“Junior Tian, sit down!”
“I need to go to my brothers. I need to be there with them!”
“Tian! No!” Hong yelled.
“I have to go to them!” He lurched for the side of the platform. Elder Rui snarled and made a sharp gesture. Tian collapsed, flattened against the wood.
“You think I don’t know how you are feeling? Four hundred years ago, it was me down there! Two hundred years ago, I was picking the bones of my best friend out of my cheek after some bastard of a heretic made him explode! I know. I know!” The elder was breathing heavily, droplets of sweat the size of beans pouring down his face. “But right now, you will only hurt them, not help. Right now, you are exactly where you need to be.”
Tian heard the words, but he couldn’t believe them. He needed to go to his brothers. It was alright if he died. The last few years had been blessings enough for one lifetime. Someone else could kill the mad god. Or he could try again after he died and reincarnated. Either was fine. But he had to go to his brothers!
He couldn’t even struggle against the pressure Elder Rui was putting on him. He knew exactly what he should learn from that fact. He just couldn’t bring himself to care.
“I thought you would be the wild child, Junior Hong. This boy always seems alarmingly well behaved.”
Hong had the good sense not to volunteer a response. Tian couldn’t see her face, but he was sure she wanted to jump in too. Maybe that family of hers was chaining her down.
“Senior Redmane…”
“I heard her.”
Tian hadn’t. There must be some form of silent communication between the Direct Disciple and the Elder. And the giant crane, of course.
The bird made a lurch, then stretched into a long swooping turn. Elder Rui started a grumbling chant. It felt different this time. Something about the cadence and the way the stress fell on certain words.
Tian shifted a bit. The elder had released him, but Tian knew that he couldn’t leave the platform. He could sit quietly and keep his mouth shut, and that was it.
“Don’t want to stand and fight? How very unlike you bird brains. Well, I’ll just slaughter this depot of yours.” Eunuch Hei’s voice was high pitched and mocking. Tian softly closed his eyes.
There was a dreadful sound.
“And that’s the end of that, I think.” The Eunuch giggled. Senior Rui didn’t break his chanting. His whisk flicked upward, as though he were shooing away the stars. Long seconds passed. Tian forced himself to watch the Elder. It really was like he was gathering the stars to him. Little flickers of light had started forming a loose halo above Senior Redmane.
For the first time in the battle, Disciple Sung started playing on her zither. Not an angry note, but a furious melody. Deep, throbbing notes building up to sharp twangs, a song of fury and hatred. This wasn’t like the spring tune that slaughtered the army of undead. It was full of righteous fury, carrying a holy will of extermination.
“Where do you get off being so angry? Why are you mad? All the people in the base are expendable to you. Servant disciple, that’s what the Saintess called me. We aren’t even really part of your sect. Lay Brothers and Sisters. So why are you so mad? Did he make you lose face? Did he slap your face when he cut off our heads?” Tain wondered, his emotions dull. He didn’t speak out loud. He couldn’t muster the strength.
“Illuminate the Pavilion of Eternal Pine and Rigid Bamboo, plumb blossoms scatter over the bones of heroes, heed the command of the Guiding Star, SUPPRESS!
Senior Redmane swung around again. Tian felt an incredible gathering of fire and metal qi, as well as whatever the Elder was doing. It was within the five elements, of course, but the complexity of it overwhelmed him. It wasn’t as simple as a purely elemental attack. And he couldn’t see through the Direct Disciple’s attack at all. Everything was made of the five elements, but not everything was so easily dissected.
The giants were roaring again.
“RUI, YOU OLD FART!”
“Your enemy is me, Hei!” Disciple Sung’s voice was cold. Her fingers never stopped plucking the zither’s strings. Tian couldn’t see what was happening below. The noise was already more than he could stand.
“Oh. It’s my fault. That’s why this is happening. I was meant to die in the trash. Then my brothers reached out to me and took me in. Everyone helped me. Everyone was kind. So they all have to pay. They defied the heavens, and now they have to pay the price. Even my suicide wouldn’t wipe the slate clean. What about all the years of happiness? That can’t be washed away with a single death, can it?”
