Chương 8: An Eldritch Encounter

Frustration was Hao's constant companion. He hated scurrying like a rat from Yuchen's steadily approaching spiritual stormcloud. He hated being on the backfoot, only ever able to feint and run. He hated leashing his Wildfire instead of letting it burn joyously free. So when the first arrows flew, he roared with relief. These bandits weren't Cheng Yuchen, the prodigy Ruminator of the Cheng Clan and trained to kill since before he could wipe his own ass.

They were Lonely Plains trash, barely worthy of being called cultivators. Hao would be surprised if they knew the right way to poke someone with a sword. He could finally hunt. The arrows were well-aimed, striking in pairs from three different angles, and stank of poison. Alas for the bandits, Hao was a Distillator, and he effortlessly swept them away with a spin of the Cheng Spear.

Shoddy formations triggered, changing the flow of qi through the Cloven Pass, and wavering walls snapped into place at each end of the canyon. Mortals could beat on the barriers for days and still find themselves trapped. A good thrust with the Cheng Spear should set Hao free… but why would he want that? He'd come here for blood.

"Hand over your spear, traveler, and we shall let you live!" A woman's guttural voice thundered through the canyon. The barrage of arrows paused.

"The Grey Hilt Bandits honor our word!"

"You want my spear? Come and take it!" Hao scoffed. As if he'd listen to a word these lowlifes had to say! He reached out with his spiritual senses— And promptly choked down the urge to vomit. Qi flowed, guided by the piss-poor formations they'd erected into walls or to trigger the toxic gas seeping towards him in a noxious fog. Six little sparks filled the pass. Calcinators, painfully weak with one or two exceptions. None of that mattered. Boss Xia was there, a flame next to embers, a true Distillator.

Not complete trash, either. Sect-trained at some point, most likely, but Hao barely paid attention to the strength of her cultivation. How could he, when it clung to her. The foulness of sorcery—of an alien world—clung to her like the stink of a rotting corpse. Death and decay, dark and damp, and a dozen other concentrated scents which seared Hao's nose.

He perceived the terrible arcane power as much as an absence as he did a presence, seeing in it a shadow upon the world, a gaping stain which gnawed at his spiritual senses. Even as qi flowed through the fearsome woman, Hao felt a terrible void as well, as if Boss Xia had reached into herself and scooped out something precious and essential. An awful, yearning gap that the heretic's foul sorcery was only too eager to fill, spreading through the Distillator like a cancer to saturate her flesh and spirit.

A second passed. More arrows came. Hao sensed the fire of their movements, the heat of their aggression, and determined the location of the strongest Calcinator. The tall woman lingered in a makeshift nest atop a cliff ledge alongside a weaker companion. Her qi flickered from fifty feet above and twenty to his back. She nocked a poisoned arrow, pulled the bowstring back, and then shrieked as Hao exploded upwards with all the strength and speed his Wildfire Physique had to offer. He let the fires inside burn.

His terrified victim barely caught a glimpse of him before he launched into her, smashing the Calcinator so hard into the hard canyon wall that her bones shattered and her flesh pulped. The archer's scream cut off into a bubbling gurgle as her fractured ribs tore into her organs.

"Not so easy facing a real cultivator, is it?" Hao snatched the archer's horrified companion by the throat and ended the weedy man by snapping his neck. The seasoned bandit might as well have been a newborn sparrow to Hao's strength. Hao stepped back from the crushed woman. She collapsed. Blood burbled from her torn body. Never let it be said that Xiao Hao was unmerciful—he shoved the Cheng Spear through her face. How many doctors could end a patient's pain so quickly?

Wildfire burned through his meridians, his qi blazing faster and hotter, pushing him forward. Time wasn't in Hao's favor here. Attrition would wear him down and leave him exposed to the bandits and their leader. No, he needed to end this quickly. Slaughter the weaklings, then burn Boss Xia's corpse to scour away her corruption. Simple enough. If only all his problems were so easily solved. Hao scanned for the other Calcinators as he knocked three more arrows away with deft twists of his spear.

Both pairs were roughly the same distance away, perhaps a hundred feet apart on either side of the canyon. He made his mind up within a second and aimed for the pair separated from Boss Xia. The bandit leader watched his progress with sharp golden eyes. She clutched a plain steel sword. Simple fare for a heretic. Most of Master Bolin's stories involved more spikes, tentacles, and festering curses which made Hao's stomach turn.

He'd never needed to know what prolapse meant, thank you very much, but Master Bolin had seen fit to tell him anyway. All in all, Boss Xia didn't seem very bothered by Hao slaughtering her gang. Then again, they were only Calcinators, barely better than mortals. They were easily replaceable even in the desolate Lonely Plains.

