Jian and Wei stood in the spot of honor by Elder Shen Hui’s right side when Yan Feng fell from the minor Nightmare.
The inky black membrane bulged grotesquely before parting and sliding slowly over Yan Feng’s body as it spit him out. He hung for a moment, the grasping Nightmare unwilling to give him up, before gravity asserted itself and he fell the three meters to the stone floor in a graceless heap.
Jian suppressed a grin.
She was practically vibrating with smug excitement. Elder Shen Hui had pumped an obscene amount of resources into Yan Feng to incentivize his ‘rivalry’ with Wei. The asshole had been a constant thorn in her side since the day she’d taught Wei to stand up for himself. He’d been enough of a threat that she’d been forced to remember his name. It had been infuriating.
Now he was clutching his broken arm to his chest as he limped towards them, while she and Wei stood without a scratch.
She’d be cackling if it wasn’t for the Elder’s presence. She could physically feel the anger radiating off of him, and it sobered her just enough to keep herself in check. The hair on her skin rose and fell in waves as micro-changes in the air pressure washed over them. But, for all his power, for all his invincibility compared to her, he couldn’t do anything but stew. The chains of honor wrapped him tight. To lift a hand against a lowly Outer Disciple would make him look petty and pathetic.
So long as she didn’t do anything stupid, his hands were tied.
Her resolve not to laugh almost broke when she saw the triumphant look in Yan Feng’s eyes turn to confusion. He missed a step, almost stumbling, and she could practically see the thoughts banging around his head as he took in their positions. The slow realization. The disbelief.
Jian and Wei stood alone by the Immortal of Pressure’s right hand. On his left were arrayed the thirteen other disciples who had failed their contest. Some kneeled, too broken to stand, as they clutched at still bleeding wounds. They were forbidden from seeking medical attention until the winners were announced.
They wouldn’t have to wait much longer.
The Elder tilted his head to the side and the sharp crack of shattered stone broke the silence. His skin cracked to accommodate the motion and then reformed into smooth unbroken stone in the same instant.
Jian suppressed a shiver at the sound.
“And what did you bring me from the Nightmare, young Yan Feng?” the Elder asked with false patience, his mouth moving with eerily fluidity compared to the rest of his rigid body. He stood as still as the statues he resembled, not even bothering to breathe.
“I lost?” Yan Feng asked with disbelief. He lifted his fist, streams of red light leaking through the cracks in his fingers. He opened his fist slowly, staring at the beacon he’d risked life and limb to steal from Jian; that he’d taken the wrath of a Nightmare Lord to keep. His hand was shaking as he stiffly dropped it into the Elder’s palm.
Wei made the light blink out the instant before it touched the Elder’s skin.
The showoff.
“A glass marble.” The Elder said slowly. “Yes, truly a wonder that you found it in there, considering the craftsmanship. Why, the quality looks identical to the glass being sold in the Sixth Ring. One might be tempted to say it isn’t from the Nightmare at all.”
“I may not have retrieved the Jade, but I repelled the Nightmare Lord. I was the only one who could-”
“Did you know,” The Elder interrupted. “ Jian and Zhou brought me a piece of Shadow Jade. Straight from the nest of the Nightmare Lord.”
Yan Feng looked directly at her and, at last, she couldn’t hold back the hint of a smile. He’d never really had a chance.
Yan Feng cracked.
He lunged at her, swinging his fist artlessly. He was too exhausted for anything more.
Wei’s hand lit up like the Roots. He held it away from himself, so that his body blocked the flood of light. In the face of such brightness, the ambient light of the courtyard was overwhelmed, and Jian was cast in shadow. She locked herself relative to the new shadow, and when Wei moved his hand to shift the angle of the light, she moved with it.
Yan Feng’s fist swung through empty air, unbalancing him, and his body toppled after it.
He began falling, but slowed to a crawl until he was stuck in the air, halfway to the ground by Jian’s side. His breath was forced out of his body as chest constricted, the air around him suddenly denser than stone.
He looked at the Elder with wide eyes.
Jian didn’t envy him. She’d felt the Elder’s displeasure only once before, and it was an experience she never wanted to repeat. She imagined being buried alive might be more pleasant than the sensation of the air squeezing you in a tight fist, closing in on you like walls of stone until it emptied the air from your lungs and you started seeing spots.
