Bo decided after all this was done he never wanted to set another foot in a damn marsh in his life. Despite the air feeling cool and clammy, he was still somehow sweating enough that his hair was plastered to his face and his clothing had become stuck against his back thanks to a thin sticky film of sweat. He was accustomed to doing arduous jobs in humid weather that left him as a blob of sweaty twitching flesh at the end, but the marsh was a completely different beast. The marsh also further tormented him by swathing itself in a thick layer of mist, obscuring the path ahead and allowing the titanic 'jade corpses' to take on the quality of eerie slumbering beasts in the wet shroud.
He looked over at Rui Yifu who seemed completely unperturbed by the weather, in fact Bo thought that Rui was probably enjoying it. Fishes like water, after all.
Zhu'er looked miserable however, constantly pausing to grab her own messy hair and try wringing moisture from it or adjusting it to rest on her shoulder.
Besides the sounds of wildlife or somewhat unnerving cries much farther in the distance, there was little noise to disturb their walk across the platforms. Bo decided that a good way to turn his attention away from the cold sweat covering his body was to start throwing questions at Rui Yifu. "How long do you think all this big statues have been in the ground?" He asked.
"Four thousand years, give or a take a hundred," Rui Yifu answered. "If the ground had been an unstable marsh prior to the end of the Ancient Dynasty, it's unlikely that they would have chosen it for tombs, false or not."
"Where did they get the big rocks for the statues?"
"They aren't just big rocks, they're jade, and that..." Rui Yifu trailed off. "I don't have any answer for. I don't particularly want to get off the platform to go check for any seams in the statues that might show they were built from different chunks... maybe they just fell from the heavens as a sign of divine approval?" He laughed softly.
"The air is salty," Zhu'er grumbled. "I don't like it."
"Is it?" Bo sucked in a big breath of air and immediately hacked out a disgusted cough, "it is salty! Why is the air salty?"
"It's a salt water marsh," Rui Yifu shrugged as he continued walking, carefully picking up Zhu'er to carry her to the next somewhat farther placed platform.
"G-give me a moment," Bo continued coughing as his stomach bubbled in protest, doubling over to hold his chest. Sucking in a lungful of the overly salted humid cold air was something his empty belly had very much disagreed with. He wished he still had his bag of fruits, but could not remember where they had gone. He retched once, and twice, spitting a little into the morass around him before the feeling finally vanished and let him stand up. "Ah damn," he could not see Rui Yifu or Zhu'er anywhere, the mist having moved forward to obscure the area around him. He could still just vaguely make out the shape of the sunken statues around him, and luckily the platforms were close enough to each other that he did not need to worry about slipping into the muck by accident.
Bo still had his bearings and moved forward, ignoring the sensation of disturbed insects escaping the demise of their rotting wooden homes. "Wait for me!" Bo called out, his voice echoing briefly before fading. He walked and tried to whistle a little tune to keep the silence at bay, wondering how far Rui and Zhu'er got while he was busy dry heaving. It's not like he had been laying on the ground for hours, it had simply been a few minutes at most so surely they had not cleared that much distance.
Gradually a dark splotch grew in the space far from him, taking the shape of a person gradually as he sped up into a jog. "Hey!" He yelled, moving faster. The mist pulled from the shape gradually, revealing the back of a man who was walking unevenly forward. Bo stopped, realizing it was not Rui Yifu. Hesitancy filled his limbs as he considered whether moving forward to ask the man if he had seen his friends, or if he wanted to wait in his spot until the man had wobbled away.
"Everywhere I see is dust..."
The voice was hoarse but familiar and Bo felt coldness seep into his heart, spreading into his lungs as the cold chill from his flesh frozen him stiff.
The man turned around, the pale face of Li Chunning stared out at him, moving bloodless lips. "Everywhere I see is dust..." He repeated.
Those words... Anemone had said them as well, Bo reached out to his friend. "Just hold on-"
Li Chunning coughed violently, coagulated blood falling over him as thick roots burst from his chest. He grabbed at his face, "I can't! I CAN'T! I WON'T!" He yelled as the flesh of his arm split like the swollen belly of a slaughtered pig, more roots and thinner veiny vines emerging and wrapping around the limb. Bo grasped at the arm that still retained its human flesh only for it to slough off in his hand, cold ash-thickened blood splashing up his arm as the thing growing out of Li Chunning's body shrieked in the merchant son's voice and stepped backwards on warped legs.
Bo dropped the skin in his hand, watching as an abomination made of stone-like roots and rotting human meat shook itself like some monstrous dog. It still stood on two legs, but its hands had been warped into stubs topped with three long blades of stone. Bo stepped backwards, his foot immediately sinking down into the thick muck and he tried to use the leverage of the platform to pull himself further back, his throat closing as his mind tried to gibber something together.
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
The monster moved towards him sluggishly as Bo's chest filled with a thousand terrified birds. He ripped his foot free from the muck and clambered onto the platform behind himself, his limbs moving treacherously slowly. His nails scraped against the rotting wood and the thudding of his heart all he could hear.
