A Wall Apart

As Richard reached the latter half of the street, his pace slowed.

On his right stood a small storefront with a faded cloth curtain, its sign reading "Malcolm Astrology." The curtain was half-drawn, and the interior beyond was pitch-black.

The shop itself was utterly unremarkable, but the Aether concentration there was noticeably higher than in the surrounding area.

It was faint, like an undercurrent at the bottom of a stream, easily drowned out by the noise of the street if one did not pay close attention.

Richard walked a few more steps. At the entrance to a narrow alley on his right, two shops away, the Aether concentration rose another level.

Farther ahead, near the turn at the end of the street, stood a shut gray wooden door with two pots of withered mint before it. The Aether concentration there was the highest on the entire street.

Three points, scattered across the middle and latter half of Flower Moon Street at uneven intervals.

Like three separate springs beneath a riverbed, constantly seeping water upward.

Richard silently memorized the three locations. The boundary between falsehood and truth lay here.

Ninety percent of this street was a performance, while ten percent was genuine. Both shared the same street, the same smokescreen, and the same oblivious customers.

He glanced at the house numbers on both sides.

The numbers near the street entrance started in the thirties and grew smaller farther in: twenty-eight, twenty-six, twenty-three... Yet even at the street's end, he saw no number below ten.

Flower Moon Street began at number eleven. The first ten numbers, including the number seven he was looking for, did not exist at all.

"Flower Moon Street has no number seven." Richard stopped.

Vincent smiled with both hands tucked into his coat pockets. "Doesn't it?"

"The numbers start at eleven."

"Yes, there really isn't one on the surface."

His cousin pulled a hand from his pocket and tipped his chin toward the gray wooden door at the street corner.

"Follow me."

Beside the gray wooden door stood an old brick wall.

Years of rain and soot had stained the bricks black, and several clumps of dead moss filled the cracks.

From the outside, it was an entirely ordinary old wall, no different from the side of any old building on Flower Moon Street.

But as Richard approached, the warmth within the Seat of the Sun trembled.

The Aether concentration before the brick wall abruptly surged, leaping from an undercurrent beneath a stream to rapids at a river mouth.

"Here." Vincent pulled down his scarf, exposing his neck.

"Everyone has their own way of passing through walls." He rolled his shoulders twice. "Mine is relatively simple and brutal."

He took a deep breath, and his breathing rate shot from normal to the level of hyperventilation.

His face quickly turned gray, and the veins at his temples bulged.

Richard saw the exact same state change as during morning training, except this time there was no bucket of ice water.

The next second, the young man lifted his foot and stepped forward.

His body struck the brick wall, but neither shattered bricks nor a rebounding body appeared.

The moment Vincent's shoulder touched the wall, it sank in as though he had stepped into waist-deep mud.

Ripples spread across the brickwork around his body. Soon, the entire man was swallowed by the wall, his heels disappearing last before the ripples settled.

The wall returned to normal. What had been black remained black, and the moss grew where it had always grown.

Richard stood still for several seconds.

He raised his right hand, palm forward, and slowly brought it toward the brick wall.

When his fingertips were about three inches from the wall, resistance appeared.

The air became viscous, like thrusting a hand into syrup cooled to a semi-solid state.

At the same time, a chaotic disturbance to his Perception surged toward him.

His sense of direction was the first to be disrupted. He knew he was facing the wall, yet the signal his brain received told him, You're spinning in circles.

His balance system began protesting, and the breakfast in his stomach turned over.

Static flickered at the edges of his vision as his brain produced gibberish while processing contradictory signals.

This was the Mist Wall Spell, but it was incomparably stronger than the Mist Wall Spell that the piece of Grey-Stamen Grass in his hand could cast.

Any ordinary person without Aether Internal Circulation would feel dizzy and nauseous upon encountering this disturbance, instinctively backing away.

Even if they forced themselves forward, once their sense of direction was completely scrambled, they would be unable to tell front from back or left from right. They would simply walk in circles back onto the street.

They would think they had suddenly fallen ill and needed to see a doctor.

Richard withdrew his hand and took half a step back.

Vincent had forced his way through with Blood Burning Burst, using Aether infusion to overwhelm the interference field.

To put it simply, it was like charging through a hailstorm in a thick down jacket.

The hail would still hurt when it struck, but a thick enough jacket would let you force your way through.

He did not have a down jacket.

His Aether Micro-circulation had only just taken shape. Compared with a Hunter at Vincent's near-Practitioner level, his total Aether was several orders of magnitude lower.

If he tried to force his way through, he would most likely be knocked unconscious by the interference field before reaching halfway.

Then he needed another approach. Charging through hail in a down jacket was one way; finding gaps between the hailstones was another.

Richard closed his eyes and began Quadruple Breathing.

Inhale for four beats, hold for four beats, exhale for four beats, hold for four beats.

The warmth in the Seat of the Sun stabilized from its disorder, condensing into a point of light the size of a brass button.

He used the rhythm of Internal Circulation to resist the chaos of the interference field.

The interference field essentially fed gibberish into the target's Perception system, while Quadruple Breathing essentially established an extremely stable order within oneself.

Order against chaos.

As long as his internal order was solid enough, the external gibberish would be automatically filtered out.

He extended his hand a second time. His fingertips touched the viscous layer of air, and the Perception disturbance surged in again.

His sense of direction began to twist, and static appeared again at the edges of his vision... but this time, he was not carried away by it.

The rhythm of Quadruple Breathing turned steadily within his chest, while the Seat of the Sun acted like an anchor, pinning his consciousness in place.

The interference signals came crashing in, only to be deflected by the rhythm of Internal Circulation.

It could not block them completely. It probably stopped around seventy percent, while the remaining thirty still made him slightly dizzy.

But seventy percent was enough. Richard opened his eyes and took the first step.

The brick surface softened before his palm, and his fingers sank into it.

The sensation was completely different from what he had imagined when watching Vincent pass through the wall. It felt as though his hand were pushing through an immensely thick cotton curtain.

The cotton curtain pressed in from both sides, damp and cold, while the sensation of Aether seeped inward from the outside.

Every inch of his skin was receiving information.

The distance was only about two steps, but crossing it felt like it took a very long time.

The resistance of the cotton curtain suddenly vanished during the final half-step. Richard's right foot landed on solid stone paving, and his left foot followed.

The air was cool and dry, and the buzzing in his ears stopped.

He opened his eyes. Flower Moon Street was still Flower Moon Street.

The street was the same width, and the same two-story old buildings stood around it, yet everything was different.

The sky overhead was covered by a translucent dome. More than half the shops along the street had vanished, and every remaining storefront was quiet.

There were far fewer pedestrians as well, walking along the stone road in twos and threes.

They wore all manner of clothing: robes, suits, cloaks, and hoods.

But no one spoke loudly, and no one stopped to look around.

Everyone who could come here had a clear purpose.