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Chapter 111
🕑 Added 2023-05-11 08:14:31 +0000 UTCWhen Xie Jin had said his home was much lower than other places in Zumulu, Chen Haoran should have perhaps expected the understatement. The Basin was an apt name; from above, it looked like someone had buried a bowl into the earth and dropped a jungle into it. Waterfalls spilled over the sheers cliffs surrounding the Basin and were swallowed into the dark jungle below. The dense, dark green treetops obscured their direction from further view but from the cliffs it was obvious where the water ended up going.
Like a bowl, the contours of the Basin sloped downward and at its lowest point was a lake that glinted like black onyx under the sun’s light. A mountain protruded from the lake, or perhaps it was the lake that formed around the mountain? Whatever the case, it struck up into the sky like a thorn. It was not the only giant feature in the Basin. Black bones struck up like skyscrapers all across the jungle. The remains of rib cages towered over trees like black spiders. Spines, femurs, skulls, all black as night and titanic in scale and strewn like a careless undertaker tossed them from the coffin. It was the black skeleton on the mountain that truly pulled Chen Haoran’s attention, however.
Well… it was wrong to say it was on the mountain. Over it, perhaps? Through it? In the simplest terms, it was impaled. The mountain speared straight through the skeleton’s chest and made its ribcage a mess of splintered bone. Its four limbs were splayed outward in an immortal dying gasp. Its half-submerged skull faced the sky, drowning even in death. There was some all too human ancient tragedy behind this skeleton, which alone would have been enough to enthrall him. Instead, Chen Haoran observed it in closed-mouth horror. It was all too human, from its skull to its thumbs, as if a regular skeleton were blown up to immense proportions.
“Unsettling, isn’t it?” Jiang Lei spoke beside him. “Even for us born in Zumulu, the Basin bones are unnerving. For all that we don’t know anything about the regular skeletons, we know even less about the Black Bones.”
“Hyperbole much?” Chen Haoran asked.
Jiang Lei shrugged. “Not really. We have a thousand more questions about the Black Bones, and so lack a thousand more answers.”
Chen Haoran refrained from pointing out that was still hyperbole. He peered over the edge of the cliff and judged the precipitous drop. While he had a little experience with falling from high places now, this fall would have killed him were he still a Qi Realm. Now though?
“I could probably make that.”
Phelps nipped at his ear.
“We could make that,” he corrected.
“No making anything,” Jiang Lei said. “There’s a way down.”
“Where?”
Jiang Lei raised his hand toward the sun in lieu of an answer. He squinted as he used his hand as a measure. Chen Haoran had a thought watching him and looked directly at the sun and— Nope. Chen Haoran blinked the colors out of his eyes. Looking at the sun was still a bad idea, even for a Liquid Meridian.
Jiang Lei finished his analysis and looked left and right. He turned to Wang Xiao with a serious look. Wang Xiao shrugged and shook his head.
“Right,” Jiang Lei said. “It’s somewhere.”
Chen Haoran sighed.
—————
They eventually found a way down after a bit of back and forth. A giant slanted leg bone, its top half buried into the cliffs, served as a natural ramp down into the Basin. Walking down it was a halting mixture of walking and sliding. Despite however many millennia it had been since its owner fell, the bone was smooth, with a polished slickness. Deep, bell-like echoes thrummed within the bone’s hollow with every step. Once they got far enough down they leapt from the bone straight to the ground. Jiang Lei and Wang Xiao landed with practiced elegance. Phelps squealed in his ear and took ahold of them with his power, and Chen Haoran gracefully floated down.
The jungle in the Basin was yet again another change in what were otherwise the same trees. It was a dark jungle, but not for lack of light. This was a wet dark. The kind that only water could make when it was spilled and left alone. The trees looked like they’d been soaked and never had the chance to dry. Water dripped from their dark green leaves. The smell of wet earth was ever present.
“It’s quiet,” Wang Xiao said.
It was. There were no bird calls, no chittering of insects, no howls of monkeys or roars of far-off predators. It was such a stark difference compared to the jungle above that Chen Haoran seriously considered if there was a Silencing Formation set up around them.
“The ecology in the Basin is rather unique as far as I know,” Jiang Lei said.
“Master told me all the poison in Zumulu collects here,” Wang Xiao said.
“That’s an exaggeration,” Jiang Lei denied. “Although there’s a higher density of poisonous creatures here than anywhere else. Do be careful.”
“And you said this place is safer?” Chen Haoran asked in disbelief.
“When you’re friends with a Black Bone Shaman, there’s nowhere safer.” Jiang Lei paused. “You wouldn’t happen to know which tribe your friend is from, would you?”
“I don’t.” He didn’t even know there were multiple tribes here. “Would you even know what to do with that information?”
“I wouldn’t, but it’d be nice to have a name so we can be pointed in the right direction.”
“Who would we be asking? The trees?”
“I’m sure the Black Bones will find us eventually.” Jiang Lei took the lead and entered the jungle. “We can only stomp around in their home for so long until we’re discovered.”
The jungle was eerily silent. The only sound accompanying them were the crunching of the leaf litter beneath their feet and the wind swaying through the branches. The canopy above them still had that translucent quality that allowed sunlight to pass through, but the brightness had been sapped from it. The Basin was a waning day compared to the morning quality of the jungle above. What the leaves took in brightness, however, they added in color. Each wet leaf became a prism, and with the millions of leaves refracting light, the whole jungle was carpeted in rainbows.
Xie Jin had told him about this. About how colorful the Basin became during the day. Compared to seeing it in person, however, his stories fell far short.
Phelps hummed and relaxed on his back. Chen Haoran wondered if he was reminded of home. The wetness of the Basin was similar to the Spa Cavern in that regard. The sloth rested his head on Chen Haoran’s shoulder and silently stared at each shifting rainbow as they placed across tree bark and branches.
