Red persisted for the longest time, suspending Fu in its clutches. He knew it as the barrier between [Mystic Realms], though it transcended the oddity he had experienced a bare few minutes ago.

The Qi fluctuated about him, violently, as if angered. It pressed, ebbing to and fro with a suffocating warmth that had his skin feel dry and his lungs, brittle. It sustained for minutes, and more, holding him as some force moved in the colours ahead.

Great, silent silhouettes.

But for all this madness, a single term continued to surface.

[Demon Scar].

If he might shake his head, he would. By the Heavens, if he could urge his feet with any semblance of control, he would flee.

Demons.

The [Ink] had not lied before.

Fu drew a breath, which was the extent of his ability.

Hushi,are you well?

An impression returned above in the affirmative, and a parcel of his fears were squashed. He could not fathom what had come to pass, yet all that he did not know could fill a space as vast as the Clouded Archives were they parchment.

As such he named it merely as crisis, dissuading his mind from what Hua would say on such matters.

For now.

He descended some time after his heart had stilled. Entering a hell that his most vivid dreams could not paint.

The gullies of the [All Sky Wood] prevailed in distortion, for the land had… mirrored.

A split of two hilltops, many hundred li apart. In his short span in the first realm, he recalled no such sight.

Where the descent had begun previously, it persisted, yet now it met at a distant base that inclined towards an opposing hilltop. Dry, splintered earth spread underfoot where the violet grass had once pushed, and the trees beyond were withered and dull. Decrepit fingers reaching for a blood-red sky.

“Complications,” repeated Zhu.

Fu had his hook drawn as he finished the word, poised at the man’s throat. “Brother Zhu- I-”

“Zhu. Haven’t I said this? For where we stand, I’ll allow it this once.” He levelled his gaze with Fu, flicking the blade aside with two fingers. But secondary to this, he unearthed his own weapons. A set of two metallic lengths, handled batons that guarded much of each arm. “But there comes a more pressing fight than names.”

Now the scene was settling, outrage cut loud. Each cultivator present at the [Mystic Realm’s], and to Fu’s count, more, stood tall. Their transportation ended.

“They’ll soon see,” Zhu continued.

The cries sounded as Fu formed his own realisation. There was no-

“The [Paifang]!” erupted the salvo’s first. Which then descended into similar cries of vexation until the logical conclusion was reached.

“We are trapped,” said Fu, finding no trace of their entrance, nor a glimmer of any others across the distance he might scry. “A [Mystic Realm] within a [Mystic Realm]. The woman that slew the Silkworm, this was done by her hand.”

“Theories and connections can wait. If we’re stranded here, then a time will come for such discussions,” mused Zhu, an eye on the crowd. Hundreds, to bely the few they had entered with. “Those we see here must have already been within the [Mystic Realm]. As to their gathering, I’d wager it’s the [Trial] component of the realm’s [Law of Origin].”

Adding to the obfuscated purpose of this place, a great rumbling began. Warmth, then, in tandem. Fu ignored whatever resonance was rising in his [Ink] for the time being, and placed a wary step back as something split from the earth to their rear.

A pillar of mystic origin.

It broke from the cracked ground with ease, parsing mounds as it rose, and rose, proving an oddity - for all but the base was solid. Bronze plates wound around a cylindrical frame, stopping just above the height of Fu’s shoulder, yet easily five times that in diameter. Where these ended, however, an ethereal outline continued on.

“Cease your talk, comrades!” commanded a deeper, female voice. “The requirements for completion may soon be listed.”

“Who are you to demand-” cried another, soon cut off with a punch.

Indeed, the woman spoke true, as a leaf of parchment unfurled in the bronze to reveal a message inscribed there.

“If you would follow: struggle. Then, might their shrine return,” said Fu, not alone in his reading.

A consternate susurrus wormed through the crowd, with looks shared by cultivators in all directions. Each searching for the meaning of these words. Though the [Mystic Realm] provided another answer to their confusion, and the gullies ejected myriad more of the ethereal pillars, if whole where theirs was not.

