In the aftermath of the incident, there was both good and bad news.
The good news was that the cube-shaped barrier had held. Nothing from inside had leaked out, and so – barring the unlikely hypothetical of a demon stealthily hiding under their collective noses this entire time – Hell would have no idea what had occurred, or that Salt even existed at all.
As for the bad news… Argh! This is quite possibly the most annoying kind of pain I’ve ever experienced.
Lu was no stranger to soul damage, but this latest wound was far and away the largest he had ever suffered. But even so it felt almost wrong to call what he was experiencing pain – it was almost like an itch, but cold and far-away, not anchored to his nervous system except by proxy. She may not have actually torn me in half, but she got very close as far as my soul is concerned. Comparing his state now to when he had been battling his heart demon, he would say that while the amount of damage was greater, the threat was lower; the demon had been constantly attacking his soul, a parasitic tumour, whereas this current wound was as bad as it would get. It didn’t reduce his abilities, at least as far as moving around and basic reasoning were concerned, merely being an incredibly annoying pain that made it hard to focus or use his spiritual sense.
But the other disciples were not so lucky. Lu was only in the outer realm, and while his soul had been inflated beyond its natural size by some quirk of Salt’s physics, it still had only a mild sway over his body and mind. The Elders and core disciples had no such protections; for them, soul damage was the most dangerous kind.
Seventh Wheel’s right arm was shrivelled up and dead, completely unusable. Winding Wind looked like a ghoul, the skin of his face and scalp soft and lumpy, his hair all fallen out. And Lu didn’t know what ailment Goldenseed was suffering from under her heavy robes and veil, but a high realm healing spell played over her body every thirty seconds like clockwork.
Tai Sho and Giro held themselves stiffly, their eyes distant and their jaws clenched. In terms of absolute damage they had fared second best – they and Seventh Wheel had only endured the last of the Ancestor’s retribution, jumping into the closed space when it became obvious something was wrong – but they were still much more injured than Lu was, in terms of function.
At least Lady Rong is unscathed. Either by the whims of fate, or perhaps some obscure soul-protection art, the middle-aged woman had weathered Stingy-Eye without a scratch. Same as the priests, armoured in the light of Heaven. And fully mortal besides, so it isn’t like they’d even notice any soul damage… Although it might interrupt their connection to the Heavens? I’ve never put much thought into the mechanics of all that.
But speaking of the priests… The three of them were off on their own, huddled together like gold-coloured sheep. They seem particularly shaken. I can’t imagine why – they weren’t in any particular danger, given the sheer firepower at their disposal.
…Ah, perhaps I’m being too harsh. These are public servants, not warpriests who’ve dedicated their lives to battle. It would be like putting a sect administrator at the head of an army, and assuming they would work out what to do in the first minute. The metaphor was imperfect – the sect trained each disciple in the basics of martial arts from a young age, at the very least – but that imperfection only further highlighted the strangeness of the situation. I have to assume that the Emperors aren’t stupid, so why place this mission on the shoulders of a young girl and two old men? Surely there’s a spare grizzled veteran floating around they could have enlightened instead?
Lu shook his head. I’m speculating on things I can’t effect. I should really be focusing on our next move… “What do you think they’re talking about, senior brother?”
Giro’s head turned, only the smallest hint of pain in his features – seeing them together, it was obvious that the man’s vacant demeanour was copied from his master. “Hun is attempting to calm the young lady’s nerves. She seems to be in some amount of emotional distress.”
Ah, of course he’s listening in. Why would I assume otherwise? “Do you think we’ll have to do the rest of them alone?” That might be for the best; Heaven’s power is extremely unsubtle, it’s entirely possible that Stingy-Eye was only able to detect us through their involvement. Closing the other breaches with the splinter is almost certainly the better, more low-key solution. He had the Junk treasure on his person, both for the purpose of closing the breaches, and as an emergency escape tool.
…Assuming they aren’t all keeping their eyes open and alert, now. Ugh, this isn’t going nearly as smoothly as I had hoped.
“We’ll have to stop and heal either way, but I believe they will continue. That sort always have a rush of unearned conviction after the smallest setback.” Giro spared one last glance at the trio, before fixing his gaze back at the treeline.
…I know I just said some unkind things about them in my head, but to do so aloud is simply uncouth. Sir Giro must be in quite a lot of pain… or have a particular dislike of the faith. Lu could sympathise; he was feeling tense and irritable himself, the soul damage pulling as his attention in a way that was hard to ignore. Goldenseed had given them each a pill, but whatever healing was taking place was too slow to notice.
