The stone chamber held its breath. Embers gasped their last in the hearth, their dying light throwing frantic shadows that trembled against the walls like captive spirits. In the silence, the only sound was the rhythmic, grating scrape of cloth on steel.
Chu Hongying sat motionless by the fire, polishing her Gale-Piercer Spear. Her hands, usually so steady, betrayed a fine tremor, her knuckles bone-white from the force of her grip. Her gaze, sharp and restless, flickered toward the corner where Shen Yuzhu was coiled in on himself. In the flickering light, a dangerous crimson glint flashed in her eyes—the Crimson Flame Blood Lock on her arm was fever-hot, its energy a restless magma searing the edges of her control.
"Water." The word was a raw scrape in her throat.
Shen Yuzhu didn't look up, a pale hand emerging from the shadows to take the waterskin. Their fingertips brushed—a fleeting, electric contact. In that instant, the shimmering red pattern on her arm and the chaotic, swirling Mirror Glyphs deep within his heterochromatic pupils synced in a strange, unsettling harmony before settling back into a fragile, charged calm.
"Thanks," he muttered, turning his face away. The single word was stripped of its usual analytical calm, revealing a tremor of pure, bone-deep exhaustion. Inside his mind, he was being flayed alive by shrieking data—malicious whispers from the Order's Web, using the chaos of his Mirror Glyphs as a doorway to erode his sanity, to drag him into a cold, digital abyss.
"Damn it!" Gu Changfeng prowled the cramped space like a caged predator. The Cloud-Slicer Blade at his hip answered his fury with a low, restless hum. His anger was a physical force, born not of fear, but of a visceral, gut-wrenching helplessness. He stopped his pacing abruptly, his intense stare landing on Lu Wanning as she meticulously arranged and rearranged the contents of her medicine pouch.
"Your hand..." His voice was rough, the concern sanded down to a gruff edge. "Still numb?"
Lu Wanning lifted her pallid face, the ghost of a smile touching her lips. "Just sluggish qi and blood. It's fine." The Shadow-Heart Lock on her arm was no longer cold to the touch but radiated a gentle, thrumming warmth, silently drinking in the palpable aura of pain that choked the room.
Gu Changfeng's eyes fixed on the pulsating lock for a heavy moment before he spun away with a frustrated sound, lashing out at the dying fire with his boot. A shower of defiant sparks erupted into the air.
"We must go to the Black Fog Market." Shen Yuzhu pushed himself up, leaning his weight against the unforgiving stone wall. The movement sent the Mirror Glyphs in his eyes into a wild, dizzying spin. "It's a blind spot. A crack in the Order's Web's dataflow. It's our only chance."
"About time!" Gu Changfeng's response was immediate, a release of pent-up tension. "Rotting in this stone tomb is a fate worse than a clean death."
As his voice echoed, Chu Hongying's world drowned in crimson. The tip of her spear twisted in her vision—no longer aimed at empty air, but piercing an illusory, flower-like wound on Gu Changfeng's chest, slicing a transparent line across Shen Yuzhu's throat... The Crimson Flame Blood Lock was a poison in her senses, warping her reality, testing the very foundations of her reason with its cruel theater.
"Then we go." She squeezed her eyes shut, forcing the horror back. When they opened, her gaze was forged iron. The spear was an extension of her will, its tassel stirring in the still air. "Together."
It was a command, a vow. The others fell silent, the spell of despair broken. They moved with the grim efficiency of seasoned warriors, gathering their scant belongings and filing out of the chamber into the relentless, white fury of the Northern Frontier blizzard. The storm swallowed them whole.
The transition into the Black Fog Market was a collective shock, a sudden, suffocating pressure on the soul.
The cavern was a monstrous, subterranean world. Eerie blue luminescent moss clawed at jagged, twisted rock formations, casting a sickly, feeble light. Worse than the light was the fog itself—a thick, drifting entity that was not mere vapor, but a palpable condensation of the "Emotional Dust" of countless beings. A single breath was an invasion, ruthlessly stirring the hidden, fragile things in their hearts.
"Stay close." Gu Changfeng moved first, his body instinctively shifting to shield Lu Wanning. But the Cloud-Slicer's disruptive resonance betrayed his senses, sending him stumbling toward a razor-edged outcrop. He cursed, righting himself, and planted his feet, using his broad back as a bulwark against the greedy, malevolent stares that seeped from the surrounding darkness. "This place... it stinks of decay."
Shen Yuzhu grunted, buckling at the waist. A thin line of crimson escaped his clenched lips. "Don't... probe it..." he gasped, the words fighting their way out. "The fog... it bites back..."
