101: Chapter 102 Boot Prints and Blood

Wu Fu set down the short-winged Night Wing.

The little fellow was a size smaller than the other two, and with the grey shell on its left wing only half-removed, it couldn't fly high. However, once it hit the ground, the black fire in its eyes shone brightly. Its two claws pressed against the stone surface as it slid under the threshold like a patch of shadow.

Just past the first step, the short feathers on its back were flattened by the grey wind.

At the second step, its wing bones let out a faint crack.

Wu Fu's hand clenched instantly. "If it makes another sound, come back!"

The short-winged Night Wing let out a low cry, unclear if it was agreeing or finding her noisy. It hugged the outer edge of the Half-Gate Anchor and burrowed beneath a fallen stele on the right side inside the gate.

Ning Yanqiu raised her hand at the same time. "Master Crow, suppress the void."

Master Crow did not fly inside. Instead, it spread half its wings outside the gate. The Cold Mirror Auxiliary Seal sent a beam of cold light inside, landing three inches above the short-winged Night Wing's head—not to light the way, but to suppress the shadows of the gears above.

Using that beam of cold light, the short-winged Night Wing avoided the first row of Fire-Splitting Gears, burrowed behind the fallen stele, and gave it a peck.

Ting.

A small piece of scorched-white stone debris was dragged out, stained with a faint, cold-white mark.

Ning Yanqiu caught the mark, her fingertips tightening slightly. "Cold Mirror Gear."

She handed the stone debris to Wen Zhao. "Don't write 'Ning Family.' Write 'Old Cold Mirror Gear, pending verification.'"

Wen Zhao nodded. "Understood."

The Temple Inspector frowned. Pei Chengxu stood nearby; the transmission fire at his cuff flickered slightly before he pressed it down.

Lu Jin only spared it a glance.

Young Master Pei Tiange would know about this soon. But it was too late to block the news now; it couldn't be stopped. What they could do was secure the landing point first and record every piece of evidence in their own inspection logs.

"To the left," Lu Jin said.

The short-winged Night Wing turned left along the base of the fallen stele. There was a section of wide, grey-red steps leading down to the outer ring of the Grey Fire Well. In the half-gate state, only the first twenty or so steps were visible; further down was nothing but mist like settled ash.

The Night Wing reached the nineteenth step and suddenly stopped.

Wu Fu immediately called out, "Come back!"

The Night Wing didn't return. It lowered its head, the tip of its wing lightly scraping the ground.

The old spike in Wen Zhao's hand vibrated simultaneously. "There's a mark!"

Ning Yanqiu lowered her mirror light, shining it next to that patch of black ash. At the edge of the wide step, half a boot print was revealed—an old Military Court combat boot. The front half of the sole was pressed deep while the back was shallow, as if the person stepping down was carrying a heavy load, or as if they had been pushed from behind.

Qiao Ye had been rubbing his shoulder, but his hand slowly stopped when he saw the boot print.

Wen Zhao traced the half-boot print into the Line-Marking Nail, his voice even lower than before. "Old-Style Supply-Marking Boot. The tread pattern is different from what the Vanguard Battalion uses now."

Instructor Han Tiecheng didn't speak, but the fire patterns on his iron fire order dimmed slightly.

Lu Jin looked at the half-boot print.

The old annotations had stated it clearly—transferred to the inner ring of the Grey Fire Well. At first glance behind the gate earlier, he had also seen scorch marks on the Lock Bridge. Now, this half-boot print was located at the nineteenth step reachable by the Half-Gate Anchor.

This was enough.

The Supplementary Marker Team of that year had indeed entered this gate and headed deep into the outer ring of the Grey Fire Well.

"Continue searching for the second one," Lu Jin's voice was steady.

The Night Wing shuffled forward two steps. The second boot print was at the twenty-first step, more skewed than the first, with the toe pointing toward the Ruptured Furnace Seat.

Wen Zhao immediately added a spike shadow. "This doesn't look like a disorganized retreat; it's an escorted line."

Qiao Ye looked up. "How can you tell?"

"The stride length is too uniform." Wen Zhao pointed at the distance between the two boot prints. "People carrying heavy loads don't walk this uniformly unless they are being pressed from the front and back."

He paused. "If there really is an old workshop below, an Artisan's Ledger would be even more accurate."

Lu Jin committed those three words to memory.

At this point, the area beneath the Lock Bridge, the Royal Court Workshop, and the old boot marks of the Supplementary Marker Team had already begun to reveal their edges within the grey wind behind the gate.

