CHAPTER 172
### Mo Xuan's Warning
The message arrived on the second morning.
Mo Xuan. Long. Not his usual precise summary format.
He read it.
*The faction is larger than I estimated.*
*My initial assessment was fifteen to twenty practitioners acting independently. The cascade data and Bing Xi's field readings from the past week suggest the faction is forty to fifty.*
*They are not coordinating through Shadow Sect command channels. They have built their own communication structure. This took time. They have been building it since before the organization committed to option three.*
*Which means the faction's independence is not a reaction to option three.*
*They anticipated option three. They prepared for it.*
*I underestimated them.*
*The relevant operational detail: the faction has identified the hollow as significant. They have not reached it — Wang Fei and Wei Han are maintaining the territory and Li Shan's pattern-reading from the formation site covers the approach. But they are moving toward it.*
*The hollow is the source of the between quality's propagation increase. The faction's tactical assessment — which I am reading from their movement patterns, not from intelligence — suggests they understand that disrupting the hollow's continuous frequency could reduce the between quality propagation across the network.*
*Not eliminate. Reduce.*
*But a reduction in the propagation rate would slow every section's development. Slow the generating sections' output. Give the faction operational space in territories that have been closing against them.*
*They are coming for the source.*
*Timeline: seven to ten days.*
*Wang Fei and Wei Han cannot hold the hollow against fifty practitioners.*
*You need to go back.*
He looked at the message.
He looked at the grey blade.
He looked at the road.
Shen Fei was at the camp's edge reading the morning sequence.
He counted the distance back to the hollow.
Twenty-three days of travel.
Seven to ten days before the faction arrived.
Impossible.
He read the message again.
He extended the domain.
Twenty-one li range standard. At the hollow's depth the domain had reached to the hollow's continuous frequency at range.
He could not reach Wang Fei and Wei Han directly. Too far.
But he could read the faction's movement at the eastern edge of Sovereign range.
Forty-one li at the outer edge.
Faint but present.
He read them.
Forty-seven individual cultivation signatures.
Moving south.
Seven days if they maintained current pace.
He read the hollow.
Too far to reach clearly at this range.
But he could feel the continuous frequency through the network's conducting pathways.
Still present.
Still propagating.
Not yet disrupted.
"Lin Mei," he said.
She was already awake. She had read his expression when he looked at the message.
He showed her Mo Xuan's message.
She read.
She was quiet for a moment.
"We cannot walk back in seven days," she said.
"No," he said.
"The domain reaches the hollow at range," she said.
"Barely," he said. "The continuous frequency is readable at the outer edge. Not accessible."
"What would accessible require," she said.
"The hollow itself," he said. "Or the formation site with the Sword Rain Blade's pattern-reading extending the range."
She looked at the distance.
"The formation site is closer than the hollow," she said.
"Yes," he said. "Three days less."
"But still too far," she said.
"In seven days," he said. "Yes."
She thought.
Bing Xi appeared beside him.
She had read the message through Lin Mei's relay.
"The faction's movement," Bing Xi said. "Forty-seven practitioners. They are moving south."
"Yes," Jian Yu said.
"You read them at the domain's outer edge," she said.
"Yes," he said.
"Can you apply at the domain's outer edge," she said.
He held eighteen breaths.
He reached to the outer edge of the domain.
He tried to apply the between quality toward the faction's movement.
Faint.
Not enough resolution at forty-one li to calibrate.
Not enough force at that range to produce effect.
"No," he said.
"The undocumented stage," she said.
He looked at her.
"The between quality is fully incorporated," she said. "Crack, sword, domain. All one loop. At the current stage the domain reaches twenty-one li standard. But you applied to all eleven sections simultaneously from a central position three days ago."
"Yes," he said.
"Simultaneous application to eleven sections at various distances," she said. "Not sequential. Simultaneous. That is not Sovereign stage standard application."
"No," he said.
"That was the undocumented stage's capability," she said.
He had not thought about it in those terms.
He had been doing it automatically.
"What do you think the undocumented stage's range is," Bing Xi said.
He held eighteen breaths.
He committed.
He reached.
Not toward the faction.
Toward the hollow.
He reached with all three directions simultaneously — dantian, sword, domain — in the single continuous loop.
The hollow's continuous frequency came into focus at the outer edge of reach.
Faint.
But there.
"Li Shan," he said.
