v5c44: Will of the Weak

The drum thundered. The blazing inferno approached.

Everything is connected.

That was the first lesson Xiulan learned from Jin. It was a simple, yet profound, statement.

The fire began to dance in front of her eyes. The drums echoed in her head, yet they sounded like they were placed in a vast room, the sound bouncing off the walls, and trailing down hallways.

It was the fire dance of the solstice. The dance her ancestor, Cai Ruolan, had created to empower Tianlan in ages past. It was a shattered wreck of a formation. Its keystones were dust. The pathways that the song was supposed to resonate through were untuned.

Xiulan could feel it. She could feel it in the distance, the thunder of other drums. The slight resonance of other dances, performed across the length and breadth of the Azure Hills.

The people’s Qi still gathered. It still accumulated, following the ancient formation, yet it was unguided and would simply disperse instead of performing what it was created for.

… unless Xiulan could guide it. Unless she could once more bring part of the formation back into alignment—where once more, the formation would use that Qi to empower the land. To empower Tianlan.

We give to the Land, and the Land gives back.

The golden crack in Xiulan’s chest began to glow. Memories from the crystal and hours spent dancing with Tianlan in her dreams filled Xiulan’s mind. They stood upon the node of fire—and even though it had been broken by stone, they needed fire to correct it. They needed fire to begin the cycle. They needed fire to begin the resonance.

So, on the precipice of defeat, on the brink of losing the people she loved with all her heart, Xiulan stepped into the flames.

Her own Qi was of Grass, aligned with Wood, and so it would be kindling. She fed herself to the raging inferno. She amplified the fire, making the flames burn white and banish the shadow that the other cultivator had fed into it. The power spiked into the Spiritual Realm, a conflagration that could burn through mountains.

The fire was hungry. It was ravenous. It did not think, it only burned—and in doing so, Xiulan led it by the nose. In doing so, the fire moved the way she wanted it to. It moved to her beat.

It moved to the beat of the Azure Hills.

Xiulan’s blades burned to ashes, becoming dust on the wind as she fell to her knees. Every memory of her time here, every moment with Jin, Meiling, Bi De, Xianghua, Tigu, Yin, Gou Ren, and all the others burned in her mind.

Xiulan pressed her fist to the ground.

The beat of a drum echoed into it.

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Wood to Fire

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It touched Hong Yaowu first. It fed on the beat of their drums. It touched the fire they made, matching and synchronizing with it, before racing onwards.

In Verdant Hill, the people danced the dance of their ancestors. The Lord Magistrate led them for the first time, a smile on his face as the entire town followed his lead, the town pulsing and beating like a heart. To the astonishment of all, his wife, Lady Wu, joined them, leading the women of the town, her smile matching her husband’s.

They were mere mortals. The weakest of the weak. Yet they danced, the memory of a blazing flame the one thing that they had to battle against the terrors in the night.

They prayed, prayed for the sun to shine again.

The fire grew in strength.

It roared down dilapidated roads southeast, burning through obstructions and forcing its way down the only stable path; the path Tie Delun had followed to reach their home. The Dragon Veins here, even savaged, had always been solid and enduring, imbued with the strength of the Earth and then solidified to Metal.

The drums boomed off vaulted halls and echoed through the rusting spires. Here, the dance was slower and more solid. It lacked the frantic burning of the flame, yet every step remained on beat as the energy within aligned.

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Fire to Earth

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It was a long, long way south. The fire poured onward, down a golden artery that had been traveled many times. It was the most solid road the fire had, speeding it onward.

In Pale Moon Lake City, from the highest halls of the Imperial Palace to the back alleys of Fish Guts Lane, from the heart of the city to the far-flung farms in the outskirts, the people still kept the faith of their ancestors. Theirs was a dance like cutting blades and striking hammers, a ringing chorus.

Many of the steps had been changed. Many of the movements were imperfect. Yet their hearts were in it, the passion of an amateur that could inspire even the most jaded of Masters.

They shouted and cheered, they sang and they danced, their dreams filling the air, and pounding through the ground.

The fire was forged and shaped—and the very road it was traveling on began to hum.

And then it hit the Grass Sea.

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Earth To Metal

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The single stream of flame turned into a raging torrent that split and burned down a thousand different pathways. The fire followed along the routes scattering seeds took as they proclaimed their intention to unify the people of their home—and the routes where an Earth Spirit had followed, determined to protect her friends.

The Sects danced, trying to regain the knowledge of their ancestors.

The people danced, following tradition from time immemorial.

The Spirit Beasts danced, though most did not know why.

They danced for themselves. They danced for their ancestors. They danced for the province, united wholly for the first time in generations.

They, the weakest people of the weakest province, who had found a new dream to nurture, and a new hope for the future.

From one pulse, to ten, to a hundred, to a thousand, to a million, the fire spread, one beat thundering in Tianlan’s Dragon Veins.

The Qi within swelled. It began to quicken, flowing again like summer rather than the sluggishness of winter.

