Chapter Thirteen: The Threads of Dream

  “A story only gets an end if you agree it’s the end of the sentence, Xue Lan. What if it’s just a semicolon of the story?”

  Everyone looked up. The voice from the rooftop broke the silence.

  Xue Lan’s head tilted upward in one graceful motion. The frost flowers at his feet stopped blooming, frozen in a state of mid-growth. His eyes narrowed, the mild curiosity sharpening into a colder expression.

  “Jian Yue,” Xue Lan murmured, the name tasting like ash on his tongue. “The Warden’s favorite stray. I should have known the scent of old paper and forgotten things would follow up this mess."

  Jian Yue stood on the edge of the stone, tilling his robes. The color of a storm at dusk was fluttering in the wind. He looked down at them, his gaze skipping over the guards and the slaves, finally landing on the ‘Royal Guard’. In his hand, he held a blade that looked like petrified wood made of the bone of ‘Yan Gu’. The sharp edges could cut through any steel.

  “You indeed love talking too much about beauty, Xue Lan,” Jian Yue said. "But beauty is just a distraction to hide the fact that your ‘Master’ couldn't handle a Warden's ‘Stray’."

  Xue Lan’s smile didn't falter, but his fingers twitched. “Handle you? Like the execution of the Elders? It was supposed to be a flawless ending. And yet... It was interrupted. A sudden, unexplained silence occurred there where they should have been screaming off their throats.”

  Xue Lan stepped forward, the air around him shivered with a predatory intent. “Was it you, Jian Yue? Did you do that?”

  Jian Yue didn't even flinch slightly from Xue Lan's words. He let the tip of his sword dip over the roof. “Yes, I did that, it was an… Unnecessary execution.”

  For a fraction of a second, the mask of the ‘Royal Guard’ slipped. A tremor passed through Xue Lan’s expression, but it was not of rage, but something else which everyone almost missed. It was a small expression of relief, a tiny spark of warmth that vanished as quickly as it appeared.

  “Is that so?” Xue Lan said, his voice dropping an act, but he quickly covered it back; he was hiding something to be revealed. “Then you've committed a crime against the Honorable Court's vision. I suppose I have to bury you down.”

  Xue Lan moved; his movements weren't sprinting, he blurred out of the air. He closed his fist. The frost flowers at his feet shattered, and the shards, instead of falling, hung in the air. A constellation of frozen malice. Then they shot upward a deadly strike of jagged icy shards aimed at Jian Yue.

  Jian Yue reacted fast; he lifted his one finger up and chanted.

  “Silence,” Jian Yue commanded. His voice was absolute, and the world around him got unnaturally numb.

  The concept of 'Impact' seemed to vanish from the courtyard. They stuck fast, embedded in the stone without a crack, as if they had always been there. The world became a muffled nightmare. Jian Yue jumped from the roof, his landing making no sound of thud, only causing a slight tremor in the ground. He lunged, his bone-blade aiming for Xue Lan's throat, his hand grasping his bone sword, landing a hit, but Xue Lan's body turned into many beautiful luna moths with a fabulous long tail. The fluttering of their wings told him, “You already missed.”

  “An illusion?!” Jian Yue muttered; his voice sounded as if he suspected it.

  “Illusion? Who said” Xue Lan's hand held Jian Yue’s sword, which got transpierced through him. Shocked by this move, Jian Yue’s expression faltered as he realized the situation.

  “Did you seriously think I'd stay in the same seventh ‘Ordinal’ for the last two years?” Xue Lan scoffed and paused, his eyes locked in Jian Yue’s eyes. “But you are, right now we aren't on an equal level.” Xue Lan's words got stuck in Jian Yue’s head as Xue Lan punched him in his guts.

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  WHACK

  Jian Yue gasped for air. He didn't see the hook coming. It wasn't a sharp pain, but a deep, dull thud that turned his stomach into a knot.

  Mo Fei watched, he didn't activate his ‘Apprentices' eyes’ his eyes couldn't keep that for longer, so he had to switch it off unconsciously.

  Jian Yue stumbled backward from the hit.

  “When did you ascend to the next ‘Ordinal’? Weren’t you with the ‘Overseer’ all this time?” His voice carried the frustration of the blow, his face tight with disbelief.

  Xue Lan stepped forward, his grin a smug, cold curl. “Surprise… But I wonder how you didn’t.” He paused for a dramatic effect. “Ohhh, that’s right, you were ‘busy’ trying to save the ascended.”

  Those words struck Jian Yue like a physical blow. He lunged forward again, but this time Xue Lan didn’t dissolve into smoke. Instead, he raised a hand, palm outward.

  The air between them rippled, like the surface of a pond disturbed by a stone. Jian Yue’s charge slowed, his movements growing heavy, as if he was in water getting pushed through deep pressure. Around them, the world began to soften. The sharp edges of the courtyard blurred. The ice seemed to waver like a mirage. The scent of his perfume grew overwhelming, and thick with the promise of sleep.

  “You see,” Xue Lan murmured, his voice now the same melodic as before, “at the fifth ‘Descent ’, the dreams and illusions are up to me whether I want them to be real or not.” This was no mere illusion. It was a reality.

