B2 Chapter 31
Orange-crest grinned at the translucent disciples slowly stalking toward him from the edge of the tree line. Their faces were as still and slack as those of corpses, with flat cheeks, empty eyes, and mouths hanging just the slightest bit open. Eerie. Their bodies seemed to move just fine though.
Yet, their gait was odd. A consequence of their near weightlessness, perhaps? Their rhythm of their steps was not quite aligned with the distance they covered, every footfall carrying the pair just a little further than it should have.
"Were you people once?" The monkey asked, curious.
The ghosts did not answer him.
"Unlikely. Spirits so numerous and transient as these are probably born from memory-"
"Shush." Orange-crest said. "Talking to them now."
Huo'er squawked in surprise as orange-crest surged into motion. He could guess the general thrust of what she was going to say. They were corpses imprinted in qi. Memories of death, not of life. Something like that. They very clearly lacked certain essential properties of 'being alive', the details probably weren't that important. He wondered if they were from Sect Master Xiang's memories. His master had said the two of them had fought in a war against the demons of the south.
Ghosts weren't people. Not like living humans, or monkeys. Li Xun had been quite firm about that, and orange-crest believed him. However, orange-crest was becoming powerful. He didn't want to become like so many other human cultivators, a heedless destroyer that others stepped lightly around. But as the ghosts hefted saber and spear, orange-crest wasn't feeling very conflicted. If they couldn't speak, and attacked on sight? Well, that was just volunteering to become a meal, wasn't it?
The monkey struck like a bolt of lightning, sudden and violent. A quick hop to the side put the one with a saber between orange-crest and the spear wielder. His staff lanced out, a quick thrust that took the saber-spirit in the stomach, doubling him over. Orange-crest pushed hard into the blow, using it to arrest the momentum of his charge, bouncing back a step.
The spear-spirit leapt, rising over his half-prone comrade, his lance cocked back for a descending thrust. Instead of dodging, orange-crest stepped forward. The ghost's spear adjusted, but the angle was awkward. It needed to thrust almost directly downward. It tried all the same, gamely homicidal, but the blow glanced off orange-crest's fur. He was two drinks deep, and several fights more practiced, hardening his fur was almost second nature.
Without the weight of a body behind the blow, the monkey hardly felt it.
The saber-spirit couldn't say the same. Orange-crest's staff took it clean across the jaw as it tried to rise. The way the ghost's head snapped down was satisfying, but hitting it was even less satisfying than hitting Xiao Shulan. It was like trying to beat water into submission.
So orange-crest stomped the prone ghost instead, finally feeling some real resistance as he crushed it down into the earth. The spear-wielder charged at his back, but orange-crest had their measure now. There was skill to their martial arts, but it was buried deep. Every movement was delayed, as if they were digging through the mists of old memories to remember their techniques.
The monkey didn't have this problem. He spun on one foot, catching the spear under his arm. The weightless ghost flailed ineffectually as it found itself lifted clear above the orange-crest's head.
Orange-crest sprinted closer to the cliffside and heaved him right over the edge. The ghostly projectile took one of his companions, just making his way back up over the edge, right in the face. The two of them fell back down together in a satisfying tangle.
"Having fun?" Huo'er asked.
"Yes."
Orange-crest turned back to the sole ghost atop the cliff, the saber-spirit. He was back on his feet stalking forward, seemingly no worse for wear from a pair of blows that should have crushed his ribs and jaw, perfectly ready for round two.
He could do this. Just keep them from ganging up on him. He'd find a way to put them down eventually.
Lightning crackled in the distance.
"Somehow, I don't think this is how a Prince of the Xiao would be handling such a trial." Huo'er mused.
"Well I don't have lightning." Orange-crest shot back, tossing his staff to the side.
He sidestepped a telegraphed vertical slice from the saber, then grabbed the offending spirit by the collar. Being weightless might make them durable, but it also meant he could swing them around like an empty robe. Saber-spirit found himself on a quick trip over orange-crest's'head, before being slammed back down into the earth. This time, orange-crest pounded the ghost like he was mashing up fruit for wine. His fists shimmered with earthen qi, growing heavy, as he smashed down with one heavy blow after another. One-two, one-two, he fell into a rhythm. Four strikes, then eight, then twelve. The saber bounced off his shoulder twice. Those weapons were a great deal less intimidating when they did not have the weight of flesh and steel behind them. Finally, on the sixteenth heavy blow, the monkey felt something break. The translucent blue-white skin of the spirit shuddered, then ruptured. Qi poured out, flooding the already rich air.
