For Whom the Bell Tolls

"There are signs of a battle over here too" I heard master Wu say clearly. "Perhaps he met a good beast on his hunt."

"I just hope nothing bad has happened to him" my worrying father added.

"Keep searching. These strange light beams have given me an unsettling feeling ever since they appeared."

"We'll find him Bai Ling. I'm sure we will."

No…I have to do something and fast.

I cannot let my family and friends be meddled with the affairs of my past life. I will not let it happen!

As I searched around me for a possible solution, I glimpsed at the beast eying me with a baleful look. When it looked back and forth at my worried expression, a triumphant grin widened on it and I knew what was in store.

I was useless and without means right now. Which meant if it wanted to change targets and target them instead, I could only watch silently as it slaughters them.

And it was indeed the scheme it had in mind.

The beast was intelligent enough to not only toy with me on several occasions, but know how to torture me as well.

"Don't you dare" I mouthed silently.

"See if I don't."

After its answer, the beast doubled back slowly and walked towards where the sounds came.

"LEAVE! LEAAAAAAAAVE!" I screeched and cried enough that I spat blood with every word. "QUICKLY FLEE! FATHER! MOTHER! EVERYONE! …LEAVE!"

But to no avail.

The screams only quickened our encounter.

"I can hear screams over there" Yun spoke and called the rest.

"NO! LEAVE!"

"I hear them too. Come this way."

"NOOOOOO!"

That was the last of my cracks that I could muster. My throat went strident and I lost voice within the fading of my warnings.

I coughed harshly.

The beast sniggered maliciously, looking back at me, then continued its approach.

Shit!

What can I do?

Their voices closed in, closer and closer, and the beast was too.

"Fuck! Fuck!" the little bit of strength I had left in my speech, I used to curse my misfortune. Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fu—"

A tingling sensation knocked me off my feet suddenly.

The area had been airless and suddenly filled with typhoons of winds again.

"Huh…" I stumbled on the ground and examined myself. "Qi! It is replenishing normally…but how—"

The hissing of the snake! It was now that I noticed its ceasing.

"Qi!"

My initial reflex was to look for senior Chu Qiang who was still pearled and writhing over the forest's bed.

He was not that far.

"Senior" I growled forcibly and dragged my body to him.

My remaining strength was just enough. Just the amount needed to reach the deathlike body from whom I hoped salvation would come.

"Senior" I grabbed his hand as it was the first thing I could reach first. "Please" I coughed, "don't be dead…"

I pulled myself properly and knelt beside him.

He looked pale but with the energies of the world back in the atmosphere there was a chance for him to recuperate.

But I needed him now. I was not able to condense qi properly and thus could not use the full extent of the techniques I learned. That realm was beyond my reach still.

Not senior though.

"Please…" I shook his head awake. He gazed absently at me. "Senior! I need you, I need your qi. My family they will…"

His eyes went shut again.

"No, no, no. Wake up again—"

I turned back.

It was almost there.

I shook Chu Qiang harder. He was stone cold and unresponsive.

But I rattled his shoulders still, tears running down from my eyes, unable to voice my sorrow in that moment.

"Stop…" he made an aching grimace.

His hand flew upwards and landed upon my chest. My upper clothes got reduced to pebbles of fibres instantly.

A golden light peered out, flashing everything around as if the sun itself landed close. An unstable buzzing distorted and disturbed everything that was filled with essence. The trees rustled and the atmosphere bore down on us so much that my head seared with ache.

The light show ended.

Senior Qiang's hand slipped from my chest and joined the rest of his body.

Underneath it, upon my chest, three words were written in golden characters, glowing and burning like a torch.

Essence Disturbing Toll.

"The Temporal Bell…" I gasped, still wheezing after that disturbance. "It reacted to his qi."

As I remembered correctly, to activate the single technique I acquired from the bell I needed to condense qi into my hand and slam my own chest. But essence condensation was not yet something I could do.

This changes everything…

I could use another cultivator's qi to use it.

"The beast is—"

Sure enough, it was frozen in ground, madly rubbing its head after what happened.

But why did I also feel the disturbance. I'm supposed to be impervious to my own attacks and does that mean senior Qiang will be affected?

I hope not.

Not that it would change anything if the enemy was not defeated. Both of us will die. All of us will die.

Not a chance!

"Senior!" I grabbed his arm once again and tried to shake him awake. "Give me your qi again. I beg you!"

He was unconscious once more.

I heard a snapping noise followed by a terrible roar. It was no longer targeting the others.

My goal was accomplished but—

It charged at us this time, unnerving.

It was getting closer and we barely had time.

"Come on. Come on. Come on. Come on…"

I spammed his hand over my chest while nothing happened.

It was ever closer now.

Another second and it would tear us apart—

BOOOOOOOONNNNNNGGGG!!!!!!