Yan Feng hung, frozen in mid lunge, for one second. Then two. His skin started to compress. One of the fingers on his left hand snapped.
Only then, was he allowed to collapse to the floor.
“That’s enough Yan Feng.” The Elder said. “Step aside. You’ll be given the opportunity to participate in the trials again in two years time. It will be your final attempt.”
Yan Feng gasped for air.
“Yes, Elder.” He said between coughs, before stumbling into the line of rejects.
“Now then.” The Elder said, turning to Jian and Wei. “I believe it’s time to deliver your rewards.”
Jian couldn’t help being nervous as they turned toward the Gate to the Abyssal Palace. She had spent almost eight years as an outer disciple, and she had never been permitted through the gates. Forever relegated to the outer grounds that encompassed the First Ring, she had never actually seen the Palace their sect was named after.
To approach the Gate to the Abyssal Palace without permission was to court death, and she had never been permitted, but the bi-annual Choosing Grounds were always held right on the Threshold at the center of the Outer Sect. This was the closest she’d ever been to it.
The Gate itself was massive, a single unbroken circle of glossy black stone embedded into the ground at the innermost point, of the innermost ring, of the City of Eight Rings. It was the reason the First Ring was still called a “ring.” Relegated to being a mere accessory instead of the heart of the city.
The city itself only existed to funnel talent towards the Abyssal Palace, and the Abyss beyond it, like water down a drain.
Elder Shen Hui lifted his arm, a marbled hand peeking from his black stone sleeve, and snapped his fingers.
The ground shook.
The False Leviathans, each scale carved in stark relief onto the Gate, began swimming through the black stone. They slid up against and over each other, forming a roiling pit, before they sank beneath the surface. They were replaced by waves, rock churning and pebbles flying from the surf, as the surface of the gate began to sink downwards. The waves slowed, the rock pulled into a tense drum by a hidden hand. For a moment, the Gate was still.
Then it bloomed.
It surged upwards, splitting into layer after layer of massive petals folding themselves outward. The petals shifted and almost spun as the gate opened up like a flower, revealing an inky blackness at its center. A moment later, the petals slowly ground to a halt, stone scraping against stone.
And the Gate began to feed.
The minor Nightmare where they’d held their contest drifted down, like a soap bubble remembering it was still subject to gravity. It warped and stretched as it was pulled closer to the Gate, twisting. The Elders had shepherded it into place as it bubbled up from the Depths of the Abyss, and now it was time for it to return home.
The two membranes touched, trying to assert their claim to the same space, and the Nightmare lost. The bubble burst as the Greater Hell slurped down the lesser Nightmare in an instant, a sudden vacuum of air lifting Jian off the ground for a moment as a loud crack assaulted her ears.
She stumbled to a halt at the edge of the Gate, in the shadow of its petals.
Inside, the only thing left was an endless black pit.
Elder Shen Hui stepped past her to stand at the edge of that pit. He turned and tossed something casually to her and Wei, each of them fumbling to catch their first prize. Jian’s fingers clenched white around the tiny jade slip, thinner than a wafer, that would allow her access. The Elder looked at them for a moment, perhaps amused by their fumbling, and then tipped forward into the pit, disappearing into its depths.
Jian didn’t hesitate, and stepped into the darkness after him.
She tipped forward, like she’d seen the Elder do, and suddenly felt like she was passing through a pool of water, cold and wet. It was almost like the membrane of the Nightmare, only a hundred times more invasive and unsettling.
She couldn’t be sure if it was a second later, or a minute later, but abruptly she stopped falling through the artificial darkness and realized she was standing on solid ground. She wasn’t falling anymore, maybe she never had been.
She turned around and saw the pit in the ground behind her. As she looked, she saw the darkness of the pit congeal and start to stretch. Glossy shapes bubbled and pressed against the surface, mere suggestions of texture, before it parted and Wei finally slid out. His momentum carried him like a pendulum until he was standing beside her, blinking away a dazed expression.
She smiled at him, to let him know she was proud of how far they’d gotten, and how closely he’d followed behind her, but she didn’t dare speak a single word out loud. Despite his literal stone face, Elder Shen Hui had to still be fuming after she and Wei had managed to succeed in the selection exam, and purposefully bringing attention to yourself around a frustrated Immortal was as stupid as courting your own death.
