Chương 41: Chapter 40: WARPED SENSE

CHAPTER 40 WARPED SENSE —∞— Jieyuan and Meiyao broke through the curtain of green mist and crashed into the ground, rolling through the undergrowth, loose branches and brambles crushed underneath them. Swirling mist, glowing grass, and moist dirt became the sum of Jieyuan's world. Meiyao's hold on him was tight, keeping him pressed against her, and it only made the situation worse. Instinct made Jieyuan let go of the Shifting Sisters before an accident finished what the tenth-steps had started.

Then the whole front of his body met something hard and brown and glowing, the impact ringing in his teeth. Meiyao's arms around him went slack, and he felt the warmth of her body fade as she rolled away. Jieyuan pushed off against the tree he'd crashed into, the taste of moss and bark making merry in his mouth with the dirt and grass. He remained lying, now at the base of the green. He stared up at the green, thick mist that swirled above.

Higher up, he could pick out the vaguest hint of glowing leaves and branches. He blinked, stared, stumped. Entering the Viridian Dome probably wouldn't be a pleasant experience even in the best of conditions. Jieyuan would have to think hard to come up with conditions worse than his. And he wasn't in a thinking mood at the moment. He was in the Viridian Dome. The most dangerous place he knew of. It was anyone's guess what was inside. He should've been on his feet, scanning the area, looking for danger.

But he'd pushed himself from the brink of exhaustion way too many times already. All those concerns registered as clearly and loudly in his mind as muffled murmurs. So he just lay there, staring up at the luminous brown shapes of the gently swinging branches above and the green, glowing leaves that dotted them, little more than brown and green glows through the screen of the mist. The mist wasn't the solid, impenetrable mass it'd been outside the dome.

It was the exact same color (the same deep, blueish green), and it glowed just the same way. But he could see through it. Not perfectly or clearly, but leagues better than it'd been from the outside. Thoughts came to him, but they were like coins thrown at the street, falling on their edge and rolling away into gaps, out of sight. Then a face appeared above, taking up the view. A cold, handsome face. A face that would've been perfectly at home on a statue.

And set on it were dark violet eyes, just as inhuman and impossible as the face they belonged to. The face went out of focus as a hand appeared between them, outstretched. Jieyuan blinked. Breathed in, breathed out. Then something managed to land right on the slippery streets of his mind. Not quite a thought, but rather a vague sense of urgency, of heightened awareness. He breathed out, sharply. Ugh.

It was the taste that struck first—muddy, earthy, thick—and he turned his head to the side, spitting out a glowing glob of grass and dirt. Then he focused back on the hand, forced himself to lift up an arm, and took it. The next thing he knew he was being pulled back to his feet in a way that gave him very little choice in the matter. He swayed uneasily. The hand on his pulled away, and another grabbed onto his shoulder, holding him upright. Jieyuan leaned into it for a second, two, three.

Feeling he'd recovered enough of his balance, he drew back, and made an attempt to stand on his own. It worked, and he focused on Daojue, who stared back at him, expressionless, silent. Gleaming End in hand.

"Thanks," Jieyuan mumbled. He looked around. His mind wasn't as steady as his body yet, but he put it to work all the same. He took a quick scan of the area. There was no immediate danger, best as he could tell. Nothing caught his attention, and Daojue wouldn't have just been standing there if they were in trouble. Then he looked down. And he saw Meiyao. She was lying on the ground, face down. The green glow from before was gone. She was unmoving.

Whatever strength he'd managed to recover, he spent in rushing over to her, stumbling into a kneel as he reached her side. He grabbed onto her shoulders and rolled her onto her back. She was coated in grass, dirt, soil, and blood. He could only just barely make out her face, but enough so to tell her eyes were closed. He focused on his soulsenses, and confirmed that he could feel her soul.

Something struck him as odd—something was missing from his soulsenses—but he put it aside for now, all his attention on Meiyao right now. He placed a finger just under her nose. He felt her breath brushing against his finger. It was light, faint. Uneven. But the fact she was breathing was already good news. Jieyuan slumped back, overcome by a surge of relief as powerful as anything he'd ever felt. Then he steadied himself and considered the situation.

He wasn't sure what pill she'd taken, but all the healing pills he knew worked for at least the better part of a day. He'd feed her another one in a while if she didn't wake up, but besides that there wasn't much more he could do for her. There wasn't even a point in binding her wounds when they were already clotting over. And yet… Meiyao's state curdled something in his chest. Filthy, battered, thrashed. Cultivators didn't really need to worry about cleaning their wounds.

