Mo Fei’s eyes fixed on the door. It was just wood, but his body knew something, his mind hadn’t accepted yet... because his shadow was already halfway across the room, reaching for the threshold, desperate to open the door for whatever waited on the other side.
The sigils’ glow dimmed more and more. Each failure sounded like a glass breaking.
Elara grabbed Han’s arm. He stood like stone, because he didn’t know what else to do.
Lin’s weapon was in her hand before Mo Fei saw her move. Jian Yue’s hand went to his blade. Zhuo stepped back and drew out his own blade, and Mo Fei clutched his Glaive.
Lin’s eyes scanned the gate, looking at sigils. Jian Yue and Lin both heard the same voice cut through the silence again, a whisper, a pleading voice.
"Please..."
Lin recognized the traits.
"It’s a Xul-Thal," Lin breathed. "A lead weight phantasm Curse. Someone here is marked by its curse."
They all thought, but they were sure they had not seen it before.
Elara’s grip tightened. She knew the feeling of being watched. She’d felt it every day of her life in Trasia... the guard’s gaze, always present and weighing.
Jian Yue’s voice carried the next words. "Are you really certain?"
Lin nodded, confirming that someone here was undeniably marked.
Mo Fei was deep in his thoughts, and suddenly he remembered something that happened in the ’Forsaken Chamber.’ He saw a shadow, which he dismissed as merely an imagination.
Mo Fei glanced at his shadow on the wall, except it was facing the wrong direction. It stretched toward the door as if it wanted to run there.
"I think... I know who is marked." Everyone’s eyes locked on Mo Fei, waiting for him to continue. "I saw a shadow in the ritual chamber..."
Jian Yue’s eyes widened in surprise. He turned toward the door.
Lin’s eyes narrowed. "And you didn’t tell us about it?! It’s an entity that needs a host, and if the host uses their Ordinal powers, a portion of their marrow turns into a black sentient."
She pointed at Mo Fei. "And you are the next host."
Her hand fell again. "It whispers in their mind constantly about the world’s darkest horror, truths of the world. Driving them into madness." Lin’s voice urgent, she stood up and prepared for the ritual to keep the gate protected.
Lin’s jaw tightened. "The sigils are weakened. if they falter, the Overseer would know. Jian Yue, Zhuo I’m putting this on you." Her hand traced the sigils.
Her other hand held the blade’s hilt, her eyes landed on Mo Fei before looking away...
It wasn’t about fighting.
It was to kill Mo Fei if necessary. He could be the next ’Host.’ Mo Fei stared back, and realized the weight of her stare. He gulped slightly; he understood that look.
Zhuo’s eyes went to the ground, a small hesitation flickered.
"... Its original eye." The boy’s face went pale, but his hand didn’t shake the blade. "Its... its original eye. The one it took from the last host. If we don’t–"
"Destroy it," Lin cut in. "Before it takes another."
"The last host was a child. It took us three days to find the eye. We were late." She moved her hand, and the sigils began shaking with a glow.
Zhuo’s eyes locked on the door, seeing Lin fixing the barrier.
Jian Yue nodded at him and said, "Zhuo, we are leaving now."
Zhuo looked at Mo Fei one last time. "Close your eyes and don’t open them until it’s gone, because it’ll snap your eyes, stay safe... Big brother." His words were urgent, but the last word was strangely warm for Mo Fei.
He knew Zhuo was a naive kid, but at that moment, Zhuo acted differently, knowing the danger.
Jian Yue glanced back last time. "I hate to say that, but Lin. Don’t do that before we come back. Even if ’it’ takes over."
"Tch. Don’t blame me if anything happens if I don’t..." A pause almost too quiet to hear. "Anyway jus take care of the boy."
The door closed.
"Please..."
Mo Fei flinched, his eyes widened from the sudden voice. It wasn’t outside anymore, it was a whisper behind his eyes. He snapped his head back...
Nothing. It whispered again.
"You’ve seen them, haven’t you? The threads. Didn’t you realize yet? They are hiding things from you... They can kill you once you become a threat to them... Don’t you realize that... Don’t you?"
Mo Fei clamped his hands over his ears tightly, but it was no help. The voice grew in his head, and it ached.
"You want to know the truth. I can show you... say, say. Don’t you want to know everything about these worlds?"
"Shut up!!" He breathed heavily.
Lin glanced at him. "Who are you talking to?"
Mo Fei looked at her. Her hand was still on her blade; Mo Fei shivered from that thought. "N... No one."
Lin watched him with an unimpressed look. "Tch... Liar,"
***
Jian Yue and Zhuo stepped outside. The cold hit them like a wall. One step from the Still Point’s warmth, and suddenly the world was all teeth. Zhuo saw ’It’ first, standing fifty paces away against the vast snowfield.
’It’ waited. Patiently, and politely.
Jian Yue’s hand found Zhuo’s shoulder. "Let’s find the original eye first."
One of the floating eyes had already found Zhuo. It was hung in the air like a bubble floating, and in its pupil, Zhuo saw himself... saw himself dying, saw himself already dead, and fifty years from now, still fighting, still losing.
Zhuo was stunned.
The eye blinked. The vision stopped at that same moment.
Zhuo’s sword was in his hand, he didn’t remember drawing it. There was no way he had taken out his sword; it was in his sheath.
The Xul-Thal tilted its head. A human gesture? Perhaps it had learned that somewhere, long ago. The nerves on its scalp twitched, and the floating eyes adjusted. Ten eyes in its hair now fixed on two figures in the snow.
