Distantly, she noticed that she had stopped playing, a scream escaping her lips as the monster stuffed the entire upper half of her body into its impossibly wide maw and bit down. The potent qi woven into her gown strained against the tremendous force, and she felt a fang pass through her upper arm like smoke without harm, but more fangs punctured through, driving sharp knives of pain through her back and stomach.

  Panicking, she drew deeper than ever on the dark qi within her dantian. For just an instant, she felt as if she was everywhere within her mist at once and flowed from the giant’s grasp, resolving back into physical form a half dozen meters away with wide eyes.

  She was just in time. A blazing column of white flames slammed into the beast from above. Several of the spikes on its head shattered, and flesh sloughed from its shoulders and back, exposing muscle. Ling Qi could see Gu Xiulan with her hand extended, breathing heavily as flames flickered on her skin and smoke rose from her hair.

  To her shock, the giant just shook its head violently, burnt skin flaking away. It let out a loud, plaintive sob, clutching at its wounds then turned on its heel and fled. Ling Qi felt a terrible pressure on her mist, a dark, unintelligible whisper in her thoughts, and her diapason technique shattered, allowing the giant to exit her mist, running toward the sunflowers.

  She was covered in spit. Her hair was in disarray, and her gown clung to her, soaked through by the giant’s saliva. The punctures on her back and chest burned painfully. She had just escaped being eaten alive.

  Her eyes narrowed, and she met Xiulan’s gaze. Her intent was communicated, and her friend’s expression sharpened into a bloodthirsty grin. Ling Qi banished her flute back into her storage ring and summoned her bow, precious seconds ticking away as the giant’s feet pounded against the stone-tiled path.

  Lightning flared in a crackling corona as she drew back the string of her bow and sighted down the arrow, a blazing star forming at its head. The giant’s head slung too low. Arms irrelevant. Legs pumping too quickly. Center mass. Xiulan’s lance had burned away armor and flesh, exposing weakness. Her gaze sharpened, and everything aside from her target ceased to exist.

  Her arrow tore through the air with a crackling howl and slammed into the giant’s back just under its shoulder blade. It punched through the remaining flesh and muscle, and the spirit let out a wet, gurgling howl as a hole the size of a fist was punched straight through its chest. It stumbled. She had hit a lung. Good.

  The sky burned as another radiant bolt slammed down from above, forcing the already unsteady giant to its knees. Crying out, it shaded its head with its hands, smoke and the stink of burning meat rising from its melting flesh. Ling Qi felt its guttering qi flare up, and its flesh darkened to black, taking on the consistency of stone.

  It wasn’t enough. The giant wasn’t moving any more, and she had a clear shot. A second arrow was drawn, nocked, and fired in one smooth motion, punching another hole straight through the giant’s temple. The arrow erupting from the other side of its head in a spray of green-black gore. A rush of satisfaction filled her as the thing that had stuffed her into its mouth fell to the ground with a crash.

  She pulled her eyes away from the corpse to peer out at the jungle through her steadily dissipating mist. Her ears strained to hear any sound of others drawn to the fight, but it seemed they were clear for the moment.

  “Disgusting creature,” Xiulan said haughtily even as she took a small, bone white pill, restoring some of her flagging qi. “Shall we collect our spoils then?”


  “Do you think it’s a good idea to hang around here?” Ling Qi asked dubiously.

  “Of course not,” Xiulan dismissed. “That does not mean that I am willing to abandon the spoils from such a formidable spirit.”


  Gu Xiulan did have a point. It wouldn’t sit right with her to pass up hard earned loot. Ling Qi fell in beside Xiulan while keeping a wary eye on the jungle. “You know…… as strong as that thing was,” Ling Qi said, voicing the niggling worry, “didn’t that seem a little too easy to you?”


  “Speak for yourself,” Xiulan huffed, giving her a cross look as they stepped up to the corpse. “Burning through that thing’s defenses was quite a drain.”


  “Not what I meant,” Ling Qi clarified. “I mean, the way it acted, if it had stood and fought or used that technique at the end right away……”


  Gu Xiulan scowled down at the thing but nodded. “I suppose you are not wrong in that,” she admitted. “It did seem quite dim.”


  Ling Qi focused her senses as she got to work with one of her knives. Thankfully, some qi remained in the dead giant’s core, making the harvesting easier. She still ended up having her arm coated in sizzling, dark green blood up to the elbow as she dragged the gleaming red sphere out of its belly.

  As she pulled it clear of the gristle and meat though, the core warped and shimmered before her eyes. She nearly dropped the thing before the effect faded, revealing a slip of white jade. Her alarm quickly faded, and she brightened as a brush of her qi revealed that it was active.

