Chương 51: Chapter 50

BEASTKIN LANDS, THE ETERNAL BATTLEFIELD The battlefield went as far as the eye could reach. Corpses – thousands, tens of thousands – carpeted the sands, their lifeblood having long turned the land into a sucking morass. Masses of flies filled the sky with their chants, their swarms writhing and undulating like things alive. Beyond them, the sun was a muddy boil, pulsating in a sickly horizon. Yellow-Brow, the Great Mountain Sage, the Saint of Rot, Father Mould, found it soothing.

There was a comforting wisdom to be found in the buzzing of flies and the stinking gel that seeped out from cracked, mouldering bones. The Dao breathed its message through them, telling of the way of the world in a deeper note than Heaven itself ever could. Yellow-Brow always felt melancholic. Sadness was his meat and drink. But that sight was enough to stir a deeper current of the emotion inside of him, like a note of deeper taste in a cup of wine. Ah, to turn and see this spectacle covering all the four horizons.

To see it go on and on, endlessly, forever. That would be paradise. Chi You squatted close by, her massive bulk dwarfing the mountain of bodies she had piled up for her resting spot. She was very picky about it: only those who clawed their eyes out before expiring made for an adequate bed. Jaws able to shear through immortal flesh ground open, releasing thin trails of steam.

"Is it enough?" She asked. She had taken the voice of a young one this time. How typical. She couldn't ever just settle for the same twice in a row, show some consistency for once, instead of that ridiculous flitting from one choice to the other like an empty-headed butterfly. Is it enough? What a question. Yellow-Brow sampled it as he would have with a human cultivator's spine. He inspected it, regarding it with the same cold application of reasoning he brought to all things.

One awareness had shaped most of his Immortal existence: he hated Chi You. He hated her like wind blew and fire burned. He hated her like rain fell and flesh rotted. He hated her with a force that swamped rational thought and plunged into infinity. His hatred was more than a mere emotion. It was an elemental force that lent motion to his limbs and motive to his existence. A mark branded deep around which his majestic soul was arranged and built.

He hated her with a depth, sharpened and polished along tens of millennia, that let reason behind and existed by its own motion. He hated her with an open-handed abandon that put wings to his feet and inspiration into his rotting heart. Yellow-Brow knew of love. In the voluptuousness of his hatred for Chi You, in the dizzying fall and iron road that it had become, he was sure to see its smouldering features. A hatred so deep, so all-encompassing that it may as well be called love.

The hatred of an Immortal toward another Immortal. Gazing into the insect eyes of Chi You, he saw its twin. A howling moon to his rotting sun. 16. 839 souls had been sacrificed, their screaming, rotting, clawing end a morsel to appease the constellation that was their hatred. Was this enough?

"Barely," Yellow-Brow scratched his mask.

"I can restrain myself from striking you down for the time being." The death of mortals interested him little. They died, they all died, and his interest had long shifted from cataloguing the array of their demises to contemplating the slow end of creation. Their lone use was as seedbeds of rot. Witnessing them bloom always took the edge off his hatred. Chi You settled down on her bed. Her tentacles rummaged in the mess, swellings running across their length and into her body as she fed.

"I hate you," she said almost affectionately. Corpses split like rotten fruits as she rolled on her back like a playful cat. Yellow-Brow didn't smile. He never smiled. His melancholy took a sweet tint, though. The swarms of flies reacted, their movements turning languid.

"You felt it too," he declared.

"That shift in the wheel of fate. Fate, being altered. What wasn't supposed to be becoming what it is." Chi You batted toward him with a teasing movement of her paw.

"It's the only reason why we're speaking right now." Her face spun, and then another voice spoke from inside her, pouty and childish.

"She's back, isn't she?" Yellow-Brow nodded.

"It's baffling," he admitted.

"Nothing in my divinations told me she'd succeed. By all accounts, she should have fallen." An interesting quandary. Only rarely had he seen such a definitive response. That it came undone made him suspect someone interfering with his scrying. But how could that be? He had extensive measures in place against it.

"Neither did mine!" A massive beastkin body erupted as Chi You's fist fell on it.

"I don't know how, but she cheated somehow! She cheated! It's not fair! I hate her!" Yellow-Brow had a better grip on his emotions, but he still shared in it. And that was a problem.

"She always looked down on us," he said darkly.