"You're next, Xia!" Hao bellowed. He coiled, readied to launch at his new targets— And then a horrific ripple twisted through the canyon. Hao felt as if he'd been doused neck-deep in a bog, trapped in black decay, and bellowed as Boss Xia was suddenly there right in front of him, grinning madly as she swept her blade down upon him and smothered him in the stench of arcane power.

"Spatial manipulation? Impossible!" Hao grunted, bracing as he blocked her blow with the shaft of the Cheng Spear. Her strength was impressive, forcing him back an inch, but gave way once he found the purchase to shove her back down into the canyon below.

"You're only a Distillator!"

"Fool!" Boss Xia sneered, twisting in midair as she fell to land neatly in the canyon below.

"These are the least of my gifts!" Hao promptly decided that arcane powers were bullshit. His unrefined qi trickled away like a slow-burning candle. There was no time for any other distractions. He leapt towards the undefended Calcinators closest to him. They scrambled futilely, screaming in a way which satisfied the hate-hardened tar around his heart, and died in the blink of an eye.

"Useless!" Hao flicked blood and viscera off his spear. His black eyes settled upon the last two bandits. One was a tall, skinny man. The other was a bird-like woman who looked ready to break as soon as a stiff breeze rolled through the Cloven Pass. More importantly, both looked ready to piss themselves.

"You're next!" Heat burst off his skin. The air rippled. A charge built from the canyon below just as Hao leapt. An arcane stench intensified, wafting up to Hao and washing over him as if he'd been doused in greasy thorns. The charge intensified until it reached its apex, then released as space tore like thin paper. Boss Xia suddenly manifested in front of Hao. She launched into him and tackled him back into the ledge where he'd just killed the Calcinators.

The corpses were mashed to red paste beneath the impact, painting the little bandit nest—and Hao's white robes—crimson.

"Fuck!" Hao's ribs ached, but didn't shatter. He shoved her back, but Boss Xia chanted something foul and inhuman. Every word tinged the cliffs grey, spilling from her tongue like pouring sand. The world twisted, somehow manipulated so that Boss Xia fell forward rather than tumbling off the cliff.

"I can't have you killing all my bandits!" Boss Xia spat. She chanted more in that evil tongue, leaving Hao fumbling and nauseous. Arcane power billowed from her like a creeping fog, sapping his qi. New curses accompanied every thrust of her sword. Every one of her strikes came faster than a half-rate Distillator should be capable of. Her blade's tip bent into unnatural angles to strike at Hao, reminding him of objects refracted beneath water.

"Die!" Hao couldn't even spit back a retort. He gave himself to the Wildfire to weather the furious barrage of arcane-infused blows, feeding it his rage and pain and fears. His world shrank to the two of them as Xia pressed him against the wall, taking advantage of her nimble little blade. The Cheng Spear was a mighty weapon, but it wasn't suited for dueling in this little nest. Block. Thrust. Smash. Thrust.

Those actions became Hao's only focus, though the words read more like some of the lurid poetry Sister Fu enjoyed writing when she wasn't mixing up poisons. Their deadly dance reached new heights with every passing moment. Boss Xia's curses softened reality around them, fraying it, strengthening her curses. The blade bent more swiftly now, angling farther and farther from what should be possible, but Hao fought back with the Wildfire burning about him like a fiery cloak.

Boss Xia's arcane corruption mounted with every passing moment, but Hao's qi seared it away, forcing her to draw upon more and more strength. Her veins darkened to an ugly grey. Xia grimaced. Her heretical tricks were deadly. Xia fought in a way that Hao had never seen before, twisting space like fabric to dodge his blows and return her own, but she was the limiting factor. Hao swiftly adapted to her repertoire, leveraging his experience to learn her tells.

Xia's eyes betrayed her; she always glanced at the spot where she wished her blade to twist.

"This is all a heretic has to offer?" Hao mocked, finally confident enough to speak during their exchange. Her sorceries required focus. Why not make her life a little more difficult by breaking her concentration? Xia's nostrils flared. Her chant briefly stuttered.

"You're slippery, Xia. You've only lived this long by forcing others to play by your rules. Well piss on you, and piss on your game!" Xia proved just how limited she really was. Her only response was falling back into that awful arcane chant. Every word sickened Hao and wove a tighter cage around him, reinforcing her snare as fast as he could burn it away. Contesting her workings with his qi was expensive, but it was absolutely necessary.