Germs, disease, and whatnot were mundane; a cultivator's Law made them impervious to such things. But something in him recoiled at the idea of leaving Meiyao like this. He checked his soul again, just to be sure, but his soulprism was really gone. He still had some unattuned chroma, lying on the bottom of his soul, but it'd need attuning before he could use it. He glanced up at Daojue, who didn't seem to have moved at all, and said, "Do you mind cleansing her?"

Daojue didn't answer; but just as Jieyuan was about to insist, his friend stepped forward, leaned down, and tapped Meiyao on the shoulder. The air around her shimmered; and then she was clean. Jieyuan's breath caught at the sight of her. If he'd been unsettled before, now he felt something colder coil in his gut. He clenched his fists, nails digging into his palms. Without the grime to obscure it, every wound on Meiyao's body lay bare beneath the mist's faint glow. He'd already known it was bad.

He'd seen the wounds. But seeing them like this really drove it home. Raw and angry cuts crisscrossed her over skin already bruised blue and purple. He couldn't find a single inch untouched; not on her face, not on her body, most of it exposed through the tatters of her robes. But the cuts weren't the problem. Most had stopped bleeding, and some were already fading, pale and half-healed. They might not even scar. The problem was the gashes. One slashed across her collarbone. Another tore into her upper arm.

And then there was the worst of them: the ragged stretch of ruined flesh along her waist, just above the hip, so deep he could see bone. Those wounds weren't anywhere near close to healed. Blood had already just begun to clot, thick and dark, sealing the gashes in a crude layer, but they'd still take time to fully heal, even with a fourth-step's regeneration and healing pills. And they'd leave their mark. Not just scar tissue, but lasting damage, of the kind that left you slower, stiffer, never quite right again.

Jieyuan's focus broke as a faint shimmer passed through him. He looked up sharply. Daojue was drawing his arm back, straightening to his full height. Jieyuan glanced down at himself. He was clean. The dirt, the grass, the blood: all gone. Oh. He scanned the wounds visible through the torn fabric of his robes. He was much better off than Meiyao; all his wounds were cuts. Plenty of them, yes, but nothing deep. He'd be fine. He gave Daojue a nod of thanks, then turned back to Meiyao.

Part of him raged at the sight of Meiyao like this, demanding that he act, do something, punish whoever had brought her to this. Jieyuan took that fury and forced it into focus. Into holding off the exhaustion, into clearing his head. Just like he'd done with the pain earlier. It didn't work nearly as well, but you couldn't repeat a trick and expect the same results. It'd have to do. He made to look around again but something caught his attention first. Or rather, the absence of something.

He couldn't feel the viridian mist. It swirled around him, twisting and rolling, but that was all. There was no weight to it. No pressure, no presence. He might as well have been surrounded by empty air. He waved his arm; the mist followed, curling in soft, glowing tendrils. It broke against his skin, coiled around it. But he didn't feel a thing. Not even the ghost of a sensation. Odd. But there was nothing to be done about it, either. Jieyuan set the thought aside and took a proper look at his surroundings.

To his left stood the tree he'd slammed into. It wasn't much different from the ones just outside the Dome, but now that he wasn't in a rush, he took the time to really see it. Every part of it glowed: the trunk and branches a soft, luminous brown, the leaves a vivid green. And it was massive. The trees in the Fatebloom Woods had seemed enormous, but these put them to shame. Even if a dozen of him linked hands, they couldn't have circled the trunk. Size and glow aside, it still looked like a normal tree.

An oak, maybe. Or elm? He wasn't sure. His experience with trees mostly came down to identifying what wood furniture was so he could put a price on it. That was all to his left; the tree dominated that entire side. He looked right. Daojue stood there, Gleaming End in hand. Not much else in that direction, either. He turned his gaze forward. Meiyao lay just ahead, surrounded by glowing grass, low shrubs, fallen leaves and branches, the scattered undergrowth.

Nearby, the Shifting Sisters lay where he'd dropped them; near them, Meiyao's saber. First order of business. Jieyuan picked up the Shifting Sisters and slid them back into their sheaths. Then he took Meiyao's saber, but didn't put it away, just held onto it for now. All the while, his eyes stayed on the surroundings. Which led him to another oddity: he couldn't see much farther ahead.

Barely two feet past where Meiyao lay, the mist thickened until he could only just make out the vague shapes of trees in the distance. He frowned, then looked up. The mist was too thick to be sure, but the branches seemed to start at least a couple dozen feet above. He couldn't see them clearly—just shapes—but that was more than he could say for anything around him at ground level. He looked back down and around. It didn't matter which direction he turned; his vision was severely limited.

It wasn't that the mist was any thicker near the ground, either. If anything, it looked almost uniform: the same deep green everywhere, blanketing the air and drifting gently with the breeze. He took a few steps back, but the mist didn't respond, his vision trapped at the same shallow depth. Were they inside some kind of bubble, where the mist was thinner? That would explain part of it. But not everything. Then he remembered: something about his soulsenses had felt off earlier. He reached for it again.