Tian felt the heart demon draining out from around his heart and wrapping around him. He had misunderstood it before. It wasn’t the heretics he hated. It was the consequences. He was blaming others for his own actions. If one arm of the scale went up, the other must go down. He had been raised so high. Food had to die for him to eat. Silkworms died so he could have clothes. His brothers died to pay for his life.
His dao heart shuddered and fractured. He could feel it breaking apart. That was fine. That was just right for him.
Oh Tian, no. No! This isn’t your fault. This isn’t something you could control.
“Mind if I join in, Daoist Sung?” A new voice, strong, masculine, the clash of steel and the warmth of sunlight in it.
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“Wandering Sword Fei! Has Sword Peak gone insane, or have you given up on Daggertooth Valley?”
“Insane, Hei? Without you holding down the front line, we have swept halfway to Black Iron Gorge! Our kids have turned the Valley into their own backyard. Did you really think your little deception went unnoticed?”
“You!”
“Hahaha! Come then!”
Elder Rui collapsed with a gasp. “I wondered what that bastard was doing here! Hei must have gone mad with humiliation. Even if he survives Sword Peak’s Wandering Sword and Heavenly Note Sung, he has no place left in the Wasteland. Everyone will be hunting for him. Everyone!”
“Humiliation, Senior?” Hong’s voice was deathly quiet.
“He might actually be a Eunuch. And if he did really lose his balls, he lost them in battle to Disciple Sung. Some of her songs have powerful tissue destroying effects, and, well, soft tissue not protected by bones or anything…”
“I see. Thank you.” She sounded nearly as dead as Tian felt. Grandpa was holding him hard, but he could barely feel it.
“It looks like you kids will get to fight after all.” The Elder sounded exhausted. “Even though I want nothing less.”
Who was there left to fight? Or rather, who was there left to save? Once the array came down, those axes would have slaughtered most of the base. The demons and zombies outside would have cleared the rest in just moments. His disbelief must have shown in his face, because the Elder kept on talking.
“Why do you think I was chanting all those spells, Junior Tian? Did you think Senior Redmane was doing nothing? The main array is down, and the heretics are inside the base. But there are a damn sight fewer of them, and the axe blows didn’t catch our people directly. The Inner Court can pin down their experts, but the Outer Court battle is still undecided. And you two… will die if I don’t let you fight. I see it so plainly in your faces. I don’t know if Junior Tian can still be saved. Damn you both!”
The Elder took a gasping breath. “Redmane-”
“Brace for landing, I’m coming in hard! Let’s teach those bastards to fear our Mountain in the few seconds they have left to live.”
“I will be allowed to fight, Elder Rui?” Tian’s voice was very polite.
“Yes. Fight to your heart’s content. Just come back alive. Whatever guilt you are feeling, don’t run from it. Don’t be a coward. Fight to win and to live. Your brothers would want that for you.”
“Yes. Yes they truly would have wanted that for me.” He nodded dully. The rope dart fell onto the platform with a thud. He took deep breaths, cycling the Advent of Spring gifted to him by Brother Fu. His fingers ran along the dart made by Sister Li, using materials provided in part by Auntie Wu. Was Brother Su still alive down there? Was he still smiling?
Senior Redmane landed in a flare of scything feathers and stabbing claws. His beak jabbed down, spearing demons like he was hunting frogs in a swamp. Elder Rui’s whisk swung out, the hairs extending and growing until they were long enough to sweep the ground around them. There were sickening sounds of meat falling apart, and the screams of inhuman things.
“I should go to the hospital. There will be many dying people to comfort there.” Tian said. He grabbed a rope and slid down from the platform. He was vaguely aware of sister Hong next to him.
His soft shoes landed in torn, stinking, caustic, meat and shattered bone. “I’m pretty much broke, you know. I could use the work.”