She turned away from Wei, making sure to keep her face cool and impassive, when she finally looked up and truly saw where they were.
Her mouth slid open in shock.
Everywhere she looked were soaring walls and arches of shining crystal and glass. The thickness and transparency of the materials alternated as light and shadows danced over them. Hidden lights dyed sections of the palace with flickering red gradients, while shadows hid entire swaths of the palace from sight at random intervals. Other sections were so clear and open that she could see through wall after wall for hundreds of yards, all the way to the outer walls.
And the Abyss beyond them.
It was all around them, in every direction with a clear line of sight, but especially directly above them, through dozens of floors and soaring archways and the final panes of glass separating them. She could see it, like a background that the whole Palace was painted over, an endless expanse of dark water hovering just beyond the glass. It was a shade of black so deep that it made her blood run cold even as it called to her, tempting her to jump in. To jump in and start swimming deeper. Always deeper.
She started to feel the phantom sensations of water running down her back and the scent of blood in her nose, before a soft crack of stone made her snap towards where Elder Shen Hui stood in front of them. His face was still completely blank, even as he also craned his head up to look at the Abyss.
“Beautiful, isn’t it.” He said, softly. “Consider yourselves privileged to see it, but do not consider it an excuse to fall behind.”
She turned to get Wei’s attention, but he was already walking, a deep look of discomfort on his face, and Jian realized that the Hell surrounding the Palace might feel less inviting to someone with a Light Resonance.
Together, they followed the Elder up steps of an opaque and shimmering white crystal that seemed to make up the entire bottom floor. The same floor that had to separate them from the Outer Grounds and the rest of the city, gravity inverted like they had passed into a mirror.
As Jian mused, they quickly began to pass disciples with robes cinched in the red sashes of Inner Disciples, and even the occasional Core Disciple sashed with dark purple.
Each and every Core Disciple they passed looked at least five to ten years their elder and clearly in the prime of their life. Yet, Jian knew not a single one could be younger than thirty, and wouldn’t be at all surprised if some had already passed their hundredth year in the sect. They somehow stood taller than a man should, with powerful builds and unblemished skin, their bodies perfected and preserved by the rich qi they carried in their souls.
It was said a cultivator in the Liminal Realm could live a hundred years before starting to show signs of age, and easily live another two, or even three hundred more, before time claimed them.
Jian needed that power, the power to cheat and overcome death itself, needed it so desperately that it hurt. Each realm she descended through would lengthen her lifespan and, more importantly, give her more time to reach the next one.
One day, she would be Immortal.
With those thoughts swimming in the back of her head, her wonder and the environment and mystery of gravity forgotten, she and Wei followed the Elder up another sweeping staircase and across long halls.
Until, eventually, they saw a Torch.
He was the only other person they had seen so far wearing the same blue sash of an Outer Disciple that they still did, and he looked tired and haggard. He was easily the oldest looking person they had seen, well into his middle years. He stood to the side of the hall, near a crystal vase fused into the wall.
Wei’s steps faltered for a moment when they saw him, and Jian watched both him and the man out of the corner of her eye as the man lifted his hand over the opening to the vase.
She watched with dull surprise as the man cut his wrist with a bronze knife.
It wasn’t a very deep cut though, and the man’s blood dripped, rather than poured, into the vase. By the time they’d almost finished walking past him, he tilted his wrist up to slow the flow of blood and touched the vase with his other hand. The wall fixture lit up like a Light Root at his touch, adding a new blue-tinged and gentle light source to the shifting kaleidoscope illuminating the Palace.
Jian kept her mouth closed as they finished passing the Living Torch, keeping her eyes on Wei and watching the way his mouth tightened as they left him behind. It was a reminder of the future nearly all Light cultivators faced if they stayed in the Abyssal Palace, forever asked to drain their blood and qi to keep the Palace lit in the face of the crushing Abyss outside it. It was a future Wei had only narrowly avoided, and Jian couldn’t help but assume Elder Shen Hui had deliberately guided them to cross paths with the Torch.