"When she came from the west, polluting our lands with all her preaching arrogance."

"She killed my son!" Chi You raged, then, pouting, "I still have his skull… but it doesn't taste the same…"

"And destroyed my coven," Yellow-Brow agreed.

"I had them stationed on that plateau. My claim over it and the chattel of that land was just. And she stole both." Chi You stomped with her many legs.

"She should have died! She should have died! Let's kill her!"

"Yes. Let's kill her." Yellow-Brow's mind was already turning toward planning.

"In time. With the proper ways."

"Why bother with that?" Chi You whined.

"She's one. We are two. Let's just kill her."

"Indeed. But she will be in the center of her power, with the rest of the chattel supporting her. We can't be hasty." He gave her a look.

"Right. The others. They hate us too." A tentacle tapped against her jaws.

"I wouldn't mind fighting a Heavenly Immortal, though. Or to have a nibble of those tasty mortals on the plateau… dark one flesh…" Chi You's eyes turned misty with hunger. Yellow-Brow sighed. She was always like that. So scatterbrained. He paused.

"How long has it been since we stood on one side?"

"Mh? A long time. Too long. Who cares? It doesn't matter." Yes, it didn't matter. What mattered was that their duet was being intruded upon. When the Outlander had disappeared into her doomed seclusion, they managed to abide her presence. Now that she was back, her presence was intolerable. They may stoke their outrage against her, recount her crimes against them. In the end, all that mattered was their hatred. Like a sharpened blade, it lost power if directed to more than one target at once.

Like a delicate concoction, it lost potency when diluted by inferior additives. Neither of them would admit it. They would pile on reasons and motives. The truth was that their song was meant for two, and not one more. Thinking that, Yellow-Brow was struck by a slow realization. A battlefield of rotting corpses under a yellowing sky. And he and her the only beings alive to sample it, garden it, harvest it. Only them, gazing in each other's eyes for the rest of eternity, fighting, loving and hating.

His melancholy became yearning, and Chi You felt it. The monster turned on her head, turning many corpses to paste under her bulk, her many eyes reflecting the emotions he felt inside.

"I really hate you." Yellow-Brow turned away, not dignifying her with an answer. This was what the world was supposed to be. Only them, tied by the red string of fate, pulling each other along the rungs of the Dao. Eating, devouring, rising until the sky was ablaze with their conflict. In that, they were of one mind: they hated Wu Zetian, but she wasn't worthy of their hatred. Nobody was. Her presence was a pollutant in their mixture that had to be erased. Her and anyone else.

They would kill and maim and erase any who dared to intrude, and that was the destiny the Dark Lady would suffer. The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation. They would kill her, destroy her city, devour her people and scatter the ashes to the winds. And then, it would be only the two of them, again, as it had been, was and will always be. Them, feasting over the world, alone amidst piles of rotting corpses, under a yellowing sky. It would be enough.

Because after all, hatred was but another face of love. And what made the Dao turn if not that spinning coin? Gazing in each other's eyes, brimming with a hatred so deep it might as well be called love, Yellow-Brow and Chi You knew no greater answer to be found, even on the Great Path's endless steps. THE WASTELAND, THE CORE The first sensation that awoke the Creature was absence. Not light. Not sound. Not thought. Something that had always stood against it was no longer there.

Across the endless reaches of stone forests and impossible mesas, where black crystal grew like roots through polygonal cliffs and rivers flowed in straight lines as though carved by a forgotten geometry, countless eyes opened at once. Some belonged to beasts with too many limbs. Others to flowers that possessed no petals, only rings of observing facets. Others still to mountains themselves, whose slopes shifted by imperceptible degrees as they listened. They all looked east. No command was spoken.

There had never been language. The world simply obeyed. For the Creature was not above its domain. It was its domain. Every shard of crystal, every angular tree, every beast born from faceted stone and translucent flesh carried a sliver of the same awareness. Individual instincts existed only to solve immediate problems. Beneath them flowed the deeper current, vast and silent, binding an entire ecosystem into a single mind. It examined the emptiness. For centuries beyond counting, pressure had existed there.

Resistance. Fire. Poison. A region where expansion became loss. Where the harvest consumed more than it yielded. That resistance… had vanished. The Creature did not wonder why. Questions belonged to minds that imagined possibilities. It only measured reality. Pressure absent. Resources available. Expansion optimal. The answer followed. Grow. The command propagated through millions of bodies. Mountains cracked. Entire forests uprooted themselves.