Chu Hongying was already moving. The Blood Lock flared, an invisible, scorching barrier springing to life around them, repelling several slithering tendrils of cold malice. But the act of using her power plunged her vision into red once more—this time, she saw a beautiful, deadly flower of pure ice crystals blooming from Lu Wanning's heart.
"I'm fine." Lu Wanning's touch was gentle on her arm. The Shadow-Heart Lock pulsed, a steady, warm rhythm that acted as an anchor, pulling her back from the precipice.
Lu Wanning closed her eyes, her senses reaching out. "This place... it's a sediment of confusion and pain... so much sorrow has settled here..." she whispered. "But there's a thread... a single, fragile strand of hope." Her lock was a sensitive instrument, passively tuning into the emotional currents that flowed through the market like underground rivers.
The attack came without warning.
Three psychic tendrils, cold and slimy, shot from different shadows—utterly silent. One stabbed like a needle at Shen Yuzhu's chaotic mental defenses; another coiled like a vine around the restless Blood Lock on Chu Hongying's arm; the last, most insidious, slipped past their guard, aiming straight for the empathic vulnerability of Lu Wanning's Shadow-Heart Lock. The timing was perfect—a trap, long laid.
"Looking to die!"
Gu Changfeng's roar was the sound of steel leaving its sheath. The Cloud-Slicer Blade carved a brilliant arc toward the first tendril. But his distorted senses betrayed him—the blade missed by a hair's breadth, and the tendril writhed, latching onto Lu Wanning's slender wrist.
"Don't move!" Shen Yuzhu barked, agony contorting his features as the data-storm tore at him. The Mirror Glyphs in his eyes became a spinning vortex. "It's a Trinity Soul-Locking Array! They don't want her life—they want to drain her Heart Energy!"
Chu Hongying's spear became a crimson dragon, a scorching gale aimed at the array's heart. But as she thrust, her vision twisted—she saw her own blade erupt from Gu Changfeng's back, his eyes wide with betrayal. That fragment of a second, that spike of horror, was enough. Her spear's momentum faltered.
In the opening, three shadows congealed from the fog, their killing intent a physical cold that locked onto them.
"It seems..." a voice, soft and utterly alien to the violence, drifted down from the cavern roof like a falling feather, "...a few new guests are in need of assistance."
Before the words had fully faded, the all-encompassing black fog coalesced overhead, forming a giant raven's talon that pressed down with casual, absolute force. The three attackers were obliterated, thrown back as if swatted by a god's hand, their bodies impacting the distant rock wall with a final, soundless crunch.
The mist swirled, condensing into a figure draped in robes of jet. A half-mask, woven from the feathers of a dark raven, obscured his face, leaving only the perpetual, faint smirk on his lips visible—an expression of one who finds the world a profoundly tedious amusement.
"Raven." Shen Yuzhu wiped the blood from his mouth, his heterochromatic eyes burning with intense wariness.
"Survivors of the Mirror Domain, bound by the Heart Vow..." Raven's gaze was a physical weight, assessing each of them before settling on the slowly rotating Crimson Flame Blood Lock. "The Blood Seal's restlessness, the Mirror Glyphs' chaos, the Heart Lock's awakening... It appears you are racing against time to avoid becoming the gravediggers of your own power."
He raised a hand casually. A tattered, ancient page materialized in his palm, suspended in an eerie light. The script upon it was blurred yet burned into their vision with shocking clarity:
"Should the Twin Seals fall out of balance, heaven and earth shall surely crack."
"A fragment of the 'Blood Mirror Fragmentary Record'. A greeting gift for potential partners." His voice was soft, yet it carried the weight of absolute authority. "Now. Let us discuss the price you are willing to pay."
Chu Hongying met his gaze, her own unwavering. Slowly, she raised her right hand. Above her palm, a pigeon-egg-sized crystal of dark red energy rotated, its core a maelstrom of countless screaming, distorted faces of fear, pulsing with a vile, ominous aura.
"Memories are not for trade." Her voice was calm, yet absolute. "This is a residual echo of fear, personally extracted from the depths of the Mirror Domain. It is a price I can bear, and one I am willing to pay."
Raven chuckled, a low sound that held a thread of genuine amusement. "Good... You are indeed qualified for a true transaction."
The air itself froze. The drifting fog, the glowing moss, the distant shapes—all paused. Then, the fog convulsed, violently swallowing the four whole.
Chu Hongying stood in absolute void. No light, no sound, no sensation.
Then, she heard—not with her ears, but as a direct, unimpeded echo in the core of her soul.
It was Shen Yuzhu's voice, stripped of all its calculated calm, raw with a terror she had never heard:
"It is not death I fear, but calculating a future without you all... that endless, despairing zero."