The difference struck him immediately. It wasn't just his sight that was limited. His soulsenses still couldn't register the mist, just like outside the Dome. But now it was worse. Wherever his vision ended, so did the reach of his soul. His usual twenty-four-foot range had collapsed to just a few feet in every direction—except behind him, where it cut off even closer. He'd been in this exact situation only minutes ago. Jieyuan turned.

And sure enough, an impenetrable wall of Viridian Mist loomed just an arm's length away. He stared at it. Considered. They couldn't have rolled far from the Dome's edge. Two strides, maybe three, and he should be outside. Which was just the problem. The rumors were clear. No one who'd entered the Dome had ever returned. And the Dome had been around for thousands of years. Jieyuan couldn't believe that in all that time, no one had thought to step in, then step right back out. He glared at the wall of mist.

The surface of the Dome. He focused on his soulsenses some more, but nothing came out of it. He tried to reproduce those strange new senses he'd gained when he'd used Fatebloom Incarnation, his Lawsenses, but he had even less success with that; he couldn't access them at all. He'd have to look into that later, but it might be something he could only use while Fatebloom Incarnation was active. Well, then. He had studied the wall from all available angles; all that was left was to get hands-on with it.

Bracing himself, he took a cautious step forward. His nose was nearly touching it now. Pure, unbroken green filled his vision. He took another step forward— A hand caught his shoulder and pulled him back. Jieyuan blinked, turned. And saw Daojue standing behind him. And behind Daojue… the wall of the Dome. He turned back to where he'd been headed. In front of him was only mist, thick and hazy, but not nearly as dense or solid as the Dome's surface.

He tried to make sense of what his eyes were telling him, even as a cold weight settled in his gut. Daojue stood behind him. Meiyao lay beyond Daojue, near the tree. And further still, opposite where Jieyuan now faced, loomed the boundary of the Viridian Dome. He wasn't near the edge; he was as far from it as he could be within this pocket of thinner viridian mist. He'd meant to walk out of the Dome. What he'd actually done was walk deeper in. If Daojue hadn't stopped him…

The cold crept up higher, chilling him whole. Jieyuan swallowed. He didn't know how he'd ended up there. But he might have just figured out why nobody had ever returned from the Dome.

"Daojue?" Jieyuan asked quietly.

"I know you're not much for words, but I really need you to tell me what I just did." Daojue didn't let go of his shoulder. He just stared; and while his face was mostly unreadable, Jieyuan thought he saw something there. A flicker of unease.

"You turned around and walked into the mist," Daojue said, in the same cold, detached tone he always used. But just like that flicker in his expression, Jieyuan thought he caught something in his voice too. Tension, maybe. Or maybe he was just projecting. Because right now, Jieyuan had enough tension and unease in him for the both of them. Well, rot. Jieyuan closed his eyes, forcing himself to remain cool, to think through the uneasiness rapidly brewing inside him.

First of all he needed to understand what had just happened, make sense of it. A thought surfaced at once, rising to the front of his mind. He knew of one thing that that could affect the mind like this. Distracter fields. He'd never been caught in one but he'd seen them in action. Put one into action, even, back in the Fatebloom Woods, when he'd used the field over the Heartseat to kill that Fusongshi core disciple. Jieyuan stood up straighter. Distracter fields. Yes.

What he'd experienced just now wasn't much different from what he'd seen happen to the core disciple back then. She'd been completely at the mercy of the distracter field, staring blankly at him even though he'd stood not even a foot away. Staring straight at him without seeing, because the field had her convinced there was nothing there to see. He'd wondered, at the time, exactly what was taking place inside her head—just how her perceptions and thoughts were being twisted around.

But he'd have rather remained unaware if if he'd known he'd be getting the answer by experiencing it first-hand. He let out a long breath, slow and even. His thoughts pressed on. So. Either there was a distracter field stretched over the Viridian Dome, or the mist itself carried a similar effect. That would explain the odd behavior he'd noticed: how the mist coiled and shifted in ways that didn't quite add up, how it wavered between see-through and solid with no clear reason why.

It wasn't that the mist was behaving strangely; most likely, it was his perception being bent out of shape. Jieyuan opened his eyes. The green haze curled and churned around him, thick and pulsing with light. The worst thing about a distracter field? You didn't know you were in one. Even after it let you go, you didn't know it had ever touched you. It was like the fine print of a contract, but worse. At least with the fine print, you knew you'd been had after the fact.