Li Shan was at the formation site. The relay connection was faster than direct application at range.
"Tell Li Shan to extend the Sword Rain pattern-reading as far north as it will go," he said. "All his capability. Maximum range."
Bing Xi sent it.
Li Shan's response: "I can extend to forty-eight li from the formation site. That reaches two-thirds of the distance to the hollow."
"And the formation's amplification," Jian Yu said.
"The formation amplifies the pattern-reading by forty percent," Li Shan said through the relay. "At maximum range with formation amplification — sixty-seven li from the formation site."
The hollow was ninety li from the formation site.
Jian Yu was forty-one li from the faction.
He was seventy-eight li from the hollow.
Li Shan could reach sixty-seven li from the formation site.
The hollow was not reachable by either of them from their current positions.
But the gap between Li Shan's reach and the hollow was twenty-three li.
And Jian Yu's outer edge reached the faction at forty-one li.
He looked at the numbers.
He looked at the between quality in the dantian and the domain and the grey blade.
"What is in the gap," he said.
Bing Xi read.
"Two seeded sections," she said. "Both in the sixty to seventy percent development range. Both receiving passive domain contribution from the formation site."
"What frequency are they producing," he said.
She read.
"Standard seeding frequency," she said. "The combination's between quality at developing stage."
"Can Li Shan's pattern-reading calibrate to the seeding frequency," he said.
"Yes," Li Shan said through the relay. He had been following.
"And if the seeded sections were generating," Jian Yu said. "Could the generating frequency bridge the gap between Li Shan's reach and the hollow."
Li Shan was quiet for four seconds.
"Theoretically," Li Shan said. "A generating section produces sustained frequency output. If two generating sections in the gap produced synchronized output at the hollow's continuous frequency — the synchronized output could conduct the pattern-reading through the gap."
"Can they be pushed to generation in seven days," Jian Yu said.
"At the current development rate — no," Li Shan said. "Sixty to seventy percent threshold in three to four weeks at standard rate."
"At the undocumented stage simultaneous application rate," Jian Yu said.
Li Shan was quiet again.
"I do not have data on the undocumented stage simultaneous application rate," Li Shan said.
"You have the eleven sections from three days ago," Jian Yu said.
Li Shan computed.
"Seven days," Li Shan said. "If the undocumented stage application produces equivalent results on these two sections — seven days is at the threshold of possibility."
Jian Yu looked at the grey blade.
At the distance.
At seven days.
"Where are the two sections," he said.
"Three days east of your current position," Li Shan said.
He looked at Shen Fei.
She was watching the conversation.
"You are not continuing west," she said.
"No," he said.
"East," she said.
"Three days east," he said.
She looked at the road.
"My lineage's home territory is seven days south," she said. "The faction is moving south."
"Yes," he said.
"They will pass through the lineage's home territory," she said.
"Possibly," he said.
She was quiet.
"How large is the faction," she said.
"Forty-seven," he said.
She held the practice staff.
"I am going south," she said.
He looked at her.
"Not to fight them," she said. "To warn the lineage. Sixty-seven practitioners. They need to know."
"Yes," he said.
"And to get them somewhere safe before the faction arrives," she said.
"Yes," he said.
"I know the southern territory," she said. "I know where the lineage sections are. Which ones are generating and which are developing." She paused. "The generating sections will not allow the faction's suppression technique to complete."
He looked at her.
"You are going to shelter the lineage in a generating section," he said.
"Three of them," she said. "In the home territory. If sixty-seven practitioners shelter in three generating sections—"
"The suppression cannot reach them," he said.
"Yes," she said.
He looked at her.
Twenty-six years old.
Twelve years of River-Stone's sequence.
Twelve seconds alone against four Shadow Sect attackers.
Going south to warn sixty-seven people.
"Mo Xuan's network," he said. "Contact them before you go. They have operational coverage in the southern territory."
"Yes," she said.
"Tell them Jian Yu sent you," he said.
She picked up her pack.
She looked at the grey blade.
"The archive update," she said. "When you write the combat section. The twelve seconds."
"Yes," he said.
"Put in that you arrived at second thirteen," she said. "Not second one. I held for twelve."
"Yes," he said.
She walked south.
He watched her go.
He looked east.
Three days to the two sections.
Seven days to push them to generation.
Seven days for the faction to reach the hollow.
He committed.
He walked east.
Fast.
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