Chương 50: Chapter 49: TO SPLIT UP

CHAPTER 49 TO SPLIT UP —∞— Jieyuan didn't know which was worse: the way the snake had fully split into two, or the earth armor that had appeared over the now-independent white snake. What he did know was that things had just gotten a great deal more complicated. He got moving immediately. Both Daojue and Meiyao were headed his way, and just behind them, bringing up the rear, were the two snakes, barreling through the clearing.

The snakes might not be paying him any attention, but so much as a glancing blow from them would be more than enough to wreck him given the Law gap between them. And the chances of something like that happening had just, quite literally, doubled. Getting himself past the snakes and to the other side of the pocket was a close thing; Daojue and Meiyao made it easier for him, drawing wide as they came close. Jieyuan didn't let them out of sight for even a moment.

As he rushed to the other side, he turned to look behind him, and once he'd managed to put up some distance between himself and the frenzied snakes he fully turned back to face them. He didn't get to stay put for long.

Daojue and the earth-armored white snake stayed on the opposite end of the pocket, Daojue waving back and forth around its attacks; Meiyao, on the other hand, spent just a few seconds avoiding the green snake's attacks before she suddenly turned and rushed in Jieyuan's direction, back to his side of the pocket. And on her tail, the green snake.

"Go to the other side!" Meiyao shouted at him.

"What—" Her eyes, green and slitted, were wide, her narrow, elongated face feral.

"GO!" Jieyuan didn't question Meiyao; he ran, keeping to the side of the pocket as Meiyao and the snake reached the spot he'd just been at. DANGER. Huaxin, screaming at him. As if Jieyuan needed any more encouragement. He kept running, past the middle. This pocket was larger than normal but nowhere near the size of the ones in Viridian Death City; with the two ongoing clashes on either side of it, there was no such thing as a safe zone.

But he'd gotten the impression it'd be safer to stay as far from Meiyao and the green snake as possible, so he'd have to take his chances on the other side. As he ran he kept his attention split between the two fights; just as he reached Daojue and the white snake's side of the clearing, the green snake froze in place and began to shake. Meiyao had just avoided its bite, but instead of going for another (as it had every time so far), it'd started trembling on the spot.

Jieyuan found out why the next moment as that side of the clearing exploded in green gas. It seemed to come out of every inch of the green snake; within a second, both the snake and Meiyao were hidden from sight, submerged in a thick sea of dark green, corrosive gas. Clearly, just as the white snake had learned a new trick after splitting up, so had its green twin. Heavens have mercy, Jieyuan gritted his teeth.

Meiyao must've sensed this new ability and drawn the green snake away; between the three of them, she was the only one that could've survived that kind of attack. He'd thought the viridian mist was bad enough, but he'd take it any day, any time over the green snake's corrosive gas. And there was nothing he could do about it; he'd have to trust Meiyao would be able to handle it. As for the other half of their problem… Jieyuan focused fully on Daojue and the white snake.

Jieyuan was keeping to the very edge of the fight, constantly moving around to avoid getting caught up in it. He took stock of the situation. Before, at least, Daojue had managed to wound the white snake every other attack. None of those cuts had been significant, but they'd been something. But now, with the earth armor, that wasn't the case anymore. When it'd just left the gas, the white snake hadn't had much armor on its head.

But it'd grown its armor since, and now only its burning green eyes and the white-scaled end of its snout were bared. That didn't stop Daojue from attacking—from the start he'd been targeting its eyes—but now his glancing blows didn't produce any results. They just scraped against the smooth, solid earth armor wrapped around it, and though each time it chipped some of it away, immediately more earth would shift up from the rest of its armor to make up for it.

Jieyuan followed the movements of the fight, keeping far away, circling around the edge of the pocket. The earth armor wasn't the only problem; separated, the snake seemed even faster, and it didn't look like its armor got in its way any. The white snake suddenly spun around, whipping its tail at Daojue—and in the process almost catching Jieyuan entirely by accident.

What the— Jieyuan just barely managed to jump away in time; he landed just a hair's breadth away from the curtain of mist, almost falling through it, the hems of his robes brushing against the denser mist. Adjusting his stance, weighing the scales he was still holding, he furiously thought through his options. That tail whip-spin was new. So as if getting faster and unlocking a new power wasn't enough, splitting it up had also allowed the white snake to use new moves. Just what we rotting needed.

