Hu Shui spread his fingers in a signal, sending Elijah sprawling to the surface of the bridge. The other two followed suit, narrowly avoiding the blender of ethereal blades that had manifested above them. Together, the trio crawled forward for fifteen feet until Hu Shui signaled for them to rise.

  Elijah didn’t hesitate to follow the man’s directions. After twenty more feet, the Astral Duelist told them to leap over another set of conjured blades that would have severed their feet. And ten more saw them inching along the edge of the bridge, their backs to the yawning abyss, as they avoided the rapidly manifesting blades that took up more than ninety percent of the path.

  Over the past two days, Elijah and the others had encountered so many variations of the pattern that he’d begun to wonder just how Hu Shui managed to predict them all. But he had, keeping a running commentary of mutters beneath his breath. Every now and then, Elijah could read the man’s lips, but without context, the meaning was incomprehensible to him.

  He just had to trust his companion.

  Not the easiest thing for a man who’d spent most of his adventuring days alone. What’s more, when he was accompanied by other people, he was usually the leader by default. Or failing that, he tended to do his own thing, relying on his instincts to see him through a wide variety of dangerous situations.

  The result was that the trip across the bridge was wrought with discomfort, the result of the situation as well as going against his nature. On top of that was the mental fatigue of being constantly on edge, of knowing that one simple mistake – even a moment of hesitation – would almost assuredly mean their deaths.

  The only small comfort was that Elijah could sequester those feelings into their own leaf, where they couldn’t affect his actions. Clearly, the others didn’t have that ability. Or if they had advanced their mind cultivation sufficiently to allow for it, it wasn’t nearly as effective as it was with Elijah’s mind.

  And Hu Shui was the worst off by far.

  His expression remained strained, his eyes were wild, and his every muscle stood tense. That had been going on for two days – not a natural state for any being – and it wouldn’t be long before he met his limits.

  Elijah could only hope that they would reach the end of the bridge first.

  On and on they went, with each member of the trio growing ever more stressed. Elijah had been through somewhat similar situations – at least in terms of tension – so he dealt with it most easily. But even he was fast approaching the end of his rope.

  Complicating matters was that no one dared do anything more than follow signaled instructions, for fear of breaking Hu Shui’s concentration. The pattern was more than just complicated. The man was doing complex mathematical equations in his head while applying it practically to their situation. That kind of labor could not be undertaken without full focus.

  So, a day – and hundreds of blade traps – later, when they finally saw another platform, they all sighed in relief. That simple bit of relaxation very nearly got them killed, because it threw Hu Shui’s timing off just enough to spoil the whole pattern. Fortunately, it was the moment Elijah had been waiting for, and he deployed his Mantle of Authority.

  From experience, he’d become familiar with just how sluggish its activation would be. It was like trying to swim through mud, and it took every ounce of Elijah’s concentration to shove enough ethera into the conduits of his soul to extend its branches even a few feet outside his body. Even then, they were thin and brittle, and they only held up to a single flurry of blades.

  Thankfully, that was enough.

  The blades didn’t completely dissipate, but when they hit the trio, the resultant wounds were shallow enough that they could keep going. Hu Shui regained his rhythm, and they pushed ahead, reaching the platform only a few seconds later.

  Finally, they collapsed.

  “Good job. Go team,” Elijah mumbled.

  “Please don’t speak. I feel as if someone is repeatedly jabbing needles into my brain right now,” Hu Shui breathed.

  Elijah started to respond, but he thought better of it. Instead, he just closed his eyes and steadied his breathing. It wasn’t long before the tension of the past few days caught up to him and he – along with the other two – drifted off to sleep. There was no telling how long he remained unconscious. Suspended in the vacuum of nothingness, there was no real indication of the passage of time. However, when he awoke, he felt more refreshed than he had any right to expect.

  More importantly, his wounds – old and new – had scabbed over, indicating that he’d been resting for quite a while. He pushed himself to his feet, noting along the way that both Hu Shui and Benedict remained unconscious, then took stock of his situation. A few twists and turns told him that the cuts he’d sustained weren’t going to break open, but he couldn’t help but notice the coating of dried blood on the golden surface of the platform.

  It was evidence that the bridge had extracted its toll.

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  He glanced around, confirming what he’d already noticed on approach. The platform was attached to another giant spiral that led ever downward. Fundamentally, it was no different than the one they’d left behind, but Elijah took it as a sign that they were on the right track.

  It was hard to maintain that optimism. For all intents and purposes, it was identical to the one they’d left behind, which filled him with a sense of déjà vu. Moreover, he wasn’t certain that it wasn’t a literal repeat of what they’d left behind. After all, with the Primal Realm messing with time and space, pretty much anything was possible.

  He chose to ignore that niggling thought and focus on things he could control.

  Over the next few hours, Elijah occupied himself with exploration, and in that time, he established what he’d already learned – the spiral was only a little different than the one they left behind. Thankfully, he didn’t have a chance to worry too much about it, because Hu Shui and Benedict awoke only a little while later.

  Both looked worse for wear, and even when Elijah broke out a few grove fruits to help with their recuperation, they maintained the harried look. The Primal Realm was clearly more than either of them had expected.

