Chapter 115: TO BREAK THROUGH

CHAPTER

115

TO BREAK THROUGH

JIEYUAN

—∞—

“She isn’t coming,” Jieyuan said.

It was the fifth day.

The fifth day since their fight with the serpent, the fifth day since they’d ended up separated from Meiyao. The fifth day stuck in this pocket with the corpse of the massive snake at fault for this whole situation.

Daojue opened his violet eyes, and looked at him evenly, neutrally, without emotion.

They were sitting across each other. The raw, skinned corpse of the snake lay behind them. A new makeshift rope sat between them—Jieyuan had made it yesterday, and this time Daojue had contributed some of his robes to it.

It’d already been a day since they’d finished working on the scales. Now they had more daggers, throwing blades, caltrops, and what Jieyuan had come to call shard powder—clumps of little scale splinters that they could throw at others—than he knew what to do with.

If he was right, though, they probably wouldn’t be anywhere near enough. Not in the long run.

Because without Meiyao, it wouldn’t take them long to run into trouble. And trouble would be finding them again and again and again for the foreseeable future.

Jieyuan pursed his lips. He didn’t let himself think on why Meiyao hadn’t found them yet. That’d do him no good. Rather, he thought on what to do next.

Their next move, at least, was obvious enough.

Two days ago, the first beast had peeked inside the pocket. A small one. It’d flickered very briefly on Jieyuan’s soulsense, and he’d just caught a glimpse of a small, stumpy, furred figure before it’d disappeared.

Yesterday there had been a few more sightings—most of them brief things. But there’d been this tenth-sign Redsoul bear as tall as he was that had stared at them for over an hour from just over the edge of the pocket before drawing back.

“We need to leave,” Jieyuan decided. “It doesn’t look like we’ll be safe here much longer.”

Really, it was a surprise they’d managed to stay there so long without a fight. He reckoned that the corpse of the snake might have had something to do with it. Maybe the other beasts could sense it somehow, and they were keeping away.

If only the snake hadn’t been the cause for this entire mess, he might’ve been thankful for it.

Even if it’d been safe to stay, though, Jieyuan reckoned he’d have still decided on leaving.  Staying put didn’t sit well with him. They had no guarantee that if they set off they would be going forward, that they’d be heading toward the center of the Dome, what with how the mist’s worked. But the alternative was spending the rest of their lives in that one spot. And that didn’t appeal to him any.

Daojue still said nothing. Little surprise there—Jieyuan could’ve counted in one hand the number of times Daojue had spoken these last few days.

“There’s something I want do before, though,” Jieyuan said. “I’m ready for my breakthrough to fifth-sign. Can you keep watch?”

For these past few days, if he wasn’t carving scales, he was cultivating, imbuing chroma into his soul. Even before his encounter with the snake, he—and Meiyao—had been close to a breakthrough.

The chroma saturating the shell of his soul was on the verge of fifth-density. All that was left to break through to fifth-sign was to stabilize it. The next time he tried imbuing, the unstable chroma in his soul would reach exactly prismful—and that’d set off the stabilization reaction. The soul-flare.

Which would put him straight out of commission for a while. And with their rotten luck, chances were that was when the beasts would stop playing shy and go for the kill.

Still Daojue didn’t say anything—but he stood up, raising Gleaming End along with him, and took position.

Jieyuan stared up at him.

For all of Daojue’s apparent apathy, when you really thought about it, Daojue actually played nice for the most part. Besides their first fight against those chromal wolves in the Gleamstone Valley, where Daojue had gone off on his own, Daojue had been nothing short of cooperative. And Jieyuan couldn’t help but think of the times—multiple, now—that Daojue had gone out of his way to quite literally drag him out of trouble.

Even in the lead-up to this mess—Daojue was the one who’d thrown himself at him when the white snake had taken him by surprise the first time it went underground. That was how they’d ended up separated from Meiyao. Daojue hadn’t needed to save him, then—the smart thing would’ve been to stick by Meiyao’s side.

So now Jieyuan couldn’t help but ask, “Why did you help me? Why do you keep helping me?”

Almost as soon as he asked the questions he regretted them. His old man would’ve certainly taken him to task over this. You didn’t question good things. At least, knowing Daojue, he’d probably just ignore—

Daojue fixed his eyes on him. It wasn’t Daojue’s usual stare, though. Something about it was different, more intense, though Jieyuan couldn’t quite put his finger on it.

And then Daojue said, “I had a younger brother. You remind me of him.”

