Chapter 143 - The Power Of Love, Friendship, And Violence (Patreon)

I'm in a deeply weird place, where I feel simultaneously like things are really cramped and like no matter what I do there are still too many chapters. But! Good news is, either way, we go forward, and I like many chapters!

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There is a glory in seeing her now. Maen has never been one for religion, but there is something worshipful in seeing her partner, who chose her and who she chose in turn, towering above her here. She is like a colossus, almost twice Maen’s own height, barbed and curved and weaponized, every inch of her a tool with which to kill or survive with- and despite the strange sense of dischronicity she still carries, there is something about her that is whole in this moment, as this form.

Maen cannot help but enjoy the sight of it for a moment.

It cost her, to get them here. It cost them all.

In the weeks they’ve been gone, dragged down beneath the earth and the city by that detonation and those curling tendrils of darkness, the city has been mad. The Scion itself has made several appearances, the cultivators of every sect and a dozen other latecomers moving to assist and fight each other at once. Simultaneously the city has been a ground of constant politicking and fights between sects trying to move into Cragend after perceiving weakness, trying to establish branches and businesses to take advantage of the chaos and only adding to it in turn. The central arena is being rebuilt, nearly stone for stone, at the pace that higher-level cultivators can create, but if it’s intended effect is to return stability, it has done the opposite, as every merchant, noble house, Imperial liaison and sect elder has pitched in their own ideas on what to change, how to build, whose Qi is to be wasted on the project.

Maen kept busy.

At first, things were fine. Raika had been through worse. The beast tide, the mines. All she’d seen of the conflict had been the dome flickering into being, the Scion and the Imperial Guards around it staring down into the golden light. And then there had been movement in it, and chaos, and a few minutes later the darkness had grown out of the shadows of the arena and swallowed it whole, bringing the whole place down. Bad, sure. A bit horrifying to watch, just from the sheer scale of the forces involved. But Raika was fine, probably.

And then the first day had passed. And the second. And then a week. And at that point, sitting around in the Palace twiddling her fucking thumbs while everyone else scrambled about got old.

She’s grown so much in the past year. That fight in the arena proved it, proved she has the ability to really move, to fight, to use her instincts, poorly understood though they may be. She’s kept up her cultivation, the Palace’s Qi and cultivation aids both contributing to her growth, to her attempt to cultivate two different styles at once, and she’s felt both her body and soul growing and changing. The stress of it all, the look in Raika’s eyes the last few times they’d spoken… it put an end to that. For the first week while she and everyone else were gone down into that shadowy pit no one could explain, Maen barely ate a thing, barely slept.

But… if Raika had been the one stuck here, with Maen gone? Maybe not Raika as she’d been recently, maybe not Raika at her worst… but at her default, she wouldn’t have let that stand. She’d have done something, been proactive about something.

So she started planning. 

The city basically covered up the whole fiasco. The Empire, losing a Feng-bloodline cultivator and an entire arena to some unknown enemy? Ridiculous. The Divine Beast had done something, or a hidden legendary artifact of some kind, or perhaps an unknown force from the depths of the Crag at the absolute worst. Any who felt the need to look into what exactly happened were overshadowed by those who sought to benefit from the accident, and as more and more groups of cultivators entered the collapsed cavern where the arena had fallen, less and less interest or hope was garnered as no one found anything. Not even a stone from the arena could be located, as if they had fallen through the floor at the end of the cavern. When the life-lanterns in the sects started to wink out, it was decided to treat the whole thing as a tribulation, as something the cultivators would be strong enough to escape from or not.

Fuck that. Her friends were down there. Whether or not the Empire were tracking life-lanterns, bound to go out if their lives ended, or if they were too busy dealing with the squabbling and saving face to even bother to check, they weren’t looking hard enough.

But there was one person who might know something. Someone Raika had gone after, when she insisted that Maen stay behind after her fight. Someone she’d had a meeting with, arranged by Kaena, not long after.

Rei Ji of the Unearthly Depths sect.