Oddities.

On the cracked earth of the closest gully’s mouth, a figure rose to prominence. A man, whose [Spirit Beast]’s height allowed him to rise three lengths above the crowd when atop it. Fu saw it as a yellow swine, if not grotesquely disproportioned where its large sagging ears and serpentine snout hung loose between two tusks.

“Peace,” he yelled, gaining the notice of most. “Listen well, sisters and brothers. We are interred here by some villain, and I, Ling Wei, know by experience that we will remain until the [Trial] component is complete.”

Some murmurs followed.

“Know me as chief disciple beneath Lord [Forty-Ninth], and know my words- this [Demon Scar] is a shared worry, and must be put to our righteous blades!” he continued, grasping his chest with heart-quaking fervour.

But he addressed no members of his Sect, not juniors of such belonging. His cries were met with impassive looks, smirks or distaste, and many of the crowd pushed by his display to descend the ground behind.

“He means to coordinate a sea of tigers,” grimaced Zhu. “But this is one mountain.”

Fu took his meaning immediately. “The situation might call for it, lest there are opportunities in this imprisonment. What are your thoughts? I think we might see what the [Mystic Realm] has in store first, no?”

After an affirmative nod, the pair moved by as well. Zhu held his weapons in a slackened guard, which was ill-fitting for how vigilant his gaze became. He searched between the withered trees, by fallen, deadened trunks and beyond, lingering more on the distant cultivators that had begun to reach the first ethereal pillars.

This is a realm of unknowns. Our arrival, its purpose, where the Silkworm’s killer is now, it has my skin crawl.

If nothing else, Zhu granted a reassuring presence, though he said little on the things Fu’s inner mind wished to discuss. Nothing on their trouble at the Silver Loom, nor this phenomena, or latterly, the [Demon Scar] splayed in their arrival [Ink].

So, in silence they tread forth, and in a span of minutes reached a pillar of their own. A wholly ethereal construct of ruddy brown light, with a circular inscription spreading from its base.

“A subtle [Dao],” Zhu noted. “As if it’s a natural [Array]. Can you feel it?”

Fu could not, despite how it was clearly no mortal construct. “An [Array] to what effect? Does it have a bearing on the first?”

Before placing a step over the inscription’s boundary, Zhu stopped. “I’d not be the first to cross its threshold. That’s a fool’s game. There are plenty who would leap without looking,” he said, gesturing to a solitary cultivator one hundred strides distant. “A ghost would wait.”

The first cry came from elsewhere though, moments before their target’s. A pearlescent light burst into the skies behind, and surged amidst the sound of drawn metal. Fu’s sight was blocked by the desiccated trunks between, but the light, this he could trace.

Some chain had formed, a cord of oscillating white that persisted as it landed upon the first, distant tower of bronze. Conjuring a second heat on Fu’s [Ink].

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from NovelBin; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Four words with little meaning.

“Rank two?” Fu asked. “Does this realm force us into contest?”

Zhu’s eyes were distant, marking his own inspection of [Ink]. But he waited once it was cast aside, and gestured to the cultivator they had marked before. The solitary cultivator had entered her pillar’s boundary, and with a [Spirit Bird] of some descript now put her hand against it to birth the same show of oscillating cord.

The change that came over the [Ink] fluttered before his eyes. Each character changing as a fluctuation of warmth touched his arm. It flew from [Rank Three], to nine, and in the coming moments the characters blurred.

“Our ranks are descending as more touch these pillars,” he noted, grimacing enough to have Hushi squeeze.

Zhu’s reply was a step but one heartbeat later, and he set his hands to the pillar. Up close, Fu saw wisps dance beneath the man’s skin, settling before the top erupted as before. “My [Control],” he grinned. “This pillar’s increased it. A base one, and insignificant. Yet-” With hundreds upon further hundreds across the [Mystic Realm], he saw no need to finish.

