23. Cold

Shirtless I stood atop the mountain, shivering and shaking from the cold as I calmly circulated the Qi through my body in ever increasingly complex patterns. It spread through my body like hoarfrost. The cold was unpleasant, but ultimately posed little threat to me. Even as my body entered hypothermia, I simply rejuvenated myself with Qi and warmed it back to health.

Miserable, but necessary.

Days passed as I stood, exposed to the elements, the wind blowing small flurries around me as I stirred it with Qi.

I did not eat. I did not sleep. I pushed forward, determined.

Days passed.

I drew energy from the sun. From the moon. From the stars. From the mountain. From the snows, and eventually from the air itself.

I grinned as two new elements clicked into place in my core. I was the master of Ice and Wind. I collapsed into unconsciousness, unaware of the world as it continued on without me.

I am uncertain how long I remain like that before waking up in my bed. I blinked, wondering how I had gotten there. I sat up and saw a nervous looking Yara staring at me. I blushed.

“It was worth it,” I told her.

“You almost died.”

“I was in no danger of freezing to death.”

“No? You’re still ice cold!” she scolded.

“That’s to be expected. That was the goal,” I explained. “If you go for an ice attunment yourself you’ll understand, it’s—”

“You cannot be so reckless! You’ve made promises, you have responsibilities! Your my master, you owe me an education,” she scolded.

I blinked, looking at her again. She was right. I did owe her.

I sighed as I glanced at the bonds between me and others in this life. So much for remaining unattached. There was little that I could do about it without sacrificing the providence that I needed to carry me forward, and although I theoretically could push myself into another tribulation, was that really what I wanted at this point in time?

No, I would live this life to the end, and then I would consider what my future reincarnations would look like after I had delivered grace to Nadia and put rest to the last of the fatestealers.

“Some flowers do not grow in a greenhouse,” I told Yara.

“What the hells is a greenhouse?” she asked. “And what does that have to do with—”

“You would have died if I hadn’t brought you from the city. Your father’s creditors would have taken you from him and it would have driven you to kill yourself. That is the reason I took you as a student,” I told her abruptly. “And because Hien Ro thought you were pretty and he asked me to.”

She blushed. “Don’t think you’ve heard the end of this lecture,” she said, standing and leaving the room.

But she didn’t scold me again after that after all. I kind of wish she had. I think maybe, I needed to hear it. Even if I could have predicted every word she said, actually having someone tell me the things she thought would have done me good.

There’s a difference between knowing something and hearing someone say it.

~~~~~~

Weeks had passed, and the undead attacks had come once more, driving the peasants south in ever increasing numbers. Crossing the great Qi desert seemed to weaken the horde, and so that is where they went. Di Ram sent his followers and the others who joined him along the way in sorties to find the weakened undead and slay them, to find the lost peasants and guide them to safety, and in general to keep busy.

But they couldn’t save everyone. Not almost, or even close. As the graves empties in the countryside, the dead soon outnumbered the living in the villages and the fields where the rice and the grains were grown.

And the dead were lonely, eager to make company for themselves by adding to their number by delivering the final breath to their living kin.

Eventually, Di Ram realized that there was nothing left to do in the north. He turned his refugee camp, which now numbered in the hundreds of thousands, and he headed towards the jungles of Ker’tath.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

~~~~~~

“You know that that abomination isn’t me,” the ghost said. “It may have my face, but it is an abomination that wears my body like a puppet. You have raised it to the silver path, but its power is shallow and useless. If you still walked a true path, you could crush it like paper mache.”

Ko Ren did not rise to the ghost’s provocation as he smiled at his other sister. She was even more pale than the ghost, who bore the color that his sister had in life, but the corpse that he’d risen was growing rapidly in awareness and strength.

Di Phon had truly given him a gift when he had rung that damn bell. Although it had injured all of his most loyal followers, those he had shared the secrets of vampirism with, most had risen again. And those who had were more committed to him than ever before.

