Tai Sho’s body pushed forward, though he wasn’t certain which him was the one in control. Perhaps it was neither, and it was only animal instinct that willed his legs to take heavy steps towards where his master had died.
As he moved, the bubble of air moved with him, pushed along by the stone statue of a turtle clutched gently between his palms. The world outside the bubble was a milky sea of death – not unlike what he had experienced trapped underground in Salt, though this situation was many times more dire. Only the occasional strike of a sword or spear or fist broke the illusion of walking the bottom of the sea.
The strikes did nothing, of course, and he no longer even acknowledged them. The invisible bubble had weathered the attack that had killed venerable Elders and Patriarchs; how could it be breached by anything less than a divinity? If Master had kept it for himself, he would be alive.
There was some small part of him that questioned how the enemy soldiers had survived – were continuing to survive, immersed fully in the fluid – but he didn’t have any mental effort to spare. He simply trudged on. Don’t think about that. This wasn’t something that could be predicted – if Master had even a sliver of doubt as to his own survival, he would have taken it back before the battle. That’s the sort of man he was.
He had to reach the disk, and the otherworldly treasure embedded within. Even if Master’s expanded pouch had been destroyed – the thought was enough to make him cringe back in emotional shock, even after minutes of dwelling on nothing else – the disk itself was solid hellslate, basically indestructible.
Threads of qi drifted up from the ground, questing communication arts attempting to connect to him, but there was nothing left to say. The treasure. I can’t let it fall into enemy hands… That’s the only thing I can do right now.
His feet moved forward, unguided by any thought in his head or chest. A step, then another, and then the sea of radiant sludge was blown away.
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For the second time since the sun had set, Lu experienced devastation on an incomprehensible level – but unlike the series of explosions minutes before, this new disaster was almost entirely spiritual.
The lake of pus spattered as something impacted it, but that was nothing compared to the hardened resolve that smashed into their senses. Lu lost control of his flight under the unbearable pressure and they began to dip, before Bull smoothly took the reins of the treasure from Lu’s metaphorical hands.
“Here, let me.”
Lu gasped, struggling to breathe. If Patriarch Unrelenting Vigour’s anger had been like the sea filling a teacup, then this was… I don’t even have a comparison to make. Is this One-Man cutting loose? Did he come through the breach himself? His knees threatened to buckle, and he was forced to lean into Bull to remain upright.
“What- what is..?”
Bull breathed heavily, not answering immediately. He’s feeling it too. Do I have any..?
From his purse came a stack of silk talismans, all that remained after the short-but-intense combat. It was a depressingly small number. Elemental attack, another elemental attack, an isolation array..? No, not that one. Yet another elemental attack…
At the very bottom of the pile was a lone soul-defending formation. It burst into pale smoke as it activated, the smoke forming rings around the drifting pair which immediately halved the pressure on their spirits.
“…I don’t know,” Bull finally got out. “But let’s not stick around to find out.” Below them the pus was sloshing like ocean waves during a storm, eddies that must have been a dozen metres tall crashing about. Lu nodded, and added his own effort to the damaged treasure’s controls.
With an erratic movement that was sometimes fast and sometimes slow, the pair of disciples made their way down to where the Leaping Trout Sect was concealed. As they came within a few hundred metres of the ground, they passed a barrier that neither had noticed, and a short green-and-blue mountain appeared.
Three elderly women in scale-patterned robes stood on the air around them, their gazes stern.
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One-Man-Eaten-By-Fire was not a proud man by nature. He knew he was a warrior in only the loosest sense of the word – no, valour and glory were not things that dwelt in his heart. His hunger was dull and abstract, not the towering thing that howled out from inside his peers’ eyes. He was a planner, an ambusher, a skulking thing that only fought when victory was all but assured.
But there was one part of himself that he did take pride in. The aspect that had taken him to the pinnacle, from nothing to everything. The thing that had driven him forward, even more than the burning curiosity or strict control that his modern followers tended to associate him with.
It was courage. The courage to place one’s hand into the fire, to sacrifice the present in aid of the future. Courage to smother fear, drive it deep into the cold darkness where it was meant to hide, waiting for the moment it was needed.
So when something incomprehensible came falling from the sky, pressing his carefully-preserved army into the dirt, pushing down and down in opposition to his will until all that was left was slurry colouring the pus, One-Man did not flinch. He swiftly marshalled the dregs of himself that were left, and struck out.
The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.
The small creature – perhaps it was a human God, perhaps not – stomped its foot, and the miniature sea parted. One-Man’s manifested spear passed over his target’s shoulder as the ground heaved, and the pillar of solid flame arced into the distance.
It – he, unless his understanding of human sexes was mistaken – turned to look at One-Man’s gathering body without any expression on his face. But the Hero could feel the fury in his spirit, plainly obvious from the way it was continuing to shred the environment.
“You are the one who has caused this?”
One-Man’s understanding of the local energy was very much a work in progress; Hidden Moon had laid claim to the lone ‘cultivator’ on Salt, and he had existed in this realm for less than three days. Nonetheless, he could feel the roiling power in the man’s core, completely contradictory to his plain appearance.
He calmly took the measure of his enemy, compared it to the mere spark of his own power that was even now draining away without a physical conduit, and made the logical decision.
