The Blue Dragon: Chapter 17 (Patreon)

-- CHAPTER 17: Shu Yaoguai --

 ****

My lover-not-a-fighter body still ached all over, but I ignored any sense of pain as I carried Ziyi back to our cave. She remained terribly shaken, her eyes staring somewhere into the distance past my shoulder with the kind of haunted expression that told me she was reliving some kind of trauma from the past.

She felt cold, as in reptilian cold. All of the warmth had been sucked away from her body, the same way any human’s skin might go pale and clammy under shock, but far worse. So the very first thing I did upon entering our cave was toss a whole bunch of extra wood onto the fire to heat up the enclosed space. And then I climbed into bed with her, spooning myself around her fetal-curled body and pulling our thick blankets over both of us.

She settled down within my arms, within the familiar position in which we had spent so much time over the past month. I held her only gently, fearful of causing her fresh trauma by making her feel trapped once again. But after letting her scales and clothes melt away, Ziyi took hold of my arm across her chest and then slid her palm over the back of my hand, molding her fingers behind mine to direct it to cup her freshly bared breast. She then started trembling, which made me instinctively squeeze her a little tighter. And she actually settled down within my more constricting, firmer embrace, relaxing with a long, weary sigh.

We were both silent for a long while. Using my left elbow for leverage to prop myself up, I looked down at her face and studied her expression for any signs of tension. But she seemed relaxed now, peaceful. And after a few more seconds, she opened her beautiful green eyes and looked up at me.

“Wo ai ni, Chezhou,” she told me softly.

“Wo ai ni,” I replied with equal parts warmth and concern. “Are you alright?”

“I’m alright now that I’m with you.”

I wanted to smile, but it came out as more of a grimace. “I’m so sorry. I never meant to trap you like that. Well, I mean, I DID mean to trap you, but only because you told me I needed to catch you so I could fuck you, and-- Wait, that came out wrong. I mean, I’d never force you, but it was a game and I was trying to win and your choice of motivation was QUITE motivating because you’re so fucking gorgeous and--”

She cut me off by turning and kissing me, her lips silencing my ramble as her left arm came up and around the back of my head to hold it close.

I enjoyed the simple passion of our kiss, one full of warmth and love but devoid of any sexual urgency. It was a kiss of relief, a kiss of comfort, a kiss that reassured me she felt safe in my arms.

And I desperately wanted to make sure I never made her feel NOT safe ever again.

So as soon as Ziyi pulled back, I brushed a few long locks of her jet-black hair behind her ear and gave her a serious look. “What happened out there?” I asked carefully, studying her eyes and searching them for clues.

Her gaze dropped to my chest as her lips tugged downwards in a frown, and I was just about to apologize and tell her she didn’t need to say anything if she didn’t want to when she mumbled, “I told you before that Warlord Zhu Wen destroyed my village.”

I nodded silently.

“I had never been trapped before that day. Truly trapped,” she continued quietly. “Others had tried to capture me, but there were no prison cells that could stop a serpent from slithering out through a window or between the bars. Once, I was captured while in my serpent form and put into a locked wooden box, but I shattered the box when I transformed back into my human shape. It hurt. A lot. But I still escaped.”

I nodded again. “But there was something different about the day the Warlord destroyed your village.”

Ziyi looked up at me with concern as she warned solemnly, “You and I are not the only supernatural beings in this world.”

“The Huodou being one of the others. I assume the Warlord has more working for him?”

“A few. One in particular, he…”

Ziyi’s voice dropped off as her gaze dropped to my chest. She pursed her lips, clearly reliving the traumatic event. Part of me wanted to tell her she didn’t need to continue any further, but another part of me wanted to know more, so I merely waited her out.

“Shǔ Yaoguai,” Ziyi said simply. “A rat demon. You should beware of him, for his elemental earth powers could possibly counter your elemental water powers.”

“Wait, really?”

“Water defeats Fire, but Earth defeats Water.”

I grimaced. “Oh, great.”

She nodded twice and then returned to her unfocused gaze, looking back into the past. “The ground beneath my feet rose up to trap me. At first, I was able to break free of his bonds, but then he summoned other earth shackles that were… different. They were infused with magic, magic that I couldn’t break through simple force. Moments later, new columns of earth rose up to grab my arms. And then finally, he surrounded me completely with earth.”

“You were trapped.”

“I was buried alive,” she intoned, sounding haunted. “Entombed. Buried beneath magical earth that I couldn’t shake free of. I tried and I tried, but I couldn’t move. I couldn’t transform. I couldn’t breathe.”

Ziyi started trembling again, so I hugged her even tighter. She resisted me, pressing hard on my chest to push me away, so I immediately relaxed my grip. But then as soon as she felt my arms releasing her, she buried her face into my neck and reached back to force my arms around her body once more, desperately seeking the security of my embrace.

“Chezhou… Chezhou… Chezhou…” she whimpered, sobbing into my chest.

“I’m here, Ziyi. I’m right here,” I soothed, stroking her spine. “Wo ai ni. Wo ai ni. I love you, I love you, and I’m never going to leave you again.”

“Promise me!” she whined.

“I promise. I promise. I made my decision. I’m staying right here with you. Even after the quest is complete, I’m staying right here with you. You are my destiny. I was always meant to be here with you.”

“With me?”

“With you.”

She pulled her head up to look at my face with tear-streaked eyes. “You’ll stay here with me?”

“I’ll stay here with you.”

She grabbed my head, mashed her lips to mine, and kissed me with an almost desperate fury.

I tightened my arms around her and kissed right back with equal passion, although I let her take the lead. Ziyi let out a keening moan that was part cry of relief and part wail of pain. She rolled me onto my back and straddled my belly, still holding my head and plunging her tongue into my mouth. Her nostrils flared as she panted hard for air without ever removing her lips from mine, still desperately kissing me as if to lose my lips would somehow lead to me evaporating out of existence so that she’d lose me forever.

But then her grinding belly found my rock-hard erection pressed between us beneath my pants, and she abruptly yanked her head up. All of a sudden, she was in a terrible hurry to get me inside her as she dug her fingernails into the waistband of my pants, wildly jerking the offending material down to expose my throbbing tool while her sharp metal nails scratched the skin of my belly hard enough to draw blood. But I barely had time to grit my teeth against the unexpected pain before she started sinking her suddenly soaked snatch around my steel-hard shaft, and the cuts were already healing as fresh sex-energy flowed through me in greater and greater amounts with every inch of dick she drove into her vaginal depths.