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Metal To Water

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The fire never stopped, following a path taken by a rooster. It touched the villages. It touched the few Sects that were that far north.

And it touched the Ash Forest, where the Blaze Bears danced, honouring their long-forgotten mother.

It sped north, back to the apex. Back to the beginning. Back where the first beat had sounded.

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Water to Wood

======================

Xiulan felt the power fill her. All she could hear was the thunderous beat. A smile came to her face. Both of her enemies froze, their eyes widening and their jaws dropping open.

After the fire, the grass grows again.

One, two, four.

Xiulan rose to her feet, and out of the burned desolated ground, new blades of grass grew, rising into the air. The fire-aspected one tried to attack her. His Qi blazed as he used a suicide technique, trying to take her out before she could bring her full strength to bear.

Eight, sixteen, thirty-two.

It was for naught. Xiulan took a step forward, catching his arm mid-swing. She looked into his eyes, seeing only rage and hate.

The blades of grass found new, fertile soil. She turned to the other one, but to her surprise, he was already fleeing—for Xiulan was not the only one who had risen. Tigu stood, her eyes burning in the darkness.

“Xiulan. Take care of Father, please. I’ll make sure nothing escapes.”

Xiulan smiled.

“Of course.”

Then Tigu was gone, on the hunt.

Sixty-four, one hundred twenty-eight.

The Qi within her kept growing. Yet… this power was not Xiulan’s. This blazing strength that filled her was not for her alone, even as she broke into the Spiritual Realm.

Two hundred fifty-six, five hundred twelve, one thousand twenty-four.

The entire clearing rumbled. The burned trees groaned. Charred and blackened pines burst with green growth. New saplings took root. In the blasted, cracked, and glassed ground, new shoots of actual grass thrust toward the Heavens.

Xiulan clapped her hands together and the blades began to weave, turning into a cloth mantle. She plucked a sword from the air and it split, forming a metallic fan. In the white interior, she saw her reflection. Red markings adorned her face, reminiscent of fierce war-gods.

The power within Xiulan reached a crescendo as she once more amplified it—

[The Harmony of Silk and Steel: Five Phase Samsara]

—and returned it to the earth.

=======================

Wood to Fire. Fire to Earth. Earth to Metal. Metal to Water. Water to Wood. Wood to Fire—

With each turn of the cycle, the flame went forth again, each time stronger than the last.

The gold roads blazed. The drums hammered into the golden veins, pulsing stronger and stronger, resonating from the top of the Azure Hills to the bottom.

The thumping pulse hit the borders of the province and swelled even more. They followed the repairs Tianlan had made, trailing after her Connected Ones. The Dragon Veins were the most whole they’d been since The Breaking.

The whole of the Azure Hills resounded with the same beat, thumping like a newborn’s heart, and matching with the breath of the world.

===========================

Deep, deep beneath the earth, in a cozy little cottage, Tianlan gasped and opened her eyes, the thunderous roll of drums hammering in her soul.

She held her head, confused, the emotions of her Connected Ones pouring into her. Their panic. Their feelings of dread.

… there were enemies in her home. There were enemies attacking what was hers.

Tianlan rose, her heart beating with the thunder of the drums. She stepped out from her home and patted the head of the little snowman that stood at attention, waiting for her arrival.

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All across the farm golden lights burned, reaching for the Heavens.

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“It’s okay, it’s okay. Mama’s here,” Meiling whispered to her son as she rocked him in her arms.

Zhyue’s tears slowed as he looked at her smile. His hands reached out for her face.

“My, my. The Heavens are watching out for us,’ Miantiao breathed.

She could feel the snake’s heart thundering in his chest as he stared at the red smear on the ground that had once been an attempted infiltrator. Vajra buzzed with exhaustion from where she hovered. Golden light surrounded them all.

“Auntie Mei, Auntie Mei, are you alright?!” The breathless form of the Torrent Rider stumbled into the room, followed closely behind by Huo Ten and Shaggy Two, both covered in blood— thankfully, not their own.

“I’m alright,” Meiling whispered. She closed her eyes, feeling as her Qi expanded once more, brushing against the others and cataloging injuries.

She felt Tianlan’s Qi…and drew on a dream about an old man who was knowledgeable in medicine.

[Yan Emperor’s Herb and Root Garden]

The entire world took on a green tint. Beside her, the Torrent Rider and Huo Ten gasped as all the cuts and cracked bones they had received started healing rapidly. The poisoned blood on the ground hissed and screeched, burning away.

=================

Chixia raised a poisoned spear as she approached the crater where the big man was on his knees.

The golden light around him suddenly exploded, and the man rose to his feet. Every wound in his body filled in with golden light. Chixia staggered backwards as faltering Medicinal Qi within him suddenly surged, spiking back into her own technique and sending her reeling.

They had to finish this now. Rong raised his arms, more strings connecting the Spirit to Huian.

[Poison Butterfly Arts—]