Chapter 122: THE RED RING

CHAPTER

122

THE RED RING

JIEYUAN

—∞—

Daojue moved the Yellowsoul bracelet to his right hand, the hand with the red ring, and took hold of Gleaming End with his left.

He pressed Gleaming End and the bracelet against each other again. The ring, Jieyuan couldn’t help but notice, was in contact with the bracelet.

The bracelet shimmered, then disappeared.

Daojue kept staring at the red ring. Jieyuan did some staring of his own. He recalled his old suspicions about that ring—from as early as their time in the Gleamstone Forest. Daojue had spent some time absentmindedly rubbing it after he’d led them to the cave. It was also that same finger that Daojue would rub whenever he acted out, here in the Dome.

Definitely not mundane, Jieyuan decided, still staring at the ring. And, from the looks of it, not just Orangesoul, either.

“Daojue,” Jieyuan said, “what is that ring?”

Daojue broke his gaze away from his hand and stared up at him. He said nothing.

“You…” More than ever before, Jieyuan considered pressing the issue. But instead he sighed. Daojue had no obligation to tell him his secrets, and it wasn’t like he could force him anyway. “Never mind that. What’s Gleaming End’s soulsign now?”

Daojue kept up his stare for a while longer, then said, “Second-sign Orangesoul.”

Jieyuan winced. Sacrificing a Yellowsoul artifact to increase an Orangesoul one’s sign by one. Even if the cannibalism ritual wasn’t restricted to ego artifacts, Jieyuan reckoned it still wouldn’t have been widespread, considering how absurdly wasteful it was.

Jieyuan stared down at the Yellowsoul sealed-space ring on his hand. He could see himself eventually reaching Orangesoul, but Yellowsoul… that was much farther off. Much farther off. And Gleaming End being one sign higher could very well mean the difference between life and death further down the line.

He tossed it to Daojue. “Sacrifice all the Yellowsoul artifacts, then. We’re going all in.”

In response, Daojue simply pressed the ring to the sword. It disappeared, and that was that. Daojue crouched down to pick up another artifact. Jieyuan watched for a while as Daojue fed Gleaming End artifact after artifact. But his thoughts were on the red ring.

What exactly was it? What could it do? If he’d read the situation correctly, and the ring was behind each and every time Daojue had acted out, then it was what had pushed Daojue into going inside the greenseeker jackal’s burrow. It was also the ring that had shown Daojue the way to Gleaming End, back in the Gleamstone Valley.

The ring acted up a few more times here in the Dome, but nothing had come out of it—unless… Jieyuan frowned. Maybe… Maybe it’d kept them out of danger? They had only come across low-sign Orangesoul beasts so far, which was suspicious.

Assuming that was true, though, then what was the ring’s power? Some kind of sensor? There was also the fact that it had allowed Daojue to sacrifice a Yellowsoul artifact. Did the ring have a gear-skill specifically for facilitating the cannibalism ritual? That seemed… odd. Unlikely.

Maeva? Any ideas?

Maeva popped up by his side in her usual ensemble, a yellow sundress with a white lab coat over it. She gave Daojue and the ring a thoughtful look. “I think you’re looking at it the wrong way.”

What?

“Daojue shouldn’t be able to perform a ritual on Orangesoul entities, to begin with,” Maeva said. “Lower-realm entities cannot affect higher-realm ones. There have only been two exceptions to that rule, so far. Meiyao’s Divine Nature Resonance, which lets her resonate with higher-realm beasts, and Daojue’s Sovereign Gear Affinity, which lets him sense higher-realm artifacts.”

She turned to Jieyuan. “It could be that Daojue’s bloodright lets him use the cannibalism ritual between Orangesoul artifacts. Or it could be that, just like how it was Gleaming End that bonded Daojue, and Gleaming End that used its gear-skills in Viridian Death City, that it was Gleaming End that was using the cannibalism ritual on the Orangesoul artifacts, not Daojue.”

Jieyuan immediately saw where she was getting at.

You think the red ring’s an ego artifact, then? He watched as one of the Yellowsoul rings disappeared from Daojue’s hand. That it’s what’s using the cannibalism ritual right now?

“That seems more likely to me,” Maeva said. “Of course, if you were to ask my husband, I believe he’d be able to come up with more theories.”

Jieyuan would’ve scoffed if Daojue wasn’t nearby. Oh, I already know what he’ll say. What did he call it? Grandpa in a ring? He stopped and considered that for a moment. Actually, depending on just how sentient these ego artifacts are? He might even be correct.

In fact, that’d also go a long way in explaining Daojue’s unusual knowledge. It might even explain Daojue’s unwillingness to reveal how he knew all those things.

But then again… Did that change anything? Jieyuan thought it over, and then decided it didn’t. At least not for the time being.

