Lyn shivered, though whether the cold caused it or the sight of Nirvana crouched among the corpses, even he could not say.
Every part of him remained alert as he watched her from across the ruined market.
Nirvana kept him within the corner of her vision while searching the body nearest to her. The immortal's presence had not spared her; she moved more slowly than she had during their fight, her shoulders remained slightly lowered beneath the pressure, and every breath escaped in a thin stream of mist. Even so, the strain never stopped her hands.
She turned the corpse onto its back and uncovered a red shard beneath its shoulder, shaped like a delicate flower petal.
A faint light entered her weary brown eyes the moment she touched it.
With a small motion of her index finger, Nirvana opened a Shard Gate beside her hand and slipped the shard through. The glass-like surface closed immediately afterward, leaving no trace of what she had taken.
Lyn understood that their encounter could end in only two ways.
Morninglight's structure had collapsed along with its formations and defenders. Whatever rules had once restrained the students no longer possessed anyone capable of enforcing them. He and Nirvana could quietly ignore one another while taking whatever they found, or one of them could decide that the other had already gathered too much.
In Lyn's estimation, the first outcome was less likely.
Neither of them stood in any condition for another fight. The immortal's presence made every breath difficult, Lyn's wounds still resisted each step, and even Nirvana could no longer conceal the weight pressing down upon her body. Yet neither withdrew from the market, nor did either allow the other beyond the edge of their attention.
Anything valuable enough to appear between them would still be contested.
Lyn quietly fed Essence into Lightning Spear, preparing the newly refined shard in case Nirvana moved against him. At the same time, he activated Green Blossom and allowed its power to spread through his smaller wounds, easing the pain that accompanied every movement.
Neither acknowledged the other.
Lyn searched the ruined stalls from the left while Nirvana advanced from the right, both moving steadily toward the centre of the market. She discovered three more shards among the bodies and wreckage, though none appeared remarkable from the brief attention she gave them.
Lyn found nothing.
The distance between them gradually narrowed until only a few metres remained.
Half-buried beneath shattered timber and bloodstained snow, directly between them, lay a blue Heavenly Shard shaped like a miniature greatsword.
Lyn's gaze settled upon it.
He did not know its precise function, but its shape alone suggested some connection to combat. Nirvana already possessed a dangerous shard and had stored several more, while the memory of their earlier fight made another fact impossible to ignore: she was a formidable swordsman.
Allowing a sword-shaped shard to fall into her hands without resistance would leave him with nothing while strengthening someone who had already defeated him once and might turn against him again the moment circumstances allowed it.
He could not let her have it.
No words passed between them.
Nirvana's hand shifted slightly.
Lyn began pouring Essence into Lightning Spear.
It is time to test my new shards.
Before either of them could act, his heightened awareness caught a disturbance above the market.
Something was descending from the sky.
Lyn abandoned Lightning Spear immediately and threw himself behind the nearest section of collapsed stone. Nirvana noticed the abrupt movement, understood its meaning without explanation, and disappeared into the ruins on the opposite side of the market.
A sonic boom tore through the district a heartbeat later.
The impact struck with a crushing thud, driving violent winds through the market and scattering loose snow, shattered timber, and fragments of stone in every direction.
When the debris settled enough for Lyn to see through the gaps in his cover, two men stood where the blue shard had been lying.
Both wore black uniforms marked by the same red, winged snowflake as the other invaders, while their hair carried the pale bluish colour associated with Frozen Heaven.
Neither appeared troubled by the immortal's presence. They stood upright within the ruined market, breathing steadily and moving without visible burden, as though the pressure forcing Lyn and Nirvana beneath the wreckage did not exist.
At least, that was how it appeared from where they hid.
Lyn pressed himself against the broken stone and studied them. Their Essence leakage revealed their cultivation to him almost immediately, yet when he glanced toward Nirvana's hiding place, he saw none of the recognition he expected. Her attention remained fixed upon their posture and movements, but nothing in her expression suggested that she had identified their rank.
She cannot sense it.
The realisation raised another question. Nirvana had proven herself far more dangerous than him during their previous fight, yet she appeared unable to recognise something that had been obvious to Lyn from the moment the men landed.
The Notion Shard could not be responsible. It sharpened his concentration and allowed him to divide his attention, but it neither revealed cultivation ranks nor interpreted Essence leakage for him.
The ability almost certainly came from the Star.
Lyn continued watching Nirvana as another possibility entered his mind.
Does she even understand that the pressure covering Morninglight belongs to an immortal?