With a distracter field, you got played and that was the end of it. That was how the Heartseat had remained untouched for so long. Anyone who got too close just turned away without realizing. None the wiser. Except I know. He knew he was in a distracter field, or something near enough to pass for one. And knowledge was leverage. More than that; he'd been the only one affected when he tried to leave the Dome. Daojue had stayed clear-headed enough to pull him back.

Jieyuan didn't know if the field triggered under specific conditions or if Daojue was simply immune; knowing Daojue, it wouldn't shock Jieyuan if the field just didn't work on him. Either way, he had something to work with. Maybe even something he could exploit with Absolute Will Command. His mind was compromised. There was no denying that. But if he understood how it was being bent, he could compensate for it. Work around the twists and bends.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation. Yes. Yes. He could work around this. Tests were in order. He'd figure out exactly what the mist did, when it acted, and how to counter it. He needed to get to the bottom of this. But first… He glanced down at Meiyao, lying there. Pale, corpse-still. Not quite at death's door, but probably closer than she'd ever been. Then he turned his focus inward, to the bone-deep exhaustion held at bay by adrenaline and sheer will.

He took stock of what was left, and found nothing. He was tapped out. Out of strength. Out of chroma. Out of just about everything. Even without the mist and the Dome twisting up his thoughts, his mind would've been fraying at the seams. He needed rest. Needed to recover. He took another look around. Assessed the situation. A thicket of mist. Nothing tugging at his soulsenses, no shadows shifting in the gloom. No immediate threat. No one would be following them into the Dome, either.

As far as the rest of the world was concerned, they'd already passed the point of no return, dead the moment they threw themselves into the viridian mist. If danger came, it'd come from within; and whether they stayed here or went deeper, the odds stacked up the same. If anything, they were better off staying here, at the boundary. He'd need Maeva with him for those tests. She was a trained scientist, the kind who dissected phenomena for a living, breaking things down until they made sense.

It might not be the real Maeva, but it was her mentality he was after—her perspective—and Absolute Will Command could give him that. He'd need Meiyao, too. She clearly had some kind of connection to this place, and the mist might treat her differently.

"Daojue," Jieyuan said, "I think we're better off setting up camp here. Can you take first watch?"

"Yes," Daojue said, simply. And that was that. Jieyuan let himself drop to the ground. The dirt met him, glowing foliage and shadows folding over him, swallowing him whole. And then, darkness. —∞— Jieyuan awoke. He blinked, blearily, at the glowing, curling green and brown shapes cluttering the space above his eyes; and between the gaps, a screen of glowing green, though of a deeper, bluish shade. He felt prickling sensations all over. Earth pressed against his back, damp and cool.

His head was as clear as it'd ever been. And his body so light he was surprised he wasn't floating. Jieyuan grinned. They were back in business, all right. He felt around for Meiyao's saber, but didn't find it. Did it land further away? He hadn't paid it much attention when he'd plopped down earlier. Well, no matter. He jumped to his feet. Immediately his eyes landed on Meiyao. His grin widened. The good news just kept coming. Meiyao wasn't lying on the ground anymore.

Instead, she was sitting cross-legged, eyes closed, hands on her lap. Meditating. And there, on her lap, her saber. She must've come over and picked it up at some point. But then he took her in more closely. Gone were the tattered remains of her robes. She was wearing new ones—though they weren't inner disciple oranges, but green, ornate, fancy. Her hair was also done-up, curling ringlets falling across her shoulders. It was almost like her previous, battered state had been a dream. Almost.

She was half-facing him, and he could see the cuts on her face: now faint, pinkish-pale lines, but there all the same. He almost went over, but ultimately held himself back. She'd need whatever rest she could get, and they'd be able to talk soon enough anyway. He wondered how much time had passed, though. His surroundings didn't give him any clue. There was no hint of sunlight. As far as he could tell, none of it could get through the Dome.

The only light source was the mist and the plants, and if they had any clue to give about the passage of time, he was blind to them. Still. Considering how much better Meiyao looked (and how much better he felt), it must've been several hours at least. I must've been really dead on my feet before, Jieyuan realized. Ever since his breakthrough to second-step Redrealm his mantle had started passively augmenting his aura and regeneration, significantly reducing his need for rest.

As a fourth-step Redsoul, he should only need about one hour of sleep every day; him getting several hours of shut-eye would be the equivalent of a mundane sleeping for over a day straight. Daojue was where Jieyuan had last seen him. But he was sitting down now, Gleaming End lying by his side. His eyes were open, and currently on Jieyuan. Unlike Meiyao, Daojue hadn't freshened up. His robes were still torn, and Jieyuan could see the wounds through the gaps.

Most of it half-healed, but it reminded that Jieyuan that even if Daojue had come off lightly, that was only compared to him and Meiyao, and could definitely use some rest himself.

