The Silt-Sea at night was a stark contradiction to its daytime persona. During the day, it was a blinding, scorching oven that tried to desiccate anyone foolish enough to walk its surface. At night, however, it became a vast silent expanse of silver and shadow.

  The temperature dropped rapidly. Turning the sand cold and the sky opened up into a dome of stars so clear it felt like one could reach up and pluck them. It was unimaginably beautiful.

  Li Yu found a sheltered spot beneath a massive arching ribcage of some ancient fossilized beast. The bone curved over them like a natural roof and was blocking some of the wind.

  He set up a small campfire but not using wood which was scarce in the region. Instead, he was utilizing Sun-Glass Sand which he had acquired in Glint-Edge. Infused with a tiny bit of Fire Qi via yourself or a tool, the sand glowed with a steady smokeless heat. It was perfect for cooking without giving away their position.

  "Alright," Li Yu said while stirring a pot that was bubbling with a rich aroma. "You can come out now. It's dinner time. We should eat together and I’d like to hear some stories."

  He tapped the necklace on his chest.

  Poof.

  Si Luo and Bai Ruo both enlarged and transformed to their human forms. It was like they had materialized out of thin air and landed on the sand. They both began to stretch a bit since they weren’t used to being so still for so long.

  Si Luo let out a long luxurious sigh. She arched her back, extending her arms above her head. The movement caused her translucent black silk dress, which really was more of a suggestion than a garment to pull tight against her body. The pale moonlight filtering through the giant ribcage seemed to catch on her purple skin, making her glow with an ethereal, dangerous beauty.

  Li Yu, who was currently chopping dried cactus paddle to add to the stew felt his eyes involuntarily dart towards areas he shouldn’t be looking at. The structural integrity of that silk web was a marvel of engineering that rivaled any defensive formation he had ever seen.

  ‘Look at the pot, Li Yu. The pot is safe. The pot has vegetables. The pot has food and better temptations. This will truly take some getting used to. However, this will be good for me, it will strengthen my resistance to such things.’

  He forced his gaze back to the stew while coughing slightly. "I hope you enjoy the food. I don't have anything void related or rare void attributed herbs... whatever you eat back home."

  "We consume Qi," Si Luo said while sitting down on a flat stone with the elegance of a queen taking her throne. "But I haven't tasted solid food in a long time. I am surprised that you still eat solid foods like this purely for their favor. Cultivators are usually too busy cultivating or studying other things."

  Bai Ruo sat down much more modestly, tucking her legs beneath her practical white martial robes. She was much more like the women that Li Yu had interacted with and encountered so she was the calming presence here. She sniffed the air and her nose was twitching.

  "It smells spicy," Bai Ruo observed. "And savory. Don’t you agree, Si Luo?"

  “It does smell great, Bai Ruo, you were always weak against food. Be careful now, this might be his charm technique to capture your soul.” Si Luo joked.

  “He already has my soul. Technically he has both our souls… It smells like some sort of eel.” Bai Ruo began talking, got saddened by her own words but was then able to pick herself back up.

  "Bronze-Back Sand-Eel," Li Yu confirmed. He began ladling the stew into wooden bowls he had curved during his travels. "Stewed with cactus, desert sage, various other herbs and a splash of Bitter-Melon wine to cut the grease. Eat up."

  He handed them the bowls. He gave a portion to Tekton as well but he didn’t seem interested in it. Since Tekton couldn’t speak to them, both sides remained quiet with one another. They gave him respect due to his Divine Transformation cultivation however.

  Si Luo took hers with a nod of thanks. She didn't shovel the food in like a starving beast. She produced a small spoon made from her own solidified silk and ate delicately.

  "Mmm," Si Luo hummed with her eyes widening. "Texture. Flavor. Heat. I had forgotten what this felt like. What a delicious meal for my return to eating physical food."

  Bai Ruo was less reserved. She practically inhaled the first bite with tears forming in her eyes. "It's so good! It’s warm! The void is always so cold! Getting to eat delicious food again. Perhaps this was fate returning me back to the right path…"

  The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  ‘She must really like food. A fellow companion that is a foodie is always a welcome addition.’ Li Yu thought.

  Tekton in his small form finally ate. 'It lacks mineral density,' he commented to Li Yu mentally. 'But their reaction indicates high satisfaction. You have successfully bribed the prisoners. At least for a little bit.'

  'It's not a bribe,' Li Yu replied. He was taking big bites of his own. 'It's hospitality. Crewmates need to be fed. They are fellow companions. Bai Ruo seems like a foodie as well, not like you who don’t know how to enjoy food. At least not the same things I like.'

