B2 Chapter 37
Silence filled the hall at formless-gleam's declaration.
No crackling fires broke the quiet. The fox's new flames burned fast and cold, extinguishing themselves into scars of hoarfrost. Xiao Yongzheng had reclaimed his feet, but he wavered there like a drunken monkey in a strong wind, the pills clearly not finished working. Orange-crest expected the fox to rush forward to attempt a killing blow, and tensed to block her.
Instead, formless-gleam took a pair of slow steps forward, moving like a child first properly discovering that it had legs. Her qi raged wildly, disordered by the transformation. Cold winds and flickering shadows, the shapes one saw moving in darkened mirrors, filled the room. With each step, the fox rediscovered how to walk, and the rampant yin qi diminished, drawn back into the fox's body.
Orange-crest should have moved. Done something. Struck her while she was weak, perhaps. But the seal in his hand refused to be ignored. He'd felt the power of it. The volume of its qi, the weight of its authority. In Xiao Yongzheng's hand, the seal had been distracting. In his, it was illuminating.
It was like the monkey was holding a sun.
The small cylinder was made of bone. It was unmistakable up close, too glossy and striated to be stone. Smooth on top and sides. A character was carved into the bottom, indistinct to even a cultivator's eyes. Too faint, worn by use, for orange-crest to grasp the shape of it by rubbing his stony thumb across the bone.
The seal blazed with qi. Boundless and unfathomable, more qi than the monkey could wrap his mind around. A spirit stone was filled with qi, but it was still physical matter at its core. Exhaust the spirit, and you were left with stone. This was something else entirely. Not made of qi, but not of mundane substance either. The questing tendrils of orange-crest's qi seeped deeper into the seal. There was no bottom to it. His qi encircled the small cylinder, delving in from opposite sides. The tendrils of qi never met, crushed by the weight of Grand Elder Tian's power. It was as if the seal was a storage treasure for qi, an entire ocean of power sealed away within it.
Yet orange-crest could not even take a single sip. His qi could no more shift the impossibly heavy power than wind could blow light off course. If a cultivator assimilated this, the monkey could scarcely imagine that they would not simply rise up several small realms in a moment. Breakthrough half a dozen times, enter Foundation Establishment, and keep on advancing.
No. Orange-crest did not think that advancing would become a matter of choice. Once shifted into motion, that much qi would not stop. It did not matter if one lacked a suitable method, or was not ready to advance. The cultivator who refined this innocuous little trinket would rise. Become something else, something more. Nothing less than death would stop that process. No wonder so many wanted it.
"You lie." Xiao Yongzheng spat, wiping blood from his mouth.
"It hardly matters." Formless-gleam replied glibly. "To ears as poisoned as yours, what is the difference between truth and falsehood?"
There was something else. Holding the seal, squinting his eyes just right, orange-crest could see beyond the light it cast. Shadows danced around him, thin as gossamer, true as the reflections of a mirror. Inescapable patterns and ineffable possibilities.
Fate. That which was, and would be.
The Seventh Prince straightened.
"Prove it. That you share our blood. Or give me a name. Who shamed us, by fathering you!"
Orange-crest saw the fox scoff before her nose began to scrunch up. Every shadowed possibility aligned. There was only one answer she would give.
"Making demands?" Formless-gleam's face darkened. "You do not seem to understand your place here."
The fox clenched one hand into a fist. Blood stained her fingers anew. Almost too fast to follow, she flicked her wrist. The shards of frozen blood ripped through the Seventh Prince's defenses as if they did not exist, finger-thick needles impaling themselves in his flesh.
The bronze mirror flashed in answer, but while lightning might be faster than formless-gleam's attack, its reaction was not. The fox dispersed the bolts with an easy swing of her sleeve.
"Does it taste like we share blood? Is this shape not proof enough for you!" Formless-gleam's shouts echoed through the hall. "You want me to call up lightning to strike you down? A pity then, that my father's blood is thin. Divided four ways between my sisters. A problem your heart's blood will soon remedy."
"Demon." Xiao Yongzheng coughed, ripping a needle from his cheek. After only a moment, the edges of the wound were already turning a nasty-looking purple.
Formless-gleam flicked her wrist, and three more long needles of frozen blood sprang from her flesh like the first bamboo shoots of spring.
"Dragons beget dragons." The fox said gleefully. "What harvest did you expect from such rotten seed?"
Needles flashed again through the ruins of the hall. They bounced harmlessly off stone.
"No." Orange-crest said simply. What else was there to say? All else had been exhausted.
