Chương 40: Chapter 39: NEAR THE GREEN

CHAPTER 39 NEAR THE GREEN —∞— Meiyao rushed to the front before shoving Jieyuan to the side, forcing him behind her with a strength that surprised him. Jieyuan almost lost control of the cloudcraft. On instinct, his hand darted out to drag her back— No! she sent. Let me! He froze. Her eyes were shut, her face locked with tension—brow furrowed deep in excruciating concentration, the kind of focus you only saw in someone with their life on the line. And then the flock of flying beasts was upon them.

The sky vanished, consumed in a blizzard of glowing feathers and shrieking noise. Birds of prey—massive, talon-clawed, green-lit beasts that looked big enough to swallow a man whole—swept around them in a frenzy. Wings beat like thunder. The air was pure motion. No up, no down, only streaks of green light slashing past in every direction. One of them surged toward them. Beak open, talons forward, a streak of light and intent. Jieyuan would've swerved the cloudcraft, but there was nowhere to go.

More of the beasts poured past in every direction, thick as hail. His soulsenses screamed at him—tenth-step Redrealm—and he braced for impact, throwing up both Shifting Sisters— But it never came. The bird abruptly cut off its screech, banked hard, and veered away to the side, flying past them. Jieyuan didn't get any time to think as another bird came sweeping in; but at the last moment it twisted away, just like the one before it. Another bird came. Then another.

But they all veered off just before impact, like they'd hit an invisible wall, a sphere around the cloudcraft they instinctively refused to breach. Jieyuan glanced at Meiyao. She stood frozen in place, hands clenched tight at her sides, her whole body taut with strain. Her face was locked in concentration, as if holding together something fragile and enormous. She was doing something. Holding the birds back, somehow. But whatever it was, it didn't look like she could keep it up for long.

Like she was one breath from collapse, enduring only through sheer force of will. He angled the cloudcraft even lower, driving them downward, carving a line through the relentless current of beasts. Below, the glowing woods of the Ringwood came into view. Closer now, clearer, like a sprawling, luminous latticework in every shade of green. They broke through the last of the stream of beasts. But it was like replacing one storm with another as they crashed into the forest canopy.

Glowing, barbed branches and razor-like leaves tore at them as they plunged into the treetops. These weren't mundane trees but chromal. Fifth-step Redrealm, his soulsenses supplied; but his body had already gotten the message loud and clear in the form of cuts and tears. The cloudcraft bore the worst of the impact, shielding them from the brunt. But not all. Branches snapped and slashed, scoring his arms, shredding fabric and skin alike.

Then Jieyuan felt something inside him gutter out—felt the connection to the cloudcraft end—and suddenly, there was nothing beneath them. They fell. Branches snapped beneath them in a blur. Jieyuan curled in midair, arms up to shield his face, the Shifting Sisters gripped tight, letting the forest break itself against him before he broke against it. His soulsenses cleared just before the ground surged up.

He let go of the Shifting Sisters, twisted, clenched his teeth, braced— Then the ground met him and he rolled with the landing. Pain exploded through his ribs. His head rang like struck metal, blood roaring in his ears louder than thought. But he pulled himself up, ignoring the protests of his body, pain and exhaustion both. He took in the situation in a snap-second. Daojue was already back up, having landed nearby. But he didn't see Meiyao.

His soulsenses picked up something twenty feet above, off to the side and falling fast. A fourth-step Redsoul. Meiyao. Meiyao, who was already badly injured. Jieyuan lunged. He caught her just before she hit the ground, his arms taking the brunt of impact as he fell back with her. The collision knocked the air from his lungs. They tumbled to the ground. They rolled back some, then ground to a stop. Jieyuan took gasping breaths, chest and spine on fire. He only barely managed to force the words out, "You alright?"

Meiyao groaned quietly, then shifted in his hold, pulling away. He let go. The fall could've very well killed them. Falling wasn't something cultivators normally had to worry about. In most places the ground and flooring were mundane, and so could do them no damage given the gap between their Laws. But the earth underfoot was chromal. Fifth-step Redrealm, like the trees. They got to their feet slowly.

She leaned on him at first for balance, then took a shaky step back, righting herself despite the pain etched across her face.

"Thanks," she muttered. Jieyuan waved it off, studying her for a moment in the soft, green glow of the forest. Meiyao's eyes were glassy, her breath uneven. She was running on fumes and fury, and not much else. There was nothing left of her orange outer robe anymore; even her inner robes hung in tatters. Well over half her body was exposed, and not a single inch of visible skin was intact. Before they'd taken flight, she'd had dozens of cuts.

