Jian strolled along the rooftop of the medicine hall. She was trying to look for a way inside, but it was a half-hearted attempt. Even if she found a way inside, and managed to sneak past the Inner Disciple physician to get into the basement, she’d probably trip some security script and get crushed into a gory paste.
Maybe it wouldn’t be that bad, but she was sure there’d be something equally outrageous and unfair. Even after two years in the sect, she was still sick of the recurring pattern of giving disciples just enough resources to crave more and then punishing them for overreaching.
In the end, all it did was incentivize cruelty.
In a way, it was like she’d never left the mines. She’d just crawled out of one pot to find herself trapped in a bigger one. Get out of the mines and into the city. Get out of the city and into the Outer Sect. Next would be getting out of the Outer Sect and into the Inner Sect.
Every step of the way, people would be tearing each other apart for an edge up, and yet she couldn’t see an end in sight.
She wasn’t quite the same girl anymore. She was stronger now, better able to avoid trouble and better prepared to dish it out first if she had to, but she still felt too fragile, too vulnerable to the cruelty the strong could visit on the weak.
Maybe if she descended through enough Realms of the Soul to become an Immortal like the sect Elders, she’d finally be free.
She’d only seen one of the Elders so far, and he hadn’t even looked human. He’d been a moving statue, with skin made of smooth stone. If the stories were true, Immortals were unaging and virtually unkillable. Surely someone like that was free? Free of death, free of loneliness, free of fear.
But, if she was ever going to survive long enough to get there, she’d need an edge. She was good at running away, but if she was ever caught by someone stronger than her, she knew she'd bleed out quickly. She had been hoping the apothecary could have some kind of super-medicine, some elixir that could bring someone back from the brink of death. If she was really lucky, maybe she’d find a hint on how to get a healing affinity. Water or Life affinities would be ideal, but she’d even take something like Blood.
She wasn’t sure she’d ever feel safe until she knew nothing could kill her.
She was desperate enough that she would take anything put in front of her, but not quite desperate enough to risk breaking into the apothecary hall with no guarantee of what she’d find.
Getting killed wouldn’t help her stay alive.
She sat down on the edge of the roof. She could feel tears burning the back of her eyes and looked up, forcing the urge down. She focused on the ceiling overhead instead, tracing the glowing roots of the Crystal Tree Spirit. They poked through and wound across the rock so thickly that they almost completely covered it, but the pattern looked straighter and more orderly than usual. Presumably, that meant the spirit was in a good mood. The daylight might last an extra hour or two.
That was at least one benefit to her new cage.
The entire concept of daylight still felt indulgent to her. Behind the walls that surrounded the sect, the roots grew sparser the further they got from the center of the cavern. By the time they reached the shallow edge of the eighth ring, the roots were completely out of sight. They had to rely on suffocating torchlight if they wanted to see, and even that had been forbidden beyond the First of a Hundred Veils. In comparison, the sect grounds were practically a paradise.
Except now, she was alone. It hurt, but she had to keep going. She had to make it worth it, or else what was the point?
Jian sprung up, ruminations forgotten She’d heard something.
She creeped to the other side of the roof and looked down to see three older disciples shoving a younger boy against the alley’s wall. It felt nauseatingly nostalgic. She’d been in that kid’s place more than once before she’d wised up and learned to stay out of sight. It was baffling that so few of the other disciples realized just how easy it was to hide when they were given so much space.
The boy had fallen on his knees, barely keeping himself upright while leaning against the wall. He must have already taken a few hits before she noticed what was going on.
She was considering scaring away the whole group before things got any worse, when someone shifted and she managed to catch a glimpse of the boy’s face.
She froze.
His face was too sharp, his skin was too clear, and his hair was too short. He didn’t actually look anything like the boy in her memories.
But he felt like Duyi.
And the boy leading the pack of wolves felt like Jin.
That boy lifted a fist.
Regret and pain overwhelmed her, and she spun away from the sight before the blow could land. She didn’t know why, but she knew that if she stepped in and helped, something awful would happen. Something she couldn’t bear.
She stepped away from the roof’s edge.
And came face to face with a woman dressed in jade.
She spoke, and her voice was soft and deafening. It wrapped around her like a metal fist wrapped in velvet. Inescapable.