"Monkey. Do you ever cease to stick your paws into the fire?"
Orange-crest smiled, at the exasperation in formless-gleam's voice. It helped keep him from wincing, as cold spread through his shoulder. The needles had barely touched him, but their icy venom somehow had still penetrated.
Cold felt different as a stone monkey. Less immediate. A sort of brittle grinding in his flesh, like bone rubbing against bone. He didn't think he was injured. But apparently stone was not as immune to cold as he'd hoped. The gulf between Foundation Establishment and Qi Condensation was not small.
Orange-crest had hoped to play the two of them against each other. That wouldn't be an option. Full storage ring or no, prodigy or not, the fox would tear the prince apart. For all the airs Xiao Yongzheng affected, he was a hothouse flower, soft and untested. Formless-gleam was not. He could not help but wonder how old the fox was. She had never told him, only mocked him for his comparative youth.
The fox stepped forward. Orange-crest's staff traced a semicircle along the ground, the head coming to rest just behind his knee, his free palm outstretched before him. The dragon stance, which wove its way around attacks to deliver crushing counters from above or below.
"Take it, and leave." She said, gesturing toward the seal in his hand. "It is worth more than his life. Have I not always dealt fairly with you?"
Orange-crest said nothing. Instead, he reached up and tucked the seal in the jade band around his left arm. It was a difficult fit. None of the three materials liked to bend. But the band had slack, and he did not fear scratching the seal.
"If you stand against me, I will take it from you. You could rise at my side. There is power enough within that trinket to make you my equal. My mother left me cultivation methods you could follow. Methods that lead to the peak of Core Formation. The two of us could stand apart, beyond the tyranny of their world. A single life. A little blood. The first step toward a world in which our kinds do not exist at the sufferance of theirs."
"A little blood?" Orange-crest asked.
The sharp-eyed woman laughed.
"The first step."
Her smile was easy. Her teeth were sharp. His friend of seasons past.
"No." Orange-crest repeated.
Formless-gleam sighed.
"You've grown much, since we parted."
"You've changed too."
"No, orange-crest. I have not. You just didn't want to see what I always was."
He'd never told her his name in the human tongue. She, and she alone, simply found the translation between the two languages effortless. She probably knew how to say his name in the human language before he did. He wanted to tell the fox there was another way. But the flashes of fate he could see held his tongue. He couldn't follow the threads, the strands of possibility. But he could see how many led to violence. Try to dissuade her directly. Violence. Offer her the seal. Violence. With every word the path narrowed, and orange-crest could see no path to the future he sought.
"You've changed." Orange-crest repeated. "You can still change back."
"There is no horizon far enough to escape the shadow cast by my blood."
"I know a place."
Orange-crest saw the fox take another step forward before it happened. Possibilities collapsed, and only resolve remained. He shed his form, stepping back in illusion. Formless-gleam's eyes followed the true monkey. There would be no deceiving the fox through technique.
"I hate this body." Formless-gleam said. "The way they look at me. The way even fear cannot erase their lust. I hate it more than you can imagine."
"But you wear it."
"Yes, orange-crest. I wear it. Heaven suppresses my mother's blood. Their curse barred her path to immortality. Only when I shed her form can I display my true strength. What is hating myself, before that?"
"I like who I have become."
Formless-gleam smiled with teeth.
"I forgot, how simple you could be. It is less charming to stand on the other side of it. I hope that when I reach the end of my road, I can say the same. But I will slay as many men as it takes, to create a world that is safe for my sisters."
Orange-crest saw the fox move before he could answer. Fate narrowed to a single path, clawed fingers gouging frozen blood from his abdomen. She was behind an illusion, but he could see how she would strike, if not where it came from.
He stepped into the blow, swinging his staff wide.
To his surprise, he struck nothing. Bitter cold swept along his back. Orange-crest pivoted, letting his staff slip through his fingers. He swung out at maximum extension, clipping the fox.
She would spin, press the assault.
Orange-crest waded forward, meeting her. He swept his staff back, then thrust out. Formless-gleam twisted around the blow, dancing off the midline. She descended upon him like a winter storm. Her cultivation was overwhelming, her mere presence sapping the heat from his limbs.
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The fox's martial arts were strange. She moved like a canine on two legs, her fingers ever splayed out like claws, always bent forward a little more than she needed to.
Orange-crest parried a clawed hand with a stone forearm, but the fox was faster and caught his arm, twisting it. He stepped in and pulled the exposed arm close, dropping his staff to punch out with the other fist. It hurt, to surrender his weapon, the range it offered. But he couldn't hit what he couldn't see; a clinch neutralized illusions.
