Chapter 143 (Patreon)

Sorry for taking so long. A bit of a longer chapter today.

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Foot. Insert mouth. At times like these, Chen Haoran was grateful at how consistent he was at saying the wrong thing at the wrong time. At least he had enough experience to fall back on rather than flail around in panic. Phelps stopped his chewing and clutched the metal bamboo tighter in his grip.

Ignoring his pounding heart, Chen Haoran waved to Pan Gong. “Fancy meeting you here, Officer Pan. You’re just the man I was looking for.”

Pan Gong looked amused. “So you could beat me for answers?”

Chen Haoran relaxed his shoulders and shrugged. “Whatever do you mean by that? I clearly said I had peaceful intentions.”

Pan Gong raised an eyebrow. “Are you saying that I didn’t hear you threaten to beat my fellow soldiers?”

“If you thought it was a threat, then I’m sorry,” Chen Haoran said. “Given the circumstances, though, I think I can be forgiven for a bit of stress. Surely the Garrison won’t punish someone asking for help.”

The two soldiers bristled, but Pan Gong overrode whatever they wanted to say with a booming laugh. “Shifting the blame to us, eh? That’s quite the strategy you picked, Friend Lan.”

Chen Haoran innocently tilted his head. “What do you mean? How could I have a strategy? I’m just presenting myself to the Garrison. The Crystal Transformation outside specifically recruited me to assist the Garrison’s operation in the Secret Realm.”

Pan Gong chuckled. “Are you sure you don’t want to join the Palace School? You certainly have the tongue for it.”

“You flatter me,” Chen Haoran replied.

“Seeing as how you’re ‘presenting’ yourself to the Garrison,” Pan Gong said, the air quotes in his words obvious to all. “Have you met any other soldiers?”

“Nope,” Chen Haoran said. “I’ve only met other unaffiliated cultivators.”

Pan Gong didn’t react, but the Sixth-Layer soldier sighed.

“While we’re on the topic. Have you seen the Qi Realms I was with?” Chen Haoran asked.

Pan Gong shook his head. “I have not.”

Chen Haoran slumped. “Great.”

“I’m sure they’ll turn up eventually,” Pan Gong said. “Though if they have any sense, they’ll stay away from the Trial Pyramids.”

Well. That was true. Searching the pyramids like he was wouldn’t help him find his friends. There was no way they’d risk confronting a Liquid Meridian like that….well, at least Bao Si would. He was 50/50 on Xie Jin.

….actually, he wasn’t sure about Bao Si either now that he thought about it.

The worry must have shown on his face because Pan Gong tried to comfort him. “They shouldn’t run into any problems from the other Liquid Meridians so long as they don’t treasure something above their station. Most everyone should be busy looking for treasures.”

“Yeah, that’s true.” Chen Haoran pointed to the silver light pillar. “Speaking of treasure, are you gonna take that?”

“If you want it, then my previous offer still stands,” Pan Gong said.

Chen Haoran held up his hands. “I didn’t say I wanted it.” He did. “Just curious.”

“We’re letting the time run out so that other soldiers can find us,” Pan Gong said. “It lowers the reward you get from the pyramid, but I wasn’t interested in what the outer ring had to offer anyway.”

“Outer ring? Are you say—”

Chen Haoran looked over his shoulder at the same time the other two soldiers stretched out their senses. Pan Gong’s presence weighed down from above, and four different pressures converged on a single tree causing the wood to groan.

The elderly Patriarch Qi sheepishly stepped out from behind the tree, trying and failing to hold his staff behind his back. “Greetings, Young Heroes.”

The Sixth-Layer groaned. “It’s just another nobody.”

“Didn’t expect to see you again, old man,” Chen Haoran said.

“Nor did I,” Patriarch Qi said with a pinched expression.

“You know him?” Pan Gong asked.

“He’s the leader of the Qi Family in Reservoir Town,” Chen Haoran said.

“Never heard of them.”

“I would be honored if you heard of a miserable family like mine,” Patriarch Qi said, stowing away his staff in his storage bag when he thought they were distracted, but they totally saw him do it. “My apologies for disturbing your conversation, I’ll just see myself out.”