She didn’t appreciate him tormenting her little brother and felt fresh resentment for the Immortal start to simmer. Resentment that only grew when she couldn’t act on it.
Two hallways later, they crossed into a section of the Palace subsumed in shadows. The walls were made of a thick and darker tinged crystal, dimming the flow of light until it disappeared completely. Jian couldn’t exactly see through the darkness with her eyes, but she could feel everything the dark touched as if she had mapped it out with the pads of her own fingers. She didn’t have any difficulty following the Elder into the shadows, while Wei simply continued to walk confidently, trusting in Jian to guide him.
They didn’t have to go much further though, before Jian felt the Elder stop in front of them and she followed suit, gently touching Wei to stop him from walking into her.
A crack of light appeared in front of them as a door started to open on its own, to reveal a room that seemingly clashed with the rest of the Palace’s aesthetic.
As Jian blinked to adjust her eyes to the new light, she took in walls paneled with beautiful hardwood, and free-standing torches burning sweet smelling wood whose smoke drifted up to coat the ceiling of a square room maybe ten meters across. She and Wei followed the Elder across a soft woven-wood floor that bounced pleasantly under their feet, their eyes glued to the only other feature dominating the room.
There was no far wall.
The room cut off abruptly, revealing the Abyss. It was so close that Jian could feel it, pressing down on them. There was no glass or crystal, the Abyss simply hung there, like a liquid curtain.
The Elder turned to them and Jian looked down, making sure not to voice her questions or her fears. The Elder would explain, or he wouldn’t.
“Yes, yes, it’s quite dramatic, calm down.” He said, sounding bored. “I can feel your racing heartbeats, but I assure you, you’re as safe here as anywhere else in the Palace. Just don’t jump into the Abyss, there’s no glass to stop you and even at this shallow depth it can crush a Lithic Realm cultivator.”
That was not as reassuring a statement as the Elder seemed to believe, and Jian noticed that he never actually said they were safe.
“This is a room used for closed-door cultivation.” He continued, uncaring. “Many of your elder disciples will come to rooms like this and stay for days, weeks, or even months at a time, meditating on the nature of their qi and their relationship to the Abyss. The Abyss itself is a potent source of dark, water, and blood qi, and I suspect that Jian, at least, will find rooms like this one quite useful in the future. Zhou Weisheng may have a harder time finding a room that fits him.”
Even with her eyes down, Jian could feel the smirk on Shen Hui’s lips.
“That aside, it’s also useful as a quiet space, separate from the noise of the rest of the Shallow Palace. It’s a better spot than you deserve to become acquainted with your rewards.”
Jian was embarrassed as her heartbeat quickened, knowing the Elder could hear it. She couldn’t help being excited.
Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.
“Jian, of no name, you may accept this sash as proof of your acceptance into the Inner Sect of the Abyssal Palace.” He said, pulling red cloth from his sleeves. “Wear it with pride and know that any shame you invite while wearing it will reflect on the sect as a whole. So don’t.”
“Yes, Elder Shen Hui.” Jian said softly. She lifted her hands and accepted the soft cloth that spilled over them, the excess length pouring over her hands and pooling on the floor like blood.
The Elder had already moved on.
“Zhou Weisheng, you may accept this sash as proof of your acceptance into the Inner Sect of the Abyssal Palace, wear it with pride and know that any shame you invite while wearing it will reflect on the sect as a whole. You will be held to a higher standard until you can wipe away the shame of your father.”
“Yes, Elder Shen Hui.” Wei said woodenly, and Jian hated the old man even more.
“Well, now that you are both Inner Disciples, you will not be permitted to languish in the Lithic Realm any longer. It is time for you both to Descend to the next Realm. This will be your third and final reward.”
Jian temporarily forgot her hatred, not even bothering to feel embarrassment at her excitement. Not even the Elder’s derisive chuckle could dissuade her.
“Several of the sect Elders have weighed in on the future paths you may walk. We have discussed what compatibilities are hidden within you and a decision has been made on the affinities you’ll be granted.”
Jian’s heart clenched, the first inklings of dread mixing in with her excitement.
“Jian, you have been granted a Sword Resonance, obtained in trade with the Flowing Metal Sect, from the Hell of the Molten River. It is the Elders’ hope that, combined with the mobility of your shadow affinity, you will always have means to strike your enemies wherever you may find yourself.”
