Gleam [Karma Cultivator Isekai] - Chapter 91: Craggy path

Chance and Bella’s ascent up the craggy path went far smoother than either of them had expected it to, but that almost made it even more stressful. Every jutting stone and fallen boulder threatened to hide monsters behind it, and Chance made a double take at every shadow they passed.

The howling wind added to their stress, making it impossible to relax or even consider enjoying any portion of the hike. But, somehow, the danger that they both expected never seemed to arrive.

After several hours of walking, Chance and Bella hunkered down behind a large boulder at the side of the road to take shelter from the wind and set up camp. They traded off watches throughout the night, but still nothing came.

The following morning brought much of the same with it. They walked through the day, even more cautious than they had been the day before, but not a single thread of Karma appeared before Chance’s watchful eyes.

Despite the threat the mountain held, the view from the mountain was beautiful. As they grew closer to its peak and the islands floating in the air alongside it, they got a better view of the Realm below.

Large portions of the realm were walled off by other mountains. Between them, Chance could make out large ruins and lower hanging islands. Many of the ruins scattered across the landscape rose into the sky, some even taller than the floating islands. Chance occasionally spotted flashes of Essence within and above them as cultivators fought.

Chance and Bella were growing closer to the highest of the floating islands – but there was still no apparent way to actually get onto them from the mountain. A part of him started to wonder if they’d made the right choice, but he never voiced his concern.

They trudged on, eventually leaving the craggy rocks behind and emerging onto a flat, spiraling path. It was considerably tighter than the previous area, but mercifully the wind had let up as well.

Chance wasn’t sure why the wind was weaker at the top of the mountain, but he wasn’t about to question his luck either. He and Bella continued upward, continuously growing closer to the islands.

Several times, one of the islands floated by so closely that Chance felt like he almost could have jumped onto it if he had a running start and a death wish. Unfortunately, for the ones that did get that close, it was always the bottom of the island rather than the top, so getting onto the actual ruins would have been an arduous climb at best and a fall to his death at worst.

With no other realistic option, they just climbed.

And climbed.

And, as the light of the day started to fade and a strong chill set in, sweeping over Chance and Bella like a blanket of snow, they reached the peak of the mountain. They were greeted by a stone circle covered in runes, roughly two arm spans wide.

It only took a single glance to confirm that, though the circle bore a strong resemblance to the way they’d entered the Realm, it wasn’t meant to serve the same purpose. An arrow had been carved in its center, pointing to the north. Around it, in a separate ring that had been inlaid in the main circle, were a dozen islands.

The ring of islands rotated soundlessly, moving at a slow but steady pace. On the stone, an island approached the end of the arrow. Chance glanced up, following the arrow, to see an island moving to float before them.

“I’ll give you one guess as to what this thing does,” Bella said with a dry smile.

“I’m not even going to bother answering that. It does pose a question, though. What island do we want to go to? I don’t know how easy it’ll be to get back here after we get teleported, and I’d rather not have to climb the mountain again.”

Bella knelt by the rotating disk, studying the islands carved into it. “They’re all the same on here, as far as I can tell. Guess we’ve got to make the decision from looking at the islands as they float by. There are twelve on the disk and it looks like it’ll take roughly thirty minutes for it to do a full rotation.”

Chance nodded, looking back up at the island floating past them. It was one of the few that was actually right side up, but the ruins on it were rather small. It looked like a small cluster of one story stone houses that had been abandoned to the elements for a few hundred years.

“Not that one,” Chance said. “Am I wrong in assuming that a bigger ruin probably means better stuff?”

“As good a guess as any. More spots for things to go unnoticed, and bigger usually means richer. Also more dangerous, though.”

Chance squinted into the distance at the next island in the rotation. It was difficult to see in the dimming light due to its distance, but it was several times larger than the one currently before them, and he could just barely make out the outline of a cracked spire in the purple sky.

“Do we want to wait for them all to rotate around?” Chance asked.

“We should at least wait for the next one. I think the current island is a no. How accurate do you think we need to be with this?”

“Let’s not take risks. I’d like to imagine they’d have set this up to locate the nearest island rather than just send us straight forward, but I’m not betting my life on it.”

“Agreed,” Bella said with a nod.

