Chapter 264 - Another Way

“No more hollow embers?”

This question wasn’t spoken by Nilya, but whispered by Yuzu to herself. She frowned, observing the strange stone bird boy as she tried to discern whether he was lying or not.

Hearing this, Yuzu suddenly felt that something was off. There was something about the strings that didn’t feel quite right.

At the same time, in the physical world she saw the guru-chi frown and mutter to himself.

She reached out to the guide’s silver string, intending to take a peek into its future and try to gain some more insight. However as she hovered her fingers over the thread her spiritual intuition gave out a warning. She frowned, deciding now to touch Nilya’s string and read deeply into his future.

The quirky, bird-like jitters made it hard for Nilya to read the guide’s body language. It kept looking at Nilya at different angles with its beady eyes, tilting its head back and forth.

“This guide deeply sorry! Squack!” The bird boy shouted and bowed deeply at ninety degrees. It held the position to express its sincerity.

“It’s okay.” Nilya responded, taken aback by the passionate apology, ”But… what can I do? I don’t want to be stuck…”

His thought process was simple, if he couldn’t complete the trial perhaps he could just ‘forfeit’ and leave.

“Esteemed one pray at brazier.” The guide replied, fluttering its wings as it remained bowing. “Then, this guide conduct ritual to send esteemed one back to physical world.”

Nilya smiled in relief, and was just about to accept the offer when he felt a tug on his spiritual intuition.

“Esteemed one, come.” The bird started waddling back to the pedestal.

Nilya frowned, staying in his spot as he watched the guide walk away. The sweet scent of peaches drifted across his nose as a soft voice spoke to him, “Ask for another way.”

Nilya hesitated, his mouth turning dry. Without a doubt this was the same presence that had appeared to him and prompted him to save his sister. Even though the voice was gentle, there was an edge to it that warned him of the graveness of this command.

He turned to the guide, “I..Is there another way?”

The guide’s quirky motions ceased as it suddenly grew still, appearing as if it were a statue. A pressure built in the air that caused the hairs on the back of Nilya’s head to raise. He felt a prickly sensation travel down his spine as he fought the urge to back away.

“Esteemed one is dedicated.” The guide chirped, suddenly looking joyful as it stood straight. It turned around to face Nilya and nodded, “Sending ritual takes time, this guide must start now, or esteemed one cannot return home.”

“T..then there’s something else I can do?” Nilya pressed again, “Can I use something other than a hollow ember?”

“No, hollow ember is required to complete the trial.” The guide shook its head, hopping with mild agitation, “Esteemed one, forgive this guide! This guide speaks truth, no more hollow embers on mountain. However, maybe still hollow embers in the depths…”

The guide hopped up to the edge of the cliff, looking down into the deep darkness, where the starlight didn’t reach, “Grand basalt hawks nest on cliffs, but below cliffs are tar wing basalt hawks.”

“Tar wing basalt hawks… terrifying! Esteemed one!” The guide’s feathers stood on end as it shivered, “Many monsters below… Six wing hawks are king. Stealing hollow ember from a tar wing basalt hawks… Only brings awful, awful death.”

“I’ll go.” Nilya said resolutely, “What’s the easiest way down?”

“This guide implores esteemed one-“

“Tell me how to get down!” Nilya shouted.

He was trembling, not from the task he had to do or the monsters below, but out of fear of the stone guide who was doing everything in his power to convince Nilya not to go.

The more agitated the guide became, the more Nilya felt a pressure weigh down around him. After hearing the words from the mysterious spirit, Nilya only wanted to leave as fast as he could.

The guide bowed to Nilya, gesturing with his wing down the direction where Nilya had come from, “That way, stay close to cliffs until find broken stairs. There climb down the cliff. This the easiest way down.”

“Beware the hawks.”

Nilya bowed quickly in thanks, not even able to get a word out of his parched throat as he turned and ran down the path.