Jieyuan cursed the Heavens. Come on. What do we do now? He could contribute to the fight; in fact, he was in a perfect position to do so. The snake still wasn't paying him any attention, and it had its eyes uncovered. Eyes he could target with the scales he'd gathered. He doubted his earlier attempt, when they'd cornered the white snake in the corrosive gas, had been noticed. He should still have the element of surprise. But that also meant he'd have to make it count.

Because it'd already been proven the snakes could be drawn away from Daojue if you managed to harm it badly enough; Meiyao had done it with the green one. So he'd only be getting one good chance at a surprise attack. Not just count, he decided. He needed to make it a killing blow.

"Daojue!" he shouted.

"I need you to strike at it from above! When its head is near the ground!" His earlier idea, forcing the white snake into a corner and giving it no other choice but to take one of the attacks, had worked. He just hadn't taken into account it could split up and create its own armor, and there was no way he could've known that—though, in hindsight, Meiyao's own earth armor should've been a hint. They could go for something similar again. And Heavens damn it all if the snake still had a trick up its sleeve.

The plan was simple; if Daojue attacked it from above, it'd keep it from going up. The ground would keep it from going down. Jieyuan just had to handle the front, the left and the right. This was assuming the snake couldn't summon a barrier while it had its armor on, but it hadn't done so yet, and if it could? Well, then the whole thing was shot from the start. Maeva, Jieyuan thought. He'd kept her around this entire time, even if she had been quiet throughout the fight.

Does you being better than me at everything extend to throwing things?

"I believe so, yes," she whispered in his hear, no-nonsense. Can you throw three—no, make it four things—at the same time, calculating their trajectories—"Yes," Maeva cut him off before he even finished the thought. Even when he was talking to her like this, in his head, he sometimes forgot she could read the entirety of his mind, even the thoughts he didn't direct at her. What will you need?

"Everything down from your neck." You have it, then. The next instant, Maeva took over; his body save for his head became numb and distant. Jieyuan was aware, though, of the way Maeva shifted his stance, the way she adjusted her grip on the stacked scales he was holding in each hand. She swept his hands by his pouch, depositing some of the scales he was holding until he only had two left in each hand. She further adjusted his hold on the remaining four scales.

Working his fingers, she slid one in each hand forward so that he was pinching them between thumb and index finger. The other one she pushed back, slotting them between his two knuckles just under the pinched scales. She did it all in instants, as natural as someone who'd been doing this all their life. Just where are you getting all this from? He'd never done any throwing before—not darts nor knives—in either life. He couldn't think of any reference material Maeva could be using for this.

"You've seen people throw things before," Maeva replied, quietly, making her voice sound like she was by his side.

"And it's all geometry and physics, really. It's like I keep telling you, your unconscious does all sorts of complex calculations all the time. I'm just making them conscious." It was sentences like that that made him doubt whether he'd ever be able to reach Maeva's level. But he let it be; Maeva's incomprehensible skill worked in his favor. As his old man used to say, it was fine and proper to bite offered gold, but once you confirmed it was really gold, you didn't ask where it'd come from. Gold was gold.

Meanwhile, Daojue was keeping the white snake engaged, weaving in and out of its frantic attacks, though it wasn't as if the beast was giving him much choice in the matter. Wordlessly, Maeva drew his body closer to the fight; and she followed the flow of the fight in a way Jieyuan hadn't come close to matching. Nothing—no glancing attacks, no unintended twists—came even close to touching his body.

Maeva could predict the snake's moves so well that if Jieyuan didn't know any better, he'd have thought she had her own form of Fatebloom Instinct. Now he realized he'd been wrong, earlier, when he'd thought how not even Maeva would allow him to match Meiyao and Daojue here. Even after everything, he'd still underestimated the things she could do with his body.

Now that he had some breathing room, he sneaked a glance at the other side of the clearing, where Meiyao was fighting the green snake, though he didn't take his eyes completely off Daojue and the white snake. But he couldn't see anything on Meiyao's side; the was still there, hiding it all from sight; if anything, it seemed even thicker, even denser. At its boundary he could see the plants on the ground steaming. The smell of it was almost a physical thing, stinging and burning.

A mundane would've long since been reduced to tears. The gas wasn't still, though. It shifted and turned wildly, sometimes more strongly, sometimes only faintly, dragged by wind currents—currents produced by some massive body he only caught brief hints of before it was swallowed again by the acrid green. He took that as a positive sign. If the snake was moving around like that, that could only mean meant Meiyao was still hanging in there, giving the green snake trouble, keeping it occupied.

