Fatherly Asura

Fools deny the footsteps of their betters.

A Patriarch’s experience: who could deny it? What pride courses through these young generations to foster this belief?

In my day a father would crippled such useless sons!

Begin again, yes- And you, fool of a disciple, did I not say to scribe each of my words! Are you to be the judge of what is wisdom and what is not? Know your place boy!

By the Heavens- Pariahs, yes.

Unorthodox cultivators.

All paths lead to serpents, for they are the Pillar both above and below these Clear Skies. Yes, venerable and everlasting… the talented scions there, boy, yes, they have the way of things!

Serpents.

In backwater hovels the will of the [Clouded Serpent Queen] dilutes- dilutes? Strike such insult swiftly, boy, you cloud my senses with ineptitude!

The [Clouded Serpent Queen]’s will treats not with Qi-arid lands. These villages where [Foundation] is the peak of all things and a single [Meridian] brings celebration and ten moons of gifts.

There, serpents know no better. Bonded with farmers and peasants, ignorant of what a true snake demands!

“Pariahs of Heritage,” by [Buried in Papyrus]

The [Silence Arrays] infused within Shuidi’s mists failed in motion. Condensed points: that which standard masters would have placed [Array Flags] to focus, channel and control the power behind each, these barely coalesced mid-step.

Thick as they were, the ghosts relied more on the mists’ slowing of sound than more profound measures. Some minor respite against the persistent quake of [Intent] that vibrated under foot.

All else they left to the swiftness of [Might].

Corridor, descent, corridor, descent, junction, corridor, descent - the rhythm.

More than blur, more than sound.

Yellow, black, green, black, violet.

The wails persisted. An incessant kindness.

Corridor, descent, corridor, junction.

Few words might describe the [Spirit Serpent’s] motion. He saw in it a singular wave. One scale abreast the next, contracting, woven, enabling a graduation of movement that contorted it in unearthly ways.

A distracted fool might glean Martial insight from this, so chain-like it rushed.

Fu merely rushed.

Corridor, descent, corridor-

His blade bisected a [Spirit Tiger], tearing from open jaw to rear.

Descent.

One [Spirit Spider], aflame in insects, fell.

Corridor.

Two. A [Spirit Gorilla] and [Spirit Centipede], more incensed in [Intent] and slash with the other than his spectral form.

They fell.

Descent.

Then three.

But these were heartbeats. Moments between a palm’s flicker and shoulder’s twitch. The inevitability of Heaven gave no respite, ceasing so ordered a procession.

For three became thirty, no more than a madness of fangs and glowing insects. So it went, in duplication.

Does this [Demonic] influence stifle their Qi? No force manifests but physical might and their [Intent].

Fu breathed.

[Half Cloud Step].

The madness then crawled.

His dance began in earnest. One of ghosts and coiling chain. Still they moved, still their feral eyes chased his form, and yet he leapt.

Upon the singular hand-span of free wall, beneath the bloated gut of a rearing [Spirit Stoat], an inverted spring from crumbled ceiling. On, dancing between moments, the chain to his rear unspooled until it was not.

[Might] eviscerated the flesh between these points, proofing his metal in sodden red.

Insufficient.

Of peasant history, Fu’s might name no more dances than he had fingers. The Lunar Festival had its dragon dance, at [Summer Solstice], the dance of lions. Meager knowledge, and unnecessary for those beyond courts and lordly duty.

Thus he knew no name for this technique- this second step? Third rotation? What an elegant pair might call their transition from beginning to middle or end.

Only that he did, dispatching hundreds of partners before he dispelled his [Half Cloud Step] at the [Spirit Serpent’s] side.

Corridor, descent, corridor.

Death had not slowed the [Beast Tide’s] progress. The [Intent] came ever undiluted, rampant now that lesser beasts did not impede its progress. Indeed the weight of these beings ranged closer, lapping at Fu’s heels, bellowing, trembling the floor above-

[Wind Phantom’s Breath].

Maladies spewed from the pipe set between his lips. A granite mist of [Pure Yang Lotus Drops].

Dust, fern, brick and flesh met in a resounding pulse.

