CHAPTER 181-THE measure Of Time
Leylin continued looking into the valley.
The longer he observed it, the stranger it became.
Nothing about it appeared artificial. The streams followed natural slopes. The stone formations sat where erosion should have placed them. Even the grass grew in uneven patterns that made the landscape feel lived in rather than designed.
Yet neither of them had seen it before.
Not because it had been hidden.
Because it had not existed.
Seraphine stepped forward until she stood beside him at the ridge.
For a while they simply looked.
Then her gaze drifted toward one particular stone outcropping near the center of the valley.
"…Do you see that?"
Leylin followed her line of sight.
A broad shelf of dark stone rose above the surrounding terrain, overlooking the converging streams below. It wasn't especially large, nor particularly impressive.
But something about its position felt intentional.
Like a place meant to be occupied.
Neither of them spoke for several moments.
Then Seraphine folded her arms.
"If I didn't know better," she said, "I'd think this realm was trying to build itself."
Leylin's eyes remained on the valley.
A quiet thought surfaced.
For the first time, he found himself wondering what the realm would look like in a year.
The question lingered longer than it should have.
—
They remained on the ridge longer than intended.
The valley below seemed to hold their attention without effort. Streams wound through the dark grass in slow curves, gathering toward the basin at its center while the crimson sky above cast long shadows across the stone formations scattered throughout the landscape.
At some point, Seraphine lowered herself onto a nearby rock.
Leylin remained standing.
His gaze drifted from the valley to the distant mountains, then toward the fog boundary far beyond them.
The realm felt larger every day.
Not dramatically, Just enough that he noticed.
For a while neither of them spoke.
Then Leylin asked a question that had been lingering in his thoughts for some time.
"How long have we been here?"
Seraphine looked up at him.
"Inside the realm?"
Leylin nodded.
She frowned slightly and glanced toward the crimson sky as if expecting the answer to be written somewhere above them.
"I'm not completely sure anymore," she admitted. "Maybe three months."
Leylin's eyes narrowed faintly.
"That long?"
"You sound disappointed."
"I thought it had been less."
A small smile tugged at the corner of Seraphine's mouth.
"That's because you spent most of it sitting under a tree pretending to be a natural disaster."
For the first time in several seconds, Leylin looked away from the horizon and toward her.
That is not an activity people usually measure in months."
"No," Seraphine said. "Most people measure it in panic.
Seraphine sat on the stone for a while before looking up at him again.
"You know what annoys me?"
Leylin glanced over.
"What?"
"The fact that you keep asking why I call you terrifying.
Leylin frowned slightly.
"Because you keep saying it."
"Because you are.
The answer came so quickly that it almost sounded rehearsed.
Leylin looked back toward the valley.
"I still don't understand that.
Seraphine stared at him.
The wind moved through the grass below them.
Then she laughed softly and shook her head.
"No, I know you don't."
Something about her tone made him look back.
She wasn't mocking him.
If anything, she looked tired.
"You genuinely don't understand what other people see when they look at you."
Leylin considered that.
"You are stronger than me."
The moment the words left his mouth, Seraphine pinched the bridge of her nose.
"Not this again."
But It is true.
"You shattered a mountain."
And You shattered several.
"That's not helping your argument."
"It feels relevant."
She looked at him for several seconds.
Then slowly stood, fine."
Leylin watched her approach.
"Fine what?"
"Let's try something."
Before he could ask what she meant, Seraphine stepped forward and drove a fist toward his face.
Not hard enough to injure.just fast.
Fast enough that most people wouldn't have seen it.
But just as her fist was about to connect with his face, her hand stopped.
Leylin was holding her wrist.
The movement had been so natural that neither of them had noticed exactly when it happened.
For a moment they simply stared at each other.
Then Leylin tilted his head.
"...Were you trying to get my attention?"
Seraphine closed her eyes.
A laugh escaped her despite herself.
"No."
"Then why were you reaching for my face?"
That made it worse.
She pulled her hand free and took a step back.
"You caught that."
Uhm,yeah,it was in my face
"You didn't even think about it !
Leylin looked genuinely confused.
"Should I have?"
Seraphine pointed at him.
"That. That right there."
His confusion deepened.
She turned away briefly, gesturing toward the valley below as if the landscape might somehow explain him better than she could.
"Do you know how many cultivators spend decades learning to react like that?"
Leylin thought about it.
"No."
"Most of them."
He looked unconvinced.
"You weren't serious."
Seraphine laughed again.
Not because he was wrong.
Because he somehow kept missing the point.
"Leylin, if I was serious, the result wouldn't be that different."
That finally made him pause.
A small pause.But a real one.
Seraphine saw it immediately.
"You keep comparing yourself to people climbing the cultivation ladder."
Her voice softened slightly.
"But you stopped following the ladder a long time ago."
Leylin looked toward the crimson sky.
The chained sun hung silently above them.
The distant constellations turned.
For the first time since the conversation began, he didn't immediately argue.
And somehow that silence said more than any answer could.