Alex found himself sinking into stygian depths of dream that he knew all too well. Suddenly terrified that this was far more than a dream. Wondering if that awful clenching in his chest was his heart lurching with dread… or an unseen dagger from daring to play the idealistic fool in a world as cold and ruthless as the one he had left behind.
Had he perished yet again?
He would have screamed, but his throat was locked. Sleep paralysis or death’s hoary grip, he couldn’t be certain. Only that he knew these endless black frigid depths all too well.
How many lifetimes had he spent in this frigid purgatory before his endless darkness was lit up by brief flashes of existence once more? How many times had he woken up for the first time, actually the thousandth time, exhilarated by a chance to escape his memories of his final awful day being frozen alive… utterly unaware that he had spent most of eternity in just that state?
Save for brief, halcyon, dream-like glimpses filled with life’s vitality and joy.
Glimpses of happiness that WiFu’s spite-filled kin, who despised them both so utterly, had done all they could to tear free from his grasp, before booting him back into that frigid hell yet again.
As they had a thousand times before.
How long?
How long had he been lost in the stygian depths that were the River of Souls, compared to the brief glimpses of life and rebirth he had savored when escaping his eternal sentence?
It was a question for which there was no answer.
Only the bitter realization that he wasn’t alone in that suffering.
That there was at least one other sentience to that bitter frigid eternity by his side.
Yet all he had to do was send out spiritual feelers with a soul now unfettered by mortality’s constraints, to sense how utterly alone he now was.
Just himself and countless souls drifting between lives, most asleep, only the truly vile forced to experience the same purgatory as he.
The souls most desperate to escape, by any means that they could. To rise once more not as innocent newborn souls, but as bitter, hate-filled undead.
And as for guardians…
He sensed no guardian at all.
How could there be?
He had already killed her, before fleeing this twisted realm by any backdoor that he could.
He glared into the inky darkness. Even if he was just a figment of dream, he could sense countless malignant tormented souls twisting to be free.
Souls that fled, shrieking in silent horror when they felt the weight of his own soul… his own dark crimes now free of all guise or restraint for all to sense down here in the endless depths. Crimes beyond all others, perhaps, for not even gods had the power to crush souls to oblivion. Or at least, very few would dare the River’s powers, lest they be sucked in, their eternal triumphs shucked as their too-long-captive souls eagerly sought the rebirth and renewal each and every one of them was so terrified to embrace, those divine tier cultivators having fled to a world with no death at all. A shell of a realm from which they could safely puppet-master an entire Jupitearean-sized world’s affairs to their hearts’ content, savoring the countless misfortunes and mortal trials that they would never have to experience, save vicariously, ever again.
Very few ascended gods would dare the river that claimed everyone and everything in the end.
Alex could think of only two.
And one had fallen by his hand.
Which was why it shook him so profoundly to hear the boundless shrieking wail of a girl pushed past all her limits, and the desperate struggles of a would-be savior pushed to absolute exhaustion, trying to save her.
Alex was struck to the quick by the girl’s cries, though he couldn’t exactly say why. Only that he knew her. Knew her as deeply and profoundly as it was possible to know another. That she was family. Kin.
Someone he had never seen before.
Yet as he found his spirit drifting free of inky darkness that had gone from the pressure of liquid metal to the ephemerality of autumn mist, his spirit drifting down corridors he last recalled seeing when daring a city of the dead and a sanctuary of countless Silverbell Blossoms where he forged his first Bronze tier cord, he couldn’t help thinking that he should know the girl he was now gazing down upon, as a frantic inspector with a tricorn hat desperately tried to bring life to the too still girl by his feet.
“No, little blossom. You have been asleep for far too long as it stands. You must awaken now, before it’s too late!”
WiFu’s voice echoed through a startled Alex’s ears, revealing a depth of worry on the verge of panic that Alex would never have expected to hear from his mercurial mentor in a thousand years.
That was when he felt as much as heard the terrible rumble, the earth itself trembling and shaking as the lost city was shattered by hideous shrieks beyond even the screams Alex had so recently heard.
Instantly recognizing those screams as the very air seemed to weep blood that smelled of bloated rot and despair.
