The Jade Shadows Must Die [Cultivation LitRPG]

Rix exhaled sharply. "My thoughts are that is a lot of people."

Luna's face was uncharacteristically serious. "I'd agree with that assessment. Obviously, I could probably handle four, maybe five, but six is pushing it, even for a bodyguard of my talents."

Rix managed a grim little laugh. "Is that you suggesting we need to run?"

She winced. "Let's call it a tactical withdrawal."

"Fine by me." He'd half expected her to suggest a fight, regardless of the odds.

The Iron Hand were seemingly in no hurry. Han led his group forward at a leisurely pace, a cruel smile painting his face. The reason for their casualness quickly became apparent.

"Nice of you to trap yourself so thoroughly for us, dead man," he called out. They were now about a hundred and eighty feet away.

Rix immediately glanced around and cursed his lack of foresight. Han was right. Given that they were in a cave, their options for escape were limited. There were exactly two directions they could go in. Towards their would-be killers, or deeper into the cave system. The first option was obviously suicide, but the second wasn't much better. He and Luna had gotten greedy and travelled to the absolute outskirts of the Mid Whisper zone. He could feel the tether taut in his mind, telling him he was close to the limit of how far he could venture. If he went much deeper, he'd trigger it, incapacitating himself instantly. The Divemaster said triggering the tether would summon him, but the man wouldn't arrive before Han butchered Rix.

No, to step over that threshold was as good as handing himself over to Han.

There were no good options.

Their attackers were maybe a hundred and fifty feet away and closing. The look on Luna's face said she understood the situation too.

"You can still go deeper," Rix said. "You should run. I doubt they even chase you. It's me they want." Rix wasn't trying to be a hero. He'd happily ask her to fight if he thought it would make even a tiny difference, but the odds were too stacked against them. There was no sense in just throwing away her life.

Her expression turned calculating, and she spent a moment assessing him. "Do you trust me?" she whispered.

Now, that was a question. In truth, it probably required some unpacking, but with death closing in, that wasn't a luxury Rix had. "Under current circumstances, there's no one I trust more."

She flashed a grin. "Good, because I'm about to trust you." Her eyes darted to the approaching gang. "Can you buy me maybe thirty seconds? I haven't done this on anyone else before."

That was ominous. "I can try. But what exactly are you doing?"

Her face was one of pure mischief. "I'm going to untie your tether. Temporarily, at least. It might feel a little weird."

Rix's eyes grew wide. A raft of questions rushed into his mind, but once again this wasn't the time. She seemed confident, and right now all he could do was be true to his word and trust her.

Taking a step forward, he addressed Han. "Han, look, I'm sorry about all this. The thing with Yutaro, it got out of hand. I was only defending myself."

"I don't give a fuck what you were doing," the man spat, though he did momentarily pause. "Yutaro was a gutless worm, but he was ours. Blood answers blood in here."

"But maybe there's something I could do. What if—"

"Enough!" The man was close enough now for Rix to pick out the redness of his cheeks, the way his breath was coming fast and angry. "The time for talk is over, runt."

Letting out a snarl, Han broke into a run. The rest of his group followed suit. Rix cursed. They'd be on him in a moment.

His eyes darted to Luna. She was kneeling with her hands wrapped around one of the crystal spikes that protruded from the floor. Her eyes were closed. Sweat beaded her brow. Whatever she was doing, she hadn't finished.

He needed to buy more time.

His eye caught on something beneath Luna's knee, a small fissure in the crystal. It ran out from under her and off into the cave. He glanced up at the ceiling. There were more there, little cracks that spidered off in all directions.

An idea struck.

Rix dashed towards his assailants, stopping in the mouth of the cave, maybe thirty feet away from Luna. Spinning, he bent over backwards so his chest was facing the ceiling. It was a ridiculous pose to take, but it reoriented his body so an overhead swing would strike up, not down.

An overhead swing, like the one used during [Force Hammer].

He slammed the technique upward and into the ceiling. The weapon shook painfully in his hands as it impacted the solid surface. There was an immense rumble, and more cracks splintered throughout the roof as the shockwave of force rolled through it, but the structure held solid.

He attacked again, throwing everything he could into the strike. More fractures, bigger this time, and some shards of crystal broke free, bouncing harmlessly from his mantle. But still, the cave mouth held.