[No.] The Deicide boomed. [You can lie to yourself, but not to me. Continue.]
***
As soon as one of the boys lifted his fist, Jian didn’t hesitate to act. Her hand reached out of the shadows and wrapped around the boy’s arm before his fist could land. He tried to yank it free in surprise, but Jian tightened her grip until she felt the bones of his arm rub against each other.
He screamed and she let go, pulling her hand back through the shadows before stepping out into the light a few meters away from the group.
“What’s going on here?” She said.
Everyone in the alley wore the same white robes that marked them as Outer Disciples, but she noticed each of the boys was wrapped in a pale blue sash that signaled they were still languishing on the first step of the Lithic Realm. The weakest a cultivator could be and still call themselves one.
Meanwhile, she noticed the boys’ eyes take in her dark blue sash before they tensed in apprehension. Despite her distaste of the sect, she had not been idle the past two years. She was only one step above them, but even a single step could feel like an insurmountable wall.
“Elder Sister.” The boys greeted her with a bow, despite the fact they were all older than her and at least a head taller. “We apologize if we were blocking your path. We are not doing anything worthy of your notice.”
“No? This younger brother of yours seems fairly distressed for something of no note.”
The three boys glanced at each other before the lead one spoke up. “Brother Zhou was merely lamenting his poor cultivation and asked us to help him practice. We were just showing him a few pointers he could make use of in sparring classes.”
“In the alley behind the library?”
“The practice field is quite busy at this time, Elder Sister. We didn’t want to bother the older disciples.”
“I see, that is quite considerate of you.” Jian smiled, letting hope begin to build in the disciples’ eyes before she crushed it. “The sect teaches that good deeds should be returned in kind. Allow me to reward you by giving you some pointers myself.”
“That won’t be necessary, Elder Sister.” The boy said, sweating.
“Oh, I think it is.”
Before they could protest further, the shadow of the wall behind Jian deepened and stretched towards her. She stomped her foot down and it pushed through the shadows on the floor as if she were standing on water instead of stone. In the same instant, her foot reappeared from the shadow cast by the lead boy and slammed into his ankle.
He screamed as his bones audibly snapped and he fell to the floor.
Jian broke into a dash towards the second boy, calling on the nearby shadows to stretch and coil around her to make her harder to see. She intended to make this quick.
To the second boy’s credit, he reacted faster than his friend. He spun to follow her and whipped his foot in a circle across the ground. The cobblestones around him rippled in response, rotating in a thin ring to match the movement of his foot.
But he was too slow. She was already standing in his shadow and, while the ground beneath her might have moved, the shadow he cast stayed still. She felt the stone slide underneath her, but her footing stayed secure.
Thrown off by his trick not working, the boy fumbled his way into a punch, but she stepped inside his open arms and slammed the heel of her palm into his chin hard enough to lift him off the ground. Then, quicker than gravity could pull him back down, she twisted into a full body kick that launched him down and into the boy clutching his ankle.
Both went skidding across the ground, unable to stop their own momentum.
When she closed in on the last boy, he’d had enough time to form a thick crystal vambrace across his arm and sported an equally rough crystal dagger in his hand. A crystal affinity could actually be a bad matchup for her, but she doubted his knife was even sharp enough to cut her. It might as well be a toy.
She closed the distance quickly and when he brought his armored arm down in a desperate swing, she caught the blow and twisted it. She ducked under his center of mass and redirected the force of his attack, flipping him over her back and throwing him to the side.
She’d learned that move two weeks ago when an Inner Disciple had finally deigned to make an appearance and teach one of the combat classes. She’d been waiting for an opportunity to use it.
He hit the wall with a thud, but kept his feet under him as he bounced off. When he straightened himself, a second crystal vambrace had already started to form over his other arm.
She wouldn’t allow that.
She shoved one hand into the shadow cast by the opposite sleeve of her robe, and it reappeared out of the shadowed wall directly behind him. She grabbed a fistful of his hair and savagely yanked her hand back out of her sleeve. Unfortunately, she wasn’t strong enough yet to bring another person through her shadows.
Unfortunate for him, that is. While her hand slipped back into the shadows, the back of his head slammed into the stone wall of the library.
