Interlude: The Silkworm (Patreon)

Had a good vibe while writing this. Don't worry though. This will be the last interlude until the end of the arc.

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Separating the Ninth-Layer of the Qi Realm and the First-Layer of the Liquid Meridian Realm was a river as vast as the Machu. The worst of the Liquid Meridians was still better than the best of the Qi Realm. This was a paradigm that held true at every level of cultivation. Oh sure, there were stories and legends of heroes at the pinnacle of their Realm who could cross borders and prevail over a higher Realm. The majority of these stories never involved direct fights, however, and if they did, it would only be after some cunning plans or bad fortune had weakened their foe. However, not even the most outlandish tall tales would have their heroes directly challenge a higher Realm above the First-Layer.

Lu Aotian was a Ninth-Layer Liquid Meridian—a beast on the cusp of the Crystal Transformation Realm. He was not a foe to be overcome. He was the monster that killed heroes. Running from him was the greatest resistance Xie Jin could put up.

He cycled qi to his legs, pounding earth until the jungle around him started becoming a blur. The rest of his qi went to keep his heart and lungs from exploding from how much they were pumping. He would be feeling the effects of how hard he was pushing his body later, for sure. Of course, if he didn’t do at least this much, then he wouldn’t have a ‘later’ to speak of.

Xie Jin didn’t even bother to direct his sense behind him. If at any moment he actually noticed Lu Aotian then he would be dead anyway. Better to keep focused ahead and eke out a bit more speed. The only distraction he afforded himself was the emotional tether to his Gu. Not that a Gu had many emotions to share. They were cold existences. The only thing that could inflame any hot feeling within them was their endless greed. That being said, for how unnatural a Gu was compared to any actual animal, there were still instincts even it obeyed.

A sense of pressure weighed down on his mind. His Gu did not fear, none of them could, but it could recognize a stronger predator. It was fleeing now, chased by what felt like a horde of ravenous beasts. That it could escape at all was a testament to a Gu’s unique powers. What they lacked in direct power, they more than made up in other ways.  It was the only reason Xie Jin had a chance at all.

He ordered his Gu to flee in a direction perpendicular to Xie Jin’s own escape path. Once it had hopefully drawn away Lu Aotian away, it would swing back around to link up with him and—

The pressure was gone.

The shift was so drastic that Xie Jin nearly stumbled.

What happened? He pressed his Gu for a response and what he got back was a feeling of safety. The horde of beasts was still there, but the presence that gave weight to the qi was gone.

“That is so not good.”

The only thing that could make death scarier was not knowing where it was.

Xie Jin hastily ordered his Gu to backtrack. Should this be some kind of trap, it would be a risk, but at least he would know. An alien sense stretched out, observing the world in ways that a human simply could not. An equally alien mind translated those indecipherable colors and impressions in a way that Xie Jin’s mind would understand and not be driven mad by. It painted for him an ugly picture.  Lu Aotian’s tracks abruptly stopped before pivoting off into the jungle toward the center of the Secret Realm.

The same direction Xie Jin was running in.

Not good.

Xie Jin immediately recalled his Gu. It followed the path Lu Aotian took before diverging from it. That was good. It meant his and Lu Aotian’s paths wouldn’t cross. If the Ancestors were kind to him, then he’d be able to avoid notice. Xie Jin drifted right, away from where he assumed Lu Aotian was running. He debated whether to keep heading deeper into the Secret Realm. If he stuck to the outer edges, then he should theoretically be safe. On the other hand, if he actually wanted to find Brother Chen and Bao Si, then he would have to be in the place they definitely would be. Not to mention he hadn’t found anything of value in the outer edges. If he wanted better treasures, he would have to go deeper in.

He looked down at the Liquid Core Fruit. No matter how hard he pushed his body, he made sure to keep a light grip on it, afraid of even bruising its flesh. He felt a burst of desire from his Gu. Treasures, wealth, food, a Gu was greedy for many things. Above all others, however, was their desire for advancement. They were much like cultivators in that way.

Xie Jin crashed into an area of dense ambient qi. The sudden spike slammed into his chest as if he’d belly-flopped into water. He ground his heels into the earth and skidded to a stop, falling over into a roll to bleed off his momentum. His legs and chest burned, and he cycled more qi to take the edge off the pain. Then he cycled even more to leap away as a hails of leaves struck the spot he was at before in the thousands. More leaves curved through the air and followed after him. Purple miasma spilled from his sleeve and turned into a swarm of biting insects to block the onslaught. As the knife leaves fell rotting to the ground, he spied the tree that tried to kill him. One branch was bare. The other thirteen were filled with leaves. Same as the rest of the trees.

