The shore of the Alchemy Commission stretched before them in a broad sweep of pale stone and shimmering metal, the waters beyond it reflecting the artificial light of the Luofu in broken streaks of silver.
Dan Heng stood at the edge of the platform with his arms folded, staring out over the enormous body of water before them. He had been expecting Jingliu to explain where they were going next, perhaps point toward some distant structure or indicate that their mysterious quarry had been spotted somewhere beyond the Commission.
Instead, she had simply stopped. For several seconds, she remained perfectly still, her blindfold facing the horizon.
Dan Heng waited.
Jingliu did not speak.
He waited a little longer. Still nothing.
Eventually, Dan Heng turned his head toward her and gave her the sort of look that silently demanded an explanation. Jingliu seemed to notice it.
Rather than answer, however, she merely stepped aside and cocked her head toward the sea. Dan Heng followed the gesture with his eyes. The water stretched for what appeared to be an absurd distance, with no visible path across it and certainly no convenient starskiff waiting nearby.
His expression slowly became incredulous.
"You... don’t actually expect me to split the sea, do you?"
He remembered the last time he had done something remotely comparable. That had involved the Transcendent might of Dan Feng, enormous quantities of Soul Essence, and the ancient arrangements left behind by those who had come before him. Even then, the feat had required circumstances that could not simply be recreated at will. The water before the Arbor had remained separated because of those preparations, not because Dan Heng could casually decide to divide an ocean whenever he felt like it.
Jingliu tilted her head.
"...I was going to ask you to freeze the water’s surface."
Dan Heng stared at her for a long moment before his expression flattened.
"My Essence isn’t unlimited."
Jingliu shrugged with such complete indifference that Dan Heng briefly wondered whether she had forgotten what limitations were.
"You believe I am unfamiliar with your Aspect? Stall as much as you’d like. I’m in no hurry."
Dan Heng bristled. There was something uniquely irritating about being told he was stalling by someone who had apparently decided that walking across an ocean was a perfectly reasonable alternative to finding transportation. Nevertheless, he eventually relented. There was little point arguing with Jingliu. Especially when she was probably going to stand there until he did what she wanted anyway.
Dan Heng stepped closer to the edge of the shore and extended one hand toward the water.
He closed his eyes for a moment, allowing his breathing to settle as he gathered the invisible power within himself. Soul Essence began circulating through his body, flowing along pathways that had become increasingly familiar since he had begun drowning in the memories of his former existence.
Unlike the overwhelming sensation that accompanied the power of Dan Feng, this Essence belonged entirely to him. It was his own strength, his own interpretation of an Aspect that had once belonged to another life.
A sliver of pure, silver Soul Essence slipped from his fingertips, so thin and subtle that it was impossible for the naked eye to perceive. It streaked across the air like a thread of moonlight before striking the surface of the water.
For one heartbeat, nothing happened.
Then, the water beneath the point of impact froze solid. A crystalline sheet erupted outward with astonishing speed, spreading across the surface in all directions. The effect was almost beautiful. Ice raced over the water like a living thing, coating the waves and swallowing their movement beneath a smooth, translucent surface.
The transformation did not stop at the initial impact.
This was one of two variations of his Ascended Ability, triggered through the interaction between his Awakened and Ascended powers.
When Dan Heng struck an animate target with his Awakened Ability, the resulting effect could siphon away a small amount of their Soul Essence while simultaneously inflicting a tiny amount of damage upon the soul itself.
Inanimate objects behaved differently.
When his Essence struck something without a conventional soul, the residual Spirit Essence contained within it became the medium through which his Ascended Ability spread. Dan Heng had changed the properties of his Soul Essence before releasing it, forcing its temperature down to an absurd degree.
The result was Essence cold enough to freeze liquids almost instantaneously.
The moment it touched the ocean, his Ascended Ability activated, allowing that altered property to propagate through the Spirit Essence permeating the water.
It was less like Dan Heng freezing the ocean and more like him giving the ocean the instruction to freeze itself.
The only problem was that the ocean was enormous.
Dan Heng immediately realized that if he allowed the effect to continue unchecked, he might eventually freeze far more of the Luofu’s waters than he intended. He would need to stop the Propagation once they reached their destination. Still, it was convenient. Extremely convenient. Perhaps even dangerously convenient.
Jingliu did not wait for him to finish contemplating the implications.
The moment a stable layer of ice had formed beneath their feet, she stepped onto it and immediately began gliding forward with the casual ease of someone who had apparently decided that an ocean was simply a particularly large skating rink. Her boots barely seemed to touch the ice.
She moved with smooth, effortless motions, occasionally shifting her weight just enough to maintain her momentum.
Dan Heng stared at her for a moment before reluctantly following. His own progress was significantly less graceful. He carefully placed one foot down, tested the surface, then moved the other. The ice was stable, but that did not mean he trusted it.
Every few steps, he glanced beneath his feet, as though expecting the frozen water to suddenly remember that it was supposed to be liquid. Jingliu, meanwhile, was already several dozen meters ahead. Dan Heng sighed and continued after her.
The absurdity of the situation was beginning to become difficult to process. He was following a Mara-Struck Saint across a frozen sea because she had decided that this was more convenient than obtaining transportation.
Somewhere behind them, he suspected Sunny was watching and preparing to make some completely unnecessary comment about the situation. Dan Heng turned around to check.
There was no obvious sign of Sunny. No hiding place. No suspicious shadow. No stupid grin. For once, perhaps the man had decided to mind his own business. Dan Heng almost felt relieved, before remembering that he needed a meatshield should Jingliu decide to point her blade — or whatever her weapon of preference was — at him.