That was the story he spread explaining Ko Si’s temporary absence, and her presence silence. But anyone could sense the power in her spirit as the ritual that the demon had given him rose her to the former heights of her cultivation.

“Dear sister. To what do I owe the pleasure?” he asked the undead woman.

“The master wants results,” she said. “He cannot pass the divide. You must break the divide.”

“I assure you that I have no idea what you’re saying, dear sister,” Ko Ren responded. “Why don’t you go and meditate until you can make yourself understood once more.”

Ko Si’s corpse considered the problem for a moment, then realized that her body’s brother was correct. It returned to the other room, and it meditated on the words that echoed through its being from beyond the veil.

Ko Ren sighed and scratched at the healing patch of skin where half his face had once been burned away. He turned to his followers, who returned his helpless grin with a helpless one of their own.

More than half of them had a similar problem with their own followers who had proven ‘inconvenient’ but were now proving more obedient and dutiful than ever before.

For it was not only the vampirism ritual which he had spread to his followers.

“I am waiting patiently to watch you face divine justice for your actions, brother,” the ghost said. “I shall greet you on the other side of the river styx, and I shall kick you in the nuts when you cross just like I did when we were children.”

“So tell me how we solve the problem,” Ko Ren said.

The other ‘elders’ in the room exchanged another round of looks, then shrugged.

Li Toh, whose son had recently been readmitted to the sect, explained the problem. “Until we know why the dead are rising in the countryside, we can’t exactly get the problem under control, and until we get it under control we can’t convince the mortals to return to the countryside. Those who haven’t fled south to the son of the traitor Di Phon are hiding behind the walls of the cities and forts of the empire.”

“And if we don’t solve the problem for the mortals?” Ko Ren asked.

“Then the peasants die, and with them the people who grow our food,” Li Toh explained.

Ko Ren sighed. “Leave me,” he said, for all that he knew that he would only be forced to deal with the ghost’s abuse once more when he was alone.

They filed out of his chambers, and he sighed. He would have liked to take over the former patriarch’s quarters, but the man had somehow turned the very Qi of the building against him and his followers. It was seen as yet more proof of the former patriarch’s corruption to those who weren’t in the know, but anyone with a bit of corruption in their cultivation would feel it burning should they enter that desolate place.

So he was building a new one, to be even grander than the former estate. But it would take months yet for the new building to be finished, forcing him to remain in his former rooms until then.

“This is your fault. This is our fault,” the ghost said. “If we hadn’t played with forces beyond our ken, none of this would be happening, Thousands are dead, and their blood is on your hands.”

Arguing with the ghost only made him look insane, so he simply ignored it as he pulled out the crystal and performed the ritual once more to connect to the demon.

“What is it now?” the demon snapped as the conjuring snapped into place.

“What was your messenger attempting to convey?” he asked the demon.

“What? Oh. I have tracked the blood of the unbound soul to the south. But the enchantments that keep my corpses walking fall apart when they cross the ley lines of the Qi desert. I need you to be my hound once more. Go forth and find me the family of the one you call Little Bug, and I shall reward you beyond your dreams,” the demon said.

“What do I get out of it?” Ko Ren demanded.

“I just told you, rewards beyond your dreams.”

“I want to advance. Tell me how to unlock the spiritual siphoning technique—”

“It doesn’t work that way. The first technique I told you becomes unstable the more souls that it binds together. You’re only remaining the dominant soul by a sliver as things are. If that should slip for even a second, you’ll … huh, I can’t actually predict the results. I don’t know your sister well enough to know how she’d react to suddenly awakening from death in your body.”

“She’d probably stab us both in the heart,” Ko Ren muttered.

“Oh? Possibly. Want to bet?”

Ko Ren sighed. “I want an answer. If I hunt Little Bug for you, what do I get out of it?”

A violet flame burst into existence before him, and a slip of paper. “You may pick any of those rituals as your reward,” the demon promised. “Now shut up and stop bugging me, I’m busy.”

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