The sects had closed ranks since the catastrophe in the arena. Either the Imperial Scion got multiple of their members, and a ton of independents, killed in an impromptu tournament, or their sect members had failed to properly fight back against an upgraded spirit beast and surprising circumstances. One demanded retribution, the other, embarrassment, and so they decided to avoid either for the time being and buckle down as newer sects and independents try to muscle their way into one of the third ring’s most lucrative cities during the times of trouble. They weren’t exactly taking appointments to speak to senior disciples.

So Maen decided to just show up.

With her changes, brought about by blood and consumption and cultivation, it wasn’t hard to blend into the shadows. She’s not very strong, but for her realm she is fast, fast enough that most other high-Foundational realm cultivators can barely glimpse her, and she’s quiet enough to make use of that. She was lucky- most of the formations they chose to activate were sensory things, detectors, not outright barriers. Harder to maintain an appearance of strength while wearing a turtle shell, after all. Still, it took another week to find a route in, find out his schedule, find out where he slept.

He didn’t see her coming. Much, much stronger than her, deep into Core Formation, maybe even approaching Nascent Soul where he might become a sect elder… but power and knowledge are two sides of a coin, and he couldn’t quite do much between getting up to shower and feeling part of his neck be sheared away.

It almost didn’t work. She stole a sword from the Imperial Palace, and it still almost didn’t cut through. But it did. Enough that he couldn’t move.

As a cultivator, at his level, he could recover. Heal himself in a few days if he had the talent for it, a week or so if he needed help from a healer. But it left him still enough for her to ask questions without needing to fear retaliation. She didn’t let him see her, pretended to be an independent cultivator.

It took the better part of a day to get information on She Who Stills The Waters from him, but she got it. He survived. She called the whole thing good, and was glad she hadn’t ended up killing him. 

One problem solved. Plenty more gained.

A Witch, some old myth or entity of strange powers who could control shadows and eyes. Seemed familiar enough, and her home, apparently, was at the far end of the Crag, deep below even where the miners went, where the stone turned strange. Breaking into a room in a sect with a well thought out plan is one thing, raiding a strange dungeon of stone and living shadow at the edge of a bottomless ravine is another. She needed help.

It was a week later when she finished plan two. Three weeks since Raika had disappeared, since the powers-that-be had written them all off as either lost or on their own and turned to the more important work of making sure that their positions stay stable. 

She had to break out Project 13. 

It was the only other member of the group left, and barely watched over as the Empire prioritized over the “moderate incident” that occurred. Further, it could potentially provide the muscle needed, that deep past the mines, which already had plenty of spirit beasts adapted to their environments.

And then, she had to drag a sword bloody with an Imperial Guard’s arteries and a massive, sharpened, chained up hunk of meat all the way to an inn to find the only three people left in the city she might be able to trust.

After they had… recovered a bit from the state she found them in, she explained. Li Shu was immediately onboard, Qen Hou accompanying her for the sake of keeping her safe and Hao Nera to either protect them both or because he couldn’t seem to bear someone doing crazier shit than he, and Maen, apparently, had accomplished just that.

And then… the Crag.

Mining had half-halted in the city, most of its revenues going now instead to provide materials to the rebuilding of the arena. Besides an army of disgruntled, hungry workers, the mines were clear, and against four (and a half) cultivators, one being carried by massive chains on another’s back… well, they didn’t keep anyone from noticing them, but they made good time.

A trip down on of its elevators, deep, deep down into the mines, towards the bottom of the scarred and excavated valley, and then nearly two days of walking and camping and trecking to the far end of it. There was violence on the way, things killed and things they ran from, and harsh, burning heat, as if the sun above reflected off all the curves and angles of the Crag to deliver none of its light and all its heat. And when they arrived there, where the streams of water trickled through the stone as the rock holds back the sea beyond it… something shifted. The stone beneath their feet turned from gold and sandy to grey and strangely porous. It had yawned open in front of them, like an invitation. Like a gullet, hungry and waiting.

She walked in first.

