Chương 21: Distant Storms

Blue skies stretched on forever over fields painted golden by the brilliant sun. Then the cruel northern wind whipped across the grasses, bending them, sweeping away the sun's given vitality, stealing away all it could. To the west lay the distant shadows of the Blue Night Mountains, stretching up as jutting black spikes which scraped the heavens. They were only a day or two away now.

"Are you certain this is wise? You still look ready to tear apart at the seams." Doubt colored Sister Xing's words as she walked at Hao's side. She was in by far the best condition of the three Distillators, having only suffered minor injuries fighting Yuchen.

"Do remember that you only just regrew all your skin and your right lung. And your cultivation! You spent so much of yourself killing that awful Ruminator. Will you be able to survive this?"

"It's because of his cultivation," Sister Fu said, limping along in her brace.

"Brother Hao's always been the sort to set himself ablaze if it gains him a single step forward. He's never had the patience for anything finer than killing."

"Killing is a fine art," Hao said, feigning offense. He leaned heavily upon the Cheng Spear with every step, grimacing as his fragile skin threatened to tear. His muscles felt delicate as a fawn's. Sister Xing even had to help him out of bed before they left on this little venture!

"But yes, I have to do this now. I burnt myself to cinders to kill Yuchen. I have to rebuild. Besides, I doubt Master Wan appreciates two dead Ruminators stinking up his storage rings." The Phoenix Breath Cultivation Art lost potency the longer the corpse had been dead. Qi drained steadily away from high concentrations, especially in spiritual deserts like the Lonely Plains.

Master Wan had been kind enough to store Yuchen and Free Gales' corpses in one of his spare storage rings to maintain the potency of their bodies, but that only went so far. Specialized storage rings were capable of putting living tissue into stasis, but those were rare and expensive. Alchemists, herbalists, and hunters of rare beasts prized them above all else, driving up the prices. Storage rings were expensive enough without adding on additional enchantments. But Hao was eager to make the most of what he had.

He'd drained a staggering amount of distilled qi against Yuchen, dwarfing what he'd used to slay Xia and the Grey Hilt. Replacing the distilled qi would be easier once they entered the qi-rich Blue Night Mountains, but he couldn't twiddle his thumbs. His body was in tatters, his foundation threaded with cracks, and his Wildfire barely more than cinders.

He needed to rebuild—Master Wan had made vague mentions of an aid that his superior in the Azure Tiger Sect could provide, but Hao would take what steps he could before they ventured there. He needed every edge to prepare for the Sun Dragon Trials. Hao and Sister Fu traded jabs and japes along the way. Sister Xing played along from time to time, though she spent more time fussing over her two injured companions.

It was a relief when they finally reached a barren spot of plains which was little more than a gouged pit of rock and gritty soil. Golden grains encircled it on all sides.

"Looks like a cultivator duel," Hao said, glancing over the deep scars in the earth.

"This will do. Thank you for accompanying me, Sisters."

"Of course," Fu said too-sweetly, patting Hao's arm.

"Now, would you like us to stick around, or do you mind if we take a step or hundred back? I'd prefer not to smell like burnt Yuchen when we head back to the caravan." Sister Xing turned a little green.

"The latter, please!" Hao snorted.

"Not too far. Just make sure to stay upwind." He grimaced as he wove a thread of qi into his storage ring, releasing a small pile of spiritwood timber. His meridians ached from that effort. The Third Ignition had nearly destroyed his entire cultivation, though his meridians had stabilized and solidified quite a bit since he drank Xia's Stone Draught a day after he'd awoken.

"I have it from here." Sister Xing grimaced as she released Free Gale and Yuchen's corpses onto the makeshift pyre. Hao rolled his eyes as she practically fled.

"Honestly, she acts like she's never even seen a corpse before!"

"Tragic," Sister Fu agreed.

