Lu Na knew the answer to that question. She only needed to glance at Sun Ren to know that she would do anything to save her friend, even if it meant sacrificing herself. So if that were true, would Hen Li do the same?

  The door turned red. It was a bright red that reminded Lu Na of the phoenix spirit that saved her at the Wintersweet compound. The door glowed and cycled from red to dark orange to light orange and then to yellow and then back to red.

  “Now that is something I’ve never seen before,” Zi Xu said. He had been watching the show, eating a large chicken leg. The smell was distracting. “If memory serves me right, a few years ago a woman came here with her phoenix spirit and opened the door. It looked a bit like that.”

  “That’s my mother! You knew this and you’re only telling me this now?” Lu Na asked.

  Zi Xu smirked and took another large bite of the chicken leg. He chewed slowly with his mouth open.

  “Look, I wasn’t here to personally witness it. A ghost told me. I thought he might have been hallucinating as some ghosts do until I went to check on the phoenix spirit trapped at the nexus. But I have no idea how she got there.”

  “Zi Xu, you’re absolutely useless.”

  The ghost smiled and nodded his head.

  “Anything to entertain myself. What are you going to do? Kill me?” Zi Xu laughed.

  Meanwhile the fight with the spirits was getting worse. Despite giving the soldiers a brief rest, the feral spirits had combined into larger groups to push hard against the soldiers. Even with the help of the Elders and Senior Wong, they pushed the entire line back toward the door.

  “Lu Na, Hen Li is coming to you. Tell him what to do or we all die,” Sun Ren yelled before disappearing into the crowd of feral spirits.

  The monk rode Panhu over. On the way, he crushed a few feral spirits unfortunate enough to get in the way. Its five colored body seemed to radiate heat that forced the spirits to avoid him.

  “Young Miss Lu, Sun Ren told me that you needed my help to open the door?” Hen Li got off his spirit.

  Lu Na looked from her hairpin to the monk. He was sweating so much that his tunic was soaked through, but he didn’t have a scratch on him.

  “Yes, but it will kill you.”

  “Amituofo. I’ve learned to accept my fate. I don’t want to die, but if my death can save everyone here, then it will be worth it. Tell me what I have to do.”

  “Zi Xu, you said that he could open the door with his spirit energy. How?”

  Zi Xu dropped the large steak he had in his hand.

  “Well, from what the ghost told me, the phoenix spirit used the same key you have in your hand, imbued it with a tremendous amount of her spirit energy, and then slammed it into the door. That was all that was needed to overcome the locks on the door.”

  “So what you want me to do the same thing?” Hen Li asked.

  Zi Xu nodded with the steak back in his mouth.

  “No Hen Li, you can’t do that. I’ll figure something out,” Lu Na said.

  Hen Li looked at the battlefield. There wasn’t much to look at, even for Lu Na. Yang Deli’s soldiers were losing, especially now that Hen Li wasn’t in the fight.

  “Get my father.”

  Lu Na nodded. She weaved through the soldiers until she reached Elder Hen. She tugged his sleeve.

  “Elder Hen, your son needs to see you.”

  Elder Hen frowned and ignored Lu Na. He had his eyes squinted as he waved his hands in the air. Spirit energy came off them, redirecting the earth into waves and charging at the spirits like Fengma, his horse spirit. Most of the feral spirits were pushed back like waves in the ocean before rushing back.

  It gave the soldiers some breathing room to fight back. Their regular spears were hurting the spirits, but they weren’t enough to stem the tide. With every successive wave, one or two soldiers would fall. The feral spirits simply replaced their fallen with more spirits that seemed endless.

  After another wave, Elder Hen looked at Lu Na. He was sobbing as tears ran down his cheeks.

  “Has he decided to follow the ghost’s instructions?”

  Lu Na nodded.

  “You’ve killed him. Why did you bring him with you to this place?”

  Lu Na didn’t answer. She wanted to tell the Elder it was his Wintersweet Sect who started this whole thing. If they had never attacked her home or kidnapped her, then everyone would be happy and healthy at home. Well, everyone except Yang Deli. He was always coming in here anyway.

  Which wasn’t much of a loss to this world.

  The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

  Elder Hen raised both his arms into the air and pushed hard against the feral spirits. They fell back hard, slamming into the ones trying to get into the room. It created a lot of room for the soldiers to reorient themselves and reset the spikes in the ground.

  Elder Hen walked over to his son.

  Lu Na stayed for a second. A thought came to her head. Instead of simple spikes, she could improve their defenses ten fold. She shook out her null metal bracelet, now cool to the touch.

  “Yang Deli, I’m going to do something crazy, so tell your soldiers to step back.”

  The rebel leader didn’t need to say anything. The moment she said that, all the soldiers passed along the message in quick succession and they all retreated back to their base camp. Every soldier had both awe and fear when they looked at Lu Na.

  That was something she’d have to ask them about later, but for now she had a plan. She focused the thought she had earlier. What if she blocked off the entrances to this room with the strongest combination of spirit wall and stone wall she could come up with, fueled with all the spirit energy in this room?

  Normally her null metal bracelet would absorb the ambient spirit energy from the surroundings and create this dense spirit energy that made all her devices extra strong. While the spirits and summoners have depleted it in the room, there was another source: the dying and injured feral spirits. They’re leaking dense spirit energy, despite looking like blood.

  Lu Na used her spirit vision and sure enough, the piles of feral spirit corpses were filling the ground with spirit energy. She pulled on her null metal bracelet and focused on the corpses.

