“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.”
Lu blinked, almost too tired to process the severe woman’s words. The Patriarch? Children? What do you..?
His beautiful, crippled treasure listed suddenly, and the world tilted until he and Bull were only a few degrees off from parallel with the ground. “Ah-! Yes, children! Just let me land, and…” The ground rushed up, and the two men worked together to set down gently on the outskirts of the mountain.
As first impressions went, Lu didn’t think they were doing very well. The woman – Elder, Lu, the Elder. Dear me, I feel like I’ve been folded into a paper crane – only cocked a brow as the flying board went back in his purse. “Pardon me. You were saying?”
She gestured, and Lu’s eyes followed her arm up towards the sect proper. Vibrant buildings painted in a rainbow of shades – with a certain preference towards white and blue – caught his attention, scale-shaped roof tiles reflecting the light of the rising moon and presenting a very picturesque landscape. Ah, much better than the other one. I suppose some rural sects are civilised after all. “We don’t have enough manpower to guide all the mortals. Proper introductions can wait until things have settled out, so please move, honoured guests.”
Lu blinked again, but held in his questions. “Of course, Elder. We’ll, ah, get right on-” Before his sentence was finished, the woman turned and sped off through the air. Well, that’s just rude. A moment passed as Lu leaned his side against Bull’s shoulder, both of them decompressing from what had just occurred.
Then a tremble rocked the earth, and they both snapped back to reality. Lu glanced down and met Bull’s eyes. “Yes. You heard her – something about children?”
Bull nodded. “They’ll be further in, I assume. You have any healing pills? For soul damage.”
Lu’s eyes became distant as he and Bull began walking, too wrung-out for anything approaching a movement art. “Yes, a small handful.” Winding Wind had handed him a small bag of them as they surveyed the situation – the recollection stung, memories of only a few hours ago seeming to stretch out into the distant past. “From Elder Goldenseed directly. They're quite slow, but…”
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Oh. She meant actual children. Lu had thought she was speaking dismissively of outer disciples, but no, crowded around the gates of the sect was a massive… well, crowd.
Bull rotated his wrists. They were both more animated now that the pills were doing their work – though it was probably mostly placebo; soul-healing pills lagged far behind their body counterparts even at the highest level – and the scarred disciple managed a wan smile. “These must be villagers who fled from the army as it advanced.” His eyes roamed over the sea of families; there were many woman and children, with only a fraction of the number being men. “This is probably a good chunk of the people in this part of the continent. I see why they wanted help.”
Leaping Trout disciples in scale-patterned robes were flitting about, guiding streams of mortals through the gate and doing their best to prevent tramplings. But the gates weren’t the open, towering constructs of Steadfast Heart. They had obviously been built to keep people out; two metres in width, they were only large enough to admit a half-dozen at a time. Thousands of mortals were pressed against the tall outer walls, and the gentle press of each person as they attempted to get closer was multiplied into crushing force as the crowd grew denser further in. The cries of desperation might have been intimidating, if he had heard them on any other day.
“So, should we..?” There’s another barrier overlapping the gate. The chances of teleporting through by myself are slim; it was made to deter other cultivators, after all. But it’s letting people through physically, so… “Start taking people over the top?”
“Think that’ll work? None of the local disciples are doing it.”
Lu continued to watch the crowd. “No, they are. The higher realms are disappearing with groups – they must have a way to get through.”
Bull finally seemed to regain his normal posture, his shoulders squaring and his chin raising. “Good eye. Let’s go talk to one of them, then.”
They started forward, and Lu’s thoughts began to lighten as they went – before another tremor ran through the ground, reflected above by the sea of mortal agitation, and down his spirits went. What’s happening outside? That Elder mentioned the Patriarch, but is it really him? If it is, does that mean White Knuckle really is…
There was a small part of Lu that felt almost resentful; that if Steadfast Heart had moved earlier, things would not have gone so poorly. But the rest of him knew the truth.
The Patriarch was powerful, but that power had its own cost. His soul had long since outpaced his body; entering combat without destroying himself likely took an inordinate amount of qi, enough that recovery time would be measured in years if not decades. Steadfast Heart was a strategic resource, one that was more useful as a deterrent than a weapon. And yet, here he is. Assuming the Elder wasn’t mistaken. A wave of qi washed over his body, producing snowflakes in the air as some massive spell from outside the sect reached far enough in to chill half the mountain. Lu shivered, though not from the sudden cold. No, there’s no reason to doubt.
They reached a group of outer disciples, and Lu let Bull take the lead as he retreated further into his thoughts. Was it all pointless? Closing the other breeches, getting Moving Waters on-side… The moment a higher power waved their hand, all of our careful manoeuvring was wiped away. There’s no way the Emperors will allow this to stand. He looked around. Surrounding him were mothers with young children, boys and girls whose fathers had probably died defending their homes. Was I too naive, yet again? If we hadn’t tried to make peace, had alerted Heaven and let them do with Salt what they did with the other realities, wouldn't that have been better? It’s probably going to happen anyway – and if it doesn’t, its because the Ancestors will do it to us first. This loss of life was all…
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
Lu let the thought trail off unfinished with a shake of his head. Ha. As though I know better than White Knuckle or Steadfast Heart… How conceited of me. A soft laugh escaped his mouth, the need to release pressure, more than amusement, driving the air from his lungs.
Bull turned at the sound, two coins of blue-black metal in his hand. “Lu?”
“Just… processing, I suppose. They really are all dead, aren’t they?”
His friend’s eyes were pained. “…Yeah. Let’s focus on the moment, okay?” His hand thumped softly into Lu’s chest, and he accepted the offered coin. It was nearly perfectly black in the nightly ambience, turning blue only where it caught the light of drifting spells that had been sent up by the sect’s disciples. “A token to cross the barrier. Only goes through this one; if you need to get into the inner sect, you’re on your own.”
