The journey from the Iron-Thorn Oasis toward the deeper "Gut" of the Ghost-Salt Desert was a transition from a wasteland into a nightmare. As the Rusty Empress churned forward, its mechanical legs kicking up clouds of stinging white dust, the sky began to lose its blue hue, turning a sickly, bruised purple.
"Keep your eyes on the horizon, and your mind in your boots!" Hanzo yelled, his voice barely audible over the screaming wind. He had tied a heavy silk scarf around his face, leaving only his multi-lens goggles exposed. "We're entering the Harmonic Flats. The salt here is 'resonant.' It remembers every sound that's ever crossed it. If you think too loud, it'll start talking back!"
Long Chen didn't reply. He was focused on the internal "clog" at the base of his spine. His bones were humming—a deep, tectonic vibration that felt like a dam about to burst. He was at the absolute limit of the Mortal Peak, and the pressure was becoming physical pain. Every bump the mechanical lizard hit sent a jolt of white-hot agony through his ribs, which were now so dense they felt like they were trying to crush his own lungs.
The Comedy of the Canteen
"Hey! Watch the elbows, kid!" Hanzo barked as the Empress hit a particularly jagged salt-ridge.
Long Chen had accidentally gripped the side-rail of the machine to steady himself. Creeeeeak—CRUNCH. The thick iron railing snapped in his hand like a dry breadstick.
"That was reinforced galvanized steel!" Hanzo wailed, throwing his hands up briefly before grabbing the steering levers again. "Do you have any idea how hard it is to find straight metal in this dump? You're a walking disaster! I should have charged you a 'property damage' fee."
"It was already rusting," Long Chen said calmly, tossing the crumpled iron bar away. He reached for Hanzo's canteen to take a sip of the bitter oasis water.
"Careful with that, it's a delicate—"
Long Chen barely applied pressure to the cap, but his "Weight" was so uncontrolled at this Peak stage that the entire copper canteen flattened into a pancake between his fingers. Water sprayed everywhere, soaking Hanzo's bandages.
Hanzo sat in dripping silence for a full ten seconds. "I hate you," he whispered. "I truly, deeply hate you."
"I'll buy you a new one," Long Chen muttered, looking at his hands with a trace of genuine confusion. "Eventually."
: The Singing Specter
As the sun vanished, the desert began its nightly ritual. The wind died down, but the air didn't go silent. Instead, the ground began to emit a low, haunting melody—thousands of tiny salt crystals vibrating in unison. It sounded like a choir of ghosts, a beautiful and terrifying sound that made the mind want to wander away from the body.
"Here it comes," Hanzo hissed, his playful demeanor vanishing. He slammed a heavy brass lever, and the Empress's engine sputtered into a low "stealth mode." "The Singing Salt. Don't listen to the words, kid. If you hear a voice you recognize, it's already over."
Suddenly, the salt thirty yards to their left began to swirl. It rose up in a towering vortex, taking the shape of a colossal knight clad in translucent, crystalline armor. It was an Echo-Specter—a memory of a Level 5 Transcendent who had died here a millennia ago, trapped in the salt's vibration.
The specter raised a sword made of shimmering light and let out a scream that wasn't a sound, but a psychic shockwave. Hanzo groaned, clutching his head as his goggles cracked from the frequency.
Long Chen stood up. The "Singing" hit him like a physical wave, trying to find a crack in his mind. It whispered of the Cloud-Mist Sect, of the "Dust" he used to be, and of a home he had never known.
"You are an echo," Long Chen said, his voice dropping into a register that made the Empress's metal frame rattle. "And an echo has no weight."
He didn't draw his hammer. He simply stepped off the moving lizard and began to walk toward the towering ghost. With every step, his aura expanded. It wasn't a flash of light; it was a Void Zone. The "Singing" died the moment it touched his ten-foot radius. The salt crystals on the ground stopped vibrating and turned dull and grey.
The Specter swung its massive blade of light. Long Chen didn't block. He simply raised his hand. When the blade hit his palm, the "Weight" of his marrow absorbed the vibration. He didn't just stop the attack; he erased it.
The Specter flickered, its frequency disrupted. Long Chen stepped into the "heart" of the ghost and let out a single, massive pulse of his Dual-Polarity Marrow.
BOOM.
The sound wasn't an explosion of fire, but a sudden, absolute silence. The Specter shattered into a million tiny, non-vibrating salt grains that fell to the ground like snow.
Long Chen stood in the center of the silent patch of desert, his skin glowing with a terrifying, cold silver light. He looked like a god of the Void, standing in a world made of noise.
The Breaking Point
Hanzo stared at him from the back of the Empress, his eyes wide behind his cracked lenses. "You... you didn't just fight it. You canceled its existence. Kid, your aura... it's not 'power' anymore. It's a Law."
Long Chen turned back, but as he did, he staggered. A sharp crack echoed from his own chest. His ribs were finally beginning to fracture under the pressure of his own Peak power. He wasn't being attacked by an enemy; he was being crushed by his own growth.
"We have to reach the Hive tonight," Long Chen gasped, his hand clutching his side. "The marrow is... it's expanding too fast. If I don't find the Catalyst to form the Foundation, I'm going to implode."
Hanzo scrambled to the helm, his face pale. "Hold on, you walking mountain! If you're going to explode, don't do it on my lizard!"
The Empress roared to life, its blue crystals glowing at maximum capacity as they raced toward the looming shadow of the Glass Hive on the horizon.