Chapter 101: CLIMB ACROSS

CHAPTER

101

CLIMB ACROSS

JIEYUAN

—∞—

“Rot,” Meiyao murmured next to him.

“Rot,” Jieyuan echoed. The word tasted bitter on his tongue.

Rot and rust.

There was out of the frying pan and into the fire—but now you also had out of the Cradle and into the grave.

They hadn’t stopped moving. Not for a heartbeat. But their pace had faltered all the same, each of them instinctively pulling back half a step, as they took in this new, fresh dose of horror.

The air was thick with the sweet, cloying smell of decay—pungent and syrupy, like the aftermath of overripe fruit left to fester under the sun. It stuck to the back of Jieyuan’s throat, coating his tongue like a film. He wasn’t sure if he could taste it, smell it, or just feel it pressing down over every inch of exposed skin.

And given the state of them, it was probably all three.

Jieyuan caught sight of his own hands—still smeared in patches of drying ichor, flecked with bits of grit and crushed root. And that was the least of it. Thick, viscous viridian slime covered him in splatters, head to toes.

He’d come off light, though. He’d only caught some of the splashes—Meiyao and Daojue were the ones who’d done all the cutting, the one who’d led the offensive back in the Viridian Dome, and they were pretty much coated in it. Meiyao was by far the worst off—there was probably more slime than cloth on her. Probably less than a third of her robes still clung to her body, and precariously at that. Even now he could see torn strips of cloth sliding off her.

There was little point in wasting chroma to cleanse themselves, though—not when from the looks of it they’d soon be getting another shower of sap.

Around them, the Sacred Garden’s boundary had dissolved into chaos. The viridian oakwillows—the Orangesoul trees—had fully come loose now, and they weren’t just rising anymore. They were advancing, lurching out from their original lines, dragging themselves across the garden paths.

Their roots rolled beneath them like coiled limbs, snapping forward, plunging into the ground, then pulling the weight of the trunk behind. Rinse and repeat, drag and crawl. The nearest ones had already reached the walls of the gardens, their canopies rustling in agitation as they scaled upward, roots bunching and regripping for leverage.

Because, apparently, in Viridian Death City, you didn’t climb trees—trees climbed you.

Jieyuan didn’t wait to see how far they’d get. The Heavens knew he wasn’t about to stick around and watch what happened next—not with Orangesoul trees bringing up the rear like that.

As one, the three of them surged forward again, dead-on full throttle.

Mist-thick air slapped against his face—sharp, cold, wet with the lingering bite of Cradle-tainted humidity. His pulse thundered in his ears, doing almost as good a job as the thunderous chanting inside the Cradle. Any louder and it’d drown out the dull, groaning rustle behind them.

The rot-sweet smell grew worse with every stride. It seemed to hang heavier the further they pushed, weaving into the fog, curling low to the ground, thick enough to taste with every breath.

Jieyuan gritted his teeth and forced himself forward, doing his best to leave the walking trees behind.

Except—

Jieyuan squinted, focusing on the path ahead—and realized that the trees weren’t just at the rear.

They were at the front, too.

The Sacred Garden stretched on and on—and now, up there, the trees farther along were also climbing over its wall. Not just climbing—some were already done with it, their roots rolling down the ornamental wall and taking them onto the wooden streets, trunks bent low with motion, branches quivering, leaves shaking like ruffled feathers. And then then they were advancing on them in that root-surfing half-glide, half-crawl.

It was also then that living, writhing carpet of roots covering the streets finished stirring—and started attacking. They whipped and coiled, snaking up like thrown ropes, surging from below, lashing and clawing for feet, ankles, anything they could catch, trying to drag and trip and restrain.

Jieyuan tried to run over them as Maeva had earlier, but he’d barely managed three steps when one snagged at him, and he started stomping on reflex.

No—this won’t work.

He crushed the next few without breaking stride, started to call Maeva on—but then he had an idea, and gathered his strength and then shot forward in a burst, half-stride, half-skip. He did it three more times, quickly covering ground.

All right, I think this is working—

The ropes coiling around his body tugged at him, almost at the same time, both lines of cloth pulled taut. Jieyuan looked up. Meiyao and Daojue had pulled ahead. He was faster than before—skipping had stomping solidly beat—but their effortlessly, gliding run was faster still.

Or not. Fine. Maeva, you’re up again.

No answer, but he didn’t need one.

A breath later, the shift hit.

His legs surged forward—and then he was gliding, skimming over the roots like Meiyao and Daojue, barely making sound, barely even touching down. In moments he made up for lost ground—though Meiyao and Daojue seemed to have slowed a bit to let him catch up—and together the three of them charged on.

The air warped with motion. Roots scraped and lashed behind and under them, but he barely noticed anymore. He had bigger deals to strike.

Right ahead, the first of the Orangesoul trees was closing in.

And it was one thing to see them from far off—mist-wreathed shapes, distant menaces. But up close, charging straight toward you? This was something else.

The tree blotted off the way ahead. Its canopy shook, leaves thrashing in violent fits. The roots beneath it undulated, pushing and releasing, pushing and releasing, dragging the whole mass forward. It wasn’t as smooth as it’d been back in the garden—its roots seemed to be having troubles with the ones over their streets—and instead moved in short, bucking throws.

Jieyuan’s first instinct was to swerve to the side, slip past—he didn’t know just what it could do, and he wasn’t keen on finding out—but Daojue was at the lead.