When she got me balls-deep inside her, Ziyi returned her gaze to mine, staring down at me with glowing green eyes that sizzled with an inner fire. She yanked up my head, forcibly mashing my face into her marvelously massive melons and then squishing her own titflesh against my cheeks. I licked and kissed every inch I could reach until she twisted her torso to present me with a turgid teat. And I was only too happy to latch on and suckle at the tasty treat like a starving infant.

And she fucked me.

Ziyi FUCKED me.

She growled my name into my ear the whole time, repeating over and over and over again, “Chezhou… Chezhou… Chezhou…”

I didn’t hear any translation to “Aksel” or “wagon axle” or even to “wood lathe”. I simply heard that as my name - as my identity - here in Imperial China.

With her.

“Ziyi… Ziyi… Ziyi…” I groaned into her chest, hugging her midsection and helping her hump up and down my prick like she was riding a pogo stick. Keeping my face mashed up against her mammaries, I found myself filled with the smell of her musky scent, the feel of her supple flesh against my cheeks, and the taste of her sweat on my lips. “Ziyi… Ziyi… Ziyi…”

She fucked me.

She FUCKED me.

We made love.

Allow me to remind you that I’d once described Jade’s pussy as perhaps the most perfect pussy I’d ever felt in my entire life.

Smooth. Supple.

Glossy.

Moist without being viscous.

Lustrously luxurious.

Perfect pussy.

Ziyi’s pliant pussy made me lose my head in ways I never did with other girls. With all those girls - those human girls under the spell of The Ax Effect - I was always the one in charge, always the one in control. But something about Ziyi was so very, very different.

I felt dizzy.

I felt euphoric delirium.

I felt… love.

Dizzying, euphoric, delirious love.

I was in love with Ziyi’s pussy.

I was in love with HER.

My Ziyi.

“My Chezhou…” she moaned, her head lolling about even as she clutched mine to her chest. She pulled her head back to stare down into my eyes, her green irises swirling in spirals that drew my gaze to them as if they were magnetic. “My Chezhou… Stay with me. Be with me. For all eternity!”

“I promise…” I groaned, unable to look away from her even if I’d wanted to. “I promise… I promise!”

“Love me!”

“I love you!”

“Stay with me!”

“For all eternity!”

“My love! My partner! Be mine!”

“I’m yours! I’m yours!”

“AAAAUUUUGGGGHHHH!!!” she threw her head back and screamed her ecstasy, the sound echoing and re-echoing off the walls of our little cave so that it felt like there were five of her having orgasms all at the same time. “AAAAHHHH! AAAAHHHH! AAAAHHHH!”

“UUUUNNNNGGGGHHHH!!!” I groaned as I felt the pressure in my balls suddenly go slack as they rapidly contracted, squeezing all my pent-up semen straight up and out of me to erupt in great spurts within the close confines of her convulsing cunt. I fired over and over and over again, dosing her with epic quantities of my heavy cream.

Before I realized what was going on, she was suddenly off of me, my still-throbbing dick waving in the open air. I blinked in surprise and shook my head, feeling almost like I’d spaced out for a few seconds. And when my vision swam back into focus, I found the gorgeously slim-yet-stacked Chinese beauty bent over before me, face-down and ass-up while reaching back with both hands to spread apart her buttcheeks.

“潜入月影谷步道” Ziyi crooned in smoky voice. Dive through the path of the moon shadow’s valley.

Dong immediately crowed excitedly, Oh HELL yeah!

My recent ejaculation had supercharged me with sex-energy and I was on my knees in a flash, so fast that I actually banged my head against the low limestone ceiling of our little bed-nook carved into the wall. But despite the momentary dizziness, I was quickly in place behind Ziyi’s waving ass, seizing her left hip with one hand and fisting my pulsing prick with the other.

“Take me!” Ziyi urged, somehow managing to gape open her own anal orifice wider in obvious invitation. “Take my virgin ass! Claim me! Own me! I am yours!”

Without hesitation, I lined up my turgid tool with Ziyi’s tight tailpipe and then rammed my rod into her rectum, shoving half of my shaft through her sphincter before her colon instinctively clamped down around my cock to stop my forward thrust.

“AAAAUUUUGGGGHHHH!!!” she howled, arching her spine, tensing every muscle in her body, and tossing her hair. I paused immediately, but only a second later she exhaled, twisted to look back at me over her shoulder, and bared her super-long fangs while she hissed, “Keep going! Keep going! Take me, take me, TAKE ME!”

I took her.

Grabbing onto her hips with both hands, I yanked her body backwards while clenching my glutes and pressing my pelvis forward. I blasted my big dick deeper into Ziyi’s bunghole while she screeched from the sensations.

“Take me! Take me! Take me! I am yours!” she screamed over and over again. “I am yours, Chezhou! I am yours!”

“You are mine! You are mine! You are mine!” I yelled right back as I started to rhythmically thump her ass.

If I’d thought her pussy was perfect, Ziyi’s asshole was INSANE.

Smooth. Supple.

Glossy.

Moist without being viscous.

Lustrously luxurious.

Perfect ass.

I felt dizzy.

I felt in love.

“So big! So big! So big!” she screamed.

“Harder! Harder! Harder!” she howled.

“Don’t stop! Don’t stop! More! More! More!” she yelled.

It was the greatest fuck of my life.

“UNGH! UNGH! UNGH!” I grunted while plowing my prick into her posterior.

“Yesss! Yesss! Yeeessssss!!!” she hissed happily. “I love it! I love YOU! Let’s do this every day! Let’s do this forever! Never! Stop! Fucking! Me! Fuck my face! Fuck my pussy! FUCK MY ASS! FOR ALL ETERNITY! AAAAUUUUGGGGHHHH!!!”

“FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK!”

“AUGH! AUGH! AUGH! AUGH!”

“UNGH-UNGH-UNGH-UNGH-UNGH!”

“AHHH-AHHH-AHHH-AHHH-AHHH!”