Now there were hundreds, crisscrossing every surface he could see, blood soaking through like ink. Judging from the multitude of stings Jieyuan felt all over himself, fighting for his attention against the aching and throbbing and exhaustion, he wasn't much better off. The ruined side of her hip looked stable, at least. Still bleeding, still torn, but not as bad as it should've been. The pill she'd taken earlier was holding, though only barely. He took a shuddering breath, then took a more careful look around.

He blinked sweat and blood from his eyes, trying to put his thoughts back in order. The forest crowded in around them. Massive, ancient trees humming with faint light, their presence almost sentient. It wasn't just the trees that glowed, either. From the mossy earth to the swaying canopies, everything luminous, shimmering in hues of green and brown. The shadows twisted around them, moving like something alive. The air was thick with a bittersweet tang. Earthy but rotten, like roots soaked in blood.

Life and death, warped together. The eeriness didn't stop at his five sense. There was also something off with his soulsenses. Nothing immediately apparent; just a faint but persistent feeling of wrongness, tugging at the edge of his awareness. It took him a moment to place it. At fourth-step Redrealm, his soulsenses extended exactly twenty-four feet in every direction. But he could feel nothing past twenty feet behind him. Four feet were missing. He turned around it. And he saw it.

A solid, glowing stretch of green, rising from the ground. A wall of it, extending beyond sight, disappearing past the tree tops far above. The Viridian Dome. Looming, vast and pale-green. Twenty feet away. So close, it looked flat, endless—its curvature lost to perspective. It was supposedly made out of mist—impenetrable mist. But it could've been hard marble for how solid and even it looked. And completely blank to his soulsenses. Not just that. Whatever it contained was also blanked. Like a void.

And there were things there. There was a tree right at the boundary, cut in half by the dome; he could sense the part outside it, a clear fifth-step Redrealm spirit, but beyond the Dome, nothing. Blank. It wasn't like a spirit-shroud. A shroud blocked whatever it covered through its very presence; you sensed the shroud, not the artifact it was wrapped around, hiding it from soulsenses just like it hid from sight. But the viridian mist was a void that swallowed everything inside it.

Jieyuan's focus was broken as Meiyao bent down—slowly, grimacing—and picked up her saber from the ground. Jieyuan blinked. Right. He focused on his soulsenses, searched around some, and… There. The cloudcraft bracelet. He focused on it, trying to call it to his hand with his soulforce. But it didn't stick, his soulforce slipping off it like trying to grasp at water. He just couldn't concentrate properly, what with… Well, everything.

Groaning, he walked over, bent down, picked it up, and tossed it into his holder pouch, then went and picked up the Shifting Sisters, which had also landed nearby. Meiyao was staring at the Viridian Dome. So was Daojue; as best as Jieyuan could tell, his friend hadn't moved at all since getting up, Gleaming End already in hand. No; not already, Jieyuan realized after a beat, but rather still in hand. Unlike Jieyuan and Meiyao, Daojue had managed to stick the landing without letting go of his weapon.

Jieyuan walked over, eyes back on the Viridian Dome. What they'd come all this way for. But now that it was there, just a couple of steps away, glowing eerily in the green-lit gloom, he just couldn't make himself move toward it. Nobody's ever come out. Not even Yellowsouls. He swallowed thickly. He wasn't one for hesitation, Firesoul that he was. He'd even planned on flying straight into it. But now, standing in this place, it hit him harder than ever before that this was the Viridian Dome.

The most mysterious—and deadly—area in the entirety of the island. A mystery not even the island's ruling Yellowrealm sect, the Incandescent Serenity Sect, had managed to unravel. The place where, if the parents of Radiant Gold City were any authority on the subject, bad children were sent. A chuckle escaped him at the thought. At the memory.

Of his father, threatening to give him over to the Viridian Death cultists when he was being particularly nasty in that mocking tone adults used but that seemed like the Heavens' own truth to a child. But the sound had barely left his mouth before it died, all traces of warmth slipping away. It wasn't just the Dome's reputation that made him hesitate. There was more to it than reason and thought. Just looking at the viridian mist set off something inside. Something deep. Deeper than bone, deeper than blood.

Something primal. The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation. Instinct, plain and pure, that had him balking at the mere sight of the Dome. And paling at the idea of—Heavens forbid—stepping inside it. Already his mind started coming up with alternatives. Slow at first, sluggish. Then faster. Then frantically. Maybe they didn't need to go inside; they should've lost their pursuers, who didn't have Meiyao to guide them through that swarm of flying beasts.

