B2 Chapter 40
Daoist Enduring Oath ran like a landslide.
The ground shook beneath his steps. Even at distance, one could see the trees quake, autumn leaves falling like rain. He leapt like a rolling boulder, flying as much as bouncing off the soft earth. Every time he touched the ground, it seemed like his toes ought to tear their way through the point of his slippers from the sheer force of the motion. Despite his speed, he moved sparingly, efficiently.
In short, Daoist Enduring Oath was everything a self-respecting Core Formation cultivator ought not be. Power outstripping grace. Slowly dying, despite his attainments. Li Xun hated that. Hated his part in it. But in all his life, rare were the sights more welcome than this. His martial brother, the last human in this world he might call family, come to bid him farewell.
Daoist Scouring Medicine blinked away a second tear. Two realms of refinement, and still his body sometimes betrayed him.
Han Jian skidded to a grinding stop, tearing up the soil in his wake. For half a dozen chi behind him were left deep gouges that no passerby would ever mistake for the tracks of a carriage.
"Brother." He said, slightly winded.
"Brother." Li Xun returned, uncertain which of the many emotions warring in his breast left a tremor in his voice.
"Uncle." Li Hou added, not wanting to be left out.
"You finally admit the relation? I'd thought you'd call me your brother until the day I died."
"You can have a little uncle," his disciple said with a grin. "As a treat."
Han Jian laughed, and the others followed. For a moment, it seemed as if he might sit, and join them. But like the autumn leaves, the moment could not last. In different ways, all of them knew this.
Han Jian's face grew still. Neither dark, nor stern, but heavy.
"The sect is in an uproar." He said. "The latest rounds of the tournament were delayed, with no cause given. Several elders and dignitaries cannot be found. Rumors abound, about missing disciples. Missing royalty."
Orange-crest clicked his tongue.
"What did you do, brother?" Han Jian finished.
"Less than you think. And nothing I am ashamed of."
"That is not the most-"
"Jian." Li Xun rose to his feet. "Li Hou has claimed the inheritance of one of the sect's grand elders. The rest, and there is much of it, is floating clouds. They will never let him leave."
Daoist Enduring Oath exhaled slowly, bereft of words.
"We were going to visit." Orange-crest explained. "But things happened. So we were going to visit you later."
"Damn it all, Xun." Han Jian's voice was not sad, nor angry. It was simply tired. "After decades of quiet, I forgot, didn't I? Forgot how you were."
Daoist Scouring Medicine grit his teeth. He was not wrong, and that made it worse. That was the truth of him. Even more than the monkey, he simply could not leave some things alone.
Li Hou would return to the sect, if his master asked him to. The monkey was a better disciple than a man like him deserved. Filial, in the only ways that truly mattered.
Li Hou's whim had led him on that strange road beneath the earth. But it was Li Xun's resolve that carried them out of the sect. For all the monkey's sharp ears and keen mind, there was too much of the past it did not know. He had kept the worst of himself, of his history, from his disciple. No longer.
"Are there any words that could change your mind?" Daoist Enduring Oath asked.
"Are there any words that could change the Azure Mountain Sect?" Daoist Scouring Medicine answered.
There was silence. Even from orange-crest.
"Or change me." Li Xun finished slowly. "To make me suitable for it."
"Damn it all, Xun." Daoist Enduring Oath repeated.
Daoist Enduring Oath felt it first. The gleam of gold, flashing across the horizon.
Thunder murmured in the distance, hardly audible. The skies were clear to the horizon, and beyond. Cao Renshu had accompanied him, then.
"I like you, big shiny." Li Hou said suddenly. There was no way the monkey could feel them at this distance. Perhaps his ears were keener than Han Jian's most generous expectations. "You are the best daoist."
Li Xun smiled.
"Him, and not me?"
"You are the best master. Not sure you are good at being a daoist."
That earned the monkey a pair of chuckles. How right and wrong he was. How much the monkey had grown under his brother's tutelage.
"If we are to offer grand and sentimental parting wishes, I suppose I cannot allow my disciple to outdo me. Han Jian. I must have saved a nation in a past life, to have been fortunate enough to call you a brother in this one."
