Wandering the city of Allusia alone was about as dangerous a prospect as Fa Lian could think right now. That did not cause her to pause for even a moment.
She did not leave because of the way Yurie was acting.
If Fa Lian couldn’t hold Dan’s hand - not that she wanted to - she could at least get him the help he needed. The days after waking from her dragon dream were still foggy. She remembered meeting a priest. She remembered that he owed Dan a favour. Was there more to the story? There had to be, but she didn’t have time to think.
Ah Dan had pushed himself far, far past the brink. From what she had bothered to understand, the battle with the majaal siblings had been more of a series of ambushes. Calliope had a proud look on her face when she spoke of how Dan moved, how he had not stopped for a moment in his pursuit of the danger. Whatever the case, Fa Lian was furious that he had gone alone.
The moment she had arrived, the battle had begun to lean in their favour. It was just too late at that point. She would have to beat sense into Ah Dan when she woke him up.
When.
Shade’s words were ricocheting around her head. “He may never wake up.” The demon had said. That was the worry of a nearly dead man themselves, so Fa Lian did her best to ignore him. Doing nothing was going to be less helpful than doing something. So she had done something.
And, Fa Lian thought to herself, if this doesn’t work, I’ll take my frustration out on the majaal woman.
—————
Ah Dan was swimming through an endless azure sky. Swimming was the best description because he could feel himself pushing through something piece by piece, but there was no feeling of weightlessness.
No, when Dan had nightmares, they were of himself falling.
He pushed through the clear blue layers of something desperately. There was no ground coming to meet him but the sensation of falling instilled the fear of landing. There was a sense of progression to his actions but he couldn’t understand why until he saw it.
Like a shadow on a dark night, something blue moved across the blue universe around Dan. His eyes focused on it for a moment but the shimmer faded as quickly as it appeared, so quick that Dan was unsure whether he had actually seen it at all.
That made him furious. Being scared and angry meant panic usually but in this case it focused Dan’s attention. His eyes were never how he found things. With a deep breath, easy somehow in the strange void he found himself, Dan cycled his mana through his body. Doing so gave him a more solid anchor on his position in the space. After that, he cast out his net.
The world screamed danger.
He pulled his perception back instantly but it was too late. Whatever was out there had seen Dan and he could feel its gaze upon him now. Like a thumb being pressed down on a beetle, Dan felt the pressure of this attention like the heaviest weight he could imagine.
In the dream, alone amongst the unending blue, Dan screamed and begged for help.
——————
“Out of the WAY.” Fa Lian’s shout held within it the impatience of a dragon and she let it loose. The sea of people split easily as she pressed her will forward, though she still used her hands to move anyone too close to her out of the way. Even those who had no mana control would feel the shoving upon their spirit and do as they were told. Fa Lian had never cared about the stares of the unimportant, even less so now with Ryong Aang’s influence pressing into her. The dirty looks quickly turned away if they caught her eye.
A dragon does as it pleases. That was true in all of their history and it was true now. She grabbed the priest’s wrist and pulled him through the crowd quicker. She didn’t worry about bruising the man, though she didn’t do so intentionally. Her new strength was still a challenge to control on the lower scale. More than one she had shattered a cup that he drank from in the previous days.
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
Another reason she was scared to hold-
She was never scared. Fa Lian did everything she could to convince herself of that and for the most it worked.
Dan would survive this. Despite how it looked. Despite what Shade and the dwarf said. Despite Xiaomei’s tears and Hyun Soon’s silence. Despite Yurie’s hand on his.
“In,” Fa Lian commanded, pushing the priest in front of her. He had tried to make small talk as they made their way to the Barracks but the journey was not far and she had not wanted to hear anything other than assurances. Which, frustratingly, the priest was still not able to give.
“Truly, I hope I can help but what am I walking into here?” The priest had a confidence in himself that he was hiding. Fa Lian sensed it right away, she had been around many ambitious advisors in her time, though they had all been her family members.
No one stopped them as they entered the Barracks. They recognised the staff in her hands and the look in her eyes, she expected. “You’re going to help the infirm. Isn’t that what priests are supposed to do?” Fa Lian didn’t have time to assuage worries that weren’t her own.
They just needed to help Dan.
——————
No one was coming to help. Dan knew this in his soul, his core, in every fibre of his being.
How could they? He tried to scream for help but there was nothing. With nowhere for sound to propagate, his voice didn’t just catch in his throat, it died there.
If no one was coming to help him, Dan needed to help himself. Cycling his mana had led to his current terror, he knew it was also the answer. The shadow on the universe could not be ignored, Dan felt its movements upon the fabric of existence and shivered as he tried to take the breaths necessary to move his mana.
