The Dao of Thread and Root

The gray, silent forest around the fissure seemed to hold its breath.

The group had returned to the outer perimeter. Leaving, however, was not as simple as walking through the air, even knowing the exact position of the opening. The incomplete Laws made the exit waver like a ghost.

Zhì Yuǎn floated a hair's breadth from the ground, eyes closed. Yù Qíng was pressed against him, her arms locked firmly around her husband's waist, her face resting against his chest.

"If we, with the exact mark, are having trouble finding the gap…" Mò Yán murmured, watching the distortion in the air. "How did the ancient inhabitants escape? If they escaped at all."

Zhì Yuǎn opened his eyes. An ironic smile crossed his lips. He looked at Yù Qíng's serene face and raised his free hand, stroking the First Wife's hair.

"They didn't escape," Zhì Yuǎn answered in a deep voice. "Not even an Immortal would find this exit point on their own. When this place collapsed, the fragmentation of the Laws sealed every route for good. They were trapped in their own opulence. That is, if anyone was even left alive when the world tore."

The thirst for knowledge shone in Bái Wǎn's eyes. The scholar took a step forward, unable to contain the doubt gnawing at her.

"Speaking of fragmented worlds…" Bái Wǎn began, her analytical tone breaking the serenity. "There's something that won't leave my head, my God. The world we came from had pathetic energy. Almost sterile compared to the density here or the Realms we crossed. If the heavens did not govern that place, how did life flourish down there without being crushed?"

Zhì Yuǎn let out a low laugh that vibrated against Yù Qíng.

"Because our previous world was not necessarily a direct fragment of the Three Thousand Worlds," Zhì Yuǎn pondered, his fingers sliding along his wife's nape. "It may have been a piece of land torn loose a few thousand years ago. Or a pocket world lost by some supreme cultivator in the Void."

He stared at the gray horizon of the forest for a moment before looking back at the scholar.

"Or even the remains of a colossal spatial ring belonging to an immortal that corrupted and plunged into the lower plane. I can't say for certain…" a predatory gleam crossed his pupils, "but whatever the origin, that piece of land was isolated enough to stay hidden from the Heavens' gaze."

With the answer given, Zhì Yuǎn closed the subject and returned his focus to the exit. He drew his hand away from Yù Qíng's face, but she kept her firm hold on his waist.

The distortion wavered in the air like an invisible ripple on water. To any other cultivator, it would have been untraceable. Even for him, with his comprehension of Laws, the task demanded concentration.

"Such glory," Zhì Yuǎn murmured, raising his right hand. "A pity they had the misfortune of being isolated from the Universe this way."

Thousands of filaments of Primordial Qi sprouted from his fingers. Invisible in their thinness, they acted like needles driving into the seam of space.

Lóu Jiàn and Jiàn Wúshuang held their breath. The pressure radiating from Zhì Yuǎn made the air snap with a muffled sound, as if reality itself were resisting the blade of his Will.

"Stand back," Zhì Yuǎn ordered.

The women retreated in perfect synchrony. Yù Qíng was the last, drawing away only far enough for her fingers to remain brushing his.

Zhì Yuǎn closed his fist.

Crack.

A dry sound echoed, like thick glass snapping. A vertical fissure tore the gray air, revealing the chaotic turbulence of the spiral currents that bound that plane to the outside world.

A gust of cold air invaded the dead forest, mixing with millennial dust. The exit was open.

Zhì Yuǎn looked at the dark tear in space and turned his face toward the family.

"Let's go back," he said. "We need to see how Lián is doing."

------

The silver fissure spat the group back into the ice canyon. The sole of Zhì Yuǎn's boot sank into the dirty snow. The cutting wind howled through the gorge, carrying the smell of blood and revealing the carcasses of the Purple Flame disciples still on the ground.

Zhì Yuǎn narrowed his eyes. The exploration in the dead world had taken half a day, but the relentless blizzard had not buried the bodies.

He had no time to waste on corpses, however. He turned to face the silver opening. He raised his right hand, ready to extend the threads of his Primordial Qi and begin the painstaking process of binding the edges of that pocket world directly to the spine of his Inner Universe.

The dark threads surfaced at his fingertips. But he did not advance.

Zhì Yuǎn lowered his hand. The threads withdrew into his skin. His gaze rose slowly toward the white mist covering the top of the cliff. The presence that had watched them from afar when they arrived at the canyon was no longer distant. It had come down.