"Soon," Maeva suddenly whispered from within him, and he focused back on Daojue and the snake. Soon? He wasn't sure what Maeva was basing her judgment on; he needed Daojue to attack from above for his plan to work, but Daojue was just dodging it as usual, weaving out of its rapid lunges. Just a few seconds later, though, Jieyuan realized that something had changed. Daojue had stopped striking back. He was strictly dodging.

He was also keeping close to the ground, and didn't seem to be moving much farther from his current spot, doing some very narrow—and risky—dodging. More importantly, Daojue wasn't the only to have changed patterns. The white snake was now keeping slow, slithering around on the grass like a proper snake. It must've changed as a reaction to Daojue's new approach. Daojue has a plan, Jieyuan realized.

He was still wondering about it when the white snake rushed past Daojue, having just failed a lunge at him; it didn't waste any moment curving back toward its target, but during that time Daojue had kicked off the ground, Gleaming End raised over his head, angled down. All of this while putting the snake's head directly opposite Jieyuan, giving him the clearest shot possible. In the split second the white snake's green eyes snapped upward to where Daojue was thrusting down at it, Maeva moved.

She whipped his arms forward at the same time as she snapped his wrists, and the four scales in his hands were sent flying at the same time. The scales flew so fast Jieyuan barely caught a glimpse of their trajectory; at the very next moment, the white snake's eyes flicked over onto him. But it didn't matter; Daojue was striking him above, while the shards were covering all the other directions.

Unless it could summon a wall of earth, at least one of the attacks was landing on its eye— The white snake's head abruptly plunged down. Into the ground. And the snake disappeared. From one moment to the next, its entire body burrowing underground. The thrown scales hit nothing, cutting through empty air. Gleaming End likewise stabbed at nothing as Daojue landed. DANGER! Huaxin screamed at him.

"What—" Jieyuan wasn't sure who said it, himself or Maeva or both of them. And then Daojue was dashing straight toward him, moving as fast as Jieyuan had ever seen him move. And then the ground under Jieyuan erupted, and he was thrown into the air. There was a blur of movement as Daojue barreled into him mid-air, grabbing onto him. Right under them, the gaping maw of the white snake surged from the ground under them. Momentum carried them through the mist curtain right behind him. And then, through it.

Into another pocket. Jieyuan would've hit the ground rolling if it weren't for Daojue's grip on him, and the fact Maeva was still in control. As it was, Maeva had him push off Daojue as they were nearing the ground, and managed a firm landing. Then Daojue was dragging him back, further into the clearing, and Maeva let him.

"Wait—" Jieyuan said, staring intently at the curtain of mist they'd fallen out from. They were in another pocket. They'd left Meiyao behind. Where was the snake?

"WAIT!" Not really thinking, he wrested control over his body back from Maeva, shrugged off Daojue— But it was then that the snake came through into the clearing. It wasn't armored anymore, its whole massive, white-scaled body bared again. His stomach dropped. And not because of the huge snake lunging at them, but because the direction it'd entered in. It wasn't the same one they'd just come from, but off to the side. It all struck him like a series of gut punches. The viridian mist; its perception-warping effects.

The length of rope connecting him to Meiyao, their anchor against those effects—which wasn't there anymore.

"No no no no no," Jieyuan said.

"We're going back!" As the snake rushed toward them, this time it was him grabbing Daojue—and Daojue who went along with it as he rushed back in the direction they'd come from. The white snake was about to reach them when they stepped back through the boundary of the pocket, Jieyuan's heart hammering in his chest.

Heavens, please, Heavens, don't you rotting dare do this— Going through the mist curtain, what Jieyuan found on the other side was a large, mostly bare pocket, like the one they'd been fighting in earlier with Meiyao. Like it, but not the same one. There was absolutely no sign of that zone of corrosive gas Meiyao and the green snake had been fighting inside.

The next moment the white snake came through—from the opposite direction they'd come from, which only emphasized just how much the mist must've messed with their senses while crossing it. Jieyuan and Daojue jumped to the sides as the snake lunged at them, him to the left and Daojue to the right. As the white snake turned around, its massive yellow eyes flicked between him and Daojue. And then it made its decision. Jieyuan watched as the beast lunged after Daojue, giving chase.

Maeva was saying something, but he ignored her. He took a deep breath; he gathered all his alarm, all his panic, and then crushed it, fed it all to the fires of his mind. He forced himself to forget about Meiyao and the things he could do nothing about. And then he focused entirely on the present. On the snake and on Daojue. And on not only getting out of this alive but also on killing the Heavens-damned snake. Killing it good. Killing it dead.