Jieyuan tried to keep his surprise from showing, but he wasn’t sure how good a job he did. Daojue had never spoken of his past—or about himself, really—before. Jieyuan didn’t know the first thing about what Daojue’s life before he’d joined the sect.

Even his notion that Daojue was a clan-born was just an assumption. Originally based on the way Daojue acted and his martial skill, and then reinforced by Yikongwei Beidao’s note about a supposed Tianzijun Clan, and further by what Meiyao had told him about bloodrights.

Granted, Jieyuan had never really cared to know more about Daojue, either. His interest in him had started and ended with figuring out how to get as good as he was. Now, though…

“You had a younger brother?” Jieyuan asked.

This time Daojue did not speak, simply turned around as if the conversation was over.

Jieyuan didn’t need Daojue to confirm it, though. Daojue almost never spoke, and every time he did, Jieyuan reckoned he picked each word deliberately.

A dead brother, then. Jieyuan didn’t bother looking away, watching Daojue’s tall, broad back as he considered that little tidbit.

It seemed like Daojue must’ve carried a great deal for his sibling, if the memory of his younger brother was strong enough to make Daojue want to help him.

It was hard to imagine Daojue like that, though, caring so deeply for someone else… But maybe Daojue hadn’t always been this way? His younger brother was dead. Some tragedy, maybe?

Jieyuan muled over it a while longer, wondering what Daojue’s brother and their relationship had been like, before putting the thought away. Whatever Daojue’s life had been like before he’d joined the sect didn’t matter. Not right now, at any rate. Jieyuan had way bigger concerns at hand.

“I’m going for my breakthrough, then,” he said.

He didn’t wait for Daojue to reply—he’d probably have to wait forever otherwise—and just closed his eyes, sending his focus inward.

His soul appeared in his mind’s eye. A sphere floating in the center of his chest. On the verge of his breakthrough to fifth-sign Redsoul she was, it should’ve been the same color as the chroma imbuing its outer layer—just shy of fifth-shade red.

Instead, it was a considerably darker shade of red. The more chroma he imbued into it, the closer it got to the shade it should’ve been, but it was still far from the right color.

He didn’t think on it long, though. Meiyao hadn’t known what to make of it, either, and if she didn’t know, then it’d probably remain a mystery for a good while.

All right, let’s see… He checked on his soulprism, confirmed it full. He didn’t really need to do any of this—there was no way anything had changed, and if it had, then he had way bigger problems. But it’d been a while since this last breakthrough, and he needed to prep himself for it, get himself in the right mindset.

But then he realized he was stalling, and forced himself to go on with it before he could change his mind.

“Ravenous,” he said, chanting his imbuing hymn.

His soulprism slowly fell apart, the chroma comprising it dispersing throughout the center of his soul, outward.

Then a particle of chroma pressed against the wall of his soul, before, pushed by the force of his chant, burrowed inside it. And as it did, Jieyuan felt a prickle in his chest like a needle stab. There came another, then another—but nothing troubling.

This was just the pain of imbuing, the first and mildest of the Three Pains, and only the onset of it, at that. Normally, when he was imbuing, those pricks would give way to stabs, and then the burning would come, and the First Pain would start in earnest.

But he’d already been on the verge of breakthrough before he started this imbuing session, so the First Pain didn’t get to develop before the unstable chroma in his soul reached one prismful, the total chroma in his soul reached five prismfuls, and the soul-flare began.

And the Second Pain took over.

It came as a shock of bright, blazing agony. A bolt of burning lightning cutting across his body. Sheer will kept him from jerking his body back as the next shock came—and then a flood of it, dozens then hundreds of searing flashes of the purest, rawest agony, all happening at the same time.

Jieyuan endured, teeth gritted, his whole body clenched, tensed, frozen tight. Distantly—very distantly—some part of him realized that the way he retained some level of awareness was a good thing, an improvement over his last four breakthroughs.

One second, two, three—

And then came the fire. The burning. Not lashes of it, but a wave of hot, searing pain, washing over him like he was being dunked in lava. Like he was drowning in lava—breathing in the thick, impossibly hot molten sludge, and it was ravaging through the inside of his body, spreading throughout every inch of him.

Whatever awareness he’d managed to hold onto was utterly destroyed. He didn’t just burn—he became fire itself, and nothing of himself remained.

There was only fire—fire—fire—fire—fire—

And then it was over.

The absence of pain came so suddenly it didn’t feel real. Nothing felt real.

Jieyuan blinked. He saw things in front of him—colors, shapes—but his mind was too scrambled, too raw, to make sense of anything. A deep, echoing numbness engulfed him. He was floating, drifting, senseless—

“Jieyuan.”

The word—the voice—grounded him.

