Chapter 131: HIGHER REALMS

CHAPTER

131

HIGHER REALMS

JIEYUAN

—∞—

Chromal beasts weren’t necessarily bigger than their mundane counterparts, and realm didn’t correlate to size. Jieyuan had met massive Redsoul beasts and tiny Orangesoul ones. If anything, the smaller the beast, the more troublesome it tended to be.

But Jieyuan had never come across a beast even half as big as this colossal bird. The biggest beast he’d seen before now had been the two-headed snake, and it might as well have been a worm in comparison to this newcomer.

His soulsense couldn’t detect the beast. It was like there was this massive void in front of him, a great expanse of absolutely nothing.

It wasn’t at Orangesoul. Jieyuan didn’t know what it was about it, but he just knew—knew, on some primal, instinctual level—that this creature was on a completely different level than all the beasts they’d come across so far.

The four-eyed, four-winged eagle stared down at them, silent, unmoving.

Jieyuan risked a glance at Meiyao. She was standing there, frozen like him and Daojue, her eyes wide. Whatever color she’d regained since her cultivation session had drained away. Xiaohu was on the ground beside her, just as still, staring up at the huge beast.

The first Orangesoul beast they’d come across was a vulture. It’d flown down, landing in front of them, and Jieyuan could still recall the fear he’d felt then. But Meiyao hadn’t panicked. She’d been tense—maybe even a little afraid—but she’d soldiered through, worked her charm on it, and eventually sent it away.

Jieyuan had never seen Meiyao so close to fear since then. A little afraid—that was as much as he’d ever seen. He’d never seen Meiyao scared. Part of him hadn’t even thought she was capable of it.

That wasn’t true anymore.

Meiyao wasn’t just scared right now, though.

She looked terrified.

The seconds passed. Nobody did anything. Jieyuan kept looking from Meiyao to the massive eagle. The bird wasn’t staring at them, he noticed. Like most beasts they came across, it seemed to be focused entirely on Meiyao, all four of its eyes fixed on her.

And she was staring right back at it. But not out of defiance or anything. More like she couldn’t look away, couldn’t bring herself to move.

Huaxin was still eerily quiet in his chest. Their bond felt distant, muted, and Jieyuan would’ve been more worried about it if he didn’t have even bigger concerns at hand.

It was maybe a minute later—though it sure felt like an eternity—that something changed. Shifted. Jieyuan had no idea what it was that happened, but Meiyao suddenly relaxed. Not much, just a fraction. She was still tense, pale, but her eyes weren’t as wide.

“It wants to take us somewhere,” Meiyao said, slowly, not looking away from the beast.

Jieyuan wasn’t sure he’d heard it right. The beast hadn’t had any reaction to Meiyao’s words, so he took the risk and whispered back to her, “What?”

Meiyao didn’t look at him. “It wants to take us somewhere,” she repeated.

Slowly, the massive eagle turned around, taking its time with the movement. And then, when it was fully facing the other direction, it leaned down, the rest of its body disappearing beyond the pocket.

Jieyuan stared. Now he wasn’t sure if he was seeing right. “Does it— Does it want—”

“It wants us to get on its back,” Meiyao confirmed. She sheathed her saber, then grabbed onto his arm, her hand closing around his wrist. “Let’s go.”

Jieyuan stared at the huge beast. Its legs alone were more than thrice his height. He’d have to climb the legs to get on its back.

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” he asked, quietly, as Meiyao led him forward. Daojue followed from the side.

Meiyao glanced at him just as they reached the leg. “No. But it’s the only idea.”

Her jaw trembled a little. Her grip on his arm tightened.

“Unless,” she said, shakily, “you think we have a chance against a Violetsoul beast.”

—∞—

It hadn’t even been a year since Jieyuan became a cultivator.

He might’ve prepared himself for it all his life, but there were still a lot of things about this new reality he was getting used to. Rules and facts and truths that had nothing to do with the mundane world he’d left behind.

