Master Laan frowned. “A god?”

Something had changed in the air. The humans present were bewildered, but the expressions of the divine beings were difficult to determine. On anyone else, one might say it was anxiety.

Wong Tang’s face had turned pale. Her pipe had gone out, but she didn’t seem to notice.

The only one who looked more disturbed was Shikladak. He went to stand abruptly. “Bullshit. I’m not staying here any longer to-”

Gong Lau Yan was behind him in a second, pressing his shoulders down, so that he could no longer rise. He thrashed in her grip. “Let go of me!”

“You’re panicking,” she retorted.

“Of course I am! You should be too!”

“We still don’t know what this is about yet.”

“We might not, but someone certainly does!” He turned his eyes on Wong Tang. “Look! Is that the face the Great Goddess Leoi Wo should have?”

“I am not the great goddess here,” Wong Tang replied stiffly, finally realising that her pipe had extinguished. She placed the slender object back into her sleeve. “This is not my realm.”

“Grandmaster, what’s going on?” Cheng Baak-hap asked.

But once more, Wong Tang shook her head. “Let’s hear what the demons have to say first.”

Gaam Yuk Ying and Chan Bik had remained standing behind Wong Tang and Cheng Baak-hap.

“Where’s Yuen Muk?” Gaam Yuk Ying murmured.

“He’s still at Mount Faa,” Chan Bik replied quietly. “With Dzik Yi-sang gone, and so many injured from Mou Dang and-”

Wong Tang cast a disapproving glance at them, and Chan Bik immediately fell silent.

The blue-frilled demon, Píng, began to speak, but its words were a garbled mash of Xiang and other sounds that must have been its native language. Cheng Baak-hap caught the occasional word but couldn’t fully interpret the meaning.

“One day… land… dry. Water… dry. Plants… animals… We… save us, however… god… We… We… We…”

Silence greeted its words.

“Is it essentially saying that a god was responsible for this?”

“Perhaps,” Cheng Baak-hap said helplessly, as every head turned towards her. “I really couldn’t recognise all the words.”

The black smoke demon, Huan, made a hollow sound, which one could only assume was due to frustration. At this juncture, Huo Tu stood up.

“Go. Show you.”

“Show us what?” Näkṣātär asked coldly.

“God.” And Huo Tu grinned, showing all of his sharp teeth.

“I’m leaving,” Shikladak said. At Wong Tang’s nod, Gong Lau Yan let go of him. She had barely released his grip when whoosh – he had transformed into a phoenix and flashed away in the direction of the portal. Like flames, the members of his delegation all followed suit. Huo Tu’s grin widened.

“Näkṣātär?” Wong Tang asked.

If the pale-eyed woman had any anxieties, her voice betrayed nothing as she said, “I will go and see this ‘god’.”

Wong Tang did not ask anyone else. She stood and nodded to Huo Tu. “Show us.”

First place the demons took them was the face in the canyon. Everyone gazed solemnly at the cracked face, the empty eyesockets, and felt a little cold.

Huo Tu led them further. They left the canyon behind, solemnly walking over the cracked earth, a new mountain emerging from the haze before them. A kind of tug-of-war was rising in their collective minds, between rushing forward to the next place, and turning to flee. None of them had ventured this deep into the Demon Realm before; Gaam Yuk Ying fiddled expressionlessly with the pommel of Yiu Tsing and Chan Bik looked about warily, fists clenched.

Still nothing. The brown air was dry and scentless. They saw the slouched silhouettes of cobbled-together dwellings, but no living things other than themselves. How did anyone manage to survive out here?

By devouring themselves, and each other.

At the foot of the mountain was a cave.

The inside of the cave was significantly cooler than outside. And there was a sound too, a musical, echoing sound that slowly repeated over and over. They followed a twisting tunnel until the space opened up, and they saw the next god.

It was another statue, an indescribable figure of unknown pale rock, surrounded by the luminescent fungi they had once seen at the other mountain. Part of what made the figure so difficult to describe was that it was partially encased in mineral; if they were in the Mortal Realm, they might say the statue was partly calcified, but no-one knew what mineral this was.

This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

If the land outside was brown, the space inside the cave was a cool grey. A significant drop in temperature gave them all some relief.

Water dripped from the ceiling, hundreds of metres above them in the dark, each drop taking several heartbeats before hitting the top of the statue with a ringing sound. The drops ran down the statue, slowly being reabsorbed by the mineral and disappearing before even reaching the ground.

Even without the minerals muddling the appearance of the statue, it looked as though it were on the brink of collapse already. A variety of vessels lay around the base of the statue, cracked jugs and bowls.

“That water… Do you drink it?” Cheng Baak-hap asked.

“Yes,” replied Huo Tu, and his grin faded. “But… we get sick.”

They left the cave for the next destination. Chan Bik tapped Gaam Yuk Ying. “You’ve noticed it too, right? Shouldn’t we have seen some other demons by now?”

The five demons with them were from a single settlement, after all. There were many others around, or there should be. Where were they?

By the third destination, everyone was in a bad way.

Eyes red, Chan Bik and Gaam Yuk Ying’s heads turned ceaselessly, searching for dangers that weren’t there. Equally uneasy were Gong Lau Yan and Näkṣātär, the former rubbing her face continuously with a hand, the latter frowning deeper and deeper. Master Laan and the Third Daan-tin Novice from Ngo Mei that had travelled with Näkṣātär were both jumpy, sensing the unease of the others but not entirely certain what it meant.

Wong Tang’s face was pale as death.

Chan Bik realised Gaam Yuk Ying’s wasn’t much better. “Gaam Si-hing, are you alright?”

He responded with a jerky nod, but there was a sheen of sweat on his face.

“Are you sick?” She frowned, her eyes darting back to him even as she scanned the empty horizon.

