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Chapter 126: THE IMPASSE
CHAPTER126THE IMPASSEJIEYUAN—∞—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 been improving all this while, and Meiyao’s redoubled efforts weren’t having any more of an effect.Maeva, visible only to him, returned to his side.“What now?” she asked. Her hands were alread...
Chapter 125: PLAN AND FAIL
CHAPTER125PLAN AND FAILJIEYUAN—∞—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. Fluent.The Meiyao in front of him abruptly cut off her attack, jumping to the side and spinning to face the opposite edge of the pocket.Where another Meiyao was standing, surrounded by a bright, almo...
Chapter 124: TO BE FAKE
CHAPTER124TO BE FAKEJIEYUAN—∞—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, failed him. He forgot all his aches, all his wounds. There was nothing in his head besides that one word, that one name.Meiyao.She just stood there, unmoving as she stared rig...
Chapter 123: BLOOD AND SIGHT
CHAPTER123BLOOD AND SIGHTJIEYUAN—∞—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 were always so adorably awkward about—”Absolutely not. He would not be teased over this by the hallucination of his sister. Not when she’d have even more ammunition than the real Maeva would have, having al...
Chapter 122: THE RED RING
CHAPTER122THE RED RINGJIEYUAN—∞—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 staring at the red ring. Jieyuan did some staring of his own. He recalled his old suspicions about that ring—from as early as their time in the Gleamstone Forest. Daojue had spent som...
Chapter 121: BAGS AND PRISMS
CHAPTER121BAGS AND PRISMSJIEYUAN—∞—“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 many stupid questions—at least from Daojue’s perspective—would have Daojue ignoring him altogether for the rest of the day.Jieyuan recalled their talk after their escape from t...
Chapter 120: ABRUPT HALT
CHAPTER120ABRUPT HALTJIEYUAN—∞—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 learned that these glyph-stretch pouches weren’t empty, but he held off from taking a proper look inside until they were out.Jieyuan also put away the jackal’s corpse,...
Chapter 119: WITHOUT SENSE
CHAPTER119WITHOUT SENSEJIEYUAN—∞—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, so that added up. He couldn’t recall her mentioning anything about it being a burrower, but it could be that she hadn’t thought that important enough to mention. Or maybe some other beast ha...
Chapter 118: DOWN AND UNDER
CHAPTER118DOWN AND UNDERJIEYUAN—∞—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 probably just the start of some bigger slope.Jieyuan could only see a few inches inside it before the deeper green of the boundary mist blocked off the view.It’d been more than two months sinc...
Chapter 117: PASS A TEST
CHAPTER117PASS A TESTJIEYUAN—∞—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. Instead it turned to Jieyuan, who was still very much so locked up—and then crawled rapidly toward him, long legs skittering across the floor.As it drew close, the spider’s legs r...
Chapter 116: STRING AND RED
CHAPTER116STRING AND REDJIEYUAN—∞—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 that he didn’t need to be that close to the edge for Huaxin to use Fatebloom Intuition.It hadn’t taken long for that particular discovery to prove life-saving.If a beast rushed in...
Chapter 115: TO BREAK THROUGH
CHAPTER115TO BREAK THROUGHJIEYUAN—∞—“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...
Chapter 114: THE FOOL’S GOLD
CHAPTER114THE FOOL’S GOLDJIEYUAN—∞—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, yellow, and red that had once been an eye the size of his chest.The snake was dead.The snake was still trembling faintly, and Jieyuan had no way to actually tell. But Huaxin’s warn...
Chapter 113: KICK IT IN
CHAPTER113KICK IT INJIEYUAN—∞—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 intently at the curtain of mist they’d fallen out from. They were in another pocket. They’d left Meiyao behind. Where was the snake? “WAIT!”He wrested control over hi...
Chapter 112: TO SPLIT UP
CHAPTER112TO SPLIT UPJIEYUAN—∞—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’t look particularly smaller now that they’d split up.Even if the snakes paid him less attention than empty air, a glancing blow would be more than enough to wreck him—and the...
Chapter 111: SHOOT AND FAIL
CHAPTER111SHOOT AND FAILJIEYUAN—∞—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 of earth armor. Smooth, solid earth wrapped her around her, crown to toes, open only at her face. Her skin looked slightly reddened, like she’d spent too long under the sun, but...
Chapter 110: AND IT STRIKES
CHAPTER110AND IT STRIKESJIEYUAN—∞—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, which, thank the Heavens, was concentrated on her. Even with Meiyao’s back in the way, that only blocked the middle third of the snake’s head–its two massive, burning ey...
Chapter 109: ONE OR TWO
CHAPTER109ONE OR TWOJIEYUAN—∞—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.All around the clearing, poking out from the curtains of mist, were glowing, flowering vines, a couple of which Meiyao had already picked clean.It’d been about two weeks since th...
Chapter 108: PASSION TALK
CHAPTER108PASSION TALKJIEYUAN—∞—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 involved, but my bloodright lets me skip all of that.”She picked up the first of the flowers. A small, black-petaled rose.“The first step’s attuning, so that you can ...
Chapter 107: CHANGE IN AREA
CHAPTER107CHANGE IN AREAJIEYUAN—∞—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 visible—right in the middle of the clearing.They were a vibrant, deep red. Crimson, blood-like. They made for the first splash of color other than green, brown, or white...
Chapter 106: BLOOD REVEALED
CHAPTER106BLOOD REVEALEDJIEYUAN—∞—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 exactly what happened, with the Sacred Source,” Meiyao said. “All I know is that one moment I’d turned to look at it—and the next moment the whole Viridian Cradle had come alive, and y...
Chapter 105: SAFE AT LAST
CHAPTER105SAFE AT LASTJIEYUAN—∞—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 next one.And they kept going, not stopping, into the second pocket. Then the third.On the fourth, Meiyao stopped very briefly midway, then veered sharply to the right and crossed into the n...
Chapter 104: THE LAST STRETCH
CHAPTER104THE LAST STRETCHJIEYUAN—∞—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 because they’d crossed into a new zone. They churned and writhed beneath his greaves, forcing him to keep his focus split—half on his footing, half on ...
Chapter 103: TO COMMAND
CHAPTER103TO COMMANDJIEYUAN—∞—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, and it didn’t look any better from this angle.The towering chromal oaks still stood in their eerie formation—thick trunks rising on two parallel lines cutting through the middle...
Chapter 102: COLORED BEAM
CHAPTER102COLORED BEAMJIEYUAN—∞—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 straight.In the same breath, they shot upward—spear-fast, spine-locked. Their tips punched through the floating flowers, launching them high into the air in spinning, weightless a...
Chapter 101: CLIMB ACROSS
CHAPTER101CLIMB ACROSSJIEYUAN—∞—“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 after...
Chapter 100: TO RUSH OUT
CHAPTER100TO RUSH OUTJIEYUAN—∞—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 ...
Chapter 99: SACRED SOURCE
CHAPTER99SACRED SOURCEJIEYUAN—∞—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 ...
Chapter 98: CULT OF DEATH
CHAPTER98A DEATH FAITHJIEYUAN—∞—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 gliding along. After the first couple of steps, he found his balance and settled into the rhythm. Before long, he barely had to think about his feet at al...
Chapter 97: THE CRADLE
CHAPTER97THE CRADLEJIEYUAN—∞—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 potential payout looked good enough, and the odds weren’t too insulting, he wouldn’t even blink at putting his life on the line.But the numbers here we...