Maybe they could find their way to another city from here. Maybe they could head to the Viridian Death Cult. It shouldn't be too far off, and they'd help, what with how they worshiped the very ground Meiyao walked on. A series of cracks rang from above, and Jieyuan snapped out of it, whirling around just as two red blurs broke through the tree top and streaked straight down. The pair of cloudcrafts halted mid-air, hovering just inches above the forest floor, not even twenty feet away from them.

Tenth-step Redsouls, Jieyuan's soulsenses told him; his eyes confirmed that—they wore the robes of elders—even if he'd rather not believe them right now. He should've jumped backwards the moment he took in the streaks, before the tenth-steps had even landed, thrown himself into the Viridian Dome. And he would have. But his legs didn't comply, didn't move, not with the sight of the Dome and the dread it invoked still so fresh.

Beside him, Meiyao flinched backwards but didn't move toward the Dome, instead stepping closer to him. Daojue stayed put; he just shifted his weight, Gleaming End already angled in a half-guard. On the cloudcraft on the left was a woman. On the right, a man. Like everyone who'd fought outside the palace, the two of them were in rough shape. Battered and bruised, like they'd gone through a grinder. Which, given all the gleamstone blades flying around the street earlier, wasn't that far off.

The black scraps hanging over the woman's gray inner robes told him she was from the Xiyunfeng Clan, though her specific rank was uncertain. The man's outer robes were in a better state. Green. Emerald. Another protector of the Gleaming Stone Sect turned traitor. More importantly, though, none of their wounds looked particularly debilitating. They were roughed up something fierce, sure, but no deep gashes, no destroyed limbs, no ruined eyes. They were banged up, but not enough to make a difference in a fight.

Jieyuan gripped the Shifting Sisters tighter even as his stomach dropped. Meiyao could barely stand. He wasn't much better. And as for Daojue, Jieyuan didn't like his odds against a single tenth-step in a straight fight, let alone two. Not even with Gleaming End. But then he noticed the Gleaming Stone Sect traitor's outstretched arm. Held in his grasp, shown openly, was a strip of white paper. A talisman. Jieyuan knew it; recognized its spiritual song.

It had left quite the impression on him after he'd used one to kill a protector of the sect a month ago. Radiant Light Blast. One such talisman had even been used just a while ago, during their escape. The man was holding the talisman directly toward him. Meiyao was close enough that a good deal of her body would also get caught in the blast. Daojue, on his other side, wouldn't be getting out unscathed, either.

"Try anything," the man said, voice cold, precise, merciless, "and I'm using the talisman." Jieyuan breathed out slowly. His ribs ached with the motion. To his left, Meiyao stood perfectly still; but it looked like even that much was taking everything she had. She was dead on her feet, barely holding herself and her saber upright. She wasn't swaying, not yet, but Jieyuan still got the impression a breeze could've toppled her over. Daojue stood to his right, straight-backed, Gleaming End held steady.

He was clearly much better off than either of them. Ready for a fight. Good for it, even. But that didn't matter. Daojue didn't stand a chance here; not even Gleaming End could bridge the gap between him and two tenth-step Redsouls. They couldn't rely on Daojue for this, Jieyuan decided. He'd have to figure something out instead. He'd lost count of how many times he'd dragged himself back from the brink in just the past hour.

But here he was again, and it looked like he'd have to come through at least one more time today. His mind was clearer than before, but still nowhere near sharp enough. His thoughts dragged, sluggish and slow still. Exhaustion had pitted itself against a fourth-step Redsoul's stamina, and while it hadn't come out on top, it hadn't gone down easy, either. Jieyuan was recovering, but far too slowly. So he leaned into the pain.

Focused on every throb, every sting, every open slice on his body, every aching inch of him. As a cultivator, he knew better than to ignore pain. He accepted it, lived with it. But now he was taking it further, opening himself fully to the raw, roaring agony he was under. He held his mind against the pain like a blade to whetstone and sharpened the fatigue and haziness away, until only pain was left. And in the pain, clarity. Cutting through it all, grounding himself fully in the moment.

He exhaled, lifted his gaze, took in everything in front of him, every single detail. First the man. The traitorous protector, holding the talisman in front of him threateningly. On the other hand, a sword, but held down, to his side. The man's face was mostly untouched. He looked young; about Jieyuan's age, which, for a Redsoul, could mean anything from twenty to forty. More likely the latter, judging by his step. Regardless, he'd be young. And he'd act young. With cultivators, appearance mattered more than years.

They almost always acted the age they wore. The cast of the man's face stood out, too. Clear-cut. Refined in that effortless, deliberate way only the clan-born ever were. This wasn't some outsider roped into the revolution; he was almost certainly a Gleaming Noble. Fusongshi, maybe. Or Geshihan. Safe bet he was the proud sort. Rash, too, given his age. Jieyuan knew the type. The man watched them back through narrowed eyes, hawk-like.

