I had kept my hand in a mug of the red liquid for ten days. It had been at least a decade since I had arrived at the island and learned about table culture. Hissk and I had kept up our resistance training. Beings had shown up, some stayed, some left, and some died, none were useful in anyway to crossing through the ocean of blood. No useful information either, about the Gu Container. It was disappointing, but not unexpected.

No one else joined our resistance training either. That was their choice, but a foolish one. Just more frogs slowly cooking in their well. I had worked out several arrays that would be useful and had used up most of the metal I had with me in preparing them. I had also constructed a hatch.

If we did run into a solid surface, I wanted a way to block out any red liquid behind us. It wouldn’t need to hold forever, just long enough to give us some space and an environment clear of red liquid if we ran into a solid obstruction.

Pulling my hand out of the crystal mug, it was holding togeather. I carefully inspected it, but my body wasn’t breaking down. “That is the last test I wanted to complete,” I told Hissk.

“Good. Then let us rest and gather our thoughts before great journey,” Hissk declared. I nodded at this. He had been practicing traveling through the red liquid, using his spatial manipulation. He had reached a level of durability and resistance far quicker than me. But after seeing my preparations he had chosen to wait for me to complete my resistance training.

While I wouldn’t say we were friends, there was an understanding of the role each of us would play going forward. It was important that we knew what we were doing in a range of situations. We had a lot of time while training up resistances to occasionally chat about possible obstacles.

Hissk was concerned that the pressure of the red liquid would increase to impede movement, instead of a solid. That would also make spatial travel much more difficult. I had forgotten about pressure, since temperature and pressure changes didn’t affect me much anymore. But if there was an extreme change, then I would be in much greater trouble.

That meant coming up with an array that would disrupt the density of liquid or stone in front of us by expanding the space. It wasn’t a very good solution, but it was I had come up with. Hissk would handle movement, while I was responsible for managing the arrays I would pull out and activate. I would just have to hold onto his back and remove environmental obstacles while he propelled us forward while removing threats.

We had even practiced three times, where I got on his back and he dove under the surface of the red liquid near the island, before coming back up. How I would hold onto him and how he would adjust his spatial manipulation were key things we had needed to work out.

After meditating and resting for a day, I was mentally refreshed and prepared. No one had come out to see us depart. I had no doubt the table people knew what we were doing, but there would nothing to see once we entered the ocean of blood.

I stripped down and put my spatial items into my mouth. The protective casing I had made would not be necessary, since I would need access to my the various metal array plates I had crafted. I would also need to hold onto Hissk with both hands and legs for balance reasons. He would be going incredibly fast. If I needed to remove a plate, I could release one just in front of my face and in the direction Hissk was traveling.

I couldn’t turn my head, since all the effects were designed with me facing forward. While Hissk had much more control over his spatial ability, I didn’t have that. The moment the plate left my head, I would be activating the array with my energy. A combination of resonance and Hissk’s spatial manipulation would keep it in place. We had practiced this twice, working out any issues.

“May the Great Winged One watch over us,” Hissk declared and leapt over the side of the island. He dove straight downwards as I kept a tight grip on him and pressed up against his body. Apparently his body was capable of surviving incredibly tough environments and was more adaptable than mine. There was a chance he could make it through on his own, but he preferred to increase his chances working with me.

My use would only be determined by the obstacles we encountered. I felt the bubble of air we were in get infiltrated by drops of red liquid where Hissk’s spatial abilities didn’t adapt perfectly to the environment. The energy in the red liquid was trying to break apart my body, but I had learned to resist this effect. I didn’t open my eyes, since there would be nothing I could see.

While we could have traveled in a bubble of the red liquid, we had agreed that keeping the stuff off us for as long as possible would make things much easier. But if there was an issue Hissk might have to let the liquid invade the spatial bubble he had created around us if he had to fight or perform another task. He was skilled but not a master. He had focused more on fighting and basic traveling, rather than a specialty environment we were currently dealing with.