Then. It spoke... It spoke without a mouth. The voice came into their head, with no noise in surrounding, no air moved.
"You brought a child," it paused for a moment and then spoke again. "How thoughtful."
A humanoid being covered in black substance that fell on the ground, creating a deep darkness, Its shadow itself an endless void.
Jian Yue lunged first, his movement was faster than any sound. He closed the distance between them. The blade moved precisely, cutting through one of the strands.
It stepped back, the eye rolling on the ground. It slowly leaned and picked up the eye, swallowing it.
Jian Yue’s hit did nothing.
The eye grew back, blinking at them.
"Tch." Jian Yue moved again, his blade cutting through the air. It chopped another nerve. Another eye fell. Another eye regrew. It didn’t flinch.
"It’s not working," Zhuo breathed without the Original Eye; killing it was impossible
The Xul-Thal didn’t move. It watched. Its head tilted further and passed the point where necks should snap.
It looked at Zhuo with its sinister eyes.
"Little one," the voice came from everywhere. "Little one, do you know what they’ll do to you?"
Zhuo’s sword dipped from his hand, and he gasped.
"They’ll use you. Lose you. Forget you. They always do... This, this is the law of nature." The Xul-Thal took one step toward Zhuo. The darkness beneath it spread wider, reaching toward Zhuo’s feet, an endless deep river of shadows.
"The woman with the scar? You must have known by now... She’s already planning how to kill the marked one, and the marked one? He’s already listening to me and soon will be my host. And the man beside you? He will d—"
"Zhuo! Zhuo, don’t freeze in!" Jian Yue shouted at Zhuo.
"He has done that before. Four times. Four failures. How long before you’re the fifth?"
Zhuo’s hand shook, and he closed his eyes, but as soon he opened them. Its eye was close. The nerve wrapped around Zhuo, looking with the hideous eye.
Jian Yue appeared next to it, cutting the eye in two pieces. He grabbed Zhuo’s hand and jumped back.
Slap!
Zhuo moved when Jian Yue slapped him. The world snapped back to reality.
Zhuo’s eyes didn’t meet Jian Yue’s. "I-I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to–"
"No time! Listen to me. Didn’t you think we are family. It’s no time to decide your fate."
The shadow grew wider beneath them. Their boots splashed the black blood.
Jian Yue threw Zhuo away from the spreading darkness.
"Run!"
"What? No!"
"Find the eye. I’ll hold it back for a while."
Zhuo’s feet wouldn’t move... He knew the weight of the situation... But how could he find the eye in a whole district? "How?"
Jian Yue didn’t answer. He turned to face the Xul-Thal, his movements were slow as he lowered his blade.
The Xul-Thal paused. Even its floating eyes seemed curious. Its ten eyes focused on him.
"It’s worthless to fight invincible."
***
Inside the Still Point, Mo Fei pressed his palms against his skull. The terrifying voice of Xul-Thal echoed endlessly.
"They’re dying out there. The Warden and the boy. He’s so afraid of the future outcomes, he is thinking what if he fails. He’s thinking about all of you. Such hope. Such waste."
"Be QUIET! I’ll cut that tongue of yours."
"I don’t have any."
Mo Fei’s eyes snapped open, his hand on the wall, rubbing against the hard surface.
The voice laughed softly, with a horrible fondness. "Ah. There you are. I wondered when you’d remember you had those eyes. Come outside then, let’s meet those eyes with mine."
Mo Fei moved before he understood why. He grabbed the Glaive and stumbled toward the door.
Lin’s voice cut through: "Don’t you dare open that–"
But he opened it anyway.
He saw them in the snow. Zhuo, in the middle, staring at something Mo Fei couldn’t see. Jian Yue’s blade moved with sparks, surrounded in a veil of a twisted circle of shadow.
His sight opened and saw the threads connecting Its body to far away from them.
The threads reached near a cave filled with cold. The thread entered, everything blurred. They connected to something alive.
The Original Eye.
Mo Fei’s eyes widened. The thread snapped into focus, a silver line stretched through the dark into a familiar location... He finally noticed where that eye was.
Mo Fei opened his mouth to shout the location before he heard a scream coming out of Zhuo’s throat.
"YOU SHOULDN’T HAVE OPENED YOUR EYES!" Zhuo’s scream was too late. ’It’ had seen his eye.
A sharp pain flared up.
Mo Fei’s hand flew up to his right eye. His hand met an empty socket. On the ground, steaming in the snow, an eye looked back at him. The vein of the eye snapped in half.
It was his... Eye.
Mo Fei screamed, a sharp whimper coming out of his throat. His hand soaked in blood. But even when he fell to his knees, even when the blood froze on his cheek.
He closed his other eyes, and still pointed. "Cathedral," he gasped. "The eye... it’s in the Cathedral of the Flesh. The execution chamber, but there is Kho–"
He couldn’t finish. The blood came from his eye.
Zhuo understood. He looked at Jian Yue, who nodded at him.
Jian Yue avoided a shadow spike coming out of the ground, almost a fatal hit. The Xul-Thal had decided to finally fight him.
Zhuo turned toward the Cathedral, and he rushed with everything he got.
Lin looked through the doorway and glanced at Han and Elara. She with her eyes to take back Mo Fei.
Han and Elara stood up from the corner and rushed outside, both pulled Mo Fei inside, closing the door again.
"Zhuo is running toward Kholkis!" Mo Fei shouted with a gasp. His words came as whimpers.
Upon hearing that Lin’s eye twitched slightly. She was no help right now if she let go of the barrier.
They all might die if the Overseer would find out.