Chapter 118: DOWN AND UNDER

CHAPTER

118

DOWN AND UNDER

JIEYUAN

—∞—

There was a hole in the ground.

Jieyuan didn’t like it on principle.

He and Daojue were on one end of the pocket, having just entered it. Not right at the entrance, because they knew better than that, but still near it.

The hole was on the other end, directly opposite them, on the foot of a man-sized mound that was probably just the start of some bigger slope.

Jieyuan could only see a few inches inside it before the deeper green of the boundary mist blocked off the view.

It’d been more than two months since they’d split up from Meiyao. They’d come across holes like these before. And more often than not, they meant bad news.

While mundane moles, wombats, and other burrowing creatures weren’t particularly threatening animals—just whack them, really, and they were down—the same could not be said about their chromal counterparts.

Jieyuan thought back to the earth-bending white half of the much-damned two-headed snake. And to this one giant mole—with equally giant claws—they’d come across a month ago.

No, Jieyuan most definitely did not like burrows or burrowers.

The two-headed snake had separated them from Meiyao and made his and Daojue’s situation a thousand times worse. And the giant mole, deceptively fast for its size, had attempted to give him a very much unwanted—and most definitely unneeded—C-section with its giant claws.

It hadn’t succeeded, of course. But to remember it by, the mole had left him with this thick, discolored white line across his stomach—one of the many, many recent additions to Jieyuan’s ever-growing collection of scars.

Jieyuan glanced down briefly, eyeing grimly the scarred tapestry his upper body had become. Even before he’d become a cultivator he’d been pretty banged up, but these last two months had multiplied the damage.

If it weren’t for a cultivator’s natural heightened healing, plus the regeneration augmenters, he didn’t doubt he’d be more scar than skin. And dead. Very, very much so dead. A thousand times over.

He focused back on the hole, gripping the Shifting Feathers tighter, considering their options. Whether it’d be wiser to turn back or try to go around it.

Huaxin wasn’t sending him any warnings, which meant they should be fine for the moment. Neither Maeva nor his soulsense—which now covered the whole pocket—had picked up on anything bad, either.

That was little consolation, though, considering that only the burrow’s entrance seemed to be in the pocket. The rest of it would be outside it, and there this whole sensing business got way muddier. The size of the hole wasn’t promising, either. A crouched person could easily go through it.

Now, plenty had changed in the last two months. For one, Jieyuan was pretty sure that if he got another shot at the Radiant Gold Tournament, he’d just about curb-stomp everyone there besides Meiyao and Daojue—even as a fourth-sign Redsoul, and without relying on Maeva or Huaxin.

When there wasn’t a day where you didn’t have to fight for your life dozens of times, you either got better or your got killed. And then there were his training sessions with Maeva, which might just have been his best idea yet.

Some things, though, had stayed the same. And one such thing was that in the Viridian Dome, you did not go looking for trouble. The Dome already delivered all the trouble you could need and then some more, without you needing to add to it.

It didn’t matter that he’d broken through to sixth-sign Redsoul earlier today, and Daojue yesterday. Normally, Jieyuan wouldn’t have minded a fight to get used to the bump-up in power, but he’d already gotten that fight. And then several more. Today alone they’d already killed six chromal beasts, and they’d only been walking for half as many hours.

They were better off turning around, Jieyuan decided. No point in trying their luck.

“Daojue, let’s just…”

Jieyuan glanced at Daojue, and saw that he was staring fixedly, intently at the burrow.

Daojue’s right hand held Gleaming End in front of him, angled down. As for his left hand, it was over his right one, absently rubbing it.

The look on Daojue’s face, the absent gesture—those weren’t good signs.

And they were signs, all right.

Oh, come on.

It wasn’t the first time he’d seen Daojue act this way. Sometimes, Daojue would refuse to move even after Huaxin had cleared them to head to the next pocket, or hurriedly cross to the next one even when Jieyuan called for them to wait. He never explained afterwards, either. Just stared at Jieyuan until he dropped the subject.

It wasn’t something that happened all that often. Maybe a dozen times altogether, give or take a few.

But it’d happened enough times for him to recognize the look Daojue was wearing right now. That, and the way he was rubbing his hands.