  At first nothing happened. Then after a moment of tugging as hard as she could, the spirit energy flowed from the very ground into the null metal bracelet. The bracelet heated up like it was put over the fire.

  The feral spirits seemed to notice something was wrong. They broke Fengma’s charge and tried to push back into the room.

  Lu Na released the technique with everything she had both in the bracelet and within her own spirit realm. She felt all the spirit energy leaving her in a torrent to pull the very earth from the ground up. For a brief moment, she saw the very fabric of her brother’s technique overlay itself on the walls and the ground of the labyrinth.

  It was as if Da Niu was present with Lu Na. The control and the sheer power reminded her of her brother’s innate talent. Then to make it that much deadlier, Lu Na formed spikes on the walls of different sizes. She made sure to dip the entire wall with a spirit skin to prevent techniques from breaking it.

  With a wheezing breath, Lu Na collapsed onto the ground.

  Sun Ren was already there, pulling her up. A few of the nearby soldiers also helped carry Lu Na in a litter to the back where they had a doctor.

  “No, bring me to Hen Li. I just thought of something to help him,” Lu Na said.

  Sun Ren directed the soldiers to carry her there.

  “You did well Na Na. That wall should buy us a lot of time.”

  “Can she do it again on the other side?” Yang Deli asked.

  “No. Besides, she’s got more important business with the key and door. Keep fighting Yang,” Sun Ren said.

  Yang Deli nodded and moved back to the front line.

  Lu Na sat up when she reached Hen Li. Elder Hen was still crying.

  “Elder Hen and Hen Li, I thought of a way that might save you from dying.”

  Both of the Hen men looked up.

  “How?” Elder Hen asked.

  “I did it just now with the feral spirits. I converted their blood into spirit energy that I can use for my techniques. I’m sure I can do the same thing for Hen Li as he pushes his spirit energy into the door.”

  “If you can do that, why can’t you just do that without my son?”

  “It’s because she hasn’t figured out how to do it with the amount that’s needed to break the lock,” Zi Xu said. “That was an amazing feat though before with the wall. I’ve never seen a summoner do that with dead spirits before. Although the phoenix spirit comes close.”

  “What does this mean?” Hen Li asked. He had taken off his shirt and faced the door with his back toward his father. There was a small tattoo right over where his heart would have been that had the word “Wintersweet.”

  “It means that despite you having to release all your spirit energy to unlock the door, I will be able to give you back enough so that you won’t die. At least that’s what I hope will happen.” Lu Na looked away from the Hen men. It was an impulsive thought that she could do this even though she’d never done it before.

  “Fine, what do you need from me?” Hen Li asked.

  “Can you show me the type of spirit energy you have?”

  “That would mean I have to unseal the bind on him,” Elder Hen said. “That might kill us all before the feral spirits.”

  As if on cue, Lu Na’s stone wall broke in two. Two large boar spirits slammed over and over again until there was a large hole despite injuring themselves. They had large gashes running down their faces.

  “Give me back my villagers!” one of the boar spirits yelled.

  That must have been Jie’s spirit. That was not good as the spirit was more than the soldiers could handle. The only thing holding them back were Lu Na’s crumbling walls.

  “We don’t have time. Unbind it father,” Hen Li said.

  At the mention of father, Elder Hen scowled.

  “Fine.” Elder Hen took out a small wooden seal, imbued it with his spirit energy, and then stamped it right over the “Wintersweet” on Hen Li’s back. In seconds, the word disappeared.

  Hen Li’s eyes rolled up but he caught himself on Elder Hen’s arms. His whole body lit up a crimson red.

  Lu Na had to turn off her spirit vision technique before Hen Li blinded her. No one needed that to see the power rolling off Hen Li.

  Even the two spirit boars stopped.

  “There we go, that’s the power you need,” Zi Xu said. He went back to sipping his tea.

  Hen Li screamed in pain as he pushed his spirit energy at the door. It connected with the keys attached to the door, powering them up and pushing the door open.

  “It’s not enough,” Zi Xu said. He frowned.

  Lu Na took a deep breath before turning her spirit vision back on. The energy coming from Hen Li was almost blinding, but she pushed through. The make up of Hen Li’s spirit energy was the simplest: pure fire spirit energy.

  She turned off her technique. Lu Na staggered onto the ground.

  This was hopeless. No matter what, she couldn’t find a way to distill pure fire spirit energy into Hen Li.

  “I can’t do it. I can’t give him the spirit energy he needs to open the door or save him. Hen Li, stop. You’re going to kill yourself.”

  Hen Li turned his head to Lu Na. Gone was the calm and patient monk. There was only anger there. There was the scorn of a thousand years ready to be unleashed upon her.

  “No son, focus on the task. Give it everything you have or we all die,” Elder Hen said.

  Hen Li’s anger cracked before turning to face the door. Fire spirit energy flared from his body as he pushed even more into the keys.

  The door shimmered red and orange.

  “Oh, it might be opening.”

  Elder Hen pulled Lu Na aside.

  “Is there anything you can do to boost his spirit energy? There’s got to be some device or gadget you have on you.”

  Lu Na touched her null metal bracelet.

  “There is, but it might kill him.”

  “Little girl, do or die. The feral spirits aren’t going to leave us with intact corpses if he fails anyway.”

  Lu Na nodded. She took off her null metal bracelet.

  “Put this on him and then run. I’ll handle the rest.”

  Elder Hen took the bracelet and approached Hen Li.

  Lu Na was about to do something she never had time to test. Now was a good a time as any. What’s the worst that could happen? Everyone dies?

  At least this would be faster than the feral spirits.