Outworld Liberators

In the first stage of the Preta Lurienna Labyrinth, there were no fewer than a hundred thousand inheritances scattered throughout its reaches.

Any one of them would have been enough to tempt a disciple into folly. And yes, the treasures were tempting.

Most of the disciples had seen them with their own eyes. Yet their focus remained razor sharp.

The secret realm had made one thing painfully clear. It did not want them lingering here.

The longer they stayed, the stronger the monsters that crawled out to hunt them became.

What none of them knew was that they themselves were feeding this ecosystem of horrors.

Every raw emotion they shed into the realm became nourishment for the Ghost Realm Fragment.

Their positive feelings, camaraderie, perseverance, hope. Their darker ones, helplessness, indignance, greed.

All of it flowed into this place like water into thirsty soil. And because these disciples were talented, because their gifts and destinies burned brighter than ordinary men, their presence was not merely food.

It was exquisite fertilizer. That was why the creatures had roused so fiercely.

By the time the last of the disciples reached the small strip of land before the door to the second stage, the mood had changed.

The early arrogance had thinned. In its place came calculation. Men and women who had just crawled through danger were no longer thinking only of pride or face.

They were already measuring how to gain the most benefit from one another. Lifara was only one among many who had sensed the chance for profit.

Those who knew blacksmithing began offering sharpening services. Talisman makers started taking requests, from calming talismans to explosive ones. Other groups gathered up what they did not need and laid it out for trade. Wounded disciples bartered for medicine. Cautious ones paid for tools. Sharp minded ones sold knowledge, labor, and little advantages.

This was the kind of people Radeon wanted to see in the cultivation world.

They were not always the strongest. They were not always the most glorious either. But they were the sort who could survive if left to their own devices, the sort who would find a way to live whether they were thrown into a realm of spirits, a kingdom of magic, or some cold land of machines and iron.

For all the scheming these people could manage, there was one trait a person needed if he truly wished to become untouchable.

Shamelessness. Jackson had it in abundance.

With the right bearing and enough status to steady the crowd, he suddenly found himself standing atop a stage that had not been there a moment before.

Fay, Oswin, and Lifara had already spoken with him. Each had shared their thoughts on the mission ahead. It was true that they could not remain on the second stage forever, but if that place held even a sliver of safety, then it could serve another purpose.

A free zone. A place to gather, regroup, and squeeze order out of chaos.

So there Jackson stood, with Jenkii and the others nearby, smiling like a man about to sell water to fish.

"Friends from afar, this is Jackson, your friendly cultist member," he announced, eyes narrowed in a pleasant squint, his whole face arranged into warmth.

"Now, I have a small proposition. We are all smart people here. You over there from that small school, you won a poetry competition two years ago. And you, from that newly promoted school turned sect, I remember your songs being played in hundreds of inns."

A ripple passed through the crowd. Surprise. Suspicion. A little pride.

Jackson spread his hands as if he were embracing them all.

"Smart people know how to give face. Smart people know how to maximize benefits. And since we are about to enter a city, we all have some idea what that means."

"Our plan is simple. A city likely holds a larger inheritance zone. We enter together. We flood it fast. We take what we can for no more than a quarter of a day, then withdraw. What do you think?"

He barely needed to finish. No one wasted time with grand speeches or swollen debate. The crowd understood at once. They began arranging themselves with surprising order, almost like a proper battalion.

Those with healing ability moved to the rear. Crafters and support types followed after them. The ones suited for direct battle began taking the front, with Jenkii leading her fellow disciples there.

These young disciples had seen sect raids before. In their world, such things were hardly rare. But this was different. This was not a clash of banners or grudges. This was a secret realm, and they meant to strip it dry.

They passed through the door together and found a broad flight of stairs descending into swallowing darkness.

No monsters rushed them there. No claws scraped stone.

Even so, every disciple remained alert, senses drawn tight as bowstrings.

Then, before long, they emerged. Only not together.

Each came out through a different door, stepping from separate houses as though the stairs had quietly sorted them apart.

For a brief moment, none of them realized they had been split again. Then they looked around, saw one another through the crooked lanes and broken windows, and relief almost had time to settle.

