The air wasn't just cold; it was cracking with the sound of shattering jade, each fissure spreading a deeper chill. The whispered words—nobody cares, no future—hissed through the gloom not like mere sounds, but like living curses, like serpents coiling around their resolve.
Nothing is fine here, Língxiāo thought, his usual gentle smile gone, replaced by a dark, determinedly focused one. It can't be escaped. It has to be fixed. The realization settled in him with the weight of a vow. By us.
His golden eyes swept the scene. Wùji stood like a lone sentinel, his back to them, hands raised as violet energy poured from him in visible, straining waves. He was holding up not just a metaphorical pillar, but a literal, cracking column of light that seemed to be the keystone of this entire psychic architecture. On the ground beside him lay his guqin, its strings snapped, the wood scarred. If that pillar fell, the entire space—and perhaps their very existence within it—would collapse into nothingness.
Around the small circle of light where Kirihito stood paralyzed, insectoid curses skittered and buzzed, their sole purpose to amplify his innate terror, to feed the despair and make the heart of their world useless.
Wùji was doing it all alone. His jaw was clenched so tight the muscles stood out like cables. His eyes, his hands, even the air around him glitched with unstable lavender light. The truth clicked into place for everyone at once. The seventh core pillar wasn't a mystery anymore.
It was Wùji. Not a primary color, but lavender—a rare and resilient hue that, in this moment of desperate defense, seemed no less vital than royal blue, crimson red, or gold.
"I SAID stop frightening!" Wùji's voice was a strained shout, fraying at the edges with anxiety. "The thing wants us to be frightened! It'll keep crashing us if we aren't brave!" As he spoke, his body began to glow with an alarming, fractured light. Hairline cracks of violet energy raced across his skin, making him look like a porcelain statue seconds from exploding.
Língxiāo's analytical mind processed the data with terrifying speed. Without him and Wùji actively stabilizing their roles, the other core pillars were destabilizing. And the instability was a feedback loop, growing worse because they were all intrinsically linked—the royal blue, the crimson red, and now the straining lavender.
The effects were immediate and brutal. Língxi, who had already pushed far past his cursed limits, crumpled to his knees, a sharp gasp torn from him. He wrapped his arms around himself as if holding his very essence together.
"Língxi, where are you?!" Kage Ou cried out, his voice raw with a panic they'd never heard before. He was also on his knees, his hands trembling violently as he groped blindly in the fog. His eyes had turned into pools of pitch black, sightless and terrified.
Xio doubled over, coughing violently. A splash of stark red blood hit the stone floor. His insides felt shredded, as if the connection tearing apart was a physical thing trying to exit his body. His sword clattered from his grip as he clutched his head, a low moan escaping him.
"Kansai?!" Suji's voice cut through the dissonance, laced with fear.
"Suji-kunsun!!" Kansai's reply came, but it echoed from all directions, disorienting.
Sozai, Yurei, Kuradome, and Kyoren were caught in a worse trap—their minds, connected to the fracturing core, projected their fears outward. They hallucinated enemies on all sides, swinging and dodging attacks from phantoms, while the real insect curses swarmed obliviously around Wùji and Kirihito.
"Why do no attacks touch them?!" Yurei snarled in frustration and pain, slashing at an illusion of a shadowy beast.
Sozai froze mid-swing, his glowing green eyes widening. He was the first among the fighters to grasp the truth. "Everyone, stop!" he shouted, his voice cutting through the chaos. "Stop moving with your swords! We're seeing things! We might hurt each other! Move without them!"
"Where did my son go?!" Kuradome roared, turning back to human form, his three-tailed form swiping at phantoms in a blind fury. He finally spotted Kyoren through the psychic fog—his son's face a mask of battle-fury, his golden eyes unseeing as he leveled his Kazomaki blade, aiming directly at the space where Kuradome stood.
Kuradome didn't flinch. He moved with ancient grace, sidestepping the thrust at the last possible second, the blade passing so close it stirred the fur by his eye. "Kyoren, it's me," he said, his voice dropping into a low, commanding register that pierced the hallucination.
Kyoren halted, panting, the weapon shaking in his hand. He couldn't trust his own senses. Acting on instinct, Kuradome closed the distance from behind. he carefully pried the sword from his son's grasp. Disarmed, the violent illusion seemed to lose its hold. Sozai's advice had proven right.
Meanwhile, Língxiāo moved to Língxi's side. The royal blue pillar was curled in on himself, head bowed so his long white hair curtained his face, his whole body trembling with the effort of containment.
