As it turned out, there wasn’t much to do on the coast or in a coastal town at night. I still wanted to explore the ruins of the old city through those caves, but we’d decided it was best to wait until the next day. While I was fine with darkness, it would still be easier to miss things. So, since it had been dusk by the time I got back, we’d stay the night here.

I shifted in bed, scrunching my eyes shut and trying to calm my mind. I’d done a bit of research and written up my thoughts, and now I wanted to catch up on sleep, since there wasn’t much else to do while waiting. But the idea didn’t work out well. There was nothing wrong with the bed, which had a smooth and soft mattress with a cuddly blanket, or my environment, which was dark and quiet right now. I didn’t usually have a problem sleeping in unfamiliar surroundings, either.

Maybe it was the events of today. I still felt a bit of disquiet thinking back to my trip under the sea. It wasn’t that bad, I just didn’t like the environment much, and the presence of powerful and terrifying beasts in the vast depths didn’t help. Hey, maybe it’s just that I couldn’t see the sun or stars. Or the moon. Who knows? At least things turned out well with the sea dragon.

I focused on my breathing and started using a meditative technique. Usually, I could do this as part of cultivation, or to focus my attention. But I kept it light, only quieting my stray thoughts a bit, while I let my mind sink into the warm darkness. It took a while, but I managed to fall into slumber. Starting to sleep always felt a little weird, since my mind didn’t really boot down anymore.

After falling asleep, I visualized an environment. That made it easier for me to focus and deal with dreams. It was only a vague scene of swirling mists, but it helped. Then I relaxed a bit and considered what I wanted to do now. I could try and see if Mother, Al, or someone else I knew was asleep. But that was pretty much a shot in the dark. I still hadn’t managed to find Carston with over a dozen attempts.

I stretched out my mind a little, experimentally. There weren’t many sleeping minds around me. Though I still wasn’t sure how this weird sense mapped to physical space. But before I could try and narrow down on anyone or anything, a sensation on the fringe of my awareness demanded my attention. Is that … someone? Wait …

I flinched mentally as I noticed the new mind battering against my dreaming one. It felt different than anything else I’d felt before, although what it most closely resembled was my encounter with Mior. This one didn’t welcome me for a cordial chat, though. It was more like someone kicking my door down and trying to drag me out. Their mind was familiar, it just took me a second to recognize it.

I pulled up mental walls as well as I could, before I carefully poked my awareness out towards the intruder. I wasn’t sure if he was dreaming, but his mind latched onto mine, and soon he entered a second layer of my dream that I’d just secluded.

‘Something you don’t want me to see, little princess?’ The dream form of my visitor smirked and strolled towards me in the mist. ‘Good luck with that …’

I crossed my arms and focused my will on keeping this scene contained. I couldn’t let him peek into the rest of my mind. ‘Pioneer. What do you want?’

He stopped, still looking completely relaxed. ‘So you think you know who I am. Alright. You’re not wrong.’ He looked around. ‘You do have quite the interesting mind, I have to say. A breath of fresh air compared to all the usual ants.’

I gritted my teeth and forced myself to calm down. He was obviously trying to annoy me. ‘Again, why are you here?’

‘Why, I came to visit you, obviously.’ He rolled his eyes. ‘How curious to find you so close to the ocean. Have you already talked to the dwellers of the depth? I suppose you have.’

I tried to focus on his face, keeping the misty dream environment around us, anything but the events he was talking about. I felt his mind bearing down on me, the weight of experience and strength eclipsing my own. He didn’t just batter against my walls, he knocked and swept his presence against them, searching for weaknesses. I felt my visualization waver, until I forced another burst of focus. I tried to press outward, touching on his own mind.

I felt a few strange sensations, like skimming the surface of someone else’s thoughts. He was curious about what he was finding here, a bit conflicted and apprehensive regarding my mind.

Then I felt my own defenses waver, and couldn’t do much but watch as he swept into the upper reaches of my consciousness. It felt like someone had taken a burning hot hammer to my head. I scrambled my will, trying to throw him out of here. I never should have answered him.