He was taking more scales out of his pouch when the snake, after fruitlessly trying to bite at Daojue a few more times—and getting a few more cuts for its troubles, now that it didn't have its armor to protect it—suddenly went underground again. Jieyuan wasn't nearly as taken aback this time, and he got a good look at it as it disappeared into the earth. It wasn't burrowing down; far from it.

Its whole body simply sank down into the undergrowth and then out of sight, as if all the earth under it had turned into water. Except there wasn't a splash or so much as a ripple; the whole length of the snake just disappeared seamlessly into the ground, leaving only a patch of ruined, wrecked earth to mark its exit. If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation. Daojue went very still. The whole world seemed to come still, really.

Jieyuan scanned the ground, wide-eyed, unwilling to miss the smallest detail. As tense as he'd ever been. Nothing seemed to change. But then Daojue jumped to the side, and the next instant the snake exploded out of the ground headfirst, maw wide open, where Daojue had just been. Jieyuan watched on, keeping his distance; now, with the whole pocket to work with rather than just half of it, he had a much easier time. Daojue avoided the next few strikes, and not long later the snake flowed into the ground again.

It went out of sight for a second, two, three… Just like last time, Jieyuan didn't catch any sign that might hint at the snake's current position. No swelling of the earth, nothing. But also just like last time, Daojue dodged at the very last moment, and the snake bit at empty air as it burst off the ground like a pillar. Jieyuan didn't think this was just another Daojue thing, though.

Didn't think that this was just another one of Daojue's unexplainable abilities—which, now that he knew more, he was fairly sure were bloodgifts. No, rather, it felt like the answer was just at the tip of his tongue… Maybe … He focused his soulsenses on the earth at his feet. He could feel it beneath the dense undergrowth, a grainy kind of impression. The earth itself was chromal, filled with the particles of dead chromal beasts and plants. The earth. That's it.

When he'd been around Meiyao, he hadn't been able to sense her earth armor. He also hadn't been able to sense the white snake's the times it'd come within range of his soulsenses. He didn't know for sure the mechanics of the white snake's spiritskill, but if he had to guess, it turned a section of the earth on the ground chromal—and as such, Orangerealm—before manipulating it. When it went underground, it had to be doing the same thing. And so, it had to turn the earth around it Orangerealm.

Meaning that he wouldn't be able to sense it. So it wasn't the presence of something they had to watch out for, Jieyuan realized, eyes narrowing as he saw the snake fade underground again. It was the lack of presence. He couldn't tell how deep underground the snake went, but given the lack of any movement on the surface, the exact depth didn't matter much; it had to be controlling all the earth above it. Which would explain how Daojue had enough time to dodge before the snake came through.

The snake had yet to surface. Jieyuan watched Daojue, waiting for it to surface, already thinking of how he might be able to take advantage of that. But then Daojue's gaze snapped to him from across the pocket, violet eyes wide, and he shouted, "DOWN!" Jieyuan was already jumping even before the earth he'd been just sensing beneath him blinked out of his soulsenses. And then the snake's head burst free off the ground just in front of him.

Its massive fangs were liked curved spikes, and its forked tongue flicked upwards as it rose into the air. Its yellow eyes were the size of his chest, and the massive slits of its pupils fixed themselves on him as it got off the ground. In a blur of movement, it curved its body and launched itself at him, the rest of its body surfacing. Jieyuan fell into a full retreat. Maeva!

She took back control without a word, and as the snake's blurring form reached him, she had him smoothly step to the side; the massive bulk of the snake slithered past him in a streak of white. And then Maeva was jumping; where he'd just been the snake's tail-end scythed through with vengeance. His feet had just touched the ground again when the snake coiled into itself and lunged at him again. Maeva had him jump to the side, avoiding the attack by inches. Jieyuan only just barely kept track of it all.

It was one thing watching Daojue face the snake from afar. It was another thing entirely when he was the one playing the world's most dangerous game of tag. Barely a second had passed since the snake had burst out of the ground. It was at Orangerealm, with the blurring speed to match. But just like when she'd taken control before, Maeva had him moving like she had precognition, and he got out of the barrage of attacks unscathed.

And now Jieyuan knew that it had to be precognition—because Maeva was reacting faster than he could see.

"Not quite," Maeva suddenly said. Her voice sounded perfectly clear despite the thundering beat of his heart, the blood thumping in his ears, the snake's incessant hissing and growling.

"Sight isn't instantaneous. The physics of it aside, it takes some time before the brain processes what you see. Soulsenses are different. They're instantaneous, and the feedback goes straight to your mind through your soul." All the while she spoke Maeva didn't stop moving his body, dodging the snake's rapid flurry of attacks. But you can't sense it— Jieyuan cut off the thought midway, recalling the way he'd just figured out to track the snake's movements underground.

