Chapter 100: TO RUSH OUT

CHAPTER

100

TO RUSH OUT

JIEYUAN

—∞—

Jieyuan ran faster—pushed harder—feeling each step sink into the roots underfoot and crush them flat. He did it with prejudice, driving his greaves down like he meant to splinter the entire floor. The roots gave with a wet snap, splattering something green and viscous across his greaves. A thick, sweet tang rose up, almost cloying in its sudden strength, filling his nose and throat as more of the roots burst apart.

But that didn’t discourage the nasty things any. Didn’t slow them down. They clawed at his ankles, tried to wrap around his greaves, pulling and dragging. They weren’t just a tangle anymore—they were a living snare, one bent on bringing him down.

Maeva, change of plans. She’d been harvesting and attuning chroma for him all this while, a steady trickle in the back of his mind. Now he needed something else from her. He’d have little use for chroma dead. Mind taking care of the feet?

“Leave it to me.” Her voice came as if she were right beside him, somehow perfectly clear despite all the noise, whispering in his ear.

And then he felt it—his legs moving with an ease that wasn’t his. Maeva was in full control—steps smoother, strides longer. The roots underfoot kept squirming, snagging at him, but now he didn’t have to go out of his way to crush them. Maeva adjusted the angle and strength of each footfall perfectly, and the next moment he was practically gliding over the whole writhing mess.

He’d thought it once already, and now he couldn’t help but think it again. Maeva somehow took his skills, his abilities, and elevated them to a whole other level. But he didn’t have the luxury to marvel at that. Not right now. This was a welcome surprise, anyway—and he could sure use some of those right now.

They reached the stairway just as the entire Cradle seemed to exhale.

The roots on the steps pulled away slightly, almost as if they were letting them pass—but then, as his feet and Daojue’s touched down on the first step, they surged back with vengeance.

Green light pulsed beneath the wooden steps, vein-like lines tracing along the grain. It was a sickly, living glow, crawling along the walls and floors, painting everything around them in flickering viridian, seeping into the air until it felt like he was breathing it in.

Jieyuan kept his gaze down for a while longer, checking if Maeva was handling this intensified assault. But he needn’t have worried—under her control, his feet barely touched the steps, climbing them so easily might’ve as well have been running on level ground.

There was a flash of motion to the side, and Daojue overtook him, lean and relentless, moving just as easily as he was—faster, even. But he didn’t keep it up. Instead, he matched his pace to Jieyuan’s, keeping just a few steps’ distance between them.

Daojue was taking the lead, playing vanguard. Jieyuan had already suspected as much for a while—but there was more to Daojue than the metal.

Not that Jieyuan had time to dwell on that now. The entire place seemed to be writhing, uncountable roots creaking and rustling no matter where he looked.

He could barely hear anything besides the deafening chant of “VIRIDIAN. VIRIDIAN. VIRIDIAN. VIRIDIAN.” It filled his head, rang in his teeth, drowned out all other sounds. Jieyuan didn’t hear, only felt the crack of the roots and the rattling of the trembling structure.

His feet taken care of, Jieyuan adjusted his right arm’s hold on Meiyao. With his left hand, he drew one of the Shifting Feathers. Then he spread his senses out, kept watch for danger, focusing on the first gallery looming ahead.

They reached it moments later. Jieyuan quickly scanned the trees along the edges—the dead entombed in them were covered in glowing green veins like the trees themselves, eyes open and burning like green coals, mouths moving in perfect unison as they droned the words, “VIRIDIAN. VIRIDIAN. VIRIDIAN. VIRIDIAN.”

But that was all. The treefied corpses didn’t move beyond that—only chanted endlessly as they ran past. About a second and a dozen steps later, they left the first level behind, and Jieyuan shifted his focus to the second one.

They were making good time, and within moments they were already closing in on the second gallery. The green glow around them intensified, flickering across the walls like blood pulsing through veins. The lines ran up the walls and coiled around the columns, splitting and merging.

Then Jieyuan felt Meiyao jerk in his hold, twisting against his shoulder and chest.

“Jieyuan?” she cried out, her voice thin and muffled under the roar of the chant. She clawed at his arm, trying to push herself up, break his hold. “What’s—”

His decision to leave Maeva in charge of the climbing was suddenly looking like the wisest thing he’d ever done. His feet didn’t falter or slow for even a moment as he tightened his grip on Meiyao.