Shalu. Alex’s eternal enemy. Even now writhing in torment, mortally wounded and kept alive only by a rejuvenation pod touching upon technological complexities Alex thought it best not to dwell too deeply upon right now. All his attention instead on understanding the puzzle of the girl lying so deathly still even as WiFu...and the woman by his side, tried desperately to revive her.
“It’s not working, Qing Bai!”
“I know, my love.” The mother of his children gave a heartfelt sigh, eyes filled a depth of understanding utterly free of the arrogant disdain characterizing the feature of most immortal cultivators that had crossed Alex’s path over countless lifetimes.
WiFu’s gaze took on a desperate intensity. “But we have everything. Everything we need! The cards of Fate themselves decree that this should work!” Alex winced at the sound of his master’s voice. Free of all snark, or bemused, unshakable confidence, now revealing the raw naked dismay of a man forced to accept that entropy would shatter any premise, law, or mandate that it could, to take its due.
Instead, his eyes fastened on the cards, overwhelmed and awed by the power resonating from them.
It was all he could do not to chuckle, realizing that his master hadn’t just been three steps ahead of everyone else, using Alex as a wrench in his enemies plans on all sides… but he had been playing a different game entirely.
That of bringing his lost disciple, his first disciple, a girl he gazed upon with a father’s desperate intensity, back to life.
“I have the Card of Fates, the Sigil of Frozen Hearts, Cultivator’s Ascension, and Spirit’s Redemption! The fifth card should automatically be in play!”
WiFu cried out the last like a plea.
Qing Bai gave an exquisitely graceful shake of her head. “I am sorry, beloved.”
“No!” WiFu sobbed, eyes filled with the helpless fury of a man about to lose everything. “For twenty thousand years those bastards tormented her, for the unforgivable crime of coming to my rescue. I won’t lose her after she sacrificed so much for me!”
Alex’s heart broke, hearing those words as he turned to look at the too still girl lying prone in a trembling WiFu’s lap, pale white skin revealing an ugly red incision where her heart had been restored, another still seeping wound where her soul stone had been infused in a surgery encompassing both body and soul, in this realm between worlds.
And that was when he saw it. The strands of swirling spiritual energy tying the painfully still girl so tightly to the River of Souls.
Bonded with her forever, refusing to surrender its eternal serpent.
No matter how much she wanted to be free.
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
You have successfully triangulated Interface Point: River of Souls.
Alex remembered those words echoing so profoundly through his soul, a lifetime ago. And now? Now he but dreamed a dream of a life already long gone.
He knew that.
Just as he knew how easy it would be to gently collect those silver-white strands from the beautiful girl actually wearing a school uniform he recognized from a lifetime ago, and pluck them free.
Interface Skill Check: Critical Success!
You have successfully freed Shui Jun from Eternity’s Grasp!
You have formed Divine Tier Karmic Affinity with: Shui Jun! First Disciple of the god of Chaos and Change!
WARNING! - The River of Souls is now free of any Eternal Guardian within the Golden Realms!
Other messages blared across a dreaming Alex’s mind. But he ignored them all, profoundly moved when WiFu swept the screaming girl in his arms, her eyes wide with the unspeakable horror of recalling twenty thousand years of torment while no longer in the shape of a cold-blooded creature able to endure that endless purgatory.
And then, between one heartbeat and the next, Qing Bai’s delicate fingers had plucked a winding knot of ghostly rope from Shui Jun’s left ear, their patient immediately collapsing into WiFu’s trembling arms as Qing Bai gently stroke and cood at the twisting knot of smoke that soon took the shape of a serpent, a tiny miniature version of the river’s guardian, the form Shui Jun had been locked in for countless millennia. Her careworn yet exquisitely beautiful features lit up in a serene smile as WiFu sobbed and rocked the once more living girl in his arms as his midnight wife coaxed a tiny new spirit serpent into being.
“It will be a long time before our little one here is anything but a pet to her mistress.”
“Then the world can endure the inconvenience!” WiFu said roughly. “They’ve already benefited from twenty thousand years of sacrifice. They can damn well fend for themselves, for now.”
Qing Bai solemnly bowed her head, so graceful in her qipao of starlight and dream, exquisite hairpins of jade and moonlight reflecting countless future possibilities it awed Alex even to see. “Agreed. For now, let’s simply give our profound thanks for the kindness of fate, and the dreams of boys cruelly used and abandoned, that we can only hope will one day savor lives as sweet as any they could imagine.”