A [Spirit Beast] had blown through the floor above, arriving in mire so thick its shape could not be discerned.

But it met poison.

The stream of chasing [Spirit Beasts] met poison.

Yang: of waxing, growth, overcoming, masculinity, flames. Aspects to represent the positive, now lethal in Fu’s given dose.

To cease this flight would have seen their [Cores] burdened. Swollen by an extremity of Qi or [Affinity]. Crippled by imbalance yet too feral to restrain these energies.

The ghosts left them as dust in parting, pursuing only the [Spirit Serpent] ahead.

Corridor. Junction.

A descent came unlike all others, the [Air Qi] forewarned of this. For here he stole a step into absence, plummeting into open air both vast and deep.

[Half Cloud Step]set a platform beneath his foot, and the [Heavenly Spectre’s Shroud] dominated it. The construct ceded control, merging to cease all the drain on Fu’s Qi.

A blink came, and a second.

His cloud remained.

We? Ah, Hushi, Shuidi… it is good to know that we can… fly.

Thousands of [Spirit Beasts] gushed from the ceiling, shedding Fu’s stupor. The tip of this cascade fell by surprise, claimed by the height of this vast space. In three breaths this fate had changed, revealing less madness than at first glance.

These beasts lunged.

Upon the backs of their tide they leapt, they pounced from hides, limbs, and skill with agility unmatched, split in attention between Fu’s stationary form and the [Spirit Serpent] at rest upon this chamber’s ceiling.

Nearing.

Sister. A fitting test of our [Dao], please, will you aid me?

[Profundity] massed upon Fu’s palm, and he sensed there a cradle of growing winds. An expectant call, cried to distant kin.

Shuidi’s conjuration was other, expelling her [Wind Phantom’s Breath] in volumes to blind even the Heavens.

The ziggurat’s passages screamed.

Neglected in use since the [Hollow Trial], Fu whispered to his [Dao]. “In lands roamed we have met, distant, yet ever in wind’s eternal memory. Become that which you once were and will be again. [Dao of Four Horizons].”

A teal glow emerged from the ceiling’s hole, carried forth by the violet scream surging through the corridors above.

In a breath, brighter yet.

Fu leapt to higher cloud, evading the jian-length claws of a [Spirit Wolf] intent on rending his flesh.

It toppled.

Cascaded, to join the insect-polluted waterfall of falling bodies.

Teal came in inferno.

[Summer’s] flames, volcanic flames, the heated gale of fire-soaked lands. The wind’s memory of what it had once been, and now had become again, incinerating all that continued to fall.

The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

Fu’s will barely restrained the shape, for this pillar was well agitated by the energies of [Pure Yang Lotus Drops]. He could feel its greed. A hunger to expand and make cinders of all. And so it did, of most.

The [Dao] ceased. Fu firmed his jaw.

Thousands had arrived and thousands were ash. But he was no profound talent or peerless master to slay so many.

Below, the teal flames simmered. Extinguished by surging [Intent] or by the burnt breaths of the [Spirit Beasts] ranging there.

In their diminished thousands.

“Not prey. Quiet thing no more. A talent for burning, for heat these darkened hearths,” hissed the [Spirit Serpent], withered by proximity to his flames.

Fu… walked across the air, cloud underfoot. “Your Lord, venerable cousin. Must we slay your [Demonic] kin to reach them?”

“Yes. One route. One path. Cleanse the foul blooded at my side. Have none reach the Lord.”

“Where must we protect?” he asked.

Residual flames made clear what insects could not, granting sight to the gloom-blind ghosts.

“Where walls meet their end, and further below. Have not your mind stray,” came her reply, twisting a tongue towards the horde. “Deaths comes, prey awaits.”

[Half Cloud Step].

The ghosts descended swiftly, resummoning the [Dao of Wind’s Present Whispers] as they landed amidst danger. One thought brought them further, phasing them through stone and through Shuidi’s intuition, to a place where walls met their end.

Assassins held no true business with [Beast Tides], after all. That was a fate for sun-facing fools.

🀦

His [Ink] granted minor warmth, drawn through the [Hollow Ivory Splinter].