“We’re running!” he shouted at her over the noise. Even then, he could only just barely hear his own voice.

Meiyao froze, went still—but he could feel the tension in her, taut against his body. Then her head snapped up, scanning left and right, but without fighting against him—only moving as much as she had to. Jieyuan glanced down and saw her eyes go wide, a glassy cast to them under the light of the viridian glow. But they were alert and focused.

“The plants—Heavens!” she gasped. She twisted further in his grip, looking up and locking eyes with him. Her lips moved in a murmur he couldn’t catch. Then she shouted, “Let me down! I’m good now!”

Jieyuan didn’t need to be told twice. He relaxed his hold, letting his arm go slack, and that was it for his part. Meiyao slipped free of him like water, landing at his side with both feet in a dead run, flowing into step beside him. The roots grabbed at her just as they did at him and Daojue, but she didn’t pause for even a moment—barely seemed to notice as she tread effortlessly over them.

Maeva readjusted his steps immediately now that he didn’t have Meiyao weighing him down, and he picked up the pace slightly. And even with everything happening around them, with all the chaos, Jieyuan couldn’t help but notice how Meiyao and Daojue also increased their speed to keep up with him.

Even with Maeva running for him—and doing a better job of it than he could have—he was still the slow one, the one dragging their group back. Meiyao and Daojue didn’t just have better balance and dexterity. They were faster, too.

Jieyuan had never thought that the Heavens were fair. He’d have to be a fool to think so, when they’d never pretended to be. But this whole bloodrights business was starting to look like a touch too far.

But again—not the time.

With his right arm now free, Jieyuan drew his other Shifting Feather. He felt the cool weight of it settle against the palm of his gauntlet, adjusted his stance to hold both shortglaives up and in front of him. He hadn’t had cause to use them yet, but he’d rather not be caught off guard if that changed.

When that changed, rather, because he doubted they’d be getting out of this mess without a fight.

Meiyao’s saber flashed out beside him, viridian light tracing along its edge.

The three of them tore past the second gallery, breath burning in their chests. The scent of churned roots was thicker now—a cloying, sickeningly sweet rot that stung the nose.

But it wasn’t from roots crushed underfoot—he’d stopped when Maeva took over, and both Daojue and Meiyao were climbing the steps the same way, their greaves barely brushing the squirming roots below. No, the damage came from roots pierced and twisted by other roots in their frenzy to get at them.

The sole saving grace in all this was that the roots’ attacks were less a coordinated effort and more of a mad, wild rampage. The roots got in each other’s way as much as they tried to get at the three of them.

And in the background of it all—“VIRIDIAN. VIRIDIAN. VIRIDIAN. VIRIDIAN. VIRIDIAN.”

“What happened?” Meiyao yelled over the chant, her eyes snapping from the walls to the writhing roots underfoot and back again.

“I was hoping you’d answer that!” Jieyuan shot back, his teeth gritted. His whole body felt like it was vibrating, the air itself shivering with the weight of the noise and the endless, echoing chant.

Meiyao shot him a look, confusion and concern tangled together.

The shaking was getting worse, the whole building visibly vibrating now. Worse, he could see the thicker, sinuous roots lining the walls of the Cradle starting to sway, thick cables splitting away from the wood like muscle tearing from bone.

That’s not good. He gripped the Shifting Feathers tighter. Not good at all.

Jieyuan watched it all—even as he tried to think of a way to describe the events that had led to this utter mess. “You fell into a trance! Started turning into a tree! Launched me into the air! Touched the Sacred Source! And then—this!”

Meiyao’s expression, if anything, only grew more confused. “What—”

“I’ll give you the blow-by-blow later!” Jieyuan snapped. “Just tell me—can you stop this?”

They hit the third gallery. Now the roots on the far walls weren’t just detaching themselves—they were angling themselves toward the stairway, reaching forward, questing for them. The massive, tentacle-like wooden limbs were still a ways off and moved slowly, though, giving them a little breathing room for now.

But not forever.

The three of them blazed past the third floor. Jieyuan glanced at Meiyao. Her lips were pressed into a tight, thin line. Then her eyes closed—and somehow her steps kept steady, never faltering.

