Fic Update Thread: 56th edition

[Mamorien]

Threads of Destiny 423 Shenglu 2.

Ling Qi sang her full refrain as Gan Guangli wheeled to face her, and the whiteout returned in full force, blotting out the field, the walls, and the manor in crushing emptiness. Gan Guangli staggered. The gleaming celestial light that girded his armor flickered out, and his fists crashed to the earth to hold himself up as the rime forming in the chinks of his armor rapidly drained away his qi. Above, her liege, the colorless star, was sheathed in a shell of ice as well.

Down in her belly though, Ling Qi only felt a rising dread.

Ding.

Tiny bells chimed softly, ringing in an ending as potent as any she had seen. Glittering lights. Twinkling stars. A handful, a dozen, a score, a hundred and more. They sparked. They blazed. They bloomed. With resignation in her heart, Ling Qi pulled at the curtain of reality for another skimming step.

The light scattered the echo of potential futures she left behind and struck her in the shallow liminal with a blinding flash that sent her crashing back into the material world, spine spasming as the dream qi she'd drawn on scattered and fled her suddenly leaden and painfully solid limbs.

Xia Lin crouched beside her, armor rent.

Together, they looked up at the second sun in the sky, before which Cai Renxiang was silhouetted.

Ling Qi let out a discontent sigh and met her partner's eyes.

"Yield," they said.

The blinding white sun dispersed. A field of glittering stars drifted away on the breeze.

https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/21188/...-shenglu-2