There were things in those tunnels. Hungry things of black shadow and wasted, pale flesh and desperate, rotten teeth, but they hadn’t been enough to stop her, or her compatriots. Even as the tunnels began to drain them, they kept going forward. Even as the chains around Project 13 began to flicker, they carried on. And then- the ground opened beneath them. They fell, deep, down, through winding tunnels so smooth that they could not grip, through angles that didn’t seem to line up right, through strange turns and loops and-

And into a cavern, bathed in perfect liquid shadow, with a Witch, a monster, a sexier, more recognizable monster, and a bunch of other cultivators.

She’s not sure what brought them here, or why, or how- but she embraced the incredible war-form of the woman she sought, and she has a blade and claws with which to cut into that which holds them back.

The darkness roils, holding Project 13 away and eating into its chains, even as the witch bleeds against the pedestal with the weird fucking organ on it and the infectious looking thing of shadow and Qi screeches a sound that does not work like sound should and launches itself forward at them. The shadows all around twist and coil and writhe and from them a thousand bodies begin to flow, misshapen abominations made of eyes and hair and oozing black oils crawling out into the world.

The non-combatants fall back towards Taran, who lays curled up like a dead bug, a cultivator Maen recognizes from the tournament taken up a position in front of them. One of them, looking as exhausted as she’s ever seen someone, unleashes a flurry of fireflies that alight on the clothes of everyone, giving them the slightest bit of extra illumination. It’s well-practiced, a move that seems to work well-

Until Qen Hou steps forward, and with a yell, slams his foot against the ground. The energies of someone in early Core Formation ring out, healthier and fuller than that of those who were trapped down in the dark, and a wall of fire spawns forth. It flows out from his step, his hands and feet glowing in the heat of it as fire both a beautiful pale silver color, with only hints of purple and red at its edges. The scent of magnesium floods the room, even for those without the ability to sense Qi through it, and the army of misshapen things crawling at them recoils, several of them burning up incredibly quickly as the fire touches them. 

“Maen! You and Raika go for the beast. Hao Nera-”

“On it!”

Hao Nera simply fades from view, less falling into shadow and more falling out of one’s perception. She doesn’t look for him, doesn’t try to remember he’s here, avoiding making his stealth technique any harder for him. Qen Hou looks a bit tired, nearly half his reserves wiped, but the wall of fire holds strong, the new colors of his flame bright and hot enough to illuminate half the chamber. The shadows recoil, the strange creatures writhe and emit screams like escaping steam as the light hits them- and she and Raika leap through the gap in the flames he creates, dashing in unison as if they planned it, her speed and Raika’s impossible physiology matching paces to advance. The only hesitation is the moment it takes to put Shapefixit down and run.

And the beast roars. 

There are pieces of limbs, scraps of robe, wrapped around its chest and throat, and Maen can see where Feng Gao’s face was apparently fused into the creature, as if stretched and phased unnaturally into the flesh. Clusters of eyes like maggots or boils fester across their conjoined body, their movements stiff and unnatural as the strings of hair strike out at her.

Raika turns, a limb shooting out to block the attack against Maen- and finds that she is no longer there, turning on a dime to sprint off in a new direction and then launch herself forward again. In the time it takes Raika to recover from her surprise, Maen’s sword has sliced out across the paw, slicing through the hair strands and rancid flesh all along it. She grins at her paramour, eyes feral, fangs glinting in the firelight.

Raika smiles back, like a crescent moon of teeth.

Together at last, together as they have never been, they begin to cut.

Raika’s claws are night-edged and reflect the light oddly as she rips through the beast, every clumsy paw swipe earning another shriek and a fresh limb which seems to sprout out of impossible angles. Maen’s blade isn’t nearly as sharp or as strange, just good Imperial steel, and she focuses on cutting the threads, cycling her Qi through the blade like she learned to do when she grew a blade and using it to sever the Witch’s control. Still, there are always more limbs, and the ones freed twitch and spasm strangely, as if trying to move but no longer familiar how.

And yet there are always more limbs, and as they dodge one particularly fast swipe, they see the eyes festooning the limb open wide, their pupils gaping, wide and black-

And drink in the floor where they stood. Where they pass, where the pupils cry over or stare intensely at or touch, the ground is simply gone.