Língxiāo placed a gentle hand on his shoulder, his own palm glowing with a steady, unaffected golden light. He was puzzled—why was his power still stable when everyone else's was muting or running wild?
He gently urged Língxi to look up. The sight stole his breath. One of Língxi's hands was clamped over the left side of his face, but from what Língxiāo could see, the skin there had lost its youthful vitality, becoming thin, almost papery and faintly lined—the curse punishing him violently for the excessive physical strain.
The eye that met his was not its usual pure, gem-like blue, but a weary, stormy gray. Yet within that weary gaze was a warmth, a recognition, a depth of familiarity that felt older than this moment, older than this story.
It twisted something unfamiliar in Língxiāo's chest. A pang of connection that had no logical source. He shook his head, forcing focus.
"I can stabilize you a little, Kùmsūn," he murmured, channeling his golden energy into Língxi. It was a temporary measure, a bandage on a metaphysical wound, but it eased the visible tremors.
"You are one of the most important core pillars," Língxiāo said softly, his voice earnest. "If you collapse, the universe will, too."
As he worked, a flicker at the edge of his vision made him tense. The ghost—the persistent, chasing spirit from the cursed city in his own story—manifested nearby, its form distorted and attacking like the other psychic curses. Língxi looked at it with blank confusion, an entity clearly not from his world or his memories.
That's it, Língxiāo realized with sudden, chilling clarity. The ghost was a piece of his narrative, his personal burden. That was why his power remained distinct.
He wasn't originally born of this novel— even though he belonged here. He was a main character from a linked universe, visiting, overlapping, but fundamentally anchored elsewhere. He carried a different weight.
After stabilizing Língxi as much as he dared, he turned his attention to the epicenter. He moved toward Wùji, his golden light slicing through the last clusters of insect curses with precise, swift strokes. He caught Wùji just as the man's knees buckled, shouldering his weight.
"They're… too heavy for us…" Wùji hissed through teeth gritted against pain. The cracking sound emanating from him was horrifyingly literal. "I can't… hold it much longer…"
"Let me help you, Kùmsūn," Língxiāo whispered, pouring his own resilient energy into the support. He felt the immense, tearing strain Wùji was under. But he also sensed a duality in Wùji's energy signature—an importance here, in this universe, but also a deep, anchoring connection to another narrative where he, too, was a protagonist. It was what had kept him from shattering outright, unlike Língxi, whose heavy curse in this world had no such counterbalance.
A plan, desperate and born of instinct, formed in Língxiāo's mind. "I've an idea," he said, his voice strained as he took more of the pillar's weight. "Bring everyone here. The core pillars. Blue and red at the middle, since they make the violet. The others around them, in support."
Wùji, understanding flashing in his glitching lavender eyes, gave a sharp nod. Using the brief respite Língxiāo provided, he stumbled toward the others, his voice a ragged but compelling command, cutting through hallucinations and pain to guide them into position.
It was a fragile, shaky formation. Língxi, steadier now, stood at the center with Kirihito, whose crimson light was a faint, frightened pulse. Kage Ou, his sight slowly returning to normal, took a position flanking Língxi, his darkness a protective void. Sozai, Xio, and finally Wùji himself filled the circle, each standing at a point, their respective lights—green, silver, lavender—flaring to life.
Língxiāo gasped as the full weight of the collapsing space settled onto him, his golden light the only thing between the pillar and utter ruin. His legs trembled, threatening to give way.
Then, the circle began to glow.
The royal blue from Língxi and the crimson red from Kirihito didn't just shine side-by-side; they intertwined, swirling together, and at their point of fusion, a brilliant, stable violet light bloomed—a color that mirrored and reinforced Wùji's own. The supportive hues of green, silver, and black wove around this central triad, creating a lattice of light, a net to catch the falling sky.
The storm of whispering curses faltered. The cracking sounds softened. The psychic pressure lightened, just enough to breathe.
"It's working…" Língxiāo whispered, awe cutting through his exhaustion. With the structure momentarily stable, he released his hold on the central pillar and quickly stepped into the circle himself, his gold adding its strength to the woven tapestry of light.
For a moment, there was only the hum of synchronized energy. And then, through the newly stabilized connection, a voice reached them. It was muffled, thick with tears and exhaustion, a whisper from the other side of creation.
Unclear to most, but to the two at the very heart—to Língxi, who was the foundation, and to Kirihito, who was the namesake—the meaning came through, clear and aching.
They heard her.