“ZZZZIIIIYYYYIIII!!!” I screamed. “ZZZZIIIIYYYYIIII!!!”

“CCHHEEZZHHOOUU!!! CCHHEEZZHHOOUU!!!”

“UNGH-UNGH-UNGH-UNGH-UUUUUUNNNNNNGGGGGGHHHHHH!!!” I roared, slamming forward one final time to cram my cock up her colon as far as I possibly could. “UUUUNNNNGGGGHHHH!!! UUUUNNNNGGGGHHHH!!! UUUUNNNNGGGGHHHH!!!”

“AAAAHHHHHHHH!!! AAAAHHHHHHHH!!! AAAAHHHHHHHH!!!”

The dam burst to release wave after wave of blazing-hot baby batter to bathe Ziyi’s bowels with all my scalding sperm. I drove a diluvial torrent of jism into the deepest depths of her derrière. I crammed her anal cavity with all my creamy cum.

Ziyi’s legs buckled beneath the onslaught as she quivered and came as well. Her face burying into the folded blanket we used as a communal pillow muffled her screams, but she continued to thrash and tremble in carnal ecstasy while her asshole clamped down and clenched convulsively around my cock.

And then I finally collapsed, dropping all of my heaving weight straight down against her sweaty back, not that she’d ever mind. Both of her palms slid over the backs of my hands, intertwining her fingers with mine in a tight grip that was both tender and possessive. And she turned her face so that she could lovingly kiss my cheek.

I turned my face to hers so that I could kiss her lips. And then with honest, heartfelt sincerity, I repeated once more, “Wo ai ni. I love you, Ziyi. I will love you for all eternity.”

“Wo ai ni,” she repeated back to me. “And I will love you. For all eternity.”

****

The two of us remained like that for a long while, just soaking in the sensations of such an epic bout of lovemaking. It was almost as if we were still spooning together on our sides while waking up in the morning, so comfortably content in each other’s arms to start the day.

One big difference, of course, was that I still had my still-hard shaft buried deep up her butt with my current load of creamy cum still soaking into her stretched colon while my previous load of creamy cum leaked out of her sodden snatch. And I smirked while flexing said still-hard shaft, making it move enough for her to feel and start giggling at the sensations.

I felt strong. I felt powerful. All of the aches and pains I’d previously felt after our little catch-me-if-you-can fight had been magically healed through my superpower of sex, and I was ready to continue fucking some more.

“So we have an agreement, right?” I asked with a grin. “We’re gonna do this every day? I’ll fuck your face, fuck your pussy, and fuck your ass?”

“Every. Day,” she stated quite seriously, her green eyes aglow as she turned her cheek so that we were face-to-face. “All of me. Every day. For I am yours.”

Some of my raw carnal lust melted away, replaced by tender love. “And I am yours,” I stated with a smile before leaning in to give her a quick peck on the lips. “For all eternity. Starting right now. So how do you want me to fuck you next? Come to think of it, I haven’t fucked your face yet, have I?”

“You did this morning,” she said with a giggle. “And you’ll do so again tomorrow morning. I’ll let you fuck ALL my holes tomorrow morning, because we definitely need to get you charged up for the big battle.”

I made a face. “Do we have to?”

She looked confused. “Do we have to charge you up for the big battle by having sex? Of course!”

“No, no, of course I’m all for that.” I took a deep breath and sighed. “But do we really have to DO the big battle itself?”

Ziyi frowned at me, looking confused. “We have to recover the sword.”

I waggled my head a bit. “Do we? I mean… Is it really THAT important to recover the sword?”

“Chezhou!”

“Hear me out. Why can’t we just forget the sword and leave this place? Walk away from Luoyang. Walk away from Warlord Zhu Wen or Emperor Taizu or whatever other names and titles the guy decides to make up for himself. Walk away from Liang Dynasty entirely, walk across the border to some other kingdom like so many other peasants, and build a life for ourselves.”

“You know we can’t. It is your destiny to recover the sword.”

“Is it? Is it really?”

“Didn’t Dong tell you that all of this has already been written?”

“Yeah well fuck Dong, fuck Destiny, and fuck any idea that I don’t have my own fucking free will.”

Ziyi frowned. “What are you saying?”

“I’m saying that I’ve already been to the future and China does just fine on its own. I know for a fact that the Liang Dynasty doesn’t last forever and that the world is not ruled by some power-mad tyrant with a magical sword.”

“Because WE will succeed. The future you come from only exists because Warlord Zhu Wen will be defeated… by US. It is your destiny.”

“I’m really tired of hearing about this destiny shit. I’M in control of my own life. I’M in control of my own destiny.”

Ziyi’s eyebrows went up. “It is dangerous for a man to believe he can change the decisions of the gods.”

“Yeah well some things are worth the danger.”

“Like recovering the sword.”

“Like keeping my promise to YOU.”

Ziyi frowned, looking genuinely perplexed. She pursed her lips, narrowed her eyes, and took a deep breath. She turned her hips a bit, despite the fact that my big dick was still lodged up her butt, and with a sigh I extracted myself from her stretched anal chute and rolled over onto my back so that I was staring at the ceiling.

“I promised to stay with you, Ziyi. For all eternity. That’s what you want, isn’t it? For me to stay with you?”

She propped up her head with one elbow, reclining on her side facing me. “It is what I want. And appreciate your desire to keep your promise to me.”

“But…” I led her.

Ziyi sighed. “But the promises of we mortals pale in comparison to the whims of the gods.”

“I don’t want to leave you, Ziyi. I LOVE you. Wo ai ni. I want to STAY here with you, no matter what.”

She pursed her lips and rolled over onto her back as well. “You’re afraid that if we do succeed in recovering the sword, that you will be transported back to your own time period whether you choose to do so or not.”

I didn’t say anything. I didn’t have to. We both already knew.

Neither of us spoke for a long while. Both of us were lost in our thoughts, or at least I was. I couldn’t keep a train of thought going for more than a few seconds, with too many competing ideas, proposals, and possible solutions jockeying for primacy within my mind. Ziyi might have been clear-headed at this moment, but I was well and truly lost.