Creatures that had slumbered beneath stone for generations emerged without hesitation, joining rivers of living geometry already flowing toward the abandoned lands. The Wasteland advanced. Not as an army. As weather. It possessed no memory of birth. Just, sometimes… Very rarely… A sky larger than the current heavens. A voice. Hands. Something kneeling. Then unbearable pain. The fragments dissolved before meaning could attach itself. The Creature reached for them instinctively. Every time they slipped away.

Yet something remained. Not memory. Need. Something was… missing. No measurement could define its size. No expansion reduced it. No harvest satisfied it. Every league of land consumed merely revealed the wound to be larger than before. A hollow impossible to fill. It did not know the word loss. It knew only the direction opposite fullness. And so it expanded. Perhaps beyond the next mountain. Perhaps beneath the next sea. Perhaps inside every living thing. Somewhere… There would be enough.

The Borderlands yielded easily. Fortresses stood empty. Walls still held. Formation arrays still pulsed faintly. Weapons lay abandoned beside skeletons that had not belonged to the Creature. The architecture differed from the orderly geometry of the Wasteland. It would not remain so. Stone softened. Angles corrected themselves. Crystal veins spread beneath foundations. Roots of black mineral erupted through streets. Buildings became organs. Walls became bone.

Roads became veins through which spores drifted like invisible blood. The Borderlands began forgetting what they had once been. Movement. Sky. The Creature noticed it instantly. Flying. Wood. Metal. Human. Many. Its countless eyes rose together. Ships. They crossed the horizon like insects. Inside them... Thousands. Fear. Urgency. Purpose. Not prey fleeing blindly. Gatherers. Removing matter. Removing energy. Removing knowledge. Loss. The calculation completed. Intercept.

Across dozens of miles, winged organisms abandoned their migrations. Towering beasts altered course. Forests themselves shifted, closing routes that had existed only moments before. The ships reacted. Distance increased. No attempt at communication. No displays. Only retreat. Some descended briefly upon abandoned fortresses. Minutes later… Fire. Great pillars of orange consumed libraries. Storehouses. Treasuries. Entire compounds collapsed beneath deliberate destruction. Resources denied. Knowledge erased.

The Creature observed without emotion. Loss recorded. Behavior catalogued. Future probability updated. Opposition preferred destruction over surrender. Acceptable. Ash nourished crystal as readily as timber. Stone remembered shape even after flame. The expansion continued. Then… Something else. Far away. Almost beyond perception. The Creature stopped. Not physically. Its mountains still walked. Its forests still spread. Its rivers still carried spores into waiting valleys. But every deeper process paused. There.

A presence. Ancient. Singular. Not part of the world. Something the world itself curved around. Recognition surfaced without memory. Predator. The only concept that approached the sensation. Not prey. Not obstacle. Not weather. An equal. Or something dangerously close. Darkness. Cold. Silence. Night. The Creature examined the distant consciousness. She did not spread through stone. She did not divide into countless bodies. She remained one. Small. Yet impossibly dense. Like a star collapsed into human form.

Instinct screamed from places older than memory. Eliminate. Before expansion. Before conversion. Before harvest. She alone possessed sufficient priority to interrupt every other calculation. Not because it hated. Hatred required identity. Not because it feared. Fear required imagination. Only mathematics. If left unchecked… Future losses increased. Future growth diminished. Probability unacceptable. Priority reassigned. The distant presence became the center around which all future expansion curved.

The mountains marched. Crystal forests advanced. Primeval beasts crossed rivers that had never before known footsteps. Behind them, the world became orderly. Faceted. Silent. Connected. Every fortress disappeared beneath growing crystal. Every corpse became material. Every tree became architecture. Every stream joined the greater circulation. Nothing was wasted. Nothing remained separate. Everything approached unity. Yet the hollow endured. Still vast. Still impossible. Still calling from somewhere beyond memory.

The Creature expanded without rest. Somewhere ahead… There would be enough. There had to be. Even if all the world, in time, would be asked to fill it. THE CELESTIAL DRAGON EMPIRE, THE CAPITOL The atmosphere in the Dragon Palace was usually one of solemn harmony. The only sounds that could be heard among the cinnabar columns and sweeping tiled plazas were the shuffling of robes and the polite murmurs of attendants. Not today.