Han Jian's chest was tight. Lightning flashed across the clear sky. All of them felt the coming glimmer now. He knew what he had to do. It was foolish. But he'd fulfilled the oaths he'd named himself for. He had no great cause left to live for. None save those precious few he yet called friend.
"Go, Li Xun. Orange-crest. Go, and one day, return."
There was so much more he wished to say. But staring into Li Xun's eyes, he knew all of it was unnecessary.
"One night." Orange-crest said. "We'll have another good night by the fire. No matter what."
Daoist Enduring Oath turned away from the pair. He heard orange-crest squawk as his master pulled him into motion, their footsteps accelerating into rapid drumbeats. It wouldn't be enough. Cao Renshu was the fastest cultivator beneath Core Formation in the sect, at least over short distances. And Elder Lu was an elder for a reason.
He was far weaker than Elder Lu. But Cao Renshu was not Li Xun's equal. A chaotic battle with five participants was a needless risk for Elder Lu.
Daoist Guarding Thunder would stop, to prevent him from delaying Elder Lu. It was the logical move. Cao Renshu knew he was in no life-threatening danger from Han Jian, no matter how strained their relationship had become.
"I hope you know what you're doing, Li Xun." He muttered under his breath. "Come then, Brother Cao. We three have been too long estranged. And Li Xun is not the only one who needs some correction."
Han Jian cycled his qi, relishing the pain that followed. His storage ring activated, and a waterfall of heavy iron chain poured forth, terrible links as thick around as a grown man's thumb.
For the first time in fourteen years, Daoist Enduring Oath girded himself for battle.
Li Xun ran like the wind. That is to say, substantially slower than his top speed. Li Hou was charging headlong behind him, but even without the exhaustion and injuries, his disciple would never have been able to keep up. And he couldn't carry him now. He would need every bit of strength he had and more to have any hope of triumphing over an elder.
Had it been a mistake to slow down and eat? Li Hou had been certain Elder Lu would catch them. They would not have encountered Han Jian if they hadn't. Would speaking to him make any difference? Could he stop that idiot Cao? Slow Elder Lu? Talk them down? He certainly had a better chance of it than Li Xun did. Only poison ever poured from his tongue.
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The darkest part of his mind, that hateful demon he tried his best to ignore, wondered if it was Han Jian the pair had followed.
Too many unknowns. But... If he'd died without a final word to his sworn brother, he would have regretted it forever. Li Hou had needed a break and a meal anyway. The monkey was putting on a brave face, but he'd not have made it an hour at this pace without one.
"Faster, Li Hou!" He shouted into the whipping winds of their passage. "He awaits us!"
It was still the better part of a day to Mount Yuelu at this pace. The solitary peak wouldn't even be visible for a few more hours.
Lightning flashed behind them. The earth rumbled in answer.
They carried on, refusing to look back.
It was not even a quarter of an hour later that they came upon him.
They never saw when Elder Lu overtook them. He simply appeared upon the road, standing alone in the center of the beaten dirt path, hands clasped behind his back.
Daoist Scouring Medicine ground to a stop.
"Keep going, Li Hou."
His traitorous disciple stumbled to a stop beside him. Li Hou was panting like a dog now, never a good sign.
"When I tell you to run a second time, you will obey. If you ever truly considered me your master, this you will do. And you will return with aid, or not at all."
"Yes." Li Hou coughed out, still desperate for breath. Their pace had not been gentle. Mount Yuelu stood almost a thousand li from the Azure Mountain. Six hundred, from where Li Hou had awoken on his back. Four hundred, from where they stood now.
Too far. Hours away, for any cultivator below Nascent Soul.
"Daoist Scouring Medicine. An unpleasant surprise, to meet you upon the road." Elder Lu stroked that stupid wispy little beard. "I must confess some surprise. I do not recall approving any mission that would see travelling outside the sect."
"Lu Xiaosheng. You are standing in my way."
Elder Lu smiled, kindly and merciless.
"You are resolved, then? Good. Let us dispense with pretenses. You and your disciple will return to the sect."
"No."
"I did not offer a choice."
Elder Lu withdrew a gilded fan from his sleeve, flicking it open.
"It was Li Hou." The elder said abruptly.
