The violet sky was silent. The cataclysm had left a landscape of smoking craters and uprooted, calcified trees. Miles away from the epicenter, Xu Guifei's eyes snapped open. The air was thin, smelling of burnt ozone and damp earth. She sat up, her body aching, her gear scattered across a bed of moss. Beside her, Egneel lay motionless, his body still glowing with a faint, fading pink residue from the fruit's forced breakthrough.
"Egneel," she gasped, scrambling to his side.
The dragon-phoenix stirred, his eyes sluggishly blinking open. He let out a pained, trilling chirp. "Kail... where is Kail?"
Guifei scanned the horizon. The explosion had torn them apart, launching them into the dense, unknown interior of the Primal Cradle. Kail was nowhere to be seen. Her heart hammered against her ribs, she place a hand on her chest,her face was full of sadness and worrying, she clenched her fist on her chest, she forced the panic down. "He's alive. I know it. He threw us clear, but he took the brunt of the shockwave. We find him, Egneel. We move now."
They didn't waste time mourning. Guifei checked her bow, found her arrows intact, and checked the edge of her blades. Egneel, still unable to shift, perched on her shoulder, his senses acting as a radar for the dense forest.
"North," Egneel whispered. "The energy signature from the blast drifted north. If he survived the initial impact, he would have been pulled that way."
They moved with ruthless speed. Within an hour, they were intercepted. Three scavenger-cultivators from a minor sect, their robes stained with mud and blood, stepped out from behind a crystalline tree, their eyes tracking Guifei with predatory hunger.
"A girl, and a rare spirit-beast," one sneered, drawing a serrated curved blade. "Your luck is as bad as your timing."
Guifei didn't respond with words. She notched two arrows simultaneously. As they charged, she released the string. The arrows hummed with piercing wind-energy, striking the lead scavenger in the throat and chest before he could raise his guard. The third man lunged, but Egneel, despite his weakened state, unleashed a concentrated pulse of pink, crackling energy. The scavenger froze, his movements locked as the residual breakthrough-energy scorched his meridians. Guifei didn't hesitate, closing the distance and ending him with a clean, lethal strike to the heart.
"Too slow," she muttered, wiping her blade.
"They're all over the Cradle," Egneel warned. "The explosion drew every scavenger in a five-mile radius. We need to stay off the main paths."
They pushed deeper, the terrain shifting from lush forest to a sprawling, jagged canyon of purple-hued rock. The energy here was so pure it caused their own internal Qi to fluctuate, forcing them to constantly regulate their flow to prevent overload.
By midday, they were ambushed by a pack of Shade-Stalkers — six-legged predators with eyes like liquid mercury. The beasts moved in bursts of speed, vanishing and reappearing in the shadows.
"Left flank!" Egneel shrieked.
Guifei pivoted, firing three arrows in rapid succession. The Shade-Stalkers moved with terrifying agility, batting the arrows aside with razor-sharp claws. She drew her short swords, dancing between the beasts. She was a blur of steel, every move calculated to minimize energy expenditure. She severed a stalker's leg, then used the momentum to vault over another, plunging her blade into its spine.
"They're coordinating," she shouted. "They're waiting for me to tire!"
"Focus on the alpha!" Egneel directed, his head whipping toward a larger, darker creature perched on a rock spire above them.
Guifei ignored the smaller stalks, her eyes locking onto the alpha. She channeled her remaining Qi into her bow, creating an arrow of compressed, howling wind. She released it. The arrow whistled through the air, piercing the alpha's hide and pinning it to the rock. With the leader dead, the pack broke, fleeing into the shadows.
Guifei collapsed against a cliff face, breathing heavily. Her clothes were torn, and a deep gash ran along her arm. "We aren't moving fast enough."
"We are moving as fast as we can," Egneel countered, his voice soft but resolute. "Kail is a survivor, Guifei. He's likely fighting his way toward the center, just like us. We keep moving North."