“Of course, the trees get more dangerous.” It was something he should have anticipated. Would have anticipated were it not for more life-threatening concerns. More qi meant more opportunity for crazier and more dangerous effects. He glanced at the Liquid Core Fruit. More qi was also a good thing for him. It would make his advancement all the smoother. He cast his sense around to quickly survey the area, then probed his Gu to judge its distance. It was closing in fast. It wasn’t ideal safety-wise, but he could take the fruit here— no he would take the fruit here. There was no telling what danger would befall him if he delayed it any longer.

He needed to advance.

His Gu came to life in his mind. It didn’t need to speak a language for Xie Jin to know it was furiously protesting his decision. Amorphous energy, qi but at the same time not quite, pulsed through their connection.

“Wretched spirit of my blood and soul.” Xie Jin sighed and covered the Liquid Core Fruit in amorphous qi.

The sky turned white, and a deafening crack sounded across the secret realm. Xie Jin whirled around, and even through the jungle canopy, he could see a large pillar of white energy reach from Earth to Heaven and cut a barrier to pieces. It was a familiar energy.

“Brother Chen?”

Was he behind him? Why? Had he gotten lost? Or was he looking for them? Why would Brother Chen attack the barrier? Was it supposed to be a signal? Was he waiting there for them, or would Xie Jin be better off waiting for him in the center? No, that was foolish thinking. There was no need to wait when he knew where Brother Chen was. Finding him would be easy now that he had a direction. Xie Jin would advance and then double back to meet him—

His senses warned him. Warned him but did not prepare him. When he turned his head, Lu Aotian was standing before him. He was not looking at him. Instead, his focus was on a medallion he was holding. Xie Jin’s qi screamed as he cycled it to its limits. He threw himself backward, his other hand grabbing a bag at his waist and throwing it at Lu Aotian. Purple qi twisted within him and resonated with the miasma-infused durians within the bag. They exploded in a plume of organ-dissolving chemical gas, covering Lu Aotian entirely. Xie Jin turned around and fled toward the outer edge.

It was futile. He knew it was futile. And yet—

Xie Jin didn’t see the hand that slapped it, but he certainly felt the palm and all five fingers that imprinted themselves into his face. His head twisted to the side with a crack, and he flew through the air and landed heavily on the ground. His mind went black. He laid there, fading in and out of consciousness. An alien mind pressed against his fading one, glowing with purple qi and dragging him back to awareness.

Pain greeted him. His head rang like a thousand bells had been struck at the same time.  He couldn’t see out of one eye or feel the half of his face that’d gotten slapped. Blood dribbled from his mouth, and he coughed out a few teeth. He couldn’t move. All of that registered at once and overwhelmed him so much that he could only form a single coherent thought.

Why was his head still attached to his body?

Out the corner of his working eye, he could see Lu Aotian standing over him. Wisps of miasma covered him but were blocked by a teal aura that slowly receded and disappeared with the miasma into a silver pendant around his neck.

“A poison protection treasure. Of course.”

“So what if it’s an ambush?” Lu Aotian spoke into the medallion.“If they don’t have the raw power to kill us, then their plans are pointless.”

“Get stuck in one of those barriers and say that again,” said a deep voice that Xie Jin recognized as belonging to Pan Gong.

“If we still lose with how much force we have concentrated here, then at that point, we deserve to die,” Lu Aotian said.

“Die then,” Pan Gong said. “Don’t drag the rest of us into it.”

“Stop worrying.” Lu Aotian sat on Xie Jin’s back, causing his breath to flee his lungs in a painful gasp. “The fact that I’ve been allowed to roam so freely means they don’t have as much control over the Secret Realm as you think. If they did, then they would have focused on me first. I didn’t even realize we were being ambushed.”

“You— Have you not contacted anyone this entire time?”

“Am I someone who has to contact people? They contact me if there’s a problem.” Lu Aotion said the ridiculous sentence with a straight face as if it were as natural as the sun rising in the morning.

“You arrogant ass. This isn’t a situation for you to fool around in.” Pan Gong’s frustration was palpable through the medallion.

Lu Aotian narrowed his eyes. “Watch your tone, Pan Gong. Others might be intimidated by you being in the Palace School, but I am not one of them. I chose not to go because my potential was greater than that.”

“I will potentially beat the shit out of you. Focus on securing the situation and stop messing around.”

Lu Aotian clicked his tongue. “I’m already in the Center Ring. Once I’ve finished up my business, I’ll go see if this ‘Rattan Armor Army’ is worth the name.” He put away the Communication Medallion without waiting for Pan Gong’s response. Then without pausing, reached down and ripped off Xie Jin’s middle finger.