"Exactly," Maeva said. As she dodged another sweeping tail whip, she had him kick off the snake's body, vaulting over it.

"I'm tracking the absence of ambient chroma." Heavens, how come the list of things he needed to learn grew longer faster than he could go through it? As the snake turned around again for another go at him, Daojue rushed in from the side, stabbing Gleaming End at its eye. It jerked its head out of the way and the attack missed, but the beast had lots its rhythm, its momentum. Maeva managed to put in more distance. The snake didn't give chase to Jieyuan, focusing on Daojue, and that deadly dance from earlier resumed.

"What do you want to do?" Maeva asked him. She'd already adjusted his grip on the scale shards he'd taken out earlier. Throwing scales won't work, not like last time. Though the snake was intent on Daojue right now, there was no doubt it hadn't forgotten about him. No more surprise attacks. Whatever advantages his lack of presence had offered earlier were gone. But the snake's ability to delve underground was as much of a problem as it was an opportunity.

Every time the snake burst out of the ground, it did so with its mouth wide open, trying to swallow them whole. So far, they'd been targeting its eyes and snout because those were its most sensitive parts. But one good strike through the mouth would do just as well, if not better.

"Daojue!" he shouted.

"The next time it goes underground, before it comes out, don't jump out of the way— stab down instead!" Simple plans worked best. There was no guarantee that the snake would go for Daojue, though, so… Maeva, we need the bigger scales.

"Got it." She reached into his pouch, depositing the smaller throwing scales he'd taken out earlier, and bringing out two of the more complete scales he'd picked up. If it comes for us, jump up and throw them straight down, hard as you—hard as I—can. While Jieyuan had been thinking a plan, Daojue had been getting better, more skilled, as he adapted to the snake's patterns. Now Daojue was attacking back every time he dodged, almost all his hits were landing, and each strike deeper than the last.

None of Daojue's attacks struck the eyes yet, but one had come very close to the snout; for the last few exchanges, Daojue had been targeting one particular wound under the snake's maw. Jieyuan even had a feeling that if he left it alone, Daojue might have just won the battle of attrition, chipping the snake down little by little. But then the snake seemed to have had enough of it, because it flowed underground again.

In the half-second it took for the snake to go fully out of sight, Jieyuan felt Maeva tense his body, lower his stance, prepping his legs for the jump and his arms for the throw. The seconds passed excruciatingly slow. Jieyuan's heart hammered against his ribcage. But then more seconds passed. And then some more, and then more still, until it'd been over a minute, and no sight yet of the snake. Still Daojue didn't move. Neither did Jieyuan. Jieyuan frowned. Had it actually left? Decided to cut its losses? Huaxin?

DANGER. The warning wasn't as strong as it'd been the first time the snake had gone underground, but it still packed enough of a punch to tell him that they weren't alone in the pocket. It's a trap. The snake had at least some level of intelligence, and it looked like it'd realized that its straightforward approach to hunting them down wasn't getting it anything but cuts.

Jieyuan knew it had to have some way of sensing them while it was underground; he'd bet his weight in gold that the snake was still down there, waiting for them to let their guard down. Maeva, walk around a bit slowly. Let's see if we can bait it. She answered by moving his body as he'd instructed. A slow step forward, then another. Daojue shot him a look. Maeva kept his feet moving, all casual-like.

"I'm trying to draw it out," Jieyuan said. He kept his tone level, easy. The snake couldn't understand their words, but it might be sensitive to tone and volume. Jieyuan didn't know if it could hear them, but it cost him nothing to play the part.

"If it attacks me, throw Gleaming End—" The ground underfoot vanished to his soulsenses. Maeva pushed off, launching them straight upward. And underneath, the snake burst out of the ground, its gaping maw wide open, its tongue flicking out. Mid-air and still rising, his arms drew back for the throw, still under Maeva's command. But then then the snake's long, forked tongue latched onto his ankle, wrapping around it. WHAT THE— Maeva immediately reacted, bending his body down and forward.

Instead of throwing down the scales, she had him sweep them low, slashing toward the tongue from both sides. They cut through the fleshy appendage, but by that point the snake's fangs were just inches away, white and dripping with a yellowish, milky substance. ROT— A gleaming, crystalline streak surged from the side; the beast snapped its mouth shut just before it could swallow him, jerking its head back. But it was a moment too late, and Gleaming End burrowed itself its right eye. Maeva didn't waste a moment.

