Chapter 123: BLOOD AND SIGHT

CHAPTER

123

BLOOD AND SIGHT

JIEYUAN

—∞—

The forest snapped back into place around him, but all of Jieyuan’s attention was on the little, innocent jade cube in his hand.

What in the Heavens?

He heard Maeva’s giggle. “Oh my.”

Jieyuan’s stomach dropped.

Maeva. He’d forgotten about her.

His sister’s voice rang in his head, “You were always so adorably awkward about—”

Absolutely not. He would not be teased over this by the hallucination of his sister. Not when she’d have even more ammunition than the real Maeva would have, having all of his memories—as both Amyas and Jieyuan—at her disposal. He would not give so much as an inch.

“Oh, come on, little brother. You’re eighteen. It’s perfectly natural—”

Drop the subject, Maeva, or I’ll drop you.

“Fine,” she said. But she did not stop giggling.

Jieyuan was so terribly tempted to dismiss the Command powering her, but he still needed her to keep watch.

He looked back down at the jade book and scowled. It wasn’t like he had an issue with this kind of stuff. It was just that he had better things to do with his time. And… He recalled the woman in the memory. She’d been pretty, sure—but no Meiyao.

Of course, he could always use Absolute Will Command to solve that particular problem—

No. Jieyuan cut off that line of thought immediately. He’d resisted using his realmskill for that so far. He would not give in now. His will was steel.

He’d long since decided that it’d be the real thing, or nothing at all.

“But still… seriously?” he murmured, his eyes still on the jade book. Yellowsouls, just like orangesouls, must not be so different after all.

After a moment’s hesitation, Jieyuan set the jade book in the discarded pile and picked up another. He was prepared for another full memory, but all that happened were words appearing in his mind. Jieyuan was almost disappointed.

Looking through it, though, he found that even though it was just text, it was more interesting than everything he’d read so far.

It is unlikely these words will ever find their way to another’s mind, but I shall put them to jade all the same. My husband insists doing so shall help put my mind at ease. I fail to see how that might be, but I see no harm in indulging him.

This is the seventh day of the joint expedition into the Dome. My fellow sectsmen of the Incandescent Serenity Sect and I have already come to the conclusion that if a means exist to circumvent the viridian mist, it is beyond the means of a mere yellowsoul.

The Ardent Light Sect cultivators came to that same conclusion two days before. On the other hand, the Immaculate Blood cultists, and the men and women of the Obscuring Shadows Sect, have yet to give up hope.

Of our original twenty-eight, seven of each sect, already we are down to twenty-six. Two utterly imbecilic Immaculate Blood cultists decided to brave the mists on their own before we realized the necessity of physical contact when traversing past the visibility zone.

One of the men of the Ardent Light Sect had the forethought to bring rope with him, and we have used it to tie ourselves together. I admit it makes for an unusual sight, twenty-six yellowsouls all tied together as we move through the Dome, but function trumps form.

By my best estimate, we have advanced less than a mile from our entry point into the Dome. So far, we’ve been besieged by all manners of chromal beasts. They have all been effortlessly dealt with, but I do not believe that shall remain the case for long. The first Yellowsoul beast appeared yesterday, and since then, several more have crossed our path.

Jieyuan read it all to the end, where the author concluded that they did not, in fact, feel any more at ease, and that it had been a waste of time—although the exact wording was a fair bit more pleasant than that. Jieyuan would bet good gold the author had been a Metalsoul.

He set the jade book down, thinking. Nothing of what the author had written about the Dome was news to him. The context was a different story.

The only Yellowsoul sect Jieyuan knew of was the Incandescent Serenity Sect, their island’s ruling sect. Now, from the looks of it, he could add three more to the list. The Ardent Light Sect, the Obscuring Shadows Sect, and the Immaculate Blood Cult. They were, he was assuming, the ruling sects of neighboring islands.

Now, their names didn’t mean anything to him—except for one.

“Immaculate Blood,” Jieyuan murmured to himself, testing the words as he focused on the text in his mind’s eye. 

The words were familiar, and it didn’t take him long to place them. Back in Yikongwei Beidao’s jade books he’d found in the Fatebloom Woods, there’d been a mention of something called the Immaculate Blood Pearl.

Considering a violetsoul had mentioned it, this pearl had to be something important. And though it wasn’t a sure thing, it probably had something to do with this Immaculate Blood Cult, seeing how they shared a name.

This wasn’t information Jieyuan could act on right now, but later, when—when, not if—he got out of the Dome? That was something worth looking into.

Of course, it had to do with a cult—and if the Viridian Death Cult was any indication, the less he had to do with that kind of sect, the better.

Something else that was curious was over twenty cultivators had managed to travel together. Opening his eyes, looking around the clearing he and Daojue were in, he couldn’t see that happening, even though it was one of the bigger pockets they’d come across so far.

It might just fit that many cultivators if they were all crammed together, sure. But they definitely wouldn’t be able to fight inside it. So unless he was missing something, that’d imply the pockets the yellowsouls had gone through had been considerably bigger. Did the Dome adjust the size of the pockets based on the number of people inside it?

That was possible, but Jieyuan didn’t see that much difference now that it was just him and Daojue as opposed to when they still had Meiyao with them.

Something else also stood out to him. The yellowsouls had faced Yellowsoul beasts not even a week into the Dome, and with less than a mile traveled. Jieyuan and Daojue had been inside much longer, and gone much further in than that.