"How can she appreciate a good life if she can't appreciate a good death?" Mighty, stupid, privileged Yuchen laid slack on the spiritwood planks, his limp corpse's limbs splayed out in an ungainly fashion. Hao could truly appreciate the damage he'd done to Yuchen now that they weren't in the heat of battle. Half of Yuchen's face was torn off, hanging in an ugly flap to reveal burnt muscle beneath. His jaw was twisted at a strange angle from where Hao had struck him with Xia's 'totem'. Burns covered his body.

His robes were in tatters despite their protective sigils, marked by punctures and tears. A great gaping hole opened in his chest, widened by the fire which had burst from the Cheng Spear and seared his insides to a crisp. A confusing medley of emotions played through Hao as he inspected his old foe's corpse. Hate, of course, at the sight of Yuchen's ruined face. How many times had the bastard sneered down at him?

Relief as he considered Yuchen's threat ended for good—the world would never have to deal with an immortal Cheng Yuchen, thank the Emperor—but tempered by the sensation of standing on a cliff's edge. What changes would Yuchen's death usher into the world? He was only a Ruminator. A gnat in the face of the true giants. But the Cheng Clan and the White Rivers … they had invested a great deal in Yuchen, proclaiming him as the greatest of the new generation.

Whoever won the West Lake City Tournament was intended to compete in the Golden Capital next year, facing off against the rest of the Great Nine's new generation beneath the Sunbeam Emperor's own eyes. And now the Cheng Clan had lost their opportunity to earn the attention of the Emperor himself. All Yuchen's potential, all his value, all his future—gone! Because of Hao. But the Cheng Spear warmed in his hands at the sight of the dead Yuchen. That was enough.

"Any last words for the esteemed Cheng Yuchen?" Hao asked Sister Fu. Her eyes were cold as a viper's as she regarded Yuchen's twisted, mangled corpse.

"It's strange, isn't it? Like saying goodbye to an old, rabid dog that kept trying to bite your leg on the way to the market. Or—""Your point's made, Brother." Sister Fu sneered down at Yuchen's corpse.

"His outsides finally match his insides. But no, I have nothing else to say to him. He's right where he belongs: in an unmarked pyre in the middle of nowhere, about to be consumed by the man he hated most in the world. A fitting end, I think."

"I wish I could have put it so eloquently." Sister Fu smiled, thawing a fraction as she turned to Hao.

"Put him to good use, Brother."

"I can hardly make him worse." Hao nodded to Sister Fu as she stepped away to join Sister Xing a good distance away from the pyre. Upwind, naturally. They couldn't leave entirely in case some demon beast sniffed out the pyre, but they were happy to give Hao his space.

"This is the last time you'll touch the Cheng Spear, Yuchen," Hao murmured as he drizzled a coating of Quickflame Oil upon the pyre. He brushed the Cheng Spear's heavenly jade tip against Yuchen and reached inward for the wavering embers of his Wildfire.

"One last spark…" The Wildfire's ashes stirred. Hao's meridians screamed as qi flowed through them, pouring into the Cheng Spear and rushing up its edge to spray dull red embers onto the pyre. The last of his Wildfire, the last of his strength. But it was in the nature of a fire to consume. The smallest spark could catch, and devour, and grow. All it needed was the right fuel.

The pyre ignited, billowing upwards in eager flame, and Hao immediately collapsed into his cultivation pose, shutting his eyes as he frantically breathed in the strength of his slain enemies. Qi saturated the air, thicker than he'd ever experienced in the Lonely Plains, and Hao steadily gulped it into himself. The Storm manifest, crackling with fury and smiting those who stood against it, arrogant and looming, oppressive as it blotted out the heavens for those below— Hao devoured Yuchen's Storm.

Black clouds burnt away by the hot ashes of the Wildfire, their energy consumed and taken, used as fuel to ignite the dying embers, heating them into a flickering flame in Hao's spirit.