“It’s fine.”

“You’re sweating a lo-”

“It’ll go away by itself,” he said coldly, by which he clearly meant ‘drop it’. Chan Bik struggled with herself for a moment before returning to her surveillance.

The third location featured three flat, standing rocks, their flattened sides facing each other. Other than their enormous size, there was nothing particularly remarkable about them.

As the group stepped between them, a sudden pressure made their knees buckle. Cheng Baak-hap was forced into a kneel, almost followed by Chan Bik. The demons allowed themselves to be pressed to the ground. The rest stood with shaking legs, staring up at the three towering rocks.

With a huge effort, Wong Tang and Gong Lau Yan grabbed hold of the four Mount Faa and Ngo Mei disciples and hauled them out from the pressure field between the rocks. Näkṣātär and Master Laan staggered out, followed by the demons, who simply crawled along the ground until they could rise again. Gaam Yuk Ying crouched in the shade of the stones, eyes shut.

“What exactly is all this?” Master Laan demanded, dusting off his dark blue and white robes to hide his shaking hands.

“Their gods,” Wong Tang murmured, and she shivered. It sent a ripple through her companions.

“We shouldn’t have come,” Näkṣātär snarled, her face sprouting fur in her agitation. “For once, that fool Shikladak was right.”

The Ngo Mei disciple looked ready to bolt, with Master Laan not too far behind. Cheng Baak-hap gripped Chan Bik’s hand tightly. Gaam Yuk Ying remained motionless, eyes closed. Gong Lau Yan looked at Wong Tang.

“A-po…”

“We have to find out what happened,” the Grandmaster said quietly.

“Can we find that out somewhere safer?” Näkṣātär snapped.

It was as if Wong Tang hadn’t heard her. The Grandmaster whirled to face the five demons, her face twisted with an expression that no-one had ever expected to see on the great goddess, that gripped their hearts with a hand of ice.

Even the ever-impassive Gaam Yuk Ying felt an old, old emotion claw its way to the front of his brain, one he had not felt since he was a small child in his family home.

Fear.

“What happened here? What happened?”

“The gods were here,” Dǎo’s voice came in a whisper. “Only one is here.”

“You mean there’s one left?” Cheng Baak-hap asked, translating for the others. “The rest are gone?”

The ghostly pale demon digested the words, then agreed.

“Do you know where they are?”

Pale Dǎo seemed confused. “You see them.”

Everyone looked to the trio of stones. They seemed to loom ominously.

But when Cheng Baak-hap pointed to them and said, “this?” Dǎo replied, “No.”

Black-smoke Huán grew a long series of tendrils and shaped them into the approximation of huge oval.

“The portal?” Cheng Baak-hap staggered upright, supported by Chan Bik. “That’s a god?”

Some of the demons said yes, others said no. All in all, they struggled to express exactly what they meant.

“Grandmaster? Should we look at the portal again?”

But Wong Tang was beyond hearing. She remained staring at the stones, her golden eyes shaking, her whole body shaking. Frozen between reaching out and curling back, Gong Lau Yan watched her grandmother wordlessly. Everyone watched.

What do you do, when the centre of your world is shocked to her core?

The Ngo Mei disciple was the first to break. She ran.

Master Laan was next. He backed away, eyes darting over the scene, before he turned and flew over the barren landscape, his feet only occasionally touching the ground.

Cheng Baak-hap was shaking between Chan Bik and Gaam Yuk Ying. They automatically drew closer as if to shield her.

With a growl, Näkṣātär transformed. A huge, green-eyed wolf, pale-furred, stood in her place. It glared at them all, then stalked away.

Without even sparing the retreating wolf a second glance, Gong Lau Yan turned on her grandmother. “A-po, are we just going to stand here?”

The Grandmaster shuddered, but pulled herself together with an effort. “The portal… we should…”

“Perhaps we’ll get a clue about how Teem Djeung Baak is able to make portals too.”

Everyone turned to look at Gong Lau Yan. “What?”

“… Little Gaam, didn’t you tell them?”

“I forgot.”

Forgot? There was a collective mental slapping of foreheads as Gaam Yuk Ying briefly explained what he had seen. Cheng Baak-hap turned urgently to the demons.

“The portal… How…” She was jumbling her words in her anxiety. “How are they made?”

But no-one could give her an answer beyond, “The god makes them.”

There was nothing to do except go and look at the portal again, but as they gathered around it, Gaam Yuk Ying finally said, “Where are all the demons?”

“I was thinking the same thing,” said Gong Lau Yan. “It doesn’t look good.”

Again, the demons with them had no answer. The loong princess frowned. “I’m going to go back to the Mortal Realm to check the situation.”

But she looked dubiously at the portal. “It always felt a bit weird going through here. Is it… what the hell is this thing? A god made it? Or is it… the remains of…?”

Cheng Bak-haap tried asking the demons again. “This was made by a god?”

“Yes.”

“Can another person make them?”

The responses were generally “no”. But Chan Bik, the whites of her eyes growing redder by the second, glared at Huo Tu. “Wait. You know something.”

Her irises flashed pink, the sight arts of the Clear Sight School activating. Whether as a threat or in humour, Huo Tu bared his teeth. Barely three heartbeats had passed before Chan Bik’s eyes reverted to their normal colour, but her breathing had sped up, and she looked ready to tear something apart.

Or someone.

“Bik Bik-”

“The god taught her.” Chan Bik pressed her hands to her sore eyes, briefly. “Huo Tu saw them from a distance… It’s not clear but…”

“Where are the other demons?” Cheng Baak-hap asked again.

This time, the five demons exchanged glances with each other. Huo Tu bared his teeth again. There was no mistaking it this time, it was a grin.

He pointed to the portal.