Chapter 97: Regulator
Kyrian and Yanyu approached the tangle of roots. The small pulsating core of energy seemed to watch their approach.
Its soft and uneven light flickered in a rhythm that resembled a sick heart.
Yanyu looked at the ordinary roots, unable to see what Kyrian could see.
"What is it? What did you find?" she asked.
"I believe this is the heart of it all," Kyrian replied, his voice low and focused.
"It’s as if the source of the formation is... an error. It’s a mistake," he said, concentrating.
His mind was sharp, analyzing rapidly.
The Qi lines he saw were not malicious, they were scattered and disorganized. It was like a river whose bed had been diverted by a rock.
Causing the water to overflow or flood the surrounding area, creating a swamp, a stagnant zone where once there had been a solid forest.
This natural formation was like a spiritual swamp, an accident of nature that trapped everything that ventured into its still waters.
He extended his hand, not to touch the core, but to hover it above.
His eyes followed each flow of energy, mapping the dysfunctional pattern. The solution to escape wasn’t to destroy the core.
Perhaps that would cause a catastrophic explosion due to the amount of energy. The solution was to redirect the flow to clear the riverbed.
"I need to fix this, don’t I?" Kyrian murmured to himself, thinking that must be why he felt something calling him.
He had no idea what it was yet, but he knew it wanted him to solve this problem.
"Fix it? How? Couldn’t it be a trap?" Yanyu asked, confused.
"No, I don’t feel danger. It’s more like... an accident. A broken flow of the world," Kyrian said, crouching down.
He knelt, his fingers finding a specific point at the base of the roots where the Qi flow was particularly congested.
’If it’s broken, just fix it.’
Kyrian pressed the exact spot with the tips of his fingers, with a precision that no one else could achieve.
A minute movement that required perfect strength and timing. It wasn’t a push of energy but a physical intervention at that spiritual pressure point.
There was a silent click that only he could perceive. One of the energy threads unraveled, realigning with a more natural path.
The light of the core pulsed a bit stronger, but more steadily. Kyrian noticed that the Qi present in one of the freed threads dispersed like countless Qi particles.
Returning to flow as it did in the outer world.
Kyrian then moved to the next congestion point. It was meticulous and slow work, like untangling a complex web of threads in the dark.
Relying on only one sense, the most important one, his vision.
His breathing was controlled, and his movements were economical and decisive.
It was as if he were performing a spiritual surgery on the core of the natural formation.
Yanyu watched, feeling the change in the environment.
The heavy, oppressive air began to lighten.
The sensation that her mind might black out at any moment if she let go of Kyrian was replaced by a growing calm.
Then, the illusory forest around them began to lose its solidity, becoming translucent, like a veil being lifted.
Kyrian worked for several minutes, his focus absolute.
Finally, only one large tangle of energy flows remained, converging toward the pulsating core.
It was the main one. Kyrian placed his palm over the mass of roots, on the point where the erratic core remained.
This time, he didn’t apply physical force. He simply allowed his hand to touch it. His presence, his new understanding of that spiritual flaw, acted as a catalyst.
The core, now deprived of the unbalanced flows that sustained it, didn’t explode. It simply flowed.
With one final pulse of soft light, the core dissolved. The erratic energy that composed it didn’t dissipate but spread harmoniously around them.
Realigning with the world, making the Qi trapped in the threads scatter once again into countless particles.
The natural formation wasn’t destroyed, it was reintegrated into the spiritual fabric of the world.
The illusory forest then vanished completely.
The sound of the real world burst into Kyrian and Yanyu’s ears like a flood.
The wind whistling through real pines, the distant song of birds, the muffled sound of alarmed voices.
They were back on the road, exactly where they had disappeared.
Cries of shock and relief came from the caravan.
Lao Shen ran forward, his face a mixture of terror, disbelief, and relief.
"You’re back! By the gods, you’re back! What... how?" he asked.
Kyrian straightened, feeling a slight dizziness from the mental strain, but also a new sensation. He looked toward the now-normal forest.
"The formation has been fixed. The path is safe," he said simply.
As the caravan reorganized and a murmur of astonishment swept through the guards, Yanyu touched Kyrian’s arm.
"Kyrian... are you all right? Your hand..." she said suddenly.
He looked down at his own hand. In his palm, where he had touched the core, a silver mark had appeared.
Like a fragment, it was completely fused to his skin and glowed faintly. It wasn’t a wound, nor something that could be touched.
And then, as he focused on it, a new sensation arose in his mind.
It wasn’t like the ’call’ that had made him choose this mission and stop there. It was something different.
A whisper. A subtle pointer in his consciousness that pointed eastward. It was faint, almost imperceptible like the first one, but undeniably there.
And along with that new feeling, a fragment of new knowledge implanted itself in his mind.
In that direction, there was another irregularity, another unbalanced natural formation.
Kyrian felt as though he had gained a new sense, different from sight, smell, or hearing, but real.
It was like a new function.
He looked at Yanyu with something beyond his usual coldness and curiosity.
It was something newly discovered, completely unknown, and he still had no explanation for it.
But he decided to push it to the back of his mind for now.
"Let’s go. We still have to finish the escort mission," he said firmly.
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The moment Kyrian repaired the natural formation... in a distant place, beyond thousands of mountains, hundreds of plains, kingdoms, and forces of all kinds...
An old man sat on a simple cushion on the veranda of a modest pavilion.
His eyes were closed as he held a cup of tea in his hand.
His eyes, which had been closed while savoring the taste, suddenly opened. They were empty, not even pupils could be seen.
He didn’t move his body, but his head turned sharply in one direction.
"A new Regulator," his voice was soft and calm, yet it echoed through every corner of the silent pavilion.
"Has emerged in the Northern Region."
Suddenly, from the shadows, several figures dressed in silver robes materialized, bowing deeply before the old man.
Ready to follow his orders, without question, with absolute obedience.
"Go find him and bring him to me. Immediately," the old man ordered, his eyes closing again.
The figures then vanished as silently as they had appeared.