Orange-crest longed to cycle, he was so close to the fifth stage breakthrough, but he'd taken too long already. The other three would be upon him in a moment. He rolled forward, Huo'er squawking again as he nearly squished her against the ground, calling his staff back to hand.
As the world spun, he saw the flying weapon take one of the three approaching spirits at the back of the ankles, sending it tumbling. He was getting so good at that.
Two swords and one spear. No coordination between them. He would keep the spear wielder at the back, fight at a distance, never let the swords fan out and flank him. Easy.
Orange-crest took a deep breath, drawing in qi. His heart pounded joyously.
"Monkey!"
Orange-crest turned toward the tree line, and froze.
"I told you. One day, these spirits will defend this place, protecting disciples from any demons that cross the threshold. Like that fox."
Five more ghosts had gathered at the edge of tree line. They were not stronger than the others. They did not seem more intelligent. But even as orange-crest watched, a sixth spirit joined them.
"Oh."
The new group had more weapons. A rope dart, and two bows, along with a pair of swords. And the sixth spirit carried a stack of talismans, their paper as translucent as the fingers that brandished them.
"They would not be much of a protection, nor much of a trial, if one as lowly as you could simply shatter their shells and slurp out the qi that gives them form."
The nine spirits advanced as one. They moved like the wind, weightless, emotionless, merciless. Perfect unison, and a complete lack of coordination. It was almost like they were not aware of each other except as obstacles.
Orange-crest poured qi into his legs, running. He leapt, barreling clean through the ghosts, sending a pair of them tumbling, but uninjured. Of course it could never be that simple. Orange-crest tried to remember exactly where he'd last seen the lightning crash down as he charged through the forest, a great mob of spirits steadily forming behind him.
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It'd been a good idea. It would have been so satisfying if it worked. Orange-crest had planned to lead the whole pack of ghosts over to the Seventh Prince. His lightning was probably good for dispersing them. His master said that lightning was a bane to lingering spirits and other unwholesome things.
Lure them over, turn to stone, have the Seventh Prince smite them, return to flesh and cultivate the qi they released. Simple plan. It wouldn't make him any friends, but orange-crest wasn't here to make friends, he was here to claim Grand Elder Tian's inheritance. He could make friends some other time.
Unfortunately, orange-crest couldn't find the damn prince. He wasn't calling down lightning as often now, and it was devilishly hard pinning down his position when he kept moving, and could hardly see where the bolts came down for the mass of trees.
Of course, all the ghostly blades and arrows raining down on him weren't helping either.
He'd fallen into a rhythm. He couldn't leave the ghosts behind. They were fast and tireless. But they were not very agile, nor very smart. They would close, and he would slow, then bolt in another direction. A few arrows would bounce off his fur, a few blades strike at his shadow, and he'd keep moving. Twice, he'd found himself at a dead end. That'd been far worse, he'd found himself wading through an entire pack of ghosts, taking half a dozen minor wounds as he forced his way through. A pill solved the bleeding, but that was already his third pill today. He only had two more.
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He couldn't fight the spirits directly. Maybe he could have at the start, but running had not improved the situation. There were almost two dozen of them now. If he stopped long enough to slay a couple, the rest would slowly pick him apart. He could turn to stone, their pathetic blows shouldn't be able to harm him then. But then he would lose. Be stuck. It might take ages before his master came to rescue him.
He needed to destroy one in a single blow. Or two blows, at most. The others could all do it. Yang Wei would slice these insubstantial things to ribbons. Xiao Shulan would have no difficulties smiting them with fire and lightning. Even Li Shuwen and Wu Yingjie had techniques that could deal with a few of these spirits, albeit probably not the personal strength to survive very long against a whole pack of these things.
But orange-crest's expertise was the physical. And the ghosts only had one foot in that realm. None of his techniques seemed very applicable here. Immobilize would just waste his qi. Stone Form might let him pin one, but it wouldn't help him finish it off unless he jumped off a cliff or something.
And illusions... Orange-crest wasn't sure, but he spun one off anyway, sending it charging into the distance.
A single ghost broke off to chase it, loosing an arrow. Its aim was good, the archers were the most dangerous of the spirits by far.
To orange-crest's surprise, his illusion bled. The ghostly arrow took it in the shoulder, and instead of fading into orange sparks, lodged there.
It didn't make much of a difference in the outcome in the end. An illusion was an illusion. Orange-crest wasn't injured, and the gulf between the true and false monkies was too much for his mind to bridge. As soon as he tried to move either body, the suspension of disbelief that made the technique possible collapsed.