Based on their fight so far, allowing Xia to permeate the Cloven Pass with her heresy only strengthened her curses. He barely avoided her blade as it suddenly came alive like a serpent. The steel twisted mid-strike to bite at him, nearly cutting his throat, but he punished her overstep by swinging up the butt of the Cheng Spear to smash between her legs. Xia's eyes bulged. She croaked. Her eldritch chant cut off and the grey haze surrounding them faded.

Just to be sure that she couldn't weave any more spells, Hao reached down and flung one of his smoke bombs into her face, lighting it with a flicker of fiery qi. If every heretical word uttered was poison, the best antidote was to shut Xia up. This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. Stinking yellow fumes spat right into Xia's face, spilling into her airways and stinging her sensitive eyes. She fell into a fit of hacking coughs.

Her sorcery shattered. The cage of warped space surrounding them broke as if he'd tossed a stone through a window.

"Getting hit in the sensitive bits hurts no matter what you're packing down there." Amusement colored Hao's words. Xia stumbled backwards, blindly swinging her blade to ward him off. Her success could be measured somewhere between nonexistent and Yuchen attempting a word with more than two syllables. He attempted to shove his spear into Xia's chest, but she sensed the danger.

She stumbled backwards right off the cliff, so Hao at least got to relish the sight of the blinded heretic flailing and coughing as she tumbled down to the canyon floor. The Calcinators quailed as he turned his hateful gaze upon them. That exchange with Boss Xia had eaten up too much qi. His fires were flagging.

"Die to Xiao Hao, bandit scum!" Both bandits screeched, practically scrambling over each other as they tried to flee. Hao didn't move, though the unleashed Wildfire's bloodthirsty madness urged him to savor their fear. Let them taste what they'd inflicted on so many others. Those two pretty peaches would take the work of a moment to pluck. It was time to bait out the real threat.

He flared his qi, allowing the burning power to flood his muscles as if he were going to leap at the bandits, and waited with his spear at the ready. Seconds later, the tell-tale charge of wretched arcane power erupted from down below. There! Boss Xia appeared in a twist of space just ahead of Hao, anticipating his jump. She'd teleported into his expected path in a panic, hoping to end the slaughter while blinded and coated in the stinking dregs of his gas bomb.

Otherwordly energies burst out from her as she finished her chant and struck. She would have intercepted Hao and buried her sword into his chest… if he'd actually jumped. Instead, those half-blind eyes locked onto Hao's own for a single instant. Xia's eyes were filled with madness, a trace of something inhuman swirling within, and Hao savored the moment the insanity broke beneath the realization she'd made a big fucking mistake.

"There's enough humanity left in you to be afraid? Good!" Hao leveraged the Cheng Spear and hurled it into Xia with all his strength. The mighty weapon shattered the protective sigils woven into the silk of her robes and crunched through her sternum and spine. His spear carried her across the canyon and impaled her upon the rocky wall on the other side.

"A gift for the heretic! You wanted my spear, yes?" The light left Boss Xia's eyes. Her heart was destroyed. There was no surviving that, though rebirth was quite another problem. Hao watched her like a hawk until he was certain that she wasn't resurrecting anytime soon, then leapt across the canyon, clinging like a lizard to the sheer cliff that Xia was impaled upon.

He wrenched his spear free with one hand, allowing Boss Xia's corpse to fall down to the canyon below, then hauled himself up with his free hand to the rocky nest of the last two Calcinators. Heat poured from him, scorching the lesser cultivators as they scrambled for their weapons.

"Mercy!" The tall man begged. Despite his words, he swung a sword at Hao's neck. Slow and sloppy. The lowest Calcinator of the White Rivers would butcher him.

"We're not heretics, ya know? We've been tryin' to leave! Now that she's dead…"

"You chose this life," Hao snarled, leaning his neck to the side to dodge the bird-like woman's stab from behind.

"How many travelers have you robbed or killed? How many lives have you ruined? How many sacrifices have you witnessed?" The tall bandit blanched.

"Uh, well…" He stank of sorcery, as if it had settled into his skin. Even his words were wrong, mangled with intonations beyond the workings of a human tongue. It didn't matter for long. Hao moved with blinding speed and slew the last of the Grey Hilt Bandits with two thrusts of his spear. He ignored the corpses, instead peering down at Boss Xia's dead body down below. The Cheng Spear heated within his grip, something shifting within, but Hao only had eyes for the corpse.

"Still dead. Huh, with the way Liu Jin spoke, I pictured something a bit more dramatic. You're just an ordinary dead body. You stink, sure, but that's to be expected for a heretic." Hao considered Boss Xia for a moment.