"What?"
"You never sent him outside the bounds of the sect. Perhaps wisely, for fear something might happen to him. But it made it all too easy to lay a tracking spell upon him. He was so often unattended. I knew the moment he left the bounds of the sect that the pair of you were involved in that mess in the undersect. Sentiment. It can be the ruination of the best of us."
Li Xun scowled.
"It was the ruin of the best of us. I hardly think you are in any danger of sharing Old Xiang's fate."
"A fair stroke. But more wrong than you could possibly know. There are none who love this sect more than I. None who are willing to do what I do to ensure that it endures."
Orange-crest was breathing more steadily now. Soon. It would be selfish, to tell his disciple what he was. The knowledge would mark him as much as Tian's inheritance would protect him. But he wanted him to know, should he fall here. Who his master had been. What the Azure Mountain did with weapons too useful to discard, but too shameful to acknowledge.
"Is that why you tolerated me?" Li Xun asked, buying time. Elder Lu did so love to hear the sound of his own voice. "To ensure the sect endured?"
"Of course. The other elders did not need to know. Each of us has blades hidden in plain sight as well as ones buried beneath the earth. A sect that endures is one whose dao reserves extend beyond just its ancestors. The south is broken for the moment, the west bloodied, but if you think the future of the sect and empire are secured, you are a fool."
"Spare me the justifications." Li Xun said. "I do not care if you believe your words. I don't. You were ever a cowardly and covetous man. That's the only reason you outlasted Sect Master Xiang."
To Li Xun's surprise, Elder Lu's face contorted in a snarl, reddening with fury. Never before had he seen the elder's unflappable composure so much as crack.
"Someone," he hissed, "had to hold the sect together when Old Xiang died bravely fighting demons. It was not going to be the patriarch, nor the grand elders. I exist so that impetuous children like you have a face to hate. A heaven to rage against, when you are told to put aside your pursuits for the common good."
Li Xun said nothing.
"The sect master has his own priorities. His own mercies. But I am a creature of tares and scales. Of glimmering benefits and carefully measured mercies. Every kindness returned twice over, every slight avenged fourfold. And the scales between us are uneven indeed. The sect made you. Without it you would be nothing, a street rat buried the better part of a century. The sect owns you. And I administrate its properties. You object to this? Form a core, or better yet, a Nascent Soul. Until then, you will obey."
Orange-crest looked like he desperately wanted to say something, but the monkey held his tongue, sensing the deep currents passing between the two men.
Li Xun's silence hung heavy in the air.
"I suppose I should explain, Li Hou. It is not only Disciple Zhang's misfortune that lies between Elder Lu and I."
"You would-"
"Please, Elder Lu. Do not interrupt a master's final lesson to his disciple."
Elder Lu stared at Daoist Scouring Medicine in fascination. To do this, here and now, in his presence. He knew the penalty. The sheer audacity of the man. He could cut him off. Strike him down. But he still wanted to avoid a fight, if he could. To slay the man and his disciple would be nothing but waste, and there was little he abhorred more. Yet, he could not see where this was going. Why the daoist would compound his crimes, and his disciple's.
"I fought alongside Elder Lu, once." Daoist Scouring Medicine said. "Many of our generation did. Ren Yuhan. My martial brothers. Daoist Thousand Eyes, at the very end. So many of us cut our teeth against the demons of the south, fighting alongside the mortals and lesser cultivators of the emperor's army. For a time, it went well. Our experts could handle theirs. Massed fire and numerical superiority forced the demons to give ground repeatedly. But then we reached the killing fields they had prepared. The White Raven Sect and the Kingdom of Wu struck at us treacherously. We fought valiantly. But the demons did not fight fairly. Every body that we did not cast upon a pyre rose anew the following night."
Elder Lu shivered. The dry words obscured the horror of it. Three hundred thousand casualties in three weeks. Fifteen thousand men a day, split between both sides. That was roughly two thousand peasant families. Ten villages. Two great clans. Lu Xiaosheng was a creature of numbers, and there were so many terrible ways to frame those losses. Yet the one that had never left his mind was the figure he worked out two years after safely returning to the Azure Mountain. Three hundred thousand bodies, piled together, would have stretched more than sixty chi into the sky. Twice the height of the Hall of Dawn, and twice as wide at the base as it was tall.