He collapsed instantly.
Jian turned casually back to the first two boys as the apparent leader shoved his unconscious friend off of him and leveraged himself onto one knee. He must’ve been an idiot, because instead of surrendering he reached toward the canteen hanging from his waist and grabbed it like a sword scabbard.
“Bitch!” He yelled, as he flicked the cap off in a practiced motion. Pressurized water shot from the canteen in a thin jet, but he’d made the mistake of aiming for her head and all she had to do was lean slightly to the side to let it pass her by. She reached her hands into her sleeves again, one reaching up to crush the boy’s broken ankle in a vice grip while the other squeezed the canteen shut.
Her bare hands crumpled the thin metal easily.
“Fuck!” The boy yelled in pain, falling on his side.
Jian walked calmly towards him and placed a slippered foot against his head.
“I do hope that was instructive. Do you feel like you learned something?”
She pressed down on his head, grinding his cheek into the stone.
“Yes, Elder Sister.” He said through gritted teeth.
Jian’s fingers played idly with the hilt of the knife she still carried everywhere. She could already tell this one was too belligerent to have actually learned his lesson, but he also wasn’t much of a risk. This boy wasn’t a Jin. He might make himself a pain in the ass, but he wasn’t going to kill anyone if she left him alive. She could afford to be better than that now.
“Good.” She said, instead of doing anything drastic. “Now, stay there a moment.”
She flexed her soul and the shadows cast over him took on a literal weight. It was barely heavier than a pile of feathers, but the promise of violence it provided should keep him in line. He didn’t know that it was the heaviest she could make them, after all.
“Now. How are you doing?” She said to the group’s would-be victim. She was glad he hadn’t run in the chaos, but she’d purposefully kept the fight brief to avoid that.
The kid bowed deeply enough that his head probably ended up lower than his knees.
“Thank you, Elder Sister.”
Jian frowned. The poor kid was shaking like a leaf.
“How much of that demonstration did you see?” She asked.
“Um. I’m not-.” He trailed off without finishing his sentence. She waited for another beat, but his silence stretched and she saw his knees shaking.
Jian sighed.
“I find that the best strategy when you are outnumbered, is to avoid being seen in the first place.”
The boy made a high pitched keening sound, so he was probably paying attention at least. Jian continued.
“The second best strategy though, is to use overwhelming force as soon as possible. Strike first, strike hard, and even the odds before the fight starts.”
Oh good, that made him look up from the floor at least, even if his eyes were still a little wide.
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“And don’t do what that idiot did. If you have a ranged striking attack like his, aim for the chest. You’re less likely to miss that way, Even if they dodge, at least you’ll make them work for it. It’s easier to lean your head out of the way than move your whole body.”
“What is this!?” The boy on the floor yelled. He really did have a poor survival instinct.
“Hmm? I’m giving him pointers for combat sparring of course?”
Jian’s head turned back to the kid in front of her. “Did you say something?” She asked gently.
“You- you don’t have to do that, Elder Sister.” The kid mumbled. “I’m just a Torch.”
“You have a Light affinity then?”
“Yes.” He said, so quietly Jian could barely hear him.
“I see, and what does that have to do with me giving you pointers?”
The question seemed to throw him and leave him stammering.
“But I can’t fight in the first place!” He said, finally looking her in the eye. “This is the Abyssal Palace Sect! The only way I’m getting through the doors of the Inner Sect as a Torch is to light up their hallways for them. You have a Darkness affinity, don’t you, Elder Sister? I can’t… I can’t be like you.”
“Would you like to be?”
“What?”
“Would you like to be like me? Or at least, strong enough to stand up to losers like these?”
“I- I don’t like fighting in the first place, Elder Sister.”
“Hmm, that doesn’t really answer my question. Get strong enough and you’ll end more fights with words than fists.”
The boy looked around her at the three other disciples sprawled on the floor. He was afraid to contradict her, but he wasn’t very good at hiding his expressions.
“That wasn’t a fight.” Jian said with a smile. “That was a lesson. Now, your answer?”
“Then… yes. Yes, I would.”
“Good.” Jian put her hands together and bowed gently towards him. “You may call me Jian.”