"I'll take it from here," Jieyuan said. When it came to Daojue, no pleasantries were needed. He'd have asked if Meiyao had said anything, but knowing Daojue, he probably wouldn't be getting an answer, just a stare. Also, knowing Meiyao, she probably wouldn't have said a word to Daojue anyway. Daojue didn't answer, only closed his eyes. Jieyuan stretched, felt and heard his bones crackle, and basked in the satisfied relief that followed. He was bursting with energy.

Only now did he realize how tired he'd been before. He'd forgotten how good it was to just be. Even the viridian mist didn't dissuade it. But first things first. He was still out of chroma. He plopped back down, flattening a spot among the dense undergrowth, crossed his legs, and then reached into his holder pouch, taking out a single chroma prism. He laid the red crystal on his lap, and concentrated. The crystal stood out to his soulsenses, a thumb-sized mass of hundredth-density red chroma, deep and rich.

He left his eyes open—he was supposed to be on watch, after all—and kept half his attention on his surroundings. The other half, he sent inward as he entered Heavenly Communion. His senses sharpened even further, the world getting brighter, every edge razor-sharp, the glow of the mist turning borderline blinding, as he entered a state of perfect awareness.

A connection snapped into place between him and something far, far beyond—something far, far greater, incomprehensibly so—and a presence manifested in the back of his mind, airy and expansive. The Heavens themselves. Purportedly, at any rate." Flaming," he chanted. The harvesting hymn hung in the air. The presence of the Heavens in his mind deepened, and the harvesting ritual started.

He felt himself grow distant from his soul as his soulforce, guided and empowered by a higher power, reached out to the chroma in the prism, and drew it into his soul." Flaming," he chanted, over and over, as his soul filled up with chroma, pooling liquid-like inside the center of his soul. An hour later, the chroma prism on his lap was gone, while his soul was filled with a prismful of first-density red chroma. Jieyuan changed his chant." Ablaze."

The pool of chroma in his soul suddenly snapped into shape, becoming a larger version of the prism that had been in his lap, before it began to spin. Slowly at first, but getting faster and faster until the edges were lost in the motion, smoothing out, and it became almost spherical. Little by little the clump of chroma grew smaller, a fraction of it being sacrificed to power the ritual, while the remainder was compressed into higher-density as it was attuned, his soul leaving its mark on it.

And on and on Jieyuan chanted. If you used prisms, harvesting was fast enough. Regardless of heavenly affinity, all it took was an hour to fully absorb a prism. When it came to attuning, though, there were no shortcuts. And the math far from promising. One hour to absorb the prism, and then twice that to attune it. Except almost all of the chroma he'd harvested would be lost, sacrificed, and he'd be left with a measly twenty-fifth of a prismful.

Meaning it'd take him twenty-five prisms, and thrice as many hours of harvesting and attuning to reach a single prismful of attuned chroma. And he could hold four times that. So he was looking at a hundred prisms and three hundred hours to top out his chroma reserves again. And that was without any cultivation proper; just stockpiling chroma. This was exactly why cultivators were thrifty with their chroma. And he was still rather well off, with his fourth-order heavenly affinity.

Cultivators with lower talent had it way worse. He sighed. There was nothing to it. Before, it had been either use up all his chroma or die. Once he'd fully attuned the remaining harvested chroma (leaving him with just a tiny, miniature soulprism), he picked up another prism and began the whole process all over again. He was on his third prism when the back of his neck tingled. He turned to find Meiyao watching him. His focus broke; the presence of the Heavens faded, the flow of chroma from the prism cut off.

But he didn't mind. His spirit lifted, warmth blooming in his chest. He was about to speak when he noticed something off about Meiyao's look. There was no warmth in it. Her green eyes were stone-cold. Hard. Jade-like.

"I'll take the next watch," she said curtly. She didn't wait for a reply, closing her eyes without another word. Jieyuan just stared at her. If he didn't know any better, he'd have thought she was doing a Daojue impression. But then realization struck, and the warmth inside him died on the spot. Right. The ambush. The betrayal. The Xiyunfeng Clan and the Gleaming Nobles. He hadn't forgotten any of it, but he wasn't one to dwell on the past, on what he couldn't change.

As far as he was concerned, the only direction that mattered was forward. In Meiyao's case, though… that had been her family. And it wasn't just the ones near the palace. The rest of the Liangshibai were likely dead. The ones who'd stayed behind at the Radiant Gold Palace, and even those still back at the sect. She must've lost everyone. Then there were her injuries. No matter how much better she looked now, odds were some of the damage would stay with her.

