“How long is that thing gonna chase us?!” Ouro screamed. He didn't dare look back again; the last time he had, he’d seen the serrated yellow fangs of the Spire Red Drake nearly scraping the tail-feathers of their mount.
“I DON’T KNOW!” Illia lashed back. Her knuckles were white, her fingers buried deep in the mount's mane as she desperately channeled her intent into the beast’s wings. The wind was a physical wall now, howling past their ears and threatening to pluck them off the saddle like loose scales.
“Why do we have to endure this? Can’t we attack?” Sophia’s voice was a ragged edge of its usual stoicism. She was sweating bullets, her face a mask of pale exhaustion as she held the Qi shield together. Every time the drake snapped its jaws, the shockwave rippled through her barrier, sending tremors through her teeth.
“If we spill its blood, we trigger the Hive-Sense,” Andre grunted, his palm pressed against Sophia’s back to steady her flow. “A single drop of Red Drake gore in the air is a dinner bell for the entire brood. We’d be swarmed before we cleared the next peak.”
He looked at the beast—a serpentine nightmare of crimson scales and golden-veined wings that beat back the clouds with a force that made his heart chill. It was beautiful in the way a natural disaster is beautiful, and just as relentless.
“Soloman, is there anything your science can do? Soloman! Pay attention!” Ouro kicked the side of the bench where the man sat in a total stupor.
Soloman didn't flinch. His eyes were wide, fixed on a point in space three inches in front of his nose. To the others, he looked catatonic, his pupils dancing with a microscopic green flicker that pulsed in a rhythmic, digital cadence.
“Hu-Huh… Oh. Alright.” Soloman snapped to attention, the flicker in his eyes vanishing as he blinked against the harsh mountain sun. He took a quick look at the large, yellow-tinged fangs snapping behind them like a rabid dog. “Seems simple enough.”
He stood up, his boots sliding slightly on the undulating back of the mount. While the others clung to the safety straps for dear life, Soloman moved with a strange, detached balance, rummaging through his canvas bag while mumbling indiscernible words.
“Don’t attack it! Soloman, I’m serious!” Andre’s voice cracked with urgency, his eyes flicking nervously between the man’s bag and the closing distance of the drake.
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“I’m trying, a little longer!” Illia pulled the reins into a violent nosedive. The sudden maneuver caused the drake to momentarily lose its balance, but it quickly recovered, its red scales glinting menacingly as it let out a roar that vibrated in Soloman's very marrow.
“Why would I attack when repelling would do?” Soloman said calmly. He pulled out a ceramic jar filled with red powder, a sadistic smile playing on his lips.
“If it was easy, we wouldn’t be here!” Sophia gnashed her teeth, pushing past her limits. Her vision was starting to tunnel, the image of the drake ghosting into a dozen red blurs.
Suddenly, she felt a heavy hand on her shoulder and a whisper in her ear. The remark was so shocking that she unknowingly dropped the Qi shield. Soloman stepped past her, standing at the very edge of the mount's tail, his lab coat flapping wildly in the gale.
“Yeet!”
Soloman chucked the jar directly into the snout of the ravenous drake. It shattered on impact, creating a massive, billowing plume of fine red smoke that the drake inhaled mid-roar.
The beast that had chased them for hundreds of kilometers suddenly stalled. It started spasming in mid-air, a pathetic, high-pitched wheezing sound replacing its roar. It began to cough violently, its wings flapping out of sync as it retreated into the safety of the golden clouds.
The silence that followed was heavy, broken only by the rushing wind.
“What... what was that?” Ouro’s voice was filled with disbelief.
“A spirit beast is just an animal,” Soloman explained, sitting back down and smoothing out his coat. “And most animals tend to have a stronger sense of smell than humans. So I just threw a jar of crushed red peppers at it.”
“Huh??!” The four retorted in unison.
“Capsaicin,” Soloman continued, oblivious to the incredulous looks. “It’s a chemical inside a variety of foods that causes them to be spicy. It’s a toxic chemical, technically, but at some point, humans became immune to such toxins—like caffeine. To that thing, it’s like breathing in liquid fire.”
He sat back with an apathetic, sullen face. “There are always other ways to fight. Luckily I had a jar on hand since the sect’s food is completely bland.”
“So why didn’t you help earlier?” Sophia reproached as she pulled herself up, her usual stoic expression laced with hostility.
“…I was distracted. I lost something important to me.” Soloman’s tone was flat, but the weight of his words was not lost on the group. They remembered that he had not only lost his family and friends but his entire world, only to be thrown into a pugilist world of cultivators. The four exchanged looks of remorse toward his situation but couldn’t offer any words that wouldn’t seem half-hearted or meaningless.
The trip continued in silence for hours, the mountains and clouds passing by, until they reached the gates of the Iron Tortoise Sect. The grand gates towered over them, a testament to the sect’s power and influence. As they dismounted, a sense of anticipation and trepidation filled the air.