He looked up.

Daojue was standing right in front of him, looking down at him. Everything started making sense again. It all came back in a surge—where he was, who he was, what he’d just been doing.

Jieyuan closed his eyes, took a moment to process it all, center himself, then focused back on Daojue. “I’m good,” he said.

Daojue’s gaze lingered on him for a moment longer, before he stepped back, turning away again.

Jieyuan realized, then, that he was still sitting—that his position hadn’t changed, for the most part. His control really was improving, then.

He didn’t dare risk any big movements yet, so he started slow and small, flexing his fingers and limbs, getting a proper feel for all of his body again.

Then he uncrossed his legs, pressed against the ground, made to stand up. A little unsteadily, but he was feeling better and better by the second.

By the time he was on his feet, he was on top form again—and feeling as good as he’d ever felt. Bursting with energy, keenly aware of the bigger pool of strength he could draw on his aura for.

He started stretching, putting this crackling energy in him to use, as he turned his soulsense inward again. And as he did so, he sent his focus inward again, confirming the changes.

The color of his soul hadn’t changed any. The color of his aura, on the other hand, had—it’d jumped straight for fourth-shade red to fifth-shade. The other change was inside his soul.

His soulprism was slightly smaller, and had also gone up a shade. Despite the decrease in size, though, it hadn’t lost any chroma—the difference was that now it was denser. He could hold five prismfuls of attuned chroma in his soul now, instead of just four.

Finishing up his stretches, Jieyuan drew the Shifting Feathers and walked over to the edge of the clearing, in the direction he roughly assumed to be north. He stopped there—not too close, in case anything came through—and stared at it.

It’d been Meiyao’s job to guide them. Even now Jieyuan still didn’t have a clear idea of what it was she did—of how she did it. That had been one thing she’d never been able to explain properly. But now Meiyao wasn’t there, so he’d have to try something else.

Though it was only now that he’d accepted Meiyao wasn’t coming, he hadn’t been able to quite stop himself from thinking of ways they could get by without her.

Huaxin, how’s it looking? Jieyuan focused on his bond with the Fatebloom Heart, directing his thoughts toward it.

He’d known Huaxin had a hard time getting a clear read on the situation because of the viridian mist, but he’d never really tried to push it, either. He’d never needed to, with Meiyao around. The whole business with Viridian Death City had put Meiyao’s senses into question, but not her ability to navigate the mist—just her ability to gauge danger, where her heritage was involved.

Can you tell anything? Jieyuan pressed. Anything at all?

At first, he didn’t get anything specific through his bond with Huaxin. Just a vague, general sense of frustration. He could feel its effort, though. Could tell that it was trying to glean something—anything—from beyond the mist. So he didn’t press the issue and let it work.

Footsteps sounded quietly behind him, and then Daojue stopped just behind him, Gleaming End held up, ready for anything.

As usual, Daojue didn’t ask questions. Just stood there. But after what Daojue had told him about his brother, Jieyuan reckoned he could at least explain.

“I’m using the Fatebloom Heart,” he said. “You… I’m assuming you’re aware of it?”

He glanced at Daojue. Daojue looked back at him, but didn’t reply.

Sometimes Jieyuan could easily tell what Daojue’s silence meant. This time, though, he wasn’t sure. But he’d go with an affirmative. He’d talked about it often enough with Meiyao that unless Daojue was going out of his way to ignore them, he’d know the gist of it. And Jieyuan knew that Daojue did listen—he just didn’t react, for the most part.

“I’m seeing if it can get a feel for anything,” he continued. “Like how Meiyao does. Can’t tell you how long this will take, though, or if it’ll even work.”

Daojue looked away from him.

And that was that.

Almost an hour passed, and Jieyuan would’ve long since given up hope if it weren’t for the fact that Huaxin hadn’t given up yet. Jieyuan could still feel its unwavering concentration as it tried to get Fatebloom Intuition to work through the mist. His heart raced, probably from how much Huaxin was pushing itself.

Because he’d been focused on the bond, he felt it at the same time as Huaxin did—saw it as Huaxin saw it. A jumble of sensations and impressions, so brief Jieyuan couldn’t make sense of it. All feedback he got from Fatebloom Intuition was usually filtered through Huaxin first—and even then, they weren’t exactly clear. Let alone this raw glimpse into the future, or whatever that had been.

But then Huaxin summarized it for him, SAFE.

There was still a pretty strong current of uncertainty to it, but they’d waited long enough anyway.

He nodded to Daojue, then stepped into the thicker mist.

As it turned out, it was safe.

So one down.

And a million more to go.