There were considerably fewer test takers assembled at the mouth of the valley. Elder Deepwalker gave them all a sardonic look, or what Tian interpreted as a sardonic look. It could be hard to read a Crane’s expressions, but once you learned to study the whole body and not the face, you did pick up a few things.
Elder Rui was still here, as was Elder Redmane and the crow Burning Heaven had identified as Senior Brother Brightheart. Brightheart’s companion, the cheerful looking daoist, was still on his back, though looking considerably less cheerful. No one was looking well. He turned to face Liren. She wouldn’t meet his gaze, turning away, raising her hands between them.
“Please. Later.” Liren’s voice was twisted and choked. Tian blew a slow breath out and turned away. The illusion said she was picking at the cracks in Liren’s heart, and those had always been plain. Tian knew he was one of them. Perhaps the largest of them. It wasn’t hard to imagine the cruelties inflicted on her by illusions wearing his face and speaking with his voice.
“A round dozen of you left. That’s a bit high. Well tempered dao hearts, this generation. Not bad. I suppose that little rascal did throw out a lot of the bums, which helps.”
Tian had to really focus to find who was speaking. It was a light, pleasant voice, even if the tone was indifferent. The “Not bad” carried the weight of someone watching a student practice their basic three hundred characters. “Oh, you wrote ‘Mountain’ very tidily. Not bad.” He eventually spotted a sparrow sitting on a branch. It was a rather cheerful golden-yellow color. He wondered if she would be interested in some seeds, then quickly amended the thought.
He only had Earthly Realm food, no different than mortal fare. He’d rather not offend the Emissary with what she would consider trash. Especially if “That little rascal” referred to Starsieve. Just how powerful were the hegemons of the mountain?
“Powerful beyond your comprehension, and they are far from the peak of the world. You are trying to judge the height of a mountain based on all the anthills you have seen, never having looked into the distance and seen the myriad other peaks. It’s not that I’m more powerful than Starsieve was. I’m not. It’s just that I remember when he was still a wet behind the ears novice, picking which path to follow by tossing a stick in the air and going whichever way it pointed.”
The little golden sparrow turned towards him and flew to a closer branch, even as she remained exactly where she was before. Another illusion, cast seamlessly. It didn’t even slow the real Emissary’s speech.
“Since we have a few too many, we’ll switch to everyone’s favorite way of picking who’s best. Violence. I’m tossing you all into an illusion and throwing enemies at you until you reach your limits. Those who can exceed their limits, or at the very least show me something that impresses me, will come with me to the Windsong Pavilion to pay your respects. If one or two of you pass the Misteress’ inspection, you will be presented to the Grandmaster.”
The golden sparrow looked over the crowd for a moment. Tian had the oddest feeling that she was waiting for something.
“I am waiting for something. The right moment. It’s now!” The illusion cut off the final word with a starting shout, and he found himself on the red sands of the wasteland once again.
“I miss Liren. Which is odd to say, given that I’ve been arms length from her this whole time. Any chance we can do a shared illusion trial?” Tian asked.
The sparrow answered in the form of two heretics emerging from the sand. He could feel the elements flowing through them, see their breaths stirring the cloths wrapping their face, see the myriad nicks and imperfections that scarred their weapons. Each distinct, each reeking of slaughter. They didn’t waste any words. They just struck.
For a fleeting moment, it felt like coming home.
The two attacked from front and back. One stabbed high with a spear, the other dashed close with a pair of stout daggers. Tian didn’t wait to see where he would try to stick them. He jolted to the left and flung out his hand. It would take very keen eyes to see six needles come flying out and split into two groups of three. The results didn’t take keen eyes at all. Ragged holes opened in heretic foreheads, as the bloodied darts returned to his hand.
The next wave had three heretics, two wearing helmets. Tian dashed out of the encirclement, the rope dart sliding into his right hand as his left threw out the imperial heavenly swallows once more. A halberd with crescent moon axe blades on either side chopped for him, as an axe and shield wielder rushed to close distance. Circling around the back was an archer, waiting for his shot.
Tian sent all six swallows darting for the archer as he wrapped the dart around the edge of the shield and moved to put the axeman between him and the halberd. Three complex actions at the same time, each requiring a thread of attention. Each carried out flawlessly. The last two years had been a time of intense accumulation and consolidation. His techniques were polished, he had the experience, he knew his equipment intimately. The three heretics couldn’t hold up.
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Their bodies didn’t stir the desert sands before four heretics appeared. Then five, then six, then seven, on and on. Each wave lasting that little bit longer, using a variety of weapons and armor, using gu, or curses, or poisons, setting traps, using teamwork- never letting him rest. Never letting him find a rhythm he could fall into or a pattern he could exploit.