But though he had affected a cold, stony tone earlier, Jieyuan saw something else in the set of his face, between the hard lines. Satisfaction. It wasn't any one thing that gave it away, but the sum of it all. A flicker behind the stoic mask. Not just proud, then, but arrogant. But he was also a tenth-step threatening three fourth-steps with a talisman. Jieyuan would've called it pragmatic, but the arrogance put another spin on it. Shameless was a safer bet… No. Not shameless. Vicious.

Jieyuan's gaze shifted to the Xiyunfeng woman. She was in worse shape than the man, though not by much. A cut ran across her brow, dangerously close to one eye. Like the traitor, she had her weapon drawn—a sword as well—but unlike her partner, she held it forward, held it ready. Three fourth-steps faced her, and she had a tenth-step on her side. Two tenth-steps against three fourth-steps, there was no doubt at all about the outcome. But even so, she was in a combat stance, sword leveled at them.

She was ready for a fight. There was plenty you could glean from that. She wasn't looking down on them. Wasn't letting her guard down. Then there was her face. She was older than the man. Considerably. Time had already cut some lines into her face, faint but visible, and painted streaks of gray into her tightly bound hair. She looked at least in her fifties, which would place her well into her first century, if not already her second. She looked familiar, too.

Jieyuan focused on it, seized that vague echo of memory, and forced himself to place it. Then he did. She was the high-ranking Xiyunfeng protector who'd confronted Qingshi in front of the palace, just before the fight had broken out. But more important than her face, her identity, or even her stance, was the deep frown she wore. And the way her eyes kept shifting, back and forth, between the blue-robed man… and Meiyao. Something about that pricked at Jieyuan. Not quite an idea, just the trace of one. A hint.

An impression. A spark trying to ignite. He didn't let it pass him by. He fixed on it, the way he had with the woman's face; he gripped it and dragged it hard into the front of his mind. And then he had it. It wasn't a plan—not exactly—but maybe the foundation of one. The seed of one. Now he'd just have to cultivate it and see if it'd take root and bear fruit. And for that, he'd need to test the waters a bit. The woman hadn't spoken out yet, so he couldn't be sure. Another breath in. In, then out.

Then Jieyuan spoke, keeping his voice steady.

"What exactly is your angle here?" The blue-robed man had been eyeing the three of them, but with those words he immediately locked onto Jieyuan.

"What?"

"What do you hope to achieve from this?" Jieyuan said.

"You're threatening to kill us with the talisman, but you do want me and Daojue dead anyway, and Meiyao captured. So I'm not exactly sure what you're after here. We're in a standstill, you see; you just told us to stay put, but not what happens next. I assume you've got further instructions? An offer, maybe?" The man frowned, worked his jaw. Sure enough, the traitor hadn't thought that far ahead. Jieyuan also didn't imagine he got talked to this way often. Not as a protector, not as a Gleaming Noble.

He was thrown off and clearly didn't like it. But then his eyes gleamed. The Xiyunfeng woman watched on, her frown deepening"You're right," the man said.

"Haoyujin Jieyuan, right? I don't need you dead. Just away. You and Tianzijun Daojue. I'm only after two things. Linzushen Meiyao"—he nodded to Meiyao, then to Daojue—"and the spear. Gleaming End." Jieyuan nodded slowly. The man had said not to move at all, but he was testing the limits here. The man didn't react.

"That sounds agreeable. And what guarantee do we have that you'll follow through on that?" He was fairly sure he already knew the answer. It had only been weeks since he'd had a similar conversation with another Gleaming Noble, in another chromal forest. That particular conversation had ended with the death of the Gleaming Noble, though, and Jieyuan didn't see himself replicating those results that time around.

The man smiled then, fully and openly, and Jieyuan knew beyond doubt, even before the man spoke, that he'd gotten it right. The game was on.

"Well, Jieyuan," the Gleaming Noble said.

"The way I see it, you've got two options. You can either gamble on certain death"—he gave the talisman a small shake—"or take your chances with my offer. You're mundane-born, so maybe you don't know, but a cultivator's word means something. And you have mine." Oh, a cultivator's word was worth something, all right. But you could put a price on dirt if you peddled it to the right person. And Jieyuan wasn't buying it.

"Actually, I think you've missed something," he said.

"There's a third option." The man cocked his head to the side. His smile held, though his eyes narrowed by a fraction.

"Just behind us is the Viridian Dome," Jieyuan said.

"Everybody knows that whatever goes inside never comes out. And—" The man barked a laugh.

