didn’t intend to make a habit of it, of course, but it sure was better than being stabbed through the heart and actually dying.

He gave a shaky little laugh, then slumped forward, letting his forehead press against the cool metal of the door.

He stayed like that for a while, steadying his breath, trying to get his heart to settle.