WiFu gave a ragged chuckle, eyes twinkling gamely, for all that Alex could so clearly see the desperation, strain, and exhaustion upon features that normally hid it so well. “I quite agree, beloved. Let’s give thanks to kind fates and kinder dreams. For certainly boys lost to the River’s depths and beneath the notice of any deity’s gaze knows better than to embrace their signature talents. At least, not until they hit Gold. Then the gentle cloak of absolution which hides as well as limits, will limit no more.” WiFu’s eyes flashed. “So long as they never again dare to embrace the one skill which even gods fear. That alone will rupture all attempts at deception and obfuscation. That alone will assure that a doom cleverly stalled for what could be an eternity, will instead rush forward to it’s ultimate conclusion.”
Qing Bai paled at those words. “Come, husband. We have already said too much. Let’s get our daughter to bed.”
Alex’s eyes widened in horrified disbelief at those words. “Wait, no, that’s impossible! I recognize her uniform. I recognize her! She’s from Earth, like me. How could she be your daughter?”
Of course there was no response to his words. For he was no more able to affect the Golden Realms than any ghostly figment of dream. A dream he himself abruptly woke up from, jerking upright in a cold, nighttime sweat, just in time to see Qing Wu grinning evilly down at him. “You’re awake? Good. Just in time for your shift.”
His brusque words were belied by the tasty bowl of stew he placed in a yawning Alex’s hands moments later, experienced gaze giving Alex a thorough once-over, as if making sure he was truly up for the task.
“Alex? You don’t have to.” Ya Ling, also eating a bowl of stew in the snug quarters nearby, glared at her uncle. “No matter what this wujen says. Because he’s not doing any guard duty at all. Merely enjoying this frigid icicle of a wagon.”
“The privileges of rank and Silver tier spells,” Qing Wu said with an airy wave and a teasing smile. His frowned, tilting his head. “But if you are truly not up for it, Alex...”
“No, I’m fine!” Alex quickly assured, at that moment absolutely dreading the thought of falling to sleep again. “It will be good to get some fresh night air, maybe some practice as well.”
“So long as you keep your focus on our backs… the drivers will take care of our fronts, as we’re riding this night through,” Qing Wu cautioned.
Alex dipped his head before taking another bite of meaty stew, a bit more gamy and richer than beef, and no less delicious for that. Alex was pretty sure it was the remains of one spirit beast or another, one bowl all that he needed to feel delightfully full.
In very short order he found himself topside, taking deep breaths of brisk desert air, awed by the majesty of countless millions of stars twinkling in the heavens above. He spent long moments just meditating upon the majesty of the boundless heavens, before finally thinking back on a dream that had felt so visceral, so real.
He shivered in recollection of how awful it had felt to sink back into death’s chilly embrace yet again. Even if for only a moment, in the guise of a dream. Only for that dream to reveal the snake that had haunted so many of his dreams, the vessel of his ultimate demise and eternal punishment… had herself been as much of a victim as he.
Had, in fact, been WiFu’s first disciple.
And if his dream really was anything more than the ramblings of an exhausted mind, she was his daughter as well. “So was that my real purpose? The ultimate point of my existence? A lever, a distraction, so you could free that which mattered to you the most?” He dared do no more than whisper the words, anchoring it with no name that would ever caress hostile ears. Because even if that were the case, even if the god of chaos and change and mischief in all its forms had plucked him from life’s final frigid moment as a tool to rescue his daughter sentenced to an awful eternity… so what?
WiFu had given him a chance. A chance to embrace a fresh start, to go just as far as life could take him. And even from the very beginning, Alex had always a choice. A way out. He could have taken that golden ring and the promise of a privileged life entirely free of divine politics, whenever he liked. Terran no longer, reborn as a Trueblood in truth, and despised by no one.
Who would have thought he would have chosen to keep his Terran identity for so long? Clutching tight to that bitter tarnished copper ring every damn time?
The fact was that he was just as hungry to break past all limits and see just how far he could ascend at the start of each new trial. Because past’s bitter memories truly had been washed away so perfectly that he never had even an inkling of an idea that maybe, this time, he should cut his losses and just take the golden ring.
But no. The gift of a clean memory and a fresh start had forever been his, thanks to a sympathetic elder deity, who no doubt now despised him as much as every other, after he tore out the throat of her grandson.
