Collapsed Field

For the first time since he died, Zero dreamt.

He dreamt of an awfully sweet room, of flower lanterns that floated, of crying in pain for his endangered child.

He dreamt of being envious enough to kill a friend, of jealousy that drove him into eternal guilt. He felt the pain of piercing loss and the weight of countless secrets.

Many emotions toppled against others sending him into a torrent of confusion. There was spite, fear, anger, loss, love, failure and joy. Every one of these feelings tugged at his mind.

He could hear echoes of hundreds of souls. They cried in unison within him, begging release. His body was their cage, a burning fleshy hell.

Free us, they screamed in unison.

Free us!

Countless faces that blended into the shadows of the void inside of him. Empty, lifeless eyes that stared at him from the beyond he had sent them to.

They could never reincarnate. Not while he lived.

Their shrill screams drowned him so even the unconscious state felt as much of a prison as his reality.

With a short gasp for air, he awakened.

He was moving. That was the first thing he noticed. And the speed at which he was moving was almost inhumane; the shapes and colours of everything in the background had melted into each other.

In his drowsy state, he looked up, seeing the blurred face of the black jade.

His head felt extremely light and being awake hurt all over.

The beast behind wailed loudly and stomped with its tail vigorously, sending tremors through the atmosphere. The dreadful storm had not passed but had only grown fierecer. The entire place smelt of corruption and death.

Zero's head swayed. Amidst all these things, several feelings tore him from the inside, uncontrolled. The eye was pulsing and felt hot underneath his skin. The discomfort pushed him to groan softly. Daiyu looked down at the boy.

He was awake. Unbelievable but true. His eyes were unfocused, he was probably having a hard time processing anything.

Her speed increased immensely, determined to get out of the dead field. Heaven's peak range was just a half mile away. Not only did she have the chance to find that Piece, but she had the valuable boy and some information.

The Bao inn was planning something grand. They had sent men all the way from River's End to this wretched place.

Surely they could get resources in such a big city... except these resources were illegal to fetch and they needed outlawed materials. Corpses for example, or living yang energy for Grade S weapons. Daiyu's jaw clenched.

Things were getting dangerous. The implication of this event meant that the inn was preparing something catastrophic. She had never taken the Bao inn lightly and with the new practice of yin, they had become an extreme threat. It did not matter, though, she thought. As long as she found the Piece first and held onto this invaluable host.

The host in question, had no idea what was going on. He couldn't understand why he had been attacked or what this strange magic was.

It had drained him of the blood and water in his body. If it had continued, he would have died on the spot, having no chance against such a paralyzing move.

His head spun, and his gritted his teeth. He preferred the pain of being awake to whatever it was waiting for him on the other side.

Daiyu was slowing down, he noticed. Her breaths were coming in short puffs and he could feel her overheating body through her robe material.

The stale, cool winds did not lower her temperature at all.

"S-senior, stop." He managed to say, throat dry. She ignored him or simply couldn't hear over the whistling wind.

Zero watched the lady is slight guilt. She had sacrificed her life to save his. He could only feel as though he was a burden.

He was far too weak to help in this situation. He could not even walk through the sludge before. In his state, he'd probably fall and die.

Suddenly, ankthee earth shattering stomp sliced through the wind's noise and a mighty roar resounded.

Daiyu turned to see the great leech swelling to an abnormal size. Around it were tendrils of brown and black fumes gathering from the atmosphere.

Dark mana.

"Shit. Shit. Shit."

Although yin cultivators practiced with dark mana, it was unimaginably dangerous and could not be absorbed in its pure form. Such concentrations...

The thing was going to blow. She inhaled and sped, seeing the path to the valley ahead. It was not far along now.

Static electricity from the clouds above sizzled as the dark mana saturation increased.

Zero looked above seeing the once grey sky turn a pitch black.

The creature roared, and its mighty tail struck against the mush once more.

Boom!

An incredible burst of energy spread in all directions as the monster exploded, clearing the snow, surface sludge and sending huge bits of flesh flying. A blood shower mixed with the green snow fell, reducing visibility by another fold.

Daiyu had thought the energy burst was not powerful enough to reach them two miles away.

But she was wrong.

The aftershocks came their way and left them without room to brace for impact. Like paper dolls, Daiyu and Zero flew forward, propelled by wind and reminant energy, straight towards the rocky ravine.

The golden core cultivator managed to activate an armor talisman and a shimmery blue light covered her. In the chaos, Zero had been flung from her arms and could not be seen at all.

The woman crashed into a small buildup of rocks but the impact was absorbed by the armor which disintegrated a bit after.

Zero on the other hand crashed into a huge boulder far west of Daiyu, shoulder first, shattering the bone. He cried out in agony and slid to the ground, panting. His eyes were reddened and he felt a sudden immense disgust over himself.

There was anger and there was pain. Which was his emotion, he could not even distinguish.

His hands were shaking as he struggled to breathe. You weakling.

He looked over the dead field. It looked like the sludge was moving backwards in a clockwise motion, creating a whirlpool. The ground he was on was solid but he could feel tremors beneath it.

He had to get moving. With a pained grunt he stood. His legs shook and his knees bucked as he walked but he pushed on. The pain in his arm, the loss of his strength. Nothing was compared to the pain of being tormented by the souls of your victims from the inside.

All these physical wounds did not matter. He had to get hell off his back. He could already feel the temptations of the echo. He could hear it. He was ignoring the sinister voice with all his might but who knew how long he could preserve.

"Senior! " He called, looking for Daiyu. There was no way she would hear him because of the loud wind. The storm did not let him see far either.

The dead field was collapsing. He had to move along. He turned away from the pool of decay and dragged his feet through a small path between stacks of boulders.

He trudged forward for a while until he came upon a joining path and found Daiyu walking in front. He followed tiredly in her footsteps. The golden core cultivator turned to see the boy, an arm hanging low, head down, reduced to a skeleton.

All this but still moving. What was his motivation?

Never once had this boy stopped. Not once through their journey had he complained of fatigue or asked to rest unless she initiated it.

He was always staring into the distance, always frozen in thought, silver eyes lost in space as who knew what it was, went through his mind.

She turned back facing the path ahead.

"Alive, boy?" She called back to him.

He nodded although she could not see.

"Keep your head down and don't lag behind."

And in silence they walked on. A burnt black jade and an unyielding skeleton boy.

Behind them, the mush of the dead swirled down.