  “We need to keep moving,” Elijah said. “I suggest we go down.”

  “That seems the proper course,” Hu Shui agreed.

  Benedict remained silent, only offering a noncommittal shrug as his contribution to the decision-making process. After only a few more minutes, the three embarked on the next phase of their journey, and to no one’s surprise, they soon found themselves faced with a series of chambers that mimicked those they’d already encountered.

  More cavernous incubation rooms. More slave arrays. Over and over until they encountered another vacuum. After Hu Shui established that the pattern was identical to the one they’d already crossed, the three set out, the same as before. The crossing was no less fraught with tension, but they all fell into a familiar rhythm which made it a little easier to endure.

  So, they arrived at the next platform a little better off than the previous one.

  It was a unique sort of frustration. On the one hand, if they did things properly, there wasn’t much danger of them dying. On the other, the constant mental strain left them all exhausted. On top of that, they didn’t even have a good fight to relieve their stress.

  “What level are you two?” Elijah asked, sitting cross-legged on the latest platform.

  “Two-thirty-eight,” Benedict answered.

  “Two-twenty-three,” Hu Shui provided.

  “Nice progress.”

  They both agreed that it was, though neither was looking forward to the First Wall, which, from what Elijah could tell, they both underestimated. For his part, he knew just how massive the gap between two-forty and two-fifty really was. Thankfully, he could also feel himself growing ever closer to overcoming the obstacle. If he was forced to estimate it, he’d say that he was at the ninety-nine percent mark.

  So, he was eager to find something to kill, if only because he’d finally receive the sweet release of reaching that goal.

  That had to wait, though, because they spent another few weeks repeating that same process. Spiral. Bridge. Spiral. Over and over again until they lost track of just how many times it had reoccurred. All they knew was that it was mentally exhausting, and on a level that none of them had ever experienced.

  Unfortunately, there was no choice but to continue on. So, that was what they did until, at last, something changed.

  “This…this is not what I expected,” Elijah said, staring down at what appeared to be another paradise. In fact, it looked much like Eden, only somehow more idealized. And lacking a giant automaton.

  “It makes sense.”

  “Does it?”

  Benedict shook his head. “You didn’t notice it, did you?”

  “What?” asked Elijah. Hu Shui echoed his confusion.

  “The city where we fought the giant robot was just like this. It was entirely contained. And now…”

  “It’s a loop,” Hu Shui breathed. “Is it just space? Or is it a loop in time as well?”

  “There’s no way to know. Not until we go down there,” Benedict answered.

  Elijah remained silent, kneeling on the latest platform, which was suspended so far above the surface that, from below, it was at least partially obscured by the clouds. He wasn’t sure about their supposition that space or time magic was involved, largely because he’d seen the Hollow Depths. There were whole forests down there that were indistinguishable from what one might find on the surface. The notion that a moon-sized globe might contain something similar wasn’t entirely unreasonable.

  He reached out, and his fingers passed through some ephemeral and undetectable barrier. The second they did, he felt an atmosphere so thick with ethera that he instantly knew it could easily support even his dragon form. It reminded him of the heart of the grove, though somehow denser. Less profound, almost as if it was sterile, but thicker nonetheless.

  Elijah found it extremely uncomfortable, though after spending so much time in an ethereal vacuum, his relief outweighed his uneasiness.

  He pulled back and told the other two what he’d felt. They mimicked his actions, though they reported no such uneasiness. In fact, Hu Shui seemed almost giddy to descend.

  “How do we want to do this?” Elijah asked. “I can fly us all down. It’ll be a little awkward, but…well, that’s at least a mile down.”

  In the end, that was the only viable way to get to the surface without subjecting themselves to a freefall. And as Elijah had predicted, it was an awkward situation that required him to hang from the platform, with all but his fingers subjected to the new atmosphere. Meanwhile, the other two hung from his waist like their lives depended on it.

  Once they were in place, he released and shifted into his dragon form. Doing so without separating from his passengers was a little tricky, but after only a few hundred feet, the transformation was complete, and they were safely on his back.

  For a few moments, Elijah just glided above the city, inspecting the terrain. It was difficult to say for sure, largely because his perspective was so different, but it looked all but identical to Eden.

  Except it was not being destroyed by an enormous automaton. Nor did it have a giant golden orb hovering over it. And finally, the people Elijah saw – using Eyes of the Eagle – seemed entirely at peace.

  Suddenly, a pair of shapes emerged from a nearby building. It took a few seconds for them to resolve into anything recognizable, and when they did, Elijah was still flummoxed by what he saw.

  They looked like tail-less manta rays, though with wingspans of at least thirty feet. In addition, they were made of pure, blue ethera and bore an entire squad of djinn riders each. They ascended quickly, spreading out to surround Elijah.

  He hovered in place, ready to fight. Both Benedict and Hu Shui embraced spells as they prepared for battle as well.

  But then, one of the djinn spoke.

  “Welcome, strangers,” they said. “Do not be alarmed. Flight is restricted here. Please accompany us to the surface so that we can greet you properly.”

  Elijah frowned. That was not what he’d expected at all.

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