Arc 12: Chapter 15
The Ghostwood was an eerie place, that little couldn’t be denied. It had been bad enough on the outskirts, but as they tried to explore every nook and cranny, Bianca soon started seeing… things.
In the corners of her vision, various shapes seemed to appear and disappear the moment she glanced over. None of them were clear enough for her to even put a label onto them, humanoid and not, shadowy and colourful… it was rather bizarre, and she felt a certain wave of anxiety overwhelming her.
“I regret this.”
“It’s been five minutes, Mistress,” Huang Su said.
“No fucking way, it… why does it feel like it’s been so much longer?”
The kitsune shrugged, “If it helps, it does feel like it’s been longer than that… this shouldn’t be the effect of yin, however. Time for research – which ones of us are affected by this, and which ones aren’t?”
“You and I are, Huang Su isn’t… Shouge Zhe?”
“… I find it a little difficult to judge, if I am to be completely honest. Something about this place does feel wrong.”
“So, possibly cultivation realm or specific techniques… interesting,” Xue Yaling would’ve looked perfect with a notepad and a pen, noting things down, but instead she just committed it to memory, “I wonder where the source of this influence is, then. In terms of archetypes, there aren’t many that come to mind, either…”
On the mention of archetypes, Bianca stopped on the spot and thought back to something she had experienced.
“Dream archetype?”
“Dream? Ah, like the Lucid Mirage skill of that archetype?”
“Yeah, the things I’m seeing at the edges of my vision… it’s not unlike those mirages, and the way that time can be distorted while in dream…”
“I suppose that wouldn’t surprise me, but at the same time, the only ones to cultivate the Dream archetype to a significant extent were the Dream Weavers, which… nobody knows where they originate from, nor where they reside. For the Ghostwood to be their base of operations would be odd, though, considering how the Reapers were active here extensively not that long ago… on the grand scale, anyway.”
Bianca glanced towards yet another mirage, finding it disappearing the moment she noticed it, before her gaze could even shift towards it, “Besides, if this is how the forest had been for decades, there’s little chance someone wouldn’t have figured it out, right? Unless it’s that luck thing again.”
“Sect Mistress, not everything would be caused by luck even if we had a cultivator in the ninth realm with a mastery in some kind of Luck archetype. The answer must therefore be that this either isn’t the Dream archetype… or that it is practically impossible to find out anything about it. Possibly both, if we’re to be honest with ourselves.”
As the kitsune spoke, Bianca couldn’t help but look all around, and spotted another glimpse of a shadow in the distance… though this one was less humanoid and more like a structure, as if a shack plucked out from the land beyond and placed into the Ghostwood.
Of course, like the rest of the shadows, it vanished before she could truly gaze upon it.
“Fuck, this is really getting on my nerves… Well, let’s consider the situation in this way – if these Dream Weavers are here, then why would they be generating random illusions all over the place? Is it just the result of a dense concentration of energy, or something more deliberate?”
Shouge Zhe shook her head, “It cannot be a deliberate skill or technique, nor the product of an explicit Dream archetype array. This area was investigated many times, and nothing of the sort was found, yet the illusions still occurred even thousands of years ago.”
“… But it can’t be ambient energy, since none of you are feeling the presence of the archetype.”
“Yes, that’s what makes it practically impossible to discern the true origin and nature of all this,” the kitsune nodded, “That’s how it is, Sect Mistress. We’re in no position to investigate further.”
As if to refute her, just as she finished speaking, the sound of a tree falling in the distance made them all turn at once. It was far away, too far to see past all the brambles and foliage, and yet it was a distinct, different sound to what they had gotten used to. As such, Bianca didn’t bother to wait and just ran, with the others chasing after her with some degree of delay.
Traversing the woods was still quite the challenge, but the potential of running into something fun was enough to motivate her to push through with incredible speed.
It was as though the forest was parting for her journey, though she knew better than to assume that. She ran and ran until she found it… and lost everything else.
There were no words that could truly describe the sight before her. It was as if someone had taken a fallen tree out of the world and into a blank, black space, though the tree was still lit in the same manner as if it was in reality. She, however, stood on nothing, though realising that seemed sufficient to make her float instead
Looking back up, the tree vanished, and turning around revealed yet more peculiar sights. A strange set of mountains, shaped like fangs, far below and yet still obviously enormous. Amidst them, two energies, opposing one another, pulsing out, one crystalline and another resembling a mass of weapons, all pointed outwards. It was bizarre, but as she saw them, they almost seemed to see her, the crystalline light flaring up while the multitude of weapons quivered.
