The void refused to part, and so it strained.
From the velvet dark between realms, a pressure built- unseen and immeasurable.
It swelled until space itself seemed to thin like overstretched silk. Then, with a sound that wasn't a sound but a sensation behind the eyes, the fabric of reality split.
A prow emerged.
First, the spear-like bowsprit pierced through, dragging with it a ripple of fractured light.
Then came the figurehead: an immense Dragon King, its carved face painted in imperial red with its beard and brows lacquered in black.
Its expression was stern, and for the briefest moment, as it crossed the threshold, it seemed almost alive.
The rest of the vessel followed.
It silently imposed itself upon the void.
Vast sails unfurled into existence one by one, catching currents that could not be seen, only felt.
These were currents of space itself, which the separation between realms consisted of.
Behind those sails rose the body of the ship: a sprawling, golden metropolis fused seamlessly into its frame, every structure radiant, silent, and impossibly grand.
A kingdom adrift between Realms.
On the forward deck stood Yun Wuxi.
The man's clothes stirred in a wind that did not exist. His gaze was fixed ahead, not just on the void, but beyond it.
It was as though he could already see the destination carved into the bones of reality itself.
"Hold formation," he said calmly. Behind him, his students obeyed.
Lin Yueyao adjusted the bindings across her back, one hand briefly resting against the long, wrapped shape of her instrument.
Her fingers lingered there, as if reassuring herself it was still present and with her. Her eyes, however, were fixed on the tearing boundary ahead. Those wide eyes flickered with uncertainty.
"This… isn't like the books described," she murmured.
"Real life rarely is," Yun Wuxi replied.
Han Jianyu stood slightly apart, one hand firmly grasping his sheathed sword, the other held before him in a precise, unwavering sword seal.
His expression was carved from stillness itself.
"The boundary is unstable," he said. "Its flow seems... disordered."
Long Feng let out a low scoff, though his eyes gleamed with something sharper than bravado.
"Disordered? It's just trying to resist. The barrier between these two Realms always does. That's why we're going to break through, right? Master?"
Yun Wuxi nodded.
"If we're breaking through, shouldn't we worry about a backlash?" Lin Yueyao gulped.
"That's just the thing, Yueyao. Just as the Earthly Realm submits to Heaven, this Realm does the same. It would never truly retaliate against us."
"It's truly boring." Long Feng finally sighed.
Even as he spoke, his stance shifted subtly. His weight was forward, ready, eager. As though he expected the realm itself to rise up and challenge him.
Yun Wuxi did not rebuke him. "Observe," he said instead.
The ship advanced.
Before it loomed the threshold to the Netherworld. From where they were, it looked like a vast, lightless expanse where existence itself seemed to fold inward.
It did not seem welcoming, nor did it beckon the approach of anything. It simply seemed intent on enduring.
The Dragon King figurehead reached it first. For a single, suspended instant, everything held.
Suddenly, the void pushed back.
Not violently or even visibly, but undeniably.
The bowsprit slowed as the sails faltered, their unseen winds collapsing into erratic eddies.
The golden city upon the ship dimmed. Its presence- something fundamental- was being denied entry.
Lin Yueyao's breath caught. "Master…?"
Yun Wuxi's eyes narrowed. "Could it be..." he said quietly.
The realm shifted.
It was subtle at first- a distortion in the distance, like heat shimmering above stone.
It spread, however, rippling outward and warping the boundary itself. The breach through which they were supposed to emerge began to contract, its edges fraying into threads of pale, unraveling light.
Han Jianyu's sword seal tightened.
"The Realm is… rejecting us?" he asked in disbelief.
Long Feng laughed, sharp and disbelieving.
"Rejecting? The Netherworld is rejecting a heavenly vessel?" His aura surged, barely contained. "That's more like it!"
The ship shuddered.
A deep, resonant tremor ran from prow to stern- something more absolute than mere impact or collision.
The Dragon King's face cracked, a single line splitting across its cheek. Then another.