"Honestly, what kind of horror did you embrace? I've been in crypts that smell better than you." Quite a number, actually. Master Bolin enjoyed utilizing cursed burial chambers as training exercises. Even those haunted tombs were of this world. Their worst horrors were infinitely preferable to the stench of heresy. Hao's time on the road left him considering his current logistical challenges in the back of his mind as he exhaled, loosening some of the tension in his gut.

He mentally marked the dead Calcinators' locations for his Phoenix Breath Art. Yuchen was only a day or so behind now, so he had to move quickly. Poor Sister Fu must have been exhausted trying to keep a Ruminator's pace, though it was probably preferable to having to converse with the big idiot. Yuchen was hot on his heels. If Hao wanted to keep his lead, he'd have to find fuel sources. Most importantly, he needed to find enough resources to prevent him from having to dip into his vital reserves of distilled qi.

Burning these bandits should earn him a few hours at top speed. There was still so much to do. Utilize these bandits for the Phoenix Breath, survey whatever spoils Boss Xia had plundered, find civilization so that he could gather allies for a confrontation with Yuchen… the list went on and on.

"You're a weak lot, but you'll do. It's not like the Lonely Plains will give me enough to get by on," Hao muttered, raising his spear. Something seemed to move with him, flushing his grip with warmth. Some enchantment within the Cheng Spear, perhaps?

"Better than burning through my supply of spirit stones to restore myself." Six Calcinators would top up his reserves of unrefined qi, although any considerations of burning Boss Xia's corpse to concentrate another drop of distilled qi was utterly repugnant now. The Heavens could plead and the Hells could threaten, but he would never invite a piece of the heretic into himself.

"I've never fought a heretic before," Hao called out, leaping down to the canyon floor with consummate grace.

"Master Bolin told me what it's like fighting in the Dark World—the stench of it, the twists and turns and curses waiting around every corner, the horrors wearing human skin. I never thought he could be telling the truth." Boss Xia didn't answer. She lay broken and brutalized on the rocks, the bloody hole in her chest gaping and red.

"Master Bolin told me that nothing cleanses like flame. I'm inclined to believe him." Hao reached for the gourd on his belt and hurled a few drops of Quickflame Oil onto Boss Xia's corpse. Then, just for good measure, he doused her with half the remaining liquid. Better safe than sorry.

"Now burn!" The Wildfire raced through Hao's meridians into the Cheng Spear, channeled through its heavenly jade core and out the tip with even more fluidity than normal, erupting forth in a conflagration to ignite Boss Xia's body and consume her corrupted corpse forever— Yet a ruined, twisted circlet of metal shuddered on her finger, writhing like a worm. A storage ring. Hao stumbled backwards as countless glyphs squirmed upon the metal, glowing with unnatural light, and released a storm of arcane energy.

The canyon filled with a griseous haze that seared his spiritual senses and gnawed at him like a swarm of insects. Hao frantically cast a stream of red flame at Boss Xia, which was devoured by twisting shadow-light which briefly gave way before collapsing upon the fire and devouring it. Power continued to spew from the storage ring, its flowing oily rivers settling into a horrible thing which vaguely resembled a bladeless sword. The Grey Hilt.

Power gushed from the Dark World artifact as sigils squirmed like a nest of serpents upon its strange metal form. Gazing upon it hurt, as if something was trying to crawl in through his eye sockets, and the world darkened with the Grey Hilt's taint. Whispers tore free from it, slithering in through the gap in reality it represented. Strange, gnashing tongues assaulted Hao's ears, licking inside and brushing parts of him that he didn't know existed.

It was with dawning horror that their maddening chorus slowly solidified into meaning. Sand falls, fabric rips Our kindly fingers caress Lids torn, the eyes plucked Hao staggered as memories from unlike minds gushed into his spirit. There were feelings of spectrums he had never experienced, the sensation of organs he couldn't describe, memories of walking impossible geometries, and whispers from mouths with no tongues.

The sensory storm stabbed into Hao's mind like a knife, carving away and sinking its grey hook deep until the flow of his qi seared away the foreign influence. His qi eroded as it cleared his thoughts, but the price was well worth it. His vision swam as foreign sights vanished. The grey-hazed canyon reappeared, blighted by darkness, immersed in the eruption of a shadow from another world.

Hao nearly retched at the sight of the Grey Hilt embedding itself deep into Boss Xia's hip, burrowing into her flesh like some sort of insect. Heavy leaden veins erupted from the Grey Hilt and laced deep into her skin, muscle, and bone. The veins pumped arcane power into the dead heretic, gnawing at reality and substituting the Grey Hilt's will in exchange, remaking the world in its image.