His heart was pounding in his chest, and his mouth filled with the tang of hot metal. From his upside-down vantage, he could see that Han was less than fifty feet away now, his face twisted and weapon raised.

With death a moment away, he lashed out one final time with [Force Hammer], but now, in his desperation, he did something more.

He called [Wind Blade] as well.

He'd never used the two techniques together before. There had never been cause. He didn't even know if it could be done. Judging by the way his mind screeched and his meridians burned as he tried to hold two technique shapes at once, it was probably not intended. But he ignored the pain and the internal objection and forced his mana to obey. He would not die because the System said 'no'.

There was a sickening moment of resistance, then both techniques snapped into place. The strike slammed home with a deafening crunch. [Wind Blade] bit deep into the crystal, driven with more force than ever before by the weight of the technique it was attached to. Meanwhile, [Force Hammer] sent a great vibration thrumming outward that seemed to echo throughout the entire cave network.

Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author's preferred platform and support their work!

For a split second, nothing happened.

Then, everything around him began to shatter.

Rix was barely quick enough to dodge. He snapped his body upward and threw himself forward into the cave, landing heavily on his stomach and scuttling deeper. Luna let out a startled cry. He opened his mouth to explain, but then the world began raining white around them. Rix was forced to jam his eyes shut and curl into a ball to protect himself. The roar around them seemed all-encompassing, like they'd been swallowed by a great beast. Razor-sharp shards of crystal rained down from above, punching through his mantle.

For a moment, he was sure he'd killed them both. This was the risk of his plan. There was no way to control a cave-in. At least, not the way he'd triggered it. For all he knew, he'd just brought the entire place down on their heads.

But after what felt like minutes, the cacophony dimmed and the air stilled. Rix opened his eyes to find that they weren't, in fact, dead. The cave was a wreck around them, the ground littered with all manner of debris and crystal fragments. It was a miracle neither of them had been impaled by the array of spikes that had been dislodged from the roof.

Without the light from outside, the space was dim, lit only by the faint glow of the crystal itself. The air was heavy with white dust that stuck in his lungs and drew several long hacking coughs from his mouth. Aside from a few flesh wounds, he was mostly uninjured.

But it was a close thing.

Less than five feet away, where previously there had been a passage out to the rest of the realm, there was instead a wall of rubble. Chunks of crystal, some larger than his torso, were piled from floor to ceiling with no gaps that he could see.

"That was a bit dramatic, wasn't it?" Luna asked. She was still in the same position, though now she was covered head to toe in that powdered crystal that filled the air. It made her look like a ghost.

Rix couldn't help it. He burst out laughing. It was mostly nerves, the sheer relief that came from once again pulling himself back from the brink. It felt good.

"Next time I'll try to arrange a more subtle cave-in," he said, when he'd calmed down.

Luna cracked a smile of her own. "See that you do."

They spent a few moments dusting themselves off, then Rix stepped closer to inspect the wall. Assuming the cave-in had triggered from the mouth and was fairly consistent throughout, the wall was maybe thirty feet thick. "You think that'll hold them?"

Luna joined him, running her hand along the rubble. "Hard to say. If they're feeling particularly persistent, or one of them is creative with their techniques, maybe not? Should buy us some time, though."

Rix nodded. He pressed his ear up against the crystal, but couldn't hear anything that indicated pursuit.

"If we're lucky, maybe it crushed a few of them," he said.

"And here I was thinking you weren't an optimist," Luna replied.

Rix let out a long breath and looked around. With the way out sealed, the only clear path was deeper into the cave network.

"Well, the good news is we don't have to make any choices about which direction we head. Did you finish whatever it was that you were doing?"

Luna shook her head. "I got a little distracted by the cave that nearly fell on top of me. I'll try again now."

She closed her eyes again. For about half a minute, nothing happened. Then, Rix felt a tugging in his head, a kind of mental pressure. His instinct was to push back, but he held that at bay. After a few moments, there was a popping sensation, and then his sense of the tether dropped away completely. He could no longer tell which direction the camp lay in or how far away from it he was.

Luna opened her eyes. "Did it work?"

"I think so," Rix replied. He took a few cautious steps forward, but could feel nothing respond in his mind. He didn't realise how comfortable he'd grown with that sensation. While its primary role was as a source of punishment, in the Fractured Realm it also acted as an anchor, a beacon to home. Without it, he felt — for lack of a better term — untethered.

