Fatherly Asura

…and the Divine Vermillion Storm Ape remained last, breaking the oceans with each enraged pound of her chest.

For she was never considered the wisest of her kin, nor the most pious towards her Heavenly forebears.

Her mantle was pride, and to inspire it among those deserving.

Not these humans, who were, to her, as aberrant as the Qi pilfering Demons. She was unwilling to share her Elements, nor her Dao or Arts.

Not freely.

Thus came her Tyranny of Seasons, and what she viewed to be a worthy penance for these divine gifts.

- Excerpt from “The Twelve Great Gifts,” by an Unknown Daoist

An echoing sob broke the bloodied seal that held Fu’s eyes shut. Cracking strands of his own leaking wounds tore then, leaving a dim light to crack through. Muted pain, in comparison to the hell his body was suffering.

“Hushi,” he weakly croaked, oblivious to his surroundings. Concern trumped what potential dangers may stalk nearby; concern, and shame.

The barest hint of emotion travelled through their bond, settling his worried heart. In the passing minutes, laid still and broken, he became more and more aware of the state of things.

He was bound in fabrics, foul smelling, that bandaged the worst of his injuries. Some upon his arm, his legs and back, with the greatest clotting the ooze that trailed from the talon-birthed grooves across his face.

“Hushi,” he croaked again, finding that something shuffled by his head.

A wet, slapping sound as though flesh moved across stone. Slowly, a set of teal arms crossed his vision, playing at his face in reassuring fashion. They stroked at the blood-crusted detritus at his eyelids, scoring, yet removing all that blocked sight of his surroundings.

“Are you… well?”

The octopus pressed close, affirming only that he was here, and nothing else.

Fu scraped together the energy to pull himself up, and gazed at a point on a tiled ceiling to retain his focus on anything but the agony within his ribcage. The world gyrated around him, a blur of darkened shapes lit only by a source of trailing sunlight above, taking many a minute to settle into something discernable.

Yet to his horror, the smell came first. A [Summer] rot, meaty and thick.

Through no Qi inspired qualities, it broadened as he sensed it. An oppressive warmth of aged flesh that filled not only his nostrils, but his mouth and eyes. Though he could not move further to mask it.

Either from injury, or from shock.

A mound of hundreds of corpses were strewn about the floorspace, this tiled hall of stone and pillar. Splattered remnants, dismembered and sallow.

By the Heavens. Where am I?

For a moment, he recalled the blistering rage that had overcome him. The undeniable fury at feeling Hushi’s life ebbing away. And in that moment, he worried.

Even when his Mei had passed from the world, he had never felt such anger. Loss in abundance, pain and anguish, but not rage.

He shook thoughts of his beloved from his mind, unwilling to tarnish her memory in the face of this slaughter. This was not a fitting scene to recall one so cherished and joyous.

Thus he looked past the bodies, beyond the narrow gap in the ceiling no doubt stained brown by their entry to this vile place, and settled his gaze upon the wailing young woman.

Doubled over, Mei held a mangled corpse between her legs. A crutch, each, supporting the head of one half-crushed and mulched.

Here her tears fell like a [Spring] shower, cascading without cessation. Whimpers of muted words chirped from her mouth like sounds born of a mewling pup, sounds without use or meaning, evocative yet nonsensical.

And Fu found he could not move towards her, consigned to languish in his pain while she bore hers alone. “Mei,” he called, a squeak through broken parts.

She looked up, her face half cleaned in a warpaint of grime, pale skin exposed in streaks that ran in channels from her eyes. “Senior… Fu,” she choked.

An unexpected show of formality caught Fu by surprise, and he felt her emotional state to be truly dire if she had deigned to seek any wisdom from him. Now was not the time to correct her address, and he motioned for her to come close, curling pained fingers his way.

Mei’s head returned to a dangle, and only filled the halls with louder sobs. He understood this reticence to leave her mother’s side, for he too, had known much loss.

Against his best interests, he placed a hand, muffling the guttural sounds that pain introduced to his lips.

Fu then slithered and crawled, some violent variation of a shuffle that edged him closer to the young woman. An undignified dance of scraped limbs across stone that finally saw him at her side, where he reached out.

Her head jerked to him, a furious snap, something raw held in her eyes. “My mother-”

“I know,” Fu interrupted, palming her shoulder.

“She-”

“Let her rest now.” Mei wildened in her movements, trying to squirm from his gentle grip. But it stayed firm, and he tightened.

They held this position, and a steadfast gaze for many a minute, silent all the while. Fu knew she sought reassurance, and he offered all he could. A small collection of moments could be spent in this reflection, but given the events prior to his waking, they could not linger.

The sobbing lessened in its course, with a cool serenity coming to replace it. This place offered no other source of sound, and nothing moved in the stone corridor to carry it from elsewhere.

Mei broke their gaze first, laying down her mother’s head and struggling to a rise.

When her hand came to help Fu he accepted the offer, and they meekly travelled down the length of corridor at the pace of a crawl. Fresh blood pumped from Fu’s back as he stepped, but they made it a distance into the darkness before they were forced to stop.

A glow was shed from a spherical object in the ceiling beyond, which was where Mei finally set him down, propping him against the wall. “I offer my apologies, senior,” she said, her head hung in shame.

“Let us… let us talk once I have culti-” Fu drew in a painful thread of air, and the pain within his ribs flared. “Air [Spirit Core],” he managed. “Please.”

Brushing his chest, Mei rifled around in his pouch. Tight, given how close it was wedged against the wall. He barely felt the marble as it was placed in his hand, and she was forced to clasp his other palm atop it to hold it firm.

“Gratitu…” he coughed, feeling his jaw slacken as the Qi was drawn forth.

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Surplus energy stripped away at the remaining [Impurities], as he had now learned, though the direction this infusion of [Air Qi] travelled in was not as linear as the others. Fu’s [Ink] thrummed with the power of another message, however distant it was outside his concentration.

His focus was fully inward, intent on directing the flow of energy through this now-open [Meridian] and gently swaying it through the organs where it settled. A marked change from those he had opened before.

This container was a gateway of sorts, radiating the absorbed Qi into both kidneys to gradually infuse them. The change was slow, and each time Fu relaxed the level of Qi there would reduce, enforcing his need to complete the process in one sitting.

The Qi used to heal his wounds was long spent, and the efficiency of this cultivation session was greatly reduced by the [Earth Qi] that had saturated his [Channels] from his previous fight, only adding to his current difficulties.

Sweat mounted on his brow, and the same, blistering rawness of physique that accompanied each cultivation session had pushed him beyond the brink of exhaustion, causing his concentration to lapse.

Only thoughts of his rage forced him forwards.

I wish to never lean into it again. The violence of this world of cultivators. It is far above, and far more frequent than I had ever imagined.

A cold shudder made his body quiver, biting at the volumes of pouring sweat upon him.

However necessary it might be.

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