Hissk had a very good sense of direction and for spatial alignment. That was something I had missed. It would be too easy to lose sense of what was up and down. The island with its gravity had made me forget this fact. While there was a slight force pushing back down on the ocean of blood from the top, inside of the ocean of blood there was no gravity.

The red liquid tended to stick togeather. But there was no doubt in my mind that we were creating a massive compression shockwave and void behind us as Hissk flew towards the center of the Gu Container.

I felt a sense of danger and a large amount of energy approaching. I jabbed my finger twice on his chest where my hand was resting letting him know it was situation two, a blood worm. I then dragged my finger slightly in the direction it was coming from. An area where Hissk was lacking was a danger sense.

My guess was that whatever being created Hissk and his fellow dragonoids wanted combatants. They wanted them to rush ahead and fight. A sense of danger would be counter to the goal of fighting fearlessly.

Hissk rotated his body slightly, moving away from the threat. I jabbed once, when it began to recede behind us, signaling an all clear. Two more times we encountered blood worms and moved away from them before they could intercept us. It wasn’t worth the hassle of fighting them. While we might win, the risk of injury, losing supplies, and having more of them swarm us was too much.

It was a good thing Hissk was very fast. Faster than Chicken. I had upgraded from a flightless bird to a dragon. I didn’t dare make any jokes about Hissk being my mount. That was a good way to create a misunderstanding and start a fight. I remained incredibly respectful and he returned the same attitude. Neither of us particularly liked depending on the other, but teamwork was necessary to get through this. Also, we were both capable and our abilities complimented each other.

Hissk began to slow down. “Pressure,” he hissed out. I focused and pulled out a metal array plate in front of my head and instantly activated it. Space expanded in front of us. I kept channeling energy into the array as Hissk picked up speed. Even with my energy helping to maintain the plate, it wasn’t tempered like my body was.

He had memorized key words in preparation for our descent, since the translator was built into my breathing mask. We needed a concise and clear method of communication between us during our journey, since we would have very little time to react to changing situations.

The plate slowly began to melt and its effects began to decrease. It had lasted around two days, which was good, but still far too short. Once it complete broke down, I brought out another. Hissk was capable of adjusting his speed. The array was just making things a lot easier for him and his spatial abilities. He was designed to travel rapidly through the void and gases of the firmament, not liquid, and certain not high-pressure liquid that was interfering with his spatial abilities.

At least I had proved my usefulness. It would have been quite embarrassing to get through the ocean of blood without having contributed in any meaningful way. Hissk kept moving forward at a rapid speed as I used one array plate after another, emptying out my spatial storage.

I was glad Hissk had thought of the pressure since that was something I had never even considered. His speed was fast, very fast and it was saving us right now. If we had to fight the worms or slowed down, then there was no chance of us getting through the ocean of blood. While it was completely dark, I had a sense of the force being used about me and could pick up that we were going much faster than I had traveled with Chicken.

It was hard to put an exact number on our speed, but I could tell we were going faster. That was critically important so we didn’t die in the ocean of blood. While we were both incredibly strong and could go without sleep for quite a while, it took focus for Hissk to maintain his spatial manipulation to travel quickly and keep the worst of the red liquid off of us.

There was a sense of danger directly ahead and it felt different. It was most likely a transition. I jabbed Hissk three times with my hand so he knew that I had picked up something ahead of us. He began slowing down. When I sensed the barrier directly in front of us I jabbed him three times again and he slowed down even more and swung about so he was heading towards the center of this place, feet first.

A minute later we impacted a solid surface with a distinct metallic clang and then there was a screeching sound. “Solid, metal, no gravity, cut,” he hissed out as I could here the roar of red liquid collapsing back into the path we had made. I didn’t hesitate to pull out an array plate. I grabbed it from mid-air before it could move and swung backwards, keeping my grip on Hissk with my legs. Bending backwards, around his tail, I pressed the array plate on the hard surface in the complete darkness and activated it. Even with the improvement in my night vision, there was absolutely no light here.