Jian felt cold as the metallic gemstone was placed in her hand. She barely looked at it. She could read between the lines. Her enemies? He meant the sect’s enemies. She could see the future the sect Elders wanted spinning out in front of her, and she didn’t like the shape of it.
“Zhou Weisheng, you have been granted a Life Resonance, obtained in trade with the Divine Dream Sect, from the Hell of the Elysian Dream. It is the Elders’ hope that your Life affinity will be carried on your Light, allowing you to heal any ally your light may reach, regardless of the distance between you.”
Jian felt numb. A healer. A reassurance that even if an errant sword cut you down, you’d be able to stand up again. Safety.
Her hand shook, the sharp edges of her Sword gem cutting into her palm.
“It is our expectation that you will work hard to live up to these gifts. That you will reach the depths of the Asthenic Realm, and prove yourselves worthy of descending into the Liminal Realm beyond it. In anticipation of that, we have already put thought into your more distant futures. Jian, you will be permitted to cultivate a Body of Poison, so that even a glancing blow from your sword will have dire consequences. Zhou Weisheng, you will be permitted to cultivate a Body of Water, so that you may purify yourself and your allies alike where your healing might otherwise fail. You are both permitted to feel honored that Immortals would put so much care into your Paths.”
Ah, that sealed it. They would make her an assassin to be discarded, while making Wei indispensable. And Shen Hui had approved this? He hated Wei; she was sure of it. In fact, why had Shen Hui even told them what their Liminal affinities would be? It would be five, maybe ten years before the sect would allow them to reach the Liminal Realm, with no telling what direction their new Resonance would develop in or what techniques they would learn.
This was-
Something shook the Palace, breaking Jian’s thoughts. She almost couldn’t bring herself to care, but fear was always an effective motivator for her, and she forced herself to focus on the Elder.
He had been smiling after he announced their Resonances, but she watched his face go blank. His stone eyes were locked on something in the distance, unobstructed by the walls of the Palace.
“The Patriarch has returned from his latest Hunt.” The Elder’s voice was cold and even, but he spoke too quickly. He was surprised, and maybe afraid.
If he wasn’t, then Jian would be afraid enough for both of them. She never wanted to meet the Patriarch in her life.
“He has asked for the Elders to attend him at the Deep Palace.” He turned to them. “I will leave you to ingest and attune to your new Resonances. Find a Core Disciple when you are done and they will figure out what to do with you.”
Without a single word more, the Elder walked to the boundary between their room and the Abyss, and stepped through it, disappearing completely.
Jian held her breath for ten heartbeats, and then ten more, before she convinced herself that he was really gone.
She turned to Wei, who already had his new Resonance Gem held up to his mouth, a look of joy on his face.
“No!” She yelled, grabbing his wrist. “Don’t take it yet!”
“What?” He jolted, surprised. “Why not?”
“Wei, please, we need to swap affinities, right now.”
“What? Why would we do that? The Elder said-”
“I know what the Elder said!” She shouted, unable to stop herself. “And if we do what the Elder said, I’ll be dead within a few decades. Dark, Sword, and Poison? What do you think they expect me to do with those? They’re trying to make me an assassin, Wei.”
“We can’t be sure that’s-”
“We can be sure! What else would they want me to do with those Resonances, pick flowers? Do you know the average lifespan of an assassin? I don’t, but I do know how many Disciples with qi combinations like that go missing on seemingly mundane missions. I’ll be dead before I even make it to Liminal.”
Wei tried to step back, but she tightened her grip and pulled him closer. He was as strong as she was now, but he was hesitant, while she was filled with frantic strength.
“This is Shen Hui punishing me, Wei. Punishing me for befriending you, for lifting you out of the Outer Sect. I never thought he would be able to just, dictate our futures like that! The only way out of this is if we swap.”
A look of guilt crossed Wei’s face, and Jian’s hopes soared at the sight, before he pulled away again.
“Jian, no. I don’t want a Sword Resonance. I don’t want to be a fighter. Life qi will go perfectly with Light qi. I can just make sure to stick by you on any mission they send you on. I can heal you if you get hurt. Together we can make this work. That’s how we get through this.”