The boy hurriedly matched her bow. “This one is Zhou Weisheng, Elder Sister.”
Ah, so she really had heard his name correctly. Zhou Weisheng, the son of the late Sword of Guizong, the Dust Immortal. The sect would’ve been obligated to take him in, but one of the Elders had likely arranged for him to receive a Light affinity as a ‘subtle’ insult. Ridiculous.
She hated this place, but at least their mistake would be her gain.
“I said to call me Jian.” She said with a frown.
“I heard you, Elder Sister.”
“Fine, be like that.” She sniffed. “How old are you, Weisheng. Actually, that name is awful. You’re Wei now.”
“Oh, I’m twelve. But I actually like my-”
“Ha!” Jian preened. “Then I truly am the Elder Sister. I’ll be fourteen at year’s end.”
A choking sound came from the ground nearby.
“Congratulations, Elder Sister.” Wei clapped hesitantly.
Jian nodded, satisfied. “Thank you. Now, show me what a Light affinity can do.”
“You don’t already know? But you said-”
“Shut up and show me.”
“...yes, Elder Sister.”
He screwed his eyes shut, a look of concentration on his face, and slowly he began to glow. It came from his whole body, as if he were one of the roots on the ceiling, but it didn’t start particularly bright. After a few seconds it reached a peak that Jian found hard to look at, but then it started dimming until it shut off and Wei leaned on his knees, panting.
“Okay, I can work with this.”
“You can!?” He asked incredulously between breaths.
Jian nodded. “Yup. Your power is fine, you’re just stupid.”
“Oh.”
“Why would you light up your whole body like that? It looked exhausting.”
“There aren’t any Light affinity instructors in the Outer Sect.” He said defensively.
“There is now. Give me your hand.”
“Wait, what-”
Jian grabbed his hand and pulled it towards her before he could get away. He struggled a bit, but once Jian had it in her grip, it wouldn’t budge. He would learn to adapt eventually.
“Make it only come out of your hand.” She said.
“How?”
Jian stopped and thought about it for a second.
“I don’t know. Just do it.”
She thought about it a second more.
“Maybe just like, visualize it and then swish the qi around? Go kapow or something. You know?”
Wei sighed and concentrated before he started lighting up again. It went faster the second time, but he couldn’t keep it contained to just his hand. Instead, everything from his chest to the tips of his fingers started glowing.
“Did that do it?” Wei asked, peeking one eye open.
Jian sighed. It looked like she would have to try a bit harder after all.
“Next time don’t close your eyes and you’ll see it yourself.”
“Sorry.”
“It was an improvement, but you can do better. When you’re stronger, you won’t have to worry about this, but for now focus on the flow of your qi. Your heart is the home of your soul, and your blood is its conduit. Visualize it starting in your heart and traveling down to your hand, but hold it back, let it pool just beneath the skin of your palm until you can’t take it anymore.”
He looked at her in shock.
“That sounded like real advice!”
“Of course it did.” She said defensively. “I’m not stupid like you. I know things.”
Jian let him go and stepped back as he followed her instructions. His control slipped a few times, but after a couple minutes of trying he held out his hand.
“Okay, I think I have it.”
“Now let it go, and push it out all at once.”
She watched as he took a deep breath, and then a blinding light flashed from his palm and swallowed the alley in white. Every shadow, except the one directly behind each of them, disappeared. It left Jian blinking spots out of her eyes.
“I did it!” Wei shouted, practically vibrating.
“Excellent.” Jian said, turning and walking down the alley. “What we need now is a willing volunteer.”
She bent down and grabbed the leg of the disciple lying on the ground. She dragged him across the cobblestone easily despite his protests.
“Fuck! Stop! That hurts!”
“You didn’t think I forgot about you, did you?” Jian chuckled. “Look, you said you wanted to give Wei pointers right? Then this is perfect. A real win-win situation.”
“I’m sorry already! Just let me go!”
Jian reached down, grabbed the front of his robes, and yanked him up onto his feet. She ignored the scream as he landed on his broken ankle and held him in place when he tried going limp before turning to Wei.
“Did this guy ever force you to loan him money? Or resources?”