He ate and ate of Yuchen's might, drunk on the power which flooded him, rekindling the foundation of his Wildfire, burning storm clouds and thunder and lightning, taking all he could of the arrogance and aloof cruelty and strength of the encroaching storm, steadily digesting it until there was nothing left of Yuchen but ashes and lingering fury. But Yuchen wasn't the only one he burnt.

The North Wind, cruel and cutting, stealing the life and testing all it touched, sweeping over and reaping the lives and fortunes of those who didn't bow. Freezing, domineering, cruel as only a distant lord on a grand throne could be— Hao gasped as Free Gale's lingering qi swept through him, slashing through his meridians, swirling furiously in his dantian like a cutting whirlwind. It whipped through Hao's spirit, aching to rip him apart from the inside, unwilling to be trapped in a vessel.

Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings. It was foreign to Hao, strange and wilder than even Yuchen's Storm, molded in the shadow of a divinity that Hao had only tasted once before. Capricious, domineering, roaming. Cold and imperious in a way that those in Sunbeam had never known, always grasping for that which escaped it. But there was more. Free Gale was but a Ruminator, catching only the North Wind in his soul, but all winds were one.

All pushing, outward forces, yang, familiar to Hao, but layered with other influences. Impressions of other gales, caught from tasting one of their number, each wild in their own way, playful or scorching, mighty or gentle, crushing or coaxing… And in them, Hao tasted true freedom for the first time: the yearning to run free over the mountains and plains, to soar above the world until he grasped the Heavens, to be unbound and unchained with the base earth far below.

It sparked a desperation that Hao had never known, a sudden bucking against all the confines that squeezed him tight, crushing him beneath the weight of fate's chains. Had he ever known freedom? Master Bolin had taken him, wrenched Hao away from his old destiny and into one constructed for him. The Cheng Clan lusted for his blood and the prize he'd taken. Even after Hao shattered some chains, Bolin and the White Rivers chased after him, binding him to a path of bloodshed.

As Hao tasted the unadulterated freedom of the Four Winds for the first time, feeding upon its wild, roaming nature, it slowed within his spirit. Still bucking, still carving, still fighting, but it seemed to recognize something inside, something sympathetic. Something familiar. It was then that Hao struck. He wrestled with the North Wind, trapping it, raking its breath over the coals of his Wildfire, and bellowed victory as they ignited.

Yuchen's Storm had been devoured and digested, rebuilding his Wildfire from the ashes, and now this vestige of the Four Winds—pushing and expansive, yet cold and receptive in equal measure—breathed new life into it. Hao screamed as the Wildfire burst to life in his spirit, rekindled from the ashes, filling him with new warmth, new hope, and new hunger. His eyes snapped open. He looked to the blue skies, the endless horizons, and imagined roaming them all. Unbound by fate. Unbound by the world.

Unbound by the White Rivers. But to be free, one needed strength. The weak lived only by the mercy of the strong. Inside, the Wildfire roared. Hao roared with it. The White Rivers flooded beneath West Lake City as billows of misty light and milky stars which twisted and turned in endless contortions, casting the palaces, estates, and facilities which crowded the banks of the natural wonder in a stark alabaster glow.

Tendrils of light danced from the White Rivers, swaying like dancing kelp, sparking visions and insights into the deepest truths of the world to those with the willingness and fortitude to grasp them. No one knew what had urged the White Rivers to life, only that it had persisted in these caverns for as long as even the Immortals could remember, expanding and churning below while countless generations of mortals bred above, ignorant of the wondrous secrets lurking in the depths of their city's bones.

But even the beauty of the White Rivers broke upon the Cheng Estate. The alabaster glow dimmed as it met the halls which were filled with agony born of loss, filling the estate with an oppressive, wrathful charge one moment and a gaping emptiness the next. Specters seemed to lurk about the grand palace, forcing all those who could out.

The Cheng Estate went dark as its lord closed his eyes, feeling the weight of every one of his six hundred years as a Cheng diviner solemnly presented him with his son's shattered life-crystal.