  The slip was for Argent Current, the basic form of Argent Sect’s melee combat art. It combined the devouring nature of fire with the persistence of water to break through enemy defenses and bolster allied assault into an unstoppable flow. With mountain and lake for Argent Mirror and now fire wand water for Argent Current, it appeared likely that the other basic Argent arts must also use opposite elements in the Imperial Eight – thunder and wind for one and heaven and earth for the other.

  “Xiulan, look! This must have been a bonus objective. We-”


  “Ling Qi,” Xiulan interrupted her, tone thick with dread. She looked up to see the other girl pointing at the sunflower field. “Look there, and tell me if you see what I think I see.”


  She followed the direction of the girl’s hand, squinting a little to make out the details of the still distant field. She didn’t sense any qi other than the pervasive aura of the jungle itself nor did she see anything moving or alive. “What are you……”


  Then she saw it. A dark green lump was on the ground among the sunflowers. At first she had taken it for a rock or some kind of gourd, but on a closer look, it was covered in bony spikes and had a certain familiar shape. A second lay a few meters to the right and was more exposed. She could see the outward curve of hairless brows and the pointed tips of ears. Her eyes flickered from one lump to the next. There were easily half a dozen, and those were just the ones she could see.

  “.…… Why don’t we get on our way then?” she said, voice pitched high. “We can examine the prize later after all!”


  “Yes, I believe so,” Xiulan agreed fervently, backing up several steps. “Shall we get off the road as well? I cannot imagine that imperial construction would lead to such a place.” It seemed there was a limit to her friend’s usual bravado.

  Ling Qi nodded quickly, backing away from the corpse and sending the prize into her ring. She was suddenly very glad that her first shot had been such a good one. What would have happened if the giant had reached the field?!

  Although the two of them did not throw caution to the wind, they picked up the pace sharply, using the broken path in the trees to quickly retreat from the sunflower field and the white road. Unfortunately, the path did not last much longer. It ended only a few dozen meters away where the messy remains of some beast or another lay scattered over the ground. Ling Qi quickly scanned through the mess for anything of value, but all that remained were chunks of bone and meat, nothing she could immediately detect as useful.

  There was a silent agreement between the two girls to push on further before pausing to patch up, though Ling Qi did quickly pop one of her restorative pills into her mouth to top off her own qi.

  She wanted to be prepared for pushing into the jungle proper because she was sure it wasn’t going to be pleasant. Sure enough, within a minute of stepping into the shadow of the trees, the two of them had to avoid assault from twitching vines and grasping roots, and the teeming insects were seemingly only growing all the more vicious and determined. It was hard going, and they had to slow down considerably to avoid being caught out.

  Ling Qi very quickly found her dislike for this place growing, particularly after receiving a spurt of gelatinous red sap when she sliced through a particularly persistent vine with one of her knives. It stung and itched, and no amount of scraping seemed to get it off entirely. She hoped it would fade with the end of the dream. Otherwise, she might have to cut off her hair just to get the mess out.

  Still, despite growing frustration and a worsening headache, they pushed on. Even when the birdsong picked back up and they began to notice the presence of beasts again, they avoided the worst of the trouble. They found themselves under attack several times during their trek, this time by lesser beasts and predators. The attackers ranged from black-red versions of the little biting bloodsuckers that had hounded them from the beginning to many meters long snakes that blended in with the hanging vines and plants.

  Once, they had even come under assault from a troop of screaming, bright green monkeys with jutting, tusk-like fangs wielding crude rock and stick weapons caked in…… excrement. It was bizarre. The monkeys were easily driven off as their strongest was barely second realm, but the constant harassment left them more and more drained. As conservative as she was being with her qi, Ling Qi’s hand-to-hand and knife skills were certainly getting a workout.

  As they traveled through the jungle, Ling Qi began to notice a presence periodically nearing the edge of her awareness before backing away. There was little she could do about it, but she found her thoughts and focus turning toward the stalker more and more. Eventually, they were able to stop and rest upon finding a pond large enough to contain a rocky islet for them to rest upon, allowing them to apply some healing salves and recover their stamina and qi.

  Threads 102-Descent 4

  Silver lights, the only sign of her activating techniques, winked in the darkness as Ling Qi began to explore. Knowing that Liao Zhu was moving to scout for the enemy, Ling Qi focused her attention on the odd growth that made up the tunnels themselves, feeling the traceries of qi that surrounded her.