Wei looked nervous, but he must’ve still been riding the high of fresh accomplishment, because he quickly steeled himself and nodded. “Yeah. The medicine hall gives me some Light qi supplements every other week, but these guys always took them from me immediately after. I tried staying inside the hall once to take them, but they always kick me out pretty quickly.”
Jian nodded and looked toward the boy in her hand. “Debts should be repaid. That’s something the sect elders say every once in a while, right? Probably means it’s important, don’t you agree?”
The boy tried to swing a punch at her, but Jian just pulled him closer and slammed her forehead into his face. He recoiled with a bloody nose, but was held fast by Jian’s grip.
She casually reached into his robes and pulled out a small pouch. She shook it a bit, to hear the faint clinking of pills rubbing against each other, and tossed it over her shoulder to Wei without taking her eyes off the idiot in her hands.
“Look,” she said seriously, “I get you’re probably desperate if you’re resorting to stealing something as inefficient as Light pills when you have a Water Resonance, but even you have to admit it’s pretty pathetic.”
The boy was practically crying. “It’s just how things work. The seniors always take everything. Who else are we supposed to take from? Everyone preys on the disciples below them, it’s how things work! It’s how we survive! It’s not personal.”
“Oh boo-hoo, it’s so hard to be you.” Jian tutted. “Well, in that case, let’s say your debt is almost cleared.”
“Almost?” He whimpered.
“Wei, can you hand me one of those light pills?”
Wei hesitated for a moment, before pulling a small green and white pill out of the pouch and handing it to her. That was good, he was still scared, but he was trusting her.
She let go of the boy’s robes for a moment to take out her dagger and make a small cut on the pill. Wei made a noise, but sighed and stayed silent. That was also good, he was learning to adapt. She took a sniff of the pill and dabbed it with her tongue.
Her face wrinkled at the taste and she started scraping the taste off of her tongue with her teeth.
“Disgusting, but at least I know what it is. The main ingredient is probably Heartcore Moss.”
“Moss!?”
Jian sighed. Of course, he didn’t know what it was. He didn’t grow up in the Veils. “Yes, it’s moss. That’s not important. What’s important is that I know where we could get some more. I already go there occasionally to get Oblivion Buds. I know someone in the medicine hall that will trade them for completed pills, which I assure you is much better than eating them raw.”
“Is that allowed?”
“Nobody’s ever stopped me.” Jian shrugged, as if that answered the question. “But we’ll worry about that later. For now, let’s practice that new technique of yours.”
She stepped behind the barely standing boy she’d caught bullying Wei and pressed her dagger lightly against his back. Just hard enough that she knew he could feel it.
“This fellow disciple just volunteered to help you, as the final step in repaying his debt to you. Isn’t that right?”
The boy swallowed and nodded. “That’s right.”
Wei looked hesitant, it seemed like his default expression if Jian was being honest, but after a moment he smiled and put his hand in front of the boy’s face. Jian looked away, and a few seconds later a bright light flashed from Wei’s hand to the accompanying sound of a boy’s screaming.
“Good! It goes through eyelids. That’s useful!” Jian said cheerily. “But it’s still way too slow, so we’ll keep practicing until you’re either exhausted or we get it down to a one second charge! And don’t worry about the practice dummy, I’ll hold his head in place.”
“Yes, Elder Sister!” Wei said.
“Again!” She called. She was answered by a flash of light and a whimper.
Jian smiled. She was starting to think she might enjoy teaching.
***
Jian woke up to the sound of laughter booming through the room.
“Amazing!” The Woman in Red laughed. “Ah, the standards of education may have evaporated, but I’m glad to see that the youth of today can still be so entertaining.”
Jian stayed silent. She ignored the disgusting taste in her mouth the memory had given her and focused on carefully flexing her muscles one at a time. She could feel the stiffness from her coma fade away almost instantly. The Liminal Realm had done wonders, pushing her body to near perfection. It was almost unimaginable how much stronger she was now than she had been in that nearly decade old memory.
And that only made things more frustrating. There was always someone above her, someone stronger, who dictated the walls of her cage.