A blink, and even that was gone. Turning around again showed a faint figure, an echo, standing in the void, wavering, barely holding on.
“… Hello?” she called out after a moment, deciding that it was worth the risk.
The figure didn’t move, though a faint voice did emerge from the darkness.
“The army… will grow… my gift… more… weapons…” muttering, nonsensical and aimless, belonging to a male voice.
She tried to approach, but she seemed unable to find solid footing… or perhaps the very concept of distance was absent in this void, so her steps did nothing.
“Harvest… the whelps of the Dragon of Song…”
‘Dragon of Song? That… did I hear that before? Was it… said by Long Shiyi, back when we visited her camp? Yes, I think that’s it…’ Bianca recalled, frowning, ‘I can’t say I recall the details about it. Harvest the whelps…’
“The army… grows… materials… consumed… the Throne of Armaments… will bring me victory…”
With a flash, the figure was gone again, and the prior perspective returned, except… there were no mountains, no jagged spikes of earth rising into the clouds. Instead, plains and forests were the only things in sight.
And yet, it was obvious that it was the same location, just further back in the past.
“What the fuck happened to this place to-”
The vision gave her its reply before she could finish her sentence, as a great battle unfolded. Crystalline flames and countless weapons were thrown around at such a pace that Bianca could hardly follow it, and before long the sheer destructive forces caused the earth to rise and crumble, jagged spikes emerging from the ground and forming tall mountains.
It all culminated in an exchange between a man coated in dark red armour, and an enormous dragon that was coated in a layer of crystals, acting as armour of its own.
Again, their exact actions were impossible to read, though as she looked closer, she realised that it may not be due to their speed or intensity – everything was hazy, as if in a dream, only the vague concepts coming through whereas the specifics were blurred to naught. If this was related to the Dream Weavers, such a comparison was apt, though how or why she had been pulled into a peculiar lucid dream was a whole other question.
While she pondered, the battle had resolved itself, and man and dragon alike fell amidst the jagged mountains, into the same spots she had seen before, where energy pulsed outwards. This time, though, the mass of swords and weapons drew her attention more, as if it had grown bigger, or closer.
‘Is this the dream of the man that fought that dragon? The Dragon of Song…’
She blinked, and suddenly it all was gone, and the forest returned, and she found herself nearly stumbling as if she had stopped moving her legs mid-run.
“Sect Mistress! I appreciate the curiosity, but running off like… wait, don’t tell me you actually saw something.”
“I… I think I did.”
“You… alright, out with it, what was it?”
“It felt like a dream… tall, jagged mountains, like fangs sticking out of the earth. Amidst them, two points that pulsed with energy. One was crystalline, the other made of weapons-”
“Sorry, you dreamt of the Dragon’s Fangs?”
“The… wait, oh yeah! That’s why they looked so familiar! I’d woken up on one of those mountains, after all.”
Huang Su looked at her in silence for a while before frowning, “I can’t perceive any distinct energy lingering on you, but the way your demeanour suddenly shifted is too sudden to be any kind of joke.”
“Because I’m not joking. Anyway, The one made of weapons seemed to grow, then I saw this weird guy-”
“That is enough to prove it was real, there is zero chance you would ever choose to have a man in your fiction,” the kitsune chuckled.
“True. Anyway, stop cutting me off, the description is going to be longer than the actual dream at this point,” Bianca only barely held back the urge to flick Xue Yaling’s forehead… or worse, “Anyway, weird guy muttering shit about ‘Dragon of Song’, ‘Throne of Armaments’ and growing an army, then he and a dragon – probably said Dragon of Song – fought, creating the Dragon’s Fangs mountain range in the process.”
“… Are you being serious right now?”
“Completely.”
“This is some bullshit. How would you just happen to be the first person in hundreds of thousands of years to happen to stumble across a secret of the Ghostwood? You know, I suddenly understand Han Rushu’s frustration…” the kitsune let out a long, exasperated sigh, rubbing her forehead as she relaxed, “Alright, fine. The Dragon of Song is better known as the Crystal Terror these days, at least by humans. Many years ago, it fought a faction and fell in battle, alongside their leader. That faction…”
Where Xue Yaling struggled, Huang Su recalled it quickly.
