Lucas grounded his stance like an ancient oak weathering tempests. "Elder," he spoke with thunder-laced respect, "your qi pulses with the rhythm of primordial tides. By what divine appellation shall this humble one address you?"
The cloaked figure dissolved Lucas' presence as morning mist before sunlight, turning instead toward Ella. "Ella of the Dancing Blade," the voice echoed like distant temple bells, "your swordplay weaves patterns even the Eight Trigrams couldn't foresee. Twice now you've severed my karmic threads. This debt shall be repaid when the moon drinks the sun's fire." Before the final syllable faded, both the specter and Jackson had vanished into the fabric of twilight.
Ella's fingers tightened around his jian's scabbard - the cold metal mirroring his sudden realization. The ancient manuscripts had proven fallible as mortal memory. In preserving destiny's path, he'd unwittingly forged a nemesis worthy of the Heavenly Tribulation Records.
"The cosmos unravels!" Ella cried as crashing timbers and panicked shouts erupted around them. With movements swifter than a heron snatching silverfish, he swept Amelia into his arms. "Hold fast as the turtle clings to immortality!" he commanded.
"Five zhang northeast - the ancestral pines!" Amelia's voice fluttered like a sutra in the wind. "The leftward path whispers of sanctuary!"
Henry's gaze burned hotter than samadhi fire as he watched Ella's retreating form. The weight of Sophia in his arms suddenly felt heavier than Mount Tai's foundation stone. "Even the beggar emperor's jade seems dull when compared to phoenix feathers," he muttered darkly.
Lucas' warrior instincts flared like beacon fires across the Great Wall. Spotting Grace's poisoned form swaying like a storm-battered lotus, he acted without conscious thought. "No disciple of the Swallow's Nest shall perish beneath my watch," he vowed, cradling her with the reverence of a monk bearing sacred texts. None noticed Mia's silent departure, her retreat as seamless as water finding cracks in stone.
"By the Three Pure Ones!" Ella's boots crushed dew-laden ferns as he burst upon two figures entangled in moonlight. Their startled gasps scattered nesting fireflies into spiraling constellations.
Amelia shivered violently against him. "The stream's embrace was... colder than the Jade Emperor's gaze," she murmured, her breath frosting in the night air.
Ella's meridians pulsed with diagnostic certainty - the telltale chill of Sad Rain Ink toxin. "The huntress moon lends us her cloak," he whispered, pressing deeper into the shadowed grove. "Let the blind hounds chase phantoms while we commune with the earth's wisdom."