The second time he saw the glowing mesh, he only felt dread eating away his gut, piece by piece. By piece. He stood at the rim of the circle he and the Divine Beasts have made. On his opposite side, An-Ri clutched Dae-Zhang's tears and fed her own magic into them to keep their brightness up. Only Nao-Zai stood awkwardly in place, watching Xin-Wei's bead quivering in his palm.

Xin-Wei's pained, final cry still rang at the hollow chambers of his mind. When he wasn't paying attention, it's all he could hear. Han-Xi's piercing red gaze was the only thing blaring in his recent memory if he dwelled in it too much.

Han-Xi didn't show up for the last two hours they've been here, which introduced another pang of fear into his system. "Maybe it's because Kai-Se is resisting and it's keeping Han-Xi ocupied," Chai-Song had said when Nao-Zai voiced his worries. "It can be a sign to let us know Kai-Se was still in there, fighting."

That's why Nao-Zai wouldn't give up. As long as Kai-Se was still up and resisting, that's enough to get him out of the ground even if he fell a thousand times more.

As the mesh spread and almost turned translucent when it started blending with the lavender sky of the new plane they're in, Nao-Zai stared down at the white bead and recalled everything Shin-Ki ever taught him about sensing korza. After the shaman's betrayal in Chaebeon, he found he trusted their word less and less, but in a situation where there wasn't anything to go by, he didn't have a choice but to.

Reol-Je grunted and scratched the ground with its claws. Was it looking to burrow here? Of all places? "When the sky turns a shade of crimson," it said through the faint red glow enveloping its body. Somehow, it made the tortoise's voice sound ethereal and about a thousand times amplified. "You have to get the Piper out or else he'll be trapped with Han-Xi in the Eternal Prison."

Nao-Zai bobbed his head. There was no wind in this plane, but the air was cold nevertheless. He took a deep breath and craned his head to the sky. The mesh had disappeared, as if it didn't exist in the first place. Any time soon, the sky would be plunged in crimson.

He closed his eyes but pictured Xin-Wei's bead in his head. Chai-Song had borrowed it earlier and extracted the amount of korza they need in crafting the prison. Now, the rest was up to Nao-Zai to use to draw Kai-Se's soul from wherever Han-Xi stashed him.

Focus on your senses. In the Divine Plane, it's hard to feel the wind because there wasn't a single breeze out and about, but there was noise. There was the smell of freshly-upturned ground made by Reol-Je when they insisted on imitating the huge crevice in the original plane Xin-Wei had chosen. Nao-Zai had led meditation camps in the Fortress and found out the first phase of using magic was like the ancient practice. Be in touch on the consistent variables. That's where the forces of nature such as the korza were.

He exhaled through his mouth. Even his breathing has to be consistent for him to feel his own korza flaring up. Strengthen your mind. Again, the meditation principles. Nao-Zai kept the picture of Xin-Wei's bead in his head, but he added another. Kai-Se's face, his smile, and the memories of his laugh—he forced them into the front row of his thoughts.

Motivation played an essential part in manipulating the korza, and Nao-Zai had plenty of that. So, when he finally reached inside himself and drew a portion of his energy, it came out in a strong burst. He yelped, opening his eyes and breaking everything he had built upon so far. Xin-Wei's bead almost tumbled off his palm. Thankfully, he was able to right it on time.

"Well, that's pathetic," commented Chai-Song.

Reol-Je craned its neck to the sky. The lavender had started turning light brown. It'd be crimson soon. Nao-Zai turned back to the bead and exhaled again. He couldn't mess up this time. Calm. Keep it steady.

The warmth rose from his chest and spread down his veins. His korza. It's the thing keeping him alive and anchoring more than his soul to his body in whatever realm he ended up in. Shin-Ki told him the next step in harnessing one's korza was to extend it to the surroundings and leash more energy from there, to draw on the natural flow of energy in the universe and use that to manifest, alter, create, and excise.

Instead of doing that, Nao-Zai focused his inner energy into the picture of a bead on his mind. Then, once the warmth had accumulated enough for it to start feeling like it would burn through his skin, he sent it all into Xin-Wei's bead.

By instinct, his eyes opened and true enough, the bead on his palm had rose to hover a few inches off his palm. Wisps of white light mixing with red threads—the color of his korza—flashed against the reddening sky. Beyond that, Chai-Song and Reol-Je's passive expressions displayed nothing of what they're feeling. Nao-Zai preferred it that way. He might start laughing if they have mortal features that were more sensitive to emotions.

He focused on the bead and tuned his attention inward once more. This time, he called on another type of magic—his bond to Kai-Se's soul. They were each other's anchors, according to Shin-Ki, and with Chai-Song doing its specialty and removing the mortal stain on the handiwork, it should work better now.

It better be perfect.

The Nao-Zai from a year ago would have scoffed at the idea of a mortal, much more a soldier and a hard-core believer of physical and tangible things being more superior, casting magic. He would have cursed to hell and back the person who would break the news that a few months down the road, future Nao-Zai would be holding Divine Beads in his hand and drawing souls using anchor bonds. Fate must be laughing its rear off at how absurd these turn of events were.

But he's here now. There's no going back.

He wrapped Xin-Wei's korza around the bond and tried to recall the first time he glimpsed into Kai-Se's eyes. It was back in Dangrao, when he was looking for the piper in the convoluted streets of the town outside the Imperial Palace. Just like that time, he reached forward, farther than he ever dared going. His senses flared up, taking in every sound, every smell, every feeling. His vision sharpened and blurred, zipping over thousands of images and sights.

