Chương 6: Heretics Ahead

A great bonfire burned brilliantly in the night, illuminating the eastern edges of the Lonely Plains for hundreds of feet around. Two dozen mortals clustered around it, hiding within a ring of battered wagons, and stuffed their starving stomachs. Hao watched the weary mortals devour a small feast of stew, venison, and a motley assortment of vegetables with fascination. How could such skinny folk fit so much inside their bellies? Would they even be able to walk tomorrow? Most gave Hao a wide birth.

It was only natural to distrust a lone traveler, let alone one who'd arrived with gifts and promises of protection. The enormous spear probably didn't help matters. The only traveler willing to look him in the eye was the older woman who'd proclaimed herself the caravan's leader.

"Your hospitality is appreciated, Auntie Wu," Hao addressed her, hoping to put the mortals at ease.

"Not everyone would share their fire with a stranger." He truly was grateful. His body was at its limits after racing westwards another six days, burning through resource after resource to make the most of the three day head start he and Fu's scheme had earned. Even a Distillator needed to sleep. He hadn't yet shed that aspect of his mortality.

"What little hospitality we have to offer," Auntie Wu groused as she passed out a few bowls of rice to her fellow travelers. The children were particularly fascinated by Hao. He'd had to shoo them away from the Cheng Spear a dozen times already, lest they slice themselves to ribbons. Heavenly jade wasn't a toy, dammit!

"The road grows harder every day."

"The Four Winds blow," a haggard man growled, carving off a few strips of venison that Hao brought as a peace offering. Friends were easier to make on a full stomach.

"We fought off three of the Four Winds Empire's raiding parties in the Lonely Plains. And what they didn't ruin, those thrice-damned bandits stole!"

"Peace, Liu Jin," Auntie Wu urged, laying her hand upon the weary man's arm, then turned to Hao with haunted eyes.

"My nephew speaks true. So many fools are fleeing west from the Corelands, fearful of the Emperors clashing, but the Four Winds are everywhere, just waiting to plunder them. We've lost everything but our lives."

"Objects can be replaced," Hao said, mulling over the travelers' words. He'd seen for himself that floods upon floods of mortals clogged the roads from the Corelands to the Empire's western reaches, hoping to find safety in the qi-starved lands away from the Sunbeam Core. Armies clashed in the north. Travelers whispered rumors of greater and greater cultivators dueling, all striving to win territory for the mighty Emperors.

But the true danger came with tales of the Sunbeam Emperor himself stirring upon his golden throne: when the Emperors clashed, all of the Corelands would be devastated. Best to hurry off to somewhere the mighty Emperors couldn't give a damn about, like the Lonely Plains. Or off to the vast Sun Wall City, which even the Four Winds Emperor wouldn't dare to harm. Not when it held the Dark World back.

Hao had skirted the roads as he fled Yuchen, unwilling to sacrifice even a moment of his headstart, but mortals were loud. The clamor of their wagons, chatter, and braying beasts of burden sounded for miles. But where there were people, there was opportunity. Where there was opportunity, there were vultures.

"You've seen hard times," Hao observed, picking at his stew. Poor fare, bereft of qi to further his cultivation, but there was a simple pleasure in eating. A primal delight in being one with humanity. He scanned the caravan, picking out dozens of mortals with burns, bruises, and new scars.

"Tell me your story, Auntie." Auntie Wu's mouth opened and closed uselessly, reminding Hao of a fish. Her face paled, her nerve broke, and she said nothing until a young woman reached over to wrap her in an embrace.

"Apologies," Auntie Wu said with a sniff, wiping hot tears from her eyes.

"I—""You've reopened fresh wounds, traveler. Our journey was harsh from the day we set out, but we ran afoul of the Grey Hilt Bandits yesterday. They killed Old Chao, her husband." Liu Jin snarled, appearing too exhausted to be anything but blunt. The young woman comforting Auntie Wu gasped and slapped Liu Jin, but his Calcinator's constitution allowed him to ignore the light blow.

"Sick bastards! We've made this circuit a dozen times and never run into trouble like them. Tribute is one thing, what they did…" Auntie Wu shushed the fierce man. Her words were hard as glass and twice as brittle.