Frustration tightened within him. He possessed knowledge she seemingly lacked, could recognise dangers she could not identify, and understood more of the situation unfolding around them. By his own reasoning, that knowledge should have placed him above her.
Yet none of it had prevented her from defeating him.
"Lord White Abyss's presence is overwhelming," one of the soldiers muttered as he searched among the corpses. "I doubt I could even activate a Heavenly Fragment Technique beneath this pressure."
The other man barely glanced up.
"It does not matter. Mortal techniques are more than enough for soldiers and students this weak. We could probably kill all of them with our bare hands."
"I suppose."
The first soldier overturned another corpse with his boot, though his attention had clearly drifted elsewhere.
"I still do not understand why the Grand Elders chose to attack Morninglight. Shouldn't the sect interfere? This is one of their fortresses, and an important one at that."
"I do not know the details," his companion replied. "From what I heard, the sect is allowing this to unfold."
The first soldier stopped searching.
"Allowing it? Why?"
His companion looked at him as though the answer should have been obvious.
"Surely you know."
Understanding gradually entered the soldier's expression.
"Ah. So they have finally grown tired of Defying Sun."
Lyn heard every word.
The revelation did not surprise him as much as it should have. Something about Defying Sun had felt wrong from the moment Lyn witnessed how quickly the man could shift from one personality to another, as though each change were no more difficult than replacing a mask.
What troubled him was what the soldiers' conversation meant for his chances of survival.
Until now, Lyn had preserved one final hope. Even if escaping the mountain proved impossible, the sheer scale of the invasion should have forced the sect to send reinforcements. Morninglight was one of its fortresses, and hundreds of Rank Eight cultivators had descended upon it beneath the command of an immortal. He had assumed an attack of such magnitude could not be ignored.
But they are not ignoring it. They are allowing it.
The possibility of outside rescue dwindled until almost nothing remained.
Across the ruined market, Nirvana showed no visible reaction to what they had learned. Rather than continuing to watch the soldiers, she slowly examined the surrounding wreckage, searching for a route through which she might escape.
The care behind every movement revealed enough.
The soldiers had not yet discovered them, but concealment offered only temporary safety. They needed only to suspect that someone remained hidden within the market. The moment either man activated a perception shard, the ruins between them would become meaningless, and neither Lyn nor Nirvana possessed the strength to survive what followed.
A sudden explosion erupted from another part of the district, cutting through the soldiers' conversation.
Both men turned toward the sound and moved an instant later, accelerating with such force that the frozen ground collapsed beneath their feet. Deep impressions remained where they had launched themselves, while displaced snow and shattered debris rushed through the market in their wake.
By the time the wind reached Lyn's hiding place, the two soldiers had already disappeared among the ruined streets.
Neither Lyn nor Nirvana left cover immediately.
Five full minutes passed before either of them moved. The explosion that had drawn the soldiers away might have been genuine, but neither was willing to place their life upon that assumption. Lyn kept his attention divided between the ruined streets, the lingering signs of the soldiers' passage, and Nirvana's position across the market.
Only when the silence remained undisturbed did they emerge.
The blue, greatsword-shaped shard still lay where the soldiers had landed, half-buried beneath the snow between them.
Neither was in any condition to fight. The immortal's presence continued to bear down upon the fortress, forcing every breath through a chest that felt bound in iron. Green Blossom had closed Lyn's smaller wounds and reduced the pain by roughly fifteen percent, but his ankles still burned whenever he shifted his weight.
Nirvana appeared little better. Her movements remained controlled, yet the pressure had slowed them, and the tip of her greatsword would have dragged through the snow if she had drawn it now.
Even weakened, she could probably still overpower him.
That did not make fighting any less foolish.
If the Frozen Heaven soldiers returned and saw them, neither Lyn nor Nirvana would have any chance to escape. The men moved too quickly for distance to matter, and surviving even their first attack was beyond either of them.
Worse still, a clash could betray their position. The release of Essence, the impact of their techniques, or the collapse of another section of the market might draw the soldiers back. They would not need to see Lyn and Nirvana immediately; a single suspicion would be enough to make them activate a perception shard and search the ruins properly.
Judging by the way Nirvana remained several paces from the shard rather than seizing it, she had reached the same conclusion.
Whoever won their fight would gain nothing except the privilege of being discovered alone.
They stood across from one another while the cold settled deeper into their clothes.
Lyn eventually exhaled.
"Fine. Take it."
