Chapter 156 - My Favoritest Boi, Enjoying Some Tinfoil-Hat Moments (Patreon)

Chapter title might be a little on the nose, but hey, it's true! I hope you guys like this one, it's got a phat chunk of worldbuilding and a character actually, like, addressing said worldbuilding and implications, lol. Raika is still in a sort of "all vibes" phase, so having her foil / deuteragonist / Interlude counter to write stuff with is really fun. Expect Shin Ren to get a solid chunk more focus in Arc 4!

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Shin Ren is very tired of walking. Firs priority when he has access to a sect library, he’s going to find a fucking flight technique.

He’s crossed valleys, mountains, rivers, approaching now the northern edge of the south rings. He’s been walking now for days on days. Cultivator constitution and the occasional piece of fruit or lesser animal he can hunt and cook have him plenty secure on that front, but the very act of walking through the woods like he is is… somewhat triggering. The last time he went through the wilds, he burned a clear streak of flame across the terrain, sprinting in a mad, screaming rush.

He remembers the cultivators that tried to stop him. The Clear Spring Stream sect, Fei Sark. He doesn’t remember what he did to them, but he knows it involved burning, screaming, and pain. A debt he has to repay someday, for they didn’t deserve his pain. It’s good to remember what he did, who he owes, but it still hurts when he sees the woods ahead of him. The fight between his master and the Blade (for it must have been a Blade, no other explanation or title could fit) threw him westward for miles and miles. He’s not exactly sure where he landed, what cities might be nearby, but no matter where one lands in the known world, there is a single landmark that no one can forget.

Step by step, possessed of control and grief and determination, Shin Ren walks towards the sky-cutting pillar that is the first ring.

His master received an invitation from the Empire, that much was clear by the scroll. The person delivering it could only be a sword saint, considering how they fucking cut the detonations his master generated, and fought only with a blade. Nevermind the incredible swords they’d worn on their hip. The man had never said his name, and his master, who clearly knew it, hadn’t volunteered it. All Shin Ren knows is that he was arrogant, a sword saint, had a sister who died (apparently at his master’s hand), and had an invitation on behalf of the first ring.

Shin Ren knows his master is still alive. He’s absolutely certain of it. Not least because the death of an Emperor realm master would have had devastating consequences, but because there’s no way Qu Haolan went down in just three exchanges. If he escaped, then between the differences in their cultivation and the size of the world, and his master’s history with it, Shin Ren will never find him again. If he was taken, there’s only one place in the world he could have been taken to. And either way, there’s only one way for Shin Ren to go if he’s going to find answers.

He’s heading to the second ring.

What happens there, he’s not sure. Maybe he can move back to the Academies, see if he can go up the ranks fast enough… but he’s not sure on that. He’s not entirely sure they’ll help rather than hinder him, but he’s not really sure if there are any other options. Hell, he’s not even sure if he’ll still be accepted back. It’s one thing to be the quasi-young-master of a decent sect coming back for a “semester”, another entirely to be a haggard traveler who may not even be part of his former sect wandering in after, what, a year away?

Ironically, Shin Ren feels both free and bound. On the other hand, it’s almost certain that no one in the world knows where he is, knows if he’s even alive. He could go… anywhere. He’s strong enough to be able to travel through maybe half of the third ring? Avoid the beast-infested places, the more dangerous fonts of Qi or cursed ruins, and he could probably wander from town to town, cultivating freely, for years, maybe. But at the same time, there’s nothing he wants to do. He needs to go and pay his debts at the Clear Spring Stream sect, but that’s a weight he can carry, not an immediate demand, and the moment he does so, his story will only get further dragged back towards sect politics. He feels very little real kinship with the Purple Flame Burning Lotus sect now; for however much they might be his family that offered him support as he grew, when he was literally burning himself alive and in desperate need of real help, they let politics and pride take his place. And that’s without going into how they used him as a tool. The fact he benefited from being used isn’t a justification for forcing him to be an executioner, or the sect’s angle into the Academies and the inner rings.

No, there’s only one thing that Shin Ren really wants to do now, and that’s find out what happened to his master and help however he can. That debt is immediate, possibly imminent if he can’t find him in time, and in and of itself, it ties to a few questions he’s formed since then.

Who was that Blade? His master spoke as if their opponent was some genocidal hound of war, and while Shin Ren isn’t naive, he knows the Empire was built on conflict, he also has never heard of one of its heroes spoken of that way. What’s more, Qu Haolan didn’t know anything about the specifics the Empire has done, so his knowledge of the swordsman comes from almost three thousand years ago, and apparently the reigning powers have kept someone like that around and in power all that time. Why? 

And another thing: why set an ultimatum like that? 

Some of it was surely the swordsman’s madness, but not all. Of course, any government or group that seeks to rule would have to account for an Emperor realm cultivator, but they’d sent one man, and from how the swordsman had spoken, it’s clear that some amount of violence was expected. Why? They hadn’t offered anything, hadn’t demonstrated their power to impress the weight of the Empire on the would-be new convert, hadn’t explained the offer at all. Behind the swordsman’s mocking, it had been “join us, but remain mostly independent, or die here”. Who approaches an Emperor realm cultivator like that? Surely the loss of such a potential asset would demand heavy consequences for the Blade, but he’d been utterly casual.

In his time walking, he’s had plenty of time to meditate on the matter. He tried, as best he can, to use the wisdom his master tried to impart, the frank and direct examination of what is and the application of the famously uncommon “common sense” to it.

Shin Ren is arrogant, even now, and worse before. But he’s never been stupid, just ignorant.