Life-filled, persisting Time-bent, remember your form Now aligned anew Awful tongues sang from the Grey Hilt, weaving a chorus of gnashing teeth and scraping sand. Boss Xia's body did as its master bade, jerking up like a puppet with new strings. The gaping spear wound in her chest closed as rent flesh leapt into its old shape. Empty eyes snapped open.

"To think that some bright-eyed rat like you killed me!" Boss Xia wheezed, sucking in a new breath. She caressed the Grey Hilt, which wrenched its leaden veins from her hip and slid them smoothly into her wrist, then raised the horrible weapon high.

"Not bad. You're a real killer—I recognize that fire in your eyes. You were going to burn me!"

"Correction: I am going to burn you."

"Try me. You have no idea the power that my darling grants me! The Grey Hilt still has use of this little Xia Yu." Boss Xia swept the Grey Hilt downward, arcane energy flowing through her like an undammed river. An unseen blade rippled into existence, visible only as an ugly gaping hole in the world which screamed to Hao's senses, though it would have been invisible to a mortal. Boss Xia gave it an experimental swing.

The heretic's eyes were empty now, little more than pools of blackness with lashing split tongues uncoiling within. Things peered through them, alien and horribly curious, and Hao's qi burned in his defense. Master Bolin's words rose unbidden in Hao's mind. Cultists invite the Dark World's horrors into themselves, giving shape to the shapeless. Fools, lowering themselves to be nothing more than vessels waiting to be filled! They are plagues, rejected by our world.

Our qi protects us, but we are not handcrafted to face them like the Sun Dragon Acolytes. Run dry of qi and you will be devoured by their magic… His qi was more precious now than ever. It was his only true defense against Boss Xia's sorcery. The arcane haze billowing out from Boss Xia ate away at Hao's unrefined qi with every passing second. If this fight extended, he would have to draw upon his distilled qi, potentially burning weeks or months of effort. Absolutely not.

"Amnesia is a terrible ailment, isn't it? It's a shame that you're suffering from such a dreadful case. How many people have forgotten that they're supposed to be dead?" Hao said too-pleasantly, adopting the stance for his First Ignition as his Wildfire blazed, urging him to smite this abomination.

"Let this one offer you a reminder!" Boss Xia snarled as her humanity wilted like a fading flower. The arcane energy flowed through her, twisting her limbs into unnatural angles, but she measured Hao and found herself wanting. She made a final decision.

"O Grey Hilt, kindly scion of the—" Boss Xia's incomprehensible babblings were impossible for a mortal tongue, but the many-forked tongues licking outwards from her eye sockets aided her, twisting arcane energy even as the Grey Hilt fully enmeshed itself with her flesh.

"I give myself to you! Unveil to me your Truths! Carve your mysteries into this earthly vessel!" The Grey Hilt obliged, because it was a miserable bastard of an eldritch artifact intent on ruining Hao's day. Arcane energy surged, forcing Hao back even as he lunged forward with his First Ignition, unleashing a storm of power through his body as a single droplet of distilled qi erupted into a conflagration His thrust broke against the grey storm as Boss Xia was remade in the artifact's image.

A droplet of distilled qi wasted. Damn it! Her flesh boiled away, leaving only the gleaming impression of her meridians, though they were largely subsumed by the vast network of leaden grey veins poured into her silhouette by the Grey Hilt. Rivers of sand pounded through the vessels. Boss Xia's phantasm was visible only as a silhouette filled with swirling grey, interspersed by the occasional fleck of something peering through, and her voice echoed through the arcane haze with a terrible timbre.

Others spoke as well, indecipherable, grating, terrible. Ignorant sinner, Wretched, abominable, I will grant you Truth. Wildfire exploded from Hao, erupting outwards in a flare of heat, and cast the arcane fog away as its tendrils sapped at him. He raised the Cheng Spear high, catching a sliver of burning sunlight upon its heavenly jade tip as he roared. Perhaps Hao was a little drunk on the Grey Hilt's eldritch fumes, but he thought the sun suddenly burned a fraction brighter above.

Then Boss Xia's horrible new form leapt his way, shrieking curses which coiled around him like a strangling hand, and he met the heretic with his spear raised. The Cheng Spear burned in his hand, feeling like a dog yanking against its leash. It wanted to kill her.

"Emperor, bless me with your golden rays! Guide my hand as my spear grants this heretic your mercy. And Emperor, please… make her suffer!"