They watched the current island slowly slide away on the disk and the next shift to take its place over the course of the next few minutes. As it grew closer, Chance managed to make out several smaller buildings beneath the spire, alongside a large, rectangular structure that was heavily overgrown with purplish vines.

Chance instinctively called on his Essence. Golden mist pooled at his feet, slithering over the circle coiling into the air as the islands slowly rotated across the stone beneath it. He and Bella sat in silence, enjoying the moment of peace and observing the islands as they passed.

There were clearly far more than twelve islands in the sky, so their choices were limited. Still, the mountain gave them a wide variety of options. The islands ranged from small to massive, with one of them being nearly as large as the mountain they stood on.

Ruins of all shapes and sizes covered them and no two islands looked alike. Bella’s guess ended up nearly exactly on the dot, and the first island they’d spotted started its return just a little over thirty minutes past their arrival.

“Well, that’s all of them,” Bella said. “Any thoughts?”

“Probably not the biggest or the smallest. Maybe something close to the middle? It’s fairly likely that other cultivators have gone through this way before us, right? So they’d probably have taken the best looking islands. Going for something a bit above average might be more likely to put us somewhere that others haven’t completely looted yet.”

“Good idea, I’m with that reasoning. But there are quite a few islands that meet those criteria. Any thoughts on which one?”

“Why do I have to choose?”

“You’re the lucky one.”

Chance opened his mouth, then closed it again. “That’s a good point.”

He sent a little more Essence into the golden mist beneath his feet and it curled in response. The streamers slipped along the ground and gathered above the sigil of the island that was just starting to creep toward the arrow – the second one they’d seen, with the cracked spire.

“We should have just done that from the start,” Bella muttered. “Has anyone ever told you how unfair your Essence is? I feel like it’s practically cheating.”

“Hey, you’re the one that suggested it.”

Bella rolled her eyes. “Yeah, yeah. It’s great as long as I get to abuse it as well. We’ll jump onto the circle as one when the arrow is lined up with the island.”

They waited in silence and the disk continued its rotation in the circle, matching the movements of the islands. Even though it was moving at the exact same speed, Chance could have sworn that it had slowed down just to spite him.

“Do you think the islands set the speed of the disk, or other way around?” Chance asked.

Bella looked at him out of the corner of her eyes, then frowned. “Don’t make me think about that right now. It’s just going to make me think about someone screwing up the calibration and getting us splatted into the side of the island instead of on top of it.”

I guess I won’t ask about how gravity works on the upside down islands, then. I figure it’s probably reversed or something. I’ve seen weirder things in Gleam.

“Don’t worry.” Chance grinned and gave Bella a thumbs up. “I’m lucky.”

“Do not make that your catchphrase. That’s basically asking to get smited at the worst possible time.”

“Hey, you pointed it out first!”

“I’m not the one that actually has the luck magic. The rules are different.”

“Oh, I didn’t realize you made the rules,” Chance drawled, a small smirk on his face. Bella scrunched her nose in a mixture of amusement and annoyance.

“Whatever. Get ready to jump, lucky.”

Chance gave her a mock salute. The carving of the island on the ring crept forward, sliding further into the path of the arrow as its larger correspondent floated before them. Chance and Bella watched the ring with narrow eyes, waiting for the exact moment where the island was perfectly centered with the arrow.

“Now!” Bella said, grabbing Chance’s hand and jumping forward. Chance jumped with her, and their feet hit the center of the stone circle as one.

Chance braced himself for a rush of Essence.

It never came. He blinked, then looked down at his feet. The stone circle was still. He raised his eyes to meet Bella’s.

“Huh. I really thought that would–”

White Essence erupted around them and filled the air with a furious roar. It lit the night up with a brilliant beam that swallowed Chance and Bella whole, ripping them away from the ground.

They vanished within the brilliant light, streaking off toward the island that the arrow had been pointing at like a shooting star. The light carved through the sky and alighted in a large courtyard in the center of the island.

Behind them, the stone circle continued to rotate. The energy began to dim as the arrow started shifting away from the island. As it dimmed, a dark form rose up from the path leading up the mountain and shot forward, vanishing into the beam of light just seconds before its brilliance faded away, casting the night into shadows once more.

A ripple of Essence shimmered upon the stone ring. The image of the island that they’d just jumped to shimmered and blew away in the wind, leaving no trace of its passing.