Dawn broke, bringing with it the burning and angry sun. The rugged, arid lands of the western passage had been warm and dry. He Yu had thought the White Desert itself would be similar in climate. He’d thought wrong.

  The night had been hot, but the night had been merely a prelude to the day. Moments after sunrise, the temperature started to climb. A cultivator could resist extremes, but only up to a point. How extreme depended on their advancement. The sun was only three fingers above the horizon when the day surpassed He Yu’s limit.

  “Forsaken wasteland,” Yan Shirong said. “Surely it’s cursed.”

  He’d fared the worst out of them all, so far. The desert’s vast, featureless expanse left no place for shadows to grow under the unrelenting blaze above. Although Yan Shirong could form shadows from nothing now that he’d reached peak Golden Core, doing so cost him. The extra qi he needed to spend was a toll none of them could afford to pay in a place like this.

  Hard and cracked ground the color of bone stretched from horizon to horizon. With each step they took, the land itself seemed to soak up their qi and their vital essence. The drain was slight, but constant. A slow, inexorable death awaited all of them if they remained here. How long they had exactly, He Yu couldn’t have said. One thing was immediately clear though—expending qi would only hasten that end.

  “A fitting clime to inspire the Tan family arts,” Li Heng remarked as they trudged beneath the relentless sun.

  Tan Xiaoling’s sandstorm. If He Yu remembered correctly, her technique was named for this place. Breath of the White Desert. A fitting name for a technique so like the arid expanse. The metal aspect of the technique reflected the cracked earth and endless white sands. The constant drain it inflicted mirrored the effects of the desert itself. Both sapped their victim’s strength and weakened them for the hardships yet to come.

  “Hopefully we’ll make it across quickly enough,” He Yu said.

  Despite his greater advancement, Li Heng fared almost as poorly as Yan Shirong. Not even the effects of his presence, with its promise of winter eternal, could give relief from the relentless heat. Shadow and ice had no place here, it seemed. The slow, silent sun beat down most heavily on those least suited to endure its attention.

  He Yu held up a bit better than the other two. Still, the sun stripped away the clouds of his storm. It burned away the humid air, the promise of rain. Even the wind stood still. Dead, hot air clung to him, and he wished for the relief that even the slightest breeze would bring, even if it only lasted a moment.

  Chen Fei seemed to hold up the best, bearing the land with grit and determination. She’d sent her bearskin mantle to her storage treasure, but that was the only concession she’d made so far. The desert’s alignment of metal and earth was similar to her presence. But the sun and the sand took their toll on her, just like the others.

  They’d long since stopped using any movement techniques. Even that small amount of qi brought their end closer. Like mortals, they walked. They at least had the advantage of bodies strengthened in the Third Realm. When He Yu had first learned the purpose of the Body Refining stage—to prepare the frail mortal body for the rigors of the higher realms, he’d never imagined he would need such a body to simply continue walking across flat, featureless terrain under the morning sun.

  Never mind that terrain drew the very life from him, or that the sun was hotter and more deadly than any sun he’d felt before. As they walked and fell into a miserable silence, he wondered if mortals ever crossed the desert. Surely not. They’d be dead within an hour, and that was assuming they had shelter and supplies. Unlike the cultivators.

  He Yu had been on dozens of trips away from the sect during his time there. He’d spent countless times away from civilization and its comforts. Not once had he ever thought to bring supplies. Especially since reaching Golden Core, he’d hardly needed them. The hunting he’d done had been a luxury rather than a necessity. The flesh of awakened beasts fortified him in the same way an elixir would rather than provide sustenance. Those hunting trips had been a boon to his advancement, not a requirement for survival.

  While hunting might provide some measure of protection against the constant drain of the desert, it was out of the question. First, and most importantly, they had seen no other signs of life since departing the Western Passage. One could hardly hunt where no game could be found. Neither was there any fuel for a fire. So they couldn’t cook their catch, anyway. Raw meat wasn’t something He Yu particularly wanted to eat. Then there was the question of qi. Even a low realm beast would cost them qi. Qi they could little afford to spend.

  As the sun reached its zenith, He Yu called a halt. “We can’t keep going,” he said. “It’s only going to get worse. We should find shelter.”

  Yan Shirong made a show of looking around. “And where do you suppose we look?”

  He had a point. The desert was the same as it had been since they’d first set out to cross. Flat. Featureless. Not even scrub or brush. And by now, the sun sat directly overhead. Only the four figures standing in the middle of the expanse broke the nothing.

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  “We could dig,” Chen Fei said.

  “With our hands?” Yan Shirong asked. The question was only half affronted. More practically, the expense of using techniques would decrease the time they could spend in this desolate place.

  “I think it’s worth the effort,” Li Heng said. He still looked miserable.

  “Then you can be the one to do it,” Yan Shirong grumbled as he produced a fan from his storage treasure. He spent a few moments fanning himself before giving up and sending it back.

  “I’ll do it,” Chen Fei said.

  It had seemed like a good plan at first. The ground was hard and should have allowed them to dig out a makeshift shelter. Instead, it collapsed in on itself. No matter how much earth Chen Fei hollowed out, she couldn’t create anything that would allow them even a moment’s respite from the sun. She even attempted to brace the pit with formations, but to no avail.