His stony knuckles opened cuts along the fox's fragile human face. She hissed like an animal, swinging again for his guts. He felt her fingernails break. Even with the overwhelming difference in cultivation, human fingers could not gouge away stone.
The fox didn't let go of his wrist. The blood that poured forth from her ruined nails crystallized into brutal claws. Orange-crest's eyes widened. He stepped forward, driving the fox back with his greater weight. She moved with him, holding tight to his wrist even as he tossed her about, giving ground to avoid letting him knock her from her feet.
Her claws scraped across his stony flesh, splitting it open. Orange-crest did not bleed, but hoarfrost blossomed from the wounds like sap from a tree. The cuts did not feel like flesh wounds. The cold that spread outward from them ached rather than stung, his abdomen stiffening as moving it became agony.
Too many cuts like that and orange-crest felt like his stone body might simply snap in two.
Formless-gleam stiffened, as lightning bathed the pair of them. The fox swiped her hand, sending a wave of blue fire at the prince. He produced a turtle's shell from his storage ring, holding it aloft to deflect the blow.
"Strike her down, Li Hou!"
Orange-crest took advantage of the distraction to slam his forehead into the fox's face, bloodying her nose.
"Run away, you idiot!" He shouted back at the prince.
Formless-gleam snarled at him. Orange-crest screamed back, directly into her face. Bloodlust rose within him, and he saw it reflected back in formless-gleam's eyes.
The fox let go of his wrist. The seal told him she was going to retreat. He couldn't let her. She would freeze him until he cracked if she got any distance. Orange-crest rushed forward in a wild tackle. The fox's claws raked his back. Someone screeched, ear-splittingly loud, guttural as a landslide. It took orange-crest a moment to realize it was him.
The fox's legs were around his hips, pushing him off her, keeping his paws away from her vulnerable eyes. Even with the weight of stone, she was impossibly strong. He'd thought he'd known how strong a Foundation Establishment cultivator was. His master had apparently been gentle with him, even in their roughest sparring.
Foxfire swirled around them, burning the warmth from his body.
Orange-crest punched downward, striking repeatedly where her thigh met her hip. It wasn't enough. Her hip had to be nothing except a mass of bruises, but the fox would not let go. His arms slowed. Soon they would stop. He would thaw, in time. But the prince would be dead before he did. He might be too, if formless-gleam was not in a merciful mood.
Lightning descended upon the pair of wrestling animals. Out of the corner of his eye, orange-crest could see the Seventh Prince leaning against his banner, mirror held aloft.
That was not running away!
Formless-gleam spasmed, and the bonfire of foxfire faltered. Her legs shifted, releasing the pressure that held him in place.
His vision flashed black, as a foot kicked painlessly off his face.
And then she was gone. A push, to make a stride of distance. And she'd vanished before orange-crest could follow.
The voice came from one side of the room. The patter of bare feet echoed from the other. From every direction, orbs of foxfire began to form in the air. If orange-crest stared at them for long enough, he could swear that he saw the shapes of ghostly faces within them.
It was over. He'd lost. All his tricks, and nothing worked. She saw through illusions. Her qi was incomparable to his; Immobilization would shatter in an instant. Even his Stone Monkey's Body only let him trade blows without immediately losing. He might use the Drunken Phoenix's Breath to return her attacks, but she would shrug off frost that would freeze his lungs. He could become Yang Wei, but illusory flesh and cutting power was not what he needed to win this fight. He hardly understood how he'd done that once, but he doubted he would have the endurance, or the physicality, of the real Yang Wei. At best, he might slice through enough foxfire to hold on.
If only the real Yang Wei were here. Even formless-gleam could not stand against the pair of them together. Orange-crest to hold the fox down and weather her strikes, Yang Wei to cut apart illusions and draw blood.
Even the seal's foresight only showed him the ways he could lose. He'd only had the chance he did because formless-gleam had been arrogant enough to engage him melee, thinking she could get a free strike from behind. She wouldn't make that mistake a second time.
Foxfire descended, washing over the monkey and prince. Orange-crest recalled his staff to hand, spinning stiffly to lance every orb he could before it could make contact with his body. He still froze, but at least he froze more slowly. The Seventh Prince cowered behind yet another life-saving treasure, his sword and mirror both showing visible cracks now.