The short-winged Night Wing wanted to go further.

This time Wu Fu spoke first, her eyes turning red. "Come back!"

The Night Wing didn't move.

"I said come back!!"

Only then did it retract its claws and retreat from beside the second boot print. Just as it reached the seventeenth step, the grey wind inside the gate suddenly changed—

The grey wind swirled backward, sucking into the gate!

The short-winged Night Wing's body swayed, nearly dragged down the wide steps. Qiao Ye reacted the fastest, slamming his shield in front of the gate. Without crossing the line himself, he wedged the corner of the shield against the threshold, forcefully cutting off that reverse suction.

"Wen Zhao!"

Wen Zhao's old spikes vibrated, and all three lit up simultaneously. The gate tendons beneath the Half-Gate Anchor were pulled taut; one of the three fine threads from the Craft Nest Layer snapped.

Wu Fu's face turned pale. "My thread!"

Grey Pupil's Sacrificial Fire pressed down. "Save the Night Wing first!"

Lu Jin's black fire swirled along the gate tendons, forcibly dragging the short-winged Night Wing back from the seventeenth step. When it tumbled out over the threshold, the grey shell on its body cracked, and another ring of white ash appeared on the edge of its left wing.

Wu Fu scooped it up, her voice changing with anger. "I told you to come back and you still kept looking!"

The short-winged Night Wing lay in her palm and gave a low cry, this time seeming to admit its mistake.

Wu Fu continued to scold, but her hands quickly applied grey material. "If you don't listen next time, I'll hang you from the nest beams!"

Grey Pupil glanced at her. "Save it first, then scold."

"I can save and scold at the same time, it doesn't hinder anything!"

The reverse suction inside the gate only lasted for two breaths. After two breaths, the grey wind blew outward again, but the Half-Gate Anchor had already been scraped thin by a layer.

Wen Zhao squatted on the ground, his face a bit pale. "It was testing our anchor."

"It's the well wind," Lu Jin said.

Ning Yanqiu looked deeper into the gate; a ring of black ash left by the reverse suction still remained on the edge of the Cold Mirror Auxiliary Seal. "The well wind surged up from below."

Instructor Han Tiecheng asked in a heavy voice, "Does the initial inspection end here?"

Lu Jin didn't answer immediately.

He looked at the second old boot mark inside the gate. The burst of reverse suction just now had scraped away some of the ash next to the print, revealing a very thin drag mark—like a chain, or like some kind of thin bone had been dragged across the ground.

Grey Pupil saw it too. "The scent of an Outer God."

The Temple Inspector immediately looked at the Sealing Gray Box. The box was still quiet, but the patterns on the surface of the Black-Gold Thin Bone inside were lighting up ring by ring. The glow was very faint, as if it had heard distant residual fire through thick ash.

"Grey box reaction!" the Verification Deacon's voice tightened.

Grey Pupil's staff tapped once, and the Sacrificial Fire immediately suppressed the outer edge of the grey box. The light from the Black-Gold Thin Bone was pushed down half an inch, but it quickly squeezed out from the cracks in the bone.

Lu Jin looked inside the gate.

Deeper behind the gate, the residual fire of the Ruptured Furnace Seat was mostly obscured by the half-closed gate, but it was still glowing—faintly, flickering, as if breathing in sync with the old fire in his sleeve across the gate.

The target the Outer God's thin bone was responding to was that residual fire.

Instructor Han Tiecheng saw it too. "Close it to the half-line."

Lu Jin raised his hand, and the Ancient Royal Court Gate closed another notch. The gap narrowed from the width of a person to only allowing a single line of fire to pass through. The Ruptured Furnace Seat behind the gate was completely blocked by the grey-red fire mist. The Black-Gold Thin Bone in the Sealing Gray Box finally went dark.

The Temple Inspector had fine sweat on his brow and didn't mention letting the grey box accompany the inspection again.

Qiao Ye released his shield, his shoulders slumping. "And this is just the entrance?"

Wen Zhao lowered his head to check the three old spikes. The body of the first spike had thinned by a layer, the tail of the second was cracked, and the tip of the third was stained with a tiny grain of black ash. He didn't wipe it off, instead sealing the grain of black ash into a small slot.

Lu Jin asked, "Still usable?"

"Usable once."

Qiao Ye glared at him. "You call this usable?"

"If it's not broken, it's usable."

"Is that how you calculate for your hands too?"

Wen Zhao put away the cracked spike. "Hands are a bit more expensive than spikes."

