Threads 72-Interlude-Shockwaves

It was weird how something as grating as stone scraping across metal could seem tranquil. Then again, thought Su Ling, before today, she’d never really thought about what higher cultivation meant.

She breathed in time with the scrape of the whetstone across the blade laid across her lap and glanced up at the tremendous barrier of stone a few meters beyond the border fence she had parked herself on. It curved up and up, a vast dome that contained the whole town and its immediate outskirts. Su Ling had seen Elder Ying reshape the landscape before, dropping a whole section of the forest to create a new valley. But somehow, it hadn’t really clicked until today.

Her ears twitched in agitation as she closed her eyes and echoes of what she’d seen throughout the day. She remembered the miasmic haze of illusory qi twisting whole sections of the forest into inescapable labyrinths. She remembered a whole section of the forest flipping up like a trapdoor and arachnid limbs reaching out to drag centipedes bigger than houses underground. She remembered the ground writhing with gross fungal things boiling up from the valley only to be torn apart by lashing branches and roots or dragged down squealing and screaming to be re-entombed in the earth.

<It is frightening, but you performed beautifully, my master. Through your benevolence, lives were saved, and is that not enough?> Su Ling felt the weight on her head shifting, tiny claws finding purchase in her thick, curly hair.

“That’s one way to look at it, Ci,” she drawled, glancing up to see her spirit’s fuzzy snub-nosed face peering down at her. Mostly, it just reminded her how irrelevant she was.

<Please do not shorten my name, Master. I am proud to be Cibei, the mercy which raises up those trodden upon by injustice!> the little bat said with a frustrated squeak. Though she was early second realm now, the spirit hadn’t grown much larger. She wasn’t the type for that, and that suited Su Ling just fine.

“Just fuckin with ya,” she snorted, looking back down at her sword. With a sigh, she tucked the whetstone away; she was just going to damage her blade if she kept going. “I know we helped people. Don’t need you being my hype girl.”

<On the contrary, Master! Here you sit, morose on the eve of victory. My words are obviously needed!> her mouthy spirit rebutted.

“Yeah, well,” Su Ling began, only for her ears to flick as she heard familiar heavy footsteps.

“So this is where you went to hide, Miss Su!” She grimaced, her ears lying flat against her skull as Gan Guangli’s booming voice reached her.

“It sure is,” she said dryly, not turning around to look at him. Him and his guys might have been the only ones to follow her after the elders had declared the truce reinstated on pain of expulsion.

“And why should the heroine of the hour be alone at a time like this?” Fucking hells. how could anyone pack that much pep into their voice? Gan was like a big dumb puppy. At least he had enough respect for her space to stop a few steps away.

“Your lot are the ones who did most of the work,” she retorted gruffly, prompting Cibei to let out a high-pitched squeak of protest.

“Though it shames me, without your words, I would not have thought to come here,” Gan Guangli replied, dropping the overblown pep for a moment. “In my complacency, I thought to fortify my own with no thought that the Sect might need aid.”

Oh, the Sect didn’t, but the town did. She’d been down in that pit with Suyin enough that she knew earth and rock weren’t much of a barrier to those things. When she’d scented that oily, rotten stink on the air, she’d had a bad feeling that the dome Elder Ying had raised would not be enough. The town never had too many soldiers in it at the best of times. “A messenger ain’t a hero,” she shot back stubbornly.

“I dare you to walk through the outer village, look upon the faces of the people there, celebrating their survival, and say so,” Gan Guangli said calmly. She hunched her shoulders, scowling. Somehow, she liked him better when he was acting like a feckless moron. “While it is true that I and my followers fought the most, your divination guided us. Where would we be without our eyes?”

Her gut had been right. Mighty as an elder’s power was, with everything going on, some things had wormed through the gaps. Those things beneath the notice of the titans clashing outside, but for a bunch of mortals, a few first realm things crawling out of their basements and sewers weren’t so trivial. The town center was safe, guarded by soldiers, but there just weren’t enough to cover the whole town.

“Maybe I just don’t like company.” She refused to argue with him anymore. “They can celebrate better without people like me reminding them of how bad things almost got.”

“Mm, a good point perhaps!” Gan Guangli said cheerfully. Her stomach sank as she heard the thump of his armored behind hitting the ground with a crash like a cart falling off its wheels. “Powerful cultivators are often intimidating even when we do not mean to be!”

“Can you just not take a hint or what?” Su Ling finally asked, glancing over her shoulder.