Next was Gu Changfeng's, all bravado gone, laid bare and vulnerable:
"I strive so desperately to become stronger... only because I'm afraid that one day, you will walk too fast, too far, and even if I exhaust all my strength... I will still be left behind, alone."
Lu Wanning's followed, gentle yet carrying a devotion that transcended life itself:
"I would willingly use my heart to bear all the suffering of this world, if only to exchange for your... lasting peace."
Finally, Chu Hongying heard her own heart, clear and heavy and resolute in the absolute silence:
"If this flesh and blood can become a wall to protect you all... I would willingly burn this life to ashes, my soul scattered to the winds."
Four unadorned, nakedly heartfelt words collided, intertwined, and reverberated within this strange and utterly void space.
In the next moment, the Heart Vow Lock connecting them blazed to life. A golden radiance, warm as the breaking dawn, burst from their chests. It was not a force of aggression, but of pure, healing protection, gentle yet unyielding, scouring the shadows from their souls.
Where the light touched, the restless fire in Chu Hongying's Blood Lock cooled to a steady ember. The storm in Shen Yuzhu's eyes stilled, the shrieking whispers receding into a manageable hum. The disruptive resonance from Gu Changfeng's blade fell silent, his world snapping back into focus. The numbing weight on Lu Wanning's senses lifted, the empathic overload washed clean.
Crack...
The sound of shattering glass. The Black Fog Illusory Domain broke apart.
The four found themselves back in the cavern. The black fog drifted around them, impassive, as if nothing had ever happened. They looked at each other, and a profound, unspoken understanding—a silent accord—passed between their gazes.
Raven watched them. The perpetual smirk was gone.
"I revise my judgment." He bowed, a gesture of deep respect that transformed him entirely. "You... are not mere 'vessels' forced to bear power... You are the sole 'home' it has willingly sought."
He placed a memory crystal, pulsing with a soft light, into Chu Hongying's hand. "The core truth you seek, regarding the Empire's 'Price Transfer Technology', lies within."
Then came a small, exquisite crystal vial, cool to the touch, filled with a liquid that shimmered like captured moonlight. "Heart-Cleansing Spring. It is not a cure, but a balm. It will temporarily quiet the chaos within you." His gaze encompassed them all, his tone now holding an elusive depth. "Remember—in this world growing ever colder, a heart that remains pure is the most potent... rebellion against so-called absolute laws."
When they emerged from the market and returned to the vast, desolate expanse of the Northern Frontier, the howling wind seemed less biting, the air carrying a strange, cleansed freshness.
Gu Changfeng bumped his shoulder against Shen Yuzhu's, his voice rough with relief and a hint of his old teasing. "Hey. So the great strategist is scared of being left behind, too, huh?"
Shen Yuzhu didn't retort. He simply turned his face away, the tips of his ears burning a tell-tale red against the stark white landscape.
Chu Hongying and Lu Wanning walked a few steps behind, a shared, quiet smile passing between them as they watched the two, their own tightly-wound nerves finally easing.
But the smile died on Chu Hongying's lips. Her peripheral vision caught an anomaly in the sky. Lu Wanning followed her gaze and went rigid.
There, in the firmament, beside the scar-like black rift, a new wound had opened. A pure white, crystalline streak, like the finest glass, was spreading soundlessly. Unlike its dead, decaying neighbor, this one was alive. It "grew," it "extended," its movement both elegant and profoundly alien, like frost actively tracing a pattern on an invisible mirror.
"Wrong..." Shen Yuzhu's face was a mask of horror, data streams flashing through his pupils at a terrifying rate. "The Order's Web... it's not expanding! It's—it's contracting its defenses!"
Every instinct in Gu Changfeng's body screamed in primal alarm. "That thing... it's 'looking' at us?"
Chu Hongying took a sharp, steadying breath, forcing the rising dread back down. She pressed the vial of Heart-Cleansing Spring firmly into Shen Yuzhu's cold hand, then stepped forward, her Gale-Piercer Spear rising to guard. Her gaze, sharp and unwavering, swept over her companions.
"Whatever it is," she said, her voice cutting through the sudden, immense silence, "we came together, and we will face it together."
The moment the words left her lips, the pure white mirror streak in the sky—like the lid of a slumbering beast's eye—blinked. A movement slight, yet devastatingly clear.
A pressure descended. Vast enough to crush worlds, silent, gentle, and piercingly cold. It was the deepest dark of night, spreading over the entire Northern Frontier.
This was not an attack. It was something far more terrifying—a pure, unadulterated scrutiny from an existence so far beyond their own it was incomprehensible.
The world's eye, at this moment, had cracked open a slit.