Part 2 · Chapters
The Abyss He Could Not Escape
An unexpected encounter opens a door. Climbing out is still up to you.
Surviving had not made the abyss walls any lower. Xiao Jin looked up and could not see the exit, only the bloodstains left by his earlier failures. One after another, they remembered each place he had fallen.
On his first climb, Xiao Jin managed only ten steps.
The wall was almost vertical, its footholds narrower than a fingertip. He had just lit his flame to inspect the route when a ring of red eyes appeared in the dark. Black rock beasts followed the heat and knocked him back to the ground from ten steps up.
The second time, he learned to hide his flame.
He climbed without fire, finding cracks from memory, but missed his footing after thirty steps. If Ember Breathing had not let him catch a vine root before blacking out, his spine would have broken in the fall.
On the third attempt, he drew the tiny flame into his palm, leaving only a needle-fine trace of heat.
The black rock beasts still found him.
“Why?” Xiao Jin asked when he woke.
Elder Ember sat beside him, munching an imaginary fruit. “Whenever you try to hurry, your breathing becomes uneven. They aren't hunting fire. They're hunting heat currents.”
Xiao Jin closed his eyes. He began to feel the air: cold drafts from cracks in the rock, warmth from the beasts' bellies, and the trails of heat his own movements left behind.
On his fourth climb, he turned aside before a beast lunged. A tiny flame burst beneath his feet, shifting him a handspan sideways in midair. The beast brushed past his shoulder.
He fell, but laughed before hitting the ground.
“What was that step?”
“Falling over.”
“Falling over with a name.”
“Call it Ash Step, then.” Elder Ember rolled his eyes. “You're covered in ash anyway.”
Xiao Jin began again, over and over.
He sensed the beasts through heat currents, changed the direction of his falls with Ash Step, and compressed his scattered flame into the tip of the broken staff. Elder Ember called this Flame Compression. Fire did not need to be bigger; every bit of its strength simply needed to reach the right place. At first, he could leave only a pale mark. Later, he could pierce the gaps between armor plates.
After every failure, he drew the route on the ground.
“Can't go straight up here. Three beasts will surround me.”
“The rock there is too thin. The third step on it will break it.”
“A stronger Ash Step isn't always better. I need to ignite it just before the wind changes.”
He changed where he placed his feet, and the wall stopped merely throwing him back. Every failure left him an answer.
When he reached a new hold, the fire in his palm was no bigger than a grain of rice.
It could not illuminate the abyss. It was just enough to show him the next place he could grasp.
On a climb he had long since lost count of, Xiao Jin passed every mark he had ever reached. The abyss floor shrank to a small patch of darkness, and pale gray daylight finally appeared overhead.
He compressed the flame into a slender blade and cut through the control crystal of the last black rock beast. Regaining its senses, the creature stopped pursuing him. It only growled softly from a ledge as it watched him climb.
The exit was within reach.
Xiao Jin stretched out his hand and pulled himself onto the final ledge.
At the far end of it, a mountain slowly opened its eyes.
It was not a mountain.
The Black Rock Beast King rose from sleep. Its armored back scraped the ceiling, raining down stones. A huge black crystal was embedded in its chest. From it came the same presence as their pursuer's.
Elder Ember's voice drifted up from far below.
“Now you've met the keeper of the exit.”