But it gave him an idea. Maybe he was thinking about this all wrong. Perhaps it wasn't a violence problem. Perhaps it was a spiritual one.
The distraction had cost him precious time. The spirits were closing in, circling ineffectually like drunken wolves. The ghost with talismans drew one up, and the vermillion ink, almost purplish on the ghostly paper, flared with light. Bows flexed ominously, arrows at the ready.
"Might want to fly, Huo'er."
"What?"
Orange-crest sat down in a meditative pose, and turned to stone.
He could distantly feel the ghosts as they fell upon them, their blades falling and bouncing away like rain. This would hurt, if he was wrong. He would take far too many blows when he returned to flesh. He doubted these things would tire or grow bored and just wander off.
Deep within the silence of stone, orange-crest thought. These spirits were not an opponent to be overcome. They were a technique to be broken. He wasn't sure whose, but they weren't entities in their own right.
His illusions were broken by the touch of that which was real, whether in his mind, or outside it. The Immobilizing Spell was broken by the steady application of force. Yang Wei's body-strengthening technique broke when he moved quickly.
It wasn't that spells were broken by contact with their opposites. But the truth was close. Something that rhymed with that idea. The logic that he needed was not the cold clarity of tactics. It was the unsteady certainty of spiritual things.
The ghosts could cut illusions. That meant illusions could cut them. Orange-crest believed this.
Orange-crest remembered. He remembered harder than he ever had before. The thrill and the terror and the glory of it. The way his eyes had felt like they might bleed from the sight, the hunger that had kept him standing even as his life's blood stained his fur.
He fixed that thought in his mind, the moment Yang Wei had stepped forward and met him hand to hand. Not even the monkey was arrogant enough to believe he could borrow Yang Wei's spear intent, not even a shadow of it. But the spear qi that he'd infused his hands with. The spearhand strikes that had met stone without yielding.
That, orange-crest could Grasp.
Normally, illusions were a process of deception. Formless-gleam had taught him to embrace uncertainty. To believe two things at once, and so make truth from falsehood.
Orange-crest didn't do that this time. He drowned his doubts, and forgot himself. Guided by the beauty of his weapons, burning with a hunger he could not name.
Stone shattered.
A primate rose to its feet.
Qi surged outward, a wasteful storm of power driving the hollow things that stood against him to their knees.
And Yang Wei opened his eyes. Eyes that blazed orange.
"Really?" Orange-Wei asked himself. "These are what you call upon my image for? They do not even merit the title of small fry. Shrimp soldiers everywhere would be insulted to be compared to such hollow things. You need to step it up monkey, if you hope to keep up with me."
Orange-Wei smiled darkly.
"You certainly won't ever be able to match me with such borrowed power."
One of the spirits found its nerve and charged the changed monkey, spear raised high.
Yang Wei's bladed palm sliced the spearhead of its weapon clean off. The spirit hesitated. It could not feel fear. But disarmament was not a scenario it had planned for. The spear hand strike took it in the throat before it could adjust to this new development.
The illusion was a fragile thing. It would only take a single glancing blow to remind it that it was mortal. To draw forth a line of red blood that would not be congruent with the monkey beneath. But taking a blow from such empty remnants would be beneath Yang Wei's pride. So when Orange-Wei fell upon the mass of spirits, brandishing his palm like a blade, he just didn't get hit.
"No." A palm slit another throat with a gentle swipe.
"Too slow." In through the chest, then out through the side of the ribcage without slowing, rising to end another.
"Not how you use a spear." It wasn't.
"I can see why you died." Orange-Wei wasn't even sure which of them these words were coming from.
They ghostly mob did not break, beyond fear as they were. But more stopped showing up, as those who had gathered died in time with Yang Wei's footfalls.
It took only a few heartbeats. Soon only the spirit with a stack of talismans remained. Violet ink crackled with light as it flicked a ghostly sheet of suppression toward Orange-Wei.
"Not a match for Li Shuwen's work." Orange-Wei said, slicing through the memory of magic easily. The last spirit quickly followed it, leaving the glade empty and silent. Qi flowed through the space in intoxicating quantity, but Yang Wei ignored it.
"I wonder how Li Shuwen is doing. I should check in on him." Orange-Wei bent down, picking up his old staff. "Hello, old friend." He said, twirling the staff idly. "Still not a spear, but I won't hold that against you."
