Two pairs of eyes pierced into the darkness. After a second, a hand reached down to take the fallen item, then a head poked out from behind the trees.

"Err… sorry."

It was a teenage boy, probably fifteen, though it was only his face that looked so young. He looked sturdy, leaning towards heavy-set— all that was obscured by his dark, nondescript clothes though. He rubbed the back of his neck, keeping his head low. "Sorry Supreme Leader, I messed up."

Wan Yu, "......"

Ye Xiyang, "......"

"You did this?" Wan Yu choked out. At Ye Xiyang's sharp glance, though, he restrained himself. The boy's eyes widened.

"What? No! I was sorry because I dropped that, wasn't professional, not stealthy! But I didn't do it. I was just here because of this." He held up the thing in his hand. It looked to be a stick-shaped jade, the carved details indistinct in this light. "It was charging really well here. Wasn't expecting there to be, uh, people. Might've explained a lot actually…"

Wan Yu, “......”

Ye Xiyang, "......"

"Why are you here alone?" he asked instead. The boy perked up.

"Shifu told me to sweep the area now that I have my own jian, Supreme Leader! Then I stumbled in… there was a light wall, but I walked in without any problems. Found my way here using the iron compass.”

Iron compass was a common tool within the Frozen Dragon Sect, constructed using the special metal of the Slumbering Dragon Mountain. It was good with pinpointing sources of strong yin or yang energies, though not so well with resentment, or spiritual energy for that matter. Modification was required for that. As for why Shi Ma released her disciple into this place…

Ye Xiyang didn't know. He supposed she could've heard about how this place was having quite a number of things to kill without it being in demonic faction territory.

The boy chattered on. "I wasn't expecting Supr— " and the rest of his sentence was muffled by a hand over his mouth.

"Did your brain drown as a sacrifice to your dragon or something?" Wan Yu hissed. "There are people here. And more just arrived!"

The nearest supervisors had arrived as they talked, one after another. It seemed that they had gone to check on the comatose survivors, but after some time one noticed Wan Yu and Ye Xiyang in the corner. They turned to Yun Zisu, who said a thing or two; that particular person didn’t seem appeased, but the other two were.

Wan Yu shook his head and turned back to the teen, pulling his hand away just enough for him to speak. “What’s your name?”

“Shi Ze,” he answered, standing at attention. He didn’t even make movement to push away Wan Yu, despite the close distance confirming that he was bigger than Wan Yu. “Can you like, let go, this gege?”

Ye Xiyang, “......” Just like that? Gave your name away just like that? Just going to call him gege like that?

After assessing Shi Ze a bit more and determining that the kid was unlikely to blurt out any more unfortunate information, Wan Yu moved away. The rest of the conversation had become the bigger interest, now— “Aight, Shi Ze. Now what’s that in your hands and why do you say it charges better here? How does that work, hmm? Does it, perchance, suck them away?”

“Eh? How’d you know?”

Wan Yu clasped his hands. “Fantastic. Now come with me.”

Ye Xiyang, “......”

Dragging Shi Ze with an arm locked around his neck and Ye Xiyang by his sleeve, Wan Yu returned to the group. Yun Zisu and Tian Ling shot him questioning looks at the new addition, but he shook his head at them— what they construed that as, Ye Xiyang would like to know too. Instead, Yun Zisu nodded as if she understood something and Tian Ling remained confused; unfortunately for her, nobody was about to explain. And so Shi Ze’s presence went undiscussed.

The supervisors that arrived were other inner gate disciples— Wan Yu only recognized one of them, though it took him some time. The man in his early twenties was Yi Lei. He liked Yun Zisu back then, having gone to search for her during the two months shenanigans— Wan Yu had no idea if he still did. None of his business, anyhow. The other two were women, one serious-looking and the other more expressive. The former was now inspecting Tang Wei. Yi Lei stood up and brushed off the soil on his palms.

"We'll take care of this," he said to Wan Yu, crossing his arms. "You may go on to find some more jiangshi if you'd like, Wan Yu."

"Mm, go before you waste the rest of the night. It's gonna start raining soon and hard, I think," chimed the expressive woman. "Like I heard some rumblings. Did you guys not?"

Wan Yu and Yun Zisu exchanged a look. "Err, we didn't," she said. “We were rather preoccupied.”

“I didn’t join to try and win anyway, though, so don’t worry ‘bout me,” he said. He only remembered the kid he had on a headlock when Ye Xiyang tugged his arm away, shooting him a look as he straightened out the creases on his sleeve. Wan Yu let go of Shi Ze. “Okay, kiddo, help me out yeah?”

