Chapter 99: SACRED SOURCE

CHAPTER

99

SACRED SOURCE

JIEYUAN

—∞—

Only now did Jieyuan really see the trunk of the Sacred Source. The curtain formed by the weeping, flowing leaves ended just ten feet or so above the ground, leaving only a fraction of the trunk exposed. Its bark was a light, vivid brown. Pillar-like, with whorls and knots, ridges and swirls, spiraling across its entire length.

There was a face on it, too. Not like the human faces on the smaller trees. This one was formed from deep creases and folds in the bark, broad and ancient, in the vague likeness of a woman’s face. Massive, too—several times larger than any human’s. It was the sort of thing that would’ve been hard to see from above, half-hidden by the layers of leaves. But down here, up close, there was no mistaking it.

Yet another thing to the ever-growing list of things Jieyuan didn’t like about this whole business.

Meiyao didn’t pause—she just kept walking after stepping off the stairway. But to Jieyuan’s surprise, she didn’t head straight for the viridian oakwillow. Instead, she angled off toward the small, diminutive oak that stood at the edge of the pit, close to the stairway.

Jieyuan followed her, though he made sure to always keep the oakwillow in the corner of his vision. Not that it took much effort, when it was that size. It dominated everything here, even when he tried not to look at it directly.

Meiyao stopped in front of the smaller oak, and Jieyuan stepped up beside her. This time, Daojue didn’t hang back. He came over too, though he kept a few feet of distance like always.

There was a corpse in the trunk, same as with all the other trees they’d passed along the way. Another woman. The Linzushen traits—enforced by their bloodright, as he now knew—were so strong he could barely tell her apart from the other treefied Linzushen women they’d seen so far. Pale skin, fine but full features, half-swallowed by the twisting wood. Almost peaceful-looking, in a way that felt more than a little wrong.

“She was a Sacred One,” Meiyao said. “They were the only ones who could meditate or cultivate here, at the bottom, beside the Sacred Source.”

“What exactly do you think happened?” Jieyuan nodded at the dead Sacred One, then at the galleries above. “Once the Dome took over, I mean. Did they just stay here, meditating like that until they died?”

“I’m not sure.” Meiyao narrowed her eyes, thoughtful. “These trees growing over them—they’re not of a type I recognize. They’re something from the Dome, I think, even if they don’t look like it. I can feel its touch on them, and it’s very strong. And…”

She turned around, eyes fixed straight ahead—at the Sacred Source. “They’re all connected to it. The Source has been changed, too. It’s…”

She fell quiet, closing her eyes like she was focusing in on something only she could sense. Jieyuan waited, patient. He let her do her thing, but he didn’t take his eyes off the huge tree in front of them. That massive face carved into the trunk, rough but clear—it set his teeth on edge.

But then he caught movement from the side—Meiyao was moving again, stepping forward.

She still had her eyes closed.

“Meiyao?” he called.

She didn’t answer. She kept walking, slow and deliberate. It was only then that he realized she was glowing. Green—glowing green, just like the mist around them. The exact same shade.

A green aura. Her bloodskill. Divine Nature Unison.

But why was she using it all of a sudden?

Jieyuan took a step after her, his hand shooting out to grab her arm—just as Huaxin screamed through their bond. There was a blur of movement, and then everything was a blur as the world went sideways—and then he was airborne, launched into the air with bone-jarring force.

Barely a moment later, something caught at him, pulling him steady before he could hit the ground. The impact rattled him, but a hand was already holding him up, keeping him on his feet.

Daojue. Jieyuan blinked, took a quick breath, and forced his mind to focus, to work through what had just happened. Meiyao. She’d thrown him back, moving faster than he’d ever seen—fast like a tenth-sign.

When he turned his eyes back to her, he saw she was still walking forward, slow and steady.

Her green aura, which before had been almost invisible against the glow of the mist, was very much clear now. A blazing, vibrant shroud of green, wrapped tight around her like a second skin.

But there was more than that. She was walking at the same slow pace, but her steps sounded louder. Like she was getting heavier—and taller.

No, not like—she was growing taller, Jieyuan realized.

He watched, wide-eyed, as the distance between the top of her head and the curtain of dangling leaves shrunk by the second.

Her hair was getting longer, too. Just moments ago it stopped just past her upper back, but now it was spilling down to her waist, thick and bushy, fanning out behind her like a living cloak.

Huaxin kept shouting at him to get out, but Jieyuan shut it out. Then he pushed Daojue’s hand off his shoulder and shot forward.

“Meiyao! Stop!”

He reached her in moments—despite the speed she’d shown earlier, she was still moving no faster than a mundane right now. He was about to grab her arm again when he finally got a good look at her face.

Her skin had turned brown. A vivid, wooden light brown. Jieyuan’s eyes flicked from her to the Sacred Source. Its trunk was the exact same shade.

What the—

“MEIYAO!” he shouted, right up close. But she didn’t even flinch. No reaction at all—she just kept on walking. And she was towering over him now, over a full foot taller. Her shoulders had broadened too, the fabric of her robes stretching and tearing under the added bulk.

She was growing taller. Broader. Her skin had taken on that same vivid wooden brown as the Sacred Source itself.

It all added up to one thing. She was turning into a tree—or at least it sure as gold looked that way.

And she was almost there. Almost at the Sacred Source. Given all this was already happening when she was only on her way to it, Jieyuan couldn’t imagine anything good taking place when she reached it.