“It is enough for me that you made your promise,” Ziyi said quietly. “It is enough for me to know that you love me so much to make such a declaration. I love you. I don’t want to be alone. It is my greatest wish to have you stay here with me, to be my lover, to be my partner… to be mine. For all eternity.”

I sighed, shook my head, and led her again, “But…”

“But if it is your destiny to leave me, I must accept that. It would be foolish of me to believe otherwise. We both know you are not of this time. One might say that you don’t belong here. You are the Chosen One of Qinglong, brought here to complete the quest, and once that quest is complete, it only makes sense for you to return to where you DO belong.”

“Which is exactly why we shouldn’t complete the quest. Not yet at least. Dong told me multiple times that I WILL stay here until my task has been finished, but he never specified exactly WHEN. Who’s to say that we’re supposed to recover the sword tomorrow? Well -I- say that you and I should leave Luoyang, go make a life for ourselves, spend some more time honing my elemental water powers, spend some more time fucking each other’s brains out, and then come back in… I dunno… twenty years? And THEN we can recover the sword.”

“Do not fool yourself, Chezhou. You have no intention of EVER coming back to recover the sword, whether twenty years from now or forty.”

“For all eternity, Ziyi. I promised you for all eternity. Isn’t that what you want?”

She sighed and rolled back up to me, swinging a leg over my pelvis and pillowing her head on my shoulder. “Of course it’s what I want.”

“Then we’re agreed. We’ll pack up in the morning, leave here, and never look back.”

“Chezhou…”

“I’m serious.”

“So am I.” She kissed my cheek. “We HAVE to complete the quest.”

“No we don’t.”

“Yes we do.” Ziyi took a deep breath and then nuzzled my cheek with her nose. “For the people of my village. For all the people of ALL the villages in the kingdom. I love you, and I want to be with you for all eternity, but I will NOT be so selfish as to abandon them just to get your glorious dick pounding into me over and over and over again.”

I arched an eyebrow and looked down at her, unable to keep myself from smirking at the mirthful expression on Ziyi’s face. “Not even for my glorious dick?”

“The sex is great. But not THAT great,” she teased.

“Not THAT great? Oh yeah?” I challenged, rolling myself over and simultaneously rolling Ziyi onto her back while she squealed gaily.

I grabbed her legs, hoisted them both over my shoulders, and brought my never-ending erection up between her buttocks. Her eyes glimmered as she felt my thick mushroom head once again probing at her crinkled anus, and she smiled quite… serenely… for a girl who was about to get her recently devirginized asshole skewered once again.

“Prove to me that glorious dick is worth more to me than the quest,” Ziyi urged, her eyes afire. “Or at least you can try.”

“Do or do not. There is no ‘try’.”

She arched an eyebrow. “What?”

I merely grinned and then rammed myself home.

****

Our cave “door” faced east, but I could still tell from the lengthening shadows outside that the sun was starting to come down. Feeling pensive, I leaned against the rock wall with my arms folded and stared out through the opening to the private little clearing outside, taking in the trees and the grasses and all the little things of this secluded mountain retreat. I thought of the clothing, the blankets, the table, the stools, the chopsticks, the bowls, the pot, the frying pan, and all the other things we had accumulated over the past month of staying here. Everything about it that had made it feel like home.

This was the place where Ziyi and I had found safety, shelter, and security.

This was the place where we’d fallen in love.

I wondered if I’d ever come back here again.

The plan was to come back here again, of course. I hadn’t packed up anything, leaving all of our belongings exactly where they were. I insisted to Ziyi that I’d promised to stay here with her, and I fully intended to keep that promise. We’d go, we’d fight, we’d recover the sword, we’d escape with it to safety… somewhere…

… and then eventually we’d come back here again.

To our home.

We’d both get bruised and battered in our noble struggle against the evil Warlord, but if we could successfully shake any pursuit that would otherwise make us flee halfway across China to make our escape, it would be nice if we could return here to the mountain of metal energy to help her heal while she helped ME heal through lovemaking. And while I had no intention of keeping her here in such austere quarters for the next twenty years or anything like that, we would rest and recuperate together until it was time for us to move away from Luoyang, find a nice cottage, and make a life for ourselves.

Together.

For all eternity.

That was the plan, at least.

The news was all over the city. Five days ago, Emperor Taizu had fought Yang Wu at the southern border just north of Xinyang and repelled the invaders. By sheer numbers, his outclassed, smaller army lacking sufficient firepower should actually have been defeated. But the Emperor himself wielding great magical powers had turned the tide.

Still, many lives had been lost. A large portion of the army had remained at the border to hold their position against future incursions. Conscripts from the rural areas returned to their homes. So it was only a small portion of the army that would actually return to Luoyang, and for those battle-weary soldiers, it was a six-day march covering nearly 200 miles to make it home.

Ziyi had scouted many previous army caravans. She knew their layouts, knew their defensive formations, and knew their response patterns. The only road the army could take to get home followed the Yi River, bringing them almost to our doorstep. The army could not march in darkness, so at sundown they would stop to make camp. That period was always the most hectic: organizing the wagons, pitching the royal tents, feeding the army. All of it conducted by foot-sore peasant conscripts who didn’t want to be there in the first place thinking of food, rest, and a desire to simply make it home alive. We had stolen foot soldier armor and would simply walk into their midst like we belonged there, getting ourselves lost in the hustle and bustle. She knew which wagon would be holding the sword, knew how to slip past its honor guard of twelve elites - a far easier task than sneaking past a hundred guards up to the fifth floor of the Imperial Tian Tang tower.

My job would be to wait until she got inside and then create a “distraction” to occupy as many of those twelve elites as I could, giving her a window to make her escape with the sword. She would flee across the river with me providing cover AND a magical way to cross the river itself so that we could both elude any pursuers. We would probably have to lie low somewhere far, far away.

But yeah… I wouldn’t mind making our way back here to our cave…

… to our home.

Where we could be safe.

Together.

For all eternity.

That was the plan, at least.

Closing my eyes, I took a deep breath, inhaling the sweet scent of the mountain air. Maybe it was magic. Maybe it was elemental energy. Whatever the reason, everything had always felt… cleaner… up here. The oxygen filled my lungs, refreshed my mind, and helped me mentally gather for what was to come.

“Chezhou…” a melodious voice intoned seductively behind me.