And Daojue seemed to have other ideas. He shot straight forward—no pause, no hesitation—Gleaming End leveled for a full thrust.

Jieyuan’s eyes went wide.

What in the—

Gleaming End was strong. No question about that. It could scythe through tenth-sign Redsouls like wheat, by virtue of its realm alone. But these trees were Orangesoul too, and small as viridian oakwillows—these ones, at any rate—were compared to all the other trees of the Dome, they were still twice Daojue’s size. Trunk thicker than his whole body twice over.

A spear thrust would hardly put one out of commission. What did Daojue possibly think—

Gleaming End was almost on it when the tree’s trunk twisted mid-lurch—like a spine writhing under skin—recoiling hard. Its roots slammed down with a crack, sending bursts of green goo flying from the crushed street-roots below. A breath later, the whole thing jerked sideways, lurching clean out of Daojue’s path and slamming bodily against the nearest garden wall.

Jieyuan nearly stumbled mid-stride.

That’s—what?

And it didn’t stop with just the one.

Ahead, the other trees hesitated. A few slowed. Others outright stopped altogether.

Daojue kept going without pause, straight towards them, Gleaming End still pointed forward. And Jieyuan watched, uncomprehending, as the Orangesoul trees scurried off to the side, back toward the garden, dragging their roots in stuttering retreats.

If the situation weren’t so grave, Jieyuan would’ve stopped to wonder just what in the Heavens was going on.

Jieyuan threw a quick glance sideways. Meiyao was staring, too—wide-eyed, jaw tight, her expression just as bewildered as he felt.

At least I’m not the only one out of the loop.

It wasn’t long before they’d left the garden behind. Whatever Daojue was doing—whether by accident or on purpose—it worked. None of the Orangesoul trees followed.

The rest of the city, though?

That was a different business.

The buildings far off to the sides still shook, shifting in slow, uneven jolts, swaying under their own weight as roots snapped up around them. The streets remained a living, seething thing, unrelenting beneath their feet.

But Maeva was enough for that—for now. She kept him moving, kept him ahead of the worst of the ground-level swarms. The roots coming in from the flanks weren’t close enough to matter yet.

Jieyuan knew what lay ahead, though. And he’d already been bracing for it long before it came into view.

And then it did.

The bridge.

The same cursed bridge that had been a trial to cross even back when it was just a static, unmoving thing.

And sure enough—it was no static, unmoving thing anymore. Not even close.

Jieyuan’s stomach sank.

Golden.

Before, the bridge had been this broad, root-like stretch of warped but glossy-smooth wood connecting the two banks. But now its surface twisted on itself in a slow, drill-like spiral. Worse, the ridges along it rolled in their own rhythm, cresting and dipping, rolling like waves along a snake’s back.

The only small mercy was that at least it hadn’t pulled itself free of the far bank and started slithering toward them like the rest of these other roots.

So far, at any rate. But Jieyuan cut off the thought there—better not tempt the Heavens any further.

They were still some distance away, but Jieyuan had been expecting something like this and was already in the process of squeezing his brain for options. Something—anything—that might get them across.

Because death by river crossing felt like a particularly pathetic, not to mention novel, way for a cultivator to go.

Absurdly good as Maeva was at controlling his body, he wasn’t sure even she could get him through this.

Can you?

“Yes,” her voice rang sharp in his ear. Confident.

Oh.

By the time they reached the bank, no better idea had come to him. So, it looked like he’d have to take her at her word.

Daojue, still at the lead, didn’t hesitate. The moment his foot hit the twisting, roiling bridge, he accelerated. Not slowed—sped up. Which tracked. You’d want as much forward momentum as possible to counteract the bridge’s motion.

But with that rope tethering them together, Jieyuan wasn’t going to get a choice either way.

Meiyao went next, keeping close behind Daojue. She didn’t hesitate either.

Then it was Jieyuan’s turn. The moment his feet touched the bridge’s slick, living surface, Maeva’s voice cut through again, sharper this time: “Jieyuan, I’ll need more control!”

You have it!

The change struck like lightning.

Everything below his neck went distant. Numb. His breath and head stayed his own, but the rest—

The rest belonged to Maeva.

And she didn’t waste it. His speed kicked up instantly. His footing adjusted mid-stride. Weight shifted and redistributed. Ankles turned just enough to catch each ridge. The Shifting Feather’s pressure on his limbs ticked up and down, up and down, as Maeva recalibrated their weight multiple times a second.

He kept a shred of awareness over the of his body, over all the things Maeva was doing, simultaneously—and it was just enough to marvel at the fact that he hadn’t already pitched face-first into the river.

But it wasn’t just a matter of keeping on his feet. Maeva had him surging forward, faster than before—way faster, possibly even faster than Daojue and Meiyao. The ropes connecting him to the two had started out taut, but already they were merely tight. And now he could feel—could see—them slackening further as he narrowed the distance between himself and the other two.

His line of sight swayed—but only slightly. His body rocked side to side, but only in response to the bridge’s motion. Somehow—he knew how, technically, but could barely wrap his head around it—Maeva had him moving nearly straight.

He wasn’t sure which was the hardest to believe, that Maeva could do all this with his body, or that Meiyao and Daojue were managing it on their own, without some realmskill-empowered hallucination helping them.

Heavens, we’re doing it. He’d have preferred to be doing it on his own power, on his own skill. But pride only went so far—even a Firesoul’s—and he felt more than content as it was.

And then Meiyao shouted, “THE RIVER!”