About one month ago, Jieyuan had realized just why Daojue came across so statue-like.

Daojue’s body language was near nonexistent. Daojue never—never—shrugged, or nodded, or otherwise used any kind of nonverbal communication that came so instinctively to everyone else. If Daojue wanted to say or convey something, he always did with words—and the Heavens knew it was easier to squeeze water from stone than words out of Daojue.

So absent gestures like this? From anybody else, it wouldn’t have drawn the eye, wouldn’t have warranted a second thought. But with Daojue, you couldn’t help but notice it. Notice it and remember it.

Not to mention Jieyuan could recall Daojue acting much the same way, months ago—right after they’d found Protector Yuanzhi’s cave and crystallized body in the Gleamstone Valley, as well as Gleaming End.

Right after Daojue had found the cave, to be precise. Something Jieyuan still had no explanation for. Though, like with almost all the oddities about Meiyao and Daojue, he was pretty sure it had to with bloodrights.

“Daojue, what’s wrong?” Jieyuan asked, even though he was pretty sure he wouldn’t be getting an answer, like every time this had happened so far.

Sure enough, Daojue didn’t seem to hear. Wordlessly, he crossed over to the other side of the pocket in large strides.

Groaning, Jieyuan followed. These last few months, he and Daojue had gotten much closer. He’d come to understand Daojue a lot more, and in some ways, Daojue had even opened up—about his brother and bloodright and realmskill, to name a few.

But when Daojue got this way, all bets were off.

Daojue came to a stop right in front of the hole.

Jieyuan stopped beside him. He didn’t bother wasting his breath this time, and just waited. Either Daojue would enter, or he wouldn’t, and there wasn’t much he could do about it. With Meiyao, he could at least try to argue. With Daojue, his only bet would be trying to physically stop him—and Jieyuan wasn’t sure it’d be worth it to try.

As frustrating as it could be when Daojue acted out, nothing bad had ever come out of it. Not when Daojue would refuse to move, nor when Daojue would charge ahead. Going down a burrow was a touch more dangerous than crossing into a new pocket, to be sure. But Daojue was by no means stupid, and even if Jieyuan didn’t understood why this was happening, there had to be a reason for it.

Jieyuan only had an issue with taking risks when he didn’t stand to gain anything from it.

For the right reason, though, Jieyuan had never shied from putting his life on the line.

He didn’t know if it’d be worth it, but if it weren’t for Daojue, he’d have been long since dead.

Granted, he’d thought very similar thoughts when he’d agreed with Meiyao’s idea to enter Viridian Death City. But back then, Huaxin had been very much so against it, whereas right now…

Huaxin? No problems yet?

SAFE, came the answer. As usual, though, it was undercut by a heavy dose of uncertainty. Still, Jieyuan figured it was worth the risk.

Daojue knelt down in front of the hole, and stepped inside.

All right, big guy, Jieyuan thought, as he crouched down too, don’t make me regret this.

And, for Heaven’s sake, let there be no giant moles inside.

As big as the hole was, it still wasn’t big enough for them to enter side-by-side. So Jieyuan went in just after Daojue. The ground was at a slight but noticeable decline.

For a moment, Daojue’s broad, muscled back filled Jieyuan’s line of sight. Scars dotted it. Not nearly as much as Jieyuan knew were on his, but plenty of them all the same, long and short, thick and thin.

Almost all of these scars were new, too. Two months ago, Daojue had had less than a handful of scars to Jieyuan’s dozens. Now Daojue’s numbered in the dozens, and Jieyuan’s well into the hundreds.

A moment later, and Daojue’s back was replaced by a wall of solid green viridian mist. The boundary of the pocket. Jieyuan didn’t hesitate, and crossed it too.

On the other side, he saw Daojue’s back again. Jieyuan, though, focused on Huaxin.

Any change? They were in a new pocket now, and though Huaxin’s ability to sense the world outside of a pocket wasn’t all that good yet, it’d gotten way better at sensing danger inside one.

NEGATION, Huaxin replied.

“Focus on your soulsense,” Maeva suddenly said.

Jieyuan did so immediately.