"So my son is truly dead." Cheng Yuxuan took it gingerly and examined the splintered heavenly jade. This was not the first child taken from him, but for it to be his Yuchen…

"This is a great loss for the Cheng Clan." Yuxuan placed the delicate jade splinters onto a fine cushion to be preserved. A tiny droplet of his boy's blood stained the heavenly jade. Every Cheng Clan member's essence was preserved this way, taken at birth to bind to the life-crystal. The life of a cultivator was fraught with danger, leading growing warriors to strange realms and exotic locales.

They could not monitor much through a life-crystal, but it would shatter in resonance with its owner's death—even in the Dark World, where so many of their sons and daughters had perished defending Sunbeam. Cheng Min, his wife of six centuries, stared blankly ahead as she sat next to him.

"Go. Take the life-crystal's remains to the Patriarch's Vault," Yuxuan instructed his diviner. He glanced at the rest of the servants who attended their bedchambers. They all kept their heads low. They knew their place.

"Leave us." The servants fled their presence. Only when the last of the servants—mostly lowly Ruminators from the branch families—fled did his dear Min's spiritual pressure fill their room with true thunder. She leapt to her feet, face white with rage, her eyes filled with a storm.

"Our Yuchen. Our sweet boy!" Min stalked the room, fingers curling and uncurling like a cat's claws. Sorrow sharpened to rage, as was her wont.

"Our enemies have overstepped. They think we are weak! How dare they send our poor Yuchen away. Just a Ruminator." Despite the dark news, Yuxuan's exhausted eyes couldn't help but admire this fierce dragoness as she raged, her spirit sweeping across him like a lightning bolt aching for something to smite. His beloved wife was always radiant, but her truest beauty was only revealed in the throes of passion.

"And you!" His Min snarled, turning her stormy eyes upon him.

"You did not stop them! Our Yuchen had just won the West Lake City Tournament. He embodied the sect's honor. We should have kept him here, safe with us. Our enemies circle like sharks! Who knows which of them killed our Little Eagle?" Yuxuan said nothing as he turned to stare at a memory-portrait of Yuchen as a boy which hung upon the far wall of their quarters, alongside the images of their elder sons and daughters.

The greatest painters of West Lake City had competed for the honor to eternalize the visage of the noble Cheng Clan's heir. The artists had created such a wondrous image that it was hard to believe his Yuchen was dead. He seemed just inches away, staring off at the White River itself, his mother's passion glimmering in his eyes. It was only supposed to be a memory of his son as a boy, a reminder of his gap-toothed smile and childish bravado. It wasn't supposed to be all they had to remember their Yuchen by.

He was a talented cultivator fed every resource he could tolerate. He was meant to join his parents in the ranks of the undying, to push past their limits and become a true Immortal. How could such a bright star have been snuffed out so mercilessly? Yuxuan murmured a prayer to the Sunbeam Emperor to light little Yuchen's path to the next life, then rose, turning away from his son's portrait.

"Ten years to cultivate wood, a hundred years to cultivate a man," Yuxuan said, weathering his wife's furious spiritual pressure as he would a harsh wind.

"Our boy would not grow in West Lake City. It was time he whet himself against the world—""And now he is dead!" Min roared, rattling the Cheng Estate. A mortal would have been struck dead.

"Our enemies will toast to his murder. They will laugh, and mock, and tear new wounds wherever they can."

"Our little Yuchen was born to be more than a caged bird," Yuxuan replied, turning away from his heart to the surety of cold logic.

"I would rather him spread his wings than rot away in a gilded prison. To cultivate is to swim against the stream of fate. Some drown in the attempt. Yuchen is not the first treasure the Cheng have lost, nor will he be the last. We must keep our heads to ensure the clan doesn't suffer with us."

"He was cast out of the nest before he was ready to fly," Min snapped.

