The Fourth Wall - Chapter 36 preview

Yang Mu extracted her enchanted green fan as they left the room, slipping it under her feet as it expanded to accommodate her size, allowing her to move away from the winds that Wu Ying controlled. Yeye Su pulled upon his own aura and chi and moments later, he conjured a silver stream of power beneath his feet, his boots lighting up with little wings upon them. 

“Wings? How is that supposed to work?” Wu Ying said, confused.

“They are more conceptual than they are realistic,” the man growled. “Do you not understand such things?”

Wu Ying shrugged. “I don’t have wings on my boots, so, no.”

“Foolish not to learn about enchantments.”

“You keep using that word. Some of us just haven’t had the kind of time you’ve had to learn everything under the sun or annoy one’s relatives,” Wu Ying said.

“Annoy…” Yeye Su turned around, spotted the group of Core Formation cultivators coming up. “Damn them. Never around when I want, but now, they’re here.”

Wu Ying conjured up the winds to slow them down, asking them to help as best they could but without the addition of his own energy to aid the winds, they could only slow their opponents down. 

“You fools, go away. I’m doing this with or without you!” Yeye Su snarled, waving a hand behind him. Clouds of dust formed behind his hand as he spilled drugs into the air, replicating under his power to flow over the group. However, his attack was blocked by the conjured strength of three Core Formation cultivators, the female in the lead throwing her hands up and swirling them, such that she pulled the dust between her palms and then, clapping it together, crumpled the dust int a pill.

“Ah Pa! You cannot do this. Think about what you’re doing,” she snapped.

“I am. Now, go away before the Verdant Gatherer actually gets angry. You three don’t stand a chance, not against the Tyrant Killer!”

“I’m not sure I like being used as a threat here,” Wu Ying muttered to Yang Mu.

“Consider it a compliment,” she said. “Or don’t, but fly us faster. I thought you were as swift as the wind.”

“I…” He shut his mouth, realising that Yang Mu knew what she asked. How could she not? But she was also right, that it was time to utilize his strength in full. There was no point in holding back, not right now.Energy flowed from his body, filling the air around him. As he exerted himself, his old injuries - unhealed, infected, torn apart - were aggravated, causing him to hiss audibly.

He used that pain, bundled it up into the energy he exuded. The surged in strength, from a strong gust that slowed his opponents to gale force winds. They were high enough now that the stirring of the wind on the ground was no more than a strong breeze causing individuals to clutch at hats, headpieces, jewelry and clothing. For the cultivators though, they had to wield their auras to block the wind and the shards of ice and earth that were flung at them at full speed.

“You dare!” One of those at the back, the youngest of the group, barely in his forties at best Wu Ying would guess, shouted. His words dwindled quickly, the chi that was used to empower it fading away under the onslaught of the wind.

Though he might be injured, both soul and body were Immortal level. Either one alone would have outranked the group, but together, they stood no chance. Even his allies were feeling the buffeting of his winds and the pressure of his unleashed potential. Already, they had slowed, Yang Mu faring just as well as the Nascent Soul cultivator as the winds instinctively took to shielding her, even against Wu Ying’s less than controlled surge of energy.

“Talks big, but doesn’t have the strength to back it up. That’s Ah Di for you,” Yeye Su grated out, unwilling to give up the pretense even as he fought against the winds. “Never amount to anything, that one.”

A hand reached out and the air around the group slowed a little as Wu Ying took more active control of the energy surrounding them. He still fought to control it all properly through the agony. It was like wilfully submerging one’s open wounds into salt, the initial pain overwhelming but slowly receding as nerves and injuries deadened. Such was the effect of his own chi upon his wounds at the moment.

Cast forward, the pair of cultivators reached Wu Ying’s side as they sped through the air, borne by a secondary wind that came down from above and swept them onwards. In short order, the trio left behind their pursuers and guided by the words of the older man, they found the head of a river that bubbled out of a small hill in a valley. 

The group landed near the start of the river, though not too close at Yeye Su’s behest. This area was a wilderness that had yet to see the incursion of man, the closest village over a day’s ride away. That village was a small border one, a few fields of rice to supplement the trade that rose from the mining town that dug into the raw earth. Only the group’s strength and the swiftness of their travel had allowed them to arrive here after only a few hours travel.

“I assume the realm’s entrance is the head of the river?” Wu Ying guessed.

