Volume 2, Chapter 38: The Hollow Factory
The Phoenix-Rail journey from the Capital to the Citadel of the Abyss takes exactly six hours.
It's a three-thousand-mile trip across the central plains, but the Seven-Tone Resonance tracks make the carriage feel like it's floating on a cushion of air. I sat by the window, watching the landscape blur into a smear of green and brown. My head still felt like it was stuffed with wet cotton from the Seed, but having Ye Xishui sitting across from me was a different kind of pressure.
She didn't look like a legendary Arbiter right now. She was wearing a simple traveling cloak and reading a digital tablet about grain exports. But every time the train hit a slight bump, the air around her shivered with peach-colored light.
"You're thinking about the Seed again," she said, not looking up from her tablet.
"Is it that obvious?" I asked.
"Your pupils are pulsing, Yuhao. It's a rhythmic contraction that happens when the Spirit Eyes are trying to compensate for a blind spot." She finally looked up, her gaze kind but razor-sharp. "The grey decay is a parasite. It doesn't eat your power; it eats your 'meaning.' It makes you forget why you're fighting."
I looked down at my hands. "I have it contained for now. But I can still feel it. Like a cold pebble in my shoe that I can't take off."
"We'll find the source," she promised.
•••••
When we arrived at the Citadel, the air changed.
The Star Luo region — the old southern kingdom — was a place of heat and heavy industry. The Citadel of the Abyss was a fortress city carved into the side of a massive mountain range. It was where the Federation tested the massive Phoenix Mechas. Huge, three-story-tall robotic frames were being moved by cranes over the industrial district, their silver plating reflecting the harsh southern sun.
But the Abyss part of the name came from the lower levels.
Below the gleaming mecha factories were the old foundry sectors — thousands of miles of pipes, steam, and abandoned assembly lines. This was the city's shadow. And according to the tracking data from the Hall of Shadow, this was where the silence had started to leak.
"Keep your Gaze of Openings at a low hum," Ye Xishui instructed as we stepped off the platform. "If you flare up, he'll know we're here."
We reached the industrial outskirts an hour later. Tang Ya had joined us, having traveled separately with a team from the Hall of Execution. She looked tired, her usual cheerful ponytail a bit messy, but she had a grim look of determination that reminded me of Lakan's training sessions.
"The air is dead here," Tang Ya whispered.
She was right. As we entered Sector 4, the usual industrial noise — the clanking of hammers, the hiss of steam, the shouting of workers — vanished.
We stood in front of a massive textile factory. The gates were open. Inside, hundreds of workers were standing at their looms. Their hands were moving, pulling threads and operating levers.
But there was no sound. No conversation. No humming.
"They're Drones," I said, my Gaze of Openings snapping open despite the warning.
Through my Gaze, I didn't see people. I saw husks. Each worker had a thin, grey vine of grey decay growing out of the base of their skull, connecting them to the machinery. They weren't being mind-controlled; they were being standardized. Their individual flows had been merged with the mechanical rhythm of the factory.
"Chen Feng is using them as a living shield," Ye Xishui said, her eyes turning a dangerous shade of orange. "If I use a large-scale purification, I might burn their souls along with the grass. He's tied their life-force to the draining force."
"Wait," Tang Ya said, stepping forward. She reached out and touched a stray vine of Blue Silver Grass growing in a crack in the pavement. "The Blue Silver Grass… it's the ultimate survivalist. It grows anywhere. It connects everything."
"Tang Ya, stay back," I warned.
"No, Yuhao. Look." She closed her eyes. Her martial soul didn't flare with power; it grew soft. "The grey decay is trying to turn them into stone. It's making them rigid. But the Blue Silver Grass is flexible. It's a Life-Link."
Tang Ya knelt on the factory floor. She pressed her palms against the cold concrete.
"Baybayin Marking: ᜉ (Pa) - Pagsibol," she murmured.
Instead of her usual offensive vines, thousands of tiny, glowing green threads began to spread across the floor. They didn't attack the workers. They crawled up their legs like ivy, gently wrapping around the grey, ashy vines of the draining force.
I watched through my Gaze of Openings, fascinated. Tang Ya wasn't fighting the grey decay. She was feeding it. She was pumping her own vibrant, living soul power into the workers, giving their bodies enough noise to push back against the silence.
It was like a drop of ink in a glass of clear water. The green light began to flush the grey out of the workers' skin.
"I'm acting as a bypass," Tang Ya gasped, her forehead dripping with sweat. "I'm… taking the silence into myself so they can breathe. Yuhao! I can't hold the whole factory! The draining force is too heavy!"
The factory lights began to flicker. In the shadows at the far end of the assembly line, I saw the familiar silhouette of the grey decay shadows — the ink-black beasts from the arena. They were moving toward Tang Ya, sensing her attempt to break their hold.
Ye Xishui raised her hand, but she hesitated. "If I strike, the recoil will hit Tang Ya through the link!"
"I can bridge it!" I yelled.
I dove into the All-Seeing Library. I ignored the Seed in the jar and went straight to the archive of the Solar Point. I remembered how Ma Xiaotao had compressed her fire.
I didn't have her fire. But I had the Crystalline Vessel.
I grabbed Ye Xishui's hand. The moment I touched her, I felt like I had grabbed a live power line. Her God-level resonance was a roaring ocean of peach-colored light. It should have vaporized my arm instantly.
But I used the Library. I acted as a regulator. I took that massive, unmanageable power and stepped it down through the knowledge stored in my mind.
"Now, Arbiter!"
I funneled her light through my own Spirit Eyes, projecting a high-frequency Solar Bridge straight at the shadow-beasts.
It wasn't a blast. It was a surgical strike of pure knowledge. The light hit the shadows and reorganized them. It didn't destroy the beasts, it Reset the area's flow, snapping the connection between the factory and the draining force.
The workers all collapsed at once. The grey vines on their necks withered and turned to dust.
Tang Ya slumped forward, breathing hard, but her eyes were bright. "They're… they're back. I can feel their pulses."
The factory was silent again, but this time it was the silence of a sleeping room, not a grave.
Ye Xishui let go of my hand. She looked at me with a mix of awe and concern. "You shouldn't have been able to handle that much of my resonance, Yuhao. Your ability… it's more than just a memory. It's a shield."
"It's getting heavy," I said, rubbing my temples. My eyes were bloodshot.
We walked toward the back of the factory, where a large iron door led to the deeper Abyss levels. On the door, written in grey ash, was a single Baybayin character.
ᜃ (Ka) - Katapusan. The End.
"He's waiting for us down there," I said.
But as I looked at the door, the Seed in my mind gave a sharp, cold throb. I realized something that made my stomach turn.
Chen Feng didn't use the workers to stop us. He used them to drain us. Tang Ya was exhausted. I was at my limit from bridging Ye Xishui's power. We had saved the factory, but we had used exactly the amount of energy Chen Feng wanted us to spend.
"He's not hiding," I whispered. "He's harvesting."
The iron door creaked open on its own, revealing a long, dark staircase that led into the heart of the mountain. From the darkness, a faint, rhythmic sound drifted up.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
It sounded like a heartbeat. But it was too slow. It was the heartbeat of something that was trying to convince the world to stop beating altogether.
"We go down," Ye Xishui said, her peach-colored light flaring to life, illuminating the dark. "But stay close. If the Seed in your head starts to grow, I need you to tell me immediately."
"Don't worry," I said, following her into the dark. "If it starts growing, I think you'll hear the silence before I do."
End of Volume 2, Chapter 38