Opening my eyes, I looked back over my shoulder. My arms uncrossed from my chest, my jaw went slack, and my eyes widened at the radiantly beautiful sight behind me.

Ziyi had woven her long, jet-black hair into a single braid. She wore the red shanzi that left her midsection bare and flowing, pale-green qunzi that I’d purchased for “my wife” from Huang’s clothing shop. Before my heated gaze, she unfastened the long-sleeved red crop-top to let the two halves separate down the middle, revealing oodles of lush cleavage between. Rotating slowly, she turned her backside to me and then dug her thumbs into the waistband of her high-waisted, pale-green skirt, slowly lowering the material until it began exposing inch after inch of her creamy buttcheeks.

“Come make love to me, ‘husband’,” she sang invitingly.

I closed the door.

****

“It’s not too late to change your mind, you know,” I said quietly as Ziyi and I walked through the Liang Army encampment in our stolen foot soldier armor that blended in perfectly with everyone else. There had been no guards to sneak past on the perimeter; this close to the capital city, the army did not fear being attacked.

Be a man! / You must be swift as the coursing river / Be a man! / With all the force of a great typhoon

‘Shut up, Dong. You’re not helping.’

“Slow down,” Ziyi reminded me beneath her breath, artificially pitching her voice down an octave so that no one would hear a woman’s voice.

With all the strength of a raging fire / Mysterious as the dark side of--

‘DONG! Not now!’

I did slow down as we circled around a group of six struggling to raise their tent for the night. As much as I was in a hurry to get in, grab the sword, and get out as quickly as possible, a pair of foot soldiers half-sprinting through the camp would look distinctly out of place amidst the weary, exhausted men ready to collapse at any moment after five days of marching.

“And you know I won’t change my mind,” she continued, her voice soft in power but firm in tone.

“I know,” I replied wearily. If she wasn’t going to change her mind about skipping the whole sword quest thing in favor of walking away to find a life for us together BEFORE we’d walked into the hornet’s nest, she wasn’t going to change her mind now. “Still, it was worth one last shot.”

Ziyi stopped and turned to face me in the shadow of a quartermaster’s wagon that was presently unoccupied, with nobody within thirty feet of us for the moment. “This is our destiny,” she stated with conviction. “We will succeed.”

“I know we will,” I told her readily before grimacing. “It’s everything after we succeed that I’m worried about.”

She pursed her lips, and for a moment it looked like she was about to kiss me before she swallowed the impulse. The setting sun cast the barest rays of light on her beautiful face, just enough to light up her warm smile as she said, “Wo ai ni, Chezhou. For all eternity.”

“For all eternity,” I replied in kind.

She gave me one last smile, took one last glance around, and then promptly disappeared.

I caught her stolen helmet and tucked it against my hip while letting her now empty armor drop to the ground. By the time I looked up, I only caught the barest glimpse of her serpent tail slithering off through the grass. I quickly shoved Ziyi’s armor out of sight beneath the wagon and then likewise tucked the helmet underneath before purposely striding away.

Well, I purposely strode away for about three steps, and then I remembered I was supposed to be a footsore foot soldier, and I slowed back down.

The army made camp in rough concentric circles, with common soldiers around the perimeter and the higher-ranking officers in the center, with the Emperor’s tent in the middle. The quartermaster’s wagon was more or less between the two groups and not far away from the wagon holding the Baihu Sword. I had no idea what magic forces were at work, but apparently the Emperor couldn’t keep the sword any closer to his own tent than it already was, lest its power continue to drain his life force even at night.

The wagon itself was quite obvious, with gleaming, polished wood featuring the Liang Dynasty crest with fresh paint and of course, the twelve elite soldiers standing guard around it. It was a small horse-drawn cart with only two wheels, although the horse was elsewhere by now. The tiny box-like cabin would only be large enough for a single person to ride.

Or a single sword.

There was only one door on the side, and it was padlocked with thick iron. But the cart had still been initially designed for a human rider, so it had elaborately carved lattice windows through which no human could ever sneak inside, although a skinny little serpent could.

Getting inside was the easy part, though. Unlocking whatever treasure chest that held the sword and then getting a gleaming, magic longsword OUT of the cart would be a different challenge altogether. And I had to wait for Ziyi’s signal that she’d successfully broken into the treasure chest and extracted the sword in the first place before initiating my “distraction”.

To do so, I needed to position myself close to the Sword wagon in order to create the “distraction” that would allow Ziyi to make a run for it, but not so close as to attract anyone’s attention. That left me meandering about the camp within eyesight of the Sword wagon, never staying in one place and trying to not backtrack to where I’d already been, hoping I’d be lucky enough to not get noticed. But it was a fairly small encampment, with only the soldiers and officers based in Luoyang left. And after a few minutes, my luck ran out.

“You there! Stop!”

I turned the corner to step out of sight of the wagon itself and then came to a halt. Then, I slowly turned around to see a grizzled old man wearing officer’s armor approaching me. Specifically, he was an officer of the elites that had been guarding the Sword wagon.

“Yes sir!” I stated to the empty space next to his left ear, standing erect at crisp attention with my arms to my sides.

The old man leaned in close to me, close enough for me to smell the garlic on his breath. “State your business, soldier.”

“Sir! I have no present business. Sir!”

“Then what are you doing loitering in this area?”

“Sir! I wasn’t loitering. Sir!”

“Yes you were loitering. This is the third time I’ve seen you walk past in the last five minutes,” he growled accusingly. “Your face is familiar, but I don’t recognize you. What’s your name? What unit are you from?”

“Sir! My name is Long. I am in Fifth Unit, Second Brigade. Sir!”

The officer leaned in. “Second Brigade is on the other side of camp. What are you doing here?”

“Sir! I was going for a walk. Sir!”

He scowled, looking dubious. “Did you not walk enough already today, soldier? Or in the last five days?”

I blinked twice and turned to look at the man, racing to think of an excuse. The man himself looked fresh, and I assumed he must’ve been riding in a wagon for the whole trip. “Sorry, sir. I… I just… I had an argument with my commanding officer, sir. He told me to get lost and not come back. Sir.”

The grizzled old man scowled again, rolled his eyes, and then abruptly backhanded me across the face. Hard.