Her eyes focused on the Deicide. The Woman in Red was an enigma, but in the end it didn’t matter if she was an Echo or another Immortal. The room belonged to the strongest person in it, and the Broken Immortal hadn’t moved. She was just staring into space. From this close, Jian could see the spider web of cracks covering her more clearly. Entire pieces of her body floated in the air beside her, the gap large enough for Jian to see entirely through, while other cracks were filled in with a featureless white blankness that was hard to look at. They clustered over her chest so thickly that they obscured it completely.
This was a creature that could dictate the lives of a nation, had forever changed the balance of power across the entire world, but now she just looked tired.
“What was it she said?” The Woman in Red asked. She pitched her voice higher, imitating Jian’s younger self. “‘Do you feel like you learned something?’”
When the Deicide didn’t answer, her crimson copy chuckled anyway. “Well I, for one, learned so much! You could see it too, right? The parallels to Gu and the ruminations on concentric prisons of Samsara? It’s delicious!”
She stopped and glided towards Jian, so happy her feet were no longer touching the ground. “Oh little Jian, even your idea of rising above the cycle included tormenting the other residents of your prison. It’s a Truth you can’t escape. It’s ‘just how things work,’ isn’t it?”
Jian stayed silent. There wasn’t much else she could do. Maybe the creature’s excitement meant it wouldn’t kill her. Maybe she had a safety net where she could lash out or act clever without immediately dying. But it was only a maybe. There was still a chance that if she said the wrong thing, set the Woman in Red or the Deicide off somehow, they could kill her with a thought. She couldn’t take risks like that.
She’d come too far to die now.
And besides, the monster wasn’t wrong.
“I can’t do this.” The Deicide finally said. Her words were soft, with no divine mandate or magnification behind them. They were barely audible. They felt as tired as she looked.
“Oh get off it!” The Woman in Red snapped. “This is working!”
“And what if it doesn’t? Adopting that kid shows a clear need for validation and companionship. We could just as easily end up with an Immortal of Teaching instead of anything useful.”
“Oh please! We both know how that story ends, don’t we Jian?” She leaned over the table, pressing her face closer until her wide smile filled all of Jian’s vision. “I can already tell just by looking at you. You just want to be an Immortal so bad, right? You wouldn’t let a little familial yearning stop you. Yes, I think these memories are doing an excellent job of reminding you of exactly who you are.”
“Stop talking to her!” The Deicide snapped. “Stop influencing her. You don’t know anything. Everything you’re doing is just making things worse.”
“Oh relax, nothing we say is going to change anything.”
“You don’t know that. You don’t know anything. It’s all just guesswork.”
“All knowledge is based on that which we cannot prove.”
“Don’t fucking quote me!”
“What’s so wrong with quoting a dead woman?”
“I’m right here!”
“And? The ghosts you carry are more alive than you are.”
Deicide's hand blurred and her mirror’s face popped like a bloody balloon, coating the walls and discarded scrolls in a sheet of red. It was so fast, so immediate, that Jian hadn’t seen a thing.
Laughter filled the room. Even without a head, the Woman in Red’s mirth spilled out without a source, as if it were coming from everywhere at once.
Slowly, the blood started lifting in streams from where it painted the walls. It flowed in reverse, quicker and quicker, pooling above the ruined stump of the woman’s neck until it abruptly twisted and reformed her head with a sickening squelch.
“There she is! There’s the woman who’s resolve shook the very Firmament above!” She let her arms fall and raised a brow, a smirk across her face. “Feel better?”
“No.”
“Hmm, oh well. I’m sure it’ll work one day, but I'll stop distracting you. Help make our little seed here bloom.”
“No.” The Deicide said, her voice carrying nothing but exhaustion again. “I can’t do this again. I can’t be disappointed again.”
“Oh come on. A lotus flower has to push through the muck before it can bloom.”
The Deicide removed the bisected corpse of The King of Hell like she would a well-worn coat and tossed it to her red twin.
“Make it bloom yourself.”
She promptly fell backwards, lying down in a pile of ruined artwork.
The Woman in Red looked at the Slayer of Gods and her discarded Mantle of Souls in disappointment and sighed.
“Fine. Fine. I guess I can baby you a little while longer.” She slipped the corpse over her shoulders and clenched her fist a few times, like she was testing a tight fitting glove. She turned back to Jian.
“Alright muck, I guess it’s time to get our hands dirty.”