And being trapped in the Viridian Dome, with no clear way out, only made a raw deal worse, the twist after the stab. There was nothing Jieyuan could do about her family or her injuries right now. The mist and the Dome, on the other hand, were a different business. He'd figure out how the mist worked. How to survive the Dome. How to move through it. They'd get out. Jieyuan didn't doubt that for a second. He'd find a way. And once they were out? There'd be debts to pay. With cutthroat interest.

—∞—"All right," Jieyuan said, "here's how we're doing this." The wall of the Dome was right in front of him, just one step away. He turned back. Daojue stood behind him, looking on stoically. He was wearing new robes now—though, like Meiyao, he hadn't changed into inner disciple robes, but instead had on the plain, black robes he'd worn way back in the entrance trial of the Gleaming Stone Sect. Jieyuan had changed too, but into his old red outer disciple robes.

Unlike the other two, he hadn't thought to pack anything other than sect wear. There was a breeze going, and their robes swayed slightly along with the mist. Beside Daojue was Maeva, standing with her arms crossed, though only Jieyuan could see her. Her white lab coat and yellow sundress also moved with the breeze, but that was of her own doing.

They'd already been there for two days (or thereabouts, as there was no real way to tell), and Jieyuan had managed to recover enough chroma to use Absolute Will Command and start figuring out the viridian mist. He'd have liked to have Meiyao for this, but… He glanced over at her. She was sitting beneath the only visible tree, eyes closed, meditating. That was how she always was, nowadays. He could count on one hand the number of words she'd said so far.

The only silver lining was that all the cuts he could see were already gone. He'd taken some healing pills himself, but even his smaller cuts hadn't fully faded yet. She looked good as new, really. Though he didn't know about her more serious injuries. He'd have asked, but the few times he'd tried to reach out so far she'd ignored him. He wasn't sure giving her space was the best thing to do right now, but he didn't know what else to do, and Meiyao didn't seem inclined to talk, either.

This whole emotions business had never been his strong suit. He knew how to deal with his own, sure. He hadn't had any other choice, being a Firesoul. His old man had seen to it personally that he could keep himself in check. Had made him hone his discipline and self-control over the years. Quite literally beaten them into him. But helping others work through theirs? That hadn't been nearly as much of a priority, as far as his old man had been concerned. Manipulating others, certainly. Helping others?

Not much profit in that. His experiences as Amyas didn't help any, either. Amyas's parents had been distant at best, and Maeva. who'd picked up his parents' slack, might have done her best, but she'd been a young adult herself, and not a particularly mature one at that. She had never needed to be; society gave geniuses like her a pass for that kind of thing.

"Amyas?" Maeva said, softly. Jieyuan looked away from Meiyao.

"Right," he said.

"We'll be trying what happened last time again." He nodded toward the wall of the Dome.

"If this happens like last time, I'll turn around and walk in the other direction. Don't stop me until I'm all the way across." And to Maeva, he said, in his thoughts, Stop me the moment I turn around. The real purpose of this test wasn't really to repeat what had happened last time; rather, it was to figure out whether Maeva would be able to tell something was off and stop him. Whether he could use Absolute Will Command to get around the mist's effect, or if somebody else was really needed.

He faced the wall of the Dome again. He eyed the vast, marble-smooth glowing expanse of deep green. Then he steeled himself, and took a small step forward. Now he was as close as he could get. His vision grew unfocused, blurred by the lack of distance, though it didn't change much when all you could see was solid color. He'd already tested whether mind-linkers worked. They didn't. It wasn't that he'd tried contacting anyone outside; the distance alone would've made it impossible.

Instead, he'd tried Daojue's cipher. Had it worked, it'd have given them some options. But no luck. It wasn't that Daojue had refused the connection. The mind-link hadn't even started. Didn't take. He'd tried it with Meiyao, too. Also nothing. He took a moment to quickly try out all of his other artifacts. They all turned out to work properly—except his cloudcraft bracelet. When he tried activate its spiritskill, nothing happened; it stayed firmly around his wrist.

So it's not mind-link themselves that are blocked, but that the mist can selectively restrain certain artifacts. Jieyuan didn't like the sound of that. Jieyuan returned his attention to the wall of the Dome. He was hoping for better luck with this next test. He took another step forward, into the green— A hand jerked him back. Jieyuan blinked, and realized the mist in front of him was slightly hazier, no longer as solid.

Still thick enough it was impossible to tell what was behind it, but it lacked that smooth, sleek quality of the wall of the Dome. He turned back and saw that, just like last time, he was now on the other side of their little bubble of fainter mist, directly opposite of where he'd been. Where he should've been. Even though he'd already expected it, he still couldn't help the creeping chill he felt, his heart giving a little skip. Jieyuan nodded at Daojue, who pulled his hand back.

