Chapter Eighty-Three: The Fall
The carriage was going over.
Yun Che saw it before anyone shouted.
The rear-left wheel had struck a fracture running through the mountain road. For half a heartbeat the vehicle continued forward as though nothing had happened. Then the stone beneath it gave way.
The wheel dropped.
The carriage lurched violently toward the cliff.
People screamed inside.
One of the Mountain Chargers was dragged sideways by the harness, its hooves skidding desperately across the rock while the second beast tried to pull forward. The wagon tilted farther. Crates slammed against the inner wall. Wood cracked. One axle bent with a sound Yun Che could hear even through the thunder of the stampede.
"FIFTH CARRIAGE!" Elder Liang shouted.
Everything happened at once.
Yun Che launched himself from the neighboring wagon.
His white-and-gold armor sealed around his body as he moved. Booster vents opened along his back and legs. His sword flew into his right hand. Mountain Piercer detached from its mounting and floated behind him under telekinetic control.
He landed on the tilting carriage roof hard enough to dent it.
"Everyone out!"
The door had jammed.
Yun Che seized it with telekinesis and pulled.
Nothing.
The warped frame had trapped it.
He drove his sword into the seam and twisted.
Wood split.
Bao Kun landed beside him a moment later and simply tore the rest of the door away with one armored hand.
"MOVE!" Bao roared.
The workers inside were already terrified. Two had been thrown unconscious when the carriage tilted. Another clutched an obviously broken arm. A woman had blood running from her forehead.
There was no time to treat anyone.
The road behind them had disappeared beneath animals.
The stampede was almost upon them.
Elder Ruan's voice cut through everything.
"ABANDON THE CARRIAGE!"
The order was absolute.
Guards jumped onto the roof.
People were lifted, carried, thrown when necessary.
Yun Che caught one unconscious worker with telekinesis and floated him toward the neighboring wagon. Bao carried another beneath one arm. Shen Rui appeared long enough to seize the injured woman, then vanished across the moving carriages again.
The damaged wagon tilted another degree.
Its rear wheel vanished over the cliff.
"Everyone clear!" Bao shouted.
The last worker jumped.
Yun Che caught him.
Safe.
The people were safe.
That should have been the end of it.
Ruan shouted again.
"LET IT GO!"
Yun Che looked inside the carriage.
Crates had spilled open.
Textiles.
Processed monster materials.
Tools.
Merchant goods.
Supplies.
Weeks of cargo.
Money.
Resources.
They had already lost things because of him. He could not bear to watch them lose more when he believed he could prevent it.
The carriage groaned.
Yun Che reached out with telekinesis.
Bao's head snapped toward him.
"What are you doing?"
"I can pull some of it out."
"Forget it!"
Yun Che dragged the nearest crate toward the broken door.
One crate.
Easy.
A second.
His telekinesis wrapped around it.
"YUN CHE!" Ruan roared.
He heard him.
He knew the order.
His mind immediately produced an argument.
It will only take a few seconds.
The people are already safe.
Why waste everything?
He pulled another crate free.
Bao swore.
"Leave it!"
"Just one more!"
Above them, something screamed.
Not an animal.
The air itself.
Lei Zhenyu looked upward.
His face went white.
"YUN CHE!"
The Crimson Calamity Wyvern was beneath the road.
It had dropped below the cliff without anyone noticing.
Now it was climbing.
Its wings remained folded.
Its jaws were open.
Black-crimson energy gathered inside its mouth.
The beam came from below.
Upward.
Straight through the mountain.
Elder Ruan understood first.
"BARRIERS!"
The world became red.
A beam of death essence tore through the underside of the mountain road.
Stone vanished.
Not shattered.
Vanished.
The attack carved upward through hundreds of tons of rock and burst from the cliff directly beneath the abandoned carriage.
Ruan threw both hands forward.
Water exploded from the river far below.
One barrier.
Then another.
Then another.
Layered spheres of compressed water appeared beneath Yun Che.
The beam hit.
The first barrier disappeared instantly.
The second lasted less than a heartbeat.
The third burst into steam.
Bao Kun and his shield squad moved.
"GUARDIAN BARRIER!"
Their shields struck together.
Ki erupted.
Dozens of reinforced sections locked into a single wall beneath Yun Che and the wagon.
The beam reached it.
Bao screamed.
The entire formation bent upward.
Cracks spread across every shield of Ki.
One guard was thrown backward.
Another collapsed to one knee.
"HOLD!"
Jin Wei stood on the neighboring carriage.
His face had gone completely pale.
He ripped a talisman from inside his robe.
"Guardian Barrier!"
The talisman burned.
A golden barrier appeared beneath Bao's formation.
The death beam struck through the shattered shield wall and slammed into it.
The talisman barrier lasted perhaps half a second.
That half-second saved Yun Che's life.
He saw everything failing.
Ruan's water.
Bao's shields.
Jin Wei's talisman.
The carriage beneath him.
His mind stopped thinking in words.
His hands moved.
Hexagon.
Another.
Another.
Parallel Thought buckled beneath the strain.
He had never made this many properly in reality.