"Oh, that? If that's what you want, you and your friend are free to get inside. Just leave Gleaming End and the Linzushen behind."

"— and," Jieyuan stressed, "I'm fairly sure Daojue could throw Gleaming End into the Dome before you activate the talisman. And if you do activate it, Meiyao's close enough to me that she'll be caught in the blast. And even if you shift it to the side"—the man did exactly that, angling the talisman between Jieyuan and Daojue, away from Meiyao—"she can kill herself faster than you can reach us." Meiyao shifted slightly beside him, raising her saber just a touch higher.

Jieyuan noticed how the Xiyunfeng woman's posture stiffened, her gaze firmly fixed on Meiyao.

"Which," Jieyuan said, "she won't hesitate to do. I imagine capture would be a fate worse than death in this case. And you'll end up with absolutely nothing. No Orangerealm weapon. No capture target." And now it was Jieyuan's turn to cock his head, his turn to smile.

"So, unless I'm mistaken, we are the ones holding all the cards here, not you. You have nothing to gain by using the Radiant Light Blast talisman; rather, you have everything to lose. So how about we renegotiate those terms?" The man's smile slipped. His expression grew dark.

"Do you think—""Do I think you're bluffing?" Jieyuan cut in. The answer was no, he didn't. Someone had used a Radiant Light Blast against them in the sky, and he was fairly sure it'd been this very man. If push came to shove, Jieyuan didn't doubt he would use the talisman. Instead, he said, "Yes, I think you are. You might as well drop the talisman, really."

"You—" the man began, voice rising.

"Enough of this," the Xiyunfeng woman cut in.

"Boy," she said to Jieyuan, "you're right. We need Meiyao and the weapon. What do you want?" The man didn't turn away from them—he was a cultivator, and no cultivator worth their step ever let their enemy out of sight—but he did his best to glare at the Xiyunfeng protector from the corner of his eye.

"What are you—""Silence, boy," the woman snapped.

"I'll handle this." The Gleaming Noble looked ready to start something; but to Jieyuan's surprise, the man ultimately held himself back. All the man did was tighten his grip on the talisman, his expression dark as he watched them. Jieyuan held himself very still. Almost there.

"Out with it, boy," the Xiyunfeng protector said, addressing Jieyuan again.

"You're not heading into the Viridian Dome. You're no idiot, I can tell. You talked about renegotiating the terms. What are you after?" Well, it just so happens I am an idiot. He faced the woman, though he was actually keeping most of his attention on the Gleaming Noble.

"Free passage for myself and Daojue. You'll let us go. You can keep Gleaming End. And Meiyao." The woman narrowed her eyes. She knew he was plotting something, but not what. And Jieyuan could almost see the thoughts turning behind her gaze. She clearly didn't believe he had any intention of heading into the Viridian Dome, but it was obvious she also didn't think he meant to give up Gleaming End and Meiyao, either. Just like he didn't think she planned on honoring any deal they made.

She's feeling me out, Jieyuan realized. Buying herself time. Unless he was off his mark, she must've called for backup, with instructions to stay out of sight, close in from the sides, get into position, and then sweep in and capture them before they could react. That was what he'd have done in her place, at any rate.

"That can be arranged," the woman said.

"But you asked for guarantees. Assurance of our good faith. What would you have us do?" Jieyuan's eyes flicked from Daojue to Meiyao. They glanced back at him discreetly, tensing almost imperceptibly as they caught on. More importantly, the two tenth-steps tensed as well, the man more than the woman. Good. He'd meant for them to see. Jieyuan gathered the last of his strength into his legs, fully tapping into his mantle. Then he braced himself. This time, there could be no hesitation.

"Well," he said, "you can start by dropping the talisman—""Chip this," the Gleaming Noble suddenly bit out.

"DON'T!" the Xiyunfeng woman cried, blurring toward the man. Jieyuan didn't waste a single moment. He lunged to the side, reaching for Meiyao. He'd grab her and run for the Dome. That was the plan. But just as his arms wrapped around her, green aura erupted from her skin, blooming like a surge of fire. Faster than he'd ever seen her move, Meiyao twisted, whirling around to face the Dome. And then it wasn't him grabbing her, but her grabbing him.

She locked her arms around his body, then kicked off the ground, surging forward with him in her hold, shooting toward the Dome. Jieyuan was still facing the other way, eyes on the Xiyunfeng woman as she knocked the Gleaming Noble's arm aside. To his right, Daojue shot toward the Dome alongside them. The last thing Jieyuan saw, the instant before the Viridian Dome swallowed them, was a searing-white Radiant Light Flash streaking past just above their heads, off to the right.