Qiao Ye was left speechless by him.

Instructor Han Tiecheng looked at the half-line inside the gate. "Report the results."

Wen Zhao pressed the shadow-tracings into the Fire-Line Box one by one. "One Half-Gate Anchor, three steps behind the gate. One instance of shadow from the Fire-Splitting Gears of the old workshop. One instance of old Cold Mirror gear marks on a fallen stele, pending verification. Two old boot marks from the Supplementary Marker Team, pointing toward the depths of the Grey Fire Well's outer ring, suspected escort line. One reverse suction event inside the gate, originating from the Grey Fire Well's outer ring. The Outer God's thin bone reacted to the residual fire of the Ruptured Furnace Seat. There is also one drag mark, currently undetermined."

After listening, Instructor Han Tiecheng's expression was even grimmer than before the gate opened. "Enough."

He looked at Lu Jin. "The status for the initial inspection you wanted, you have it."

Lu Jin said, "What I want is a line that allows us to return."

"I know." Instructor Han Tiecheng raised his hand, and a new Military Court combat mission record surfaced on the iron fire order. "Initial inspection of the No. 7 Rift Zone inner ring half-gate: Lu Jin of the vanguard line holds the Half-Gate Anchor, responsible for the next advance into the gate's outer edge. Ning Yanqiu with the Cold Mirror Auxiliary Seal, responsible for verifying the upper void gear shadows and old gear marks. Qiao Ye assigned to the front-gate suppression position. Wen Zhao assigned to the gate-line recording position. Temple to assist with testing the Outer God thin bone reaction. Military Court temporarily seals the deep-entry order for the Grey Fire Well's outer ring."

Qiao Ye was stunned. "Temporarily sealed?"

Wen Zhao spoke first. "Deep entry is forbidden for now?"

"Yes."

"Then the anchor we just set won't be used?"

Instructor Han Tiecheng looked at him. "The anchor is for when we return. To throw away all your lives inside the gate today would be stupid."

Qiao Ye shut his mouth. He understood that sentence.

Instructor Han Tiecheng looked at Lu Jin again. "You understand too."

Lu Jin looked at the half-line inside the gate. "Understood."

"If you understand, then pull back your fire. If you go in now, you'll only see ten more steps. Seeing those ten steps might draw the Outer Gods, the Pei Family, the Temple, and the silencing of the old case all onto your anchor."

Lu Jin did not argue.

He retracted the seven layers of fire patterns of the Multi-Nest Layer Divine Domain one by one. The Main Nest retracted the central axis, the Priest Layer retracted the Sacrificial Fire, the Craft Nest Layer repaired the broken threads, the Sky-Plunderer Layer retracted the low winds, the Post Station Battle Map Layer recorded the Half-Gate Anchor as a small flag, and the Outer Fire Well Layer pressed the fire supply back into the wellhead.

The Frontline Sub-Nest Layer was the last to withdraw. When it reached the threshold, it didn't pull the gate tendons back; it only connected the tail end back to the Frontline Fire Hall, leaving that single point of the anchor three steps behind the gate.

Small. Thin. Yet present.

Wu Fu looked at that anchor, still feeling distressed. "Leaving it there will slowly consume fire."

"How much?"

"One small slot a day."

"We can supply it."

"Is it a matter of whether we can supply it?" Wu Fu held the short-winged Night Wing, so angry the tip of her tail curled up. "That's my slot!"

Lu Jin said, "Put it on the tab."

Wu Fu's eyes lit up, but she quickly suppressed it. "This time I want seven times the amount."

"Four times."

"Six times!"

"Five times."

Wu Fu thought about it. "Deal."

Grey Pupil said flatly, "You were just distressed about the fire slot."

"Five times the amount can cure that."

The tense fire-line in front of the gate was finally loosened slightly by these few words.

Ning Yanqiu, however, kept staring inside the gate. Her Cold Mirror Auxiliary Seal hadn't fully dimmed yet.

Lu Jin asked, "What are you still looking at?"

"Next to the second boot print. When the well wind scraped it open just now, I seemed to see a bit of mirror-like reflection."

"Cold Mirror?"

"I'm not sure." She shook her head. "It could be a fragment of a workshop stele, or it could be a corner of an old battle order."

Lu Jin nodded. "We'll look next time."

Ning Yanqiu turned to look at him and said bluntly, "Next time, I'm going inside the gate. I want to reach the Half-Gate Anchor and shine the light from within the gate."