The array activated and a large cylindrical chunk of whatever was beneath us was cut out and melded with the plate. I brought myself back up and grabbed onto Hissk with my hands again. I jabbed Hissk and he spun around, slamming a clawed foot on the back of the plate. It went flying out of his spatial bubble and we were both hit with a spray of red liquid. Hissk entered into the hole I had made and I got out the hatch I had prepared.

I activated the simple arrays to create a thin gap between the hatch and the red liquid while we went into the cut out hole. Hissk went in feet first, so I could lower the hatch into position. There was a soft light crystal on the bottom illuminating the hole, allowing me to see, but I made more attention to making sure the hatch was securely in place and active.

Once the hatch was secure, I let go of Hissk and quickly put my clothes back on along with my breathing mask. I pulled out a small bit of metal from my mouth I had crafted an array on to allow me to breathe. I also pulled the spatial devices out of my mouth as well. We were floating in a small cylindrical hole, cut into metal, past the ocean of blood. As I got myself situated, Hissk was poking at the metal with his claws.

“Very hard and durable. It would be difficult for Hissk to cut through with just claws,” he said.

“Very little energy either. The demonic cultivator probably wanted to create a difficult transition from high pressured liquid with lots of energy to durable metal with very little energy,” I said. I poked the metal wall, it was fairly cold, but not freezing. I then began pulling out devices to check our location.

We were on track. Based on what I could work out, Hissk hadn’t veered that much off course. His spatial sense was very good. I checked the hatch, and it was holding with no problems. The next part would be much more annoying.

“Slow us down. Frustrating,” Hissk declared. The demonic cultivator probably realized that anyone who got this far couldn’t be defeated by the environment, so he created a situation to slow people down. At least we were ready for something like this.

I maneuvered to the bottom of the hole we had made and got out another array. I carefully positioned the array in the center of the shaft. If I stretched while in the middle I could reach any wall. The shaft was a bit tight for Hissk who had a larger body, but not truly uncomfortable. The array activated, cut out another cylinder, which I moved into spatial storage.

I cut out three more cylinders, putting each of them into my storage, and then moving them behind us. I had also got out another light source to wear on my wrist and shoulder, since the hatch was now blocked. There was a tiny gap, but with the cylinders being cut flush with the sides of the shaft, friction would slow the red liquid if the hatch broke. The gap was incredibly small for a shaft this size.

Once our entrance was plugged up I got out multiple array plates and began setting up a formation while Hissk watched me. “Impressive.”

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“Thanks, but compared to a true master it is just basic symbology for the most part. I would struggle for more esoteric effects and even this is going to be a bit tricky,” I replied. Hissk didn’t say anything more as I continued to carefully set everything up. I triple checked to make sure everything was perfectly aligned for this formation.

Getting through a solid wasn’t simple and I had spent years thinking of the most effective solution. Just cutting would take forever. We needed a way to cut through this metal quickly. The lack of energy was something I had prepared for as well as one of several possibilities.

The formation was designed to liquify everything in front of us. I hadn’t just been tempered by the energy of the demonic cultivator. I had a learned a trick about breaking things down. A slight vibration and twist was the key, to slowly breaking things apart. I set up arrays to funnel the temporarily liquified material to the edges of the shaft, where it would rest behind us.

As for the power, the hatch was set up to handle a transfer of energy. It would be inefficient, but by creating two identical arrays, I was able to use the property of energy resonance to transfer a small fraction of the energy by the hatch plate. Enough energy to fuel my formation forward. As the distance grew, the formation would struggle more and more, but I could supply it with the small amount of energy needed.

While the material making this part of the Gu Container was quite durable, it didn’t have energy imbued in it, which was why I was going with this solution instead of another solution I had prepared. I placed both of my feet onto the plate resting beneath me, while Hissk maneuvered his large body right next to mine, so we were testing chest to chest.