She let loose the two shards toward its other eye while having his legs kick off the snout, propelling him away from the beast and toward the ground. She made an easy landing, just a handful of yards away from the snake. Normally she'd have had him dashing away from the snake in this situation, putting up distance between them, but this time she had him stay put. And that was because the white snake wasn't much of a threat right now.

It was still there, half its body raised in the air, but it wasn't paying attention to him and Daojue; the massive beast was too busy letting out a high, pitched shriek of utter agony, its body convulsing and contorting wildly. Sticking out of its right eye was Gleaming End, while two scale shards were stabbing into left one. White and green goo and blood bled out of the eyeballs where they were punctured. The snake was in agony. Maimed. Blinded. But it wasn't dead yet, and Jieyuan wasn't taking any chances.

He'd enough of this earth-bending, frog-tongued over-sized worm. I want to finish it. Maeva gave up control without a word, and he shot forward, drawing the Shifting Sisters as he did. Daojue had started moving too, but Jieyuan was closer. Just two steps, and then he kicked off the ground, into the air. The snake didn't seem to notice him, still flailing about and shrieking. Jieyuan controlled the Shifting Sisters' weights to adjust his trajectory, making him level with the snake's right eye.

He began falling toward it, toward its open, shrieking mouth—and just as he was about reach it, he whipped his leg out, aiming at the space right in front of its right eye. It was a near thing, and he almost missed with the beast's frantic movements; but his feet made contact with Gleaming End's butt. There was a bit of resistance, but then he felt the give, the crack, as Gleaming End disappeared almost completely inside the snake's head. Jieyuan dropped back to the ground. And, just a beat later, so did the snake.

Heart racing, Jieyuan eyed the fallen beast. Its body was foot away, well within arm's reach. Directly in front of him was its eye, or at least what remained of it; the massive, wet globe had popped like a bubble. He could just make out the crystalline end of Gleaming End's shaft peeking out among the ruined mass of white, green, and red that had once been an eye the size of his chest. The beast was dead.

The snake's massive body was still trembling, and Jieyuan had no way to confirm its death for sure—beasts didn't lose their spiritual body upon death like humans lost their soul—but Huaxin's warnings had faded. And unless the snake's biology was completely unlike that of its mundane counterparts, Jieyuan couldn't see it surviving this kind of damage. No, it was dead. They'd done it. Jieyuan kept staring at it as the trembling slowly died into faint twitches, which then gave way to stillness.

Footsteps sounded behind him; he glanced back to see Daojue walking over. Wordlessly, Daojue stopped by his side, stuck his gauntleted hands inside the ruined eye, and pulled Gleaming End out. There was a wet, plucking sound, accompanied by a little shower of goo and blood. The eye had already looked grisly before, but with Gleaming End's abrupt exit, it didn't even look real anymore, more like a disgusting half-formed swirl of raw color. Daojue paid none of it any mind.

He gave Gleaming End a sharp flick, and all the gore on it splattered into the ground, leaving the crystal spear clean as a blank slate. Daojue didn't say anything, but he didn't move away, either. Just stood there by his side, staring down at the snake. It was dead. They'd done it. Jieyuan kept repeating the words to himself. But each time he did it, they rang shallower, duller. And as his heart slowly settled, he felt whatever lingering thrill of victory and survival peter out. He stared at the snake.

The Orangerealm snake they'd killed. That was an accomplishment and a half, to be sure: a fourth-step and a fifth-step Redsouls, killing an Orangerealm beast. Sure, they had an Orangerealm weapon with them, but Jieyuan couldn't see any other cultivator at their steps doing what they'd just did. Any other, that was, except Meiyao. Meiyao. That was the reason why Jieyuan couldn't enjoy their victory. Meiyao. Jieyuan stared at the snake, blankly. They'd won the fight, but they might have just lost everything else.

There was a particular thought that came to Jieyuan every day. And it was that without Meiyao, he and Daojue would've been dead several times over. It appeared the snake had just given them a chance to put it to the test. Jieyuan looked up, swept his eye across the pocket. He didn't know what he was looking for, but he didn't find it anyway. Enough. Jieyuan exhaled again, more slowly. Moping and languishing did nobody any good, and least of all him. He found his center, forced himself to think things through.

What are the facts? They'd killed the snake, but got separated from Meiyao in the process. What are the consequences? Their chances to survive the Dome without Meiyao didn't look remotely good. There was also how without her, they couldn't counteract the mist's effects, and so had no guarantee they'd be headed toward the center, the supposed exit of this place. What can we do about it?

