CHAPTER 215
### Pei Song's Message
The message arrived two hours later.
*They are here.*
*Three of them. I thought you said faction leadership was three people.*
*The third is not with them.*
*Two people. Moving through the fringe from the northeast. They have not seen me.*
*I am reading them from the section.*
*They have the suppression technique active. Low intensity. Not attacking anything. Screening their presence.*
*It is not working against the section's frequency.*
*They can feel the section is there but they cannot read it clearly through the screen.*
*What do you want me to do.*
He read the message.
He extended the domain.
The fringe was within range now. He was close enough.
Two cultivation signatures. The suppression screen Pei Song described — present, low intensity, the characteristic frequency of the inert-territory technique applied as camouflage rather than attack.
He read them.
Senior practitioners. Both of them. The specific depth of cultivation developed over thirty years.
He thought about thirty years of suppressing the between quality.
He thought about Rong Yan at the hollow's edge.
He thought about the oversight cultivator asking: may I enter.
He thought about option three.
He sent to Pei Song: *Do nothing. Stay in the section. Let the section do what it does.*
He walked faster.
One li from Pei Song's position.
He extended the active between quality through the domain at full Sovereign reach.
Not toward the two practitioners specifically.
Toward the section.
He met the section's frequency and calibrated.
Five months of Pei Song's morning exercises.
The between quality propagation reaching the fringe territory in the past week.
The developing frequency in the pathway structure.
He applied.
Not a threshold push.
A calibrated greeting.
The section brightened in the domain.
Not dramatically.
The way a lantern brightened when the wick was trimmed.
Precise. Clear. More itself.
He felt the two practitioners stop.
They had felt the change in the section's frequency.
He did not move toward them.
He stopped at the fringe's western path and stood.
He held the grey blade.
He waited.
Three minutes.
Then a message through a relay address he did not recognize.
*Who is there.*
He sent back: *The wielder of the Lost Blade.*
Two minutes.
*The blade is grey now.*
*We heard.*
*What do you want.*
He thought about this question.
He thought about what he wanted.
"What do I want," he said quietly.
Lin Mei was beside him.
"Tell them," she said.
He sent:
*Nothing from you.*
*The section you are standing near — five months of consistent practice are in its pathway structure. It knows the practitioner who built it. It does not know you yet.*
*If you want it to know you — stay. Practice. That is all.*
*The hollow is ninety li southeast. The One Continuous Project is in the archive. Mo Xuan's relay address is attached.*
*The option is yours. The door is open.*
One minute.
*The third member of our leadership. He is still moving north.*
*He is not adapting.*
*We are.*
*How do we access the archive.*
He sent Li Shan's relay address.
He put the relay away.
He looked at the grey blade.
Two of three faction leadership adapting.
One still moving north.
Into the last inert territory.
He thought about what the last inert territory looked like as the between quality propagation continued to expand.
Smaller every month.
Eventually — not inert.
The choice would arrive there too.
When it did —
The hollow would be there.
"West," he said.
"West," Lin Mei said.
He walked.
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