Contents
Chapter Eleven: Up the Sword Mountain, Down the Fire Sea
Overview
Zetian plunges into a hellish linkage vision, forges monstrous wings, and rejects drowning in the Chrysalis’ consuming fire. She awakens in the yin-yang realm with Li Shimin and immediately attacks, triggering a brutal mental stalemate. Their discordant control makes the Vermilion Bird stagger through battle, barely killing a Hundun as dangerous overload builds.
Summary
Falling toward a sea of fire and a mountain of swords, Zetian realizes she must not fall or she will be consumed like the other girls. Remembering the Vermilion Bird armor, she manifests monstrous crimson wings, forces herself skyward, and fights through flaming birds whose humanlike screams surge with foreign, violent memories she rejects as not her own.
Reaching a floating island, Zetian confronts a boy she feels compelled to kill. After a brief, aching exchange that stirs inexplicable tenderness, she chooses survival and shoves him into the fire. The realm erupts in flames and shatters.
Zetian snaps awake in the yin-yang realm opposite Li Shimin and immediately attacks with a dagger that melts under his blazing qi. They grapple mind-to-mind, trading control without either overpowering the other. Zetian strains to seize the Vermilion Bird but can only intermittently move one wing, while Li Shimin moves the other, leaving the Chrysalis lurching and misfiring qi blasts.
In the fog of battle, a Metal-type Hundun strikes. Despite chaotic, uncoordinated attacks, they manage to splatter it apart. A controller’s warning goes unheeded as their frustrations knot tighter; heat and pressure build dangerously within the Vermilion Bird’s chest, signaling imminent, catastrophic overload.
Who Appears
- Wu ZetianProtagonist; resists annihilation in linkage, manifests armor, assaults Li Shimin, fights for control of the Vermilion Bird.
- Li ShiminCo-pilot; qi blazing at maximum, grapples with Zetian, contests control, inadvertently causes chaotic, dangerous co-piloting.
- Vermilion BirdTheir Chrysalis; staggers under split control, misfires qi blasts, nears catastrophic overload after battling a Metal Hundun.
- Metal-type HundunEnemy unit; ambushes in fog and is destroyed by the Vermilion Bird’s erratic, combined attacks.