Gao moved first.
There was no flourish, no preparatory stance. One moment he was standing with the relaxed stillness of a predator at rest; the next, he was a blur of motion, his fist driving forward with a sound like a hammer striking an anvil. The air compressed before him, a visible distortion of force that would have shattered Li Jian’s ribs.
Mei shoved Li Jian aside, her own blade coming up not to block, but to redirect. The flat of the blade met the edge of Gao’s fist, and the impact sent a shockwave up her arm that nearly dislocated her shoulder. She twisted with the force, using the momentum to spin past him, her foot lashing out in a low sweep aimed at his knee. Gao didn’t dodge; he simply lifted his leg, letting her strike glance off his hardened shin with a dull thud.
“Predictable,” he rumbled, turning with a speed that belied his size. His elbow drove back towards her face.
Mei ducked, the wind of the blow stirring her hair, and drove her knife towards his kidney. It was a dirty, effective move from the back alleys of Shanghai. Gao caught her wrist in a grip like iron pincers, his fingers digging into the nerve cluster. Pain flared white-hot, and her fingers spasmed, the blade clattering to the stone.
“Street tricks,” he said, his voice holding a note of disappointment. He began to squeeze.
Mei didn’t cry out. Instead, she stepped into him, her free hand shooting up to strike at his eyes—a feint. As his head turned slightly, she stomped down hard on the arch of his foot. It was like kicking a statue. Gao didn’t even flinch. He backhanded her with his free hand, the blow catching her across the cheek and sending her staggering sideways. The world tilted, her vision blurring at the edges.
“Li Jian!” she gasped, spitting blood.
The scholar was already moving. Not towards Gao, but towards the ritual circle. His hands traced patterns in the air, and for a heartbeat, the space around three of the chanting disciples shimmered and warped. The disciples stumbled, their chant faltering as they were momentarily trapped in a pocket of distorted time, their movements slowing to a crawl.
Gao’s head snapped towards the interruption. His grip on Mei’s wrist loosened for a fraction of a second.
Mei wrenched free, pain lancing up her arm, and rolled away. She came up gasping, her ribs a agony, her vision swimming. Gao ignored her, taking a step towards Li Jian. “Annoying gnats,” he muttered. He raised a hand, and the ambient Qi of the fortress surged towards him, condensing into a shimmering, red-tinged aura around his fist. “I will crush you both, then present your broken bodies to Elder Feng. He will be pleased with the specimens.”
He drove his fist towards the ground.
The shockwave was not merely physical. It was a wave of pure, crushing force that radiated outwards, cracking the stone floor and sending chunks of debris flying. Li Jian threw up a desperate shield of spatial energy, a shimmering disc that caught the brunt of the force, but the impact still threw him backwards, slamming him against the base of the obsidian shaft with a sickening crunch. He slumped, dazed.
Mei was on her feet, her body screaming in protest. Gao was already turning back to her, his eyes cold and dismissive. “Last chance, anomaly. Surrender, or be broken.”
The resonance thread in her mind was a scream now. Xiao. Xiao was terrified, and she was right there, suspended in the green-grey light above. Mei could feel her sister’s fading strength, the slow, inexorable drain of the ritual. Time was running out.
She needed power. Real power.
The Rift Qi inside her, that raw, unstable core she’d only dared to touch once before in the Spirit Beast Basin, responded to her desperation. It surged, not with the controlled focus she’d practiced, but with the wild, untamed fury of a cornered animal. It felt like swallowing glass. It felt like her blood was turning to lightning.
She didn’t try to control it. She just… let it go.
The energy erupted from her, not in a focused burst, but in a distorted wave that warped the light around her. The air shrieked. Gao’s eyes widened, the first flicker of surprise crossing his features. The wave hit him not like a physical blow, but like a ripple in the fabric of space itself. He was thrown sideways, his perfect stance broken, skidding across the cracked stone. The red aura around him flickered and died.
Mei gasped, the effort leaving her hollow and trembling. Her vision narrowed to a tunnel. That was it. That was all she had.
Gao rose slowly, his face now set in a grim mask. A thin line of blood trickled from his nose. “Interesting,” he said, his voice dangerously soft. “You are more than just a key. You are a wound.”
He started towards her, moving with renewed purpose.
Behind him, Li Jian was stirring, pushing himself up against the shaft. The disciples were recovering, their chant resuming, though it was ragged now. The ritual’s light pulsed brighter, more urgently.
Mei had no more power. No more tricks. Only one thing left.
She turned and ran.
Not away from Gao, but towards the obsidian shaft, towards the suspended figure of her sister. It was a desperate, suicidal sprint across the open floor. Gao roared and gave chase, his footsteps heavy and shaking the ground.
Mei didn’t look back. She focused on the thread, on the pulse of Xiao’s life, on the final door set into the base of the shaft—the only entrance to the inner sanctum where the ritual’s focus was anchored. It was a massive slab of iron-bound wood, sealed with glowing, ritualistic sigils.
She hit it with her shoulder, ignoring the white-hot pain that erupted in her already cracked ribs. The door didn’t budge. The sigils flared.
Gao was ten paces behind her.
Mei slammed her forehead against the wood, once, twice, a primal scream tearing from her throat. It was not a technique. It was not cultivation. It was the raw, desperate force of a sister trying to reach her sibling.
On the third strike, something inside her—something deeper than muscle or bone, something older than Qi—gave.
The Rift Qi, that unstable, reality-warping energy, resonated with her pure, focused intent. It didn’t explode outwards this time. It focused, a needle-thin point of distortion, through her skull and into the iron and wood.
The door didn’t break. It unraveled. The sigils flickered and died. The thick wood grain seemed to age a thousand years in a second, turning grey and brittle. The iron bands rusted and crumbled. With a sound like a sigh, the entire door collapsed into a pile of dust and splinters.
Mei stumbled through the opening, falling to her hands and knees on the cold floor beyond.
The room was small, circular, and bathed in the intense green-grey light of the ritual’s focal point—a complex, glowing mandala inscribed on the floor. And in the center of that mandala, bound by chains of shimmering energy that connected to the shaft above, was Lin Xiao.
She was conscious. Her eyes were open, dark and wide in her pale face. They found Mei’s immediately.
“Mei-jie,” Xiao whispered, her voice a thread of sound.
Mei scrambled forward on her hands and knees, ignoring the pain, ignoring everything but the girl in front of her. She reached the edge of the mandala and stopped, her fingers hovering over the glowing lines. She could feel the power in them, a palpable, humming resistance.
“Xiao,” Mei said, her voice cracking. “I’m here. I’m getting you out.”
Xiao shook her head slightly, a tear tracing a path through the grime on her cheek. “It’s a trap. He knew you’d come. The whole fortress… it’s for you.”
Behind her, the sound of Gao’s footsteps halted at the ruined doorway. He didn’t follow her in. He simply stood there, blocking the exit, a smile touching his lips. “Correct, little sister,” he said, his voice echoing in the small space. “Elder Feng is most eager to meet you both.”
From beyond the chamber, from the main Crucible floor, came the sound of heavy boots, of multiple voices shouting, of weapons being drawn. They were surrounded. The entire fortress was converging on their position.
Mei ignored it all. She looked at Xiao’s bound, trembling form, at the chains of light holding her, at the ritual mandala humming beneath them. She looked at the ruined doorway and the mountain of a man standing in it. She looked at the simple, unadorned blade she had dropped outside.
She turned back to her sister, her eyes hard, her voice low and fierce, a vow made in the heart of the enemy’s stronghold.
“Then we go through all of them.”