CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND ELEVEN
### Six Days
Li Shan arrived on the morning of the fifth day.
Not the sixth. The fifth.
He came from the north through the dead zone fringe territory using Mo Xuan's operational corridor data. No contact with Shadow Sect agents. The corridor was accurate.
He walked through the valley's southern entrance and looked at the formation site.
At the nine standing stones.
At Jian Yu on the platform.
At Elder Qin at the Sword Rain position stone.
He looked at Elder Qin for three seconds.
Then he walked to the Sword Rain stone and stood beside her.
"Show me what you are doing," he said.
She showed him.
He watched for sixty seconds.
"The pattern-reading angle is two degrees off," he said. "The stone's geometric focusing requires a specific orientation relative to the formation's center axis." He adjusted his position slightly. "From this angle."
He extended the Sword Rain Blade.
The grey precision of its energy met Elder Qin's cold isolation technique at the formation's position stone.
The formation caught both.
The result was not what either had produced alone.
The Sword Rain Blade's precision and the cold isolation technique's depth — together at the position stone with the formation amplifying both simultaneously — produced a reading capability that was greater than the Sword Rain Blade alone.
Li Shan was quiet for four seconds.
"The cold isolation technique adds depth to the pattern-reading," he said. "The precision is mine. The depth is hers. Together the reading range extends approximately forty percent beyond standard Sword Rain capability."
Elder Qin looked at him.
"I am extending your range," she said.
"Yes," Li Shan said. "Significantly."
She looked at the stone.
"I have been practicing at this position for three days," she said.
"I know," Li Shan said. "The formation's frequency signature showed someone at this position. I read it from fifteen li out." He paused. "I moved faster because of it."
That was why he had arrived early.
He had felt Elder Qin practicing and had moved faster.
Jian Yu counted twelve breaths on the platform.
Five positions occupied.
The formation held all five simultaneously and the five together produced something none of them could produce alone.
Same as the combination.
Same as it had always been.
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The Shadow Sect's suppression team appeared at the valley's northern entrance at midday.
Not four to five days. Three.
They had moved faster than Mo Xuan's estimate.
Seven specialists. The same deployment as the first encounter.
Li Shan read them from the Sword Rain position.
"Same team," he said. "Different calibration. They have modified the suppression field's frequency based on what the formation resisted last time." He paused. "The modification is precise. They studied the formation's resistance pattern from the first deployment."
"Can you read the modified field as it deploys," Jian Yu said.
"Yes," Li Shan said.
He extended the pattern-reading.
Elder Qin's depth reading working alongside it.
"I can see the complete field structure twenty seconds before each segment completes," Li Shan said. "The gaps will be in different positions than the first deployment."
"Tell me as they open," Jian Yu said.
"Yes," Li Shan said.
Jian Yu stepped onto the platform.
He extended the domain at twelve breaths.
He felt the formation recognize him.
The suppression field began deploying at the northern entrance.
"Gap one," Li Shan said. "Thirty-two degrees left of your current position. Opening in eight seconds."
He found it.
He directed the between quality through it.
The section at the gap's angle received it.
"Gap two," Li Shan said. "Directly behind the platform. Twelve seconds."
He shifted.
"Feng Luo," he said. "Thermal perimeter. Full intensity."
Feng Luo raised the application.
The formation went warm.
The suppression team's specialists felt the thermal perimeter and adjusted their positions.
Their adjustment opened a fourth gap.
"Unplanned gap," Li Shan said. "Consequence of the thermal adjustment. Fourteen degrees right."
Jian Yu found it.
He directed the projection through all four simultaneously.
Four sections receiving the between quality at formation amplification through gaps in an active suppression field.
He counted twelve breaths and held them and worked.
The suppression team deployed for two hours and forty minutes.
They withdrew.
Li Shan tracked them north.
"Complete withdrawal," he said. "The guard cordon is dispersing."
Jian Yu stepped off the platform.
He counted his breaths.
One. Two. Three.
He got to three.
He sat down where he was.
Lin Mei was beside him before he finished sitting.
"Three sections," Li Shan said. He was checking the cascade data. "The three sections with gap projections during the deployment." He paused. "The first crossed threshold during the projection. The second is at ninety-three percent. The third is at eighty-six."
Three down.
Three generating sections now, or nearly so.
Jian Yu counted three breaths.
Three was where he was.
He stayed at three and let Lin Mei work.
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