And fuck if he wouldn’t gladly do it again.
The important thing was that WiFu’s mad gambit had worked, and an utterly unwitting pawn had woken up at just the right time and place to do that one act which he had perhaps been eternally destined to do.
Snip free death’s bone-white cords of torment, freeing the soul of a girl whose face he actually recognized.
From a time they had both been kids attending high school.
However impossibly long ago it had been.
“Assuming, of course, it wasn’t just a dream.”
Yet for a dream, she had snapped into focus with exquisite clarity. In fact, he realized to his bemusement that all he had to do was closed his eyes and he could see her perfectly once more. Only now her face was flush with life’s promise, her eyes radiating a vitality the equal to the Jade monster that had nearly killed Alex, a lifetime ago. Dressed in an exquisitely crafted qipao of burgundy silk and dream, she flushed under the ministrations of a clearly doting Qing Bai, applying crushed rose petals and kohl with practiced grace with her hands as her tale merely waved over her daughter’s head and her ears and nose were instantly graced with golden rings and diamond clasps radiating exquisitely potent spiritual energy while highlighting eyes that were somehow both captivating, and no earthly color at all.
Shui Jun, if that truly was her, shook her head in a daze as her mother gently turned her to glimpse her countenance in the mirror.
“I can hardly believe I’m here right now. Free of pain, eternal cold… able to feel the warmth of your love through your beating heart.” Perfect crystal tears flowed from her cheeks. “It’s perfect. Too perfect! Please tell me I won’t wake up from this beautiful dream and forget what it felt like to have limbs once more… I don’t think I could bear it.”
Qing Bai could only smile and shake her head, tears streaming freely down her cheeks before splashing on to the desert sands below, saturating the lands with life-giving rain as fresh green shoots made the absolute most of the opportunity to blossom once more.
“Fear not, Shui Jun. You are here. In the flesh. And need never endure that nightmare ever again.” Her gaze was filled with sudden concern. “I had thought… we had hoped that you were free of that awful burden. That the memories that remain were like those of a dream.”
“They are,” Shui Jun assured, her voice sounding so like the serpent’s divine reverberations resonating with such force that Alex felt his bones vibrating. Yet despite the fierce power and potency she now radiated, her tear-filled eyes and expression were that of a vulnerable young woman pushed to the brink and forced to remain there for far, far too long. “Its as if I had been stuck in a coma… or lost in a dream, for months on end. Yet I still feel the terror of it, just the same.”
Her mother’s gaze grew strangely intent. “Shui Jun, how much do you remember? Truly. As more than just a fading dream.”
Her daughter’s complexion paled. And how odd it was to see no sign of eccentric ears or swishing fluffy tale, despite knowing who her father was. “The last thing I remember? As more than a dream?” Her features took on a pained smile. “Was the look in your eyes after my diagnosis. And how father raged at the world when we found out that it was terminal. That, and I remember the pain. The pain that wouldn’t stop, no matter what we did. Then I remember going back to bed, swallowing the entire bottle of pills… and nothing else.”
Her mother wrapped her tightly in her arms. “Oh my baby. My poor, poor child. To have had so much torn away. To know that your father’s enemies despise us that much, that they had stripped you of absolutely everything before damning you eternally...” she shook her head, glaring at the silvery-gray metal that formed the oddly sloping gray roof above their heads. “Never have I felt less pity for the monster slowly dying above our head than I do right now!”
Shui Jun furrowed her brow. “Mother? Are we in a palliative care unit? Is this...” She forced a strained smile, taking in the historically accurate bed with the addition of very modern-looking down-stuffed pillows as well as the ink-stained rice-paper room dividers depicting a flock of cranes, before smiling down at the exquisitely carved and polished chair she sat upon. All of which was a sharp contrast to the sleek silver-gray walls, ceiling, and automatic sliding door. “Their attempt at cultural sensitivity and comfort, going for an east-asian theme, or is this actually that upscale hospital father was trying to grab an administrative role at in Shanghai?”
In answer, her mother unfolded her hand as gracefully as a ballerina, revealing a prize that made her daughter gasp in delight. “Mother, is that genuine? A jade green pearl that size? It must be worth a fortune!”
Yet Alex was slack-jawed, feeling the incredible power and potency radiating from the prize in the goddess's hand.