Eight. Nine. Ten. The exhaustion was more difficult than the enemies. Each one was a new challenge, each group composition layered the difficulty, but it was all manageable. It was just doing it over and over, without rest. It hadn’t been all one sided either. His body carried long lashes from barbed whips, cuts from sabers, holes from spears and arrows. The poison load he was carrying would have killed a hundred other men, and the gu still being destroyed within him would have made another hundred wish they could die.
He spat blood, then spat again when he realized it wasn’t his. Blood had sprayed over him so much, it was dripping down his face. But why was it getting into his mouth? Tian spun the heavy dart around and crushed a sorcerer’s skull, even as Moon Crossing the Lake let him slip between a pair wielding claws and moving with eerie synchronicity. It wasn’t until he saw his reflection in a bright polished axe that he realized what was happening.
He was smiling. For the life of him, he couldn’t imagine why. He didn’t have time for introspection. Now eleven heretics had appeared, and each wave used more and more talismans and spells.
The longer the fight went on, the more he found himself using his father’s art of effortless action. It was a purely conceptual thing, given life with the gliding steps of Moon Crossing the Lake and the Dragon Suppressing Palms. His rope dart smoothly integrated with his movements, extending his reach, entangling his enemies, working with the Heavenly Swallows to strike from impossible angles. But key to it all was that he wasn’t doing all the fighting. He was letting the Heretics fight each other, whether they liked it or not.
Yin movement art, yang palm art, being driven around by the blows of the enemy. Blows that strangely left them open for brutal counters, or put them in the path of an incoming spear, arrow or spell. It was all combining, condensing, the moves sublimating into instinct, then less than instinct. All the accumulated arts, all the learning, were forgotten in the increasing pressure of battle. All that was left was moving how his body naturally wanted to move.
Tian didn’t like to lose. He really didn’t like heretics. His body and his mind were one on this.
His breath steadied. The outpouring of vital energy slowed and became more controlled. The rate of slaughter increased, as more and more heretics died to friendly fire. Twelve at a time. Thirteen. Fourteen. Fifteen. He was fighting across corpses now, dodging ambushes and exploding talismans buried beneath the bodies of the slain. The moon crossed lakes of blood as easily as those of water.
No stray thoughts. No thoughts at all, really. Just the driving instinct to kill and kill and kill until all the heretics were dead. The instinct was an irritant he couldn’t shake. Something about it was wrong, but it was impossible to think what it might be. There were always more to kill, and staying alive took his full attention already.
Sixteen, and he was already on the ragged edge. No amount of efficiency could make up for the energy he was spending. He had long since stopped throwing out the Heavenly Swallows. His moves became ever more condensed. His attacks became less frequent, and he relied more on positioning and timing to drive the enemies into each other. They weren’t cooperating as nicely as they had before.
The archers were taking their time to find their shots. The shield carriers were screening the spearmen, willing to stay put rather than give him momentum to turn against them. There were so many, he could be constantly attacked while most of the enemies were resting or waiting for a fatal moment to strike. Never giving him even a moment’s rest. It had been impossible to think already. Now, even his quick reflexes and sharp senses struggled to keep up. Yanked between wanting to relax into the flow and dodge forever, as close to rest as he could come, and wanting to kill everyone. If he could just kill enough, maybe they would stop coming.
The tension built unstoppably, the pressure condensing him, his arts, his instincts into a single point. Then, when it could condense no more, a single thought emerged.
“Of course I’m exhausted- it’s a contradiction. How can I go with the flow of the world if my heart is telling me to kill? Dad said it himself. It’s not killing. It’s letting people suffer the consequences of their own actions.”
Tian stopped reaching out when he saw gaps in defenses. He stopped trying to make those gaps. Stopped trying to master the positioning, master the tempo. He just… went with it. Accepting, relaxing, only making the smallest movement at the exact right moment. It wasn’t purely yin. Yang was necessary. It was just condensed into the shortest, most explosive burst possible. Then he relaxed into enduring yin.
What is a punch, but an eruption? And when the fist comes back, it rests. Hands guided blades. His rope dart threaded through legs and wrapped ankles just long enough to trip. Soon, seventeen heretics rose from the desert sands.
Tian thought he was still smiling. He suspected his smile was a little different now. Eighteen. Nineteen. He couldn’t keep it up much longer. There were just too many of them, and it was too hard to keep track of everything. His grasp on effortless action wasn’t yet perfect. He couldn’t ride the world’s currents freely. But he was closer than he had ever come before.
Twenty was his limit. He fought until he collapsed. When his eyes opened, Liren, Burning Heaven and the yellow sparrow were all looking down at him.
“Looks like I’m taking nine up the mountain. Nine. I gave myself even odds of finding no potential disciples at all. What a strange day.” The little sparrow tilted its head to the side, as though it were struggling to understand what she was looking at. Tian could relate. He was so tired, he didn’t know what he was either.