Xie Jin stared at his hand in disbelief. The sheer shock of the sight momentarily prevented him from reacting. Only for a moment, however.

He screamed.

“If you didn’t want that to happen, then you should use your appendages responsibly,” Lu Aotian said. He toyed with Xie Jin’s finger for a moment before tossing it into the air. A stream of red liquid qi rose from him and transformed into a wolf’s head that devoured his finger in one bite. “Now then. Where’s the Liquid Core Fruit?”

His nine fingers curled with such strength they dug into the earth as he fought through the pain.“I dropped it while I was running.”

“No, you didn’t,” Lu Aotian said. “If you actually did that, then I would just kill you and go look for it. You want to live, so you’ll do anything you can to buy yourself time.”

He grabbed Xie Jin’s bag and opened it. With his sense, it would be child’s play to note everything within, but Lu Aotian still upturned it and dropped all its contents onto the ground. It was a casual, unnecessary cruelty. The same kind that saw him keep Xie Jin alive rather than kill him instantly.

“Well?” Lu Aotian asked. “Summon your Gu. I’m waiting.”

Xie Jin gritted his remaining teeth. “You think I won’t kill myself rather than give you the satisfaction.”

“You won’t,” Lu Aotian said, with such surety that Xie Jin was left speechless. “That’s the surprising thing I’ve discovered. You can take a man’s hand, his arm, his eyes, and his ears, but he will bear all of that so long as he keeps his legs. As long as you believe you have the chance to run away, then you have hope. So long as you have hope, you will not die. Of course, as soon as you take a man’s hope away, he becomes akin to a cornered animal. That’s when they become the most dangerous.” Lu Aotian patted his legs, and Xie Jin’s heart leapt to his throat.” Not that you’re at all a threat to me. I could cripple you right now, and nothing you could do would make a difference. I won’t though. No need to form a bad habit.”

“Sick bastard.” It was all Xie Jin could day.

Lu Aotian did not look pleased. “I was magnanimous enough to tolerate your crude words before. My patience is not limitless.”

He reached down and ripped off Xie Jin’s Human-Skin Mask. Xie Jin impotently glared up at him. He could feel his Gu waiting for orders. A volcano ready to erupt.

“Consider this a mercy,” Lu Aotian said. “The world will see you die with your true face rather than a false image.”

Xie Jin’s fingers twitched. His Gu expanded its sense to encompass them. The tree’s rustled. Lu Aotian looked in the direction of the noise, and an arrow shot from the opposite one. Red qi rose into a tiger’s head and caught the arrow between its teeth. From the jungle emerged ten vine-armored soldiers straight from out of Xie Jin’s fairy tales.

The soldiers linked their shields and pointed shining spears at Lu Aotian. Behind them, the archer was speaking into a Communication Jade. “Reporting. Lu Aotian has been discovered. Location Central—”

Xie Jin’s world became a blur of whiplash and vertigo before his back very painfully crashed into a hard surface, and what felt like a dozen pythons began constricting him. He had a brief moment to realize what happened. Lu Aotian grabbed him by the ankle and, using his body as a club, smashed him across three shields whose vines immediately wrapped around him. Lu Aotian spun on his heel, still holding Xie Jin’s ankle. He heard a loud pop as his leg was dislocated and Lu Aotian threw him and three Rattan Armor soldiers, still clutching their shields, away in a single motion.

They fell in a heap. The soldiers were quick to recover. Xie Jin was not. One was kind enough to check on Xie Jin. Before his hand even touched Xie Jin, he let out a startled sound as he ran his sense over him.

“Are you the Black Bone Shaman?”

Why did they know who he was?

There was a bloodcurdling scream. Lu Aotian had torn the archer in half with his bare hands and, ignoring the other soldiers, turned to face Xie Jin. “Why do they know who you are?”

The soldiers leaped at Lu Aotian. Nine floods of liquid qi erupted on all sides. Red liquid qi rolled off of Lu Aotian in waves. Shapes arose from it. Lions, tigers, leopards, bears, wolves, and more came to life in a flood of beasts and ripped through the Rattan Armor Soldier’s liquid qi with tooth and claw before pouncing on them. Xie Jin gathered amorphous qi in his hands.

“Hey, Lu Aotian!” The amorphous qi darkened and then disappeared. In his hands was a silver pendant. Lu Aotian’s hand rose to his now bare neck. “The Liquid Core Fruit got eaten.”

Xie Jin’s Liquid Meridian Gu appeared above their heads and dropped a river of miasma atop Lu Aotian’s head.