The Jade Shadows Must Die [Cultivation LitRPG]

Rix was immediately on guard, although there was nothing threatening in the man's posture. He must have sensed Rix's hesitation because he raised a defensive hand. "Not here to cause any trouble. Like I said, I'm just a messenger. A mutual friend of ours asked me to give you the lay of the land. Make sure you don't stumble into the wrong area. Ordinarily, someone would have told you how things are by now, but," his eyes darted to Yutaro, who was just stepping through the portal, "given you've kicked the hornet's nest, it seems like most people are steering clear."

Rix took this in. "Okay. What would constitute 'the wrong area'?"

"So, technically you can go anywhere within your radius in the Fractured Realm, but the reality is the different factions have carved it up among themselves. I'm part of a group called the Shadow Runners, and we control the northern quadrant." He nodded to the Iron Hand. "The east is their territory, and the south belongs to the Pattern Faithful."

"And the west?" Rix asked.

The man gave him a thin smile. "The west is a free-for-all," he said. "The leftovers. As an unaffiliated diver, that's your only option."

Rix was already putting two and two together. "I'm guessing the west doesn't have a lot going for it, then."

The man shook his head. "We have the most juice, and so we get the best territory. The north has the highest concentration of treasures. The Pattern Faithful and the Iron Hand aren't far behind, and their territories are roughly equal, but it's slim pickings out in the west."

Rix took this in. "Does that go for fadeborn as well?"

The Shadow Runner nodded. "Fades are drawn to treasures. More treasures mean more fades, if that's what you're looking for."

That didn't bode well for Rix's goals.

"How will I even know if I'm in the wrong place?" he asked.

"Spiritlock has distance markers laid out every hundred feet in four directions from the portal. They're imbued to survive the entropy in there. That cross formation acts as the unofficial borders between quadrants." The man held up a piece of black cloth. "Each group also scatters things around to mark their turf. You get a little leeway, since the borders aren't incredibly precise, but venture more than a hundred feet into someone's area and you may find yourself getting a not-so-gentle reminder that you've misstepped. That includes ours, by the way. No special treatment."

"Wouldn't expect any," Rix said. He imagined that if Yutaro found him in that situation, he'd probably be getting more than just a reminder. "This was a message from who?"

The Shadow Runner grinned at him. "Our mutual friend in the kitchen."

Tolson. As much as he still harboured some suspicions about the man's intentions, in that moment Rix was thankful for his determination. Without the tip-off, he'd likely have wandered in an arbitrary direction, which could well have cost his life.

"Thanks," Rix said.

"My name's Xin Huan, by the way."

"Zao Rixian, but Rix is fine."

Huan nodded. "Be safe out there, Rix."

The man walked off toward the portal, leaving Rix to ponder his situation. It wasn't great. He hadn't even been through the portal yet, and already he felt hamstrung. If he followed the Divemaster's advice, he'd spend the entire time lingering near the base camp for safety, killing whatever scraps were left in the west. Still, there was little he could do. Perhaps it would be better than he thought.

Only a handful of prisoners remained on this side of the portal by now. Rix hefted his staff and joined the line, and a few moments later, he was walking in. The effect was jarring, like being momentarily submerged in something cold and electric, but then he was through, stepping forward to feel his feet hitting hard brown soil. He looked around to find the environment utterly transformed.

No longer was he in the depths of the prison. Instead, he stood in an expansive clearing at the bottom of a towering ravine. Gargantuan walls of black stone ran off in all directions, creating four pathways at roughly ninety-degree angles. North, south, east and west, Rix guessed. The walls rose a hundred feet into the sky, but they weren't smooth. Pocked along their faces were myriad ledges and openings and fissures. A smorgasbord of hiding places.

What really struck him, though, was the sound. A constant, low-pitched drone permeated the canyon. It wasn't particularly loud, but it was extremely unsettling. Within its depths, faint and fleeting, were other noises — human sounds, animal cries, the deep grind of industrial machines — all woven unnaturally together. None of them had any discernible source. They were soft and alien enough to be almost unrecognisable, but he found his mind catching on them all the same.

His discomfort must have been painted on his face, because a nearby prisoner let out a knowing laugh. "First time?" Apparently, not everyone was avoiding him.

He nodded.

"We call it 'the hum'," she said, gesturing vaguely around her. "I'd say you get used to it, but that would be a fucking lie."

"What is it?" Rix asked. None of the Chronicles ever described anything like this.

She shrugged. "Not sure. People say it's a mix-up of all the noise of this place from the moment it was taken. Whatever it is, it's creepy as shit."

The woman was not wrong. It was like this place was trying to remember how it used to sound and failing miserably.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Near the portal itself, the Divemaster stood along with two other guards. Rix watched as each prisoner approached them and laid their hands on a stone pedestal before making their way towards one of the pathways. Rix did the same, feeling a flare of mana from the Divemaster.

"Your tether's now assigned to the beacon," said the Divemaster. "You've got just under six hours. When there are thirty minutes left, you'll feel a pulse through your tether, assuming you last that long. That's your cue to get back here. As I said, we won't wait."

Rix didn't need to be warned again. He glanced around. There were a few stragglers, but most inmates had already begun making their way into one of the canyons. He saw no sign of Yutaro or anyone he recognised as part of the Iron Hand.

He looked to the sky, intending to use the sun to navigate, but he realised with a start that, though he could see, there was no sun to speak of, just an eerie mass of orange clouds that cast everything in a homogeneous warm light. It was alien and deeply unsettling and drove home how little he knew about the world he was stepping into. Most Martial Souls were given lessons and training to properly understand entropy and the realms. But Rix was going in completely blind. Did this place exist somewhere physical, like his planet? Or had he just travelled across something more than simple space? That thought gave him a vague sense of vertigo.