Yun Wuxi moved. "Withdraw," he said, voice cutting through the growing distortion. "Now."
But the command came a heartbeat too late. Only the Netherworld answered.
From the depths of that lightless expanse, something pressed forward without form or presence.
A flat-out refusal. A clear negation. The very concept of entry was unmistakably denied.
The space around the ship collapsed inward.
Sails twisted violently, their fabric tearing along invisible fault lines. The golden structures embedded within the vessel groaned, their perfect symmetry buckling as if subjected to laws that no longer aligned with their existence.
Lin Yueyao staggered, clutching the strap of the wrapped instrument on her back.
"I can't- !" Her voice broke as the air itself seemed to distort around her. "The resonance... it's gone!"
Han Jianyu drew his sword in a single, fluid motion, his left hand holding the scabbard while maintaing a two-finger sword seal.
The blade sang for only an instant, then fell silent.
His eyes widened, just slightly. "My sword intent," he said.
Gone.
Long Feng roared, stepping forward, his presence flaring in defiance.
"Then I'll break through myself!"
His presence grew immensely, the semi-circular halo appearing as power surged through him.
Saber in hand, he leapt from the bow and struck at the intangible barrier.
Yet, despite the ship being throughly rejected by it, his blade felt as though it met nothing. No resistance, no surface.
Even so, the force rebounded instantly and violently, as though the act itself had been rejected. He was thrown backward, crashing into the deck with enough force to fracture the metal beneath him.
Yun Wuxi raised his hand. For a moment, it seemed as though the chaos would halt.
The air stilled. The distortion paused. Even the encroaching collapse hesitated, seemingly acknowledging something ancient- something commanding.
Yun Wuxi's voice was low.
"Grant us entry, by decree of the Jade Emperor."
This was an order, utilizing the authority of someone far greater than him. For the briefest instant, the Netherworld listened.
Shockingly enough, it then refused.
The spatial tear behind them snapped shut, ceasing entirely to exist.
The ship was no longer between realms. It was inside one. That brief pause had been enough for it to slip through, and the Netherworld seemed to become angry at that fact.
This ship did not belong there.
Just then, the Dragon King's face shattered completely.
Cracks raced across the vessel in cascading lines, golden light spilling from within as the structures began to rupture, collapse, and disintegrate into fragments of impossible geometry.
Lin Yueyao was lifted from her feet, her form pulled away by currents she could not see, thrusting her into the void of the Netherworld.
"Master!"
Han Jianyu lunged toward her, sword extended, but the space between them stretched and distorted, turning a single step into an impossible distance.
Long Feng forced himself upright, blood at the corner of his mouth, eyes blazing with fury.
"This damn Realm! You think I'll let you get away with that!?"
He leapt from the ship once again, saber at the ready.
Yun Wuxi stood at the center of it all, assessing the situation in his calm. He reached for his internal energy, and as suddenly as he felt it, realized that it was no longer there.
His divine sense passed over each of his students. They were his responsibility.
For the first time, something unreadable flickered in his eyes.
Something… resigned.
"So it must be," he breathed a sigh.
The ship broke into fragments of existence.
Sections of the vessel peeled away, dissolving into streaks of light and shadow, scattering into the vast, unknowable expanse of the Netherworld.
One by one, the remaining structures upon it were torn free.
Lin Yueyao had long vanished into a current of dim, drifting light, her form swallowed whole.
Han Jianyu's sword slipped from his grasp as he was pulled into a collapsing fold of space, his expression still and unwavering to the end.
Long Feng disappeared last among them, his defiance echoing even as the void consumed him.
Yun Wuxi remained for a moment longer, stood upon a fragment of the ship that no longer existed, surrounded by a Realm that now, after they entered, was filled with beautiful lights.
Then, he was gone.
The void stilled.
No wreckage remained. No trace. No echo of what had occurred. Only the vast, silent expanse of the Netherworld. It was as though the ship had never been.
As though they had never entered at all.