"Yes," Lin Yu said with soft wonder. "Like an invisible breeze, but composed of something far more subtle than air." She too raised her hand, moving it gently as if stroking some vast, unseen creature of the Dao. "But it fades the moment awareness focuses upon it."
"The same experience," Su Luo confirmed. "Let us add it to our list of mysteries and continue forward."
No one objected, so he climbed the steps, the pillar of amber growing broader and more magnificent as he reached the summit. There he stopped, hands on his hips, craning his head back to take in its vertiginous height. Even this close, merely sixty zhang distant
, it was easy to believe it was solid golden qi rather than a passage between walls. "No heat emanates from it," Wei Shan murmured.
Su Luo approached cautiously, squinting against the brilliant radiance. He raised his hand as he drew near, sensing for temperature with the sensitivity of a formation expert. No heat touched his skin. Nothing but the sound of their breathing, the metallic scent in the air that spoke of precious metals, and the echo of their footsteps on stone.
"Do you think there is a deity on the far side?" Lin Yu wondered.
"Perhaps," Lei Ming replied. "Though which celestial being would claim this realm? Do any of you recall the names of gods or immortals?"
"None," she admitted, and Su Luo thought he heard relief in her voice.
Closer still. The pillar had become a wall of burning light before him, thirty zhang wide, absolute and all-consuming in its radiance.
"Caution, brother," Lei Ming warned.
Su Luo slowed, each step now requiring conscious effort as if he walked knowingly toward the edge of an abyss. Squinting until his eyes were nearly closed, he stepped right up to the wall of golden fire and realized it was neither solid nor empty space, but both, a veil of burning qi that rose before him, yet through which he could sense continuation, passage, space beyond.
"It appears to be some form of barrier formation," he announced, eyes nearly sealed shut. "This one will test it with touch."
Silence greeted his words as he reached forth. His hand pressed against the burning radiance, and for a moment he felt resistance like pushing against soft silk. Then his hand broke through and vanished, the light flowing up his wrist to engulf his forearm as he extended it deeper.
"There is space beyond," he whispered, sweat beading on his brow despite the lack of heat. His heart hammered against his ribs like a caged bird. "This one will enter."
"Su Luo," one of them called, but he could not tell which over the roaring of his pulse. Even with his eyes slitted, he felt blinded by the radiance. He edged forward, his arm disappearing to the elbow, then the shoulder.
For a moment that felt like eternity, he hesitated. Balanced between two worlds. He drew a deep breath and stepped through.
Su Luo emerged into a dim chamber with low ceiling, constructed of rusted iron. He received a brief impression of corroded walls and packed earth floor when his cultivator's instincts screamed danger.
Without thought or hesitation, he threw himself left and crashed to one knee just as something metallic rang against the iron wall behind him and spun away into the shadows.
He stared in shock, even as part of him reached instinctively within his dantian, seeking to grasp qi that was not there. The sensation was like expecting to draw a sword and finding an empty scabbard.
The golden pillar had vanished. In its place stood a wall of dull iron, streaked with rust like dried blood. A small scar of bright steel gleamed at chest height where he had stood moments before.
"What in the nine hells, ?" He started to rise when a shape pushed through the iron wall as if it were mist, hands groping blindly, revealing Lei Ming's bearded face, eyes wide with strain.
The large man grunted, nearly stumbling as he emerged completely, then focused on where Su Luo knelt.
"What, "
"Dodge!" Su Luo shouted.
There was no sound, merely a sense of deadly motion, and Lei Ming jerked aside, obeying battle instincts honed over lifetimes as another projectile sparked off the iron wall.
Su Luo leaped to his feet. "The others, when they emerge, "
Too late. Two pairs of hands emerged from the iron wall simultaneously, separated by several zhang. They came through with determined purpose, Wei Shan's eyes squeezed shut, Lin Yu blinking in bewilderment.
"Beware!" Su Luo shouted, launching himself forward to tackle Wei Shan.
She froze, eyes snapping open in alarm, staring at him in shock as he crashed into her a heartbeat later.
They fell roughly to the earth, Wei Shan's shoulder striking the wall, but the solid impact against Su Luo's side told him it was already too late.
"No, no, no," he hissed, pulling back to kneel beside the woman. She looked down at the thick bolt of gray metal that had sunk deep into her abdomen.
"What...?" Her voice was thick with shock, hands closing around the shaft with the careful movements of one afraid to cause further damage.
"Lei Ming!" Su Luo called to where the large man was helping Lin Yu stand, one hand pressed to his bloody side. "Do either of you possess healing arts?"
Blank stares as they hurried over, their faces pale with horror.
"Stay conscious," Su Luo urged as Wei Shan's eyelids fluttered. "Do not close your eyes, sister." He began pulling off his outer robe, some desperate thought of stanching the wound filling his mind.
Lei Ming touched his arm gently. "Brother... it is too late."