Seeing that Giro wasn’t interested in further conversation, Lu scanned the small clearing for something else to distract himself with. Seventh Wheel and Winding Wind are off discussing something. Goldenseed has an imposing air and is likely in more pain than Giro or myself. Tai Sho is just shy of my mortal enemy. That left only Lady Rong… but unfortunately, she was conversing with the aforementioned enemy.
So he simply stood as stoically as possible, waiting for the seniors and holy men to make a decision, trying to recall which spells had struck Stingy-Eye most effectively.
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Song did not think the image of the thing would ever fade completely from her mind, even if she lived a hundred more years.
When the crack in reality had exploded, she had panicked, but that panic had been quickly washed away; using her connection to the divine as an emotional anchor, she had dragged herself back to lucidity. The Emperors are with me, she had thought. Even when the great eye had opened and seen her, her conviction had not wavered. Holy light had welled up from inside her, and she struck the thing right in its centre.
The thing laughed at her. A harsh, grating and mirthless laugh that even now rang in her head. It mocked her, mocked her Heavenly Emperors, and with each failed attack her conviction wavered.
Nothing should be able to resist Heaven’s light – but afterwards, it was not that the thing had been able to resist that stuck with her. They had driven it off in the end, after all.
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No, it was the thing’s final parting shot that circled in her head. A casual attack, lazy even; like a cat batting halfheartedly at a dead mouse, the thing had struck her. And in that moment its foul energy had gone right through her shield of divine favour. Had struck directly at her heart, as if their were no defences at all.
She shuddered again, recalling it for the dozenth time. Hun and Fong placed steadying hands on her shoulders, but it was an empty comfort. In that moment when the blow had landed, she had felt a connection flair into being – one exactly like her connection to the Heavens, which even now provided a stream of power to her body and soul.
“Take as much time as you need.” Hun’s voice was kind, but she did not desire kindness. “There’s no rush.” Fong nodded, his deep-set eyes nearly buried under his hood and veil.
They thought she was trembling in fear. They thought she needed reassurance.
No. When that connection had opened for a fleeting half-second, she had seen the full scope of the monster, everything that it was from top to bottom. The eye might have seen her, but she saw it just as clearly.
She was trembling in rage. She needed to kill it.
An animal. It’s just an animal – instinct wrapped in power. It wanted nothing more than to fill its belly, to tear everything apart like the Earth was only a large ball of meat.
She opened her mouth, but words failed her. The anger was beyond anything she had ever felt, and for once the Heavens offered no soothing and gentle touch for her spirit – they were just as mad as she was.
Gold flowed through her veins, and finally the trembling stopped. Hun and Fong drew back, shocked at the radiance pouring from her body, enough to transform the small section of twilight forest into day.
Her mouth opened again, and her voice rang out with a deep echo. “I’m fine. Let’s get going.”
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For two days they rested. The notion of reinforcements was brought up and partially accepted; additional disciples would be called to scour the forest for sharpies, but no one would be joining the main group. Even accounting for the downtime their current pace was fine, and there was no reason to believe a larger or differently-specialised group would fair better.
Lu cultivated, worked on his arts, and had small, meaningless conversations with everyone who was not Tai Sho. He learned that the priest Fong had outlived all four of his grandchildren, that Seventh Wheel and his sister had gotten their matching scars facing the same spirit beast, that Giro had a fondness for sweet teas.
His spiritual veins grew smaller, drawn out like copper ingots stretched into thin wires, though the progress was slowed from his damaged soul. He memorised a few new spellforms, tucking some elemental attacks, an anti-divination spell, and a movement art more suited to the forest down his sleeves.
And then, just before the fourth dawn of winter, they began moving again.
The forest seemed quieter, though Lu was certain it was just his imagination. This deep in, in the true heart of the forest between western Ar’rai and eastern Spear Grove, the trees were so tall that no light reached the ground – but that did not mean there were no animals.
Large beetles and small flies were abundant, moths of many colours threatened to shoot down his throat as he flew, and the bats and small mammals that preyed on the insect life could become startlingly large.