"We'll wait," Jieyuan said. The words slipped out just as he thought them, and he felt his heart jump as he grabbed onto this new idea. Daojue looked at him.

"The more pockets we cross, the farther away from Meiyao we're getting," Jieyuan said.

"We're only two pockets so far. She might be able to find her way back to us still. So we'll wait." Daojue just kept looking at him, but Jieyuan's words were as much to Daojue's benefit as they were for his own.

"We made a lot of noise during out fight, so beasts might be drawn over, or they might stay away," Jieyuan continued.

"It's a coin toss, really. And if we set off, odds are we'll run into beasts anyway. Meiyao can tell her way around the viridian mist, and even with her leading the way we'd still come across several beasts a day. So we'll wait." And that was that. Jieyuan didn't let himself ponder the possibility that Meiyao might fail to overcome the green snake she'd been left behind with.

If anything, with him and Daojue gone, she might even be able to work her bloodgifts on it; even if she couldn't get it fully under control, it might be enough to give her a chance to get a killing blow in. Meiyao's odds were good. Way better than theirs had been, really. Meaning that if they'd managed to kill the snake, so could she. Meiyao was alive, and that was that. Now they just had to wait for her to find them, and they'd be able to carry on their way.

"Jieyuan…" Maeva said slowly, carefully. He knew that tone. Glancing to the side, he saw that she'd manifested beside him at some point, and had her eyes on him, frowning. He knew that look, too. He didn't care that Daojue would notice and gave her a look of his own. Don't. Maeva pursed her lips, slowly shook her head.

"I also think her odds are good—" Guaranteed, Jieyuan stressed.

"Guaranteed, yes," Maeva said.

"But Meiyao's ability to navigate the viridian mist isn't as good as—" Waiting is still the smartest option, Jieyuan cut in. The best-case scenario is Meiyao finding us, and every other scenario is certain death, if not immediately, then in the long run. So we need to stack the odds of that first scenario happening.

"But how long will you wait for her, then?" Maeva insisted. As long as it takes. He dropped the command, and Maeva vanished. Jieyuan put their conversation out of his mind and turned to regard the snake's corpse again. This time, what he got as he looked at it wasn't the high of victory or the dread of the future; it was an idea, rather. They'd be waiting for Meiyao, that much was set in stone, but that didn't mean they couldn't do something else in the meantime.

He moved closer to the massive corpse, to the side of the eye, and ran his head across the plate-like scales covering it. There was a patch that looked ridged, warped. Not from Daojue's cuts, though, but from that brief acid shower the white snake had taken before it'd gotten its earth armor up. The damage seemed the worst here, at the head. Still, the scales were serviceable. And the ones farther down were just about whole, anyway.

"Hmmm." Jieyuan was no refiner (not yet, despite Meiyao's best efforts) and even if he was, he wouldn't be able to work on materials at a higher realm anyway. But there was always the mundane way of refining raw materials into useful things. And even in their raw state, the scales would be plenty useful already. Jieyuan had certainly put them to good use during their fight.

"Daojue," he said, nodding toward Gleaming End, "I don't suppose you've ever done any skinning before?" Jieyuan didn't suppose his friend had, being clan-born and all. Jieyuan had never done it, either. But between them, using Gleaming End and the scales he'd already picked up, they could figure something out. And it wasn't even skinning proper he had in mind; they just needed to pry out the scales. Daojue said nothing, but he stepped forward, raising his spear. That was answer enough. They got straight to work.

If there was one good thing about Daojue, it was that he didn't ask questions; he just got things done. Then again, he reckoned Daojue could also see the worth of carrying Orangerealm scales around with them. Jieyuan spent the first few minutes figuring out the best way to do it with the scales he already had, before he realized he was being stupid, moved over to one of the cuts, and used it as a starting point.

He quickly found that the warped, darkened scales that had taken an acid shower were harder, tougher than the undamaged ones, so he used those for cutting and prying. Daojue got the hang of it much faster; just cracked a section with Gleaming End, dug the spearhead in for leverage, and then wrenched the scales out. They'd have probably been faster if they fully threw themselves into the job, but a beast could pop up at any moment, so they kept their guards up the entire time.

It didn't help that the consequences of taking an agility augmenter had made themselves known. His mantle was a little raw, his soulsenses slightly dull; he was also feeling oddly sluggish, his body just so slightly unresponsive. He soldiered through it, though, and over all they made good progress; after just a few hours, they were already a fourth of the way through the snake, a sizeable pile of scales lying to the side of them.