He then glanced over at Maeva, questioningly. Her eyes were widened. Looking around, like she wasn't sure where she was. Then she focused back on him, and frowned.

"I'm sorry. I— I couldn't catch it." Her frown deepened. Jieyuan sighed. That was one avenue closed. It's fine. We knew this could happen. No matter how independent Maeva seemed, how real, she was still a product of his own mind under the effects of Absolute Will Command. Everything she sensed came from him. If his perception was being altered, odds were she'd be affected, too. Still, it'd been worth a shot. But no matter. There were other things they could try.

"Let's switch," he said, stepping away from the edge.

"You try to leave this time, and I'll hold you back." Daojue didn't reply, only turned around and set off toward the wall of the Dome. Jieyuan followed, keeping close. Daojue didn't stop upon reaching the wall; he kept going, no hesitation whatsoever. The moment Daojue was about to step through, though, he grew totally still; then, slowly, turned around, and began walking in the other direction, retracing his steps. His expression was blank; but that wasn't saying much, given this was Daojue.

Daojue was midway through the clearing when Jieyuan grabbed his shoulder, pulling him back. Daojue went completely still. A beat, two, three… Daojue still wasn't moving. Jieyuan frowned.

"Daojue?" Daojue turned around; and Jieyuan saw he was frowning, a heavy crease drawn across his forehead, an intense look in his eye. Then Daojue pushed off and set off toward the Dome wall again, wordlessly. Stalked towards it, really. Again Jieyuan followed, and just like last time, when Daojue was about to step through the Dome, he went still, turned around and set off in the opposite direction at a much slower pace. His frown remained, but there was something frozen about his expression.

Jieyuan grabbed him again. Daojue stopped. Turned back around. Glared at the wall of the Dome. But he stayed put. Well. That was that for the Daojue immunity theory. He also turned to regard the Dome wall. He'd confirmed that an outside observer could stop someone from heading deeper into the mist, but that didn't help much. They needed to force their way back, somehow. Trying to go in together probably wouldn't help—they'd just both get caught—but… Maybe if one of them pushed the other—"No," Maeva said.

She was still frowning, but she looked thoughtful rather than disturbed now.

"Start smaller. Try throwing something into it first." Good idea. Jieyuan picked up a rock from the ground before standing back up. He pulled his arm back and then pitched it forward. It flew toward the Dome wall—and went through it. He blinked. It worked— But then he realized the Dome wall looked way closer than it should've been. And that it wasn't the Dome wall that he was looking at. He turned around. There it was, the Dome wall. Behind him. He'd thrown the rock in the opposite direction.

"Ah," Maeva said, quietly.

"Daojue," Jieyuan said, his voice tight despite his best efforts, "tell me what I just did?" Daojue just stared back at him. Jieyuan got the message just fine, though. He bit his lip. It really was a good thing Maeva had warned him. Shoving someone inside would've probably had the same effect. They'd have both been taken. Any ideas? Jieyuan sent to Maeva.

"Yes," Maeva said.

"There's a couple different commands I'd like us to try." Over the next hour, they tested out all of Maeva's idea. Directly hypnotizing himself with Absolute Will Command, commanding himself to walk in a straight line, using a command to get rid of his senses… They tried all of that and then some more. None of it worked. No matter what command they tried, it couldn't bypass the mind-bending effects of the mist. Jieyuan glared at the wall of the Dome. Maeva, standing beside him, wore a deep frown.

He recognized that expression; it wasn't one he saw on Maeva's face often, but every time it appeared it was significant. It was her stumped look; and it took a lot to stump someone like Maeva. It's not working, Jieyuan thought at her. She nodded.

"Either Absolute Will Command's too weak to override the mist, or the influence of the mist isn't just mental. Regardless, this doesn't—""Nothing will work." Jieyuan turned. Meiyao had stood up, and was looking at them from beneath the tree.

"Meiyao?" She didn't meet his eyes, looking away, deeper into the Dome. She had a strange, distant look on her face.

"Nothing can leave. The mist only allows one direction. Forward." Jieyuan would've been glad she was speaking again, but her words were more important right now.

"How do you—""It doesn't matter," she cut him off.

"We can only head deeper." Head deeper. That was just about the last thing he wanted to do. But he didn't see some other way out. So it was either that or staying here. He weighed the two options. They hadn't been attacked yet. There were definitely chromal beasts inside the Dome—that wave of flying beasts that had come at them, earlier, had come from inside the Dome—but it seemed like this place was mostly free of them. Staying here would be safer. But if they went deeper…

"Deeper…" he murmured.