Then there were the things that ate those animals, and the things that ate those, and, well… Jiendao wasn’t wrong when she mentioned the badgers in the same breath as the wolves. While he was in little to no danger, travelling with an Elder at his side and with all sorts of treasures and attack formations in his purse, he could easily put himself in the shoes of a merchant caravaneer. Travelling these dark woods with a handful of outer realms as guards wouldn’t be suicide, exactly, but it would certainly be risky. It was almost a shame they were in such a hurry; the area was teeming with spirit beasts, some of them quite high realm but disproportionately weak.
I really want to believe I’ll come back to that spot with all the grubs later, but that’s a lie. They’ll all have turned to beetles or been eaten by the time the mission’s done. A spirit insect’s core would be worth only a fraction of a true beast’s, but a seventh realm woodlouse was much easier to kill than a fourth realm tiger.
As he sighed at the lost wealth, trees whipped by on both sides. Waltz of the Yellow Rattle was much better than Desert Crossing Fist in this situation, but he – and the rest of the formation – was still moving slower. There were simply too many obstacles to go in anything approaching a straight line, and there was an additional need to be wary now that Salt knew, that they knew, that the invasion had begun.
The Telepathic Bond tightened around his scalp, Winding Wind’s voice appearing in his thoughts. [Goldenseed’s sensed something untoward. Make camp for the moment.]
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They approached as a group, all ten of them under the cover of Seventh Wheel’s heinously powerful illusions. Lu was blind and deaf, letting his seniors guide him forward; in order to be truly undetectable, they needed to not interact with physical reality on any level. Light bouncing off one’s eyes was a liability, as were vibrations in the air being impeded by one’s eardrums, and so both of those had to go.
It was a level of paranoia that Lu couldn’t help but be of two minds about. They were clustered together, navigating solely through indirect divinations – a situation that was uncomfortable in the extreme, but at the same time he was certain that if he had been looking in as an outside observer, he would nod and proclaim it the wisest possible course of action.
It’s easy to say that from the outside, but inside it’s strange and terror-inducing. I can’t feel my body at all, not even with my spiritual sense, nor is my Comprehension getting any feedback. Tenth realm spells are on an entirely different level! Compared to this invisibility, the still-unnamed spell he had invented seemed no different than standing in a corner and hoping any questing eyes mistook you for a lamp.
[We’re nearing the breach. The situation is quite different from the other one.] Winding Wind’s mental voice conveyed almost no emotion, which was increasingly frustrating as the weightless non-feeling minutes dragged on. But then, like a shaft of sunlight breaking through stormclouds, [There don’t seem to be any hostile entities. Seventh Wheel is dropping the illusion, be alert.]
I’ve never been more alert in my life, senior! A moment passed, and then suddenly Lu’s body had senses again. He could feel his weight, the slight heft of his limbs as he moved them. Light and sound, dazzling after their absence, the taste of the wind and the rich earthy scent of the soil under his feet.
Spellforms were held tense in Lu’s mind, but it seemed that the Elder had been correct; there was no enemy in front of them, no crazed warriors or giant monster lunging from the shadows.
In fact, there seemed to be no movement at all. And as Lu’s Comprehension scented the air, the reason became clear.
Every shade of death entered his nostrils, from the living stink of active rot to the dry staleness of a thousand-year-old tomb. There were no living trees or plants, only mounds of black soil and columns of petrified wood. No animals, or even insects. The ki was thick, much thicker than at the other breaches, but it did not flow. It was dead, like the trees, like the air. He felt like if he laid down and closed his eyes, he would sleep until the end of time, perfectly preserved.
The elder priest gagged, a hand going to his mouth. “Dear lords above. What is this? This isn’t…”
Fong’s sentence trailed off, swallowed by the absolute silence, and in response Lu took a step forward. I know what this is. “This breach must be being held by Oldest Bones. We’re lucky; I’ve resisted him before.” His eyes panned over the landscape, guided to the thickest knot of death-ki by his spirit. They landed on a small hill, its barren surface black and moist. There it is. I can’t see the breach, but I can feel it just under the ground. He took another step. “Please allow me to deal with this one – I’m familiar with his tricks, so there should be less danger for me than anyone else.”
He tried to take a third step, but a pair of restraining hands appeared to grip both of his shoulders. Lu turned, startled, to see Elder Goldenseed and Mai Rong with a grim look on her face.
The core disciple shook her head. “Don’t. The situation isn’t simple.”
“Disciple Rong speaks the truth,” Goldenseed continued. She held up something like an oversized stone coin, or perhaps a blunt chakram. “There is a demon somewhere under there.”