It could be that he and Daojue were just that lucky—or the yellowsouls that unlucky. Or that Daojue’s ring had kept them safe. Or that the Dome was sentient somehow and hadn’t sent  overly dangerous beasts their way.

Jieyuan sighed, putting the jade book away.

The remaining jade books didn’t add much to what he already knew. Only that a lot of the yellowsouls had decided to bring with them some particularly private memories, each one from a different person’s viewpoint—and only half of them from a man’s.

Jieyuan kept the relatively useful jade books, putting them in his new and much appreciated Orangesoul glyph-stretch pouch. The others, he left on the ground. Checking up on Daojue, he found that he’d already wrapped up his own matters. He was sitting with Gleaming End on his lap, eyes closed, both arms gauntleted again.

Glancing over to the pile of artifacts, Jieyuan found that all the Yellowsoul artifacts were gone. Of the Orangesoul ones, all that were left were the saber, the three sealed-space rings, and two swords. The Redsoul ones were untouched.

“How did it go?” Jieyuan moved over and went about putting all the artifacts away. “What’s Gleaming End’s soulsign now?”

Daojue looked at him. “Tenth-sign Orangesoul.”

Jieyuan felt a little part of him—the merchant part—die at the thought of just how many high-sign Orangesoul and Yellowsoul artifacts it’d taken just to get Gleaming End to that point. But it’d been the more practical choice, so he forced himself to say, “Good.”

Daojue closed his eyes, returning to his meditation or cultivation or whatever.

Jieyuan finished up. He attached a sheath for the Orangesoul saber to his waist, next to that of one of the Shifting Feathers. Then he threw half of the red prisms inside one of the Orangesoul pouches and tossed it to Daojue, who caught it without opening his eyes. The rest of their haul he kept for himself, at least for the time being.

Then he got on with his usual routine. Refining, training, and then cultivating.

If he had known what the next few days had in store for him, he’d have appreciated these last few hours of peace more.

—∞—

Jieyuan wasn’t sure if their luck had run out, or if the Dome had just decided to kick things up a notch.

Either way, something had changed, and not for the better.

It’d been a week since their fight with the jackal and the division of the spoils. And what a week it’d been.

Jieyuan stood in the middle of a pocket. He had the Orangesoul saber in one hand, a scale dagger in another. Floating in the air near him, under Maeva’s control, were the Shifting Feathers. Dark green blood dripped from the blades of all four weapons, painting the foliage underfoot.

His own red blood dripped from the cuts and gouges littering his bare chest and arms. Bite wounds and tears and cuts.

Daojue was standing next to him, looking considerably less roughed up but wounded and bloodied all the same. Gleaming End at the ready. It’d already been rare for Daojue to let go of his weapon, but it’d been days since the last time it’d left Daojue’s hands.

Surrounding them were the corpses of wolves. Seven of them—which was only half of the original pack they’d just fought. The other half was just as dead, but spread throughout surrounding pockets.

Usually he and Daojue didn’t have much trouble with Redsoul beasts anymore, not even tenth-sign ones. But usually they didn’t have to face more than a dozen of them all at once.

It’d been a flurry of fangs and claws and wolves that just wouldn’t quit. Jieyuan didn’t know what exactly their beast-skill was, but it let them keep fighting even with half their head cut off.

And it’d only gotten worse when Jieyuan had realized that if the wolves weren’t killed for good, they’d quickly regenerate. There was one particular wolf Jieyuan was pretty sure he’d killed three times.

There were seven corpses in the clearing, but someone who hadn’t seen the fight would have a hard time telling as much, when the one in the best condition was missing all of its limbs and over a third of its head—and was still twitching.

Jieyuan bit off a curse, then stormed over and stomped his greave on what remained of the beast’s head. The wet crackle and crush was music to his ears.

Fighting several near-undying wolves was bad enough, but it didn’t help any that he’d already been on the verge of exhaustion before the fight. It took a lot to tire out a sixth-sign Redsoul, but it’d been a week since he’d last managed more than half an hour of uninterrupted rest.

Where before they could manage to avoid conflict one out of three encounters, now almost every time they came across a beast, a fight broke out. Beasts were also popping up so often they might as well be sharks, the Dome the ocean, and Daojue and him succulent and bloody morsels.

Jieyuan groaned, his limbs heavy, leaden. Already his augmented stamina was at work, warding off true exhaustion, but seven days without sleep kept him from making a full recovery. At his soulsign, he needed less than an hour of sleep, but nowadays he’d be lucky if he managed half that much.

The viridian mist swirled almost playfully around them, licking intangibly at his skin, making all the shed blood glisten with its glow.

Jieyuan cast his eyes across the clearing, making sure all the corpses were indeed corpses. Satisfied, he popped a regeneration augmenter.

Maeva and Huaxin were on high alert, but it wasn’t like that made much of a difference. Not anymore. He’d be surprised if he got more than a handful of minutes before the next wave.

He didn’t know what, exactly, had provoked this change—this unprecedented ramp-up in aggression.

“Go?” Jieyuan asked, glancing at Daojue. He didn’t bother checking with Huaxin whether it was safe to leave. It wouldn’t be.

But it wouldn’t be safe to stay, either.

Damned if you do, damned if you don’t. There was no sentence that could better describe his life as of late.

Daojue’s answer was to stride forward. Jieyuan followed. All the way to the edge of the clearing, and then out of it, into the next pocket.

Stepping through, Jieyuan had been prepared for just about anything. From nothing at all to a pack of Orangesoul beasts.

But he had not been prepared for the sight of Meiyao.