  So once again, they set off to walking.

  By late afternoon, the thirst set in. He Yu couldn’t remember the last time he’d sweat before today. All four of them had been sweating since morning. Now his throat was parched, and they’d all fallen into silence, as speaking had become difficult. Between the heat and the need for water, it had grown ever more difficult to even think straight. At least as the day wore on and the sun dipped to the horizon, they had a clear marker of where to go.

  With nightfall came some measure of relief. They all perked up a bit, and wordlessly picked up their pace. The heat was still oppressive, but had once again turned bearable. The desert still drew upon their strength, but less so as day faded to night. Most importantly for He Yu, the small break in the desert’s oppressiveness gave him the opportunity to think.

  They couldn’t keep going like this. Looking around at his friends, He Yu saw a pathetic sight. Yan Shirong had wilted like cut flowers, and Li Heng looked little better. Even Chen Fei’s monstrous endurance had all but crumbled under the strain of the day. The three of them looked about as awful as He Yu felt. They wouldn’t survive another day.

  Should they turn back? They’d traveled for a night and a day already. If they pushed themselves through the night, using techniques to speed their travel, they could hopefully make it back to the Western Passage before dawn broke. There they could gather supplies, and set off again the following evening better prepared.

  Except they’d no idea if Wang Xiaobo and Xin Lu still searched for them in Iron Gate City. If the four of them were no match for the two late Fifth Realms before, they’d no chance against them now. Not to mention the state they’d be in after the trip back. No, Iron Gate City wasn’t an option.

  So all they had left was to press on. But that would bring certain death. As much as it was He Yu’s Way—his Dao, he reminded himself—to stand firm in the face of overwhelming odds, there was a difference. One could stand against a stronger foe, face a heroic death in one final, desperate stand. Against such, one could even prevail. He Yu had done just that enough times to know its truth.

  This was different. A desert wasn’t a foe to be defeated. A stronger opponent to stand against. It was a force of nature with no desires and no weakness to exploit. Perseverance wasn’t the sort of guarantee it had always been in the past. Not this time.

  They couldn’t even know how long a journey they still had before them. It could be weeks before they crossed the desert. Weeks they wouldn’t survive. Could they risk it all on a single, insane gamble? Could they push everything they had into their presences and try to resist the relentless sand and sun? Zhang Lifen had once told him a cultivator’s spirit impressed itself upon the world as they advanced. Could that be the secret to crossing the desert?

  Would shadow, winter, and storm be enough? It would take them cycling their whole cultivation base to even try. And what then? Keep walking, or risk the use of movement techniques? What about Chen Fei? She’d simply have to run. The desert seemed the worst environment for someone like her. Only her sheer endurance allowed her to keep pace normally. Endurance was the very thing the desert drew upon the most. He Yu sifted through questions and discarded answers as they walked in oppressive silence. At least they were making better time than during the day.

  “My kingdom for an oasis,” Yan Shirong grumbled.

  “What?” He Yu asked.

  “An oasis. You know, somewhere with water. Hopefully, some plants where we can shelter during the day.”

  “I know what an oasis is. What makes you think there’d be one?”

  “Trade caravans come from the Jade Kingdom, you know. It’s were most of the best quality jade in the empire comes from. Sort of in the name,” Yan Shirong said. “They have to make it across somehow.”

  He Yu activated the Sky Dragon’s Flight. The drain was considerably more than he was used to here in the White Desert, and his seed of a plan was far from certain, but he couldn’t see that they had any other options. Far above the earth, with the desert stretching as far as he could see below, he activated the Cloud Emperor’s Peerless Judgment.

  In the far distance, past the western horizon even from this height, he saw a dim spot of water qi. It was hard to tell how far it would be, but if they pushed, they could make it. Probably. It wasn’t as if they had a better choice.

  When he returned to the others, they quickly agreed to make for the promise of water. They agreed to risk some of their precious reserves to move as quickly as they dared. None of them was under the illusion they’d survive another day. They needed to reach their goal before dawn.

  Through the night, they pushed themselves. Yan Shirong strode across the sands on a mass of shadow tendrils that resembled a spider’s legs. Li Heng flashed from one spot to another, the frosted spots he left behind greedily devoured by the white earth. Chen Fei ran, powering forward with her own tremendous vitality and the stamina of the White Mountain Body Art. He Yu skimmed the ground on wings of wind.

  As the sky grew light with the coming dawn, He Yu had just barely spotted their salvation on the horizon. A tiny splash of green against the silvering sky. The Cloud Emperor’s Peerless Judgment showed him more than he could have hoped for. The oasis ahead blazed with water and life aspected qi. It seemed once more heaven had granted them fortune. The mood lightened as they drew ever closer to their refuge. They were now close enough that He Yu could see not only trees, but lively green bushes. Rocks that would cast shade. And most importantly, water.

  Just as the sun had fully crested the horizon, disaster struck. Far to the west, a wall of sand rose from the horizon. With each passing breath it grew, reaching ever higher into the heavens. The sandstorm barreled east, and already He Yu could feel the tug of the breeze that promised the winds that bore the storm. The storm that headed right for the oasis. Headed right for them.