"Which way is west?" he asked the Divemaster.

The man grunted and pointed to his right. Rix briefly questioned if he had any reason to lie. He wouldn't have been surprised, but there were still several prisoners standing around and none reacted as if anything was amiss.

So, drawing a deep breath, he set out. As he put distance between himself and the beacon, he began to understand what the Divemaster had been saying. He could feel the tug of the tether in his mind, a kind of mental rope that he was gradually pulling taut.

The path was dozens of feet wide, but it quickly branched into multiple smaller paths. Though they all seemed to head in the same direction, Rix could see how easy it would be to get lost. The tether would help. He'd always know which direction the portal was, but already the passages were wending and changing elevation in ways that threatened to turn him in circles.

He moved slowly, cautiously, his eyes constantly scanning the ledges and caves above. Though he'd seen no threat, his heart was like a drum in his ears. He felt hunted. The hum only made things worse. A constant stream of vague echoes that made discerning real sound difficult. Occasionally, he'd hear something more tangible, the clash of combat, the distant scrape of feet, but the stone walls made pinpointing their origin impossible.

The route continued to fork and wind its way through the canyon. Rix had decided on a strategy of always taking the left-most pathway, at least until he got a better grip on his surroundings. After about five minutes, he rounded a corner to find the terrain change dramatically around him. The black rock walls suddenly gave way to slate grey stone, ridged and covered in yellow moss. Between his feet, the ground had shifted from brown soil to something grassy and uneven. There were trees too, the first he'd seen in here, though they were sparse and haggard-looking, as though losing their battle with the elements.

What set his mind spinning, though, was that the transition wasn't gradual. It was stark and sudden. He walked over to the wall where a clear line divided the two different types of stone like they were bricks laid side by side. It felt wrong, like the heavens had simply smashed two different places together. The Chronicles talked of the nature of the realms, the way environments bled together, but reading about and seeing were two very different things.

As he stared at the point of convergence, he noticed something else. It looked like both types of stone were moving. It was a gradual thing, the flowing of something viscous, but it was moving. As he watched, the grey stone edged slowly east, while the black stone receded. Or was it swallowed? It was impossible to tell.

Tentatively, he reached out and touched the wall at the point where the two surfaces met. He half-expected a texture like mud that would give way beneath his hand, but the wall felt as solid as the ground beneath his feet. There was a faint vibration that seemed to accompany the stone's shift, but otherwise the canyon felt ordinary to the touch.

His discomfort was interrupted by the sound of footsteps, and he whirled to find another prisoner emerging from a nearby cave. Rix's breath caught in his throat. His hand tightened around his staff.

The man was vaguely familiar. A member of his cell block, though Rix didn't know his name. Like most divers, he looked relatively athletic, with piercing blue eyes and that aura of grit that came from a long period of incarceration. He brandished a large katana menacingly.

For a beat, they merely studied one another. Rix had no clue as to the man's affiliation. Was he an Iron Hand member here on Yutaro's behalf? A member of a smaller faction? Another loner? In truth, he didn't know if any of those guaranteed his safety. Every prisoner was at least Rix's equal in martial prowess, and this man had the look of someone who knew his way around a scrap.

Rix reached for him with his spirit eye. The man was strong, at least Mid Whisper, if not High.

"Turn around," he said eventually. His voice was gravelly, as though rarely used. "This area is spoken for."

So that was how it was. A 'free for all', the Shadow Runner had described it, and that was apparently accurate. Territory wars played out in miniature. Perhaps the area was bountiful, by western quadrant standards at least, or perhaps the man was simply giving in to that base instinct to claim whatever he could. In the end, the reason didn't matter. Rix had a decision to make.

The other prisoner seemed to sense his hesitation. He took a step forward and hefted his blade. "I won't ask again."

Part of Rix yearned to push back, to stand his ground, but letting his instincts rule him had given him enough problems already. He wouldn't survive if he bit back against every tiny provocation. Eventually, he'd find someone with real teeth.

He raised one hand defensively. "Okay. Peace. I'll leave you be."

The man didn't respond. He simply watched Rix retreat back the way he'd come.

He backtracked to the previous fork and took the other passage, taking special notice of the deviation from his normal route. He felt frazzled, and didn't want to risk getting lost. That encounter told him a lot about what he could expect. The Fractured Realm lived up to its name. Everything of value was broken into defined chunks with owners who were more than willing to defend their turf. It bore more than a passing resemblance to the gangs that ruled the different sections of the Lantern District. He understood that world, and he knew nobody would give up their assets without a fight. He might be able to steal his first few steps on the Martial Path with the scraps out here, but at some point, he'd need something more.

He'd cross that bridge when he grew stronger.

As his heart settled and he gained some distance from his rival, his attention returned to his surroundings. Though still a canyon in form, the terrain surrounding him was now greener. He ran his hand over some of the strange moss, marvelling at the fluffy texture. He'd never seen anything like it before.

His eye was drawn to a tiny vine winding its way up from a crack in the ravine wall. It was utterly unremarkable, save for the tell-tale glow of mana. His first natural treasure.

He dropped into a crouch and leaned down to prise the thing free. It was more difficult than it looked, lodged more sturdily in the stone.

With the hum ringing in his ears, he almost missed the scraping footsteps that sounded from behind him. As his brain caught up to his senses, he hurled himself backwards. An instant later, a nightmare slammed into where he'd been standing.