Formless-gleam didn't gloat. The laughing fox he knew was gone. There was only the steady descent of foxfire, leeching the heat from their bones. A winter storm slowly grinding them down. Orange-crest exhaled. There would be no victory through strength. He couldn't bridge the gulf between them. His best had only been enough to slow the fox down and bloody her.
If he couldn't talk the fox down, and couldn't defeat her, what was left?
The seal. She wanted it, but not as badly as the prince's blood. He couldn't refine it quick enough to matter. It wasn't even worth trying. He knew that like any monkey with eyes knew it could not drink a lake in an hour.
Could he destroy it? Maybe. But it'd be pointless. She wouldn't stop for the threat alone. He'd misjudged her. She wanted the prince's blood. To command lightning? Or weaken the curse she'd spoken of? It was important to her cultivation somehow.
Orange-crest's head swam. He was exhausted and half frozen. His vision was dimming. The stone within him wanted to sleep. The alcohol that had buoyed him was fading, wild energy giving way to exhaustion. His meridians burned and his body ached.
Formless-gleam was injured. Tired. But she would outlast them.
He was thinking about this all wrong. Grand Elder Tian had brought them here. Three creatures. Three prospective inheritors. Three perspectives on fate.
Two answers Tian had rejected. That was a leap, but he was drunk, so he crossed the gap. The prince was Heaven. There was more complexity than that. The prince spoke of Heaven with disdain. But he was the orthodoxy. Obedience. Formless-gleam was the rejection of it. Rebellion.
Two sides of the same coin. Both Grand Elder Tian and Shan had said variations of that. To fight fate, or tribulation, or Heaven, was to be ensnared by it.
Something like that. He was flagging.
They had been allowed here. The mountain had eased their path, that they would face each other. Called to make a choice.
Emperor. Demon. Beast.
What was the beast? Greedy? Simple? Two answers were wrong. The third would be too. That made sense to him. He was the beast, but he didn't want to play the role allotted to him.
Orange-crest could have claimed the power within the seal. All he'd needed to do was run. Escape. But tomorrow's strength wouldn't change today's fate. The monkey staggered through the storm of foxfire. His staff was slow. No, his limbs were slow. So very cold.
He'd thought about this all wrong. Allowed the battle to sweep him away. Thought they were all fighting for the same prize. They wanted three different things. Incompatible, but different.
Orange-crest stepped out of his form. An orb of foxfire slammed into the illusion he'd left behind almost immediately, dispelling it. He kept moving forward, acting as if he hadn't even noticed. He leaned into infirmity, moving unsteadily, as if he were on his last legs. The assault on him eased. To the fox, it looked like surrender. Like he was trying to do what she thought he ought to have, and flee.
The prince cried out as orange-crest's share of the storm of foxfire fell upon him. He drew yet another treasure from his ring. This one lasted little longer than the turtle's shell. The orb of amber held back the foxfire for a moment, but cracks began to spread across it as formless-gleam delivered a powerful kick before fading back out of visibility.
It was like watching a bird pecking at a stubborn worm or snail. The outcome was certain, the only question was how long it took.
The room was trembling. Not the mountain, space itself. Foundation Establishment was too much for the holy land. His master had said that. Formless-gleam had cheated the boundary, but her very presence was destabilizing this place.
What happened if it broke?
Orange-crest cycled his qi. He feigned startlement, as if he just noticed that he was visible. Four illusions leapt out of him. Formless-gleam could see the real monkey. But she saw his illusions too. Reacted to them. If he couldn't trick her, he might distract her.
Two of the illusions charged toward the Seventh Prince. They danced with an agility the real monkey no longer had, shouting pleas for mercy. One feigned preparation for an attack, staff raised high. The last ran for the door.
Orange-crest ran for the center of the room. Toward Grand Elder Tian's desk, where they'd found the seal. He wouldn't have long. No time to see how the fox reacted to his illusions. He shed his stone form as he moved. Blood began to pour from every gouge the fox's claws had put in him, staining his fur.
He pressed a hand to his side, then dragged it across the inkstone. There would be ink left. There had to be. Nobody ever cleaned those fully. He rubbed Grand Elder Tian's brush roughly across the stone, drowning the tip in ink-black blood.
Space was weak. A seal was meant to be used. Fate turned upon that which was not fixed.
He cast his qi into the seal, immersed himself in the strange view of possibility and consequence.
"Everyone lives." The monkey muttered.
Four characters. His brush moved.