"Is there any way we can make it all the way across?" The Viridian Dome was massive, spanning more than half the Incandescent Serenity Island—which, as far as he could tell, was bigger than most continents back on Earth. On a cloudcraft, it probably wouldn't take much time, but even if the mist hadn't been blocking him from activating his cloudcraft bracelet, he strongly suspected the airspace of the Dome wasn't exactly safe. On foot… Especially if they were careful about it, not running…

That kind of trek could take years. But it was better than nothing.

"No," Meiyao said.

"It only leads to the center." There was an ominous finality to the way she said that.

"The center," Jieyuan said, his full attention on Meiyao, tensing. She still had that odd, faraway look, like she was only half-there. He didn't like it any.

"And do you know what's there?" Meiyao didn't reply for a long time. She closed her eyes, frowning, like she was trying to listen to something. Jieyuan watched her, uneasy. Then she opened her eyes again, her expression clearing, and focused on him.

"A way out."

"Right," Jieyuan said, slowly. He trusted Meiyao, he really did, but he wasn't sure she should be trusting herself right now.

"That's nice. But a little vague. Do you know what, exactly—""No," she said, frowning. She cocked her head, suddenly looking distant again, before her frown deepened.

"No," she repeated. And before he could get a word in, she said, "We should go."

"Go?"

"Yes." And then, acting more like herself again, like the Meiyao he knew, she quirked an eyebrow.

"Unless you'd rather stay here forever?" Jieyuan felt a spark of relief. But his unease lingered.

"No. We should leave, I agree. But maybe we can stay a bit longer, recover some more—""We'll take breaks," Meiyao said.

"Like we did in the Gleamstone Valley. It's a long journey. The sooner we get started, the better. And the sooner we can return." Something dark and heavy flickered across her expression. Dark and heavy and murderous. That was probably the only time so far Jieyuan felt they were on the same page. Vengeance. Jieyuan was behind Meiyao in that, all the way. But that didn't change the whole situation.

"Well, yes," Jieyuan said. Times really were odd when it fell to a Firesoul to be the voice of reason.

"But your injuries—""I'm fine." He glanced down at the side of her hip. She was standing upright without a problem, he'd give her that, but he really didn't think— She sighed, then slammed a fist into her waist, hard. She didn't so much as wince. She gave him a look that said, See? Jieyuan saw, all right. He just didn't understand it. Then again, Meiyao's miraculous recovery rate might just be the least odd thing about this whole situation. Seemed like he'd done all that worrying for nothing, too.

Clearly caution wasn't finding any foothold here. There was just one last thing he needed to confirm, though.

"And the beasts?"

"I'll handle it," Meiyao said, simply.

"We're agreed, then?" This one claim, at least, he was inclined to believe. Jieyuan recalled how she'd warded off the swarm of flying beasts during their escape. There was something going on with Meiyao and the mist, no doubt about that. Something odd. But she seemed to know what she was doing, and that was more than he could say about himself. He shrugged. Might as well roll with the punches.

"Sure." He glanced over at Daojue.

"You all right with that?' Daojue just stared. Jieyuan would take that as a yes. He turned back to Meiyao, nodding.

"I take it you'll be leading?"

"Yes," she said.

"Also, when we go through, we need to be in contact…" She trailed off.

"Unless…" Wordlessly, she reached into her holder pouch, and took out a second holder pouch. She drew this second one open, stuffed her arm inside, and then whipped it out, holding a… robe? A dark green robe, similar to the one she was wearing. She slung it across her shoulder, and took out another one, this one red and diamond-patterned. An outer disciple robe. She piled it on top of the first and took out a third, this one green again. The fourth, she threw at him. Jieyuan caught it out of the air. In contact …

He had an idea of where this was going. She took out another two robes, which she also threw over to him, before she put the holder pouch away inside the first.

"Rope?" Jieyuan said.

"Rope." Meiyao grabbed one of the robes on her shoulder and began twisting it. Jieyuan did the same, before grabbing the other one, and tying them together, end to end. And then he got started with the third. Meiyao was particularly tall for a woman, and the robes she wore reflected that. Soon he had about eighteen feet worth of makeshift rope in his hands. Meiyao, another eighteen feet. He passed one end to Daojue, who wordlessly tied it around his waist.

The wrist or ankle would've been better to save up on length, but they'd be more restrictive, movement-wise. Jieyuan followed suit. Soon they were all tied together. Him to Meiyao, and Daojue to him. Meiyao gave the length of rope between them some tugs, then nodded approvingly. Jieyuan double-checked his own work too.

"We get split up if we're not in contact?"

"Yes," Meiyao said. She nodded toward the denser stretch of mist ahead.

"Ready?"

"Ready." She walked off into the mist. Jieyuan unsheathed the Shifting Sisters, and followed.