“Why are you even here?” Chen Haoran asked. “I threw you in the opposite direction.”

Patriarch Qi clasped his hands and bowed. “I didn’t want to disturb you, so I tried going as far away as possible, but I was stopped by the barrier. So when I saw the light pillar was still here—”

Pan Gong came crashing down in front of Patriarch Qi, hitting the ground hard enough that the elderly Liquid Meridian almost lost his balance from the force.

“What barrier?” Pan Gong demanded. “Show me.”

——————

Chen Haoran, Phelps, Pan Gong, and the Peachblood soldier followed the nervous Patriarch Qi. The Sixth-Layer had been left back at the Trial Pyramid in case other soldiers showed up. They passed the pyramid Chen Haoran had thrown Patriarch Qi from and, after only a few minutes of running, found the barrier he had been talking about.

A long white pane of energy cut through the jungle. The higher Chen Haoran looked, the thinner the barrier became until it disappeared entirely. He wouldn’t make the mistake, however, of thinking that because he couldn’t see it that it was gone. Back on the ground, there were several fallen trees on either side of the barrier. One had even been split straight in half.

The Peachblood crouched and ran his hand over one of the trees and glanced at its cracked stump. He looked at Pan Gong. “These are fresh breaks. The barrier should have been activated when we entered the secret realm.”

Pan Gong hummed and yellow liquid qi spilled from his feet and dug out the dirt in front of the barrier. After going about three feet down and still seeing white energy Pan Gong stopped. Then to everyone’s horror, he stepped forward and knocked directly on the barrier. Ripples appeared in the still pane and spread outward from where Pan Gong hit it but other than that there was no reaction.

“Pure defense.” Pan Gong thought aloud to himself.

Chen Haoran cast his sense out, and to his surprise, it passed through the barrier easily. He didn’t see anything out of the ordinary on the other side, at least, nothing stranger than what he’d already experienced so far. All he found were the same trees and the same poisonous air. Even the ambient qi wasn’t much different.

“If I may be so bold to offer my opinion,” Patriarch Qi said. “I assume this barrier is another test by the trial. Perhaps it will open after we meet its criteria.” He deliberately glanced toward Pan Gong when he said this. His intention to fish for information was clear.

Good thing Chen Haoran had the same idea. “I’m no specialist, but usually, when you think of barriers in trials, it’s to separate different levels. Now I dunno about you guys, but I, for one, can’t see how that side is any different from this one.” The Peachblood and Patriarch Qi frowned in contemplation. Pan Gong’s face remained unmoved. “Officer Pan, you were saying something about an outer ring earlier. Do you know if this direction leads out of it?”

“No,” Pan Gong slowly said. “It doesn’t. I’d wager to guess the direction to the inner rings is blocked as well.” He dragged his hand across his face and let out a long, drawn-out sigh. “Someone is getting demoted for this. Hopefully we get lucky and one of our formation specialists is nearby. See if they can find a way around this. We’ll have to map out the extent of the barrier, too, find the nodes, and—ugh. What a waste of time.”

Going by Pan Gong’s genuine dread, it sounded like the work ahead of them would be long and suck. Two combinations of things that Chen Haoran wanted no part in. Being trapped on the wrong side of a wall was definitely not a position he wanted to be in either. He drummed his fingers along his thighs in thought. Phelps observed the barrier curiously. He shuffled his bamboo between his claws poked used it to poke the barrier, happily squealing as it rippled.

“Yellow Dragon.”

The Yellow Dragon opened closed eyes. Chen Haoran blinked and opened his eyes to swirling qi. Connecting his eyes to the Yellow Dragon allowed him to see the abundant water qi in the secret realm. It mixed with noxious green gases to create cloying poisonous air. It interacted with the qi of the trees and was absorbed, increasing their auras by the slightest increments. It wasn’t just the trees that absorbed it. The barrier had become a flowing white river to Chen Haoran’s eyes. Blue water qi and green wood qi were drawn from the air into the white river and dragged along its current to somewhere unknown. Even if the Yellow Dragon saw the world in terms of energy, it was still limited by distance. What Chen Haoran saw was enough, however. He looked past the barrier into the area it separated. Like he thought it wasn’t different at all.