There was no time to care.
Hexagons formed beneath him in layers.
Eight.
Twelve.
Twenty.
Too unstable.
He forced them together.
A curved shield appeared.
The beam arrived.
For one astonishing instant, Yun Che's hexagonal barrier worked exactly as he had imagined inside his soul.
The first panel took the impact.
Force spread outward.
Six surrounding panels absorbed part of it.
Then twelve more.
The entire structure lit white.
Yun Che felt his Ki disappear.
Not drain.
Disappear.
The barrier broke.
The death beam reached the carriage.
There was no dramatic explosion.
The wagon simply ceased to exist.
Wood blackened.
Metal warped.
Crates vanished inside crimson light.
The blast caught Yun Che.
His armor screamed.
Every protective rune activated at once.
Elemental Defense.
Damage Dispersion.
Insulation.
Durability.
Ki storage.
All of them burned.
The left pauldron disappeared first.
Then the chest plates cracked.
The boosters detonated.
Mountain Piercer, still floating behind him, was caught directly by the edge of the beam.
The rifle bent.
Its barrel glowed white.
Then snapped in half.
Yun Che forced one final command through the puppet strings.
The puppet threw itself between him and the beam.
The Iceback Glacier Drake bone frame held longer than steel would have.
Not long enough.
Its chest dissolved.
One arm flew away.
The head shattered.
The rest vanished down the cliff.
Yun Che's sword was still in his hand.
He raised it without thinking.
The blade endured for one breath.
Then the dark-blue metal cracked from guard to tip.
The sword broke.
Half the blade disappeared into the red light.
Yun Che felt nothing.
No anger.
No grief.
No clever calculation.
Only terror.
The beam passed.
The road beneath him was gone.
For half a heartbeat Yun Che remained suspended over empty air.
His armor hung in fragments.
His rifle was broken.
His puppet was gone.
His sword was a shattered stump.
The carriage and its cargo had vanished completely.
Then gravity remembered him.
Yun Che fell.
He could not move.
His boosters were gone.
His telekinesis would not answer properly.
His mind had become one enormous scream.
I almost died.
That was the only thought left.
Not the equipment.
Not the cargo.
Not the wyvern.
Not the caravan.
I almost died.
Something seized his body.
Elder Liang.
Telekinesis wrapped around Yun Che so violently that the pressure hurt.
The elder tore him sideways through the air.
Yun Che's broken sword slipped from his fingers.
He grabbed it.
Desperately.
His other hand caught the twisted remains of Mountain Piercer as it tumbled past.
He clutched both pieces against his chest.
He did not know why.
They were ruined.
Useless.
But they were his.
He held them like a drowning man clutching driftwood.
Liang pulled him onto the remaining carriage.
Yun Che landed hard.
Someone shouted his name.
He did not answer.
His eyes were open.
He was not seeing anything.
His breathing came too quickly.
His hands would not release the broken metal.
Lei grabbed his shoulder.
"Yun Che!"
Nothing.
The Abyss Seed seized the terror already flooding him and made it enormous.
Death had been inches away.
Closer than inches.
He had felt his armor disappearing around him.
If the barriers had failed one fraction sooner...
If Liang had been slower...
If the beam had shifted...
He would not have been injured.
He would have stopped existing.
Yun Che began shaking.
Not trembling.
Shaking violently.
His teeth struck together.
"I almost died."
Lei leaned closer.
"We know."
"I almost died."
"Yun Che—"
"I almost died."
That was all he could say.
Then Elder Ruan roared from behind them.
"EVERYONE TO THE LEFT SIDE!"
The road ahead ended.
Not naturally.
The wyvern had destroyed it.
A massive section of the mountainside collapsed directly across their route while the stampede thundered behind them.
There was no path forward.
No room to turn.
No time to stop.
Only the cliff.
And far below it—
the river.
Ruan looked down.
Then at Liang.
The two elders understood one another immediately.
"We jump."
Several people stared at him.
Jin Wei actually laughed once from pure disbelief.
"What?"
"ALL CARRIAGES TO THE EDGE!"
The drivers obeyed because questioning him would kill them.
Ruan stood on Baifeng's back.
He raised both hands toward the river.
For the first time during the entire chase, he stopped conserving power.
His Foundation cultivation erupted.
The river answered.
Far below, the water bulged.
Then rose.
A column of river water climbed hundreds of meters into the air.
It did not shoot upward like a fountain.
It twisted.
Curved.
Spread.
A gigantic moving ramp of water formed beside the cliff.
Ruan's face tightened from the effort.
Blood appeared beneath his nose.
"LIANG!"
Elder Liang stood atop the lead carriage.
His eyes sharpened.
Telekinesis expanded across the entire caravan.
Four carriages.
Mountain Chargers.
Guards.
Workers.
Wolves.
Every living thing.
Every wheel.
Every harness.
He did not lift them.
He controlled the fall.
"GO!"
The lead carriage left the cliff.
People screamed.
The second followed.
Then the third.
Then the fourth.
The Mountain Chargers tried to stop.
The guards forced them forward.
The entire caravan fell.
