----------------------------------------
Chapter 59: "More Like Two and Two Halves."
----------------------------------------
Shae carefully navigated from wagon to wagon, treating each as a small island of safety, though there were no spirit beasts to threaten her nearby. Halfway to the canyon wall, she stopped for a breather and stopped cycling qi.
The relatively mild backlash from her earlier focus use made her balance tilt and she dropped to both knees to stop herself from falling off the stack of crates. She breathed heavily and let her balance return naturally. Guess I need to feel that backlash, can't just divinely heal through it. After another breath she drew on more of her enlightenment qi and ran it through her head. Not that I won't try. Her headache wasn't back yet, so she wasn't that worried about it.
As she moved she spotted a pair of cultivators assaulting a pair of pangodiles. She repeated her arrow distraction with significantly less mental focus and intent use. It distracted one of the beasts long enough for the cultivators to injure the other and separate the two.
A few breaths of spectating later, she tried again. The beast completely ignored her, letting the arrow bounce under it. She frowned at the outcome, as the arrow didn't penetrate and was crushed by its tail movements. She couldn't even tell if any blood was drawn. This behavior seemed most common from the beasts. They freely accepted attacks against their scales and hardly attacked at all.
One particular exchange highlighted their strategy. An oxen was hobbled by its harness but had managed to avoid the usual pit trap. It stomped and stomped at a pangodile, trying its best to crack its shell. Yet, the spirit beast did nothing, simply waiting until the oxen had tired itself out. Then it made a slow and lazy attack to drop the mortal animal.
Her progress towards the canyon wall was slower than that of the fight. She was interrupted again when Master Long's sharpness and pressure Dao was activated. An irritating hum and ringing was interspersed with shattering cracks that took over the battlefield sounds.
She couldn't get a clear view of Long, only the gigantic pangodile moving and turning. The occasional swipe of a claw or dust breath easily destroyed nearby wagons.
She stayed out of Long's domain, but did spot a smaller spirit beast caught in its effects. The beast quickly began bleeding from the edges of its armor as it tried to escape.
She took a quick shot at it, aiming with her qi stabilisation. She saw the arrow warp as it entered Long's sharpness domain, and to her surprise the arrow caught between the beast's scales. It writhed in pain briefly before escaping out of sight, leaving a blood trail behind it.
She moved again, putting herself another wagon further from the fight. Even if she could resist their Dao, she didn't want to make it necessary.
"Shae!" A hand grabbed her shoulder. "Why are you here!?"
"Ah! Oh? Senior Sister?"
"Yes. This is a terrible place for you." The cultivator was wearing something close to the town guard's outfit, but its color matched the earth and rock of their surroundings. "Actually, I need to borrow your bow." She said and grabbed a handful of arrows from her quiver. She didn't also grab the younger cultivator's bow, only investigating the arrows.
"O-kay? Don't you have one?"
"Sure, but I'm out of arrows, and yours won't work with my bow. Tsk." She shook her head. "These are good quality for mortals, but..." she dropped all but one and grabbed more from her quiver. "They won't hold up to my qi techniques."
"Uh, right, I guess they wouldn't." Shae looked at Apollo's clothes more closely and saw that the color wasn't natural. It was patchy and looked more like encrusted mud. She reached out and bent a piece, the mud-like coating cracked and crumbled away. "This isn't an illusion?"
"Hmm?" She looked away from the arrows, dropping more of them. "I borrowed this set, it's decent armor for this kind of fight." She grabbed at Shae's clothes and clicked her tongue. "Tsk, and what about you? How will you survive with just these?"
"Uhh, I have a defensive talisman?" She scrambled to find it in her robes and revealed the earth talisman that Long gave her.
"Hmm..." She frowned at her and took the remaining arrows out of her quiver, still only holding one she liked.
"And I can resist their domains, though not for long."
Apollo raised an eyebrow to that. "Stay out of the fighting, please. That talisman will work, but only so far. It may do nothing for the crystal dust."
Shae nodded, and looked at the remaining arrows the woman held. "Only three?"
"Closer to two and a half." She smirked and took the bow from the younger cultivator. "I'll make them count." She had jumped away before Shae could respond, easily hopping from wagon to wagon, and quickly reached the shadowy canyon wall where Shae lost sight of her.
The young woman ran her fingers through her hair, then she looked down at the pile of arrows Apollo left behind and sighed. "Ugh, dammit."
Before she finished picking them up, the main battle drew her attention again. The gigantic pangodile screamed as it took a hit from something. Shae looked over to see it stagger, then place its two large arms wide for stability. Now that she was closer, and had seen it move more, she compared its movements to a lazy gorilla. Though, it still seemed to have the same strategy as its smaller cousins.
