On the other end, Peak Lord jolted upright. He shook his head at the enormous wolf. “Later, Senior Wolf. But trust me! She’s waiting for you. She’s never forgotten you. She desperately loves you, and she’s been looking for you every moment since you left!”

Senior Wolf lowered his head warily, but stepped aside to let Hui pass.

Hui sprinted up the mountain. Qi swelled up in his breast, already on the verge of bursting. As he reached the mountain peak, he spread his arms wide and released the spell. Feet rooted to the mountaintop, arms stretching wide, the qi arced from his fingertips like the branches of a vast tree.

The qi spread out from the mountain, but only a short distance. Hui gritted his teeth. Further! It needs to go further. But… dammit, I can’t move! This spell is far too powerful. I can’t afford to stop circulating it for even a moment. If I move, I’m going to burst.

Overhead, Mount Mu shuddered. The tree resonated with his lotus body and its own inheritance now deeply rooted within Hui, and it began to glow with the same flickering black-and-gold light. Shooting through Hui, the spell formation flew directly up into the massive, mountain-sized tree, and spread out from there. Within the bounds of the barrier All-Heavens Sect had set around the sect, every single inch was coated in the aura of the spell formation.

Hui laughed. Sometimes, you try to overtake a poor small cultivator’s body with your inheritance, and instead, end up resonating with a small cultivator! Ah, Mount Mu, many thanks for your assistance!

To his surprise, a response welled up from within the tree. He saw the tree sprout, a tiny seedling, then grow, slowly, slowly, slowly. Plants and animals were born, grew old, and died. Humans clad in rough animal skins picked up tools, exchanged their furs for cloth, and continued to refine themselves, until the first cultivators were born.

A fierce war sprung up. Blood. Fire. The ancient tree fell, shattering the small forest below, the forest of its children. There it lay, slowly rotting. Thousands of years passed by.

One of the cultivators ran up and took a small branch from the dying tree. Carefully, carefully, they grew that tree, and as the new tree grew, delicately protected in a hothouse, so, too, did the sect grow around it. At first only a few people, but then dozens, then hundreds. The cultivator who had grafted it grew old and died, and so did her successor, and his successor. Still the tree grew, slowly approaching its former glory. The old part of the tree slumbered within the youthful tree it had been grafted to, barely clinging to life.

Abruptly, Hui saw himself. He dashed up and struck the tree, stealing a bit of the bark. The young tree reeled in surprise, while the old tree woke, slowly. It found the sect that had sprung up around it, reminiscent of the forest that had grown around the ancient tree. For a brief moment, the ancient tree felt satisfied.

A bolt from the sky. The sect sealed off. It was stolen away, while the trees it left behind cried out. A shadow fell over the forest, and the All-Heavens cultivators plundered the sect, gutting it of everything that mattered to the tree. It felt rage toward the one who had snatched it away, but moreso toward All-Heavens Sect, who dared to lay their hands upon that forest it had cultivated for years, that precious sect that had sprung up around its roots.

“I understand, Senior! Together, we’ll strike back against All-Heavens. We’ll wipe that damnable sect from the face of the earth!” Hui cried out.

The tree resonated more strongly with Hui, willingly matching its qi to his. They poured energy out onto Starbound Sect as one, the tree drawing on its ancient reserves to assist Hui. The gold-and-black qi branched out, darting down to connect to each of the fallen bodies.

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First, death qi. Call out to the death qi in their bodies, and use it as an anchor to draw their soul home. Then, life qi, to suffuse the body and the living soul with energy, match the two, and bring the sect back to life! First shouted, over the rush of energy travelling through the network.

Understood! Peak Lord responded.

He drew out the death qi, calling it down to the qi in the bodies. The souls resonated, drawn back to their bodies, but when he swapped to life qi, all the souls quavered, instantly losing their resonance and almost falling apart. Hui drew back, biting his lip. No. This isn’t right. It won’t work like this.

Something else. I’m missing something. Some key understanding, that I need to be able to fully reverse life and death!

Think. What is it? What am I missing?

Death qi. When someone dies, they release death qi. But where does that come from? Life qi negates it, but ordinary qi can be corrupted. And rot qi is… almost an infection, a slow transition from life qi to death qi.

When a person is alive, do they have a small amount of death qi within them, that their life qi negates?

But no, that makes no sense. Then it would be possible to remove the death qi. Instead, the death qi is formed from something. Death qi is born when a person dies. Is it the process of dying itself that creates it? The putrefaction, the rot…

Rot is an infection. Death qi is born when a person dies. Life qi flees. Ordinary qi corrupts.

Elder Sister Reaper… what’s her role in all this? She always comes when someone dies, and she constantly threatens me, with my death qi soul. I—

Hui’s eyes flashed open. Life qi becomes death qi… when the reaper comes! And I, I have foregone the ordinary order of things, in having death qi in my soul in a living body, which is why she’s always near. I’d be antsy about someone forgoing the usual order of things, as well! When the cultivators resist the reaper, they become death cultivators. Their soul stays behind, and they remain aware. Whether they succeed or fail, though, she still turns their qi into death qi. Stepping into that still world, where the Reaper and Lord Diyu can visit this world, may be the requirement for a dying person’s qi to slowly become death qi.

And if they don’t… if they don’t, perhaps that’s where rot qi steps in. That Senior, with her preserved body that the spider was guarding… was that, perhaps, the consequence of rejecting the reaper and keeping her body and soul in this world past her death?

The consequence of refusing that still world and proper death, is to rot away slowly, locked in this world and unable to move on. Despite surviving its master, the spider’s consciousness was ruined by the rot, because the rot eats at both body and soul and infects everything around it.

Similarly, Jin Xian, a death cultivator I created myself, gathered rot qi because she didn’t go through the natural process of becoming a death cultivator. If I think about it, Fang Hua was essentially a living soul strapped to a dead body. Jin Xian’s brain grew rot qi as it acted as the interface between the sleeping Fang Hua and the dead Jin Xian. When I inundated Jin Xian’s brain with death qi… Fang Hua, who was sleeping inside, naturally transferred from a living soul to a dead soul without realizing it. Only now can she live as a proper death cultivator—she only fully awakened after I colored her soul with death qi.

Even if you reject the still world and death qi, this world refuses to allow you to live on, and the consequence of that is rot qi. But rot qi can be banished by death qi, because death qi is the proper order of things, and rot qi is the world’s attempt to restore order by obliterating what doesn’t belong. But like any natural process, it takes time and has side effects.

Hui’s eyes snapped open. He flicked his sleeve thoughtfully. What if I reverse the effects of rot qi? Infect the dead bodies with rot qi as an intermediary step, then use life qi to obliterate the rot qi? As with Jin Xian, where I used death qi to obliterate the rot qi and turn her into a true death cultivator, here I can use life qi to obliterate the rot qi and fully bring back the sect’s cultivators!

I’m not sure it’ll work… but it’s worth a try!

Hui threw his hand out. A dozen death ducks flew from his dantian, all carrying rot qi in their bellies. In the time it takes an incense stick to burn, they spread over the sect, infecting one body after another with rot qi.

Taking a deep breath, Hui settled his qi. Alright. I’ve put them in the intermediate error state! Now, to force the error to resolve in the opposite direction that it wants to resolve!

He looked at the tree floating above him. Senior, I’m going to need life qi beyond what this small cultivator could possibly provide. Can I count on you?

Mount Mu pulsed with warmth, exuding a powerful aura of life qi.

Hui nodded. Then, let’s begin!