So it wasn’t rare for Jieyuan to find himself confused sometimes. Lost, even. It was happening less and less, sure, but it still happened every once in a while. Even more so with how he kept hanging around Meiyao and Daojue, who were involved in things no cultivator their realm should’ve had any business with.

Jieyuan was pretty sure, though, that he’d never been this lost before.

He was completely submerged in feathers. Underneath, he knew, was the body of the Violetsoul he was riding—and, Heavens, wasn’t that a sentence—but right now that was all he felt. Feathers.

Feathers, and the viridian mist. He’d known from the start that something was off about the mist. There were all sorts of things wrong about it, really, but one of the first things he’d noticed was how it acted as if it were tangible even though it didn’t seem to have any substance.

The thing was, the viridian mist felt awfully substantial right now.

A thick layer of it was wrapped around his back, pressing him down. Physically pressing him. The mist wasn’t just acting tangible—it was very much tangible now. Jieyuan was still holding onto the feathers, but he was pretty sure that even if he let go, the mist would do a good enough job holding him in place, keeping him from falling.

It had happened just after they’d climbed onto the eagle. He and Meiyao and Daojue had gradually worked their way up the eagle’s back, pulling on the massive, human-sized feathers as they climbed. And then the mist had suddenly wrapped around them.

And that had been it.

Jieyuan didn’t know what had happened next. Heavens, he didn’t know what was happening now. Whether they were moving or still. Whether they were on the ground or in the air.

Right now, his world was only made up of two things. Feathers and mist.

Meiyao had been right by his side before the mist had solidified around them. Now he couldn’t see or hear her. Or sense her. The solid viridian mist blocked his soulsense. He could extend it downward, toward the feathers beneath him, but it wasn’t like he could sense those anyway.

As far as his soulsense was concerned, he was surrounded by absolutely nothing at all. Like he was floating in some kind of void.

Jieyuan let out a low breath. Despite everything, his heart beat steadily in his chest. Huaxin was still as infuriatingly quiet as it’d been since just before the eagle appeared.

He wasn’t panicking. Not anymore.

Oh, he’d been earlier.

He’d been scared from the moment he saw the eagle. And then when Meiyao had told him of its realm…

She’d not been alone in her terror.

Violetsoul. It’d been his goal from the start. And he’d never been so close to it—though not quite in the way he’d had in mind.

His mood hadn’t been helped any by the climb up the eagle’s back—and the sharp awareness that there was absolutely nothing he could do. And then, when the mist had wrapped around him, and he’d lost all contact with the outside world…

He’d gone into panic, even if just for a moment.

Anger had come next. A hot, blinding rush of it. Both at the fear he felt—and at his helplessness. At his powerlessness.

There was no feeling in the world—none whatsoever—worse than being at someone else’s mercy.

But not even a Firesoul could burn forever. After a while, he cooled, calmed, and began to think clearly again.

One of the first things he’d done afterward was try to summon Maeva—if nothing else, for the comfort of her presence—but it hadn’t worked. He had no way to tell if it was the work of the mist or something the Violetsoul had done, but he couldn’t use his realmskills right now.

He could sense Absolute Will Command in his mind, the mark it’d left behind from the moment he’d bonded it. But he couldn’t sacrifice any chroma to power it, not even to use it on himself.

There had been nothing to do, then, but to think. So that was what he’d done. He’d thought about the situation. Considered their circumstances from every angle he could think of. Pushed his mind to search for possibilities, for answers to what was happening right now.

He’d weighed the odds of himself and Meiyao and Daojue making it out of this alive.

And, to his surprise, he’d found they weren’t that bad.

The truth of the matter was, if the Violetsoul beast had wanted them dead, they’d be dead, and there was absolutely nothing they could do about it. And once he’d gotten over the shock of Violetsoul—of just what that word meant, in this situation—he’d realized just how absurd it was for a creature at that level to take an interest in them.

There was only one explanation, really. This was about Meiyao.