“No no no no no. What, are you afraid they’ll make you an assassin instead? They won’t. Your illusions are potent, but you don’t have the mobility. You’ll still be safe. If anything, they might make you a duelist. Imagine what a combination of sword and light qi might do! Maybe you could cut anyone your light shines on? Nobody can outrun the speed of light. You could end fights in an instant that way. You’d be strong, Wei.”
“No.” Wei said again, trying to pull his hand out of Jian’s grip. “I don’t need to be stronger, Jian, we’re already strong enough together. And have you considered that this could be a trap? What if Shen Hui wants us to swap affinities, so he has an excuse to punish us? What if they make me the first Inner Disciple to be relegated to Torch work?”
“Of course it’s a trap!”
“Then why are you falling for it!” He yelled back. “We’ve gotten by this far by playing inside the sect’s rules. As long as we keep doing that, Shen Hui’s honor will prevent him from acting directly. You’re the one who told me that!”
“He’s already acting directly! This will get me killed Wei! That’s as direct as it gets! Our time in the sect is over! We have to leave!”
“What?” He stepped back, genuine shock on his face.
“We need to leave! Run away before the Elder gets back and notices we’re gone.”
“Are you insane?”
“No no no, why don’t you understand? We can escape through the Abyss, follow the shallow edge until we get to a tunnel to the Underworld.”
“Jian, let go! You’re hurting my wrist.”
“No, we need to swap!”
“No!”
“Why won’t you just do what I say!”
“I’m standing up for myself! You taught me how to do that, so don’t complain now.”
“You’re supposed to listen to me! We need to swap!”
“I am listening! What’s the point of swapping Resonances if we’re just going to run away anyway? Why don’t we play along until we find a better opportunity!”
“No!”
Jian didn’t remember it happening, but suddenly they were on the floor. The discarded Sword Gem slid across the ground, ignored, as her other hand wrapped around Wei’s throat.
Noise was pounding in Jian’s ears. She couldn’t hear what Wei was saying. Why wouldn’t he listen to her? Why didn’t he just understand? She needed that Life Gem. She needed it.
Wei grabbed her wrist, prying her off of him. Slowly lifting her hand.
Something low and guttural slipped out of her throat. She shoved down on him harder, pushing his hand holding the Life Gem closer to the shadow cast by his head. She started pushing her own hand into it, struggling to touch the gem and push it in too, when light slammed into her eyes.
She screamed, unable to see. Every inch of Wei lit up, blindingly bright, and banished every shadow around them. She couldn’t get any leverage on him, didn’t have any tricks that would work without her shadows. She just screamed and pressed harder on his wrist, trying to dig it into the floor.
She couldn’t see anything, couldn’t hear anything, couldn’t tell who was screaming louder anymore. She kneed him in the stomach as hard as she could, but she couldn’t get a good angle. They rolled across the floor, both of them resorting to nothing but brute strength and struggle.
She could feel the Life Gem in his hand, its qi singing to her, Resonating with her. She needed it.
She felt him force their hands up, his larger frame giving him the strength he needed. She struggled, but she couldn’t stop him as he lifted their hands over his face. She screamed, pulling her right hand away faster than he could compensate for, ripping it free and flicking her wrist inside her sleeve. Wei let go of the gem.
It landed inside his mouth at the same instant her knife buried itself in his throat.
He let go of her, choking, unable to swallow, and with her hands free she shoved them into his mouth, holding his jaws open as she reached down and plucked the gem from a puddle of blood in the back of his throat.
She rolled away from him, the gem already in her mouth by the time she stopped. She barely noticed the thick iron taste as it went down. All she felt was something new and beautiful blooming inside her. She could feel it blossoming into the empty space inside her soul, settling below her shadows and weaving together at the edges, building off of each other to create something more structurally sound than either on their own. Her soul sang as it harmonized with a new type of energy.
She’d done it.
She took a deep breath, relieved. She’d done it.
The light dimmed and she blinked spots from her eyes. She could still barely see, but shapes started to make sense again. The bright light had gone out.
A knife thudded against the floor.
“Oh.” She said, the relief wiped away in an instant. “Oh, no. No no no no.”
She scrambled across the room towards Wei. His hands were coated in red as he held them up to his neck, trying to stop the blood from pouring out. Failing.
