CHAPTER NINETY EIGHT
### Three Days
They moved fast.
Not the road pace of the growing season work. The pace of people who had a destination and a timeline and understood the distance between them precisely.
Bing Xi navigated. She had spent four years in this territory and she moved through it with the economical authority of someone who knew exactly which shortcuts cost more than they saved and which ones did not.
On the first day they covered distance that should have taken two.
Jian Yu ran the numbers while he walked.
Seven people at the outpost. Shadow Sect moving from the north. One day's lead. The relay warning would have reached the outpost at dawn. The outpost commander — a woman named Shen Hua, the same Shen Hua who had organized the first evacuation three years ago — would receive it and make a decision.
He knew from Bing Xi that Shen Hua was at the rebuilt posting. Had been for six months. Had requested the assignment specifically.
He counted what Shen Hua would do with the warning.
Seven people. Forty-three inbound. The calculation produced one answer.
But Shen Hua had made the previous evacuation work with six hours. She had this time.
The question was where they went.
The terrain north of the outpost was the dead zone — not an option. South was the relay station but the relay station was only eight people. East was the open approach valley.
West was them.
"She will move west," Bing Xi said. She had been running the same calculation. "The only viable route that keeps them away from both the Shadow Sect's approach and the relay station's limited capacity."
"West puts them on the secondary track through the mountain pass," Jian Yu said.
"Yes," Bing Xi said. "Three hours through the pass. They come out on the far side in the upper approach valley."
"Where the combination site is," Lin Mei said.
Jian Yu looked at her.
He had not thought about the combination site. He had been thinking about evacuation logistics and approach vectors.
The combination site. The nine standing stones. The central platform. The vein concentration that had been redistributed after the combination — still present, still significant, just organized differently.
"The formation," he said slowly.
"Yes," Bing Xi said.
"A group of seven cultivators sheltering in a formation built to concentrate spiritual energy," he said.
"Against forty-three Shadow Sect agents," Lin Mei said.
"The formation amplifies," Jian Yu said. "Not combat techniques specifically. It amplifies what is brought into it." He looked at Bing Xi. "Seven Ice Sect cultivators inside a natural amplification formation."
"They would need to know how to use it," Bing Xi said.
"They are Ice Sect," Jian Yu said. "Their cultivation is specifically suited to the cold vein concentration the formation focuses." He paused. "And Shen Hua organized the first evacuation. She is not someone who moves without understanding the terrain she is moving into."
"You think she already knows about the formation," Lin Mei said.
"The archive is accessible to every relay station," Jian Yu said. "The Ice Sect outer territory documentation includes the combination site." He paused. "Shen Hua has been at this posting for six months. She has had six months to read the archive."
Bing Xi was quiet for a moment.
Then: "She is taking them to the formation site."
"That is what I would do," Jian Yu said.
"That is what she will do," Bing Xi agreed.
They moved faster.
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