“The exact name has been lost, as they were relatively short-lived, but they were well known for wielding only the finest weaponry, all of their forces equipped with armour and weapons that easily put every other faction to shame. It was said that their leader, Su Guo, had-”
Bianca suddenly considered something, tuning out of the conversation while remembering the exact words spoken by that man. There was something odd about them, and after the strange woman that they met aboard the Dawntreader, she had spared a decent chunk of time to trying to figure how to distinguish between the words spoken in a tongue native to her, or in the language of the Planar Continents.
To her ears, both typically sounded the same, but there was one way to break that particular trick of the mind.
“… the Throne of Armaments… the Dragon of Song…”
Huang Su paused, raising an eyebrow, “Mistress? What are you saying?”
“Shit, really? Xue Yaling, I agree with you.”
“Wait, what… ah, seriously?” the kitsune rolled her eyes, “You know, that may actually make it better. If there’s a certain link between you two, that could explain why you were able to trigger an anomaly that nobody else had seen. That being said… from my understanding, Su Guo had fallen in the same region as the Dragon of Song. I’m not sure why echoes of his memories, or whatever this is, would end up across the Heart Lake.”
“Well, it’s probably a dream, given the… everything.”
“Doesn’t really change it… It would imply that there’s a lingering consciousness that could dream, which… hm, isn’t strictly impossible, I suppose. Was he at a high realm?”
“I believe he had reached Imperfect Rift, the eighth realm, at least.”
“… That’s not enough lifespan to survive to this time, not to mention that I doubt he would’ve just directed his dreams at us… and if this place somehow captures such things from far away, to capture both an eighth realm’s dreams and to remain unnoticed until now would be practically impossible.”
“Hm. Would it actually be here, though?” Bianca looked around, “Wasn’t it that all the yin in here is flowing in from somewhere?”
“More precisely, nowhere, Mistress,” Huang Su corrected her, but then she narrowed her eyes, “From in from nowhere specific, dream-like energy… Could it be that the Ghostwood is something of an outlet for energy from another location, but as it is done through the medium of dream, none of us are capable of perceiving the origin?”
“That would explain it, wouldn’t it? And it would make a lot of sense why nobody had been able to figure it out until now – I mean, even now that we’ve figured it out, we don’t have a clue where to look for the source, and I’m not sure if Yu Juan would be any more capable in this respect.”
The kitsune shrugged, “Worth a try regardless. Considering how trivially we discovered this little detail, for all I know this is just the Dream Weavers inviting us into their abode.”
“I doubt it… but I suppose we can’t really know for sure until we do it. Put that on the list somewhere, and get a list in the first place.”
“Understood, Mistress,” the Phoenix Sect’s leader nodded, “For now, though… shall we head back, or do you wish to explore further? Assuming that this is a mere outlet, the only things we are likely to find are more stray dreams like the one you had seen, but if that interests you…”
“Hm. Even this one was just absurdly lucky, a tree fell down and somehow led me to a dream – or the dream involved the tree falling, or somehow caused it, fuck if I know,” Bianca shook her head, “Ultimately, I think the chances of finding something else are basically non-existent. We’re just as likely to find more by walking back towards the sect as we are by circling around this place.”
She glanced back at the fallen tree, unable to understand this particular part of the puzzle. If this was all just the influence of dreams that cascaded from another location, why would a tree fall down? Did the dream emerge within the tree and break it?
Despite what she said, Bianca ended up wandering over to the tree instead, examining it and specifically the split between the base and the fallen trunk.
It didn’t look unnatural in any way, so it did just feel like it happened randomly, but… that couldn’t be the case, right? For such a massive coincidence to occur, it had to be the influence of ‘luck’ yet again, but…
“Mistress?”
“This just feels strange, like someone wanted us to find this place – or at least to find something. It feels awfully coincidental, you know?”
“Indeed it does, but as we’ve already established, there could be a luck factor involved in all of this… Whatever, let’s discuss it somewhere that isn’t as yin-filled as this. It’s making my head hurt.”
“Yeah, sure… we’ll chat after we’re back, Yaling.”
“If you wish, Sect Mistress.”