Chapter 41 - 41: Aftermath
Near a lake, a nude figure washed himself off. The loose dirt, blood, and peeled skin was scrubbed off with his hands. Besides two pieces of accessory, a necklace of a crescent moon and a ring, there was nothing else on his body.
Wei Wuyin was distraught at his circumstance. His last ditch effort to survive disintegrated his Scarlet Solaris Sect’s spatial ring, his clothes, and all his hair. He was bald, without any eyelashes or eyebrows, and even his pubic hair had been turned into dust.
The only two things that survived was the three-layered ring and the crescent moon necklace that came from it. He wasn’t too shocked that they survived. He couldn’t even figure out the materials they were made of; therefore, they couldn’t be ordinary.
"Where am I?" Wei Wuyin asked himself. The nearby crane dipped its beak into the lake, drinking its contents with a satisfied expression. Wei Wuyin’s eyebrow twitched.
He was lost.
His current location was far from the maelstrom of destruction. However, he didn’t know how fast he was going or how fast the wall went. He tried to make an estimation, believing he had traveled about one hundred to three hundred miles away from the Clear Sky Mountain Range.
"It’s not like I teleported, no? But then, why can’t I find it?" Wei Wuyin’s frustration furthered when he recalled taking the crane into the skies and finding no mountain range. He couldn’t have traveled a thousand miles away, right?
If he did, considering he traveled south, directly opposite to the wall’s incoming direction, he would’ve been in the Jade Lotus Domain, or near it. From the Clear Sky Mountain, west lay the Gaia State of the Earthly Titan Sect and Scarlet Solaris Domain.
Northwest from the Scarlet Solaris Domain was the Sky Sword Domain, directly north was the Aqua Echo Sect, and east from the Aqua Echo Sect was the Wu Central Lands of the Wu Country and home to the Capital.
If he had traveled north from the Clear Sky Mountain Range, he would’ve been in the Wu Central Lands, but he went south. With only the Jade Lotus Domain being south, bordering another country, he had only two possible locations: the Jade Lotus Domain or Xin Country.
Looking back at the destruction that had occurred, he wondered how many lives were lost. How many families were killed, cities and villages were swept up, and sects destroyed if he truly did travel as far as he believed.
"Even worse, my Hearts of Qi are damaged. They’ll need time to recover, even the qi cyclone around them destabilized." Sighing ruefully, he felt the immense pain aching his body. Not to mention the damage to his Hearts of Qi, his actual fleshy body was damaged, both internally and externally.
To make matters worse, he didn’t have any medicinal pills to help or qi to bolster his healing rate. He would have to wait with fractured teeth and bones, missing teeth and hair, and bruised flesh until he either obtained the appropriate pills or his Hearts of Qi recovered.
As he looked in the reflection of the water, his handsome visage no longer existed. Instead, he looked like a dirty hillbilly with a toned body. In fact, his hairless state made him somewhat monstrous-looking.
He rubbed his bald cranium and winced in pain. There was a considerable dent in his skull about the size of a baby’s fist, and it was quite noticeable. Without qi, he couldn’t even smooth this out. In fact, if it wasn’t for his enhanced brain’s flesh, that dent would’ve been fatal.
Even now, he felt his bodily control slip at times, like his brain had suffered considerable damage. When he walked, he would limp at times and even his hands trembled randomly or just outright become useless for a period.
Wei Wuyin knew his motor functions were affected by the rolling and smashing into the ground and mountain. It was already lucky his bones didn’t shatter into bits, only fractured and broke, but the extent was throughout his skeletal system. The only piece of bone that had very little damage was the spine, as it was the most tempered aspect of any cultivator.
Despite that, he still felt numbness in his legs.
The crane finished drinking and made its way to Wei Wuyin, it rubbed its beak in his right hand. Wei Wuyin didn’t respond, his eyes closed as he felt the dent in his skull with his left.
The crane cried softly, only then attracting Wei Wuyin’s attention. When he saw the crane’s beak rubbing his palm, his eyes constricted.
He didn’t feel that.
He couldn’t feel that.
He grasped his right arm with his left hand and squeezed. He even put enough force to further the fracture in his bone. Only then did he realize that his entire right arm had grown numb to pain. He moved it, and it trembled throughout the motion, indicating the severity of his current condition.
Taking a deep breath, he felt a deep pit form in his heart. He didn’t want to admit it, but there’s another reason why he couldn’t realize where he was.
His memory was affected.
He tried to recall things. He recalled time in the Scarlet Solaris Sect.
How he found an essence stone, propelling him to an Inner Disciple, joining Mei Mei’s faction, all sorts of missions and events, his engagements with the Jiang brothers, and him cultivating diligently to ascend to the second phase.
He continued to recall, but after he reached the middle portions of his Core Disciple life, it grew blurry and then blank.
"My most recent memory is my escape! The next recent memory, what is it! What is it!!! I became a Mortal God, wait. No, Ash Dragon City...No, Jade? Jade...Argh!" His head started to fiercely pound with pain. Wei Wuyin clenched his head and violently fell to his knees with a thud.
"Shit!" He viciously spat, misty spittle and blood escaping from his lips. His wounds opened as they bled once more, covering his body with a sanguine color.
His memories were affected and he had lost a portion of it. As a cultivator, he knew it was temporary. All damage to the brain could be healed with the appropriate treatment, and he possessed the Life Meadow Wood Qi. He needed to wait.
He just needed to wait.
As he thought like this, he felt sleepy. Abruptly, he thought about how dirty and bloody he was from the escape. It made him feel uneasy.
"A lake!" He felt relieved that he could clean himself, he started to rub the lake water onto his flesh, cleaning the dirt and blood off.
Wei Wuyin looked around, unable to recall any landmarks. He didn’t know how far he traveled, but it couldn’t have been too far, right? A few hundred miles at most.
"Where am I?"
The crane softly cried. Wei Wuyin had gone through these series of changes four times now. He hadn’t even realized that weeks had passed. This was the third lake they were in, and they’ve traveled far, always under his orders to find a lake to clean himself up.
The only solace the crane had was his predictability. Always the fourth cycle would he stop losing his memory and continue forward, always the fourth. Then, they’d leave and travel in a direction until they found another lake. Then, as he’s washing himself, he would undergo a series of memory loss once more.
The crane felt guilty, deeply and completely. Wei Wuyin, in one of his stupors, mentioned giving his energy to save the crane instead of himself. However, he didn’t regret it. That being said, he forgot that conversation too.
After Wei Wuyin spat out once more in pain, groveling on the ground, dirtying himself once again, he turned towards the crane.
"Let’s go. We need to find the mountain," he said as he mounted the crane. They took to the skies for several minutes, but Wei Wuyin winced once more, the light in his eyes fading and revitalizing once more.
"Gah, I’m so dirty. Let’s find a lake nearby on the way." Wei Wuyin said, ordering the crane to continue.
It cried with a hint of sorrow, but faithfully carried out its master’s orders.