The malformed amalgam screams again, high pitched and loud enough to make the lungs ache, and the Witch laughs.

“It was not just choice of fashion I have named it my Black Wolf!” she laughs. “A Wolf is a weapon! The Red ones were bloodthirsty things, flesh and mind and little else, flailing and eating and going mad, but this, this eats anything. To touch it is to be unmade, consumed, dragged down into the dark of what it is. It should be more than enough to ensure-”

“Hey this looks important.”

The Witch whirls, the shadows turn into solid lances of matter so dense the whole room brightens, and every eye in the chamber turns to look at Hao Nera, standing over the heart with a dagger.

The Witch screams, and the shadows shift- and Hao Nera is gone again, the only trace of him the large and bleeding gash that is, like him, there-but-not-there, his presence erased even as he slices open the torso-sized Heart.

An explosion of shadow screams forth, flooding the chamber- and then beginning to dissipate, like fog or smoke, escaping violently from the Heart as its struggles to beat redouble and some of the strings on it begin to snap. The Black Wolf howls with its master, the sound so discordant Maen can feel blood leaking from her eyes and ears- and the Witch throws everything she has forward, a wall of misshapen eyes and black spears flying towards them, fast, too fast, too quick to-

Raika stands there, three of the shadow-spears going through her torso, stopping just before Maen. Maen screams, frustration and rage both warring for dominance as she moves forward, forcing her Qi to glow around her blade, cutting out the dark in her wounds and severing the spears.

Raika staggers back, eyes wide, looking around, confused, part of her torso leaking and turning to shadow and not healing- and then focuses on Maen.

“It’s gone. The- the smile, it’s-”

In the dark, rapidly swirling shadows, something stirs.

The Witch is on her knees, her Black Wolf towering above her, its strings so taut they cut into its flesh as its claws hover inches from her flesh.

“Really… truly wish that I had met you in a month,” the Witch rasps. “All of you. Imperial pups, getting in the way. You don’t know any better. I understand. It’s alright.”

She tilts her head up, empty eye sockets and bleeding night flowing over her scalp as the strings pull apart, dragging the Black Wolf back towards her enemies.

“I understand. I do. Doing violent things to protect someone. Doing desperate, hateful things just to make someone hurt. I understand too well. So I hope, little sister, that you and your friends don’t mind if I follow through on the desperation you have so thoroughly added to.”

The hordes of shadow-creatures are weaker, slower, the darkness flowing from the heart adding to the room but failing to empower it like before as the heart beats a muffled rhythm. Black spears, like pikes, emerge all around it, all around her, serrated edges waving as protection against Hao Nera and a potential third successful ambush… but Maen’s focus turns to the tendril of shadow that drags close the unmoving form of Project 13.

The shadows crawl along its chains, severing links one by one.

“If I have to use the weapons of my enemy… so be it.”

The final chain breaks, and the shadows whirl, and the beast roars and swipes at any who get close- and Project 13, burdened with too many Truths, imprisoned in agony and nonverbal torment and pieces of metal that grow from their very skin-

Smiles.

The stings of hair and shadow fly out from the dark, begin to wrap around it, and it turns to face them. It looks down at its hands. It looks at the Witch, who is smiling as her threads weave into its fabric and flesh and cut deeper into it, forcing it into place.

And it walks towards her.

She doesn’t even get a moment to speak before its fist enters her stomach and emerges out past where her spine used to be.

She grabs it, gasping, and snarls, turning all the shadow back towards her, not quite dead yet, and the threads pull taut on her attacker and-

And it Cannot Stop. And it yanks out its fist, letting her blood and guts spill across the floor.

The shadows uncoil, turning to wisps of darkness. The remaining creatures shrivel and shriek, falling apart piece by piece. The Not-Tiger and its newly built-in cultivator both whimper in unison and collapse, the threads around them severed.

And Project 13 looks over at them.

“Isn’t it ever so good to be a team?” It asks with Zhoulong’s voice.