The first thing he noticed was that this pocket was unusually large. Even with his breakthrough to sixth-sign Redsoul having increased the range of his soulsense to thirty-six feet in every direction, he couldn’t cover all of it.

The second thing he noticed was, in fact, several things.

Not chromal beasts, though. Nor chromal plants.

It can’t be.

He was so surprised he even stopped his advance for a moment, before he remembered himself and resumed his shuffle down the tunnel behind Daojue. But he didn’t take his focus off his soulsense, off the things he was sensing at the end of this tunnel.

It didn’t take them long to reach the end of the tunnel. Daojue stepped out of it, and then out of the way, making space for Jieyuan.

The tunnel opened up into a large, empty area—a cave of sorts, one that seemed to have been dug out. The viridian mist ensured perfect, though greenish, visibility.

And on the ground of the cave, cast in the mist’s green glow, were the things he’d sensed but hadn’t dared believe.

Artifacts. Chromal gears.

Piled on one side of the cave were weapons of all sorts. Most of them swords, but also some sabers and spears. Jieyuan could even spot a mace. Dozens of them.

On another pile were armor pieces. Gauntlets and greaves, also in the dozens.

A third pile was made of rings and bracelets and earrings, as well as pouches.

None of these artifacts had shrouds on them. And almost all the spirit-shadows Jieyuan could sense were at tenth-sign Redsoul.

What was important, though, weren’t the artifacts whose spirit-shadow Jieyuan could sense—it were the ones he couldn’t.

In the weapons side of the cave—the piles were far apart, clearly divided—there was a smaller, separate stack full of weapons that didn’t register to his soulsense. They were all swords, with the exception of one saber.

Somehow, Jieyuan doubted they were mundane.

Just the same, there was a separate pile on the armor side, with gauntlets and greaves invisible to his soulsense. Same for the accessories side—except it was split into three piles.

The big one had Redsoul jewelry and bags. A smaller one, with more jewelry and bags, except ones he couldn’t sense. And a third, much smaller one, with just a handful of rings, as well as a bracelet.

Now, Jieyuan was only guessing here. But if on each side, the first pile was Redsoul artifacts, the second one was Orangesoul artifacts, the third one would be…

Yellowsoul.

Yellowsoul artifacts.

Daojue walked over to the center of the cave and slowly turned around, regarding all the piles in turn. Jieyuan joined him there, looking from the artifacts—particularly the supposedly Yellowsoul accessories—from Daojue.

He hadn’t been expecting anything specific when he’d followed Daojue into the cave—if anything, he’d been resigned to deal with yet another mess. For once, though, it seemed the Heavens had favored the bold.

Jieyuan didn’t know how Daojue had sensed this place, or what he was looking for now. Both were good questions. There was an even better question, though.

How had these artifacts ended up here?

Jieyuan could guess their origins easily enough. Most of the island’s sects had sent at least one scouting party into the Dome. That meant at least thousands of Redsouls, hundreds of Orangesouls, and tens of Yellowsouls had entered the Viridian Dome never to return, and they’d have all been carrying artifacts of the same realm with them.

As for how the artifacts had ended up in this cave…

Jieyuan looked between the piles, the way the artifacts were haphazardly piled together. And he considered the fact they were in a dug-out cave.

A chromal beast must’ve collected these artifacts from the remains of those doomed cultivators and brought them here. A scavenger. In their time with Meiyao, she’d pointed out more than one such beast to them.

But the existence of multiple scavenger beasts meant there was competition, though. And though Jieyuan could hardly claim expertise on the artifacts scene here in the Dome, or scavenger power dynamics, he reckoned a weak one wouldn’t be able to hold onto several Orangesoul artifacts, and even some Yellowsoul ones.

“Daojue,” Jieyuan said, “let’s collect the higher-realm stuff and get out of—”

A creature stepped out of the tunnel, onto the floor of the cave. A canine beast that stood about level with Jieyuan’s waist. If it were a mundane dog, it’d have been on the larger side. For a chromal beast, particularly the ones found in the Dome, it was awfully small.

Size, though, didn’t mean much.

Not when Jieyuan’s soulsense hadn’t caught it before he’d seen it.

Not when it remained invisible to Jieyuan’s soulsense.