“No no no. I didn’t mean- This wasn’t-”
He tried to breathe, but nothing happened but a sickening wet cough.
“I can fix this.” Jian muttered, adding her hands to Wei’s, trying to stop the bleeding. Failing, even before he took his hands off of his neck to bat hers away.
“I have a healing affinity now. I can fix this.”
She turned her attention inwards, to her soul, and found the new color of qi she’d just felt. A deep and vibrant green, already stretching out below the outer layer of black.
It was beautiful, but she didn’t have time to look at it.
She grabbed it and pulled, yanking it to the surface until it poured out of her hands.
A halo of green light formed around her hands and started sinking into his neck. She could see the viscera beneath his skin, a wet mix of red and white. She almost vomited, but she didn’t, she stayed focused.
“I can fix this.”
The healing was doing something, she could feel the wound starting to close. The edges of the gash moved together, strands of red muscle reknitting to hold it in place.
But it was too slow.
“I can fix this.”
She pushed her new power harder, forcing the jagged edges of flesh to close faster, but she didn’t understand what she was doing. Green qi splashed off of the wound and evaporated on the ground. Blood pressed against the inside of the wound, threatening to tear open the parts that she’d already sealed.
“No! I can fix this!”
She dug deeper, pulled harder, and felt something crack.
She stopped, reeling away from Wei in fear, the green glow around her hands blinking out. She’d pushed too hard. She wasn’t strong enough. Her Resonance was too new, it wasn’t ready for this.
She looked at her soul and saw fractures, broken lines in the expanse of green that were being filled in by black, and she knew. She could keep going, keep trying, and maybe she would even save Wei, but it would cost her something permanent. Already, she felt the verdant sea had started to move in an irreversible direction, pushed by her frantic desire to fix Wei, twisting itself into a different shape. One that didn’t fit in her soul.
If she kept going, she might damage the foundation of her soul beyond repair. Maybe her soul would be fine, but her healing would only ever work on others, unable to heal herself.
Her hands shook, as she watched Wei’s hands slip and then tighten around his neck, trying to hold back the blood, trying to breathe.
She should do it anyway. She should save him. He didn’t deserve this. She had led him here. Her greed had done this to him. She should be willing to give something up to save him.
But she wasn’t.
She knelt there, hesitating, trying to make a decision. Trying to convince herself to save her only friend.
But she couldn’t choose.
And not choosing at all was no different than choosing to let him die.
Wei’s hands slipped to the floor and didn’t move.
Jian wasn’t sure how long she knelt there, looking at it. Looking at the thing that had once been Zhou Weisheng.
But fear was always a good motivator for her.
She couldn’t waste time. It would be difficult to swim through the Abyss, but it was still a better option than waiting to be found. She didn’t know if the nearest passage out would be a kilometer away, or two, or ten, but she didn’t have any other choice.
The Jian of four years ago crawled until her hands closed around the sliver of sword qi she’d discarded. Then she stood up and stumbled forward. By the second step she’d raised her head. By the third step she’d straightened her spine. With each step her feet squelched, leaving red footprints behind her as she approached the Abyss.
She didn’t look back.
And then, the Jian of the past was gone.
But the Jian of the present stayed behind, kneeling by the body of her old friend, the young boy she’d called brother. Unable to look away, unable to leave him behind, finally forced to confront what she had done.
She wasn’t sure how long she stayed there, refusing to accept what she already knew.
Eventually, the scene started looping. Another Jian and another Wei entered the room, another argument started, and another corpse was left on the floor.
Then a third.
Then a fourth.
Then a fifth.
She turned to the first corpse, but it wasn’t Wei any more. The young man’s body had been replaced by much younger boy’s. She hadn’t seen Duyi’s corpse the night he died, only felt it with her fingers and her palms and her tears, mapping out the hole in his throat where blood mixed with salt.
He looked smaller than she remembered.
“You could’ve saved me.” He said softly. “Could have jumped him before he caught me.
“It was safer to wait, to hide until he let his guard down, when he was high on the invincibility he felt after killing someone smaller than him.”
“Did it hurt? When you heard me die?”
“Yes.”
“Was it worth it?”
Jian hesitated for a moment, but only a moment. Duyi had earned her honesty long ago.