‘That wouldn’t have helped you much.’ He retreated a bit, until my mind was no longer actively under attack. I refocused on our dream projections, to see him standing there, hands clasped behind his back and head cocked slightly to the side. ‘You couldn’t keep me out, not with such a damaged, sundered, if lovely, mind.’

I glared at him. ‘You’re being creepy.’

‘I’m sorry, were you expecting kindness from someone trying to kill you?’ He laughed, but I could see the tension on his face. His reaction was forced. ‘If you have holes in a structure, you shoulds expect someone to slip in …’

I advanced on him, drawing on my qi. It was an instinctual reaction, but I could feel that my body responded, that I actually gathered qi. I threw it at his projection, at the same time as I bore down with my mind against his. Pain exploded in my head again, but I suffered through it, shoving him out of my mind and this dream. Wake up.

I felt his mind draw away, giving another jab at me. As I woke up, I knew I hadn’t beaten him, just bought some time.

I blinked and sat up, running a hand through my hair. It was dark, and the walls of my tent seemed to close in on me, even though it was large on the inside. I couldn’t feel the Pioneer anywhere, though an echo of his aura lingered. Probably just the mental connection. But something else was off. The hair on my arms stood up, and I quickly slipped out of bed. My guards were being quiet in my senses. Too quiet. And there were spots of unease that shouldn’t be here.

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I grabbed my spear from where I had left it leaning against the wall in a fit of paranoia. My storage ring was on my finger. I threw on my robe for the additional protection, then went to the tent flap. Everything was quiet. Taking a deep, but silent, breath, I threw it open and went out into the night.

The camp lay still before me. I’d chosen to stay here rather than in the town because I didn’t want a fuss and it might even be more secure. Rocky cliffs rose to my left, the entrance to caves that might lead to the buried city hidden among them. The sky and the pull of the tide from the ocean, currently in flux, told me it was the time of night closer to dawn, before it started brightening. My bare feet on the cold ground stepped softly, not breaking the silence.

Carefully, I stretched out my qi senses. Most of my guards and Tenira were lying asleep in their own tents. I felt a hint of an icky feeling from them, like a thin layer of something rotten covering them, faint enough it might just be my imagination. The same for the guards in three directions. Close by them were other presences. Spirits. No type I’d seen before, ranging in power from just below to somewhat above mine.

The strongest one came from the edge of the camp. I’d had them put up my tent on the side facing the ocean, so a few steps took me out of the light of the lantern burning in its center, and away from the tents. I could still see, of course. The slowly approaching figure stopped and some of the veil covering it slipped away. There was someone with them. Not a spirit, but a human. And a familiar presence, prickling with fear and anger …

‘If you make any kind of noise, I will slit his throat.’ The spirit’s voice was like liquid darkness, a hiss that made my neck prickle. They withdrew their qi a little more, so I could get a good look at their hostage. Al was pale, with a split lip, but a spark in his eyes. He stood stiffly against the figure holding him with a knife to his throat.

It felt like someone dyed the edges of my vision in red. I clenched my fists and gritted my teeth, struggling for a moment to control the bout of fury that gripped me. How dare they threaten him! He’s mine! My little brother! I will show them a slow torturous death … I took a deep breath, focusing. What could I do here?

‘If you harm him, nothing will stop me from killing you,’ I pointed out to the spirit, keeping my mental voice tightly constrained.

The spirit cocked its head. ‘Even if you succeed, he would still be dead. Now come along. We are willing to settle for killing him, but the real target is you.’

‘I need assurances that you won’t kill him.’

The spirit started walking backwards slowly, dragging Alaster along. ‘You are our target. But if you rouse your guards, his death will be on your hands.’

I took a few steps, cursing myself for being an idiot in my head. But I tried to keep calm and focus. I took a look around. The alarm formations around the camp were still intact. For all the good the wards did now. Al might have wandered off. Well, it doesn’t matter much now.

