The name Eye of the Return-to-Void formed on his tongue—half-whisper, half-curse. “Looks like the only path runs straight through that crooked stretch,” Jared said after letting his focus trace the vortex’s trembling edges.
The Vermilion Demon Lord’s growl rolled over his shoulder. “Then what?” the demon pressed. “Do we just smash our way in?” The fiend glared at the twisting light ahead. “If I hadn‘t gutted those two scouts, maybe they’d know a trick,” he muttered, almost to himself.
Jared kept his voice steady, though sweat already salted his lips. “Too late for regrets… Besides, with their strength they’d never cross that fold. The paradise we saw was a mirage; follow them and we‘d still be wandering in it.”
Hearing this, the demon’s wings rustled, impatient. “Then what now?” he barked.
Jared let three heartbeats pass before answering. “We don’t brute-force it. That field is cut from a higher order. Charge in and it‘ll either shred us or spit us somewhere we won’t like.”
His gaze skimmed the chaos until a slow-drifting slab of dark purple stone slid between the currents. It bore veins shaped like puzzle paths. As the rock rolled, the markings hummed, knitting the air around it into brief, quiet pockets. A primitive anchor, but an anchor all the same. Hope tightened his chest.
“I’ve got it,” Jared said. His eyes brightened. “See the stones with those stabilizing veins? Quality is low, quantity isn’t. We can turn them into allies.”
The demon cocked an eyebrow. “And the trick is?” he asked.
Jared tapped two fingers together. “A formation… We set the Space-Stabilizing Stones as base points,” he explained, voice quickening. “Then I weave a temporary array with my five-element power—nothing fancy, just a Mini Wind-Sheltering Transposition Array…”
“It doesn’t need to block everything,” Jared continued. “All we require is the few breaths it stays alive to sling us clean into the eye of that swirl.”
The demon wasn’t fluent in arrays, but the grin that split his face said he understood enough. “You keep inventing new games,” he laughed. “Fine… I’ll haul rocks and beat back whatever wind tries to bite.”
Jared nodded once, sharp. Action chased thought. Both men sprang apart, purpose dividing the air between them. A towering demon silhouette unfurled behind the Vermilion Demon Lord, slipping between razor currents like a shark through reeds. He ripped stone after stone from their drift paths, sometimes letting astral wind rake bloody grooves along his arms to claim a stubborn prize. Meanwhile, Jared darted from boulder to boulder, his fingers spilling sparks as temporary runes blossomed across each surface. Every sigil locked a sliver of space, knitting the chaotic air into something that almost felt trustworthy.
Jared pressed his forefinger to the cold stone as though it were the only stylus left in the universe. Chaotic celestial energy seeped from the nailbed, dark and viscous, sketching a crawl of five-element and spatial locking sigils. The environment roared around him—shredded currents, feral sparks—each pulse jarring his focus. He felt thought fray at the edges; one misplaced stroke and the carving would implode, hungry enough to bite back through bone and soul.
Twice a rolling knot of wild energy lunged out of the haze; another time an unseen rift yawned where there had been only gloom. Each threat met the Vermilion Demon Lord’s talon or his urgent tug, saving Jared by a breath. A slit of void, silent as regret, slid so near it kissed the hairs on his spine. The warding glow ripped open, pain spiking; flesh parted to the bone, space-rot spiraling in the wound, hot blood soaking his robe.
“Stay sharp!” the Vermilion Demon Lord barked. He hurled his claw into a swirl of ghost-fire, crunching it to embers before the sparks could taste them.
Jared grunted. Four colors churned across the torn light around him, smoking out the spatial rot. Muscle braided itself new, the cut knitting even as warmth leaked down his ribs. He didn’t bother looking back; the motion of the chisel-finger dictated every breath.
“Time’s thinning,” Jared muttered. “The Guiding Talisman is thrumming harder. The Eye settles in cycles, the next lull is coming, and we must be ready before it blinks.”
Nearly a full day bled away—cuts, fumes, grit in his lungs—before the seventy-two Space-Stabilizing Stones floated into their appointed compass points, sketching a crude circle roughly thirty feet wide. Standing at the heart of it, Jared slid the Guiding Talisman into the very center. The Vermilion Demon Lord stepped onto the pattern beside him, silent but bristling.
“Awaken…” Jared whispered. He pressed both palms to the nexus.
Chaotic celestial energy, five-element power, Earthfire True Essence, and the stubborn will of his Golden Dragon Bloodline fought for the same conduit; yet, raggedly, they poured into the array. A low, resonant hum ballooned into a violet halo as all seventy-two stones flared at once. Lines of light snapped between them, weaving a translucent shell that settled over the two figures. Gale-sharp winds and roaming power slammed the shell, raising concentric ripples, but for the moment the storm stayed outside.
Sweat beaded on his brow; holding the barrier against the chaos gnawed at him. He forced himself to breathe deeply and pushed the Guiding Talisman harder. The talisman blazed, projecting its ancient glyph into the air. A narrow, unwavering beam speared toward the whirlpool of warped space ahead. At the beam‘s touch, the vortex shuddered, then pinched inward, revealing a dark passage no bigger than an eye, perfectly still in the maelstrom.
“Now! Go!” Jared shouted. He ripped every last thread of array power and the talisman’s pull into a single detonation.
The blast roared, Space-Stabilizing Stones burst apart, and the violet shell fractured into shards that vanished against the storm. A cool, immense shove of spatial force wrapped Jared and the Vermilion Demon Lord together, flinging them forward as a single streak of light. The silver ribbon cast by the Guiding Talisman streaked ahead, and before Jared’s mind could name the risk, his whole being rocketed after it, aimed straight at the midnight iris that waited like an unblinking abyss.
Impact arrived without warning. Space folded, stretched, then crushed in on itself, and Jared‘s bones squealed like ice under a spring thaw while his skull tried to twist away from his spine. Inside the grinding dark, he felt his spirit being taffy-pulled to the breaking point. He bit down hard, tasting iron, and forced the four currents he depended on to knit a shield around his flesh. Beside him, the Vermilion Demon Lord spat out a guttural snarl, scarlet radiance erupting from every plated muscle.
Time dissolved. It might have been a heartbeat, it might have been years. Then the tearing stopped, as suddenly as a drum cut mid-beat. Solid earth caught the soles of his boots. Cool, unmarred air flooded his lungs. Somewhere close, water chuckled over stone while bright birds argued in the canopy.
He staggered a single step, regained his knees’ obedience, and swept the clearing with a guarded stare. The Demon Lord shook off an invisible ringing, slit pupils glinting as he scanned for threats.
What met their eyes froze both men where they stood. They had walked into a valley the ordinary world had forgotten. Above, the sky lay clear and blue, marbled only by lazy scraps of cloud. Layer upon layer of jade-green ridges rose farther off, each draped in slow-moving veils of mist. Closer, knee-high grass whispered around blooms so strange they hurt the memory of color, perfume lifting like cool wine. A glass-bright stream threaded the meadow, each ripple pulsing with a dim silver glow.
At its edge, a spirit-deer lowered delicate horns to drink while white cranes stepped through the reeds like drifting paper. But the power floating in the air felt nothing like the twelve-tier heavens they knew. It was older, heavier—the raw breath of creation before any god bothered to trim the edges. With each inhale, his core answered, chaotic celestial energy stirring first, then the coiled Golden Dragon blood humming in agreement.
“Jared, tell me this isn’t another fake… Another trick.” The Vermilion Demon Lord‘s usual confidence sounded thin at the edges.