He set off down the mountain. Li Shuwen had planned to seek whatever fortune the noble disciples did not reach for. That would mean Grand Elder Bai's arts. Yang Wei did not hold them in much esteem, but if anyone could wring worth out of such base material, it would be Li Shuwen.
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Huo'er sighed, watching the monkey descend the mountain again. It seemed like a shame, but perhaps it was fate. It clearly could not control the strange technique it had invoked.
It'd been so long since anyone had reached this place. The elders of the sect did not advertise its existence. How could they, when any guard they set would be tempted by the treasures within? They could do little more than wait until it stabilized, and became a holy land in truth. Then even a core formation cultivator would be able seek the benefits locked away here.
And the benefits yet to develop.
There had been a few dozen who had braved the depths over the half century she'd watched this place. Most had come away empty handed. Only one, that little hatchling Yuhan, had later returned to visit her.
He'd been interesting. Almost interesting enough that she wished to speak with him again. Her long, lonely, vigil was almost over. There would be no need for her once Old Xiang rose from his slumber.
She had precious little essence to her plumage. Her greater half had been stingy in endowing her. But she was only dealing with cultivators below foundation establishment. Neophytes who fought with shadows on the water. The monkey was amusing. She could afford a little indulgence.
And perhaps he'd be useful, should it prove necessary to dissuade that vicious little vixen from doing something they'd all regret.
Once, when her greater half had been young, her master had told her something that made little sense at the time. A true expert, he'd said, would rather endure a fated meeting doomed to end in tragedy, than crush a flower yet to bloom. Lianhuo had never had much patience for the Azure Mountain's disciples, let alone potential rivals.
Ren Yuhan had been an arrogant little shit with no respect for the sect or his seniors. But he was now by the few accounts that reached her a sect master if not exemplary, then at least satisfactory. Even if he'd only ever visited her once, before he grew too great to enter this place safely, after all the help she gave him.
She wondered what the monkey would become, if given a chance. She was certainly more curious about him than she was the other two. If a good ruler was enough to overcome human nature, the Jianheng Emperor would have been sufficient. And the less said about foxes the better. The very name of Daji was a curse the world over for a reason.
Huo'er drew the smallest measure of her essence from her core, wrapping it about her feathers, and launched herself off the branch like a very quiet flying sword.
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The sensation of something slicing off the tip of his ear drew orange-crest back to reality.
"Eeeep!" He screeched, clapping a hand to the wound. It came away surprisingly bloody. The ghosts had hardly been able to bruise him, but Huo'er's beak had sliced through his flesh as easily as Yang Wei's spear qi.
"You're welcome." The little bird said smugly.
Orange-crest took stock of his situation. Yeah, no, he didn't care about Li Shuwen that much. It was surprisingly heartening to know that Yang Wei did. Or, orange-crest thought Yang Wei did? He was surprised that technique worked at all to be honest. He certainly wasn't going to assume it worked the way he expected it to.
"That was exceeding foolish." Huo'er noted.
"Probably." Orange-crest agreed easily.
She didn't ask why he'd done it anyway. That was how he knew she definitely wasn't a human in disguise. Orange-crest had a great deal of respect for his master, but he was starting to come to a firm realization it was dangerous to know too much about cultivation. His master would have told him that half a dozen things orange-crest had done were impossible. How would he ever have done them anyway, if he'd believed him?
"Well, what are you waiting for?" Huo'er asked. "The summit awaits."
Orange-crest put aside his many questions about how that new variation of his illusory-clone technique worked. He'd lost himself so easily, he'd need his master before he tried testing it again.
Lightning crackled again, further up the mountain.
Orange-crest bolted. Huo'er barely managed to dive back down to her perch on his head before the monkey was was barreling through the underbrush again.
He remembered what he'd forgotten! He was so close to the fifth stage of Qi Condensation! He knew he could do it, he just needed enough qi to make the breakthrough. The ambient qi of the holy land was not quite dense enough, and he didn't have that many treasures on his person. The centipede wine might work, but drinking the remaining three mouthfuls of that would introduce other problems. The slowly fading remnants of those ghosts would be perfect! He'd need every edge he could get if he was to face formless-gleam and the Seventh Prince at the summit.
"Damn you Yang Wei!" Orange-crest hissed. "Priorities!"
He wondered what madness the real Yang Wei was getting up to right now. He hoped it was at least as interesting as his own journey. He was already looking forward to telling him all about it later. And blaming him, if the ghost's qi had dissipated before he could cultivate it.
He could already see Yang Wei demanding to spar with himself. The only question was what would be the most humorous thing orange-crest could do with this knowledge.