Threads 263-Yonder 4

The young beast regarded her in shock, the old one with consideration. “Be wary,” Changin warned. “Their power crumbles artifice and severs law. They devour the breath and souls of the living.”

“If their appetites are like others of that kind, I may appear most appetizing,” Gan Guangli thought aloud as the beasts fled for their manor-dam.

“I do not think we are dealing with typical spirits of darkness and want,” Ling Qi said. “It flies. You’ll be at a disadvantage.”

“True, and while I trust Miss Ling to bring it down, I have my counters. If Miss Ling prefers to hold its attention for a time, I may chain it to the earth and perhaps capture it.”

Ling Qi eyed the glint in the sky that had taken off from the top of the distant glacier. They had a minute or two at most before it arrived, especially if they were to avoid damaging the dam. “If the beast was right, trying to hold it might be very difficult. Are you certain about using yourself as bait?”

“Miss Ling, I am aware that my cultivation has fallen behind. That is why I suggested this plan. A predator is more likely to strike for a meal it believes it can swallow. You’ve decided then?”

“I don’t think a capture now is worth risking the collateral damage to our new neighbors, and… by these beasts’ own words, there is an infestation.”

“I have never heard of a single creature called an infestation before,” Gan Guangli agreed.

Ling Qi gave a terse nod, and then they were on the move, her flying, and Gan Guangli following with a powerful leap that carried him across the lake. He began to leak his qi into the air, trailing streamers of light from the joints in his armor. Ling Qi did the opposite, flitting into the shadow of the canopy of trees on the lake’s other side.

Above, the gleaming light took a lazy turn, following their trail as Gan Guangli ran and ran.

In the shadows of the branches, Ling Qi dissolved herself entirely. Compared to her earliest attempts at this, it was now as easy as breathing. Formless as a spring breeze, weightless as a shadow, in that moment, she ceased to be, and yet, she could still see and hear.

Gan Guangli landed atop a white and chalky structure that rose high among the trees, a boulder or perhaps, an ancient bone. It crunched under his boots, raining pebbles, and Gan Guangli staggered, a wheeze of breath escaping his lips. Even his qi fluctuated wildly.

For just a moment, Ling Qi actually worried, before she realized it was a ruse in the same vein as what he had done against Lu Feng.

“A wise soldier knows deception is an invaluable tool. An enemy who sees what they wish to see rather than what is has already defeated themselves.”

The voice in her mind was not Sixiang’s, but a deep, smooth masculine baritone.

“Yeah, yeah, keep telling yourself it’s all about practicality, you solar tightwad,” Sixiang grumbled, even as colors spun themselves into bloodied wounds and skin flushed with exertion across Gan Guangli’s body. “You have as much fun with this as we do.”

“A well considered stratagem is hardly a lunatic whim.” This voice could only be that of Gan Guangli’s bound spirit. “But then again, you are remarkably restrained.”

<Ling Qi, you’ve ruined me. I’m getting compliments from a solar!> Sixiang complained to her privately.

If Ling Qi had lips, she would have smiled, but she left the good-natured bickering of spirits for what it was. The enemy was approaching. It was descending, having begun to dive as Gan Guangli pretended to catch his breath. It was a good ruse.

She got her first look at the creature then. It had the vague silhouette of an eagle or a condor, but only in vague terms. It was like something Biyu might squash together from a handful of clay and present as a “bird.” It had no feathers, only slick, transparent flesh that had the texture of a maggot. Its wings were thus nothing more than misshapen membranes, shot through with twitching, pulsing veins of wormy color. Shapes that might be bones or organs squirmed within its body, distorted by the light passing through, but its transparent flesh darkened to a deep gray where taloned feet emerged, more like sickle blades of bone rather than something that could be walked on. Worst was the beast’s “head,” which was nothing more than a wedge-like lump lined with four pairs of beady eyes.

As the spirit dove, that head split apart into four sections lined by crystalline teeth, exposing a black gullet full of glimmering rainbow color that seemed to have little to do with its physical form. The sound that erupted from that well of nauseating color could not be called a roar or a screech, but only a horrible, indefinable noise so high as to be at the very edge of hearing. Ling Qi saw the trees themselves bending as if to sway away from it.

Gan Guangli turned atop the stone, already crossing his arms in front of him.

Chaotic light erupted from the beast’s open maw.

It scoured the air, a line of eye-searing colors, and yet it did not tear up the earth or kick up a storm of winds. Instead, in its wake, brush and soil became a drifting dust that glimmered in the same sickening color, and trees disintegrated, branches withering and needles also crumbling to the same choking gray dust.

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She saw the light engulf Gan Guangli, and she felt Sixiang wince as their woven illusion came apart. She trusted Gan Guangli to weather it though. The beast hung in midair, its membranous wings pushing down to maintain its position, mouth opened and reared back.

Ling Qi materialized above the beast, and the gale of her raised voice struck it like a hammer. The moist air froze in a spontaneous sheet of sleet. But it didn’t fully reach the creature. She could feel her qi unraveling around the creature, weakening the effect. This strange defense did not affect the mist billowing out among the trees.

Still, the beast was not helpless. Even with parts of its ghastly flesh blackening with frostbite, it spun on her in defiance of its form, turning in the air as easily as she did, and Ling Qi felt her eyes sting as it closed the distance without moving, its four part jaws trying to snap shut around her head.