  Sixiang was right. This growth was very large indeed. It stretched beyond her senses in some directions. Above, she could feel the solid qi of rock and earth only a few dozen meters above, and behind her, she could feel the same not so far away at all. But below, the growth stretched past her knowing. Yet it didn’t feel like one entity. The closest analogue that came to mind was a hive of bees. The fungus was distinct but united, only a single “mind” or spirit shared between them but assembled from smaller pieces like a child’s blocks.

  All around her, the fungus breathed, the fleshy walls expanding and contracting imperceptibly. It did not seem aware of her. It did not seem aware of anything, so far as she could tell. However, she could feel things within it that put her on guard. Here and there, dotted throughout the mass, she could feel other creatures, beasts, trapped inside, not struggling, merely asleep.

  Sixiang pointed out.

  Ling Qi frowned at the muse’s flippancy and came to a stop in a secluded bend of the narrow tunnel. She rested her hand on the slightly warm fungus. It vibrated slightly under her fingers, but she sensed no other reaction. The beasts it held within were all weak things, mostly first realm with a handful of low second grades slumbering deeper within the fleshy mass. A passive feeder then? It was hard to get a handle on the thing’s power, but she didn’t think it was beyond the third realm.

  Sixiang judged.

  Ling Qi narrowed her eyes, and the silver flecks in them intensified for a moment. It was subtle, so subtle that she had actually missed it before, but miniscule flecks of dream qi were drifting in the air. They were too weak to affect her, which is why they had escaped her notice, but they would put someone from a lower realm asleep given time.

  Sixiang murmured.

  Hanyi asked impatiently. In the back of her mind, Zhengui shifted as well, seeming agitated.

  Ling Qi thought, examining the tunnel. She shifted her thoughts, focusing away from her spirits and instead thinking of Bian Ya, and the flickering node of wind qi that Bian Ya had attached to her flared. She relayed what she had found so far in terse and clipped terms as she continued down the passage.

  “
” Bian Ya’s voice echoed quietly in her thoughts.

  Ling Qi nodded to herself. No time to waste then.

  She breathed out and merged with the darkness of the tunnel.

  Over the course of the next ten minutes, Ling Qi carefully catalogued the tunnels she traveled through in her mind, relaying the information back to Bian Ya as she did so and pausing only to listen to relayed reports from Liao Zhu. The passages through the fungus were twisted, often ending in dead ends, turning back on themselves, or otherwise going nowhere, but she did manage to chart out a route that traveled downward, doing her best to keep east, not only to avoid enemies but also to keep the stone she could feel in range. If nothing else, Xuan Shi could probably set up a passage through a wall if she could find another passage that came near the fungal crevice.

  However, the further she descended, the more difficult it became to go forward. The dream qi in the air grew thicker and thicker until it clung to her like a fog. It didn’t harm her, but, when she would take a step, she would find herself turned around or in a passage she had already been in. Once, she had even found herself in a wholly unfamiliar tunnel, and only Sixiang’s careful guidance had enabled her to step through the veil in just the right way to return back to her starting point.

  So it was that Ling Qi returned to the entrance to report in person without having found a clear path through. Between Elder Jiao’s cloaking talisman and Xuan Shi’s own concealing arrays, she could not even feel her allies until she was directly looking at them. It was an odd and disconcerting feeling. But she didn’t let that show, instead making her report on the phenomena.

  “Do you believe you can penetrate the obstacle given further time?” Guan Zhi asked her. The older girl stood before the others, her arms behind her back.

  “It is possible that I could brute force matters,” Ling Qi answered, thinking of the technique she had so recently mastered. Ephemeral Dreamlit Dancer would allow her to cross the space unhindered, pulling a few people along at a time, but the cost to her qi would be prohibitive given the distances involved. “I do not know how much use I would be afterwards though.”


  Guan Zhi frowned, glancing at Su Ling, who stood stiffly next to Bian Ya and between the two boys.

  “The divination was clear. This is a viable path,” Su Ling replied defensively. “Must be something we’re missing.”


  “Could burn through,” Ji Rong said, raising a fist. “I got a few things for shredding through shitty dreams.”


  He met Ling Qi’s eyes, and she huffed in amusement. Was he thinking of challenging her to a rematch? Some guys were just like that, she supposed.

  “And bring down all of our foes upon us, no doubt,” Xuan Shi noted tetchily.

  “Your toys not rated for a bit of door busting?” Ji Rong taunted.

  “Sect Brother Liao continues to report that the shishigui use only the higher, less infested passages,” Bian Ya relayed. “Messengers, a handful of sentries, and no more. He also reports that the creatures regard this region with suspicion and wariness and move with greater haste and less caution through it.”