Shi Ze gave Wan Yu a wronged look, but did as he was told— he pulled out the jade instrument, eyes widening at… something it did. He looked up to Tang Wei. “Wow, Gege, your yin is so strong I’m surprised you hadn’t been eaten alive by ghosts! Are you guys all right? Not even Shibo is quite like this.”

Ye Xiyang coughed into his fist.

The magical weapon looked inconspicuous at first, what with Shi Ze not needing to do a thing for it to “activate”, but showed signs of change after several minutes— the milky jade started accumulating a blackish mist, like dark smoke being blown into the space under its skin. After some time it looked as though it stopped; Shi Ze looked at his compass and then to the survivors lying nearby.

“Gege, you’re an extreme yin body, yeah? Well, can’t do anything about that.” He turned to Wan Yu. “Do I have to do it for these people too?”

Wan Yu nodded.

Ye Xiyang, “......”

“...Do you even know him?” Yi Lei choked out.

Wan Yu faked being taken aback. “I know his name, no?”

Yi Lei, “......” He really wants to beat this bastard up.

But Shi Ze seemed none the wiser, going from person to person to suck out excess yin. By the end of it, the jade was black as a cloudy night, and he let out a low whistle at that. “This is a lot.”

Ye Xiyang had walked away in the middle of it— Wan Yu wanted to turn to him, mouth already open, but the man was gone. Hmph. Unreliable.

But anyhow, these were extreme yin body men, the gender being of particular interest. It wasn’t that they were so rare as to be a weird marvel or something, but for sure rare enough that gathering these few people would’ve required a lot of manpower. So the yin bit confirmed that this was Celestial Alignment Sect’s work. That the sect was pretty powerful checked out, too. What Wan Yu was wondering was, why then try to bury them…

...Well. They probably intended these men to be human cauldrons, but… hmm, that might actually make sense… Wan Yu chose not to pursue this line of thinking. Ye Xiyang’s comments about him thinking like demonic faction sects scarred him for life.

“Thank you very much, this brother,” Yun Zisu said, giving Shi Ze a sincere smile and bow of her head. “We can at least rest assured that any side effects from… whatever it is they were attempting is lessened, if not mitigated for now.”

Shi Ze gave her a grin and a salute.

“Anyway, we should start moving the survivors to the checkpoint for their own safety, while the rest of us continue to dig the area,” the serious woman said. “We can erect a temporary barrier to keep it dry. It might still be an hour until further help, and every minute counts.”

As if to emphasize her words, the sky rumbled. Yun Zisu nodded. “That’s a good idea, Cai-shijie. Wan Yu, can you help keep the rain out?”

A quick nod. “Leave that to me.”

Cai-jie turned to Yi Lei. “Yi-shidi, you and I can go take the people. Tian-shimei, too. Yun-shimei and Feng-shijie can continue the digging with Wan Yu.”

“Okie dokie,” Feng-jie said, clapping her hands. “Help me with the barrier, Yun-shimei. Wan Yu, your element is water, no? Then just lend us a hand when it starts raining ah.”

All of the sudden, rustles of clothes and hard footsteps— when they turned to the source, it was Ye Xiyang, a rare troubled expression on his face. Of course, it was barely visible— Wan Yu was the only one to startle.

"Get moving," said Ye Xiyang, shoving Shi Ze into Wan Yu's arms. The teen yelped in surprise, shooting his sect leader a wide-eyed look. "The earth is moving. This place is unsafe. Grab the people and go."

Yi Lei wanted to dispute that, but he stilled— it was subtle, but something seemed to shift, roll underneath their feet. Soft, as if it was deep underground. Now that attention was drawn to it, all of them felt it much more. Light vibrations, as if the earth was displeased.

Had it been any other place and time, Wan Yu wouldn’t have been so apprehensive. But here was a landslide site. He shoved Shi Ze off to Tian Ling and rushed to pick up one of the comatose survivors, slinging him over his back. "Forget the barrier and other people right now, let’s keep safe the ones we’ve got. Cai-jiejie, please lead the way."

Cai-jie picked up another person, as did her fellow disciples. "Higher up the mountains. Far above the river."

Thunder rumbled. This time, the earth shook, too.

In an earthquake kinda way.

Wan Yu dumped the person onto Shi Ze, who yelped. "Oi! You— what?"

"Something's waking up in the ground, stop asking questions and where's your sword? Go!"