“The qi in the barrier is flowing in one direction,” Chen Haoran said.

Pan Gong’s head snapped to him. “Where?” he barked.

Startled, Chen Haoran met his gaze. Through the Yellow Dragon’s vision, the vast ocean of Pan Gong’s yellow liquid qi was exposed. The Yellow Dragon snorted. The ocean briefly froze, and Pan Gong looked away.

“Can you see which direction?” Pan Gong asked.

“To the left,” Chen Haoran said.

Pan Gong pursed his lips and looked down the barrier. If he saw something, he didn’t let it show on his face. Despite his looks, Pan Gong was not nearly as boisterous and talkative as one might expect. “Let’s return. This is a problem better solved with more heads.”

Chen Haoran nodded, but his vision suddenly morphed. He connected his eyes to the Yellow Dragon but that didn’t mean it was using them. It was just polite enough to look in the same direction Chen Haoran was. Now it swiveled and Chen Haoran experienced a brief vertigo as he ‘saw’ in one direction while his eyes were pointed in a completely different one. Past the barrier, past sight obstructing air, were seven energies: five bright green, one red, one brown. They were standing atop a pyramid pulsing with silver light. His confusion at what exactly the Yellow Dragon wanted him to see was soon cleared when the five green qi’s surrounded the other two and snuffed them out.

The connection cut.

Chen Haoran rapidly blinked and rubbed his wet eyes.

“Are you alright, Lan Junjie?” Pan Gong concernedly asked.

Chen Haoran waved off his worry. “I’m alright. Just not used to the technique yet.”

Pan Gong nodded. “Pupil Arts are some of the most difficult to learn and use. That you  wield one is proof of commendable talent.”

“Thank you,” Chen Haoran said.

“Thank you too,” he thought.

The Yellow Dragon huffed and closed its eyes as it continued drifting through his meridians.

“Come on then,” Pan Gong commanded. The Peachblood nodded, and even Patriarch Qi fell into step behind Pan Gong.

Chen Haoran cast a glance back toward the murder he just watched before he turned around and followed them.

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When they returned to the Sixth-Layer they were greeted by three more soldiers who’d seen the beacon. Following the high spirits of their plan succeeding, Pan Gong led the group to other pyramids in the direction of the inner ring and repeated the process. Over five pyramids, they variously stuck out and got lucky. Sometimes no one showed up, and the reward was wasted. Other times it was only unaffiliated cultivators who quickly ran off after seeing them. A few times, they had soldiers appear in ones and twos. They found five more soldiers this way and then got even luckier on the way to the sixth pyramid when they ran into a group of five led by two Eighth-Layers.

Chen Haoran and Patriarch Qi were the odd ones out, being the only non-Garrison cultivators. It wasn’t really to Chen Haoran’s interests to give up so many potential rewards by traveling with the Garrison but they were the ones with all the information and so he followed along. Patriarch Qi was the real oddity. He didn’t look like he wanted to be there at all, especially as the other Eighth-Layers showed up and his nature as a paper tiger was on full display. Yet he also couldn’t seem to work up the courage to actually leave. In an amusing twist of fate, he actually stuck close to Chen Haoran despite his earlier beating. Chen Haoran had to admire just how thick-skinned the old man was.  He was a good conversationalist to pass the time. What Patriarch Qi’s long years, all 120 of them, hadn’t given him in strength, they’d provided him ample experience. He was actually born in Zumulu, shockingly enough, a fact he revealed with a small and nigh unnoticeable bone bracelet hidden under his sleeve. Their branch of the Qi Family had migrated from the Central region to the South a hundred years after the conquest.

Pan Gong also made sure to keep company with Chen Haoran when he wasn’t busy privately conferring with other officers. There’d been more than a few side-eyes for it, but as the highest ranking and most powerful person in the group, no one had decided to comment on it. It allowed Chen Haoran to finally grill him for the answers he wanted the most.