“Ahhh!” I yelled, holding my cheek and then instinctively raising my fists defensively.

You’re a spineless, pale, pathetic lot!

“Don’t you dare raise your arms against me, soldier!” He spat viciously, raising his right fist.

“Sorry, sir! Sorry!” I immediately dropped my hands.

“What poor discipline!” he exclaimed. “No wonder your commanding officer sent you away. You already dared to look me in the eyes, you lowly cow-dung peasant conscript. You deserve to be exiled.”

And then he hit me again, punching me in the gut. Hard.

Ouch. C’mon, be a man!

I doubled over, feeling rage and righteous fury pouring through me. I was already flush with sex-energy as Ziyi and her little red crop-top outfit had pulled six ejaculations out of me less than an hour ago, my insatiable little minx leaking copious amounts of sperm from both of her sodden holes, not to mention the vast volumes of it she’d swallowed. I could feel my hands going blue and freezing over, ready to strike, but I forced myself to remember the mission and keep focused on what was truly important tonight.

So I dropped to my knees and stayed bent over, keeping my hands hidden beneath my belly. The officer leaned over me, gargling to draw up his spittle and then hocking a fat loogie onto my helmet.

“You’re disgusting,” he growled into my ear. “I should have you hanged just for wasting my time.”

“Yes, sir! I totally understand, sir!” I groveled. “I’m a waste of time!”

“Waste of time, sir!” The old man raised his foot, his boot still crusted with mud, which he started smearing all over my shoulder.

“Sir, yes, sir! I’m a waste of time, sir!”

“Damn straight,” he stated proudly, and then he gave my shoulder a healthy shove that rocked me back onto my heels. Had I not been prepared, I would’ve rolled right over onto my back across the ground.

But I was prepared. I was ready to fight.

Because Ziyi had just whistled the signal.

Be a man!

Taking a step back with one foot, I braced myself against the officer’s shove and sprang upwards, immediately fashioning three ice claws from my knuckles (Wolverine-style) that I drove straight up beneath the old man’s jaw. The triple blades skewered his skull from below, all the way until the pointy tips not only pushed through the top of his head, but clean through the top of his helmet as well. His eyes bugged out, his tongue unrolled from his gaping mouth, coated with blood, and he dropped like a sack of meat as soon as I retracted my claws back into my fist.

“Sorry to cut short such a pleasant conversation, but my girl is calling,” I told the corpse. I then crossed my arms over my chest, my thumb and two fingers of each hand extended while my fourth and fifth fingers were curled inward. A spinning ball of water appeared in the air before me, the ball growing and glowing bright blue as it sped up in speed and increased in size. And then I turned to run around the corner, sprinting straight for the Sword wagon.

You must be swift as the coursing river

The remaining eleven elite guards, now missing their commander, all turned and pointed their weapons at me as soon as I came into view. To the sides and behind them, another dozen regular soldiers going about their own business turned to gawk at me, with half of them likewise reaching for their weapons and the other half running away.

With all the force of a great typhoon

‘Quit singing Mulan. I’ve got something better.’

Shouting at the top of my lungs, “Kame-hame-HA!” I thrust both hands forward and let fly with the spinning, glowing water ball (Ziyi’s favorite). Rather than fly off on its own, the blue-white sphere of roiling, boiling energy expanded like a comet, hurtling forth with incredible power and speed while still trailing a column of light and water behind it, drawing additional power and energy from me so that the ball continued growing and growing right up until the moment it blasted into the first of the guards, plowing straight through four of them with enough force to shatter their internal organs on impact before smashing into an officer’s tent behind them.

By then, my attention was on the Sword wagon itself. I stopped where I was, raised two fingers, and pointed straight at the heavy iron padlock on the wagon door. Even from a distance, I could see the black metal crusting over with ice, and within seconds, I heard a sharp crack as the frozen metal fractured from the cold pressure. The door jerked once, having been kicked quite hard from the inside. It didn’t open on the first try, although the force was enough to shatter the frozen padlock’s hoop. So the second time Ziyi kicked the door, it readily swung open.

I didn’t get to see her emerge, though, as there were still quite a few guards to deal with. I quickly materialized a half-dozen ice daggers and then threw them with deadly precision one after the other. They lacked the destructive force of the spinning water ball but were far faster to materialize. And although three of the guards were able to raise their armored gauntlets or otherwise deflect the daggers, the other three found their marks, with one catching a guard in the cheek and the other two each embedding themselves in a guard’s throat.

Seven down, including the commander. Five to go, Dong told me. Plus another six foot soldiers. Plus however many other soldiers start converging on this area.

‘I don’t need to kill them all. I just need me and Ziyi to escape.’

Speaking of Ziyi, I turned to see her sprinting at full speed towards me, dressed like a ninja in an all-black unitard with the sword wrapped up in cloth and tied diagonally across her back with a cross-body strap. The other five guards were already chasing her (scratch that, only four. She must’ve put one of them down herself), so I materialized more ice daggers and threw them quickly to give her some cover fire. I had to do so hastily without quite being able to aim, so I didn’t put down any of the pursuing guards. But I did cause all four of them to stop and defend themselves for a second, or at least shy away, buying Ziyi a few precious seconds to reach me.

And then we turned and both started running together.

“Clear a path!” Ziyi shouted by my side.

Once again I crossed my arms over my chest to start generating another spinning water ball. We had the element of surprise, and so far the army had not been able to raise significant forces against us. But the bulk of the remaining soldiers were all housed around the perimeter of the encampment while we were presently in the middle of the circle, so I knew we’d have to fight our way through them to get to the river.

Sure enough, the alarm had been raised and soldiers were emerging from their tents in front of us. I didn’t necessarily want to kill any more of them than I had to - I’d seen first-hand how a lowly peasant conscript was treated by his officers, after all. So I concentrated on this particular spinning water ball having a little more of a concussive shockwave force rather than necessarily being all that damaging on impact. And then I let it fly forward, the comet-like sphere of energy literally pushing people, tents, and even horses out of the way so that they flew through the air for ten to fifteen feet to both sides while simultaneously carving out the very earth into a wide two-foot-deep furrow that extended in front of us for a hundred yards.

A path had been cleared.