"If nothing else, we must cut the hands off those who dared to give him the nudge. Their arrogance must be punished! I will flay them myself! I will shatter their cultivation and send them off into the world. Let them stumble as mortals with no eyes, no tongues, and no ears. Let them suffer as our boy did!" Min looked ready to rend Yuxuan apart, but she mastered herself. The look in her eyes told him that this discussion was far from over, yet she'd always been a practical soul.

It was one of many things he loved about her.

"Patience, my love," Yuxuan said, bowing his head to his wife.

"We will have our—""Reprisal must come swiftly!" Min hissed, breathing heavily.

"They think this is a victory? Let them choke on it!"

"Our rivals within the sect will suffer." Yuxuan promised her.

"The times are changing, my dear Min. Just not as they hope. And this boy that our Yuchen was chasing after …"

"The one who embarrassed him!" Min snarled, stalking the room. It was well that no servants were near. Her spiritual edge would have cut them down. Good servants were hard to replace.

"This … Xiang boy, that snake Bolin's apprentice …"

"Xiao Hao," Yuxuan corrected.

"The thief. A minor matter compared to our boy's passing, but it won't do for one who has spit in the Cheng Clan's face to live when our Yuchen has died. Our reputation has suffered several blows—we must at the very least reclaim the Patriarch's Spear. It is the symbol of the Cheng Heir, a relic of our Honored Ancestor. If the Patriarch emerges from his seclusion and finds that his spear has been lost…"

"And how are we meant to reclaim it?" Min's words burned with acid.

"We don't even know where the thief is. We know nothing! The Xiao boy could be in another Empire by now, if this hasn't all just been one of Black Star Bolin's schemes from the very beginning."

"We will place a bounty on his head large enough to reach the ends of the empire. Bolin's boy will be a simple target, even if he advances," Yuxuan said, already weighing the costs and benefits. There would be a loss of face for even requiring such an action, but the net gain of retrieving the Cheng Spear and erasing one of their clan's great embarrassments would far exceed a minor admission of weakness.

"Alive, if possible. We have debts to repay. He will serve well as an example to those who cross us." Min's eyes darkened.

"The boy will pay for his sins against our clan. They all will!" She thundered.

"We shall purge the snakes in our circle and nail their heads to our enemies' doors! The White Rivers are ours. It is time that we remind the vermin of their place."

"And rebuild our future," Yuxuan said, mind spinning.

"A new heir must be chosen." Min growled.

"It is a matter of necessity, my love," Yuxuan soothed, his own heart panging.

"Our boy cannot be replaced, but the clan needs its future. Black Star Bolin, Broken Saint Bai, and Elder Lei will rally our enemies against us. We must secure our place in the White Rivers, then beyond before vultures like the Thrice-Blessed Monastery learn of our fragility. Order must be maintained." Yuxuan pored over worthy candidates. There were several close to home who could claim the title of Cheng Heir, but none with Yuchen's pedigree or foundation.

He could think of four different talented Ruminators and Integrators with the proper skills, but which would be accepted by their peers and the clan elders above? Which would the Patriarch look kindly upon when he emerged from his isolated cultivation?

"Contact Elder Kang, my love." Yuxuan decided. Min's lip curled. Kang was hardly her favorite of their allies outside the clan. The wizened old cultivator was too cautious for Min's taste.

"He must be informed of our Yuchen's demise. And then—" Min snarled at him. Thunder wracked the estate's walls, trembling through the suppression seals which secured its foundations. Words had a habit of escaping his Min when her passions were aroused, for better or for worse. Perhaps he would need to arrange one of their foes' executions sooner rather than later. Min always slept easier after sating her bloodlust. Until then, there was business to attend to.

"Ensure that Elder Kang makes contact with the White Rivers contingent in Sun Wall City. We must move swiftly if we are to make our enemies bleed. I believe that Cheng Liang will leap at the opportunity to prove herself…"