Find Kai-Se.

Maybe it had been a few minutes or two whole days, but after some time, his vision stopped spinning and came to a stop on a huge building resembling the palaces in the Imperial City. Except this one perched atop a mountain, overlooking spreads of towns and neighboring ranges, hills, valleys, and vast plains. The whole expanse lacked enough detail, like someone had simply painted a landscape with watercolor, but he focused Xin-Wei's korza deeper into the bond.

Find Kai-Se.

His senses zipped forward, zooming for the lone mansion in a mountain peak. He sped across empty but decorated corridors, turned corners, and ran atop staircases with nothing but his vision and thoughts. Then, his search screeched to a stop in front of a closed door. He frowned. What's going on?

"He's behind a door," Nao-Zai said aloud. He didn't know what he looked like to Chai-Song and Reol-Je, but he called their attention anyway. Besides, he doubted those two ever removed their eyes on him for a second. "What should I do?"

Reol-Je's claws dug into the soil, and with Nao-Zai's increased senses, it sounded like a thousand spades easing into a hectare of soil. "Break through the seal," the tortoise said. Nao-Zai nodded and went to do just that, concentrating Xin-Wei's korza into the door blocking him from Kai-Se. The roar of magic and his senses flaring up all at once made him deaf to the tortoise's next statement. "Be prepared for the consequences."

The door exploded, taking with it the enchanted seal. A wave of emotions slammed into Nao-Zai, engulfing his mind, crawling inside his gut, and squeezing the breath out of him. His knees hit the ground, the sound of bones slamming against loose soil another detonation in his ears.

He gasped, clutching at his chest, as guilt speared through his mind, clawing at everything he ever held on to. Anguish, just pure concentrations of it, choked the breath from his lungs. What was this?

"Enchanted seals are rarely made to keep anything out," Chai-Song's voice blasted through the chaos in his mind and body. "They're meant to keep some things in."

Great. Could have told him that before instructing him to break through? Besides, what was this? Why was Kai-Se being locked in with emotions like this?

Nao-Zai gritted his teeth and pushed through the haze of emotions curling and hissing towards and in him. Kai-Se, he called. Can you hear me?

No answer. Of course. The main reason they're here in the first place was Kai-Se not talking and Nao-Zai thinking it was wrong. Maybe Kai-Se was still angry at him. Maybe the Piper was still taking to heart everything they had said to other that night. Had Nao-Zai really lost Kai-Se that way? There's no way Nao-Zai would be able to live with that. There's so many things Kai-Se deserved but never what Nao-Zai had given him from the start.

Kai-Se! He called into the haze. His vision flickered as the debris the door's explosion triggered started settling with a hiss. Then, thousands of images and moving memories flooded into his mind. This was...

Blood. So much of it. Staining the walls, making a sea of red over a spread of muddied pebbles, claiming every blurry face and lifeless bodies. Why was Kai-Se seeing all of this? How could Nao-Zai get him out?

Where was he?

A set of shuddering breaths resounded in his left. He whirled to find Kai-Se kneeling in front of a desk. With a hairpin's tapered point inches from his throat. The Piper's hands shook, tears ran down his cheeks, and his face looked like it had been robbed of all its capability to express anything other than misery and torment.

This wasn't Kai-Se. It couldn't be. The Kai-Se Nao-Zai knew wouldn't think of pointing a knife to his own throat.

Kai-Se answered Nao-Zai's doubts by swinging the pin straight into his neck.

"Don't!"

The word was out of Nao-Zai's lips before he could process what he was done. Kai-Se had paused. His face was still gaunt and his hands still shook in rigid quivers. His chest heaved with ragged breaths. He wasn't letting go of the hairpin. Where did he get that in the first place?

Nao-Zai waited for Kai-Se to look at him, to see his presence across worlds, but that's a tall wish. "Please," his tone came out pleading. Begging. "Don't."

Kai-Se stopped shaking. Nao-Zai reached out, using Xin-Wei's magic to strengthen the pull of their bond. Let Kai-Se feel something—anything—to make him want to come back. He stepped forward.

A huge shadow zipped towards him. The world glitched and snapped. Nao-Zai was staring at Chai-Song and Reol-Je. Kai-Se was nowhere to be found.

"I have answered your call," a familiar voice send shivers running down Nao-Zai's back and arms. His boots crunched against the soil as he turned. And found himself face to face with none other than Han-Xi, the Amber Dragon.

The dragon reared its golden head, its horns flashing against the sky that had now turned crimson. "It's been a thousand years since I have had a proper fight with you," its lips parted to reveal its teeth. Nao-Zai swore they were still stained by Xin-Wei's blood. "This is the time of reckoning, don't you think?"

Reol-Je lowered its head, brandishing the tapered shape at the front of its carapace. "Keep trying to draw the Piper out," it instructed. "Chai-Song and I will deal with this overgrown lizard."

Chai-Song's trail of feathers opened wide, exposing the concentric circles of blue, green, and purple. Its magic flared to the surface, lighting up each and every eye-like shape. "We'll handle it here," it said, bobbing its head as it strode forward. The feathers in its crown stood straight up in aggression. "Get Kai-Se out."

Nao-Zai gave the two Beasts an acknowledging nod before tuning his attention back to the bead on his palm. Just as he reconnected Xin-Wei's korza to the bond he shared with Kai-Se, a series of explosion and feral shrieks and hisses rang from the sky. The ground quivered underneath Nao-Zai's boots.

The battle has started.

Time's up.