“Truly?”

“A pillar of [Mind],” affirmed Zhu. “Claimed. As my [Ink] has told.”

“You think it is to be trusted?”

In place of answer, Zhu fixed his attention down the gully. To the opposing, mirrored end of the landmass, and to the streams of light blossoming there. “It’s to be trusted greater than [Demons],” he said. “Now, let’s move before this opportunity is squandered.”

🀧

The second claim elevated Fu’s rank from the depths of the five hundreds, some many hours later.

Sweat-plastered, limb-aching, he pushed on. One of a flood, a solitary locust gnashing across the arid land in search of sustenance.

Ahead. It is clear!

A flash of [Half Cloud Step] drove him through the air- his foot, smashing the withered tree from which he sprung. He heard it fragment to his rear, now dust in his wake. The pillar ahead was unoccupied, and Fu flung out with his chain to act as a tether.

His hook wound, looping around the ethereal construct, once, twice, and then he brought his [Might] to bear. A snap yanked him forward, reducing the distance by five strides at a time. He extended his han-

A kick sent him reeling to the side, gyrating from the grip he held on his chain. No light thing, as its instigator was upon the spectrum of the [Core Formation Realm]. As they all had been.

“Think better,” laughed his attacker, already at the [Hegemon’s Pillar], absorbing the vital force within.

Fu firmed, stowing his chain in the same moment that he burst forth again. Fate… it was by its grace that open slaughter was no part of the contest.

Onward. Do not think on it.

The fourth gully was overrun now, and he had yet to see true bloodshed. But starved dogs make poor fellows when meat is present. It was a matter of time, he knew, and this urged his Qi-starved body forward.

“Hushi,” he cried, pulling the octopus from his scant efforts in Qi absorption. “Show me Zhu, he must know what we plan next!”

With his midden flung well back, Hushi was slung upon Fu’s back. A half-scout, impressing only what perils he could trace amidst the waves of higher-realm experts. In twenty strides, however, a direction was returned.

Far ahead.

Fu grimaced, bounding from another tree. The skies were aglow with uncountable trails of light. Serpents, he thought, as was his continual dread. They conspired to press the land in sharp contrast, lengthening fresh shadows and washing all sight in a near blinding hue. And this continued ever onward, showing that not one pillar in his sight was unclaimed.

The arrival here, and the subsequent efforts… his mind was unclear. His mental energy, an uncertain pittance where reserves were concerned.

Yet-

A dragon uses its full might even when hunting a fox.

Even if it stoked the ire of his betters, Fu knew he could not waste this opportunity.

In a single leap he broached the nearest treetop, if only a dilapidated branch of absent canopy- and leapt.

Instinctively, he infused the [Dao of Wayward Breeze], and soared. Fu’s step became the wind, and followed where there was none. For he found this was a stagnant place, bereft of sun, of cloud or gusts, but it held a tempest in individual droves.

The disturbance, and stream of those far ahead.

As his previous uses were limited in distance, Fu’s passage proved unguessable and delivered him square in the path of a [Spirit Toad]. A bulbous, [Fire Qi] infused beast that surged its cultivator ahead with gouts of flame.

But it faded as he conjured his [Dao] again.

All claimed, he thought, arriving in the fifth gully. A truth that persisted in the sixth, the eighth, and the eleventh. Each step of the wayward breeze pushing him to the brink of his capacity, time and again.

Suddenly, Fu collapsed to the ground. A wetness rolling from his nose, his head a-spin, and an intensity of fatigue laying claim to his body.

Hushi fared no better, and sagged into the back-bound douli. Only weak impressions sent out, though they prevailed in warning rather than weariness. An urge, for his [Senses] spoke of few trampling feet or deafening sways of cloth.

Fu scraped to his feet, seeing six cultivators surging before him. Distancing- Three cultivators, when his eyes steadied, distancing themselves with graceful bounds. A pillar in every second step, and a light touch as their palms claimed the energy within.