One part of him said this, a smoky simulacrum forming as the words echoed forth: “I am. I assume you have come to avenge your brethren?”
The other part of him slid away, retreating through the crack in reality, melting it closed as it went.
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“I am. I assume you have come to avenge your brethren?”
Steadfast Heart was in agony; as agitated as he was, there was no way he could restrain himself. His sense enveloped the entire sea of burning liquid, and to say it was like being dunked in boiling oil would be a gross understatement.
And yet, the pain meant nothing. It was only an awareness of damage, and damage was not enough to deter him from what he wanted to do. Before him was a spectre of lashing smoke, particles still flowing from the many corpses he had made from his descent. It hurt to behold, the simple act of looking at it scorching his soul to the bone. Yes, this is an Emperor, there can be no doubt. He thrust out his hand, and answered: “True Forceful Palm.”
The single form shining in his mind, a tangled behemoth of twelve woven-together lessers that could not possibly ever be rendered in three dimensions, forced the qi he fed it into the shape he demanded. The smoke was blown out, not merely away, but pushed through the fabric of space. Even this burned him, the connection between spell and caster a conduit for destructive intent. But the art did its job; the apparition made an ungodly noise as it broke apart, its diffuse form offering no defence at all – only to reform a moment later, seemingly unharmed.
As expected. It is not truly here, and so physical force cannot harm it. His joints cracked as he made a fist, crushing the smoke down into a singularity. No matter. I will simply have to try harder.
The Salt divinity retaliated, and as the air turned to pure heat he was forced to step a kilometre away – not by the temperature itself, but by the nearly-solid qi that saturated it. Such a diffuse attack might not have been able to injure him permanently, but it would add decades of recovery to his ascension time.
Black smoke continued to stream from the mangled remains of the enemy army, and the apparition reformed – larger than before, and more solid.
“A magnificent attack. Are you one of these ‘Heavenly Emperors’ the people of this place speak of?”
Eight Phases of the Moon: White Circle Expression. The ground cracked further, and Seventh Wheel’s apprentice was flung away, hopefully beyond the reach of what was about to occur. It had been centuries since he had last fought properly; he no longer knew where the exact bounds of his strength lay.
Eight Phases of the Moon: Closing Eye Severance. Eight Phases of the Moon: Dark Circle Entombment. Over the entire battlefield juts of earth and stone rose up, steaming where radiant liquid flowed off, and then with a wave of his hand Steadfast Heart sealed the source of his foe’s power deep underground – or at least, that was what should have happened. Instead, the mangled remains seemed to come alive, breaking his Dark Circle art as they climbed to their feet, severed limbs coming together as the bodies were restored. The caustic sea began to drain away into the bowels of the earth, but the enemy corpses stood their ground.
No, not corpses. Not any longer. There was no meat or bone inside the armours, only writhing smoke – and, dimly, the presence of living souls.
“Crude. Tell me, human Hero, what is your name? Why do you not house your spirit in a more fitting body?” The voice echoed from empty helmets, a thousand overlapping sounds achieving a harmony that would put any choir to shame. “I can tell you should be capable of it; you have more than enough strength.”
Steadfast Heart exhaled, and to his sense his breath became a platoon of sword-wielding ghosts. Killing Apparition. The invisible reapers scythed through the smoke-filled armours, but seemed to accomplish little; where they passed the reanimated soldiers would slump for a moment, before a burst of fire ignited inside them and they stood tall again. Resistant to soul damage? I should have guessed, with their homeland being what it is.
Surrounded on all sides, the patriarch allowed his tensed muscles to relax. He took a moment to calm himself slightly, than replied. “My name is unimportant. Rather, I will tell you of the man you have killed: Mu Yongchi, who took the title White Knuckle when he found his Path.” The army stepped forward, but from either wariness or respect allowed him to continue. “He was my student, and a man of great character. The word ‘justice’ may as well have been engraved into his bones; always, he fought to uphold both the letter and spirit of the law.”
Qi both familiar and alien swirled, one with a curious solidity, and the other the faintest impression of golden light. It was obvious that both sides were using his monologue to prepare their next moves.
“He was like my son, and I doubt that you can understand the grief I feel at his passing. He moved with grace, not only in battle but in all areas of his life.” Again he closed his fists, and this time the cracking of his aged joints was joined by the screech of reality buckling under his weight. “You will find that in comparison to him, I am only a common brute, content to put power over finesse.”
The patriarch threw a simple straight punch as the armours formed a neat battle line, their shields raised with unbreakable courage, their strange spears as unstoppable as the forward march of civilization.
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Elder Tangled Root passed her sense over the two men, forcing through the protective art with only moderate strain. Her two junior sisters looked to her without turning their heads, spells ready to fire between their cupped palms. ‘Well?’ they seemed to ask.
“They’re human. Reactivate the barrier.”
The two women rushed off, leaving the men to slump in place with relief. The taller, thinner one managed to scrape enough courtesy together to form a bow. “Senior sister, I am disciple Lu of the Steadfast Heart. Please, might I inquire-”
She stopped him with a raised hand. “Not right now. Your Patriarch has arrived, and it seems unlikely he will hold anything back. We’re evacuating to the core sect, so make yourself useful and help with herding the children.”