“Close enough,” Yeye Su said. Reaching into his robes he extracted a small seal, one that he held up in the air as he poured his chi into it. The formation key floated up from his hand, unfolding as it did so into a mandala of power. Wu Ying tried to follow the curves and the esoteric glyphs, attempting to understand the details of what he saw and getting lost within moments.

“Incredible...” Yang Mu’s eyes glowed as she read the formation. “Whoever made this was a genius.”

“The Lu’s weren’t that good. Certainly the current batch is nothing worth mentioning,” Yeye Su said, letting his hand drop after a moment once he was satisfied that the key was drawing energy from the surroundings and not needing his own anymore. He crossed his hands behind him, staring upwards. “Total waste of materials too. A formation to last a millenia! For what, I ask you? A blasted land that only a few will ever need.”

“And yet, here you stand.” Yang Mu pointed out.

“Doesn’t change how wasteful it all is,” Yeye Su grumped. 

While the pair argued, the formation continued to break apart. Energy criss-crossed in front of Wu Ying, light that had been twisted apart split again and again as the world that had been hidden was revealed. Not a small hill from which an outflow of water arose but a hanging portal in space, an open gap from which the water exited.

“Where does the water come from?” Wu Ying asked. “Surely it must run out? Or the world itself will overflow.”

“It draws in the world’s chi to replace what is exuded.” Yeye Su gestured to the portal. “If you go around the other side, that is where the energy is pulled from. It is a strange mystic realm.”

Eyeing the bottom of the portal, the way the ground itself looked scooped out, Wu Ying could not help but agree. This mystic realm felt less like a portal to another land or a separate dimension that sat astride the world itself but a portion of the Middle Kingdom, separated from existence. The clues on the ground spoke as much of the same matter, a land scooped away to create the realm rather than something found. Wu Ying mentioned as much, getting a grunt from Yeye Su.

“This formation isn’t just to seal the realm away. It’s to persist it,” Yang Mu said eventually. 

Her words startled Yeye Su, causing him to eye her with greater concern. “It seems the rumors of the Golden Merchant’s mastery of formations were downplayed significantly. You must be a prodigy indeed, to understand so much in such a short time.”

She snorted. “Please, you flatter me. It only requires someone versed enough in the skill to see that if you wanted to hide the area, such a powerful formation would not be required. It is too much, too elaborate for anything else.”

Yeye Su held a hand out, letting the seal fall into his hand. He caught it and then, to the pair’s surprise, turned around and dropped a table to the ground. On it, he placed the token and his storage rings, removing his sword and a pair of daggers and adding them to the pile.

“Cultivator Yang.”

“Yes, Cultivator Su?”

“If you can watch over this until my family arrives…”

“And deal with their anger?” she said with a snort. “I think not. I shall be well away after you enter.”

“Bah…” Turning around, he stomped over to the entrance. “I should have bargained harder.”

“Yes, you should,” Wu Ying murmured, joining him before the gate. He could feel the slight exhalation of energy, the way the winds shifted as he stood there even as energy crossed into the realm from behind the portal itself. So close, all of that was impossible to miss.

“Is there anything I need to know about entry?” he asked. Mystic realms could have strange entry requirements, all of which could be perilous to those who enterred without care.

“Keep your aura tight and close. If you can, utilize a fire chi covering for it,” Yeye Su said, offering an approving nod to Wu Ying for the question.

“Fair enough.” He sighed. “After you then.”

Snorting, the old man did as he said, his aura rippling with power and causing Wu Ying to wince at the sudden heat. In the distance, he could hear the shouts of the chasing Core Formation cultivators, tens of li away. Too far to make a difference as the other stepped through.

“So...” Wu Ying turned to Yang Mu, hesitating.

“Just go. I know you will not fail, not now.” Seeing the doubt that suddenly filled his eyes, she stepped forward and gripped his hand tight. “You will not fail. I have fath. And so shall you.” 

He nodded, stepping close and pulling her to him, kissing her passionately, free arm wrapped around her waist. When they broke apart at last, he murmured into her lips, “For luck.”

She smiled then, pushing him away gently. A flicker of power, pain filling him as he shifted wind chi into fire and brought it to his aura.

Then he was ready, entering the realm, feeling it tug at his body as he strode within, particles of his body shifting across dimensions, pain threatening to overwhelm him, the barrier seperating the two reacting to his presence but forced to give way as the opposite element worked against the realm’s very properties.

Leaving behind the Middle Kingdom and Yang Mu once again.