  Suddenly, a thick thread was wrapped around Jian Yue’s advancing ankle. Before that, Jian Yue managed to attack. Xue Lan’s hand didn’t rise to block. He lifted it with a severing motion and snapped his fingers. It echoed once.

  The thread around Jian Yue’s ankle snipped.

  Jian Yue didn’t trip; he actually didn't realize what had happened. From the knee down, his limb dissolved into a millennium of worms, Centipedes and the most gross insects you could ever see, only to reform a heartbeat later. But his balance faltered from the sudden illusion as he crashed into the ground, not from impact, the visceral shock of his own body betraying its form.

  Before Xue Lan could make a smug look, Jian Yue appeared just a half meter away, hitting him with the handle of his blade. He wasn't trying to kill Xue Lan but wanted just a way to hold on until they escaped. The hit forced Xue Lan to stumble, but he recovered from it almost instantly, and now he was more active.

  Mo Fei felt it. The throbbing pain in his side dulled. A voice in his mind, smooth as Xue Lan’s, whispered: “It would be easier to lie down. So much easier. Isn’t that what you wanted? To rest?”

  “No.”

  His vision swam, and without conscious command, his Apprentice’s Eyes flared up again.

  He saw Xue Lan's spirit thread, each one extending out to touch the environment, weaving the dream into reality. A dream always ends, right? Yes, but Mo Fei had no strength for a physical blow. He was no help right now. But he still made one last attempt.

  “Grig, throw this Glaive at them. And distract him.” Mo Fei said it whispered. Grig nodded and took the Glaive to, with a swift motion, he threw it swiftly at Xue Lan.

  The blade passed through the air, and Mo Fei, with his sight, saw it slice through a thread. His expression was surprised that this Glaive could cut the spirit threads.

  Suddenly, when the Glaive landed on the ground after cutting a thread, Xue Lan staggered, a single step back. A trickle of blood escaped his nose. He touched it, staring at the crimson on his white fingers with pure disbelief.

  “You…” he breathed, looking from his shoulder at Mo Fei. His eyes were no longer calm; they were filled with fury when he saw the blood. “The ‘Authority’ of the 'Architect', how can I forget?”

  Mo Fei met his gaze, panting, as he took a few steps back. He didn’t speak. He didn’t need to.

  “A Witness,” Xue Lan whispered, the word laden with terrifying significance. “Not a dreamer, not a warrior… but a low ‘Ordinal’ ascended of an ‘Authority’.”

  Jian Yue didn’t let the moment linger; he used this distraction and landed a crucial blow at him, which Xue Lan noticed as his body turned into smoke again, the damage getting negotiated. “Now!” Jian Yue shouted, grabbing Elara’s arm and shoving her toward a narrow archway half-hidden by a withered vine. “The house is there! Move!!”

  They fled, a stumbling, bleeding retreat. Mo Fei, supported by Han, cast one last look over his shoulder at Xue Lan.

  Xue Lan stared back, wiping off blood from a handkerchief and throwing it away; he did not give chase. He stood there without any intention of following. His fury was gone, replaced by that same interest. He raised a hand, not in attack, but in a slow, deliberate wave of acknowledgment, and he waved them twice at Mo Fei.

  His voice, carried on a wind that shouldn’t have been able to reach them, slithered into Mo Fei’s ear alone, bypassing his damaged hearing: “Run, little Witness. Run with your friends. I will not tell the Overseer if a wounded bird has entered the garden....” Mo Fei looked again at him in surprise, flabbergasted by those words.

  Then they were through the archway, down a cramped alley, and before a plain, weathered door came in their sight. The eight beautiful flowers were arranged in a line perfectly.

  The door opened with a crunch. They fell inside, and it slammed shut behind them, cutting off the world.

  The house was a small, square room of bare stone. A single candle burned on a table, its flame still and smokeless. The air was dead, devoid of scent or the whispering pressure of a dream.

  Jian Yue slid down the wall, clutching his ribs. He looked at Mo Fei, his expression grim.

  “He let us go,” Jian Yue stated flatly.

  “Why?” Han asked, sinking to the floor beside Mo Fei, examining his reopened wound. And he spoke again before the answer. “Also, do you have any way to treat them?” Hearing this, Jian Yue nodded before giving the roots, a natural healer. And then he answered the first question

  “Because he had never seen someone choosing the Architect ‘Authority’ before, he most likely wanted to due to his curiosity.” He said in a matter-of-fact tone, it was right, but there was certainly another reason because he'd not have left Jian Yue to go.

  He pushed himself up, wincing slightly. And then he took out a piece of torn sleeve fabric. “This fabric is like yours., I found this in World Two.” Mo Fei took the fabric from his hand.

  “Yes, it is mine. Geez, I got attacked by that bone monster who wanted my eyes…”Mo Fei sighed and shivered from the thought.

  “Yan gu.” Jian Yue said, addressing the monster. “You survived for so long alone is already a very big achievement, and now, when you choose an 'Authority', it's time for you to know the harsh truth.” Jian Yue’s voice was sharp, his expression was serious; whatever he was going to share could be the most horrible truth.

  Grig, Elara and Han looked at Jian Yue. They sensed the change in the air; it had grown with tension. Mo Fei, unaware of the truth, said.

  “You do realize that I can't hear you…”