The snake's head had been reduced to a bloody, wretched mound of flesh, but everything Jieyuan had seen so far as a cultivator had him taking sights like that in perfect stride. Jieyuan stepped away, nodding as he took in the several hundred scales they'd stacked together. There was a lot he could do with Orangerealm scales. Particularly if he worked them into more useful shapes. From the obvious throwing knifes and daggers, to caltrops and makeshift shrapnel bombs.

If they ever found themselves facing Orangerealm beasts again, things would be turning out way different. He was feeling good with this haul. All that was missing now was Meiyao, but he was sure that wouldn't be the case for long. —∞— Several hours had passed, and no signs of Meiyao yet. Jieyuan looked up anyway, gave the pocket a quick scan. Just as he'd been doing every few minutes since they'd started working on the white snake's corpse. Come on, where are you?

By now Meiyao must've long since finished up with the green snake, either killed it or gotten away from it. So she had to be looking for them. Any moment now, Jieyuan reckoned, she'd be coming through the denser curtain of mist, stepping inside their pocket. He could even see it. She'd have probably put on new robes, and she'd be looking normal again, more beautiful than anyone had any right to be. They just had to wait. He returned to the snake's corpse, resumed prying off its scales. Daojue hadn't stopped.

—∞— They were done. Almost ten thousand scales piled up in a small mountain. Jieyuan stood in front of the pile, nodding with satisfaction. It'd taken them nearly half a day to collect all the scales. In that time, no beasts had appeared. Neither had Meiyao. But she was near; Jieyuan was sure of it. They just had to wait a little more.

"I'll take first watch," Jieyuan said to Daojue. Daojue settled down on the ground, closed his eyes. Jieyuan, meanwhile, picked up two scales from the pile. One of them acid-hardened, the other not. Then he plopped down next to Daojue, and started grinding them against each other. He might as well get started with those ideas of his. He'd never done anything like this before, but he'd always been quick to pick up new skills. —∞— Jieyuan held up the snake-scale dagger he'd just finished carving, looking it over.

Admiring it. Granted, calling it a dagger might be a bit of a stretch, but it had the shape of one. Kind of. Vaguely. It had a point, anyway. And it was his best one yet. He set it down beside him, in a quickly growing pile of makeshift scale daggers. It'd been a couple of hours since he'd started carving daggers, and Meiyao had yet to appear. There was nothing to it except to wait some more.

"Daojue, it's your turn," Jieyuan said. Daojue, who was still sitting beside him, opened his eyes. Jieyuan, in turn, closed his. He would've liked to stay up a bit longer, but exhaustion was settling in. The aftereffects of the agility augmenter certainly weren't helping. And it wouldn't be a bad thing, to open his eyes only to see that Meiyao had arrived at some point. He sure could use a happy surprise like that. —∞— Jieyuan opened his eyes. He didn't know how many hours had passed, but he didn't care.

Only one thing mattered right now. He looked around, scanning the pocket, searching for that familiar brown hair, those green eyes. All he found was Daojue's even, violet-eyed stare. Jieyuan felt something cold and hard and dark settle in his gut. No. He didn't know just what it was, exactly, that he was denying—didn't want to know, really—but he did it with all he had. No. NO. Meiyao was coming. Something must've happened; maybe she'd gotten sidetracked.

The very worst Jieyuan was willing to accept was that she'd been wounded, and that she was recovering before she set out for them. And there was good news: he was already feeling significantly better; he still wasn't fully recovered from the agility augmenter—his soulsenses still felt a little off—but he was nearly there. Jieyuan focused back on Daojue. Lying by his friend's side was a stacked row of scale-turned-daggers. Like his own, but much better made. They actually looked like daggers.

There were also way more of them; fifty to his ten. Jieyuan noticed, then, that Daojue was holding a scale that was already halfway looking like a dagger, and that his other hand was on Gleaming End, wrapped right around the base of the spearhead. In the process of using the spear like a carving knife. Something about the sight of it almost had Jieyuan laughing. Maybe it was the idea of Daojue doing something mundane like this.

Not to mention using a weapon like Gleaming End—the treasure of the Gleaming Stone Sect—for carving.

"Nice work," Jieyuan said, nodding at Daojue's new daggers.

"I think that's enough daggers, though. I'm thinking some throwing blades, next. What do you say?" Daojue said nothing. But after Jieyuan picked up more scales and returned to his spot, he saw that the scale Daojue was working on was now looking flatter, smaller. —∞— Hours passed. Then a day. Then another day. Then a third. And when Meiyao didn't appear even as the fourth day drew to a close, Jieyuan lost what little hope he'd still been holding onto.