She stayed that way for a beat, two, three—then she opened her eyes again, shook her head, and looked distinctly alarmed now. “I can’t! The Sacred Source—it’s the one doing it!”

She didn’t look scared—not quite. But she wasn’t far from it, either.

Great. Perfect. Just—golden. Jieyuan glanced away, ensuring the way was still clear, then shouted at her, “Why’s it trying to kill us?”

Depending on what exactly it was, maybe they could—

“It’s trying to kill you! You and Daojue! Me, it wants to keep!”

Ah. Of course. It turned out the huge, creepy, murderous tree’s goals weren’t that different from the Xiyunfeng’s and the Gleaming Nobles’. Kill Jieyuan and Daojue, capture Meiyao.

They reached the fourth floor. The roots on the walls moved slow, ponderous, but they were already halfway across, reaching for them. They hadn’t had any trouble yet besides the roots underfoot, but he reckoned they’d be in for something on the way out on the fifth floor.

They surged up past the fourth floor, and now only the fifth one stood between them and the way out.

But as they drew closer to it, Jieyuan caught sight of the entrance, sitting directly ahead at the end of the stairway. It wasn’t the entrance itself that he focused on, though, but the things gathered around it.

In that moment, he knew there was some animal cunning to the Sacred Source, or whatever was driving this. Because even as multitudes of massive roots on the walls kept moving toward them, slow and steady, a cluster of those same trunk-thick roots had gathered right by the entrance. Waiting for them.

Jieyuan braced himself but didn’t slow. Neither did Meiyao or Daojue.

They crossed into the fifth floor—and the giant roots extending from the walls were on them instantly. Gone was the earlier slowness, the steady approach. Now the huge wooden tentacles snapped forward like whips, lashing out at them from all directions.

Oh, it’s cunning, all right.

Jieyuan took back control of his legs, pushed off against the step he was on—jumped, and only just barely evaded the barrage. These roots were at Redsoul—and thank the Heavens for that—but they were at tenth-sign Redsoul, and he doubted he’d be able to do much more than scratch them.

Below, Meiyao and Daojue met the attack head-on, cutting the roots down—Daojue with Gleaming End, and Meiyao with her saber, Radiant Edge, which was glowing so bright it hurt to look at.

Jieyuan loved the Shifting Feathers, but in terms of raw offense, they didn’t stand a chance against Gleaming End and Radiant Edge.

More roots shot at him mid-air, but here the Shifting Feathers got their chance to shine. He increased their weight tenfold, and they dragged him down, sending him plunging to the floor and out of harm’s way. Daojue and Meiyao were drenched in the green, viscous sap that splattered from the cut-down branches as he landed right between them.

They kept moving. Between Daojue and Meiyao, every root that reached them was cut down. When they reached the entrance, the ones that had been lying in ambush struck—but Daojue stepped forward, swept Gleaming End in a wide arc, and sliced them all apart in one motion.

And just like that, they were out of the Cradle.

They didn’t stop—kept on running. Out of the corner of his vision, Jieyuan saw the roots outside the Cradle moving too—no longer slow, but as fast as the ones inside had been when attacking them.

But the three of them were faster. They crossed the distance to the start of the pocket and pushed through it, barreling out the other side, leaving the Cradle’s roots behind.

The sound of the chant faded immediately—Jieyuan had suspected for a while that sound didn’t carry through pockets, and now he knew for sure. The silence that followed felt almost alien after all that noise.

It wasn’t over, of course. They weren’t safe. Jieyuan didn’t doubt that the Cradle’s roots could follow them into this pocket.

But then he realized that the ground was still trembling, even though they were outside the Cradle.

And there wasn’t silence like he’d thought, either. Compared to before, it might as well have been silent as the grave, sure. But there was another sound filling the air. A loud, deep creak and rustle, almost like a groan. He turned toward it.

The Sacred Garden ended just at the edge of the pocket, right beside the curtain of thicker mist. And the trees there—they were swaying. At their bases, roots were snapping up, breaking through the surface, bunching around them.

And then the viridian oakwillows—the Orangesoul trees—started to rise. Off the ground, uprooting themselves.

Those weren’t the only roots moving, either. The ones underfoot were starting to squirm. Further out, he could hear more distant, fainter noises. See other bent, twisted shapes moving, shifting, coming to life and motion.

It was just like with the Viridian Cradle—except now it was the whole Viridian Death City.