“I am told that I am obtuse at times,” Gan Guangli agreed. The sturdy fence creaked ominously as he leaned against it a few paces away. “If you wish me to leave, I will do so, Miss Su. You have but to ask.”

“Do what ya want,” Su Ling grumbled. turning her gaze back to the wall of stone. Cibei laughed at her.

There was a long silence. Su Ling had to hand it to Gan. The oaf was stubborn; she’d never heard him be quiet for this long. “Why’d you come? Truce is on, but that just means no violence. Lu Feng’s boys have probably taken a bunch of your shit by now.”

“I think you underestimate Miss Xiao somewhat,” Gan Guangli said. “However, it is irrelevant. Resources can be regained. If we cannot safeguard our people, then what good are we?”

“Bet that’s not how you’ll put it in your report to the boss,” Su Ling replied dryly.

“It is precisely how I will put it, if perhaps in more formal prose,” Gan Guangli laughed. “Lady Cai has no use for sycophants among her direct servants. I follow her because her beliefs mirror mine. No, rather, my beliefs are built from hers.”

She glanced at him out of the corner of her eye. “That so,” she said, making her disinterest clear.

The oversized boy raised his hands in defense. “I am not here to lecture or expound.”

“So you’re not still trying to recruit me?” Su Ling asked sarcastically.

“Of course I am. You are a courageous and virtuous woman. I would be most pleased to have you on my side.” The cheeky fucker grinned at her.

Su Ling tilted her head, letting her long hair cover the dusting of color that rose on her cheeks. Stupid instincts. “Whatever. Not interested in playing soldier.”

“As you wish, Miss Su,” he said, falling silent.

Her insights were vague things at the best of times. She wasn’t going to subordinate herself, Su Ling thought, looking out at the blank expanse of stone, but she couldn’t help but feel that something fundamental had shifted. She didn’t know the details of what had happened, but there was blood in the air, drums in the sky, and howls under the earth. She couldn’t stay the same.

“Enough with the ‘Miss’ garbage. My name is Su Ling. Use it.”

***

“You have not taken my advice,” Gu Yanmei said evenly, seated on the divan beside her. Despite her perfectly composed tone, the words still managed to sound accusing.

Gu Xiulan hunched her shoulders, her lips pressed together in a thin line. Her hair hung in loose ringlets around her shoulders, unstyled and wild. She kept her eyes fixed on the wall ahead. Her sister’s house was richly appointed, its steel walls covered by tapestry and decoration.

She could not say that she was appreciating the decor much at the moment. Xiulan did not flinch as her sister peeled away a portion of burnt and ruined flesh from her arm with a surgical instrument, a pair of silver graspers etched with characters of cleanliness and purity. It was good that she had grown inured to the scent of burning flesh and fat. The piece her sister had removed joined the rest of the irrecoverable pieces of skin and muscle in the bowl.

Even now, her arm was a ruin. With the bandages off, it was revealed as a burned husk. If she looked, Xiulan knew she would see places where bone was visible and burned with pale blue flames. Snapping currents of lightning ran where veins should have been, and sparks popped and snapped through gaps in her blackened skin.

Only as her elder sister set her tool down and began to unroll a new set of aromatic silk bandages did Xiulan finally answer. “I made the attempt. It does not fit my Way.”

“Your Way will lead to an early grave, sister,” Yanmei said, not looking up at her as she began the laborious process of re-wrapping Xiulan’s arm.

On the Sect mission, the world had shook apart, the sky had split open, and the rain had turned into a hail of stone from a broken mountain. Above her, Elder Sister had hovered on burning wings like a phoenix from the family’s tales, wrapping them in heat. Ling Qi had collapsed like a puppet with its strings cut, and she had dived to catch her friend before she struck the ground, ignoring the shriek of agony that the sudden motion sent through her tattered nerves.

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Power had washed over her. Even through Elder Sister’s aura, she had felt the crushing weight of it. The earth shook again, and before her eyes, another mountain had crumbled. Icebreaker Peak had tumbled down like a child’s tower of blocks, thousands of tons of stone collapsing as the full breadth of the thing within was revealed. It had been a sea of grey and black flesh, a million hungry maws and agonized eyes rolling in madness, mindless tendrils the size of towers thrashing wildly against everything in reach. She had felt her stomach churn merely from looking at it.

Her sister’s aura had flared like a second sun, and then, she had left, a boom of thunder passing in her wake, but the warmth of her aura remained, cradling her, cradling them, protection from the madness of the world outside. She had seen the faces of the soldiers who had fought with her twisted in desperation and fear. She had heard them praying to the great spirits and their ancestors.