Possibilities died with every stroke. The monkey paused. That radical led to tragedy. He hardly understood the meaning, the choices, that went into each stroke. The qi within the seal guided him, showing him a side of writing he could never have imagined. Orange-crest added a fifth and sixth character. Same meaning. Mostly. Very different future. He'd almost trapped himself.
Grand Elder Tian had said that fate stained the hands that sought to shift it. That was fine. He would pay the price. Let his fate be intertwined with the four of them. The seven of them? The scope of this was unclear. Maybe it would make his tribulations harder. Sever his path to immortality. That was all acceptable. He hadn't lied to his master when he said he'd not wanted to be an immortal. Not if it cost him who he was.
"They want to win." The monkey muttered. He wasn't sure who he was talking to. No. He knew exactly who he was talking to. He just didn't know if he was listening. "You didn't. Not at the end. It isn't a fair game. I met one of them, once. He wanted me to choose. Man, or beast. This is the same choice. In every way that matters. That's the lesson, isn't it? The rules aren't the rules. Someone chose them. So turn over the table. Trust in me, and one day, they'll see it too."
This place hadn't been left behind to make someone strong. To let them leap the dragon gate. It had been left behind to teach something. An impossible level of indirection, using fate to pass on something fate itself sought to erase. The power in the seal wasn't meant to be claimed. It was meant to be used.
He didn't know. He couldn't know. But he had left the realm of certainty behind long ago. It made enough sense to his drunken mind.
"What are you doing!" Formless-gleam shouted.
Orange-crest looked up. The seal blazed in his other hand. It looked like the sun it felt like. He wondered if the others could see the shadow of his choices standing behind him.
The demon held the prince by the throat. Half his body was frostbitten. His sword was snapped in two, his mirror shattered into a hundred pieces. The Banner of the Xiao rested limply at his side, still held tight in one hand.
"You have no idea what you are doing!" Formless-gleam shouted. She was right. He didn't. The hall shuddered now, and it was not because of the fox's raging qi. There was an anticipation there.
Orange-crest raised the seal. Formless-gleam formed blades of blood between her fingers. Uh oh. Those would hurt. They'd go right through him without stone form.
A seal needed wax.
The fox hesitated.
Orange-crest pushed all the qi he had left into his hand. He splayed his fingers out. They shivered wildly. He was so very cold. It took a moment to still them.
"No!" Formless-gleam snarled.
The Seventh Prince surged to his feet, driving his forehead into the fox's bloody face. The Banner of the Xiao blazed once more. Formless-gleam staggered as a wave of qi and lightning struck her.
It was only a moment. Her fist turned, blades clenched between her fingers.
"I remember." Xiao Yongzheng said simply.
Orange-crest slammed the seal home into the space between his fingers. A light like the sun blazed through him, melting a hole through his qi. He screamed as something was branded onto his very spirit. It surged through his meridians, flowing with his qi, rushing toward his dantian.
Orange-crest's hand rose. A character was burned into the sheet of paper.
"Wei."
Not Yang Wei's Wei. Another one. The 'Wei' that meant false.
Heh. That was funny.
The sealed edict smoldered, fire spreading from the spot where the cylinder of bone had marked it. It curled up like an autumn leaf. Orange-crest watched stupefied as fate shifted, as more qi than he'd ever seen in one place vanished in an instant, pouring into a space within the world that he was not qualified to witness. He saw the world turn, felt certainties like rivers shift around pillars of causality that bent like reeds. And he saw nothing, for a mere Qi Condensation cultivator could see no such things.
The hall shuddered violently, as if the earth had decided to shrug the mountain off, sending the three cultivators flying. Formless-gleam's fist punched home. Blood poured from the Seventh Prince's mouth. Half the windows along the far right side of the hall went dark, suddenly occluded.
"What did you do!" Formless-gleam demanded, already on her feet.
Orange-crest groaned. There was a document case in his mouth. Listlessly, he spit it out. Grand Elder Tian's seal slipped through his exhausted fingers. The well of qi within it was exhausted. He couldn't see what formless-gleam was about to do. He could only barely remember what it was that he'd just done.
But still, he smiled, as he felt a new power bloom behind him. Something sharper than even formless-gleam's icy malice.
"I called a friend."
Spear Intent pricked every hair on the back of orange-crest's scalp. Formless-gleam tensed, new blades springing up between her fingers.
"Surely you didn't think you were my only one?" The monkey continued, grinning as if he wasn't so exhausted he could barely walk.
One of the darkened windows shattered as Yang Wei crashed through the wooden wall that had occluded it, his customary unadorned spear in one hand, a saber that gleamed hungrily in the other.