So. 

Option one: the Empire did want his master to join, but the Blade, in his thirst for violence, subverted their efforts to cause a fight. This begs the question as to why the Blade would still be employed, would be used for these sorts of tasks at all, as losing an Emperor realm master’s favor is a sin that has had whole countries killed in the myths of old. Surely there would be consequences for even a Blade. Unless there’s more behind the scenes.

Option two: the Empire didn’t want his master to join at all. Rather than negotiate, they sent a clear threat, showcasing none of the benefits of citizenship or loyalty, none of their history or the potential nuances that a negotiation with such a powerful figure should demand. By inciting violence on purpose, they can claim that they were justified in killing their target… but why? Who would know or care? Other Emperors in the Empire’s current power structure? And if that was the case, why not bring an overwhelming advantage of some kind, something to keep Qu Haolan from ever even closing his realm or detonating those forces he had shown? 

Option three, and most concerning of all; the Empire doesn’t care at all.

This one scares Shin Ren more than either of the former. Either option, while outlandish, could be explained by human foolishness, bureaucracy at work, or something of the sort. But if the Empire doesn’t care…

An Emperor realm cultivator has the qualifications to rule an empire of their own. To conquer and command whole nations. It’s where the name of the realm comes from. They have the strength to remodel parts of the world at will, and shape weapons, summons, or armies of power enough to alter the course of history entirely. Further, they make for genuinely immortal enemies, beyond the reach of death by any but the most overwhelming and direct of means. If the Empire genuinely didn’t care about gaining Qu Haolan’s loyalty, and didn’t put overwhelming fear into their response, it would indicate that they either think an Emperor realm cultivator powerless and unable to cause true harm… or that they think that any harm caused isn’t that big of a deal.

There are holes in his theories, places with far more questions than possible conclusions, but Shin Ren is fairly certain he’s thought it through as best he can. And in doing so, he’s come to two conclusions.

One: the goals of those in the first ring don’t seem to align with common sense, the pursuit of peace, or, most notably, the pursuit of conventional power.

Two: whatever choices have been made, they were made before considerations of who Qu Haolan might be, what damage he might do, or what power they might gain from him in any conventional way were known.

Which opens the door to all sorts of other fucking questions.

Shin Ren calls upon the Smiling Noble as he crosses over a massive gorge, a pulse of subtler heat and inertia helping him to cross gracefully so as not to disturb the roiling thing deep below. It’s not the first such creature he’s had to avoid, and as much as the Corpse Aflame crackles unhappily at how low he’s kept his flames, even she seems to recognize that there’s a weight to his thoughts and his path. He’s noticed that their partially-formed Cores are beginning to stabilize, the passage of time and meditation seeming to smooth some of their more jagged edges. 

Whatever else happens, he has this. His disparate pieces, spawned from his struggle and healing alongside him now. That’s a decent bit of a comfort, a tangible marker of how he’s changed as a person, how he’s growing.

And, admittedly, a not inconsiderable source of raw power.

Eventually, after days and days of walking, Shin Ren finds his way to a road. It’s not much of one, true, hardly one of the paved colossi between the main Imperial cities, but a road nonetheless, one leading northward.

He skirts around the first town he finds, and the second. A record, no matter how minimal, of his journey from where he was thrown could potentially lead to questions down the line. It’s not much of a risk, and not one he previously would have even considered, but as he is now, he prizes his stealth and ability to get things done more than the confidence that it would bring to walk head-high through each town. It’s only in the third such town, a almost a week of sprinting down roads, that he stops to buy some food and water, if only to stop needing to stop and scavenge once a day or so.

And then he gets back to running.

In the wilds he walked with care, watched each step, but between his heart demons and his own improved cultivation, he can run most of the day faster than any mortal without pause, eating up the miles. The third ring, the largest of the three “civilized” rings, spans almost half the world, but he does not let something small like distance discourage him. He has been gone from the world too long, and the sooner he gets to the second ring, the sooner he can try to understand what’s happened to the person he owes his life to.

So it is that when he sees the border, he is a weather-beaten, road weary figure, enough that the guards step forward to slow him.

The second and third rings aren’t divided nearly as sharply as the first and second, or the third and fourth. There is no insurmountable geographic feature keeping the main lands of the Empire separate, not here; the third has the great fortress-cities on its border with the fourth, and the first, of course, lies atop the impossible pillar at the center of the world, but between the first and second, it’s not quite so clear a line. The second stands as the center of industry, of advancement, of the greatest resources and technologies outside the first ring, while the third holds most of the mines, the farms, the beasts to be hunted on occasion, feeding them back into the second ring’s metropolises. 

But there are some barriers in place. Every half mile, a large tower stands, denoting the outer perimeter of the shadow of the first ring as it moves throughout the day, more an oval shape than a true circle. Atop each, a small garrison of Imperial Guard stand, their bases perched like many-limbed golden machines, ready to move and deploy against any force or beast that comes too close. Nothing so blatant as a gate, perhaps, but Shin Ren can’t help but reflect in his new mindset how, if they wished, even a single Imperial Guard could likely keep any mortal or lesser cultivator they wanted in or out with little trouble.

The thought feels particularly poignant as two soldiers, armored in towering exosuits, glowing with enchantments and pieces of jade and gold, land hard enough to crack the road beneath their feet, blocking his path with two spears that crackle with writhing, animate lightning. 

“My name is Shin Ren,” he tells them, letting his weariness color his tone freely. “I am a student of the Imperial Academies, returned from a sojourn. I request permission to enter the second ring, blessed by the shadow of the Emperor.”