Chapter 495 — The Dead Immortal's Sky

CHAPTER 495

The Dead Immortal's Sky

The broken weapons went on for a long way, and Shi Feng walked among them.

A snapped sabre. A bent spear. A cracked shield, and a long sword broken so cleanly at the guard that someone must have done it for pleasure. Every blade wore the plain tassel of a regional sect. Nobody had come back for them.

And every breath in the corridor was heavy.

It wasn't an attack. It was the pressure of a man who had once stood far above this world, still pressing on the air long after he'd stopped being able to press on anything else. Shi Feng felt it settle on his shoulders making each breath harder to draw.

Late Golden Core, he thought, and I'm already breathing through my teeth. What are the weaker ones doing?

He found out around a bend in the passage.

A young man in the crimson of Martial Palace sat with his back against the wall. A sword hilt lay in his lap with a hand's length of blade still attached. His belt had been cut, not unfastened, and there was blood at the corner of his mouth.

He looked up and flinched. Then he saw the grey robe and the plain face, and his shoulders dropped.

“Artificer Hall?” Tan Wei asked hoarsely. “Hah. You're the first one who didn't look like a tax collector.”

“You're hurt,” Shi Feng said.

“It's the air,” Tan Wei replied. “Tan Wei, inner court, late Foundation Establishment. I thought I'd be fine. I'm fine.” He coughed. “The air isn't.”

“And the sword?” Shi Feng asked, glancing at the broken hilt.

“That was them,” Tan Wei answered bitterly.

Tan Wei lifted the hilt and looked at it as if it belonged to someone else.

“The violet ones went first,” Tan Wei said. “Thunder Abyss, from the Empire. They broke every blade in this passage like firewood, and they didn't even slow down. Then two with yellow trim on their sleeves came along behind, picking through the pieces. Azure Sun. Peak Golden Core, both. I know because one of them told me. He was being helpful.” His mouth twisted. “They took my pouch and my ring, and one wore a gold chain that bent my sword like a reed. Then the tall one thanked me for the donation.”

“Did they hurt you?” Shi Feng asked, checking the blood at his mouth.

“They didn't bother,” Tan Wei said with a laugh that became a cough. “That's what hurts. I wasn't worth the effort. The big fish eat the small fish, and I'm too small even for that.”

Shi Feng looked back down the line of tassels. There were at least thirty weapons in the corridor, from at least six sects. The Empire juniors weren't targeting one sect. They were robbing everyone they passed.

He thought of Ling Qingzhu and Sima Lan, somewhere in this same Ruin, and of Gu Zhan's spear. None of them handed over a ring politely. He hoped the Empire juniors had met someone else first, and he put the thought away before it could slow his feet.

“How long ago?” Shi Feng asked.

“An hour. Maybe less,” Tan Wei replied, squinting at him. “You're not going forward?”

“I'm going to look,” Shi Feng replied, untroubled by the warning.

“Don't look. Go back to your gate,” Tan Wei urged, afraid for anyone following those men.

“There's no gate,” Shi Feng said. “The formation scattered us.”

Tan Wei opened his mouth and shut it. Then he gave a thin, sour laugh.

“Of course it did,” Tan Wei said. “Three Great Sects, one pact, and the Ruin throws us all in the air like dice. Where's your team?”

“Somewhere else,” Shi Feng answered. He didn't know where the others had landed.

“Good,” Tan Wei said. “Then at least they're not here.”

Shi Feng dug into his ring. The potato Lin Langtian had pressed on him at the seal was still warm at the core, which made no sense, and he left it where it was. From the other side of the ring he took a Clear Marrow Pill and set it in Tan Wei's open hand.

“Twenty-four stones,” Shi Feng said. “At the Duanyang stall.”

“I'll pay it,” Tan Wei said at once, stung. “A promise is worth a thousand pieces of gold. Palace disciples pay their debts.”

“Then I'll collect it at the exit,” Shi Feng said, leaving the pill with him.

Tan Wei stared at the pill, and then at the man who'd given it to him. The Palace's disciples had spent half a year learning to step aside whenever this grey robe walked past.

“You're him,” Tan Wei said slowly. “Shi Feng. The one with the invoices.”

“Rest,” Shi Feng said. “Chew it slowly.”

He walked on. Twenty paces later the passage ended, and he stopped.

There was no wall. The corridor simply stopped at a lip of stone, and beyond it lay a pale sky.

Slabs of rock drifted in it, some as small as tables, some as wide as courtyards. Halls hung from them, upside down and sideways, with their doors open to nothing. Stairs of floating stone crossed the gaps. Far above, a dome of white cloud glowed with a light that had no sun. This was the dead immortal's sky-cave, and the pressure came out of it like heat from a furnace.

Somewhere ahead a stone door groaned open, and a voice drifted back. It was light and bored, and the vowels were flat in a way no frontier accent ever was.

“That's the fourth ring this hour,” the voice said. “Do these people carry nothing else?”