A flash of steel harassed its left side, then moved to focus more heavily on its right. A shadow of white from above caught Shae's eye. A distant female figure floated in mid air, surrounded by a white cloud. She fired an arrow down at the spirit beast, striking it in the left arm, just below its shoulder armor.
The pangolin flinched as the arrow bounced off its toughened scales, seemingly unharmed, yet a cloud of steam clung to the impact site. The beast snapped at Long as the master swordsman moved back to take advantage of the flinch, he made a single counter attack at the beast's snout then retreated.
Apollo, still in mid-air, released a burst of steam and seemed to jump off it sideways and fall towards the canyon wall.
A large streak of brown cut through the steam and dust, streaking past where Apollo had been hanging a beat earlier. The large boulder landed with a cacophonous echo, right where Apollo's arrow struck. It crushed the pangodile's arm and the beast slumped over.
Shae lost track of her senior for a breath, just until Apollo appeared in the air above the damaged limb, aiming right at the spirit beast's head. She gasped as she watched the warping effect of Long's domain visually twist and stretch the bow, arrow, and even the cultivator holding them.
The arrow loosed and a high pitched *pwang* signaled the arrow bouncing off the beast's closed eye. Apollo bounced off her steam again, leaping across to its front where she fired a third shot, timed perfectly to drive into the beast's opening its eye. It screamed immediately and thrashed in pain.
Shae's eyes widened at Apollo. The woman landed in front of the screaming beast with another arrow knocked in her bow. She stood strong as the beast caught sight of her, opened its enormous mouth, and inhaled.
Apollo waited, unmoving, and resolute as dust flowed past her into the beast's mouth. More and more it unhinged its maw, revealing the same disturbingly large crocodile mouth, now lined with more teeth. The arrowhead glimmered with energy then a beat later it was released, streaking deep into the open mouth.
The beast flinched, but the dust still came, gushing out like an avalanche. Shae thought it was more erratic this time, but still, she watched as the billowing wave easily caught Apollo as she fled. Shae could only gasp as she completely lost sight of the woman. The beast swiped is huge claws through the cloud and she heard the distinct *crack* of impact.
She stopped herself moving forward automatically before she walked off the wagon. Steel flashed under the pangodile's blind eye but that barely registered in Shae's mind.
She forced herself to breathe. Slowly forcing calm breaths and calmer qi through her system. Quietly, she spoke, "She'll be fine. It's not a medusa or something."
Once she had mostly gathered her wits again she started moving towards the fight. Apollo hadn't reappeared, and the gigantic pangodile had barely moved. It seemed to be pinned by its crushed arm, and had drawn itself into an armored ball. Shae could tell its earthy domain was drawn tight around itself, increasing its defense and holding back Long's pressure and sharpness domain. The noise and flash of steel showed that the swordsman had taken a few probing strikes, but now stood a dozen paces away. Qi swirled around him as his Dao slowly concentrated from his domain into his Jian.
Shae jumped up onto a wagon just outside Long's domain. The crystals and mud caked to the side broke off as its weight shifted, clattering to the ground like glassy gravel. She heard a cough and looked around. Everything was a uniform earthy brown, only dotted by the small finger-sized crystals being a foggy yellow.
She finally spotted the tip of her bow poking up from a wagon and lunged towards it without thinking. "A-" she began to shout, then hissed the name through her teeth instead. "Apollo!"
She heard the woman cough and groan again before she got to her. Leaping up into the wagon, she froze as she landed. Half of the older cultivator's clothing was coated in a thick layer of mud and crystals. Shae watched as some were still growing, and others were tinted red. More dark red soaked into the mud and cloth where it covered her arm and leg.
Apollo coughed roughly and met the young woman's eyes. "Shae. I saved your bow," she rasped out and wiggled the piece of wood with her seemingly uninjured side.
"Apollo!" She gasped and bent down.
"Ugh! Don't touch."
Shae stopped, then carefully moved to her other side. Accepting the bow and wiping one spot of mud off on the wagon's side. "What is it?" She looked around, making sure the battle hadn't moved.
"Ahh, Earth, but corrosive, corrupting." She said slowly, either in pain or trying to concentrate.
The younger woman didn't understand the words, yet got a decent read on the intent in them. She let the older woman get another breath down before asking, "Can I help disrupt its intent?"
"Hah!" Apollo smiled, then grimaced, but the smile refused to be completely removed. "Only you'd ask that." She shook her head slowly. "No. I got it."
Shae frowned. "Doesn't look like it."