He turned around to see the beast was on the platform he had just left. Its face was not human, it had a long tapered snout and two deep pits where eyes would be, white vines worming around in them. Li Chunning's head was beneath it, fused into mass that worked as its chest. The eyes rolled wildly in their sockets and as the beast screeched, so did the head. It stepped forward, immediately mired in the marsh and Bo jumped into the marsh across from it, pushing through the mud, water, and decaying plant matter quickly with the energy from his terror as he ran around the creature and onto the next platform ahead. He then leapt to the next one.
It snarled, whipping back around and easily leaping onto the platform he had just jumped from. The strange head snapped at the air, as though something bothered it, and Li Chunning's head's eyes locked onto Bo.
Then it grew very still.
Bo became very still as well, paralyzed by the cloudy eyes of Li Chunning. They moved slowly, looking at him, then at the sky, then back to Bo. The bloodless lips moved, forming silent words. Bo's mouth was also moving, but he could not hear himself talk. He wanted to apologize, he wanted to tell Li Chunning that day at the dinner table, he understood. He could only look at the entombed body and hope somehow Li Chunning was there, that he actually understood what Bo was trying to say, that he-
His vision disappeared in a fiery eruption of pain and Bo screamed in agony as he was pushed down into the water and mud around them. He blinked rapidly as he covered his eyes with his hand, rolling over onto his side and forcing himself back upwards as the gurgling roar of the monster circled around him. Bo pressed his hand against where the worst of the pain was, as though the pressure would stop the agony that throbbed in his head. Heat was finally warming his skin, soaking into his sleeve and dripping down his chin. He opened his eye with considerable effort, tears falling over his cheek.
The beast was before him, scratching at its own head and shaking itself so violently that it looked like the roots that held it together would snap. But then it stopped and let out a ear piercing roar, lunging forward with its bloodied claws for his face again.
An awful scraping filled the air, and Bo was pushed deeper into the muck. He held the sword's hilt before him, the sharp blade stymying the claws just inches from his face. He saw himself reflected in the sword, blood soaked the left side of his face. A thousand eyes of all sorts, human, snake, fox, and stranger ones, stared back at him briefly from the sword. But the sword itself trembled too much in his hand, the claws came closer to his face.
Bo dropped down to the ground, allowing the beast to topple over him as he crawled out from between its legs. He quickly got back to his feet and gripped the sword tightly in both hands, swinging it against the thick tendon of one of its legs. Despite the sword's chipped edge, it cut through the tendon, oozing a medicinal smelling red sap. The trembling extended from his hand to his arms as the beast howled and rolled, ripping up marsh grass and detritus as it wailed while getting to its feet. It threw itself at him again with its claws bared and he weakly swung the sword in its direction even while backing up on the small platform. The monster was just as unexperienced with its claws as he was with his sword however, allowing him to knock the claws away and make it to the next platform.
"Li!" He called out, hoping that the limp human head would respond. But the eyes had grown more cloudy and stared out at an unfixed distance far away. "Chunning! Baobao! I don't know if you can hear me but-"
The beast leapt onto the platform with Bo, cracking the stone beneath. The platform lurched backwards, taking Bo with it into the marshy water that surged over his face and body to burn at the wound on his face. He pushed himself free just in time to avoid the monster crashing down where he just was and stood up on unsteady legs. The monster shook its head, whining as it leaned on its uninjured leg. Red sap pooled around it.
Bo pulled the sword up, point first, and then the beast suddenly rushed forward. Bo's heart skipped a beat as he felt the sharp stone blades bite into his sides and back . Thick sap poured over his hands that tightly held the sword's hilt as it was buried deeper and deeper into the monster's body. The monster vomited decayed flesh and ash, curls of smoke emerging from its new wound as Bo's arms and legs turned into jelly. But he could not let go or fall, he forced himself to say upright and look at Li Chunning's face. The eyes were dull and the pale lips half opened. "I couldn't... I'm sorry, I couldn't help you..." The words fell out of his mouth, leaving behind a bitter taste. "I..." Anything else he had to say died on his tongue. The wound the sword was making held small white embers that grew in with flame, burning the flesh and roots of the body.
He leaned backwards and pulled to remove the blade from the body, which slumped unceremoniously into the muck around them. The white flame continued to eat at the body which made a thin grey smoke rise into the misty air.
Bo's lungs felt like they had been shredded and his chest heaved. He could barely feel the chill of the air around him anymore. Kneeling in the muck he tried to take deep breaths but could only make short hacking coughs instead.
"Bo!" Rui Yifu's worried voice called out from the distance.
"Where are you!?" Zhu'er's much more high pitched little voice followed.
The useless piece of metal was heavy in his blood coated hand. He looked down at it, seeing three eyes reflected in its reddened gleam. One set of eyes was familiar, staring up at him with a soft glance before they faded away. The remaining eye was reddened and full of tears.
The white fire grew, but gave no heat. The body remained inert, face down in the water that mirrored the flames, the red sap slowly drifting away. A pale benevolent face looked up from the water at him, smiling with all the mercy of a compassionate god.
"A sword once drawn can only maim or kill."
"...Useless," he mumbled, forcing his hand to let go of his sword to look down at his lone face in the water. "What a useless thing."
"Bo!" The voices were closer now.
Staring into the white flames, Bo's aches became numb compared to the slow tearing of his heart. He gripped his face and screamed until he thought he would vomit out his own heart. A pair of small cold hands gripped his, holding tightly and all he could do was cry.