CHAPTER
126
THE IMPASSE
JIEYUAN
—∞—
That, Jieyuan decided, did not go as planned.
The saber gone, Meiyao and the mimic resumed fighting, business as usual. Like what happened with the saber just now was just a brief, unimportant interlude.
The only real difference was that Meiyao’s attacks seemed the slightest bit more frantic—but the mimic had bee...
2025-08-31 03:02:31 +0000 UTC View PostCHAPTER
125
PLAN AND FAIL
JIEYUAN
—∞—
Jieyuan knew that voice. How could he not, when he’d spent the last two months hoping to hear it again?
Someone—or, more likely, something—had been using it up until a few moments ago, but not the right way. That same voice had come out stilted, awkward, wrong.
But this time? This time it flowed. Smoothly. Fl...
2025-08-31 03:01:51 +0000 UTC View PostCHAPTER
124
TO BE FAKE
JIEYUAN
—∞—
Meiyao. She was there, somehow, standing on the other end of the pocket. Her hair was even longer than he remembered, waving softly in the gentle breeze. Her skin was rosy and warm; her eyes, impossibly green.
Jieyuan stared, wide-eyed, frozen at the edge of the clearing. All his instincts, honed over and over across the last few months, fai...
2025-08-31 03:01:29 +0000 UTC View PostCHAPTER
123
BLOOD AND SIGHT
JIEYUAN
—∞—
The forest snapped back into place around him, but all of Jieyuan’s attention was on the little, innocent jade cube in his hand.
What in the Heavens?
He heard Maeva’s giggle. “Oh my.”
Jieyuan’s stomach dropped.
Maeva. He’d forgotten about her.
His sister’s voice rang in his head, “You wer...
2025-08-06 15:48:00 +0000 UTC View PostCHAPTER
122
THE RED RING
JIEYUAN
—∞—
Daojue moved the Yellowsoul bracelet to his right hand, the hand with the red ring, and took hold of Gleaming End with his left.
He pressed Gleaming End and the bracelet against each other again. The ring, Jieyuan couldn’t help but notice, was in contact with the bracelet.
The bracelet shimmered, then disappeared.
Daojue kept...
2025-08-06 15:47:35 +0000 UTC View PostCHAPTER
121
BAGS AND PRISMS
JIEYUAN
—∞—
“What?” Jieyuan looked from Daojue to Gleaming End and then back to Daojue. “Why not? What about Gleaming End? You bonded it, didn’t—”
“I did not bond Gleaming End,” Daojue said, matter-of-fact. “Gleaming End bonded itself to me.”
“That’s—” Jieyuan caught himself, frowning, and stopped to think. Too man...
2025-08-06 15:47:09 +0000 UTC View PostCHAPTER
120
ABRUPT HALT
JIEYUAN
—∞—
They spent only as much time inside the cave as it took to collect everything. And not a second more. Jieyuan quickly collected all the scale blades he’d thrown, and then helped Daojue put away the artifacts into the glyph-stretch pouches—their own, and when those were filled, some of the ones lying around in the cave.
In the process he...
2025-08-06 15:46:47 +0000 UTC View PostCHAPTER
119
WITHOUT SENSE
JIEYUAN
—∞—
It took Jieyuan a moment to recognize the beast.
The triangular ears, the fox-like head, the long, bushy tail. Green-furred, except for its white underside.
A greenseeker jackal, was it?
The last time he’d seen one had been more than two months ago, back when Meiyao was still around. She’d said it was a scavenger,...
2025-08-06 15:46:17 +0000 UTC View PostCHAPTER
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...
2025-07-11 04:16:27 +0000 UTC View PostCHAPTER
117
PASS A TEST
JIEYUAN
—∞—
Daojue’s gauntlets flashed every time it touched a string and it disappeared. And with how fast Daojue moved them, they flashed so constantly they seemed to be glowing steadily.
It took Daojue just moments to get rid of all the strings covering his body.
The spider didn’t sit around waiting for Daojue to free himself, though. Inst...
2025-07-11 04:15:56 +0000 UTC View PostCHAPTER
116
STRING AND RED
JIEYUAN
—∞—
Jieyuan stood in the middle of the clearing, eyes on the thicker wall of mist ahead that marked the edge of the pocket. How’s it looking, Huaxin?
It’d been about eleven days since their fight with the two-headed snake. Six days since he and Daojue had set off again. And one thing Jieyuan had figured out pretty quickly was th...
2025-07-11 04:15:35 +0000 UTC View PostCHAPTER
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 ...
2025-07-11 04:15:06 +0000 UTC View PostCHAPTER
114
THE FOOL’S GOLD
JIEYUAN
—∞—
Jieyuan stared at the snake.
It had fallen barely a foot away. Within arm’s reach. He was standing directly in front of its eye—or at least what remained of it. The massive, wet globe had popped like a bubble.
He could just make out the crystalline end of Gleaming End’s shaft peeking out among the ruined mass of white, yel...
2025-07-04 03:51:26 +0000 UTC View PostCHAPTER
113
KICK IT IN
JIEYUAN
—∞—
He might’ve hit the ground rolling if it weren’t for Daojue’s grip on him, and the fact Maeva was still in control. As it was, Maeva had him push off Daojue as they were nearing the ground, and managed a firm landing. Then Daojue was dragging him back, further into the clearing, and Maeva let him.
“Wait—” Jieyuan said, staring in...
2025-07-04 03:51:03 +0000 UTC View PostCHAPTER
112
TO SPLIT UP
JIEYUAN
—∞—
Jieyuan didn’t know which was worse—the split between the snakes, or the earth armor on the white one.