If Daojue was carrying some ancient grandfatherly spirit around with him, then Jieyuan reckoned they’d be finding out soon enough, when they reached tenth-sign Redsoul and Daojue mysteriously produced some Orangesoul coalescence hymns.

Until then, Jieyuan reckoned it was none of his business.

Thanks, Maeva.

“Any time, little brother,” she said, disappearing back into him, returning to her lookout and chanting.

Jieyuan watched Daojue for a few moments longer, but seeing he had matters well in hand and didn’t need any help, he walked over to where he’d set aside the jade books.

He plopped down in front of the little stacks of green cubes. Humming softly to himself, he picked up one of the Redsoul jade books, but his eyes were on the higher-realm ones.

Who knows? Maybe we won’t need Daojue’s ring spirit. Maybe we’ll find an Orangesoul coalescence hymn in one of them.  

It wasn’t likely. Cultivators had perfect recall, and given how precious heavenly hymns were, they weren’t something you carried around with you. Not to mention they were sect property—sharing them with outsiders was expressly forbidden.

But he could still hope.

But first, the Redsoul ones. Jieyuan pumped some chroma into the little jade cube in his hand, and words appeared in his mind’s eye.

Nothing—absolutely nothing—could’ve prepared him for a Viridian Death cultist’s gleefully  narrated account of the gradual necrosis of his flesh.

It is the fourth day, and the Viridian looms closer than ever before. Its hold on me is indubitable. The skin of my hand has blackened into a stunning onyx; the flesh underneath, finely shriveled. On my palm, around the bite wound, are brilliant green boils, ripe as nature’s most beautiful fruits.

The rest of my brothers and sisters are already one with the Viridian, and I envied them for their expedient departure, but now I know better. The Eternal Green had reserved for my unworthy self a far more glorious metamorphosis. Even in life the Viridian itself courses through me, and there is no feeling more rapturous.

You who have found my legacy, I have already described the envoy of the Viridian that has granted me this most noble end. I am not a jealous man. I beseech you once more to seek one such hallowed creature for yourself, so that you may also experience the utter joy that is to—

Jieyuan cut off the flow of chroma into the jade slip, and the rest of the utterly deranged narration mercifully vanished from his mind’s eye.

He’d only persevered past the first few days of the disgusting log entries in hopes that the cultist might’ve included anything important about the Dome. But enough was enough.

Some things just weren’t fit for human consumption.

He’d thought before how he wouldn’t want a glimpse into the head of a Viridian Death cultist. He couldn’t have been more right.

Jieyuan almost threw the jade book away—out of the pocket, even—but restrained himself, and instead just tossed it to the side. He’d be leaving it in the clearing when they left.

He turned his attention to the remaining jade books.

And it occurred to him that chances were that a great deal of them might’ve been from Viridian Death cultists. Out of all the Redsoul sects, they were the most likely to send people into the Dome.

“Oh, joy,” Jieyuan murmured to himself.

But there was nothing to it. He grabbed another one and, bracing himself pumped some chroma into it.

And wonder of wonders…

THE VIRIDIAN CALLS ME AND I SHALL ANSWER I AM ITS MOST DEVOUT ROT SHALL SET ME—

Jieyuan took a deep breath. Then another. Then a third, just for good measure.

He was, it seemed, in for a treat and a half.

After reading several more rabid lines praising the glory of the Viridian, Jieyuan gave up and set the little green cube aside with a scowl. He went for the next jade book before he could lose his courage.

And so it went, jade book after jade book. The Redsoul ones turned out to be a total bust. More than two-thirds of them ended up being from Viridian Death cultists, as he had most sincerely dreaded. The only reason each one wasn’t worse than the last was because they were each as bad as it could get in their own, terrible way. And the ones that weren’t from cultists were less disturbing but just as useless.

Jieyuan turned his attention to the higher-realm jade books, the ones he couldn’t soulsense. Two stacks, one significantly bigger than the other. Orangesoul and Yellowsoul. He started with the former, grasping one of the cubes.

He gave it a considering look. At the very least, it promised to be better than the Redsoul ones, even if only because there was no chance it could be from a Viridian Death cultist. Of course, there was no guarantee it wasn’t from someone from an Orangesoul cult, but he’d take the risk.

Though it was invisible to soulsense, channeling chroma into it made words appear in his mind’s eye just fine. The only thing he couldn’t do was change its contents, which would require him to bond it first.

Let’s see… Experiments with the viridian mist… Attempt one…

Having learned his lesson, Jieyuan skimmed through the contents first. He quickly got the gist of it. As it turned out, he wasn’t the only one who’d had the idea to figure out some way around the viridian mist after entering the Dome.