"Our route takes us through the Cloven Pass. It's the fastest way from the Lonely Plains to Yellow Bloom City in the Corelands. A nice, easy northern path with no greedy nobles carving out their share of our profits." Hao hummed, recalling his own time with his father's caravan. They'd passed through a more southern point that was a direct shot to the Golden Capital, but there were countless paths connecting the Corelands to the Westlands and Sun Wall City.

"It sounds too good to be true."

"Bandits and spirit beasts have harassed us before, but my dear Qian protected us. He was a mighty cultivator! They didn't dare offend him." Auntie Wu's voice cracked at the mention of her husband. The young woman consoling her rubbed steady circles on her back. Hao's eyes narrowed. He suspected his definition of 'mighty cultivator' was rather different than these humble merchants.

"Do you know what stage your husband achieved?"

"Distillation!" Auntie Wu exclaimed, her old pride colored with sorrow. Hao inclined his head. Distillation was only the beginning for a proper sect-trained cultivator, but in the mortal world it was a significant achievement. No wonder they'd been so safe going through the qi-drained Lonely Plains.

"He never steered us wrong."

"What changed?" Liu Jin looked ready to leap to his feet, grimacing as a bandaged wound stretched. His face burned red with rage.

"A new band set up in the Cloven Pass, not like the others we've seen. They called themselves the Grey Hilt Bandits… they demanded tribute, nothing unusual: gold, silks, beasts." Hao knew that a good bandit crew never took too much, ensuring they remained an inconvenience rather than a true danger. Take too much and a caravan might decide it's worth the fight.

Kill too many and the local lords would dispatch their own warriors to clear the gang out, though right now most troops in these northern territories were far away on the Four Winds border. Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more.

"We paid," Auntie Wu continued.

"They had archers all over the pass. They were nothing to my Qian, but it wouldn't have been worth the fight. We made to leave, and then their leader, this horrible woman… Boss Xia, they called her, demanded more." Hao didn't miss the way they glanced at several of the children, as well as a scarred woman who had the presence of an experienced Calcinator. She refused to look at him, perhaps sensing his veiled strength and wishing to avoid a predator's attention, but he could put the pieces together.

"They wanted slaves?"

"That's what we thought," Liu Jin snarled, clenching his bowl so hard that it seemed close to breaking.

"That demon wanted sacrifices." Hao paused midbite. He lowered his chopsticks. His instincts roared, black hatred burning as suspicion simmered.

"Sacrifices?"

"Everyone with cultivation potential," Liu Jin said, jabbing his finger at a few children, the scarred woman, and finally himself.

"That's when we fought. Old Chao took the boss while us fighters protected the rest of the caravan—" Auntie Wu's delicate composure shattered. She buried her head into her hands, filled with as much sorrow as fury.

"He killed her! My Qian chopped that evil woman's head right off. But when he turned to finish the rest of her gang…" The older woman couldn't finish. The scarred Calcinator finally spoke up, turning to Hao so that he could spot the wicked gash upon her cheek. It was an ugly cut, red with fresh scar tissue, and carved from her cheek to her jaw to her neck. Only luck had prevented it from opening her throat.

"There was this awful thing strapped to her hip, this blob of stone and oil. She spoke to it like a lover. The Grey Hilt," the Calcinator said with a grimace.

"It didn't do anything at first, but when she died, it was as if it woke up. It was covered in symbols. They started squirming, there was this horrible feeling like I was a sieve and my soul was spilling out, and then I saw her." Liu Jin finished the scarred Calcinator's tale.

"Her body stood up as if she'd never died. Her head snapped back onto her body as if it had never left. Then she went after Senior Chao—" Auntie Wu's face twisted. She moaned, a long, keening sound which was like a dagger. Hao had heard enough.

"I understand," he said, curling his fingers around the Cheng Spear, aching to satisfy the Wildfire burning in his veins. Heretics. Accursed sorcerers from the Dark World, each a corrupted cultivator. All gnawing at the fabric of reality for their own selfish gain. Every cultivator knew of them. Every cultivator despised them.