As he left, Yuzu watched the guide’s string release its grip around Nilya’s thread. Without her intervention, Nilya would have been killed during the guide’s ritual. Though she could see his future through his string, it was unclear how exactly this would happen.

In Nilya’s original future, the guide would set up a small circle of candles around Nilya and conduct a ritual. While chanting Nilya would close his eyes and slump over, dying without any signs of aggression or violence. Did the ritual fail, or was this murder? Yuzu didn’t know. Nor could she see the future beyond Nilya’s death to see the guide’s reaction, since the connection to the pocket dimension would be severed as soon as Nilya perished.

To save Nilya, Yuzu used the technique that she had previously developed to determine the best course of action. This involved setting her intention to act, and observing how the future would change as a direct result of her intervention.

“Run away, now!”

“The guide is lying.”

“Ask him if the ritual dangerous.”

These were some of the messages that Yuzu had experimented with. She even considered a few more brazen ones.

“Accuse him of trying to kill you.”

“Ask him if there are more hollow embers below the mountain?”

She discovered that any path that caused the guide to suspect that Nilya had an external entity helping him resulted in aggression from the guide. The guide would grow irate and accuse Nilya, resulting in chaotic violence.

“Ask for another way” was the advice that Yuzu eventually settled on. She let out a soft sigh of relief as she saw the end of Nilya’s silver thread recover and flow back into the world.

Yuzu nodded quietly, noting that his actions were natural enough that the guide seemed to be unaware that Nilya had been influenced by her.

This is a useful technique. Yuzu noted to herself. She had used it a few times now, such as when she used it to gather extra information from Li Ru before he grew wise to her methods. She reflected on the ways she could use it, how she could find the best results more efficiently and its limitations.

She decided to give it a name as well. After musing for a while she decided to name it “Fate Cycling”.

As Nilya ran away from the guide, the guide’s silver thread quietly disconnected and remained at the cliffside by the brazier. Nilya’s thread descended down the path toward the cliffs that the bird had pointed out.

Just this small observation prompted Yuzu to come to a conclusion - With the current trajectory of fate, Nilya wouldn’t be returning to the guide. If he was going to return, Yuzu expected to see his future fate string loop back and be visible to her. There was around six hours remaining until sunrise, well within her current limits.

Therefore, she could predict that Nilya wouldn’t find the hollow ember. He might even die or end up trapped in the pocket dimension. If she could utilize the full two kilometre range of her powers, she probably would be able to read Nilya’s descent down the cliff far in advance, but instead her awareness inside this space extended only a tenth of the distance.

Yuzu frowned, wondering how she could help the boy.

Nilya had run down the craggy, rocky terrain for ten minutes, leaving the stone bird guide far behind. Silver starlight shone off the smooth surface of the bare rocks that formed step-like plateaus. Thin, twisted trees with silver white flowers on their naked branches grew out of the cracks in the rock. Woody grasses with blade-like stalks fluttered softly in a calm, crisp breeze.

Nilya descended down the rocks, sometimes finding a step-like path, sometimes climbing down the sheer face of a cliff down to the next plateau. The wind howled softly in the distance, rising and falling in a haunting tone. Every so often he heard the cry of a hawk, piercing the night.

Eventually the steppes came to an end and Nilya found himself standing above a precipice, looking down the side of the mountain as it disappeared into a shadowed darkness. If he strained his eyes he could see lumps and vague forms of the mountainous terrain below, but it seemed that the thin starlight lost strength below a certain depth.

Halfway down the cliffs, Nilya spotted the form of a bird gliding in the air, its starlit silhouette standing out against the vast darkness below.

As he stared down, he felt an itching sensation on the back of his neck. He reached up to scratch it it, only to find that the flesh behind his ear had bulged out slightly.

They felt like… lips?

He gasped as the lips opened and emitted a soft chuckle, whispering quietly into his ear, “Keh keh keh, how surprising…”

The voice coming from the lips was unmistakably that of his guru-chi mentor.

“It seems you have a guardian watching over you, boy.”