The difference was that the author of the jade book hadn’t had Meiyao around to tell them that it was useless, that there was no point. So the cultivator had kept trying and trying and trying. Experiment after experiment.

And the culmination of it all, written at the very end…

The Viridian is absolute. Only in its embrace shall I find solace.

Jieyuan slowly exhaled, cutting off the connection. The author hadn’t been from the Viridian Death Cult, but it looked like they’d found religion at the end.

Jieyuan didn’t like the sound of that. He liked even less what that could mean for him and Daojue.

Jieyuan moved on to the next jade book.

Lines of poetry appeared in his mind’s eye.

His heart didn’t just skip but outright somersaulted, and he almost jumped to his feet. But then he realized the meter didn’t match any of the heavenly hymn types. It was also too long.

Heavens, don’t play me like that.

Disappointment washed over him, and Jieyuan forced himself to relax. There were other poems in the jade book, and he quickly went through them all, but none had the look of a heavenly hymn. That added up, though. Everyone—mundanes included—knew the exact structure of each of the heavenly hymn types, and it was considered to be in very bad taste to replicate them in mundane poetry.

Jieyuan rolled the cube around in his hand, going through all the poems one more time, just to be sure. The impression he got was the same, though. Just mundane poetry. And not even particularly good poetry, at that.

Come on, tree and bee? You can do better than that.

“Hmmm.”

The jade book was probably worthless, but… Jieyuan decided to set it on his other side, away from the discarded ones. There was a chance he was wrong and the poems were heavenly hymns, maybe of types he’d never heard of. And the only real way to tell whether it was the real thing was to recite it while Communing, which he fully intended to do.

He moved on. Compared to the first two, the rest of the Orangesoul books proved uneventful. All of them either logs or memoirs that were either uninteresting or depressing. It seemed like orangesouls didn’t think or see the world that much differently from redsouls and mundanes.

Sighing, Jieyuan picked up yet another jade book. This one, though, was from the Yellowsoul stack. There was no guarantee the jade book itself was at Yellowsoul—he hadn’t had Daojue confirm that—but it’d been in a Yellowsoul bag, so he was just assuming.

As he channeled chroma into it, though, he decided it was definitely at Yellowsoul—or at least not at Orangesoul.

Because words didn’t appear in his mind’s eye. Rather, his surroundings warped—and suddenly he was no longer in the Dome, sitting in the middle of a clearing, surrounded by viridian mist, but instead in a room.

The room was large and spacious, with most of the space occupied by an enormous bed. He was sitting on top of the bed, at the edge. Or rather, the body he was currently occupying—from whose eyes he was seeing right now—was sitting on the bed.

There were no windows in the room. The dim lighting came from a glowing stone in the ceiling, which provided just enough light to see. The walls were stone, the floor carpeted. The bed beneath him was soft and springy.

He—the body, the owner of the memory—was clad in soft, sheer silk robes. He was staring at the door, which sat opposite the bed, waiting for something.

This was a full memory. Jieyuan would’ve been way more surprised if he hadn’t experienced something like this once before. Back in the Fatebloom Woods, when he’d tried to read Yikongwei Beidao’s last jade book.

As it was, it took Jieyuan a moment to center himself. He was distantly aware of his actual body, and he knew that all it’d take to return to it was a thought.

Jieyuan let it play out. He wasn’t privy to the memory owner’s thoughts, but he could feel the man’s heartbeat as if it were his own. He could also feel a dull, hollow thrum in his navel, something like anticipation.

This should be a yellowsoul’s memory, a glimpse into a yellowsoul’s head. What kind of things would it show? What kind of memory would a yellowsoul deem important enough to store in a jade book?

The door opened, revealing a woman on the other side.

Jieyuan stared.

The woman wore sheer robes just like the man’s, stretched tight against her curves and leaving little to the imagination. She had a young, pretty face, her cheeks rosy, her gaze deep and dark.

She said nothing as she walked inside. Her hips swayed with every step. The man’s eyes ran over her body, drinking in the sight of her.

She was tall, her body toned in the way only a lifelong martial artist’s could be. A cultivator, then. Maybe even a yellowsoul herself.

Jieyuan felt parched—and he wasn’t sure how much of it was himself, and how much of it was the yellowsoul whose body he was in.

Wait. Hold on. There’s no… There’s no way.

She stopped right in front of the bed, in front of the man. He could smell her now, sweet and floral. The man didn’t rise. She looked down at him. She smiled softly, teasingly.

Jieyuan couldn’t believe it. Refused to believe it.

This isn’t— It can’t be—

Slowly—excruciatingly so—the woman raised her hands until they were grasping the collar of her robes. And then, just as slowly, she pulled. Her robes came undone, baring smooth, pale—

Jieyuan pulled himself out of the memory so fast it felt like whiplash.