“Jiayou! Jiayou!” Ziyi cheered, the phrase literally translated, to add fuel, but essentially meant, Come on! or Let’s go!

We kept running, and I generated another concussive spinning ball. With one more mighty thrust, I blasted a straight path forward clear through all of the tents and beyond the army encampment perimeter. But that’s when the first arrow flew past my head from up ahead.

I turned to glance at the arrow’s point of origin. A regiment of archers had taken up station about fifty feet ahead and twenty feet to our left, just beyond the range of my cleared path. I raised my hand to form an ice shield and then raised my right hand to join it, widening the shield to make it large enough to block both of us. I heard several cracks as various arrows impacted my barrier, and it protected us long enough for both me and Ziyi to run past the archer group.

But now they were shooting at us from behind, and I had to turn to face in that direction to keep blocking their arrows.

“Keep going!” I shouted to Ziyi as I came to a halt. Holding up both hands, I swirled them in a big circle to etch the glowing Yin-yang symbol that would magically reinforce the shield. Once it was done, I flung the entire block into the archer group to smother or at least scatter them. But three of the archers managed to duck out of the way in time, keep on their feet, and keep firing at me. Rather than raise a large shield to block them, I concentrated on the flight paths of the individual arrows, making small ice discs magically pop up to intercept each of them one-by-one.

The three archers stopped firing, jaws dropped in astonishment as I cut off ten such arrows with precision and ease. I smirked at them, fashioned three ice arrows of my own, and sent all three of them in return. I didn’t even have to kill the soldiers. I simply used my arrows to snap their bows in half.

Daaaang. You got good at this.

‘It was that last assfuck with Ziyi that gave me all the power. Where she was riding me reverse cowgirl and I was sitting up so I could lean around and suckle on her titty.’

Oh fuck yeah. That was a good one. But stop showing off and get moving. More soldiers coming.

‘Right.’

I turned and started running again, the delay leaving me about thirty feet behind Ziyi. We were almost to the perimeter, but four soldiers had stepped into the path in front of her, right in the middle of my two-foot-deep furrow. She didn’t slow down at all, going full speed ahead as she pulled out an ornate, gleaming longsword she must’ve stolen from one of the elite guards, holding it out in front of her as she continued to charge.

The four soldiers stood their ground, waiting for her to come to them. She hissed at them loudly and they yelled a challenge as she approached, but just as she was about to crash into them, her legs abruptly transformed into a large serpent’s tail which she quickly coiled and then used to powerfully spring up and over all four soldiers, twisting in the air and tumbling like Simone Biles doing an Olympic vault before landing neatly on the other side of them, reforming her legs, and continuing on away from them at a dead sprint.

Ziyi had made it beyond the perimeter.

The four soldiers all turned to gawk at her as she’d flown over their heads, but another six soldiers were joining them in the middle of my escape path. Seeing as these guys were a little more dead-set on killing me, I started fashioning another spinning water ball to blow through them, this one more of the destructive variety. The blue-white ball of energy grew and grew in power, glowing brighter and brighter as I bore down on the group of nine. And I bellowed at the top of my lungs, “KAME! HAME!--”

All ten soldiers squealed like little pigs and ran away to either side, getting the fuck out of my way.

Oh. Okay. That works too.

Still holding onto my water ball, I glanced over my shoulder. There was still a group of soldiers and the original four elite guards chasing after me, so I simply turned around and let go, metaphorically taking all that pent-up energy off its leash and letting momentum do the rest.

The dam burst and a diluvial torrent of… well… water flooded forth. It didn’t blast into the soldiers or guards with enough force to shatter their internal organs or anything, but it was still plenty to knock every single one of them off their feet in a straight line all the way down the length of my two-foot-deep furrow. It was as if I’d created my very own tributary of the Yi River, one that completely stopped our pursuit. And with a grin, I turned to face forward again, running to catch up to Ziyi.

We’d made it.

Well, you made it out of the camp. You still gotta get to safety.

Piece of cake. Nobody’s even chasing us.

You sure about that?

What sounded like a massive wolf howled on cue from somewhere behind me, sending shivers of ice down my spine. I kept running, but I looked back over my shoulder, and my eyes went wide at the sight of a ginormous, flaming black dog sprinting after us.

The sun had set by now with only fading twilight left to join the crescent moon in illuminating the landscape. The glowing flames of the Huodou stood out in stark contrast to the darkening sky, even with its black coat. You couldn’t miss the massive thing.

It couldn’t run through the channel of two-foot-deep water I’d made, so the monster simply sprinted through the soldiers’ tents, setting a few of them on fire and merely knocking down the rest. From the way men kept yelping, I had to assume there were some soldiers still inside of those tents, poor souls who were getting trampled in the process.

“Keep going!” I shouted to Ziyi. “Whatever you do, don’t stop!”

Heeding my own words, I continued running after her while sneaking occasional glances back at the Huodou. Every time I looked, it was closer and closer and closer, so that the third time I checked over my shoulder, it almost felt like the friggin’ thing would be able to drool on me. Only then did I finally turn to face it, digging in my heels and sprouting a MASSIVE blue-white ice blade from my hands. I’m talking Cloud’s Buster Sword from Final Fantasy VII kind of massive, you know?

“Hi, doggie. Remember me?” I greeted cockily.

The first time I’d squared off with the Huodou with a sword in my hands, it had promptly fled from Ziyi’s little cottage with a pitiful whine.

The second time, I’d slashed the Huodou’s cheek and then later stabbed the big beastie in the asscheek when it tried to run away.

So you’ll understand that I figured the fire elemental would likewise retreat in the face of my awesome water elemental fury.

But it simply growled, opened its mouth wide enough for me to see the spark of flame lighting up where a human uvula would be, and then breathed out a comet-like fireball straight at me.

Hefting the sword, I held it directly in front of me. The blade wasn’t as wide as an ice shield, but it still neatly bisected the fireball, deflecting the streaming flames harmlessly away from me to either side. But the Huodou was a smart doggie. It was expecting me to block its fireball all along, and it used the distraction to leap into the air at me.