"Heh." She rasped out another breath, bloody spittle bubbling between her lips. She tried to move her free arm beside Shae. It was gripping the edge of the wagon now, instead of the borrowed bow. Shae watched as the muscles twitched and flexed, the wood groaning and cracking under the movement. "Hhhhhgh!" She exhaled what should have been a scream, but came out only as a loud, wet exhale.
Shae placed her hand over the other woman's. She felt as tense as a steel cable.
"Uh, medic pouch. At my hip." Apollo dipped her head towards Shae. Indicating that side of her own body.
The young woman kneeled closer and reached out, but saw no pouch or bulge under the woman's clothing. "I don't see it."
"Hidden." She grunted, then inhaled deeply and repeated her loud exhale.
Shae patted roughly at her side and felt her flinch away. "Sorry."
"There."
"Hmgh?" Shae scrunched her forehead up, and moved her hands slower. The edges of the cultivator's fuzzy shape-hiding technique tingling at her fingertips. "If it's a medic kit, why is it hidden?" She muttered as she concentrated and moved her hands slower, firmly pressing into the other woman's body to really feel what was trying to be hidden.
"Ugh! A'uck!" Apollo coughed away from the young woman. "Don't stop." She wheezed again. "Spatial item. Small glass bottle."
Shae's hands stopped anyway at the painful cough. Then again when she said 'spatial item'. She took a breath and forced herself to continue, but now searched with her intent as well. Seeking to open the item, to look inside it. "Is it safe to open?"
This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.
There was a short pause, "Yes." She grunted.
Shae looked up to see the woman's eyes squeezed shut, her face in extreme concentration. She redoubled her efforts and was quickly rewarded. A small spark of a reaction. Like a small reflected light flickering in her line of sight. She moved her hands slightly and tried to imagine finding the bottle, or some flap on a pouch.
A tense breath passed.
Finally, her fingers found a flap and tried to pull the pouch away, but it held firm to the cultivator's side. She pushed under and around the flap instead, digging into the pouch and soon found several glass vials. None felt like spatial items, there was no sense of connection.
She frowned and dug deeper. The tip of a finger on her right grazed glass. A spark of a familiar sensation made her flinch and draw back. She nearly lost track of the pouch again as a deep fear gripped her and made her fully withdraw her right hand.
"Eh?" Apollo grunted.
Shae's breathing was quick and her heartrate had spiked. "Sorry. I-" she forced a quick exhale and shook her head, no excuses right now. "Found the pouch, what am I looking for inside the spatial item?"
"Hgmmmgh."
Shae went back to searching and quickly found the bottle again. She forced herself to not react to the familiar sensation and carefully removed it from the pouch. She tried using it, but Apollo's techniques seemed to be interfering.
"Green. Bottle." The woman grunted.
Shae looked inside to find a tight grid of small bottles. Viewed from the side it looked like a small spice rack, with each bottle holding only one or two small shapes. Most held round or oblong pills, but a few were liquids or finely cut herbs. She found one whole row that was green bottles, nearly two dozen of them. The number of them forced her to reassess the size of the imaginary spice rack, it wasn't half as small as she first thought.
Apollo inhaled stiffly, "Blood red p-uogh." she coughed, grunted, then went silent. Clearly focused on concentrating again.
Shae squeezed the woman's hand which was gradually digging its way into the side of the wagon. "Red pill, got it." Her mind's eye swept along the row of green bottles. She could see some were supposed to have writing on them, but she couldn't quite read them, like trying to read something in a dream.
After the first few, she identified that the green glass was coloring the pills. Wait, does that mean there's light in here? Coming from... somewhere? She paused in thought then remembered what she was supposed to be doing.
A firm force of will and her impression of the spatial items interior warped to reveal the bottles contents. Like a cross section, almost half of each bottle's glass disappeared revealing the contents.
She quickly found two prime candidates. A very dark red pill that felt heavy, and an intensely saturated-red pill that was probably too bright to be called blood red. She was fairly sure the weights of each pill was related to qi content, as the sense of it varied too much for it to be actual weight.
She put her mind to removing the darker pill first. Opening her palm and visualizing moving it resulted in no reaction. She pushed again, focusing on the idea, it shifted slightly. The feeling reminded her of her first efforts trying to move qi on Pilgrim's Rest mountain. Like pushing at a large boulder, it was hard to tell if she had actually moved anything, or just pushed herself away.
She tried retrieving the other pill instead. It resisted in a similar way, yet she could feel it moving. Like dragging a weight on a chain through mud.
There was a tactile pop and a tingle in her hand as the bottle landed in it. "Got it!" She leaned over to Apollo and started to work the cork out of the pill's bottle. "There were two? This is the lighter colored one."