Yun Che still did not release the broken pieces in his hands.
For one impossible moment, they were suspended above the river.
Then they struck Ruan's water.
The pillar collapsed around them.
Liang's telekinesis reduced the impact.
Not enough.
The first carriage hit sideways.
Wood cracked.
People were thrown against walls.
The second flipped once before Liang forced it upright.
A Mountain Charger struck the surface badly.
Its leg broke instantly.
Another screamed as its neck twisted beneath the harness.
Frost Wolves disappeared beneath the water.
Guards hit hard enough to break bones.
Then Ruan pulled.
The water closed over everything.
Yun Che gasped as the river swallowed him.
Darkness.
Bubbles.
Pressure.
He felt Liang's telekinesis holding him against the carriage interior.
The remaining wagons did not sink normally.
Ruan manipulated the water around them while Liang controlled their positions, keeping the damaged carriages beneath the surface.
Above them, the river continued flowing.
From the sky...
They disappeared.
The stampede reached the broken mountain road.
Animals screamed.
Some stopped.
Most could not.
Hundreds plunged from the cliff.
Bodies struck the river upstream and downstream.
Water shook.
Blood spread.
Massive shapes passed overhead.
Yun Che heard the impacts as dull thunder through the water.
Then came a shadow larger than anything else.
The Crimson Calamity Wyvern passed over the river.
Nobody moved.
Nobody breathed unless necessary.
The creature circled once.
Its enormous shadow crossed the surface.
Again.
Yun Che stared upward through distorted water.
For one horrible moment, he thought those black eyes would somehow see through the river and find them.
The wyvern passed.
Its roar faded.
Still Ruan did not surface them.
One minute.
Two.
Five.
Ten.
The river carried them downstream beneath the surface.
Ruan maintained air pockets within the carriages.
Liang kept them from smashing into rocks.
Everyone endured.
Nobody complained.
Only when Baifeng finally signaled that he could no longer sense the predator did Ruan allow the water to lift them.
Whatever entertainment the caravan had provided, ten minutes of staring at an empty river apparently wasn't worth the effort.
The four carriages broke the surface.
People gasped.
Coughed.
Cried.
The wagons drifted toward a shallow bank.
Guards jumped into the water and dragged them ashore.
For several minutes, nobody understood the scale of what had happened.
Then they began counting.
One carriage gone.
All of its cargo gone.
The remaining four heavily damaged.
Two had cracked axles.
One had lost half its roof.
Another had a wheel hanging at an angle.
The Mountain Chargers were worse.
Several died in the fall. The survivors were so badly injured that the healers could not save them.
Several guards had broken bones.
One worker had a dislocated shoulder.
Another had fractured ribs.
Three caravan staff remained unconscious.
Then five.
Then seven.
Not from physical wounds.
From the wyvern's aura.
Their Mortal Realm bodies had endured too much fear and spiritual pressure. Their minds had simply shut down.
Healers moved immediately.
Shouts filled the riverbank.
"Check breathing!"
"Get the medicine!"
"Splint that leg!"
"Where is Bao?"
"Here!"
"Where is Shen Rui?"
"Alive!"
"Lei?"
"Here!"
Then Lin Xia screamed.
"YUN CHE!"
He was sitting against the remains of a carriage.
Still holding the broken sword.
Still clutching Mountain Piercer's twisted barrel.
His face had gone grey.
His breathing was no longer fast.
It had become irregular.
Too shallow.
Then too deep.
Then nothing for several seconds.
His eyes were open but unfocused.
Lei reached him first.
"Yun Che?"
No response.
He touched Yun Che's wrist.
His expression changed.
"Elder Liang!"
Yun Che's heart was racing.
Far too fast.
Then it stumbled.
One beat.
Another.
A pause.
His chest tightened painfully.
The overwhelming terror, the Abyss Seed amplifying it, the injuries, the exhaustion and the shock of almost being erased had pushed his body beyond what his mind could handle.
Yun Che finally seemed to notice something was wrong.
His hand moved weakly toward his chest.
"I…"
His broken sword slipped from his fingers.
For the first time since Liang had pulled him from the cliff, Yun Che let it go.
His body folded.
Elder Liang caught him before his head struck the ground.
The old merchant placed two fingers against Yun Che's neck.
His face went pale.
"His heart rhythm is collapsing."
Lin Xia froze.
Jin Wei stopped breathing.
Lei stared.
Elder Ruan turned from the wounded.
"What?"
Liang lowered Yun Che onto the wet grass.
"Shock."
Yun Che's body jerked once.
His heart stuttered again.
Everything around him disappeared beneath voices.
Hands.
Healing Ki.
Someone forcing medicine between his lips.
Lin Xia saying his name.
Jin Wei swearing.
Lei standing uselessly nearby with blood still drying across his clothes.
Yun Che saw none of them clearly.
All he saw was crimson light coming through the mountain.
His armor disappearing.
His sword breaking.
Empty air beneath his feet.
Death.
Again.
Again.
Again.
The Abyss Seed pulsed somewhere deep inside him.
And Yun Che's heart stopped.