In any situation, there would be comments about personal space and intimate relations. But the situation was serious and jokes fell flat with Hissk. Our backgrounds were too different for humor to translate properly. Also, I didn’t think Hissk would understand the concept of intimate relations, since he was probably birthed from a pod. His tail was wrapped around our legs, so it didn’t get close to the edge of the shaft.

“Activating first array, gravity,” I said and gravity pulled us down towards the bottom of the shaft. It was as strong as I could make it. We needed to move in sync with the formation as it moved. Hissk would have to adjust our movement as we descended if the gravity wasn’t enough.

“Nothing detected,” Hissk said. He was responsible for keeping track of any spatial disturbances while I got everything set up and running.

“Activating second array, gravity channels,” I said. Hissk gave another all clear. “Activating third array, resonance energy transfer.” After that came the arrays for spatial compression and finally energy liquification.

I hadn’t been able to test all the variations of this formation I had created beforehand. If anything went wrong, it could just not work to something to far more catastrophic. The walls nearby us began to blur at a rapid pace as streams of liquid metal flew back up the shaft.

We plummeted downwards, togeather. Hissk’s scales were green, a jade green. I almost broke out in laughter, when I realized that he was technically a literal jade lizard beauty. I didn’t let my amusement distract me from monitoring the arrays as we moved through the ground.

This method of movement might have worked in the ocean of blood, but there were a lot of issues. The arrays could fail, or become unbalanced, causing a disaster. Setting this up took time. Too much ambient energy and pressure would make things much harder.

“Any issues?” I asked Hissk.

“Only minor adjustments to keep us on top of the metal plate. Nothing concerning yet,” he replied. Since my head was very close to his neck and just under his head, I heard the distinct hiss in his voice. We continued to travel, but not as fast as before.

While it had been tempting to rest for longer once we reached this new layer of the Gu Container, Hissk wouldn’t have to do much and setting up the formation took long enough for him to recover from the strain of moving us through the ocean of blood.

I guess I would call this layer the barrier sphere. It was a concise name in my mind. Not that it mattered much, since there was little to no need to talk about a place after we got through it. I had no doubt the demonic cultivator would try other methods the closer we got to his position at the center of the Gu Container, but it felt good to be making such rapid progress.

One of the gravity channels began to fluctuate after a day and a half. The stream of temporarily liquified metal began to spread out. I slowly adjusted my position and reached out with one of my hands and placed it on the array plate. I reinforced with a bit of focus. I began to go through the rest of the array plates, focusing my personal energy into them to try and strengthen them.

“Trouble?” Hissk asked.

“They are deteriorating from the energy going through them. I will keep reinforcing them, but I can only do so much. The longer we can go the better, even if there is a risk. I don’t have many replacements,” I said.

“What about metal of this section?” Hissk asked.

“It would break down even faster. While we could make progress it would be much more tedious. That is how I am liquefying it so easily.” Gravity shifted slightly then quickly corrected itself. I carefully bent down and checked the array plate beneath us. Thankfully had enough control to not dig his claws into the array plate. I carefully pressed on some of the symbols, fixing the array. The slight deformation and melting would only get worse. I slowly stood back up. We didn’t say anything, since there was nothing that needed to be said.

As for a vacuum forming as we cut our way down a small amount of atmosphere was being released as a side effect of a couple of the arrays. It wasn’t breathable, but kept things pressurized. Most arrays that cut or removed something had this feature built into them, to stop sonic booms. Spatial arrays were really well developed, taking into account key features to make their use more convenient.

We slowed down as the resonance array lost some power. That wasn’t good. Since there was only one linked array I could use, there were no good replacements for that array in the formation. I did have an alternative, but it was subpar.

The energy being transferred slowly decreased until we eventually came to a stop. We had managed to travel for around three days. I let out a sigh. This barrier sphere was thicker than I hoped. “I will need time to look at the arrays to see what can be repaired and salvaged,” I said.

“Take your time. Hissk can wait,” he replied. I used an array to cut out a side chamber a pick back up the shaft. That way Hissk wasn’t floating around over me the entire time. I didn’t mind his presence, but he was big and distracting. No matter how well we got along, he was still a giant dragonoid shaped murder machine.