As I walked, I kept my spear at the ready and the other spirits in my senses. Before I stepped over the last line of wards, I hesitated for a moment, then continued on. The spirits were starting to drift towards the leader now. All of them looked faintly humanoid, but with small grotesque features. An extra hand here, fire in empty eye sockets there. Like they’d been designed to be creepy. Their leader was wispy, his substance curling in on itself and bubbling beneath his form. But clearly strong. The spirits’ qi signatures felt a bit faint, though. I suspected that none of them was really here in any corporeal sense. They were clearly what some called malicious spirits, not that I cared about phrasing now.

I could sense Al shivering. His eyes sought mine out. He tried to speak, but the knife pressing tighter against his skin shut him up.

We were far enough from the camp by now that I felt I could talk. I cleared my throat, looking at the spirit, before focusing on Al and trying to convey confidence. “It’s gonna be okay, Al,” I said in English, just low enough that he could hear me. “It’s going to be alright, okay? I love you. Stay strong.”

And I did love him, I realized with sudden clarity. Why did it take this for me to acknowledge it? I’d never said the words, not after my soul journey at least. I probably couldn’t say it about Xiaodan or Mother. But somewhere along the way, I’d accepted him as my little brother. Seeing him in danger sent shivers down my spine and made my heart burn with anger. I showed it to him in my eyes.

We had already put a bit of distance between us and the camp, and were walking closer to the ocean now. The cliffs were to our west, curving towards the north, and the town lay roughly south of here. If they wanted to get me to the south, over the border, they needed to curve around it, which was probably what they were doing. The spirit already started to drift south.

Our moment came when we started crossing into rocks at the border of the beach. The water would lash at them at high tide, and wetness lingered. Al stumbled, the probably mostly incorporeal spirit didn’t. For a moment, the knife stopped being at his throat.

I moved as soon as I saw the start of their movement shift. With everything my qi enhanced legs could muster, I sprinted forward. A technique would be too slow, but I was close enough.

Al might be a boy, but he had been trained well. He took the opportunity he saw and twisted, ducking his head and ramming his other hand into the spirit’s face. Or tried to, at least. His hand passed through the spirit’s form like it was just a phantom, and even the dagger suddenly in his hand a moment later fared no better.

With time seemingly slowed by my supernatural reflexes, I could understand everything that happened. The spirit reacted quickly. The knife flashed, cutting across the side of Al’s neck and shoulders. My heart seemed to stutter for an instant, but I realized it was just a glancing strike, the flow of blood too thin to indicate serious damage.

Then I was there. I grabbed Al and heaved him aside, pushing myself between him and his attacker. The tip of my spear sailed harmlessly to the side. The spirit’s knife drew a line of fire over my upper arm and down my lower back. I stumbled, trying to shield him with one side while I rammed the butt of my spear against the spirit.

My enemy retreated a step, its form bubbling like boiling oil. More of the spirits advanced, starting to encircle us. There was a shadow creeping in from my side, just barely visible.

I took a deep breath. I could probably take any of them on my own, but not all of them.

‘Now what do you think you have -’ the spirit began.

I jumped forward, slashing my spear at it. The spirit ducked to the side, but I’d anticipated that and instead swept my weapon around to send it at the closest other spirit. The qi I’d imbued into the spear flared, and the spirit let out a screech just at the edge of my hearing range, before its form bubbled apart around the wound.

I ducked under another knife thrust and grabbed onto the leading spirit’s arm. It felt like I touched particularly wispy wool, but I had it. When I yanked on it, the spirit moved with me, letting out a hiss of pain.

Then another spirit came at me with a sword, and I had to dodge to the side. That allowed the spirit to pull itself free. I was too far from Al now, and jumped back, dodging another strike, to get back to him.

‘Come get us, if you dare,’ I taunted them.

The spirits closed in around us, but they failed to see the shadowy forms uncoiling behind them. One dark tentacle swept them aside, clearing a path to the sea. The other lunged for me.

I grabbed onto Al, pulling him closer as I let the tentacle wrap around my waist and pull me to the ocean. My feet skidded over the rock, and I launched myself forward into the air, letting the sea dragon’s limb drag me further. A moment later, the spirits vanished from my sight and dark waters closed around us.