And they just handed them over? They really must be desperate for able bodies. Lu looked up. Bull’s smile was wooden, obviously fake, but it was at the very least a smile. Lu’s own mouth curved up. Better than nothing. “Right. I’ll start on the other side, then?” How can I wallow, when surrounded by so many people that need help? Maybe the path that took us here was flawed, but it was the one we went down; we just have to live with where we end up.
Bull slapped him on the shoulder. “I’ll find you when I can.” Far above something ignited, and for a moment night turned to day. The press of bodies around them redoubled, and the two men parted without another word.
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The darkness was going through its own death throes as Steadfast Heart finally ground his opponent into dust, light from above filtering down to replace the stubborn flame finally sputtering away to nothing.
The fight had been roughly even for a time – and then the first wave of reinforcements had shown up.
The vast number of disciples had been expecting to set up for a long counter-seige, to slowly pick apart the enemy on the assumption that their leadership was already decapitated by the first clash. But they didn’t hesitate to join the torn-up battlefield once it became clear what was happening, and from then on it was a one-sided beatdown. The army of reanimated soldiers was extremely durable, and fielded potent offensive arts, but had little to no manoeuvrability; once they lost the numbers advantage, they were herded and cut down as their God’s power dwindled.
Steadfast Heart looked across the devastated countryside, his breathing heavy with loss. There was not even a single body left to bury on either side, each one either dissolved by the dwindling pool of white acid or turned to smoke and dissipated. And speaking of the acid, it had soaked down into the ground in a massive area. It was entirely possible that a full eighth of the continent would be rendered uninhabitable when all was said and done – with the groundwater tainted, there was no containing this to just the area of the battle. Thank the Heavens it happened so near the coast; if we were upstream, we might have lost four or five times as much.
A man in heavy golden robes approached, young but not young, perhaps in his early thirties. His staff lacked the characteristic golden rings at its head; instead there was a chain, more bronze than gold, attached to a solid and heavy bar of the same metal. This was no normal member of the clergy, but a dedicated war-priest.
“Have you decided to end this farce, Steadfast Heart?” The priest’s voice echoed, his eyes like the inside of a furnace.
The patriarch turned his head, and while he acknowledged the man with a nod, his words were negative. “I am not so easily swayed, even by a tragedy of this magnitude.” His eyes went back to the barren landscape, pools of white still settling in the deepest cracks the battle had caused. “My reasoning was sound. I cannot recant my position; these are men, not demons. Their evil is the evil common to all living things, and there are good and honourable hearts amongst them.” He paused, then sighed softly. His flesh sat uncomfortably on his bones now, even more than it always did. “But it was always a gamble, from the very start. No man can oppose Heaven, who is beneath it. Do as you will, Emperor Du; I shall take your side from now on.”
The priest nodded, his expression too stoic to be called satisfied. His eyes dimmed, and when next he spoke his voice had lost that reverberating echo. “It is a shame you have seen reason so late. This was avoidable, honoured elder.”
The patriarch’s eyes hardened. His head shook slowly. “Is fate so easily turned aside, where men like us are concerned? My student died defending his principles, his Path and mine. Speak ill of that if you wish, but I believe that your Emperors would agree with me.”
The priest did not answer, but his unveiled face left his expression exposed as neither condescending nor pitying.
They stood, silent, watching the sun peek above the horizon. As the world was bathed in light from the heavens, that light somehow seemed to take on a deeper hue than usual. The soft red of morning turned gradually golden, and that brilliant, harsher radiance only compounded as the sun climbed higher in the sky.
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The sect endured strike after indirect strike all through the night and into the early hours of the morning. Lu wasn’t sure how much he helped on an objective level – his continual use of Spacial Freeze had left him with very little ki to transport people through the sect’s walls, leaving the bulk of his night to be spent moving relatively slowly up and over the wall by more normal means – but emotionally, it was soothing. Soothing in comparison to the frenzy of a pitched battle, anyway.
The spell effects leaking through the barrier began to taper off as the night progressed, but with each hit degrading the array a little more the danger actually increased over time. They got all the civilians into the sect proper with only minutes to spare; an hour before sunrise a massive, calamitous shockwave finally shattered the sect’s outermost protections, and the few disciples who were left outside were struck full-on.
But miraculously, no one else was killed. Lu could look at the mothers being guided gently to hastily built temporary housing, their children in tow, and feel unambiguously good. An incongruent bright spot at the end of an otherwise pitch-black day. It’s nice. Maybe I should try medical lessons again? I quit when things got to the more… dissection-y bits, but my stomach must be made of sterner stuff these days. If I can do it to myself, surely I can do it for others?
His tired, flagging mind sketched a scene with shaky lines, a picture of himself wearing doctor’s robes, his face stern and imposing like Lady Aiya Yu. Ha. I’m having trouble imagining it, but it could happen. He admired the work of his mind’s eye as pink coloured the horizon, but allowed the half-baked dream to fall apart as a blue-clad inner disciple approached.
The woman bowed shallowly, which Lu returned. “Honoured guest, I hope our lack of propriety is excusable. With the situation being what it is…”
“Of course, of course. I understand completely.”
The woman’s lips arced up, and Lu’s heart gave a tepid beat, too ragged for even the call of a beauty’s smile to rouse it. “I’m glad. You are from the Steadfast Heart Sect, yes?”
“Yes, that’s right.” Another bow. “Lu, outer disciple of the Steadfast Heart. Would that we were meeting under better circumstances, senior sister.”
She nodded. “Yan Luann, inner disciple. I believe Elder Seven-Coloured Scales wished to speak with you; might I escort you to the inner sect?”