CHAPTER 212
### Fast
Li Shan's response: *Confirmed. The seventeen developing sections in the spaces between the five sword frequency sections. If those seventeen are suppressed — the distributed resonance degrades. The five sections continue generating but without the conducting medium they function independently.*
*The faction leadership has access to the traditional suppression technique at senior level. Applied to seventeen developing sections — feasible.*
*Timeline at their current movement rate: four days to the first developing section in the grid.*
*You have four days.*
He read the message.
He looked at the grey blade.
He looked at the road.
"Feng Luo," he said.
"The formation site," Bing Xi said. "Two days from the five sections cluster."
"The northeastern sections," he said. "He finished those three days ago."
"He is at the eastern boundary with Xian Yue," Bing Xi said.
"One day from the cluster," he said.
He sent to Feng Luo: *The five sword frequency sections. The seventeen developing sections in the spaces between them. Faction leadership moving toward them. Four days.*
*Go.*
Feng Luo's response came back in four minutes.
*Already moving.*
*Xian Yue is with me.*
*Two swords in the cluster by tomorrow morning.*
He looked at the road.
Three days of walking between him and the cluster.
He had three days.
The faction had four.
"We need to move faster than we have been moving," Lin Mei said.
"Yes," he said.
She was already packing.
He was already packing.
"Bing Xi," he said.
"The shortest route cuts through the dead zone fringe," she said. "Two days instead of three."
"Through Shadow Sect approach territory," he said.
"Yes," she said. "But the dead zone fringe has been changing. The between quality propagation reaching it. The faction leadership will avoid it."
"The faction leadership is moving through the eastern approach," he said.
"Yes," she said. "The dead zone fringe western approach is clear."
He thought about this.
The dead zone fringe western approach.
Two days instead of three.
One day margin instead of none.
"The sections in the fringe," he said. "The developing ones near Pei Song's position."
"He is there," she said.
"He has been there for months," he said.
He sent to Pei Song: *Dead zone fringe western approach. We are passing through in two days. The faction leadership is moving east. If they change course toward the western approach — message immediately.*
Pei Song's response came back in thirty minutes.
*Understood. I have been reading the territory. There is a faction patrol that came through three days ago — four people. They were moving east. I did not report it because it was a standard patrol pattern.*
*I will watch.*
*Also: the section under me here. The between quality propagation reached it last week. The section responded immediately. I felt it when it happened.*
*I am still staying.*
He read Pei Song's message.
He read the last line.
He looked at the grey blade.
He looked at the western route through the dead zone fringe.
He committed.
He walked fast.
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