Chapter 77

Yellow blood dripped from the hole in the ceiling, running along the streaks of punctured marble and down into the roaring flames. A rain of acid that turned Lei’s blood cold. There was a dark silhouette there, beyond the hole, two emerald eyes looking down at them.

“Master!” the Governor wailed, fingers stretching out toward the man in black. The others stirred behind him, staring hesitantly up at the figure. Lei caught mixed emotions in their gazes. Fear. Pain. But more importantly, hope. A faint glimmer in their eyes.

The figure in black waved a hand in response. The air picked up from around and pushed Snake and Stone off the rotten man, Zhu Luli and Fatty Lou back from the beasts. The invisible current then dragged the Governor and the rotten man to the other side, where they joined their pitiful company.

“Get here,” Lei gestured at Zhu Luli and the others as he rubbed his arms. He made sure to get the kids behind his back before looking up. His heart tightened. His head throbbed. The so-called Master, the bastard behind all of this, finally decided to reveal his presence.

“Ah…” came a rasping, hissing voice as a rotten hand grabbed the edge of the broken hole. It was then joined by another hand as the Master clenched his fingers around the edges and jumped down from the hole, landing with a grace that didn’t fit the state his body was in.

His robe was torn in more than a dozen places, soiled with yellow blood and revealing the sickly, slimy skin underneath. There was a terrible gash across his face, which nearly split his nose open. Flesh squirmed along the cut and tried to stitch itself back, but failed as a faint spiritual energy pulsed from inside that streak. Like others, it was hard to tell his age. The expression, the scaled skin, and those emerald eyes… The man looked more like a snake than a human.

Right after he landed, he swept his gaze across the two groups and let out a humorless chuckle. A part of his lips was missing, showing his rotten cave of a mouth that was filled with broken teeth and a tongue that stretched unusually long.

“A little town. A stubborn fool. A simple mountain,” he growled with what Lei thought was incredulity. Then he gazed deeply at Lei. “And now a simple Chosen. Your gods do like their games here in Three Realms, do they not?”

“Master, your wounds…” the rotten man who stood beside the Governor said shakily, his face looking confused as he neared the Master. “You should’ve been healed after all that mana… What happened?”

The Master gave him a disappointed glance and shook his head. “We’ve been caught, Silug, by what we’ve been warned for. What we’ve been cautioned against. The invisible threads stretch ever close now, can’t you see? All around us they flail, rejecting our presence with a deep-rooted disgust. We’ve been compromised.”

The man called Silug looked like he was about to say something when the Master waved him off and turned to Lei. His slitted eyes glinted strangely. “So tell me, Chosen, whose spawn are you? Are you perhaps one of Xuanwu’s sons? But wait, surely not, as you have not the signs of that old turtle’s blood. Or is it Hou Yi? Where is your bow, then? I see that mace in your hands, and yet I can tell from your fingers that you’re not a master of that weapon.”

Lei looked at him, holding the mace close to his chest. The man’s voice had a strong quality to it, but even now yellow blood was pouring out from that long gash that nearly ripped his face in two. He could also feel trickles of mana oozing from his skin, too, as if at each passing moment the bastard was losing that precious source for which they contaminated every part of Jiangzhen.

“I respect your discretion. It’s often a quality many of your kind lack,” the Master said with a smile tugging at his broken lips. Then he glanced over at the burning flames and tapped a clawed finger to his chin as if confused. “Flames… Of a strange quality, as well. I’m afraid I can’t tell just by looking at them. I should’ve studied more when I had the chance. Know your enemy first, as your kind likes to say, eh?”

“Who are you?” Lei finally asked, his heart thundering in his chest.

“Not very kind of you to ask when you’ve refused to humor my questions, now, is it?” he said, shaking his head. “But I’d be happy to tell you everything if you answer this one question of mine. What do you say?”

“Go ahead,” Lei said. “Ask.”

“When did you open your eyes to this world?” he asked.

Lei’s skin crawled as he looked at the man. He felt Fatty Lou and Zhu Luli’s gaze on his back, poking into him like invisible needles. “What kind of question is that?” he said hastily. “I was born in—“

The Master raised a hand at him. “I’m not talking about that body’s birth, young man. I’m asking you, the soul that now occupies that body, the one that speaks to me now. Tell me, was it right after we’d clashed with that stubborn fool, the one I buried on that day after paying a terrible price? Was your body one of the victims that got killed when a part of the city fell?”

Lei trembled. He stepped back, eyes wavering. How? How did this man know that he wasn’t from this world? Or rather, how could he know that Lei opened his eyes to this world after a part of Jiangzhen got crushed by a cultivator attack?

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It was him. The reason why my soul brother died. This… can’t be a coincidence.

“I…”

“You need not say anything.” The Master started smiling. “I think I’ve got my answer.” Then his chest rattled as that tiny smile turned into a cackling laughter that echoed around the Library. He clutched his heart and bent down, blood spurting out from between his fingers. Still, he laughed, and his empty, mad voice filled Lei’s mind.

“FATE!” Voilanth roared. He reached with a hand and yanked his rotten aide by the arm, forcing his face to look at Lei’s group. “See them, Sigul? There’s your answer.”