As the sun— a pale, violet orb— began to dip below the horizon, they reached a high ridge overlooking a valley teeming with colossal, ancient ruins. Strange, metallic spires jutted from the earth, humming with a low-frequency light.
"Look," Egneel pointed with his wing.
In the center of the valley, a trail of scorched, frost-bitten earth cut a straight line through the vegetation. It was unmistakable. It was the result of Kail's Dragon Breath Strike, or something close to it.
"He was here," Guifei whispered, her eyes shining with relief. "He went into the ruins."
"Then we go into the ruins," Egneel said.
They descended the ridge, but as they reached the valley floor, the ground beneath them rumbled. From the shadows of the ruins, a group of five inner-sect disciples— not from their own sect— emerged, looking battered and desperate. They were carrying a glowing, pulsating chest.
"Look, a lone girl," one of the disciples laughed, his tone jagged. "Must be an outer-circle survivor from the landing zone. Hand over your supplies, and we might let you walk away."
Guifei's hand moved to her bow, but she stopped. She saw the insignia on their robes. They were from the Iron-Claw Sect, known for their cruelty.
"I'm looking for a man," Guifei stated, her voice icy. "He went this way. Tell me if you saw him, and you live."
The lead disciple smirked. "Oh, the one with the blue flame? We saw him. He was heading for the Central Spire. He's probably already dead. Those traps inside will chew him up."
Guifei didn't wait. She moved with such speed that the lead disciple was caught off guard, her blade stopping just millimeters from his eye. "Which way?"
"The... the bridge to the north!" he stammered.
She knocked him unconscious with a single blow to the temple. "Let's go, Egneel."
They bypassed the ruins, their eyes fixed on the distant Central Spire. The Eternal Void was vast, and the dangers were multiplying by the hour, but the trail was fresh. Guifei's pace accelerated. She was no longer just traveling; she was hunting. Every creature they killed, every scavenger they bypassed, was just another obstacle between her and Kail.
"He's waiting for us," she told herself, the wind catching her hair as she sprinted toward the spire. "He has to be."
Egneel clung to her shoulder, his eyes scanning the horizon for any sign of movement. "The energy near the Spire is chaotic, Guifei. Be ready. Whatever is in there, it's not just trees and beasts anymore."
They arrived at the bridge— a floating structure of ancient stone and light. It stretched over an abyss that seemed to swallow the very light of the stars. Across the bridge, the Central Spire loomed, a tower of silver and shadow.
Guifei stepped onto the bridge. The structure groaned, ancient runes flickering to life beneath her boots.
"This isn't just a bridge," Egneel observed, his feathers bristling. "It's a trial."
Before they could take another step, the shadows on the bridge detached themselves, forming into armored entities of shifting energy. They were guardians, remnants of the Spire's old masters.
"Guardians," Guifei said, drawing her swords. "Let's see how much they know about death."
She lunged, her movements a blur of grace and violence. The guardians swung back, their weapons creating arcs of destructive energy that shattered the stone floor of the bridge. Guifei dodged, twisted, and countered, her blades singing as they chipped away at the guardians' armored hides.
"Egneel, watch the rear!"
The phoenix-dragon flapped into the air, despite his fatigue, firing bursts of pink energy to suppress the incoming guardians. Guifei used the distraction to deliver a crushing downward strike on the largest guardian, shattering its core and sending it collapsing into dust.
One by one, the guardians fell, but the bridge grew more unstable with each strike.
"We're almost across!" Guifei shouted, her lungs burning.
They reached the doors of the Spire. They were massive, carved with symbols of a lost language. Guifei placed her hand on the cold stone, and the doors creaked open, revealing a hallway bathed in an ethereal, blue light.
"He's in there," Egneel whispered. "I can smell the frost."
Guifei walked into the Spire, her expression hardening. No matter what trials awaited, she was not turning back. Kail was close, and for the first time since the explosion, she felt the crushing weight of isolation lift. The hunt was far from over, but the path was clear. They were entering the heart of the Void, and they were going to find him, or they were going to tear the tower down until they did.