Almost. Because then they saw the soldiers. Skeletons, armed and standing in ranks.

Not the false stone constructs from the mortal tournament. These were real undead. Their bones were stained. Their armor was rotten. And from them came a foul stench, the unmistakable reek of death.

One disciple nearly charged his qi to strike, but the undead only cupped their fists and continued their patrol as if nothing had happened.

That gave everyone pause. A few tried speaking to them, hoping to pry out some clue, but the skeletons merely shrugged, their jaws clacking uselessly against one another.

"Anyone here speak skeleton, speak up," Jackson shouted.

A handful checked the backs of the houses, intending to see whether they could retrace their steps, but there was nothing there except wooden floors, tables, and the sort of common furnishings one would expect in an ordinary dwelling.

So they looked outward instead.

Steep tiled roofs crowded around a cobbled street. Beyond its quiet bounds lay only dark forest.

Yet within the city itself stood greater towers still, some no more than ten floors high, while the tallest and most striking among them rose to nearly fifty, looming over the rest like a stern elder among juniors.

"Hey. Hey, everyone. Come over here," Fay called.

The disciples who had scattered through nearby streets began converging on her voice. No one made a fuss about finding their juniors just yet. This was not the time for that. Not when the place itself still had not shown its teeth.

By the time they gathered around Fay, they stopped short without even meaning to.

Before them yawned an underground labyrinth so vast it seemed to swallow thought. Colossal rings sank one beneath another, their edges broken by crumbling stairs that curled downward into a green black abyss.

Arches, narrow bridges, and precarious ledges clung to the inner walls like desperate thoughts refusing to die. From somewhere far below, a pale light bled upward, weak and ghostly, yet it revealed nothing final.

The structure did not seem to have a bottom. Only more descent. More depth. More dark.

One talisman expert tried to test it. He sent down a paper effigy shaped in his own likeness, linking its sight to his own. At first, all seemed well.

The effigy drifted lower and lower through the rings while the man's eyes remained fixed and unblinking.

Then, the moment it passed a certain depth, his whole body jolted.

His face went pale. Blood burst from his mouth. A heartbeat later, he collapsed and fainted on the spot.

Even so, he was not eliminated from the secret realm, which meant whatever had struck him had been painful, but not enough to count as fatal.

That alone made the abyss below seem all the more sinister.

Oswin knew at once that this was his moment to shine.

He reached into his robes and drew out a censer, a metal vessel hung by chains and made for burning incense. From within it, he fitted a pendulum into the bottom, one attuned to danger.

After that, he opened a box of incense materials arranged with near obsessive care. Different grades of frankincense. Myrrh. Sandalwood. Other rarer blends set apart for finer deductions.

Oswin studied them for only a breath before choosing the ones he needed.

One to test for treasure or fortune. One to tell whether this path truly belonged to their intended route. One to judge danger.

The steel censer unfolded in his hands. Inside were three narrow slots that could spin the incense as they burned.

With a small torch balanced at his fingertips, Oswin gave the censer a practiced turn, cool enough to show off without seeming like he was trying.

Then he let the flame lick each material in turn. Once they caught, he poured qi into the censer.

A soft revving hum rose from within as it spun faster and faster, eager to convert every bit of incense into smoke.

Soon Oswin stood wrapped in it.

The smoke first came out as a single yellowish veil, thick enough to hide his expression.

Then it shifted. As though some unseen master had given a command, the smoke separated into different streams and pointed downward.

One turned grey. One brightened into a sunny yellow. One became a pure cloud white.

The disciples watched in open awe.

Oswin did not let it get into his head. Not here. Not now. The last man who had probed too boldly into the depths had vomited blood and dropped where he stood.

If Oswin embarrassed himself like that in front of everyone, Master Radeon would not be pleased.

So he held steady and watched the signs.

The sunny yellow smoke peeled away first and drifted off, which meant treasure was out of the question.

What sank fastest was the cloud white, while the grey followed close behind.

That was answer enough.

There might be danger below, but this was clearly the right path toward the next stage.