Apollo's concentration didn't falter, but she did frown and grunt.
Shae pried at the cork, her fingers fumbling trying to get a grip on it. "Urgh!"
"Smell." Apollo said while taking slow deliberate breaths.
The young woman almost missed it. "Uh? Smell? Just a sec." She frowned intensely at the bottle, then gave up and retrieved her knife from her robes. Jamming the tip into the cork and an angle she pried it loose. "Ah!" She quickly inhaled a whiff out of the bottle. Catching a wave of minty, menthol-like qi right in the face. She lost track of her thoughts briefly, then turned and sneezed.
Apollo grunted again. "Let me."
"Ah, right, sorry!"
Shae extended the small bottle to the older cultivator, and she took a deep inhale, her eyes going from crushed concentration to stretched wide, but still not open. She exhaled forcefully, then inhaled again, and her expression relaxed. "Wrong." She said, but her voice was clearer.
"Ah, shit. The other was really hard to remove."
"Ugh, right." She grimaced, then tilted her head. "In mouth," she said and opened wide.
Shae also frowned as she tipped the bottle into Apollo's mouth.
The injured cultivator didn't swallow the pill, instead pinching it between her teeth. She then inhaled very deeply past the pill, then exhaled slowly out her nose. Shae could feel the menthol-like qi was still strong on the exhale, and imagined the pill like a strong cough drop. She could feel her own heart rate rise with the tension of the moment. Apollo only took a few breaths, then spat it across the wagon.
"Haaa! Better." She took another careful breath. "That's got some zip. I'll still need the other. Thanks, Shae."
The young woman exhaled most of her held tension. Then retrieved the ejected pill and returned it to the bottle, jamming the cork back in as well. Her fingers tingled where she touched the pill and she wiped them on her robes. "What was that anyway?"
Apollo remained silent, locked in intense concentration for a few more breaths. "Later," she finally said.
"Right," the young woman huffed and ran her fingers through her hair. She glanced over to the fight to see Master Long still in a standoff with the gigantic, injured pangodile. Ranged qi attacks flew in from outside Long's domain, splashing color across the impenetrable scales. The occasional rock fell from above to shatter across its back. It flinched at their impacts, but nothing more.
"What the fuck is Long doing?" She huffed again and sat down, then shoved her perception back into the spatial item.
She found her target pill quickly and tried to replicate the feeling of the other bottle popping out of the spatial item. She felt no give, no movement. She pushed like she had before, focusing on removing the bottle and placing it in her hand. It actually felt heavier than before, even the bottle had more weight. Was the bottle heavy before? Even if I get it out, it'll be a pain getting it open, she thought as she saw the bottle top looked different, an extra layer of something over the cork.
Fuckin' hell, I don't need the bottle. She mentally cursed at it, then paused. Right, I don't need the bottle. Quickly, she tried mentally separating the two, just trying to grab the pill out of the bottle, yet had no success. If it's just arbitrary space, can't I go in the bottle?
After another weak attempt she took a deep breath and focused on bending her mind; imagining her viewpoint from inside the green pill bottle. She envisioned looking out at the spice rack around her. Yet, she knew she wouldn't be able to see the whole spice rack. Unless...
Inspired by one of two particularly perspective warping movies, 360 degree cameras, and the much simpler reflection of a room off a chrome sphere, she pushed and bent the space around her. Slowly forcing the whole spice rack into the inside-out green pill bottle. She grunted with effort and cursed under her breath at it.
The spatial item quivered in her hand and made a hollow thoom sound. The resistance to her mental warping vanished right when she heard the sound. Her perspective inside the item was now almost exactly as she had imagined it. She froze in surprise for two whole breaths, caught up in examining the inverted pill bottle. "Ah!" She shouted as she remembered what she was doing.
Removing the pill was harder than the first pill, but she felt it give when she pushed now. A few more firm pushes and it came free, dropping into her hand with more weight than she expected and a noticeable impact of qi pressure. She opened her eyes to see a limp and motionless Apollo slumped against the side of the wagon.
White static rang through her ears as she stared helplessly. Then the older woman inhaled, shifting her torso and head slightly.
"Oh, thank God!" Shae shuddered and scrambled up to her senior, putting a hand around the back of her neck and holding the pill under her nose. "Apollo. Senior, I have the blood-red pill."
She waited, feeling the woman's weak breathing on her outstretched fingers.
The cacophony of a rock shattering over the spirit beast's back barely drew her attention, just enough to see Long standing in the same place, holding the same pose.
"Fucking hell Long, kill it already." She cursed under her breath. "Apollo, eat the damned pill!" She leaned forwards and put their foreheads together.
