Chapter 665 - Currents of the Island (Patreon)

There was a shadow stalking, he was certain.

No matter where he ran, the lights would flicker and fade, and darkness would surge. He glanced back over his shoulder, spittle dripping out and covering it as he inhaled through his mouth, but there was nobody there. Just a dark, empty alleyway, not unlike a dozen others of Gold City that he'd ran through the past half hour.

Why him? He'd just come out to see the city after visiting the island for the first time. He hadn't gotten into a fight with anyone, he hadn't insulted anyone... so, why him? Why were the shadows stalking him?

He tripped over something, his knees giving out as he stumbled forward and facepalmed into the heavy stone. His teeth rattled and a few got loose as blood began to trickle out of his nose. Even so, there was no Qi--no matter how desperately he tried to summon it, to escape the clutches of death, it would not heed his call. As if it, too, were hiding.

Metallic taste coated his mouth as he spat out red and started coughing, pulling himself up to his knees. He wanted to run, to run as far away as he could, but his legs would not listen. It was as though there was a mountain on his heels and it was holding him down.

Then, he heard them.

The footsteps.

They were strangely erratic, as if someone was purposefully walking in a way to make discordant sounds. As if to taunt him. Mock him. Laugh at him. They started faint, distant, but slowly grew closer. Louder. Until the last pair echoed out near his ears, causing his body to shudder.

Then there was silence. It felt long yet short, as he urged his trembling body to calm and his head to look up. The stories of the island were true, after all. That its masters harvested the visitors and used their bodies for alchemy. He should have listened. Stayed home. Stayed safe.

He couldn't quite make out their features in the dark, only a scarlet reflection of something wrapped around their necks.

Death... was painless, but dull and cold.

**

"Brother Zhong, come on, drink with us!" he put on a smile, but loathed it. Pathetic hang-ons hovering around him like flies.

"Here, here!"

"Just one more, just one more!"

The room stank of alcohol and pipe, littered with passed out imbeciles trying to curry favor. Lights flickered past the smoke and mist, causing him to grunt and stand up. He hated them, hated them all.

But he needed them.

These pathetic vermin who couldn't do anything beyond drinking and smoking, spending their days in a mindless haze. Drifting through life as if it would be eternal.

He carved out a path around them and entered the back, finally escaping the toxic fumes that he was blocking with Qi. Walking through a small corridor for a moment, damp and gray, he reached the basement and entered, welcomed by bright sheen of warm color. Stacks and stacks of shelves ran the length of the four walls, with a massive desk in the middle and six chairs, two of which were currently occupied.

"Senior Zhong, you're back," S' greeted him, standing up and bowing while K' merely nodded.

"Hm," he nodded back, finding the chair opposite of them.

"How are things?"

"Bothersome."

"We understand, but please endure," S' said. "For a bit more, at least."

"It's fine. Why did you want to see me?"

"There's been an incident," K' interjected with his usual, lazy tone.

"You wouldn't have called me for an incident," he said.

"There's been a theft at the Southern Auction."

"So?" he frowned. "Aren't items sold there trash we throw away?"

"The thief hasn't been caught."

"Oh?" he arched his brows in surprise. Though it was southern waste as he called it, there was still a rule of law. That the thief hadn't been caught... it was something that bitch Hei was probably losing her mind over. "Interesting. What happened?"

"She's blocking the exact item that was stolen," S' said. "Which is strange as it wasn't slated to be that expensive."

"So, why would one bother stealing it?" he pondered aloud, tapping away with his finger against the desk.

"Hm. For now, she's taken the charge of the investigation, but there has been no progress."

"There's someone that can hide their traces even from Hei?" his eyebrows shot further up. "That's rather... dangerous."

"Yes. We have instructed the guards around the auction house to be on the lookout and increased the security around the most treasured vaults. Though we doubt the thief would even try, it doesn't hurt to increase security temporarily."

"Good," he nodded. "Well, since my Senior Sister is suffering so, as a proper Junior Brother, I ought to visit her and console her, no?"

"A proper Junior Brother would indeed do that."

"Indeed," he grinned. She'd swindled him out of full five Divine Stones last time, and he was hardly the sort to let the bygones be bygones.

**

It was unstable, again.

Qian Shuren couldn't help but frown staring at the wobbly edges of a vortex, plumes of light and shadow intermingling. The spacetime around it was rippling, as if enduring the bombardment of energy it was not prepared for.

All due to the portal.

In fairness, Qian Shuren could not actually remember a time when the portal was stable fully. Whether it was when she had just gotten to the island so many years ago, or in any of the ages between then and now, there was always some instability. However, by miracle, the portal never collapsed. Whether it was because Master Yuan maintained it meticulously, or he paid somebody else to do that, or because the portal was stable despite its instability... she didn't know.

After all, Dao of Space was something she barely grasped enough of to enter the Void Transformation Realm, and hardly focused on it since.

Still, she felt... this time it was different. She couldn't pinpoint why, far from it, beyond simply uttering the phrase that would get her laughed out of the hall: My gut tells me.

But it was telling her. No, more than telling, it was practically screaming at her--it was slowly coming undone. If it would simply disappear, it wouldn't even be a bad thing; it'd simply mean that the island would lose the ability to enter Infernal Realm and fight the unending war any longer, which, while it would hurt Master's pockets, wouldn't result in much else.

But if it collapsed violently?

She sighed, rubbing the bridge of her nose. Parts of her wanted to go and meet the man and warn him, but every other part of her knew it would be futile. She was exiled all but in the literal sense, and he would sooner listen to a beetle than her. But for her to simply stand and do nothing about it?

It didn't feel right, either.

Sighing yet again, she turned her back and walked away. That man... he should be coming within the next five years, she imagined. Perhaps, all else notwithstanding, he might have the ability to either stabilize the portal or at least convince Master it was collapsing.

Perhaps... perhaps... perhaps...