Then, he noticed movement in the distance.
A lone figure was awkwardly making her way across the ice behind them. Her pace was considerably slower, and every few seconds she nearly slipped before recovering. Dan Heng narrowed his eyes. As the distance closed enough for him to recognize her, his expression immediately soured.
Sushang. She was following them, apparently. She offered him a strained smile when their eyes met, accompanied by a faint blush that made Dan Heng’s suspicion immediately return. He had no idea why she was following them, but he had learned long ago that asking questions about anyone’s behavior rarely made matters less confusing.
Jingliu noticed her as well. The woman suddenly stopped skating and turned around, her blindfold facing directly toward the distant Sushang despite the considerable distance between them. Jingliu’s head tilted slightly.
"An admirer, I presume?"
Dan Heng’s face tightened. "That’s not..."
Jingliu shook her head knowingly before he could finish.
"No, no, I understand. After all, the entire High-Cloud Quintet had gotten their fill of Dan Feng."
Dan Heng stopped so abruptly that his foot nearly slid out from beneath him.
"What."
Jingliu continued walking as though she had merely made an innocent observation.
"Naturally, I had to be first in line. The taste of youth is not forever, after all, so I had to be there when the fruit was ripe."
Dan Heng stared at her back.
"What."
His voice had somehow become even flatter. Jingliu’s shoulders shook faintly with amusement.
"There is nothing quite like toying with a young man who possesses entirely too much confidence in his own dignity. It is a shame your current incarnation has already passed that point."
Dan Heng’s mind struggled to catch up with the sheer volume of implications packed into those sentences. He opened his mouth. Closed it. Opened it again.
"What?"
It was the only word his brain seemed capable of producing.
Jingliu merely laughed softly and skated away, leaving Dan Heng standing on the frozen ocean in profound disbelief. There were certain things he had learned about Dan Feng’s past that he had not wanted to know. There were other things he had suspected but never confirmed.
And then there was whatever the hell Jingliu was talking about.
The woman had an infuriating habit of speaking about Dan Feng as though she had personally witnessed every embarrassing moment of his life, and Dan Heng was beginning to suspect that the ancient dragon’s reputation had been considerably more complicated than the solemn image preserved in historical records.
He rubbed his forehead.
"I don’t want to know."
Jingliu glanced back at him.
"That is probably wise."
"Then stop implying things."
"I haven’t implied anything."
"You absolutely have."
"What do you think I’m implying, then?
Dan Heng stared at her. Naturally, he couldn’t bring himself to say it out loud.
With that, Jingliu accelerated, and Dan Heng had no choice but to follow her.
The journey continued across the frozen waters, the Alchemy Commission gradually receding behind them as the immense structures of the Xianzhou disappeared into the distance.
Dan Heng maintained the flow of his Ascended Ability carefully, allowing the ice to remain beneath them while suppressing its further expansion once they had traveled far enough. It required concentration, but the process was manageable.
His control over his Aspect had improved considerably, and although he still possessed nowhere near the sheer reserves of his previous incarnation, he had learned that precision could compensate for a surprising amount of raw power.
Jingliu, naturally, did not seem remotely concerned with any of this. She skated across the ice with the ease of someone who had been doing it her entire life, occasionally turning in wide arcs before continuing forward. Dan Heng watched her for a moment and wondered whether she had simply been waiting for an excuse to use him as an improvised transportation method.
The thought was so absurd that he almost laughed. Almost.
Eventually, the distant shore of Scalegorge Waterscape began to emerge from the haze. Collapsed ancient structures rose beyond the water, massive and ruined stone formations and demolished Vidyadhara architecture creating an environment that felt markedly different from the industrialized portions of the Luofu. Dan Heng’s expression slowly became more serious as they approached.
This place carried memories he would rather not examine too closely.
Like when he wrecked the place with Blade only recently.
Scalegorge Waterscape was tied to the Vidyadhara, to Dan Feng, and to the ancient history that continued to follow him despite his best efforts. Jingliu stepped onto the shore first, her movements becoming slower as she approached the land. Dan Heng followed, releasing his Ascended Ability and allowing the frozen ocean behind them to remain temporarily solid. He would deal with the consequences later.
For now, something more important had caught his attention.
As they reached the shore, Dan Heng looked upward. His eyes narrowed. There were figures further ahead, partially obscured by the debree of the Waterscape. He couldn’t immediately make out all of them, but their silhouettes were unmistakable.
Someone was already there. Someone they had been looking for. Someone who, according to Bailu, had entered a clinic earlier that day with a sword wound and then proceeded to ignore the medicine prescribed to him. Dan Heng’s stomach sank.
The uncomfortable implications of Jingliu’s earlier comments returned to his mind with perfect timing, combining with the ominous atmosphere of Scalegorge Waterscape to produce a feeling that could only be described as impending disaster.
He looked toward Jingliu.
She appeared perfectly calm. That was somehow worse.
Dan Heng looked back toward the figures. One of them moved slightly, revealing the unmistakable silhouette of a tall man carrying a crude, ominous sword. A woman with magenta hair, a pair of round sunglasses resting on her head. A man with snow-white hair, covered in what seemed to be burns, as well as a missing eye. A man with long blonde hair, seeming deeply out of place as he shuffled away from the rest.
Oh, and Sunny was there already, because why not?
Judging by the way Jingliu’s lips curved into the faintest smile, she was looking forward to this... reunion.
Dan Heng swallowed.
He wanted to say a swear word.
He really, really wanted to say a swear word.
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