  As they ate, the tension of the day began to bleed away just a little. The terrifying scene with Khaos in the void layer felt like a bad dream for the ladies. It was slowly being replaced by the crackle of the fire and the clinking of spoons. Everything had happened so quickly that both sides were still in a bit of a daze about it.

  It was a life changing moment for the two ladies and to a much lesser extent for Li Yu as well. Things were going to be very different for the three of them.

  "So," Li Yu asked while leaning back against the ancient bone. "You mentioned you were from the Beast Realm. A Matriarch and a... Clan member? I’d like to know more if you both don’t mind sharing. I love to learn about new places and we should get to know each other."

  Si Luo wiped her lips with a silk handkerchief she conjured from thin air. She didn’t have a ring on her finger so perhaps her storage treasure was something else. Either that or she was using the storage space that beasts naturally have after reaching a high enough cultivation level. Her expression shifted and a shadow of nostalgia passed over her face.

  "I am of royalty," Si Luo stated simply. "Or I was. Who knows if I will ever be able to return to it. In the Realm of Ten Thousand Beasts, the Violet-Weave lineage is one of the Eight Great Arachnid Houses. We rule the Whispering Canopy. It is a forest where the trees are so tall they pierce through the sky."

  She gestured with a hand and was weaving a picture in the air with faint traces of purple light to better illustrate.

  "My family... we are artists. Architects. We weave the palaces that hang between the mountain peaks. My father was the Grand Weaver for the Beast Queen in that area. I was his eldest daughter. The heir."

  Li Yu listened and was fascinated. This meant that there was not just one beast realm. The beast realm that appears through rifts every now and again on this continent could be different from the one that appeared on the Northern Continent. It was definitely different from the beast realm of the beast warriors he had met in the ruins on the Southern Continent.

  Li Yu then turned his mind back to the story being told. He imagined a city of silk castles suspended in the sky. As he imagined it, he looked at Si Luo. The firelight danced across her collarbone. His eyes once again drifted down to the neckline of her dress again. It was just... right there.

  Si Luo noticed his gaze. She didn't stop talking but the corner of her mouth quirked up. She leaned forward slightly and was resting her chin on her hand, giving him a better angle.

  "Are you listening, Li Yu?" she purred. "Or are you admiring the... architecture?"

  Li Yu choked on a piece of cactus. "Listening! Definitely listening. Hanging palaces. Very impressive."

  "It was," Si Luo sighed as her playfulness faded back into melancholy. "But power breeds jealousy. My younger sister... she coveted the title of Matriarch herself. She aligned herself with the Iron-Mandible Clan. Brutes who value strength over art and elegance."

  "A coup?" Li Yu asked while recovering his composure.

  "A betrayal," Si Luo corrected. "On the night of my ascension ceremony. The rift-gates that are normally used for travel across our territory were sabotaged. Void-beasts began pouring in. Amid the chaos, I was pushed out of the territory by warriors that were sent after me and my guards. Not by an enemy but by my own sister. I then came upon an unstable tear in space and with no other choice had to enter it."

  She looked down at her hands. "I should have been shredded. But my mastery of the void saved me. I drifted. For days? Years? Time is strange in the deep layers. The rift itself was strange and hard to understand what was happening. Eventually, I found Bai Ruo."

  Li Yu looked at the smaller woman. "And you? Were you forced into one while fighting for your life as well?"

  Bai Ruo shook her head vigorously, her short grey hair bobbing. "Oh, no! I’m not royalty. I’m a scholar! The Hidden-Burrow Clan... we aren't fighters. We are a part of the maintenance workers of the Beast Realm."

  "Maintenance?"

  "That Beast Realm is surrounded and interconnected by ancient spatial tunnels called 'World-Veins'," Bai Ruo explained, her eyes lighting up with academic fervor. She changed into a completely different person. "My people... we live inside the walls of reality. We eat the spatial debris that clogs the tunnels. We make sure the portals open and close when they're supposed to. We maintain them so that they do not destroy the realm itself."

  She took a sip of her stew. "I was conducting a field study on a Class-4 Rift anomaly near the Violet-Weave territory. I was taking measurements! It was fascinating! But then... the anomaly expanded. It swallowed the entire sector."

  She pointed at Si Luo with her spoon. "I saw her floating by. She looked unconscious at the time. And... well, my clan has a rule: 'Never leave debris in the tunnel.' So I grabbed her."

  Si Luo rolled her eyes. "She tried to eat me at first. She thought I was space-junk."

  "I did not!" Bai Ruo protested. "I was rescuing you! And then we both got sucked into the turbulent flow. We held onto each other for... well, it felt like a long time. And then we popped out here. In this place."

  Li Yu nodded slowly. Two different realms, brought together by bad luck and a chaotic universe. One a fallen princess and the other a lost technician of sorts.