And that still would have been better than what followed.
"The demons called it corpse poison." Li Xun continued in that same dead voice. "An unwholesome plague, born of the most hollow forms of yin qi. It killed them too, but that hardly slowed them down. The zealots among them spread it profligately. Some even welcomed it, seeking to cultivate death more intimately."
And here they came to the crux of it. The secret worth more than his disciple's life.
"It offended me." Daoist Scouring Medicine said with a cruel smile. "That they called a plague a poison."
Life returned to Li Xun's voice, an almost manic energy that turned Elder Lu's stomach and stilled his tongue.
"I stood in the earliest stages of Foundation Establishment in spirit then. I'd only recently begun cultivating my body. The weakest of the cultivators strong enough to matter. My very daoist name is a sick joke. Scouring Medicine? So very little of my greatest works can be called medicine. Yet I am so very gifted at scouring flesh from bone. I studied their corpse poison, and showed them what a real toxin looked like. Venoms that reduced even the disquiet dead to putrid puddles. Poisons that left the body and land alike so sterile they would not suffer life for decades. To me, the Thousand Poison Vale was a playground of which I have never since seen the like. I lived in a state between death and enlightenment, advancing at an impossible pace as I reaped a toll of corpses even my seniors could not match. I nearly lost myself. I should have been slain, by the letter and spirit of all the laws the sect claims to uphold. But I was not. I was too useful to cast aside, for my poisons could stem even the tides of unquiet dead."
Li Hou was so very still. Li Xun could not tell what his disciple was thinking. In this moment, he did not want to know. He would hear later, if he survived this day. He could say more. But this was enough. Enough that Li Hou would know what sort of man had taught him. He felt a flare of qi at his side, a candle before the sun that was Elder Lu's presence. Good.
"Well?" He demanded of the Elder that had spared his life. The elder who, for years after, he had done the occasional small favor for. Elder Lu's lesser detractors had a habit of mysteriously disappearing. Daoist Scouring Medicine was not so blind he did not know how those quiet deaths were achieved.
"Will you slay my disciple?" He pressed. "That was the price, was it not? Death, for me, and all that I told?"
"Why-" Elder Lu sputtered. "Why would you-"
"A pity it would be." Li Xun spoke over him. "A pity indeed it would be for the sect to lose the sole inheritor of Grand Elder Tian's legacy."
"What!"
"Li Hou. Go!" Li Xun commanded.
"No!" The monkey protested. "Not leaving you."
"You lie." Elder Lu spat, turning to examine the monkey in detail. No, that wouldn't do.
"Did the Seventh Prince not tell you?" Li Xun pressed. "Tell me, does it burn, that a monkey succeeded where you and your prince alike failed?"
It was a shot in the dark, but Li Xun had always been pretty good at pressing where it hurt.
"The prince-"
"Only lives, because of my disciple."
"Enough!" Elder Lu swept his fan and a gale of golden wind roared through the glade.
Li Xun stepped forward, his fist rising to meet it, clad in steel. The wind flowed over him, seeking an opening, taking his measure, scraping at his skin, seeking to scour it from his body.
Steel beat gold in a direct confrontation. Yang aspects usually defeated yin ones when matched in force. But Elder Lu was near the midpoint of Core Formation.
Li Xun flared his qi, but the golden power lingered, slowing him.
He was outmatched. He'd known it from the outset. But that wasn't what mattered.
Li Hou had not cried out.
He saw the realization in Elder Lu's eyes. Saw the orange sparks of a fading illusion from the corner of his own.
"It is no matter. I'll retrieve the monkey the moment I finish with you."
Li Xun smiled. This was how it should be. A continuation, after his long stay of execution. If he was a weapon, he would not be Lu Xiaosheng's. His disciple would be safe, even if he fell. Lu would not dare kill him. He might be caged, but Tian's blessing would shield him from the worst of it. Li Xun reached into the bag at his side, the storage treasure Sect Master Xiang had given him back in those terrible and glorious days of uncertainty and slaughter.
And he drew forth death, burning and squirming in his hand.