What he did know was that things had just gotten a great deal more complicated.
He got moving immediately. Both Daojue and Meiyao were headed his way, and just behind them, bringing up the rear, were the two snakes—which didn...
2025-07-04 03:50:44 +0000 UTC View PostCHAPTER
111
SHOOT AND FAIL
JIEYUAN
—∞—
Jieyuan had just gotten a foot forward before Daojue appeared by his side, grabbed his arm, and pulled him back.
Jieyuan tried to shake him off—not really thinking, running on instinct—but stopped as a long brown shape rushed out of the dense cloud of poisonous gas, the green fumes parting around it.
Meiyao—wearing some kind ...
2025-07-04 03:50:22 +0000 UTC View PostCHAPTER
110
AND IT STRIKES
JIEYUAN
—∞—
As if the menacing, unblinking, slitted stare of the green snake head wasn’t bad enough, the green half of the snake lifted itself higher into the air, arching its upper half. The hiss came next, and the sound of it could’ve frozen flame.
Jieyuan snapped a glance at Meiyao. She was still standing over the white half of the snake, whi...
2025-07-04 03:50:00 +0000 UTC View PostCHAPTER
109
ONE OR TWO
JIEYUAN
—∞—
Someway, somehow, things were looking up.
Jieyuan crouched in front of a bushy bramble and plucked some of the little, green, berry-like fruits growing out of it. Meiyao was on the other side of the pocket, collecting some flowers from a little patch of orange lilies. Daojue stood by himself in the middle, not doing much of anything.
A...
2025-06-24 04:23:26 +0000 UTC View PostCHAPTER
108
PASSION TALK
JIEYUAN
—∞—
Meiyao pulled the group of ingredients she’d separated for the antidote closer and pushed the other two further to the side.
“There are four steps to refining. They’re the same, whether you’re refining concoctions or constructs. Prior to it, you’d also need to properly plan out the concoction, and there are a lot of calculations ...
2025-06-24 04:23:02 +0000 UTC View PostCHAPTER
107
CHANGE IN AREA
JIEYUAN
—∞—
The flowers came as a surprise, and not a pleasant one.
As Jieyuan stepped into the pocket, they were the first thing that caught his eye. A little cluster of large, red-petaled blossoms circling the trunk of a tree—not an oak, thankfully, its trunk much thinner, shooting straight up past the pocket, none of its branches or leaves even...
2025-06-24 04:22:40 +0000 UTC View PostCHAPTER
106
BLOOD REVEALED
JIEYUAN
—∞—
Jieyuan had grown used to Meiyao’s looks, but he didn’t think he’d ever grow numb to it. At least now he knew her beauty was unnatural—that the Linzushen Bloodright was behind it. That didn’t detract from it any, though. If anything, it only emphasized the otherworldly nature of it.
“I need you to tell me ex...
2025-06-24 04:22:08 +0000 UTC View PostCHAPTER
105
SAFE AT LAST
JIEYUAN
—∞—
They didn’t stop.
As they rushed into the next much, much smaller pocket of mist—about two dozen feet across, instead of over a mile—Jieyuan barely had time to register that the forest wasn’t animated and actively trying to kill them like Viridian Death City before they were on the opposite side, breaking into the...
2025-06-24 04:21:38 +0000 UTC View PostCHAPTER
104
THE LAST STRETCH
JIEYUAN
—∞—
The first thing Jieyuan did as he came through was cast a quick look around.
The avenue stretched wide and crooked in front of them, same as before. Same warped street, same swollen, twisting buildings looming on either side—walls heaving in slow, uneven pulses like something half-asleep and restless. The roots underfoot hadn’t stopped moving just ...
2025-06-17 05:30:26 +0000 UTC View PostCHAPTER
103
TO COMMAND
JIEYUAN
—∞—
For all the ways the city had twisted, shifted, and come alive around them—stirring like something half-woken and hungry—the tree tunnel ahead looked almost exactly the same as before.
That was little comfort, though, given that it had looked like bad news from the start.
Now they were approaching it from the opposite direction, an...
2025-06-17 05:29:37 +0000 UTC View PostCHAPTER
102
COLORED BEAM
JIEYUAN
—∞—
Jieyuan’s eyes flicked sideways—left, then right—past the length of the bridge, scanning the crystal-clear waters below. White flowers drifted lazily across the surface. Below them, the feathery, eel-like green stalks swayed with the current, their movements slow and harmless.
Nothing. It all looked—
The stalks went ramrod st...
2025-06-17 05:29:11 +0000 UTC View PostCHAPTER
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 ...
2025-06-17 05:28:39 +0000 UTC View PostCHAPTER
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, fill...
2025-06-10 04:28:04 +0000 UTC View PostCHAPTER
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....
2025-06-09 05:29:06 +0000 UTC View PostCHAPTER
98
A DEATH FAITH
JIEYUAN
—∞—
It was a long way down. Thousands of steps, each one thick with tangled roots, to the point you could hardly see the original, darkened wood underneath. Their footsteps echoed faintly in the hush of the Cradle—hollow beats that barely stirred the still air.
The roots made for some awkward footing. But after the bridge, Jieyuan figured he might as well be...
2025-06-09 05:28:40 +0000 UTC View PostCHAPTER
97
THE CRADLE
JIEYUAN
—∞—
Judging by how Huaxin started beating faster still, it wasn’t any happier with the direction things were heading than he was.
Jieyuan had never been one to shy away from risk. He was more than willing to gamble—so long as the gamble made sense. He liked his risks calculated. You had to weigh the gains against the losses, run the odds in your head. If the ...
2025-06-09 05:28:15 +0000 UTC View Post