Chen Haoran stretched out his sense as they walked and frowned when he saw the area was remarkably empty. No animal, big or small, no birds, what insects he did find were the simplest kind. It would have been fine if it weren’t for the strange flashes of qi he felt. They were quick, and whenever he tried to focus on them immediately vanished as if they were never there. His hand slowly crept to his looted sword.
Jiang Lei gave Chen Haoran an amused look. “Sensing something?”
“What are they?”
“Gu, insects beasts, some combination thereof. Who knows.”
“They don’t feel like Gu.”
“Don’t take the shaman from before as an example. Gu are excellent at hiding. We were lucky that he, to borrow your words, sucked at stealth.”
“Is that your new favorite phrase or something?”
They bickered as they walked. Chen Haoran still kept his hilt firm in hand. Nothing came of the hidden qi, however. Soon enough, their conversation dwindled away as the rainbows drifted and the sun set, casting the jungle a dark orange. They had yet to find even a hint of another person.
Jiang Lei looked solemn.
“Should we make some noise?” Wang Xiao asked. “Surely, they’ll have to answer us.”
“I don’t believe that will leave the best impression,” Jiang Lei said. “We may have to turn back—”
Chen Haoran’s qi flared.
Even his presence took on a new layer of weight with his advancement to the Liquid Meridian Realm, and it stirred up a storm of leaves and rustling branches.
“What are you doing?” Jiang Lei demanded.
Chen Haoran pushed his flaring qi for a minute, then cut it. He waited. The jungle was unnaturally still. “Huh, when Song Yuelin did this—”
The jungle struck. A wave of creatures simultaneously attacked from every direction, from places that were very much empty to his sense right before they moved. Colorful frogs lashed out with arrow-tipped tongues, a silent cat-sized mosquito fell on them from above, a scorpion rose from beneath his feet with three dripping stingers.
Chen Haoran’s qi surged through his meridians and spilled their banks. The Yellow Dragon roared. Liquid qi flooded out and swept away their ambushers. The dragon pride inherent in his qi crushed all thoughts of defiance, and the jungle came alive with yellow light and the rush of movement as every hidden creature in the vicinity fled. Direction Liquid Qi was much like using a third hand. While it was instinctual and felt natural to use, there was still a sense of awkwardness as he got used to it. The best he could do was avoid releasing qi from his back and hitting Phelps. Jiang Lei on the other hand was forced to cover himself and Wang Xiao with his own liquid qi.
Chen Haoran pulled back his liquid qi and scratched Phelps’s chin when the sloth angrily squealed at him. Jiang Lei dispersed his own and for once looked quite annoyed with Chen Haoran.
“May I ask what it is you think you’re doing?”
“I liked Wang Xiao’s suggestion,” Chen Haoran replied. “I don’t want to wait the whole night either.”
And they wouldn’t be.
Qi flashed, and from the shadows appeared several armored forms. Whatever technique they used to hide from his sense was impeccable. Even now, when they were standing in front of him, he could barely sense their qi. Their armor was as black as the bones they decorated it, looking less like metal and more like they had ripped the carapace off a massive bug and fashioned it into armor. Or perhaps that was exactly what they did.
One man took the lead. His qi was faint enough that Chen Haoran couldn’t guess at his Layer, yet it held a weight all too familiar to him now. Liquid Meridian Realm. He was not the only one either, there were at least three others.
“You’ve made your presence known, foreigner,” the man said. His eyes drifted over to Jiang Lei and Wang Xiao, and his face flashed with disgust. “Peachbloods. State your business.”
“My name is Chen Haoran. I’m here to find my friend Xie Jin.”
The man’s black eyes narrowed before they turned away. “He will confirm that.”
Chen Haoran stretched his sense to follow the man’s gaze and lit up in joy when he sense familiar qi. A familiar voice soon followed it.
“Hold. Hold damn it!”
A black beetle, Gu burst into the scene, and hot on its tail was Xie Jin. “Let me check the situa—” He ground to a halt when he saw Chen Haoran. Confusion writ large across his face. “Brother Chen? It really was you?”
“Brother Jin!” Chen Haoran crossed over to him, ignoring how the qi in the air tensed, and how the black-eyed warrior defensively loomed behind Xie Jin. Chen Haoran clasped Xie Jin’s arm. “It’s good to see you.”
“You advanced?” Xie Jin asked in disbelief. “No, before that. Why are you here?” He suddenly looked over Chen Haoran’s shoulder and scowled in recognition at Jiang Lei and Wang Xiao. “You. Why are you here?”
Jiang Lei raised his hands placatingly. “We coincidentally met with Chen Haoran and, due to certain circumstances, escorted him here. This would perhaps be a discussion best done indoors, however. May we have the honor of lodging with your tribe?”
Xie Jin visibly hesitated. The black-eyed warrior calmly watched him and made no move. The other warrior stood so still that they seemed to blend back into the shadows. The struggle was clear on Xie Jin’s face when he looked back at Chen Haoran.
“Even if it’s because of you, Brother Chen. I can’t just allow them in.”
“That makes things easier then,” Chen Haoran calmly said. “Because they’re not here for me.”
He grabbed the hilt of his sword.
“They’re here for you.”
Comments
Philipp Gawol
>"cat-sized mosquito" Incoherent screaming.png
evan peat
stop with the cliffhangers my heart can't take it no more. :)
Tommy
I’m thinking that Chen has secretly thought the peachies were coming along solely to try and get the jump on Xie Jin! Theory crafting big brain time
Predyca
Nani. Damn cliffhangers
Darkarma
Uh Chen, what are you doing? This is how wars starrt.