Qiao Ye heard this from the side and immediately said, "Then I'm going in too!"

Wen Zhao put away his spikes. "If you don't go in, who will suppress the threshold?"

Qiao Ye was stunned. "True."

He only realized after speaking, "Wait, that sounded like you've already assigned me a spot."

"You were already in the front suppression position."

"You're getting better and better at ordering people around."

"And you're getting better and better at listening."

Qiao Ye opened his mouth but couldn't find a retort.

Lu Jin didn't smile. He looked at these people—during that battle in front of the Main Stele, they each seemed like vanguards temporarily pulled together by a fire-line; but here, with only thirty steps revealed behind the gate, their positions had already locked into place.

Qiao Ye at the front, Wen Zhao marking the lines, Ning Yanqiu suppressing the void, Grey Pupil monitoring the fire sequence, Wu Fu protecting the nest lines, and the Night Wing scouting the ground. The Multi-Nest Layer Divine Domain connected these positions into a fine rope that could be sent inward.

This was the purpose of the Half-Gate Anchor.

Next time, they would all have a place to stand.

Instructor Han Tiecheng looked at them, a faint trace of satisfaction flashing in his eyes before being suppressed again. "Don't just stand around at the entrance. The initial half-gate inspection is over. Wen Zhao, organize the secret marks; Lu Jin, suppress the anchor; Ning Yanqiu, retract the auxiliary seal; Qiao Ye, go fix your shield."

Qiao Ye looked down at his shield; the crack had grown another half-inch. "This shield is almost as tired as I am."

Instructor Han Tiecheng sneered. "The shield talks less than you do."

Qiao Ye fell silent.

Lu Jin retracted the gate seals beneath his feet back to the fire platform. The Ancient Royal Court Gate remained in its half-line state, with most of the grey wind behind it suppressed.

He looked down at the innermost layer of the Frontline Fire Platform. Duan Jun's secret mark, the Inspector's Jia-7 hidden clasp, and the Grey Fire Well flake were all quietly pressed there.

After the Half-Gate Anchor was set, a tiny return line had appeared on the edge of the Grey Fire Well flake, the end of which pointed directly at the second old boot print behind the gate.

Lu Jin reached out and touched it.

The old fire in his sleeve gave a gentle jump.

The response was light, as if it recognized it. As if, across many years, it had touched a patch of old ash that had been stepped upon.

Ning Yanqiu stood nearby and didn't ask. She only retracted the Cold Mirror Auxiliary Seal into her sleeve, blocking the gaze coming from Pei Chengxu's direction.

This time, she didn't even offer an excuse.

Lu Jin glanced at her.

Ning Yanqiu remained expressionless. "Battle damage."

Qiao Ye heard this and tried to hold it in for a long time before finally letting out a laugh.

Wen Zhao lowered his head to organize the Line-Marking Nails, the corners of his mouth twitching slightly.

Lu Jin retracted his hand. "Wen Zhao."

"Here."

"The second boot print is to be entered as a secret mark. The public record will only state 'old supply-marking boot mark, pointing toward the Grey Fire Well outer ring.' The secret mark..." Lu Jin looked at the half-line inside the gate, "will say 'escorted.'"

Wen Zhao's movements paused. "Alright."

He pressed those words into the tail slot of the old spike.

Just as the spike slot closed, the third old spike suddenly seeped a bit of black ash.

Wen Zhao looked down.

It was different from the grey grain he had just sealed in the small slot; it was slowly seeping out from the base of the spike tip. Bit by bit, it was blackish-grey in color, but the edges had a very faint, wet shimmer.

Like blood.

Blood that hadn't completely dried.

Wen Zhao's face changed inch by inch.

Qiao Ye saw it too, his voice tightening. "Where did this come from?"

Wen Zhao didn't answer immediately. He flipped the old spike over; at the base of the tip, that bit of black-grey blood was crawling down the spike body. This blood carried a sense of vitality, unlike the dead ash brought out from the gate.

Lu Jin raised his hand, black fire suppressing the outer edge of the old spike.

The black-grey blood paused, then squeezed out another half-drop.

Grey Pupil's staff had already come down. "Don't touch it."

Lu Jin stared at the blood.

Inside the Frontline Fire Platform, the Grey Fire Well flake also lit up at the same moment.

Wen Zhao's voice was very low. "The spike position next to the first old boot mark... it picked this up."

In the half-line behind the gate, the grey wind blew softly.

As if someone had just walked past, deep within the well's outer ring.