He gritted his teeth and reached for her again—but a hand caught his shoulder, pulling him back. He shot a glance at Daojue, who was standing right beside him—and who wasn’t letting go.

“What are you doing?” Jieyuan snapped. “I need to—”

“You will die,” Daojue said. “Wait.”

“Die? What are you— No, wait?” Jieyuan stared at him disbelief. “What do you mean, wait? She’s almost at the—”

Meiyao reached the Sacred Source, stopping right in front of it. She’d stopped growing, but by now she stood well over eight feet tall and had a build that made even Daojue look slight. Her outer robes had already torn open, and her inner robes weren’t faring much better.

Jieyuan tried to shrug off Daojue’s hand again, but his grip was like steel. Up ahead, Meiyao extended a hand broad enough to wrap around Jieyuan’s whole head and pressed it flat against the trunk. Right over the face on the tree.

And then it wasn’t just Meiyao and the mist that were glowing. Where her hand touched the wood, bright green lines flared to life—thick but vein-like, pulsing with light that was even stronger than the glow of her aura. They shone so bright they looked like they’d been burned into the bark itself, like the tree was bleeding light.

The lines spread through the trunk, slow at first, but then faster by the second. They climbed higher and higher, reaching up into the canopy. Soon the leaves above started to glow too, turning from that dull, dead green to a blazing, almost blinding radiance.

But they didn’t stop there. The lines crawled down the roots sprawling out from the base of the Sacred Source, then along the roots that climbed the walls and wove up through the galleries. And into the treefied cultivators themselves.

Within moments, the entire Viridian Cradle was lit up. Every inch of it streaked with those vivid green lines. And every single one of the tens of thousands of other trees was glowing too, their trunks shot through with green veins, their leaves turned into flickering dots of bright green light.

Jieyuan wasn’t sure how much of the hammering in his chest was his own, and how much was Huaxin’s doing. All he knew was that it felt like it was about to burst right out of him.

He focused back on Meiyao. The face on the tree was glowing now, perfectly outlined in that bright green light.

Then, with an unnatural smoothness, it opened its eyes, bits of bark drawing back like eyelids, revealing two bright green orbs. Then its mouth split open, the wood carving in like lips pulled apart.

“VIRIDIAN,” it said.

The sound was deafening. It came from everywhere—all directions at once. And when Jieyuan glanced up, he saw that the human faces on the trees above—the dead human faces—had changed. Their eyes were open now. He could just barely see the pinpricks of green light in the nearest trees, up at the edge of the first level. Their mouths were open, too, and they were chanting.

“VIRIDIAN. VIRIDIAN. VIRIDIAN. VIRIDIAN.”

Tens of thousands of voices—dead voices—blended into one. A chant that rolled through the air like a physical force, so loud Jieyuan’s teeth were rattling in his skull.

And there was Meiyao, right at the center of it all. The face on the Sacred Source moved under her palm, chanting along with the rest. Its voice was somehow distinct, cutting through the deafening drone—a woman’s voice, warm and melodious, so close to Meiyao’s own it made his skin crawl on top of everything else.

To rust with this. Jieyuan didn’t know what was happening—only that he had to do something about it. He leaned down and forward, bracing himself. Daojue adjusted his grip to hold him steady.

Jieyuan drove his elbow back into Daojue’s stomach. Daojue dodged—but Jieyuan had been counting on that, and Daojue’s grip slackened just enough for Jieyuan to shrug him off.

He sprinted, reached Meiyao—still freakishly enlarged—in just a moment. He hooked an arm around her waist—more than three times thicker than his own—and put everything he had into pulling her away.

He was probably the most surprised of anyone when he met almost no resistance. His momentum drove both of them to the ground. He recovered fast, though, snapping back up to his feet and hauling Meiyao further back with him.

As he did, he saw her eyes open, blinking wildly. Under his half-carry, he felt her body shrinking against his side, like she was deflating. About a second later, and she was back to her normal size, the shredded remains of her robes barely clinging to her.

That was the good news.

The bad news was that it hadn’t stopped whatever she’d set off. The glowing lines were still there, blazing brighter than ever, and the deafening chant kept rolling on. If anything, it was getting even louder.

“VIRIDIAN. VIRIDIAN. VIRIDIAN. VIRIDIAN. VIRIDIAN.”

The only thing louder was Huaxin’s desperation, hammering at the back of his mind in a wordless, urgent roar. LEAVE. LEAVE. LEAVE. LEAVE.

Without a second thought, Jieyuan picked Meiyao up, slung her across his shoulder, and broke into a full run. She folded limply against his back and front. He could feel her stirring, but she was still clearly out of it.

They were about halfway to the stairway—Daojue right beside him—when the tremor came. A deep one, rumbling up from the pit and shivering through the entire structure.

And then something shifted under his feet. It was slow, almost gentle, but right now all his senses were so raw and sharp he would’ve noticed even a feather landing on his shoulder.

He glanced down without breaking his stride.

The roots under their feet were moving. The whole tangled mat of them, squirming and shifting, soft at first, then harder—until they were writhing and twisting like a nest of worms.

And then they started reaching up. Curling around his greaves, clawing at his ankles, trying to drag him down.

That sense of danger, which had settled in his gut the moment he’d seen the city walls and had only built up with every step—it had followed them all the way down here.

And now it had caught up.