The repair work was slow and tedious. I carefully pushed and recut out the array plates. They would break down even faster, since they had almost broke apart once already. While the energy had drained out of the array plates, there were still lingering traces of energy. It made them easier to reshape, but it also made them much weaker than they should be.

At least the current environment was low energy, or they would have broken apart far more quickly. I completed the repairs and put in two more plates to recycle energy as part of the formation. Quite a bit would still be lost, but I would supply the rest.

“How are you holding up?” I asked Hissk.

“The rest was useful. Tested my claws and abilities against this metal. It can be cut, but not quickly. Your way is much faster,” he replied. That was good to hear. I wasn’t considered useless. I rested by floating in the air in the side chamber.

“I need to rest for a bit. Everything is ready to go, but I want to check everything again after I have rested a bit. I don’t sense any danger,” I said. Mentally I was exhausted. I needed a bit of a break.

“Nothing,” Hissk replied. “Taking a break to be stronger is good idea.” I am glad you approve my scaled companion. It was a shame we couldn’t find a passage someone before us had made. It had been a very small chance considering the island, its possible movement, and the distance traveled through the ocean of blood. It would be like dropping an egg from outer space and hoping to hit a specific house that you didn’t even no was there.

Not surprising we didn’t find anything, but still disappointing. I closed my eyes to rest in silence and allow my energy and body to recover. Hissk waited quietly as well. For such a big creature, he could be surprisingly still if he wanted to. Probably part of the combat package that was installed in him at his creation to make him better at ambushes.

We rested for around a day. While I could guess that Hissk was a little bit impatient, compared to the time we had spent preparing, this was nothing. It just felt frustrating to take a break when we had already made so much progress. But it was necessary that I remain in top form and I didn’t miss anything with the arrays, since I had no idea how big our safety margin was or even if we had a safety margin.

Once I was up I went back out to look over the arrays to make sure there were no mistakes. There were none, but it was better to be careful when we were in the center of the formation. Hissk and I went back to our standing positions, chests to chest, after I confirmed everything was good to go. I activated the arrays that made up the formation and we began cutting through the barrier sphere towards the center again. Instead of three days, the arrays completely broke down after two days. I did more repair work during that time, but it was a struggle to keep everything functioning properly.

Thankfully we avoided a catastrophic accident, but there was a close call a couple of times when gravity shifted slightly and the one time our feet lifted off the bottom array slightly before Hissk forced us back down onto it. If we got left behind, we would be hit with the liquid metal, which would not be good and have to manually make our way down through the shaft through the formed metal streams left behind by our passage.

It wouldn’t be impossible, but it would be very annoying, since we weren’t creating or destroying large portions of the metal. That meant there was a lot of metal being channeled behind us. Once we came to a stop a second time, I had to cut and store another metal cylinder to allow us more room, since the streams of liquid metal were getting a bit close above us.

At our fifth stop, I was out of specific arrays. “Any idea how much more we have to go?” I asked Hissk while looking over the melted plates.

“No. But we have covered almost as much distance as the red liquid,” Hissk replied. I had worked that out as well, but I didn’t trust anything about this place. The demonic cultivator would not make anything too predictable. We might have guessed right this time, but we had also made a lot of other guesses as well.

“Well, the arrays are done for along with the metal. Even if it was properly reshaped, there is too much of the ambient energy imbued into it. It would be like putty,” I said with a shake of my head.

“I can go forward, but it would be slow. Your arrays are the best option,” Hissk said and I let out a sigh.

“I need some time to think. Let’s cut out a side chamber,” I said and got to work. Once we were resting there, I focused my thoughts on coming up with new ideas. The problem was that liquid and gas could be pushed to the side. It was harder with liquids, but not impossible. The same could technically done for solids, but the energy requirements would be far too high.