Meiyao was the one with a special connection to the Dome, and it’d been Meiyao the Violetsoul beast had been staring at.

Jieyuan didn’t quite manage to convince himself this was a good thing. But he was pretty sure it wasn’t the end.

So when the mist suddenly pulled back and his senses—physical and spiritual—returned?

Jieyuan found himself oddly calm. Collected.

The first thing he did was turn his head to the side.

He found Meiyao looking right back at him. She was only inches away, just like she’d been when he last saw her before the mist solidified. Xiaohu was wrapped tightly around her neck.

The mist was still around, but sparse and intangible again, harmlessly glowing.

What was nearly tangible, on the other hand, was the relief that came over him at the sight of her.

He flashed her a smile, even as he continued taking stock of the situation.

With his soulsense, he could feel Daojue on his other side. He could sense the ambient chroma again. And beside the massive void that was the Violetsoul bird they were on, there were hundreds of other voids, many of them almost as big as the eagle.

Heavens’ sake— A spike of alarm hit him, but then it passed as he realized just what the shape of these voids was.

Straight, almost cylindrical, rising straight upward, like pillars.

Not beasts, he realized.

Plants. Trees.

Hands still gripping the feathers for support, Jieyuan leaned back as far away from the eagle’s body as he could and swiveled his head around, trying to get a sense for the area.

Feathers blocked off most of his view, but at the edges of his vision he could see… rock? Stone?

“Jieyuan,” Meiyao said, quietly, and he focused back on her. “We should get off.”

That, Jieyuan reckoned, sounded like a really good idea.

He looked down, confirmed the way was clear, and then let go. Meiyao and Daojue did the same, and they all dropped down.

They landed on solid ground, right between the eagle’s talons, their greaves crushing the undergrowth. Jieyuan was about to cast a look around when four great masses swept down from up above, and a blast of wind buffeted him, knocking him to the ground.

He was back on his feet just a beat later, ready for anything—but then he realized what had happened.

The Violetsoul eagle was gone.

Just like that.

Jieyuan didn’t even get to think on the abrupt departure. Because with the eagle gone, he could finally see where they were.

Or rather, he could see just what lay ahead of them.

A barrier of dark rock coated in green moss and crawling vegetation. A mountain, rising off the ground as straight as a wall.

Looking up, Jieyuan found that the great rocky mass went on and on, disappearing past the top of the pocket they were in—which seemed to be as big as the ones back in the bog.

And then Jieyuan saw the hole.

It was off to his left, not quite hidden from view but not all that obvious, either. A sparse curtain of plants had grown over it, loosely masking the entrance. It started at ground level, reaching up about a dozen feet tall and spanning maybe half as much across.

Glancing behind him, Jieyuan saw trees. The ones he’d sensed—or rather, the ones he’d not sensed.

Tall and broad trunks capped with full, broad crowns. All of it glowing, of course. Brown for the bark, green for the leaves.

They were similar to the first trees he’d seen when they entered the Dome. Only bigger. And, of course, at a higher realm.

Nothing about them really drew the eye, though. Not like the cave entrance had.

There was no way that the Violetsoul eagle had picked them up just to drop them in some random location on a whim. They had to be here for a reason. And Jieyuan felt it was safe to bet that the cave had something to do with it.

He turned to Meiyao. “What do you—”

She was standing frozen in place, staring at the cave entrance.

Xiaohu was perched on Meiyao’s shoulders—and, just like her owner, staring fixedly at the cave.

The look on Meiyao’s face. That look. Jieyuan hadn’t seen it in months, but he still recognized it on the spot. He remembered it all too well. He doubted he’d ever forget what happened the last time she’d looked like that.

How she’d fallen into a trance and walked toward the Sacred Source—almost killing him when he’d tried to stop her—and then touched it. And, in doing so, woken up the death trap that was Viridian Death City.

Between this look and the sheer terror Meiyao had shown when the Violetsoul eagle appeared?

Jieyuan would take the latter any day, any time, thank you very much.