“M-Master, I-I don’t understand—“

“It’s happening again,” the Master hissed at him. “Paradise in this wretched world, we thought, when we discovered that mountain, knowing not it was an Immortal’s prison! Foolishly, we believed thousands of souls lived in this city, a place their guardians cared for not. Sheep waiting to be harvested. Sheep laid bare before us as a gift!”

He threw Sigul to the ground and clasped his hands over his face. His laughter dinned in Lei’s ears. Sent shivers down his spine. The man was mad. Too lost in his own mind that he kept uttering words that didn’t make any sense.

“Be ready,” Lei said to his group. “I have a bad feeling about this.”

“Where are my manners!” the Master said a moment after, then straightened his back and wiped his face. He gave Lei a simple smile. “I’ve said I’ll tell you everything, and so I shall. Young Chosen, my name’s Voilanth. I’m one of the commanders of the Legion, sent here by the Everquest to claim this world. Thousands came before me. Thousands are on their way through the Crack, now. This is a war you can’t win.”

“War?” Lei muttered. He clenched his fists and set his jaw tight. “You’ve made the whole city sick, turned all those guards into your minions. They became mindless, rotten zombies. You’ve made the honest people in Jiangzhen bleed just because you wanted to patch your wounds, and yet you call this a war?”

Lei swept his hand out at him, then around his group. “I see no soldiers here. Just a group of beasts and people trying to stop them. Where is your army, then? What is your aim? What have these people done to deserve any of this?”

“People?” Voilanth arched an eyebrow at him. “This isn’t about people, young man, nor is this something us lessers have any say in. This is just the way it is, always has been. The System gives the quest, and we oblige lest we die in its terrible claws. Don’t think that little trick your gods have pulled off will protect you from it.”

“Little trick?”

“You’ve got a System, no?” Voilanth sneered at him. “A most genius attempt, I must say. A bridge between the two worlds. Your gods knew they couldn’t protect their precious Daos from the tides of the Endless Hordes. They needed more, so they decided to play a dangerous game and created abominations that didn’t belong to any side.”

“This…” Lei swallowed nervously, slightly shaken by the words.

“Or what, did you really think you’ve been granted a gift just because you’re special?” Voilanth continued. “What about the others before you, then? Were they special too? I’ve heard the last one that governed your world. The Emperor, is it? Do you ever wonder what has happened to him? Where that gift had forced him to move? That is no blessing, young man. It is a curse. One that’s been shackled onto you just to delay the inevitable.”

He stepped over and stretched a hand toward him. “But I can help. If you come with me, you won’t have to worry about any of this. The Legion will give you whatever you want. It can save you from fighting a battle that’s already been lost.”

The moment Lei had laid his eyes on that inviting hand, a heavy pressure settled over his shoulders. A terrifying consciousness had drilled into his mind and watched, curiously, his thoughts and everything he’d ever experienced. The air stirred around him. Thunder crackled.

An intense force pulled at his heart, making the Maiden’s Flame roar in response. It started thrashing around, disturbed, panicked. It wailed a painful song that hacked at Lei’s mind.

‘Ding! The Overseer has invited you to the Endless Hordes. Do you accept?’

Lei tried to wave the notification off, but he paused when everything changed in his vision. He saw acres of land stretch before him, lush grass swaying lazily in the wind. Trees towered high into the sky, circling a two-story building that seemed to be made from quality wood. Its door was open and the sound of laughter drifted from inside, carried by the wind.

Then Lei was there, inside the place, sitting cross-legged before a big table. Fatty Lou was beside him, one hand over Snake’s shoulder and the other hand pulling Stone in a tight hug. Before them, Zhu Luli was surrounded by other kids, Master Li and Granny Xu looking down at them with beautiful smiles. The squirrel squeaked gently in the back, face smeared with all kinds of food. Even Old Ji was there, all healed.

A sign was hanging from the back wall, words carved along its surface. It read ‘Family Restaurant’.

“Accept it,” came an ethereal voice, thumping in his mind. “You’ve braved long enough. This isn’t your fight. Accept it and I shall have your dreams realized. Away from the conflict. Away from any of this. Just one simple ‘Yes’.”

Lei staggered back. This was peace. Home. It was something he lacked during his first life. A dream that he didn’t know he yearned for. It’d become real in his second chance, but they sullied it. Threatened to tear it into pieces. Yet it was here again, being displayed before him in the most perfect way that was possible.

But he frowned. The more he gazed at them, the more he began to suspect that there was something wrong here. His chest felt empty, just like how those faces lacked a certain warmth that made them real. It was as though they were guided by invisible strings, like puppets dragged by their Master somewhere beyond where he could see.

Warmth filled into his heart. The Maiden’s Flame screamed in defiance, pouring out from his eyes and his mouth, lunging over to Fatty Lou’s body. It burned his smooth skin then spattered to Snake and Stone before moving toward the sign hanging from the wall.

Everything around Lei started melting into a sludge that reeked of rot and death. Before he could do anything, he was standing inside a river of blackish yellow, the current sizzling, his skin crawling as the foul source tried to seep in.

Still the Maiden’s Flame burned. It tore the river in pieces and scorched its surface with fury. It cleansed whatever that was wrong around him and turned Lei’s vision back to him where he faced Voilanth’s inviting hand once again.

He looked up at the man, fingers clenching tight around the mace’s handle. A smile strained on his lips.

“I refuse,” he said, and swung the mace at the bastard’s face.