Helpless, Shi Ze looked to Ye Xiyang, who gave a small nod before heading back to the center of the earthquake. Cracks started splitting the ground. Cringing, he readjusted his grip on the man and hopped onto his sword, off to follow the Vermilion Sun Sect disciples. Yi Lei and Yun Zisu lagged behind, the latter holding Tang Wei.

"Wan Yu!" she called out. "We'll be back soon!"

"Look out for them first and foremost," he hollered back. "Shifu's got my back on my end! Those people might have people after them!"

Swallowing back her reply, Yun Zisu nodded instead. "Okay. Be careful, both of you."

And then they left.

Not even a moment after, the rock Tang Wei had been sitting on sank into the ground, as if the earth beneath it was sand. The cracks weren’t hard cracks, Wan Yu realized as he darted to where Ye Xiyang stood; they were lines where the soil seemed to have softened and just crumbled in on itself. How packed soil with remnants of old roots and what-have-you could do that, he had no idea.

"Ye-xiong, do you know anything about this?" Wan Yu asked, staring at the ground. Something seemed to be a bit off, like there was a growing mound in front of them...

"No," Ye Xiyang admitted. “Without knowing the source or history, it’s hard to guess what form this might take. But given the situation right now, I reckon it's about as powerful as a hundred-years-old yao, maybe less."

It must've been the coffin formation. It concentrated such strong yin energy in one location… it worsened the yin energy problem already present. Who knew that it was bad enough to create this thing? Ye Xiyang was half certain this wasn't the intention— there was no real value in this type of creature, not that he was aware of.

Of course, someone could always have a hare-brained scheme.

The tip of his umbrella dug into the earth, and the energy it channeled told him that it was definitely something corrupted and not a magical weapon stirring. Something about its characteristics felt premature, forced. It was powerful, but it didn’t have the same level of consciousness as a weapon of its caliber, so while it had strength Ye Xiyang could still see how Wan Yu could’ve defeated it.

Ye Xiyang pulled out his umbrella and took a step back.

“Aren’t you going to do anything?” Wan Yu cried. He held Silvergrass in front of him, but there was no enemy yet. “You looked troubled earlier, too, so why aren’t you doing anything now? What sect leader is this useless? I’m returning you to your maker!”

Well, the enemy was starting to form, now. What was initially a bump rose taller and taller, growing to waist-height; uprooted broken stumps started rising to the surface along with giant chunks of rocks.

“I know for a fact that you can handle it,” Ye Xiyang said, as if that justified anything. Wan Yu wanted to rip his pretty head off his neck and serve it as a sacrifice to Weird Earth Creature.

Weird Earth Creature was expanding its cocoon, now, and the two of them hopped back when the rising soil reached them. Resentment was getting thick enough to taint the taste of the air— that, or it was the oncoming summer storm. An aura of death settled in the area, staying low as though it was a heavy gas sinking to the ground.

Where the resentment came from, Wan Yu could hazard a guess. The wiped village could’ve been enough. Why now? Could be the addition of these yin bodies. Could be that formation Ye Xiyang mentioned. Could even be the thunderstorm. Who the heck knows!

“Thanks for the vote of confidence, but it means absolutely nothing and you suck.”

Ye Xiyang had the nerve to crack a smile. "It's your opportunity for growth, is it not?"

Resentment was like a pulsing barrier now, wrapped around the mound. Whenever it swelled, the air grew so suffocating breathing only deprived him of breath even more. This fucking sucked. Well, only one thing to do, he guessed.

Wan Yu held Silvergrass above his head, the sword gathering light as he did so. "Oi, Ye-xiong. If you're stronger than me, you're gonna finish this shit if I die by dirt eggs, right?"

He swung his sword down, and the light cleaved into the earth.

Thunder crackled through the skies above as the split exposed a grotesque, coagulating thing in the shell— it looked half-wet like muddy clay, formed in a vague shape of a human. The illusion was quickly broken, though; as if freed from its shackles, tentacle-like arms shot out and pulled a tree out of its roots, swinging it in the air before it lodged straight inside its trunk area. Wan Yu and Ye Xiyang leapt back out of range. The thing grew. A droplet fell onto Wan Yu's face, then another. When he looked up, he finally saw the pitch-black of the cloudy skies, now visible thanks to the breaking of the foliage. The clouds flashed purple from another lightning.

When the summer storm descended upon them, the doll-like mass sat in a wide crater of exposed soil, towering over him.