Krrrrr.
It came again. Louder this time.
Both of them froze.
Then — the sound of something moving.
Not footsteps.
Riven turned, eyes narrowing as he scanned the edge of the desert.
That's when he saw it.
A line in the sand.
Wide. Fast.
Like a ripple.
No — a wave.
A low ridge of disturbed earth, kicking up dust as it surged toward them in a serpentine arc — not high, but constant.
His blood chilled.
"They actually chased us," he said quietly.
Yue Lin didn't respond. She was already shifting her weight, preparing to run again.
But they didn't need to.
The wave reached the edge of the desert — where cracked orange gave way to darker stone — and stopped.
Abruptly.
No collision. No burst. Just a sudden, unnatural halt.
Like hitting an invisible wall.
The dust rolled on a little further.
The thing beneath didn't.
Both of them watched for a few seconds longer.
Stillness returned.
Riven exhaled — slow, sharp.
"…Let's quickly get back."
They turned and moved fast, putting distance between them and that border, boots crunching dry earth with every step.
Riven broke the silence first.
"You think that was really part of the trial?"
Yue Lin didn't answer immediately.
Then: "I'm not sure."
"That slab wasn't like the others. No inscription. No nothing. And that whole pit felt…" She trailed off. "Wrong."
"It did." He agreed.
They walked the rest of the way in silence, chain brushing faintly through trees and stone.
Eventually they reached their cave again.
Yue Lin went to the far side instantly. Riven checked the perimeter again, then sank down near the old fire ring, rubbing at his temples.
They set a rotating watch schedule. One would rest while the other kept an eye out. They were too tired not to.
Neither of them said it aloud, but the encounter with the worms had left something raw beneath their skin.
Not quite fear, but close.
The kind of tension that clings to your spine even after the danger's passed.
It was clear now — they couldn't take anything lightly in this place.
If they'd been just a little slower, a little more careless…
They might have died down there.
And now they wanted a break.
Yue Lin slept first.
By the time Yue Lin woke for her shift, nudging Riven gently to take his turn sleeping, the sunless sky outside still hadn't changed.
Of course it hadn't.
When he woke again hours later, blinking the haze from his vision, he saw her seated near the now low-burning fire pit. The flames cracked quietly, casting slow orange light across her face.
She looked over as he stirred.
"I want to stay and cultivate," she said simply. "At least for a few days."
He sat up, brow raised. "Stay?"
Yue Lin nodded. "I can feel it. I'm close to a breakthrough."
Riven rubbed at his jaw, then nodded. "Makes sense."
Truth was, he could use the time too. His own progress had been steady, but he hadn't properly focused since his breakthrough. Not with them scouting everywhere and constantly being on edge.
It wouldn't hurt to slow down for a bit.
Afterall the trial was supposed to last for two months anyway.
Days passed like that.
They didn't go out far anymore.
They hunted occasionally. Ate. Rested.
And most of all, they cultivated.
Yue Lin was growing close — her qi already dense and refined, her posture slipping into stillness with practiced ease each time she sat.
The middle stage of the Inner Condensation Realm was just within reach for her.
Riven wasn't far behind, either.
Though he'd only recently broken through to the Inner Condensation stage, he was already deep into its lower layer. The qi here — heavy, rich — seemed to welcome their progress, rather than resist it.
And so, they trained.
It was during one of their hunts for food that it clicked.
A smaller stag had emerged from a thicket up north — crystalline antlers and white-gray hide flecked with dried sap. A weak Greater Feral, but still sharp. Still dangerous.
Yue Lin moved to flank it, and Riven took aim.
His fingers closed around one of the five needles.
A breath.
A flick of the wrist.
A whisper of qi.
And it flew.
There was no shine. No glint of steel. Not even a whistle.
The needle vanished into air — cloaked in a thin film of qi, soft and dense like velvet mist. It didn't unravel this time.
Not before impact.
Not after.
The needle buried itself in the stag's flank without so much as a twitch from the beast.
Then, just as it lowered its head to charge Yue Lin—
Riven pulsed his qi.
The qi detonated.
A burst of force exploded from within the stag's ribs — not wide, but deep — like something twisting inward and tearing from the core.
The creature reeled mid-step, legs locking, eyes wide. Yue Lin didn't hesitate.
Her blade cut clean across its neck in the next instant.
It dropped.
Riven exhaled slowly, lowering his hand.
"…That's new," Yue Lin said, stepping back from the corpse.
He grinned.
"I've been throwing these needles nonstop since we got here," he said, shrugging slightly. "Guess it adds up."
And it had.
Velvet Touch — his first skill from the Velvet Thorn Acupuncture.
This was what it was always supposed to look like.
Before he'd lost control of his qi before it reached the target, making it nothing much but a normal needle throw.
But now…
Now the sheath didn't unravel mid-flight.
Now it clung to the needle until after impact.
And most importantly — it could explode from inside the target.
A time bomb cloaked in silence.
He couldn't control it mid-air yet — that would require perfect mastery — but this was still a major leap.
His first skill to reach major mastery.
Even faster than Falconburst Kick and Vaern's Basic Martial Arts, which he'd learned earlier.
>>>
They stayed near the cave for several more days.
At this point, neither of them tried to move on their own anymore.
The chain hadn't been triggered for a while now, as they'd formed a better understanding of their situation.
With Riven's breakthrough in his needle technique, the hunting grew easier.
Their coordination getting ever better.
They'd spend so much time close by, that Riven felt like he could almost finish Yue Lin's sentences.
Almost.
Eventually the long stretches of cultivation paid off.
Yue Lin's qi coiled tighter, denser — until one night, without warning, the air around her trembled faintly.
A pulse of pressure.
A breath held by the world.
Riven looked over from his side of the cave.
Yue Lin's eyes were still closed. But he could feel it.
She'd broken through.
When she finally opened them again, there was something different in her gaze — sharper, steadier.
Not a smile, exactly — but something close enough in her posture.
"Middle Inner Condensation," she said quietly.
He grinned. "Congrats."
She gave a nod.
The next morning, they packed what little they had and left the cave behind again.
The island was still vast — its forests twisting, its paths shifting — but their goal hadn't changed.
Somewhere out there, the path to the next island would appear.
They'd have to find it. Be ready for when it came.
Riven walked a step behind her at first, mind half on the terrain — but the rest of it kept drifting elsewhere.
Yue Lin moved differently now.
It was subtle. A lightness in her steps. A steadiness in her breathing.
Maybe it was the breakthrough. Or maybe it was something else.
But even here — in this strange, harsh world — she seemed… not happy, exactly, but closer to it.
He could've sworn she almost hopped once as they crossed a shallow stream.
The oddest part was, he didn't even realize when the trees began to thin again.
When the ground cracked dry beneath their boots, and the forest haze gave way to heat.
His eyes had been fixed on her for most of the walk.
Only when she turned slightly, one hand lifting to tuck a loose strand of hair behind her ear — that familiar, absent gesture — did he sober up.
The two of them had arrived.
Before them stretched the stone desert from before.
The heat was already rising.
Creeping across the cracked orange earth like something alive.
Riven exhaled slowly, his hand drifting toward the pouch at his waist.
"Let's be careful."
Yue Lin nodded once. Her eyes never left the horizon.