They lack… diligence.

In their haste, these experts were leaving many unclaimed. Thus, Fu stumbled forward. The dust beneath rose with his dragging feet and staggered gait, but he persisted. Such a state differed little from [Spring’s] prime fishing, and he was no stranger to moving beyond his limits.

He fell against a pillar a half-minute later, hearing the rise of thunderous footsteps ever nearing.

My rank progresses.

[Pull] would do him nothing here, nor his previous increase to [Insight], and his first of [Control]. Yet a free increase to the values upon his [Ink]- while a thing to reflect on later - was no thing to turn one’s nose at.

At his next attempt Fu clawed at the surrounding trees. Crutches of varying height, and strong enough to support the weight he put upon them. An arm slung, fingers swiped, he did what he could to gain any modicum of leverage, pushing from these trunks.

And so three more were claimed before the locusts had returned, with a fourth at the end of his fingers.

“Do not be foolish,” chided an appearing voice. Coarse, and delivered with a hand to Fu’s shoulder. It offered no explanation before tearing him backwards, disposing of him as one might toss a rotten dumpling.

Fu allowed the force to carry him, too spent to protest any longer. An over exertion of both his [Dantian] and [Dao] was indeed a fool’s errand, no less for where he stood. But he had gained for it, despite how he now tumbled back across the earth.

The process had always held a clearned end, given how limited in number each of the pillars was. So, white Fu rose, it was a gesture that carried no haste. He dusted himself off, and lightly stepped into the skyward branches of a nearby tree so that HUhshi might rectify their dwindling Qi.

Thoughts stirred as the final pillars were claimed, and he saw the gully’s furthest reaches hold a forming crowd,

They pause? Is there nothing beyond?

Lines of cultivators were growing ahead, marking an end to the stampede, and no doubt, an inciting sight of no small curiosity.

“Hushi,” he whispered. “Is there truth to these [Demons]? Had any appeared in the THousand Shore [Mystic Realm]?” The notion was hard to parse, and something that his better reason warred with.

To face the tales that coerced Feng into earring his spirit seaweed, and my sweet Yuwi from her aversion to peaceful sleeping… How does one combat a fable?

HIs height was not so great to afford him a view of the entire realm, yet the cords of light opposing their own- these were as clear as daylight. An indication of just how swift a force it was they faced, for the pace of claiming near matched their own.

Was it this the others watched? Or another facet of the world he did not know?

Demons.

Fu’s hand trembled upon the trunk.

What madness.

The rumbling began anew when a third of his [Dantian’] was flush with Qi. Not in correlation, of course, but the break from his focus happened all the same.

A convergence at either gully’s end, where each cord swelled in size to set their destinations ablaze. Bonfires of a scale with a setting sun, and in their midst - a figure rose.

Sleeves of bronze rose first, bracers, pauldrons and a cuirass of interlocking plates. Ethereal as the cords that formed them. These built from the base, and continued until what stood was an encasement of armour, holding the light in its recesses as though a furnace raged within.

Yet most potent were their masks of nightmarish design. Scowling, red contortions of a human’s likeness, with irises aglow beneath angled brows. All to follow where one finger fell on each, and descended, levered while the remaining three arms grasped a spear of impossible length.

Fu leapt from the tree, his eyes ever on the opposing side. To the bronze nail that hovered in his direction, draping his heart in a cold and sudden fear. Truly, no defence existed beneath the Heavens that might rebuke this. Not one among the [Formation Realm], nor any immortal that had hitherto tread the earth.

The spears flew then.

Twinned death, loosed at such defiant speed that the [Mystic Realm] quaked upon their release. They skirted their opposite, not unlike two dragons passing in flight, and landed to birth true calamity.

An obliteration of land, contained in a ball of roiling energy. It spanned multiple li, yet stole more, leaving all but tatters of floating earth, and the blinking, ethereal pillars in its wake. Showing the second gully to be near removed, and the cultivators that had lingered there to be gone.