"This is weird," he said.

"I know. I used it on myself the other day. Had to resist the urge to go running off into the Fractured Realm."

From the rock wall behind him, Rix heard the first in a series of low bangs. He stepped closer and laid his hand on the rubble, feeling the crystal shake gently from within. Apparently, Han and his goons hadn't given up the chase after all. He shared a look with Luna. "Maybe we should keep going."

"I think so." Despite her trick seemingly being over, there was a hint of tension in her voice, as though she was carrying something heavy.

Deeper they went, and the cave gradually grew wider until it spanned at least thirty feet across. It continued in a fairly straight line, though with a gradual downward slope, leading them deeper into the realm's core. Aside from the crystal spikes that randomly jutted from the floor and ceiling, the space was largely uniform. Not many places for fades to hide.

"Congratulations, you're officially in the High Whisper zone," Luna said after a minute. "How does it feel?"

"Illicit," Rix replied.

Luna laughed. "I won't tell if you won't."

"So, you want to tell me how the hells you managed that?"

She shrugged. "My bloodline. I told you it lets me see mana threads, right? Well, it also lets me manipulate those threads, assuming they're relatively sedentary. The tether is basically just a collection of mana strands woven together. One of them connects you to the beacon."

"And you, what, broke it?"

She shook her head. "I tied your end to one of the crystals back there. As far as the beacon is concerned, you're still within your acceptable range."

Rix spent a few moments processing that. "Does that mean you could just break out of the prison whenever you want?"

She scoffed. "If I could do that, you think I'd still be stuck in here with you? Nope, that was the first thing I tried when I worked out I could see the tether. There are three problems. First, right now, I can only move the thread that actually tracks our location. The others are much more complex. So, they could still hit me with whatever trick they use to make your life hell temporarily."

Rix blanched a little. "Yeah, you want to avoid that. Believe me."

Luna nodded. "Second, even this part of the tether is much heavier and more sensitive in the prison. I don't know what it connects to in there, but I can barely lift it at all, let alone tie it. My theory is that it gets more mana when connected to the proper source. But when we attach it to the beacon, it gets lighter somehow. I know that language might not make sense to you, but that's the best way I can describe it."

"It's fine. I get it," he replied. "And third?"

She grimaced. "I need to hold it in place with my mind, and eventually I get tired."

"What happens then?" he asked.

"It snaps back into place. The tether is constantly seeking that collar around our necks. It's bonded to it somehow. Right now, I'm basically fighting to keep your end of it back there."

Rix recoiled a little. "I'm guessing it wouldn't be great for me if you failed."

"It wouldn't, and you're welcome," Luna replied. "Just keep that in mind the next time you're about to land a killing blow on one of my fades. I'd hate to lose concentration."

Rix let out a nervous laugh. "Understood."

They walked on for a minute in silence. Now that they were moving properly, Rix could see the effort of holding his tether was already taking its toll. Luna walked with heavy, stabbing steps, and seemed to almost stumble several times.

"Are you sure you're okay? Those collars are Nova-tier artefacts," he said, a hint of awe in his voice.

"Guess that's why it's so damn difficult," she replied through gritted teeth.

Rix gave a slow shake of his head. She didn't seem to care much for her bloodline, but as far as Rix could see it was immensely powerful.

"Incidentally," she continued. "I'd appreciate it if you kept my little trick to yourself. I can't imagine Spiritlock would take kindly to me messing with their equipment, even if the only thing I can really use it for is putting us in more danger than they recommend."

"Your secret is safe with me," he replied. He felt a small pang of guilt that he'd lied to her about his own secret, but the situation was fundamentally different. Rix wasn't just using his System-given gifts to subvert a few rules. If Breaker was to be believed, he harboured a type of power that was forbidden altogether. The risk of his secret getting out far exceeded Luna's.

Thinking of Breaker, he wondered where the man was. Had he witnessed any of what had happened? Or was he keeping his distance because Rix wasn't alone? He desperately needed to speak with him again, but that was going to be difficult on his current trajectory. It felt like he'd never be alone in the Fractured Realm again.

His thoughts were interrupted by a sound from above: a deep, heavy breath that resonated throughout the room. Their eyes were both drawn to the ceiling, where a slim, sinuous fade at least thirty feet long was uncoiling itself from a crystal spike.