“Yes.”
The boy smiled.
“At least one of us made it out.”
He sounded sad, and wistful, but not angry the way she would have been. Jian didn’t know what she felt, but she had meant what she said, and so she left that boy lying in the dark tunnels, and she moved on.
She tried to cross the second body in the line without seeing it, but the dead were never quiet when clinging to the heart of the living. A cold hand wrapped around her wrist.
“I was your sister.” The corpse said, and Jian slowed.
“My sister would not have abandoned me.” She said, and she could not hide the anger and the hurt in her voice.
“I would have come back for you.”
“I didn’t believe you.”
“You didn’t trust me. I don’t suppose I gave you much reason to.”
“No. Neither of us did.” She said simply, and when she moved on she wasn’t sure if she had gained something or left something behind.
Even if she was alone now, at least she was still here.
She turned to Wei, saw the judgment in his eyes, and kept turning.
The fourth corpse was Master Xue Yin’s. She wouldn’t meet him for another year, a time when she had only just come to the surface and still feared the light of the sun, before she had learned that Apollo’s heat could seep into your skin and burn you even after his chariot left the sky. She had spent a year living with him after he saved her from the elements, learning his Flowing River sword style while they searched for a Dream Well together.
It had been fun, and so bright that she could hardly bear to look back on it. Even now, she remembered it more as a story than an experience, where each page had shone with a new vista or a new lesson.
But that story’s end had been predictable enough.
His corpse smiled at her, the gray of his short cropped beard flecked with red blood.
“I forgive you child.”
“I don’t.” She replied. “I should’ve known better than to linger. I should’ve known they would follow me.” There had been nothing gained at the end of that story, only memories and loss. It would have been better left abandoned, left open before the final chapter, unread.
She turned to the last corpse and saw Elijah staring up at her blankly.
“No.” She said firmly. “That hasn’t happened yet. It doesn’t need to end that way.”
“But it will.” Elijah said quietly.
“It might,” She admitted, “but it hasn’t yet.”
She turned back to Wei, unable to delay any further.
“I thought you loved me.” Wei’s corpse said.
“I did. You were my brother in every way that mattered.”
And she meant it. She had felt it again, as if it were brand new, while sitting behind her younger self’s eyes. She had felt that love in every moment together and in every accomplishment he’d made.
“Love just wasn’t enough.”
“You’re a coward.” He spat.
“Yes.”
“You’re a murderer.”
“Yes.”
He turned towards where Elijah’s corpse lay.
“Where does it end?” He asked, and another corpse appeared past Elijah’s. A young girl’s, someone she’d never met and maybe never would.
“I’m not sure it ever does.” Jian said
“Do you want it to?”
Jian paused. “Yes, but I’m not sure if that matters.”
“Everything matters here.”
She looked at the line of bodies that stretched past Elijah, filled with faces that flickered from moment to moment, faces she hadn’t met yet. She wanted to live forever, and so the line of bodies continued forever too, into infinity.
Each body was the door to a cage she was trapped in, a gate she needed to step over in the neverending path downward.
She could accept that.
“I’ll stop it when it’s possible, save who I can. If I play my cards right, maybe half of these corpses will never come to be. Maybe I’ll even find the end of the path one day. But even if I can’t save them, even if I kill them, that’s fine. The weight of your lives are light compared to the weight of eternity.”
She kneeled down and cupped Wei’s face in her hand. She didn’t know what face she was making, whether it was sad or resolved, but she decided that didn’t matter. It was her right to decide what mattered here.
“My fear of death was simply stronger than my love for you, little brother, and it always will be. I’m a creature of Hunger, and I’d kill you again if it meant I could live another day.”
Wei looked at her and leaned into her hand, spitting out a glob of blood onto her palm.
“Then leave.” He said, his voice breaking. “Leave, Jian, of no family to call your own. Leave, Jian, sister of none. You will carry us the rest of your days, and it will never fill the void where your heart once was, because you will always be hungry for more.”
Jian nodded. His answer was fair and deserved, but she didn’t mind. It was who she’d always been. She reached into her chest and her hands carved through skin and bone as easily as air. She tore out her heart with a spray of blood, and finally became what she’d always wanted.
Immortal.