Nirvana's expression barely changed, though one eyebrow lifted as her stance tightened rather than relaxed. She had clearly expected him to contest the shard, and his sudden concession only made her more suspicious.
"Why?"
"Under a condition, of course."
The answer seemed to confirm whatever she had expected of him.
"Why should I listen to you?"
"You did not detect those soldiers before they landed." Lyn nodded toward the deep impressions left in the frozen ground. "I think you should listen very carefully."
Her gaze hardened, but she did not respond immediately.
Lyn had not forgotten the way she searched the surrounding ruins while the soldiers spoke, looking for an escape route without understanding the cultivation of the men standing only a short distance away. Had he not reacted first when they descended, she might have remained in the open until it was too late.
Nirvana could kill him in a direct confrontation, but strength meant little against an enemy who crossed the distance before she realised danger was approaching.
"Very well," she said at last.
"My condition is simple. You help me escape the mountain." Lyn kept his voice low enough that it would not travel beyond the ruined market. "I will be the eyes and ears. You will be the sword."
Nirvana studied him with the same dull, weary gaze she had worn before their earlier fight, though her attention now carried far more weight.
The arrangement favoured Lyn in one obvious sense. Nirvana would bear the greater burden if they were forced into combat, while he would remain behind her and warn her of approaching threats.
Rejecting him, however, meant remaining blind to the cultivation and approach of enemies who could kill her before she drew her weapon.
"Until we leave the mountain," she said.
"Until we leave the mountain," Lyn agreed.
Nirvana stepped forward and collected the blue shard. After briefly touching its surface, she opened a Shard Gate and stored it without revealing what she had learned.
"We need more supplies before we leave," she said. "Clothes, medicine, food, and anything that can protect us from the cold."
Lyn had no objection. Green Blossom had already begun repairing his injuries, but healing alone would not keep either of them alive once they entered the unprotected mountain range.
They needed far more than either currently possessed.
"I take sixty percent of everything we find," Lyn said. "You take forty."
Nirvana looked at him as though the immortal's pressure had finally damaged his mind.
"I take eighty. You take twenty."
Lyn almost smiled.
When he had been young, Khor had earned their living by cutting trees, while Mago sold fruit and whatever produce she could obtain from the neighbouring villages. Their household had never possessed much, which meant Mago could not afford to lose value through careless exchanges.
She had taught Lyn to bargain long before he understood why those lessons mattered.
The first number spoken was rarely the true price. It was merely the amount someone hoped to claim before the other person resisted. More importantly, Mago had taught him never to struggle over the number alone. A clever trader first determined precisely what was being divided.
Nirvana had provided the ratio herself.
"Eighty to twenty," Lyn said. "Agreed."
Suspicion immediately sharpened her gaze.
"Eighty for me."
"I agreed to the ratio, not your interpretation of it." Lyn gestured toward the surrounding wreckage. "The person who discovers an item receives the greater share of its value. The other receives the remainder from whatever else we recover."
"That favours you," Nirvana said.
She continued before Lyn could answer.
"Many of the shards sold in this market still contain information about their rank and function. The moment either of us touches one, we may know whether the other is trying to conceal its value."
"Then neither of us can easily lie about what we find," Lyn replied.
Nirvana's eyes narrowed slightly.
Lyn could almost see her weighing the arrangement. A simple division in her favour would allow her to take most of what they found, but it would also give Lyn little reason to search efficiently or warn her about anything that did not directly threaten him. Under his proposal, each would benefit from discovering valuable supplies first, while the smaller share ensured that neither gained nothing from the other's success.
"And the shards?" Nirvana asked.
"Whoever finds one has the first claim," Lyn replied. "Its value counts toward that person's share. The remaining materials are divided afterward until the balance is as close to eighty and twenty as possible."
"And if its value cannot be identified?"
"The finder keeps it. The risk belongs to them as well."
Nirvana considered the terms for a moment before turning her awareness inward, into her Vessel Realm.
"What about that shard?"
"That one purchased your cooperation."
For the first time, something resembling faint amusement disturbed the exhaustion in her expression.
"Eighty to the finder," she said. "Twenty to the other."
Lyn nodded.
"Agreed."
Nirvana turned toward the remaining market stalls while Lyn directed his attention toward the ruined streets and the Essence moving beyond them. They maintained several paces between them as they resumed their search, but this time they advanced in the same direction.
They had taken only three steps when Lyn stopped moving and raised one hand slightly. Nirvana understood the warning and lowered herself behind the nearest ruined stall, keeping her body concealed beneath its broken frame.