The air in the gorge grew stagnant. The snow froze in mid-fall. A crushing pressure, dense as the floor of an ocean, descended upon the rock.

Seventh Stage of Immortal Establishment — the Animic Ocean. Zhì Yuǎn's body, with the density of a black hole, would bear the impact of that force without yielding. But his wives would not. The slightest leak of killing intent from a monster at that level would evaporate their organs and the slaves' in the blink of an eye. Only Yù Qíng might resist for a few instants.

If he fought, he would expose the limits of his energy.

Without turning his face, Zhì Yuǎn raised his left hand. Space answered his command. Yù Qíng sensed the change of intent in her husband. The Priestess took a sharp step forward, stretching her pale hand to seize the sleeve of his tunic.

"A-Yuǎn, don't—"

Her voice was cut off. Zhì Yuǎn closed his fist. Space folded around them, swallowing them all at once. The fissure ejected them across the continent, straight into the safety of the Autumn Wind Pavilion.

He lowered his arm. The wind returned to blowing snow against the rock. Zhì Yuǎn was completely alone in the canyon, the pocket world's treasure exposed at his back.

Zhì Yuǎn clasped his hands behind his back. He lifted his chin, driving his calm eyes into the white mist of the cliff.

"Ten thousand years cultivate the heart," his rustic voice cut through the sound of the wind, flat and without echo. "But a single curious glance destroys it."

The mist stopped moving. From above, the dry sound of polished bones striking one another descended slowly. A skeletal man in worn yellow robes walked through empty air as if descending a marble staircase. Ancestor Lǐ Jìngzhī covered the lower half of his face with his bone fan. The old monster's aura was withdrawn, but the mere fact of his existing there made the ice around them crack.

"A wise saying, young friend," Lǐ Jìngzhī's voice sounded mild and sibilant behind the bone ribs. "But curiosity is what keeps old men alive. I was passing through this barren region when I noticed the spatial coordinates had been tied into a perfect knot. And now I see a cultivator I cannot measure coming out of a space that should not exist."

The Ancestor stopped ten steps away, hovering half a pace above the gravel.

"You sent your retinue away very quickly," the old man continued, closing the fan with a dry snap. "Was that zeal for them, or haste to hide your identity?"

Zhì Yuǎn held the old man's gaze. The apathy on his face remained untouched.

"Zeal?" Zhì Yuǎn let out a short, dry laugh through his nose. "I sent them away because I didn't want the smell of your fear soaking into my women's clothes."

Ancestor Lǐ's small eyes narrowed above the fan.

"The Bone Counter prefers to lurk in the shadows and seal non-interference pacts with the dogs of the Vault of Ashes while the others fight," Zhì Yuǎn continued, his cold voice revealing what no one outside the inner circle should know. "And now you come crawling into my domain looking for answers? You don't have the weight required to look at my board, Lǐ Jìngzhī. Go back to your cave."

The old man's silence was heavy.

"Certain recent events make me question whether fellow cultivator is not the hand sweeping the board of this continent."

Doubt ate through Lǐ Jìngzhī's prudence. If he is the monster who carries Destruction, I would already be ash, the old man thought. Why waste time talking? Did he spend too much energy opening that pocket world and is running on empty now?

Lǐ Jìngzhī's wrinkled face lost its mild politeness. He drew the fan into his sleeve. The instant he did, the domain of the Animic Ocean was released.

The pressure of the Seventh Stage crashed down. The snow around them evaporated at once. The air of the canyon was shoved outward and the rocks sank under the pure force that tried to grind Zhì Yuǎn's spine.

Zhì Yuǎn did not blink. His boot did not sink a single inch. His foundation swallowed the Ancestor's pressure without returning any effort or retreat. He remained with his hands clasped behind his back, staring at the old man with the same opaque boredom as before.

Lǐ Jìngzhī watched his own strength vanish like water into sand. Cold sweat ran down the old man's forehead. That man had not used Qi to defend himself. He had merely existed.

Even so, the greed of ten thousand years armed the Ancestor's hand inside his sleeve with a technique of an invisible blade of concentrated Qi.

Zhì Yuǎn kept his opaque gaze. The dimensional rupture of the dead world remained perfectly open at his back, an incalculable treasure bleeding Immortal Qi.

Lǐ Jìngzhī looked at the fissure, then at the dark abyss in the eyes of the man before him. The invisible blade trembled in his hand. The silence of the canyon froze, stretched to the edge of rupture.