“Officer Pan, how are we supposed to get out of the trial? Is there a time limit or a gate or something?” Chen Haoran asked. Pan Gong started walking next to him after they left pyramid six. Behind them was the almost twenty-strong group.

“Unfortunately, the only way out is by finishing the trial,” Pan Gong said. “In the center ring, there’s going to be a final pyramid that will open up after a few days. From what we gathered, the top talents will all gather there to compete for the reward inside, and once it’s claimed, the secret realm will teleport everyone out.”

“And that’s confirmed?” Chen Haoran cautiously asked.

Pan Gong laughed. “I’ve lost my credibility eh?” He silenced Chen Haoran’s attempt to make excuses. “You’re right to be concerned but don’t underestimate the Empire’s means. Before we entered our Formation experts mapped out the secret realm and its arrays in their entirety. After cross-referencing it with the records we’ve dug up at the site along with previous finds we were able to confirm the existence of the exit and the nature of the trail. We would have never entered here otherwise.”

Chen Haoran started. “Really? That detailed?”

“We have tools and techniques today that the people who built this secret realm could never imagine,” Pan Gong said with a smile. “It’s not the sophistication of this secret realm that’s stymied us—just the age. Formation styles are always rising and fading away, but what we have now is far superior to what they had then. The ancients weren’t better than us. They were just first.”

“That’s…. surprising,” Chen Haoran said. On the one hand, the words made sense. On the other, he knew a cranky old ghost who would homicidally contest Pan Gong’s point.

“Why be surprised?” Pan Gong hooked a thumb toward a middle-aged man with middle-ranked cultivation of the Fifth-Layer. “You’ll be able to see for yourself.”

Beyond their expectations, they actually had managed to find one of the Garrison’s Formation specialists who’d entered the trial. Now they were headed for the Inner Rings, and soon enough, as Pan Gong had predicted, the barrier stretched all the way to here and blocked them from leaving. On the other side of it was more jungle, though this now it was denser and infested with thick vines that would have served as an impenetrable natural wall were it not for the unnatural impenetrable wall in front of it.

The specialist pulled out a golden compass from his storage bag that bloomed with various lenses and intricate whirling clockwork pieces when he opened it. He held it up to the barrier like a scanner, and it flashed with golden light. No one said anything, and made sure to be out of that way as the specialist paced up and down the length of the barrier frowning at whatever he saw in his compass. Finally, he stopped and turned to face Pan Gong.

“Your judgment was correct, Captain Pan. This Formation isn’t part of the secret realm. It was overlayed and kept unconnected to the qi pathways we observed, which was why we never noticed it.”

“Which means something or someone connected them as soon as we entered,” one of the Eighth-Layer officers darkly said.

“An Artifact Spirit?” another one theorized.

“Is there any way you can open it up?” Pan Gong asked the formation specialist.

The man shook his head. “Not from here. The barrier’s flowing qi will make any such opening energy intensive and nigh impossible to maintain. We’ll have to find the emitting node or the receiving node. I’ll be able to properly break it from there.”

More walking. Great. Chen Haoran sighed, but what could he do? Although, now that they were facing the inner realm…. He prodded the Yellow Dragon to connect his vision. The Yellow Dragon opened its eyes and—

Roared.

Chen Haoran felt a chill run deep into his bones as their eyes became one. “Get away from the barrier!” he roared.

Pan Gong reacted instantly and rushed to the Formation specialist. The specialist looked dumbly at them all as if he couldn’t understand what they were saying. His golden compass slipped from his hand. The specialist looked down at the bloody spear point protruding from his chest. The question of why there was a spear in his chest when his back was facing the barrier was obvious on his face. He tried to grab for the spear, but his hands fell away as he was raised into the air. From the jungle behind him emerged a man covered in vines shaped into armor. The vine armor man raised his spear, and the impaled specialist with it and stepped through the barrier.

Then the vines in the jungle receded and revealed the army waiting for them on the other side.