  Guan Zhi was silent as they spoke, only holding up a hand to quiet their words after a long moment. “Disciple Ling, you are familiar with spirits of darkness and dreams, correct? Do you believe that this entity is capable of negotiation?”


  “I am unsure,” Ling Qi admitted. “Its power would make it seem so, but its nature makes me uncertain. Sixiang?”


  “I can probably translate, if that’s your meaning. I have weirder cousins. You’ll have to go pretty deep to get its attention properly though,” her muse responded aloud, earning a twitch from Ji Rong.

  “That seems the optimal path for the moment. Attempting violence would also alert the entity before us, so attempting speech first is only sensible,” Guan Zhi said crisply. “Disciple Ling, you will attempt negotiations for passage. Should this fail, we will use Disciple Ji’s methods. Disciple Ling, lead us to the furthest stable point first before you try.”


  Ling Qi nodded, clasping her fists together and bowing her head. She tried not to let her nerves show. She knew what rumors said of her, but really, it wasn’t like she

  negotiated with spirits. But they needed Liao Zhu to focus on keeping track of their enemies, so the duty fell to her. She had to hope that what she had studied of the Melody of the Spirit Seekers would help.

  Sixiang thought encouragingly. Hanyi and Zhengui affirmed the words, and Ling Qi felt her tension bleed away. She wasn’t alone here. She could handle this.

  And so, they descended.

  ***

  It was just her and her spirits. She had left the group a short distance behind at the point where the tunnels had just begun to warp. They were only moments away if the need arose.

  Sixiang murmured, and Ling Qi felt phantom hands on her own. She nodded and glided forward, stepping into the eddy of dream qi that filled the tunnel. She felt the world shift, but this time, she didn’t step through. She flared her qi and stepped in.

  Between one eyeblink and the next, the fungal tunnel was gone. Ling Qi stood atop a shimmering rainbow sea, her boots sending out ripples across the “water.” Hanyi stood at her side, holding her hand, and on her other side, Zhengui towered.

  All around them was chaos. Where the shimmering rainbow pool ended, a maelstrom began. Blurred images, fragments of creatures and environments, mingled and melted too fast to track. However, the images were not what drew her attention. No, that was the eyes.

  Thousands, tens of thousands, of eyes in every shape and size floated, drifted, and spun through the chaos. It reminded her of Elder Jiao but without the laser-like focus or singular will. The eyes gazed upon broken fragments, observing, watching, and longing. As she watched, an eye split open lengthwise along its reptilian pupil and devoured a fragment of hope and longing, another nibbled at an image of a dark and glittering city festooned with bones, and yet another snapped up a simple sliver of animal hunger.

  It all stopped, however, as the ripples of her footsteps reached the edge of the pool, and the eyes all turned to look at her. The hairs on her neck rose, and she very nearly expressed her flute then and there.

  But the eyes didn’t attack. A susurrus of whispers struck her ears like the scratching of fingernails on wood, and Zhengui let out a low rumble of distress, lines of magmatic light flaring on his shell. She rested a hand on his head.

  “I come only to speak,” she said clearly, focusing her attention on the largest eye, a dark green, nearly black, thing with a pupil like a goat.

  Beneath her, the pool, Sixiang, rippled, and she felt the muse’s qi travel outward into the maelstrom. Translating, as it were.

  The eyes hissed and twitched, spinning and rotating around her. Then the scratchy whispering intensified, and Ling Qi hunched her shoulders as they “spoke.” Even filtered through Sixiang, it was uncomfortable.

  [Our Prey. Ours. Go. Go, Silver Dreams. No Sky. No Star. Go. Go. GO. &^%***]

  Ling Qi winced at the incomprehensible noise that the eyes’ words turned into, hammering at her thoughts. It was like a hundred thousand voices all screaming at her at once. At her side, Hanyi shuddered, clenching her eyes shut, and the threatening rumble rising from Zhengui intensified. Zhen let out a hiss like steam escaping from a volcanic vent.

  her little brother threatened.

  The eyes shuddered and spun, shying away. This thing…… It really was afraid of them, wasn’t it? Despite the deep, deep well of power she could sense from them—it?—once she forced herself to look past the disturbing imagery, the greatest thing she could sense from it was fear. Her earlier thoughts returned. The creature fed on the weak, passively consuming those who fell asleep within. Why, then, did their enemies fear and avoid the deeper parts of the crevice?

  With the Melody of the Spirit Seekers echoing under her breath, Ling Qi considered how to approach this fungus.