Even if I wanted to make an array, I only had handful of metal plates left in my spatial storage. Once those were used up, I would have to use local materials, none of which were good for arrays as far as I could tell. I wanted to hold off using them unless absolutely necessary.

“What do you think lies beyond this layer, Hissk?” I asked.

“Trouble and danger. They go claw in claw,” he replied. If we were going by states of matter, plasma would be next, but I didn’t think it would be that simple. It was kind of surprising that this barrier sphere wasn’t the outer layer, but even the demonic cultivator was constrained by certain principles.

Since he was collapsing the outer layers, and reducing the space of the Gu Container, it needed to be gas. If it wasn’t, it would be too hard to pull things in. If the gas transitioned to a solid layer then it would become a place of refuge. The order the demonic cultivator had picked worked with what he had planned and was incredibly frustrating.

The barrier sphere would shatter like an egg going through a blender once this space collapsed far enough. Already the location where my vessel had crashed had been broken apart and pushed further into the Gu Container. In time everything would start raining down out of the dark gas into the red liquid. The gas would probably precipitate as something terrible.

The barrier sphere here would crack and the liquid would start to drain into the interior, creating chaos and destruction. The table people probably hoped to ride this wave in some way, but they were more likely to die in my mind. If I was the demonic cultivator I would have the worms burrow through the barrier sphere here to create holes and not large cracks. Or have the worms intercept things moving through the ocean of blood when it was all pushed towards the center of the Gu Container.

It was going to be incredibly messy and deadly, but this wasn’t a vacation destination, it was a Gu Container, meant to compress everything into a single cultivation artifact. When everything started to fall apart, that was when the end of this place was close. I had no doubt that the demonic cultivator would speed things up at the very end to throw people off. It would be what I would do if I were him.

We might be clever, but we were still trapped. From what I could tell Hissk was incredibly dangerous. While he might not be at the level of an immortal, he could hit above his strength. His spatial manipulation alone was enough to make me highly concerned. I might have a chance to ambush him, but it was doubtful.

He probably could kill me if he put his mind to it, but I was bringing in more benefits for now. The real challenge was once we got through this barrier sphere. I would need to make sure there was distance between us as we evaluated the next environment. Or perhaps there were no thoughts of betrayal in his head.

Since he was clearly designed for fighting and didn’t even have a danger sense, removing teamwork and trust might have been counterproductive. However he ended up here was probably not planned. Such things as betrayal would only need to be learned by elites, while the lower ranks just had to work togeather as cannon fodder.

It was hard to say and not something I could ask. Hissk wasn’t stupid, even with the way he spoke. The fact he was willing to work with me reinforced how smart he truly was. I also noticed he looked very carefully at the arrays I had made, probably memorizing everything. A good memory would be quite valuable to someone like him. Both for combat, intelligence gathering, and resisting mental effects of esoteric techniques.

A shame I wouldn’t be able to recruit him long term as a personal guard or mount. But the more powerful the being, the more pride they had. If we were both at the level of an immortal, it was highly likely he wouldn’t have given me a lift. Maybe, it was hard to say for sure since Hissk had such an alien mindset compared to anyone or anything I had met. Even with the decade we had been around each other, I only had a cursory understanding of his thought process.

Right now I needed to figure out how to rapidly cut through this barrier sphere. It wasn’t something that would be simple with how low on supplies I was running. What I needed to do was to figure out some way to use an array on this weak metal itself.

An array was ultimately a circle with symbols that created an effect at its simplest. But the symbols got more complicated very quickly and you could have other designs instead of a circle. Size, material, environment were all factors to be considered as well. I was like circus act with arrays, I knew a couple good tricks and kept using them over and over in slightly different ways.

I could cut an array with another array, but the problem would be scale and precision. The size and precision difference would be about ten times. Making an array big enough or precise enough wouldn’t work with our current position. I also needed a way to deal with the material in front of us. I couldn’t automate cutting and moving cylindrical chunks.

That was the real headache, I needed whatever I made to move quickly or do something over an incredibly long distance.