My vision had been filled with fire for a moment, so I didn’t realize what was happening until the Huodou was pretty much landing on me. My massive blade was a little too big and a little too unwieldy for me to bring into position in time, so I wound up getting stomped on before the Huodou kicked me ten yards across the field. And when it leaped into the air once again, this time there was no fireball in the way to impede my view of the ginormous, five-hundred-pound beastie landing straight on my chest, crushing me into the ground hard enough to depress the earth beneath my body six inches or so.

Ouch. And déjà vu to the first time you two met.

Just like that first encounter at Ziyi’s cottage, I once again had a massive paw on my chest while the Huodou growled in my face and dripped sizzling hot droplets of drool onto me. The thin layer of blue haze and flickering flames that surrounded its entire body seared my chest with heat, already burning through my stolen soldier’s armor. It opened its mouth, a fresh flame sparked within, and I knew I was about to get barbecue roasted from point-blank range in mere seconds.

But while I’d lacked the strength or leverage to get the seven-foot-tall, five-hundred-pound supernatural monster off me before, I wasn’t the same man as before.

I had sex-energy this time.

Sex-energy born of Ziyi’s love.

Supernatural strength flowed through my muscles, keeping my body so strong that I didn’t even feel the Huodou’s weight on me. I stared straight up at it, feeling my eyes glowing with cool blue ice, and within seconds every inch of my entire body head-to-toe was covered in a thin but indestructible layer of magic ice.

Niiice. When did you learn out how to do this? Would’ve been really useful that day you got shot in the back.

‘I have no idea. I’m just glad it showed up today.’

Thus completely protected by my magic barrier, I watched the Huodou’s fireball blast against my face with dispassionate interest, causing absolutely no damage whatsoever. I knew without a doubt that the fire elemental held no power over me.

Water defeats Fire, after all.

Once again, I sprouted the Buster Sword from my hands. This time, I sprouted it straight up through the Huodou’s body, the pointy end blasting out its back right between its shoulder blades. The fireball in my face suddenly cut off. The flame in the creature’s eyes snuffed out. And then its massive head leaned over to the side first before the entire chunky body collapsed next to me, the monster already dead before it hit the ground.

“Chezhou!” Ziyi yelled. “Jiayou! Jiayou! We need to cross the river!”

“Coming, dear!” I called back cheerily as I sat up and turned to smile at her.

I glanced back towards the army encampment. No pursuit followed us from there. Taking my time, I stood up and brushed off the few bits of dirt on top of me and then unhooked the blistered soldier’s armor on my chest, still hot to the touch. Tossing the helmet and armor aside, I finally started jogging to catch up to Ziyi, who waited by the riverside.

“Hello, darling. How’s your day going?” I asked affably.

She giggled and tilted her head to kiss me quickly. Reaching up to tap the sword hilt behind her neck, she added, “It’s going great, but it’ll be even better once we cross and get to safety.”

“Whatever my princess desires, she shall receive,” I pronounced and then held my right hand out, all five fingers pointing straight while I concentrated on manifesting an ice bridge.

Specifically, Elsa’s ice bridge from the first Frozen movie.

Ziyi gasped and covered her hands with both eyes as the glowing white structure took shape. “It’s beautiful,” she breathed.

“Thanks!” I said amiably, quite proud of my work. The bridge was about three-quarters finished and growing foot-by-foot. I held my ground to keep building it, but Ziyi had already started up the staircase, giggling happily with every step.

Gotta run up that with your arms out. It’s the rule.

Something grabbed my leg.

And then something grabbed my other leg.

My ice bridge faltered as I lost my focus and looked down at my feet. Both of them were encased in mounds of earth that sealed them both in place all the way up my calves.

I couldn’t move.

Something suddenly seized my left arm, an earthen… tentacle… that sprouted from the ground five feet away and waved through the air before chomping onto my hand like a Piranha Plant from Super Mario Bros. Another tentacle suddenly sprouted from my other side and chomped down onto my right hand. Neither of them pierced my skin, but my hands had been rendered immobile nevertheless.

I couldn’t move.

I couldn’t spellcast.

I was stuck.

But I could still turn and look over my shoulder. A single man casually sauntered out of the darkness, clad in black robes heavily embroidered with gold thread. He was not a young man, bearing wrinkles by his eyes and graying temples. His hair had been pulled back in a neat pile. His mustache was long and pointy, almost as long and pointy as his lengthy beard. And I realized that I’d seen this man’s face before, on various posters around the Imperial Palace area.

This man was Emperor Taizu of the Liang Dynasty.

He was Warlord Zhu Wen.

And when he extended his hands forward, I saw that his fingers were exceptionally long and exceptionally dirty, capped with exceptionally long and exceptionally dirty fingernails. The nails were yellow and sickly looking, and yet thick and durable. His hair was growing and thickening on his head and neck to become more like fur. His nose and mouth were in the process of extending forwards, becoming more of a pronounced… snout… than a regular nose and mouth.

With each passing second, the man looked more and more like a…

… well, like a rat.

“Shǔ Yaoguai!” Ziyi exclaimed in terror.

Earth defeats Water.

Oh, shit.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Prologue & Chapter 1: The Ax Effect: https://www.patreon.com/posts/102225387

Chapter 2: Santa Monica: https://www.patreon.com/posts/102437478

Chapter 3: The Zellij Fountain: https://www.patreon.com/posts/102691018

Chapter 4: Euhemerism: https://www.patreon.com/posts/102919819

Chapter 5: The Fremont Troll: https://www.patreon.com/posts/103191700

Chapter 6: Jade: https://www.patreon.com/posts/103443053

Chapter 7: The Blue Gecko: https://www.patreon.com/posts/103699709

Chapter 8: Yaoguai: https://www.patreon.com/posts/103978374

Chapter 9: Rome: https://www.patreon.com/posts/104213388

Chapter 10: Seeing Sights: https://www.patreon.com/posts/104466709

Chapter 11: Liu Kang: https://www.patreon.com/posts/104728056

Chapter 12: Ziyi: https://www.patreon.com/posts/104949855

Chapter 13: Huodou: https://www.patreon.com/posts/105203881

Chapter 14: Longmen: https://www.patreon.com/posts/105600662

Chapter 15: Difficult: https://www.patreon.com/posts/105783706

Chapter 16: Wo Ai Ni: https://www.patreon.com/posts/105784255