The western node wasn't a place. It was an assault.
Raw energy didn't just flow here; it detonated. Amber light burst from fissures in the rock in short, furious geysers that left the air crackling and smelling of ozone and hot granite. The sound was a physical pressure, a constant, deafening roar that vibrated in Li Fan's teeth and made his injured leg tremble.
The Vein Guardian who had escorted him pointed wordlessly to a small, flat area on the jagged outcropping. A set of three formation flags—simple poles of dark wood tipped with iron—lay on the ground. The Guardian then retreated to a slightly more stable ledge twenty paces back, becoming a silent, armored statue. An observer, not a helper.
Li Fan was alone with the fury of the mountain.
Okay. Flag goes there. Anchor it with a focus of intent. Simple.
Nothing about this was simple. The first geyser erupted three feet to his left. The blast of heat seared his cheek. The shockwave of condensed spiritual force hit him like a physical shove, and he stumbled, his bad leg buckling. He caught himself on the rough rock, palms scraping raw.
He had to stabilize the local flow, just for a moment, to plant the flag. He had one tool.
Gritting his teeth, he crouched near the most violent fissure. The energy surging from it was a tangled, thrashing knot of light. He focused on the Seal in his palm, which was throbbing in time with the eruptions. He didn't know a technique. He only had an instinct: to calm the knot.
He pressed his right hand, palm down, toward the maelstrom of light.
The Seal activated. A soft, silver glow emanated from his skin, meeting the violent amber. Where the lights touched, the thrashing energy… stilled. Not completely. But the wild lashes became gentle waves. The geyser subsided to a steady, manageable flow. A bubble of temporary order existed in the chaos.
The effect was immediate and brutal.
It wasn't pain. It was a sapping. A wave of dizziness washed over him so intense he nearly vomited. His vision grayed at the edges. A deep, cold fatigue seized his muscles, as if he'd just run for miles in a snowstorm. A feverish heat bloomed in his core, contradicting the chill in his limbs. He felt hollowed out, his thoughts turning sluggish.
The Seal wasn't using spiritual energy. He had none. It was using him. His life force. His mental focus. His sheer will to live. It was burning his vitality as fuel.
He couldn't hold it. With a gasp, he ripped his hand back. The silver light vanished. The amber energy instantly snapped back into its violent, roaring pattern, a geyser blasting upward where his hand had been.
He knelt there, panting, sweat and rock dust sticking to his skin. The feverish chill clung to his bones. He looked at his trembling hands. This was the cost. This was his only power: the ability to trade minutes of his life for seconds of stability.
He had no choice.
He timed the eruptions. They came every seven or eight seconds. He waited, counting in his head. On the fifth second after a blast, he lunged forward, Seal-first, and pressed his palm down.
Silver light. Calm.
Dizziness. Hollow ache.
He grabbed a formation flag with his left hand, its weight feeling immense.
He slammed the pointed end into a crack in the stabilized energy flow.
He poured his intent into it—not spiritual power, but a focused, desperate command: HOLD. BE STILL.
He ripped his right hand back.
The flag stood. The energy, momentarily shaped by his will and the Seal's coaxing, swirled around the flagpole, anchoring it. The geyser at that fissure didn't stop, but its violence lessened by a fraction.
One flag. He felt like he'd aged a year.
He repeated the process. Lunge. Seal. Agony. Plant. Retreat. Gasp. Each time, the bodily cost was deeper. The fever grew. His muscles shook with a fine, constant tremor. By the third and final flag, his vision was swimming with black spots. He barely got the flag planted before stumbling back, collapsing against a rock, his chest heaving.
He had done it. The western node hummed with a slightly less discordant note. Three flags stood in a triangle, subtly bending the chaotic inflow toward something resembling order.
He looked across the vast, roaring cavern.
There, on the central spire, stood Elder Liu. The elder wasn't lunging or sweating. He stood calmly, one hand raised, fingers moving in slow, intricate patterns. With each gesture, a complex formation flag, far more sophisticated than Li Fan's crude stakes, flew from his sleeve and embedded itself perfectly into the rock. Amber energy flowed around his flags willingly, like a river directed by a master engineer. He wasn't fighting the energy. He was conducting it. He didn't even look tired.
The disparity was a canyon between them. Liu worked with the effortless, timeless power of a cultivator woven into the world's fabric. Li Fan had bought his tiny victory with raw slices of his own mortality.
A wave of nausea hit him. He dry-heaved, nothing in his stomach but bile and dread.
He had completed the task. He had survived the assassination-by-environment. But as he forced himself to his feet, every joint protesting, a new and colder understanding settled in.
The Seal was a lifeline, but it was also a leak in his hull. He could bail water, but each bucketful cost him strength. And the storm was just beginning.
He was weakening. And his enemy, watching from his serene spire, was not.