"This is outrageous! I demand you let me pass, you cur!" The eunuch bowed deeply, his expression a study in polite disdain.

"We understand your filial concerns may weigh on your manners, my lord, but your honored father must remain at rest. Your… enthusiastic presence may very well embitter his condition." Crown Prince Xi Wenjin seethed, his fingers crawling for the hilt of his sword. He didn't give in to the temptation: as liberating as it could be, striking down that insolent would have been a mistake.

"Allow me, brother." Second Prince Xi Tianjin didn't share his prudence. Smooth as a snake, his brother slid forward, hand moving to his weapon as he glared at the eunuch.

"If this half-man is so fond of standing in our way, it's only proper he acquaints himself with my sword first." Quick as a snake, the eunuch stepped back, hiding behind two hulking Imperial Guards. The half-constructs didn't know rank: they barred the path of the Princes with the same cold efficiency they would have used with anyone else, their halberds lowering. Wenjin's blood ran cold as his brother stood his ground. For a moment, it seemed that Xi Tianjin would throw sense to the wind and engage them too.

"No, brother." The Crown Prince threw an arm across his chest.

"This fool is baiting us. Don't fall for it."

"But…!"

"Enough. We're leaving." The eunuch smirked at them from behind the guards.

"Hooligans, ruining His Majesty's peace!" He hissed.

"It's good that it's the Third Prince His Majesty favors! You shall be thrown into the streets once he's Emperor!" Wenjin saw red for a moment. He would have struck, caution be damned, if not for Tianjin, who held him back. The thin prince, always the second to all his foolishness, gave him a lopsided grin. Without a look back, they turned and strode away, their guards in tow. They passed more eunuchs, all of them wearing the Flower of the Third Prince on their robes.

The leeches murmured and bowed mockingly, glancing at them with undisguised disdain as they formed their little circles in the Palace's halls. Wenjin was livid. It had been like that since his return from the frontlines. His family home, infested with sycophants and strangers come the east. His useless little brother suddenly in charge. And his Father…

"Father would be ill?" Tianjin scoffed.

"Ridiculous. Wounded he may be, but the Dragon's Breath sustained him just fine. He was healthier than me." Wenjin agreed. The Immortal Dragon Emperor had long been wearied by wounds left by the claws of enemies, and that was why the Long Hunts were called: to find healing methods for He who held the Empire together by sheer might. But to say that he was too sick to meet his own children? That was a foolishness Wenjin wouldn't ever accept.

"It's that cursed Sima," he hissed.

"Since his arrival, it's like a poison has taken over our home. Even Mother has fallen under his foul influence."

"It's the work of the Dark Ones then?" Wenjin nodded slowly.

"It's likely. The last reports say that their cursed Sect is on its last legs and their Immortal is looking for a new land to settle."

"And that would be ours?" A shadow passed over Tianjin's grin.

"Not if we have something to say about it." Wenjin waited for a group of Imperial Guards to pass them by before turning to his brother.

"That cursed Sima is beyond our grasp for now, but my informers tell me that a direct daughter of the Dark Lady is in the city." Tianjin raised an eyebrow.

"Alone? Far from me to undervalue your info, brother, but I doubt that the Godless Night would leave its lords hanging by themselves."

"I thought the same, until I saw it with my own eyes. The girl is vulnerable, brother."

"Then she's a reject and the Dark Lady doesn't care about her. Why should we?"

"She's still an ex-member of the lineage! She's bound to have some information about the Dark Ones' intrigue. If we can get a hold of her and get her to talk before the Imperial Council." Realization dawned on Tianjin's features.

"They'll have to consider it. Even if she doesn't know anything, her bloodline alone… It'd let us gather allies."

"Exactly." Wenjin clasped his brother's shoulder.

"Are you with me, brother? It's to repel the Dark Ones that we move today. To restore our family's honor and to keep Father's empire together."

"Do you need to ask it?" Tianjin gave him a smirk. Wenjin grinned. It would be a long, hard contest, but he wouldn't embark on it alongside anyone else. Together, they would win. They would defeat the Godless Night, erase the foul influence its Sect Elders had on the imperial family and restore order to the Empire. Wenjin swore he would see it done, even if it meant traversing that cursed Basin and taking the head of that witch himself.