Tian dove into the melee. Every step was sharp as a nail and solid as a mountain. His range became an amorphous idea. His rope dart stretched and grew as he needed, wrapping around a leg or a neck, taking off an arm or punching through an ear. Ripping out nothing that was being used well.
The chaos of the elements around him transformed from blinding to illuminating. The will moved before the qi moved which moved before the muscle. Every spike and shift in vital energy in the heretics and demons was plain to him. And for every move, Tian had an answer.
His arts flowed easily from one to the next, then started to blend. No need to think deeply. Light Body Heavy Hands simply gave way to Thunderous Palm, shattering the heart of someone who thought they were safe. Then it in turn ceded its place to Snake Head Vine Body, and a horrible bat-thing was ripped from the sky and flung into the eyes of a heretic who never saw Sister Hong coming.
Stronger, weaker, even the notion of fearing higher levels couldn’t survive in the melee. He saw brothers covered in gore, hacking in every direction. He saw demons so maddened by the chaos that they turned on each other and their masters. It was insanity. It was a true Hell of battle. He wasn’t fighting individual enemies, he was fighting the battlefield itself. And then he stopped fighting it.
He felt so stupid. Why was he fighting the madness? He just wanted to get to the hospital. Why fight? Yes, some obstacles would have to be removed with his arts, but that wasn’t fighting. The battlefield pressed in on him and he swayed back. As he went back, his rope dart went forward. Snaking over a shield and under the chinstrap of a helmeted heretic. Then he stepped forward again, because the obstacle had been removed. The battlefield had opened a way for him. Just a few steps and a few seconds long, but adequate for his needs.
Yes, there was no need to fight. Fighting meant enemies. People worth hating. He didn’t have the luxury of that anymore. Not after what he did. He should never have left the dump. That was where he belonged.
Tian and Hong pressed deeper into the battle, leaving torn meat and shattered bone behind them. All the lessons they learned in the Six Turns Caverns had been sublimated and condensed into every move. Perhaps if they were dueling a higher leveled heretic, they might have lost. But in the chaos of the battlefield, where there were endless distractions and endless tools for them to make use of, they were gods of killing.
They made it to the hospital in a spray of gore. The hospital had its own wards, still up, but dim. The reason they had survived was the piles of good brothers and sisters around it. Tian saw some of his brothers from West Town still up and fighting. He didn’t see Brother Su. He did see Brother Fu.
Brother Fu stood in front of the hospital doors, and nothing was allowed past. He fought with the strength of ten. Of twenty. Every move was effortless. Heretics and demons alike seemed to throw themselves onto his wide knives. Worse, he made it look easy. Brother Fu didn’t dominate the battlefield. He didn’t roar, or threaten, or taunt. He stood where he ought to, and defended what he should. A humble man, not a weak one.
Even that humility was too much offence for someone. Tian could feel an awful gathering of qi above him, twists of rotten iron and corroding fire piling up in the sky. A heretic at the Heavenly person level hacked at Brother Fu with a saber. The burning sharp qi cut through the air, possessing the cruel authority of a hegemon.
“FATHER!” Tain screamed and Brother Fu caught his eye for a moment. And just for a moment, the old man smiled. His eyes went wide. He looked like he understood something that had mystified him his whole life. The saber qi came crushing inwards. Brother Fu met it with a smile and a single sentence.
“This life is enough.”
Corrupted metal and fire was met with pure water, the old man’s vital energy flowing strong as a mountain waterfall. He caught the sin-cut featherlight on the flat of his knife and let it spin him around. Then he gently guided it back from whence it came. A head went flying. A Level Ten decapitated a Heavenly Person.
The battlefield went silent. Tian could feel the elements gathering around Brother Fu, rushing into him. Elevating him. It should have been a moment of joy, but the battlefield was rushing away from him, even the brothers and sisters from West Town turned and ran. A great terror descended on the battlefield, as black clouds boiled out of a clear night sky, crackling with red lighting and divine fury.
Brother Fu had defied the Heavens and made an achievement unequalled even in the days of old. And the Heavens wouldn’t stand for that.