"Do you have a map? I'd like to see this Cloven Pass for myself." The mortals all exchanged quick glances. Hao was under no illusions that they'd bought his humble guise for more than instant. How often did one find a lone traveler hauling an entire deer across his shoulders in the middle of the night? They were alone, unprotected, and battered. It was hardly as if Hao could have made things much worse. Now his bravado left them wondering just who they'd invited into their midst.

"Go, dear," Auntie Wu said to the young woman at her side, motioning her towards a battered wagon. The girl returned quickly with a large map which covered this tiny corner of the vast Sunbeam Empire. No map this size could include the full empire in any detail. Auntie Wu's thin finger traced along the map.

"This is where we are now, see? Just on the edge of the Corelands. If you follow this road, you'll reach the Cloven Pass. It's the simplest route to the Western Reaches, at least for those without the wealth to pay the lords guarding the larger passes." Hao hummed, mentally constructing the route.

"I imagine the glut of refugees is filling those lords' pockets nicely."

"Greedy pigs!" Liu Jin growled.

"Only the richest can afford to pass through the safer routes. They couldn't care less about the rest of us."

"Leaving the Grey Hilt Bandits a steady stream of desperate travelers to plunder from," Hao murmured, tracing the route to the Cloven Pass with his finger.

"Distant from the nearby sects, the northern lords have all sent their forces to the Four Winds border…" One of Master Bolin's favorite exercises was setting Hao against bandits, killers, and others who abused their paltry cultivation for their own gain. Mortals drunk on meager power upon ascending to Calcination, wielding it as a cudgel and never realizing their feet had only lifted an inch off the base earth.

If there was one thing those hunts had taught him, it was that predators always searched for a gap, a space void of oversight. It seemed that the Grey Hilt Bandits had found theirs: far enough from the Corelands to evade proper cultivators and away from the armies flowing north to face the Four Winds. To be frank, nobody gave a damn about the Lonely Plains. Those qi-starved lands had nothing to offer. Everything about the seas of golden grasses and flat prairies was painfully mortal.

The Lonely Plains were the smallest jewel in the Emperor's golden crown, unfit for a proper cultivator.

"You intend to face them?" Auntie Wu watched Hao carefully. The flame's blazing light cast her in a golden glow.

"Even knowing what they are? That dreadful woman, Boss Xia, wants cultivators. Once she killed my love, she sent the rest of us onwards. Mercy, she called it." Liu Jin spat on the ground.

"Heretics. What a pitiful existence!" Hao said, hissing.

"I'll free them of their burdens and let them try again in their new lives. That is the mercy I will grant them, Auntie Wu." The aging woman exhaled, squeezing her eyes shut as she considered Hao's promise.

"They've taken so much already. Don't let them take more from you, Master Cultivator."

"They've had their fair share. There will be more travelers passing through the Cloven Pass. More sacrifices for the Grey Hilt. If it truly belongs to the Dark World, it must be destroyed. It's as simple as that." The honored Sun Dragon Acolytes, the truest servants of the Emperor, contained the terrors of the Dark World behind the Sun Wall. Abominations spawned endlessly in the blighted realm's unknowable depths. It was the Acolytes who met those horrors as they slithered in from other planes.

Ascending to Rumination with the sacred Sunstruck Dragon Form was Hao's first step towards razing the White Rivers from the earth. The Acolytes only accepted the best of the best into their trials—or those who they owed favors to. Hao didn't have Master Bolin's name behind him anymore, but capturing or destroying the Grey Hilt should earn him some favor with the Acolytes. Traveling through the Cloven Pass would shave off an hour or two of Hao's lead, but every cultivator knew the terrors of heretical sorcery.

The aberrations in the Dark World couldn't pass the Sun Wall, but wretched cultists snuck through all the time, intent on weakening the protections containing the Dark World. Granting heretics time to grow was the peak of foolishness. Yuchen or no, they must be destroyed. And if he could secure this Grey Hilt as a gift for the Acolytes… well, it was only fair payment for his good deed.

So Hao ate with his temporary companions, made his bed by the flickering flame, and savored a few hours of undisturbed rest, leaving before the mortals woke. He left the rest of the deer as a gift, wished the sentries well, and disappeared into the west. It was a flame's duty to beat back the dark.