He kept every ounce of it inside. Dan needed every miniscule portion to remain within, even the ambient mana that he normally exerted no control over. A momentary leak could return the attention to himself. The pressure had subsided when Dan had released his energy the first time and his nerves had only now recovered enough to try and gather it up again.
It was working. He felt the flow take hold of himself. Despite his situation, Dan felt himself slip into the trance of meditation. His eyes closed to the world around him and he focused on the feeling he was creating instead.
His mana felt like a blanket falling around him. It reminded him of Kumiho. Somewhere in his mind, behind the focus he now exerted upon his mana Dan felt a pang of hurt. He needed help and she hadn’t come. There was likely a reason but the realisation came at a fragile time for Dan and he could not find the grace to forgive right now.
When Dan opened his eyes, things had changed. There was no more substance to the blank world than before but the colours began to shift. It was impossible to spot at first but slowly, like the tiniest stream of ink flowing into a river, there was change.With that change came a sliver of understanding.
Dan singled out the “start” of the energy within. When Dan had ascended to the Star stage of progress, as the Guan measured it, he had relinquished the basic idea of a core. His mana did not begin and end in some specific place within his body. That realisation had given him the power to progress forward, to keep up with his friends. As such, finding the “tip” of his mana was more of a decision than a search.
Once Dan felt he had control of his roaring flow within, he began to guide it. From the heel of his left foot, Dan traced his body with his mana. Up his left leg, over his knee and past his hip. The mana tickled his ribs before reaching his armpit and shooting down to the fingers, arcing back up to his shoulder like a lightning strike. It coursed through his head before performing the reverse on his right side.
When the mana reached his right heel, he performed the same motions in reverse.
——————
Oblax had never seen anything like it. His own command of mana in the way that practitioners used it was somewhat lacking. The Guan had their own ways of measuring talent in the art and if Oblax set himself to that description, he would be considered no more than a Square stage practitioner. It was from those meagre skills that his healing capabilities stemmed, a summer of practice had been enough to reach a passable level.
His offensive capabilities were at a much higher level but he did not use mana to cause the tears he did in the universe.
Reaching the Square stage had been important for his own perception of energy. Due to his small mastery, he could direct his internal energy to his eyes. In doing so, he could see the build up of pain or infection that caused an injury. If the blockage of energy was small enough, he could guide the process and speed it up.
Looking at Ah Dan with those senses now was like looking into a black hole. Every inch of the boy was pure agony, every torn spot of his skin pulsed with more damage than Oblax thought could be survived. “His mind could not survive this.”
Oblax spoke without seeing the room around him. Once his wrist had been grabbed by Fa Lian, he had no chance of avoiding this room of people and the eyes of the marshall were intense. Oblax had originally decided to come up with a convincing lie of some sort and excuse himself. Now, he found himself rambling and sharing far too much.
“Damage such as this kills. I have no better way to say it. There… would be no point in me trying.” The look of disgust that he received from Fa Lian didn’t hurt Oblax nearly as much as the look of fear from the others. Somehow, the majaal marshall of Allusia and the heir to the Guan family were just fixtures around this boy’s life. Just who was Guan Ah Dan? He decided to ingratiate himself. “That isn’t to say that I won’t. Just don’t expect a miracle?”
“That’s the clergy we all know and love.” The girl holding Ah Dan’s hand finally spoke. When she looked at Oblax he felt that he recognised her but had no clue where. That may have just been the effect of beauty. Her eyes seemed strange, carrying a glint of light that wasn’t reflective of anything. It took his breath away. “Miracles are supposed to be your whole thing.”
Oblax tried to disarm with a smile and an accepting laugh. His raised hands did nothing to calm the daggers this young woman was trying to stare into Oblax’s head. Sensing that he would lose his chance to act, Oblax stepped forward. Despite her obvious dislike of the church, she moved aside. Letting go of Ah Dan’s hand seemed to cause her as much distress as his ruined body.
Oblax rubbed his hands together and swirled his energy within its core. He was proud of the density he could manage, practising the cycling technique he had learned so long ago during most downtime. It was just a shame he was always busy.
Saying a quick prayer to his god, Oblax rubbed his hands together and gathered the healing energy that he could. This was not a healing spell, which Oblax had been told had already been performed, so he needed no chants. It took him a while, concentration was hard when the whole room of people was holding its breath on his actions.
Allowing himself no more deliberation, Oblax had to stop himself from wincing as he pushed his hands towards the black core of agony that had claimed Ah Dan.