'Ha-ah. Why- did- you-' a silent message trickled through, one word at a time. Longer pauses interspersed unevenly. 'ever get rid... of wrath? Anger suits you.'
Shae smiled and forced a chuckle. "Take the pill, idiot."
'Soon. Answer why.'
"Why not wrath?" She exhaled a deep sigh. "I don't mind being angry, using anger. But heaven's wrath wanted to use me, I wasn't in control."
'Aaahh! Good! ... But our path... is control.' the woman shifted, her mouth searching for the pill. Shae guided it into her lips, yet once she had it, the woman didn't swallow yet. 'The heavens want... challenge... Never upset by progress.'
Shae tensed, only able to think 'don't die,' but unwilling to spoil the moment with the obvious request.
'Be safe. I'll be fine.' Apollo swallowed the pill and Shae felt the rush of qi, hot and bloody. Reflexively she moved away, recoiling from both the feeling of the qi and the amount. The full qi pressure was as strong as she had ever felt during her time on Pilgrim's Rest Mountain.
She sat back on a crate, thinking about the cultivator's words. "It sure seemed upset when it threw lightning at me," she muttered and smiled to herself.
Looking at the scene before her, she saw Apollo had ripped a board off the wagon's side where she had been clutching it. A pile of splinters was the only evidence the board had been there, her hand wasn't even injured.
She tucked her free leg under herself and placed the matching hand on her knee, mimicking a lotus pose with her uninjured half. Her other half was still veiled by her crystal spattered clothing. A mud and blood soaked cloak was the only barrier against Shae seeing the full extent of her injuries.
Her hands worried at the two pill bottles she still held, the clicking of glass reminding her that she still held them. The spatial item felt empty, her perspective inside it was still stuck in the empty green bottle.
She took a deep inhale from the minty menthol pill, still able to smell it through the cork. Her heart rate spiked and she felt her thoughts clear, worry and anxiety drifting away. She shuddered, but I want to be worried for Apollo.
She stepped into the qi pressure that surrounded Apollo and set the two items into the nook her bent leg made. Then she stepped back and breathed, trying to release all her held tension. A crashing rock drew her attention back to the battle.
Anger, she thought and looked over to Long, still charging up his stupid attack. Just looking at him makes me angry. She picked up her bow and busied herself by checking it over, brushing off the dust and testing the string.
The heavens use wrath and anger against cultivators because we challenge it, yet Apollo says it's not upset. She vaulted over the edge of the wagon, landed with a shake of her head, and walked towards Master Long's domain while still thinking. It was even threatening death during the inquiry. She shook her head again, heavenly wrath is so wrong.
She stayed between the wagons and circled wide around the fight. She wasn't keen on walking right in front of the pangodile, and instead tried to emerge beside Long. She stopped at the edge of his Domain. She hadn't seen other cultivators recently, even their qi attacks had seemingly stopped, but the rocks fell from the canyon wall in greater numbers.
She took a deep breath in preparation. A thought froze her movement. Wrath is wrong, anger is wrong. She closed her eyes and focused on her Dantian, visualizing the warning-lightning cat's-eye marbles orbiting through it. At least one had a red tinge to it now, infected by her anger, or so she had once thought.
Progress, test, and punishment. Three aspects of a tribulation. Punishment isn't necessarily wrath: there is no anger needed, no emotion from executing a punishment. The threat during her inquiry, the headsman's ax, came to mind. The ax isn't wrath, it is only the threat of punishment. An executioner holds no anger, they only hold the ax.
Shae looked to her own past, as the adult among children in the library, she often had to punish misbehavior. Not with violence or wrath. She was never truly angry at the children for playing or shouting, they were just children, it's in their nature. How could the heavens be angry at cultivators for cultivating, it's in their nature.
She embraced the warning marbles: the threat of heaven's punishment. The proof of its laws? She moved them to a tight orbit around her Dantian, she would need them now. She felt her cultivation swell, the cloud of pure and half-divine qi at its center squeezed itself tight; growing denser and embracing the red lightning that sparked off the cat's eye marbles.
The familiar sense of opportunity tickled at her mind. Another, more recent memory whispered 'keep moving' and she looked around nervously before circling around the pressure and sharpness domain again.
Not right now, enlightenment. "Can I get a rain check on that?" She looked up and asked aloud. And enlightenment, is there punishment in that? The thought almost made her stop again.
She only considered it briefly. Failure to accept the reward is its own punishment. Disrupting others brings about mortal punishments. In most cases I don't think the heaven's even need to act. She nodded to herself and stepped into Long's domain.
She froze after the first step, her clothing scratching at her skin like sandpaper and knives .
----------------------------------------