Another wave of disturbance broadened as the tintinnabulation of the Myriad-Faceted Temporal Bell tolled again upon activation.

"Shrieeeeeeeeekkkkkkk!" it was pushed back as if it slammed into an invisible wall in mid-air.

"Ahhhhhhhhhh!" Chu Qiang who was forcibly awoken from his unconsciousness screamed and clasped his ears desperately.

I too felt it.

It did not have the same effect on me as it did on them, but if I could rip off my own head to soothe the sensation then I would not waver a split second in doing so.

Vibrations surged out like a monastery's bell would after striking it once. But instead it kept coming out, throwing all balance in disarray.

"By the…" I pulled on the ends of my ears that they began bleeding, "this bell…" another wave came out and shocked me momentarily, "how powerful is it…"

If even I was this much affected by it, I cannot wonder what poor senior must be enduring.

Just a bit more.

Until we win…

Fortunately, it appeared as though the beast was not far from collapsing from the sheer pressure. Undoubtedly, the more qi you had within your body, the more affected you would be. It was comfort that I assumed the mosaic's beast had the most of it out of us.

(Of course more than me…)

But I feared senior would suffer the consequences of the power due to his dire condition.

"I need to speed things up."

In one last attempt, I slammed his hand one more time over the golden words but rather than a shockwave ensuing, his palm received several fissures and blood poured out. The cuts climbed up to his shoulder and dispersed all over him.

"Oh no…" I released him in a scare. "No, no, no. Don't die. Stay with me."

I rummaged his near-corpse state for anything that might heal him.

I found a pill. I shoved it down his throat.

Nothing happened.

The cuts tore faster, his life seeping away under my watch.

"What have I done…"

"What in the devil is happening here?"

With more tears escaping me, I turned around to find the newcomer.

Did my parents and friends arrive?

The beast is not dead yet. Chu Qiang is dying and they soon will suffer the same fate.

I failed everyone.

"Little Qiang? Lei Ba? What is happening?"

It was an old man.

He knew me and Chu Qiang, which meant he was…

"Master Gudu?" my words were clouded by my crying.

He had an arm tugged inside of his robe and was in a deep state of concentration in which he was resisting the pressure of the bell.

"Senior Qiang" I sniffed, "he's…I couldn't stop it…"

"Later child" he closed in on me, "now's not the time—"

I saw a gaping hole forming from his mouth, his eyes fixed on something behind me.

A large shadow covered me in that moment. Hesitant, I peeked slowly, only turning my neck around.

It stood upright behind me. The beast stood on its hind legs and was now towering high, its head brushing the end of trees' leaves. A pillar of death, its wrath now berserk.

"ROOOOOOOAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!"

Wounds popped open on its scaly-fury skin. It was bathed in red and had enough.

For the last time, I remained immobile, not an ounce of reason commanding me to act against it. My stare was blank.

"Oh no you won't."

His palm was blazing with a thick red aura. Gudu Xing Chen jumped over, his aim straightforward.

"Die for my disciple!"

His aim was true…but not on the beast.

The old man had instead struck me, directly on the words formed by the golden bell. The thick red blaze invaded my body ravenously. It was a dense and powerful qi I had yet to experience before. The sensation was similar to eating over your fill by a thousand fold and yet not wanting to puke the excess.

A toll reverberated one final time.

It was decimating unlike the first two ones produced from Chu Qiang's residual energy. The waves of vibrations splintered the trunks of nearby trees, blew up entire boulders, washed away the first layer of dirt and most importantly threw the monster into an excruciating, uncontrolled torture.

"SCREEEEEEeeecchhhhhh—" it screeched one more time before the strength in its voice faded gradually.

It slackened its fore limbs and gawked, a gaping mouth letting out a monotonous expiration.

Just like that, the heart we so hardly worked to destroy, burst in a blood spattering pop.

It swayed dizzyingly and landed back on its fours, not dead yet.

When it came to again, I was not the only one to hear its terrible voice.

"REVENGE! AHHHHH" it jumped around and away, "REVENGE!"

"My dear gods! It's still alive…" the old man shook terribly.

I was mystified by this as well.

"I'LL SHOW YOU REVENGE YUGRUS! I, ZAI SHI, WILL COME BACK FOR REVENGE! I WILL MAKE YOU SUFFER YUGRUS!"

Another minute more and it fled in the mist, no longer to be seen.

Even Gudu Xing Chen was on the edge of his seat after witnessing this creature not only speaking, but surviving its heart exploding.

When he was satisfied that it was not going to slyly ambush them, the master sighed in relief.

"Young man" he began, "I apologise for not making it sooner than this—"

But I collapsed.

The golden words on my body dissipated out of sight and my eyes rolled backwards, leaving whites for irises behind them.

"Kid!"

───────────────────

*Check the very first chapters at the very beginning for the Index*