Chapter 2: The Plague

He gasped awake to the sound of ripping and tried to sit up. Ian's eyes were wide as saucers Then he saw them, they were skinning him alive. Ian's breathes hitched. He had to get out and leave this place, but he couldn't move. Something was holding him down. Struggling did nothing, he didn't have the strength to move his arms. Ian screamed to deaf ears. Wooden creatures moved about ripping at his body. Cold hands tore blackened flesh away from him and then sprayed him with a green fluid. Where the fluid touched bursts of agony shot through him.

He didn't know where he was! Where was his mother, his sisters, and his father? This wasn't his home. How did he get like this? More green spray seared his legs. Ian screamed again.

"Stop, please," Ian begged but the creatures didn't care. They continued their work at a mechanical pace. He couldn't move or get away. Where was his family?

It hit his as they said tribulation lightning used to. He shook his head. With every gasping breath he wanted to deny the last four days happened.

His mouth opened. "No," Ian groaned out. "Stop it," Tears fell from his eyes as the situation finally sunk in. Everything was coming back. "I don't want to remember."

…

Foam poured out of his horse's mouth and he kicked her. She had to go faster every second counted. He was almost there. The physicians were warned, and they would come with their flame throwers and exorcists. One brave physician had risked his life and position to give him a single cure. With it one person could be saved from the infection so long as they weren't too far gone. They let him go and he had to hurry. If he could get there before them maybe his whole family could be saved.

He heard the roar of the infected. Men, women, and children with thick black veins covering their bodies screeched and charged at him. Their mouths were bloody from recent kills. Two of the females showed bulges of late stage pregnancy while the younger girls were only just showing. That was the fate of his mother and little sister if he didn't hurry. A sacrifice had to be made.

The infected dug into his horse. A final sacrifice given by the old plow mare to help his family. He buried his knife into Fan Jia's face and back away from the knife as infectious blood splattered. He knew her, she, he had to get to his family. The time of infection was important. He knew he would die from the infection, but the timing had to be right or he couldn't save anyone.

Ian had to kill his horse to get back home. He'd given the warning. The physicians would be here soon. They would save them. All he had to do now was separate his family from the vines. If they were separated from the contagion, then everything would be ok.

He'd been gone too long; the red vines had swallowed his home. The walls were rotted with black veins of infection and the vines looped in and out of the walls. Flowers had opened along the vines. They were fragile white lilies the color of snow with red stamen. It wasn't like this three days ago.

If you see the red stems on the white lilies, you're already dead. He could see them clearly. There was one cure in his bag given to him by the physicians. He'd save his little sister.

Ian rushed into the house and pushed open the door. A rush of red pollen blasted him. He sneezed and knew it was in his lungs already setting root. Soon he'd be another mindless drone of the infected. The walls were covered in fleshy growths covered in electrical blue veins. The mass had bubbled up from the cellar. He rushed to his sister's room and tried to push it open. The door was either locked or barred.

"Meili its me open up. I have the cure one for each of us. We have to get out of here.�� Ian said.

"I don't believe you." She shouted.

"Hahaha, we'll get you eventually More Meili." The voice was his, but it buzzed from the vines like vocal cords. The sound rattled the walls and his head.

"I'm here open the door. Let me save you please." Ian begged.

"My brother isn't coming back. He'll live on and someday put an end to you. I'm sure I can hold out until the physicians arrive and burn you." The vines cackled at that.

"We are more than what is in this house. Join us feed us your blood. Give in and become one with us. Don't you want to live forever?" It spoke with his voice. The vines words were in his voice.

"Oh, son you're back." A duel toned voice said. Ian nearly vomited on the spot. He gagged and choked at what had become of his parents.

Their flesh had been fused together in a grotesque amalgamation of man and woman. A bloated womb with a glowing fetus bulged from the creature's abdomen. The fetus struggled and pushed against the thin flesh.

"Do you want to feel the baby kick?" The creature asked. Nero gripped his head.

"The heavens are blind." Nero gasped. All around him laughter erupted.

Seeing what had become of his parents broke something in him. He collapsed on to the dirty floor and felt his sanity stretch to its limits. Ian opened his mouth in a silent scream. The heavens were a lie. They didn't exist in this world.

"Then man shall take their place." Suddenly, a large figure with demonic bull like horns and three eyes stood beside him. Its flesh was black as night and it stood imposing as if the world could come down upon it and it'd rise above. It reached out and grasped his hand. When he grasped the creature's hand a surety of purpose swept over him. He'd save one person. Just as the figure appeared, it vanished.

Ian shook out of the delusion. The sight before him meant his parents were dead and this entity was parading their corpses around. A cold sense of purpose slowly settled over him. The creature's legs were fragile from the increased growths and weight. It was nothing more than a walking incubator.

He yanked off a rotten table leg and bashed it into the monster's leg. The bone snapped and the creature fell over.

"Ian, why would you do that to me." The creature had changed. It resembled his mother again when she carried Meili. For a moment it felt like he was a child of five instead of the man of seventeen.

He'd always liked to start fires back then.

"Don't you remember me. I used to read stories of immortal heroes to you every night. Every morning I sang to wake you." She proceeded to sing. It made him hesitate. He knew she couldn't be saved. Every fiber of his being knew this was a trap. But it was his mother.

"This isn't fair." Ian shouted. It lunged at him and shattered the illusion. He broke the table leg on its face.

"Help me. I can't move my face hurts. Where's your father?" Ian picked up a jar of cooking oil and smashed it against her face. He struck one of the last matches in the house and ripped the family tapestry from the wall. It was a paper family tree of a century of More family laws, members, and achievements. This was their connection to the past. Once this was burned there was no going back. The More family as he knew it was dead.

He lit the tapestry with a match and threw the flaming remnants on his oil-soaked parents. The oil quickly caught, and they screeched with inhuman laughter. He turned just in time to see his sister's room open. She rose from her bed covered in black veins from the infection. It didn't look out of hand yet.

"Ian is that really you." Her tear crusted eyes widened.

"I have the cure." He fumbled in his bag and withdrew it. Just as he handed the cure to his sister, the monster rose aflame Ian lifted the rotten table and tackled the monster. It struggled while the fire continued to burn hotter from the oil. Soon the monster below him stopped struggling and he got off the table.

Meili took hold of the cure and held it to her temple as the instructions suggested. She pushed down on the plunger and he heard a chink sound. His sister froze then collapsed.

Ian rushed to her side and flipped her body over. Her eyes were already glazed over with death. The vines rumbled around him with laughter and he laughed as well.

The physicians were shocked to find his body was clean of infection. He had a unique blood type that made him immune to the infection. With nothing else to lose he chose to climb the mountain outside his village and risk his life at a chance of becoming a qi expert.

…

Slowly, hours flew by and turned into days. Horribly scarred skin grew back in place of where the dead black skin was removed. Day by day the feeling in his left arm returned until he had full mobility. In less than a week he stood up from his bed and walked.

Ian passed through a large stone archway and crossed 108 marble columns to the feet of a kindly old man in white robes. With nowhere else to go Ian kowtowed before the qi expert and waited. For hours he waited on his knees before the expert until finally the expert spoke.

"You have patience that will serve you well. More Ian of the More family, I've been a friend of your family for generations. I trained the only More's to ever become qi experts in your family yet both disappointed me. Will you fail me too?" The elder asked.

"No great master, I will dedicate my life to your teachings."

"You set fire to a roc nest to light your incense. That shows a bad mix of dedication and short sightedness. The heavens are blind to sacrifices. They have been for seventeen years cursed child. Demons may one day rule this world and the time for heavenly champions are over. If you stay be prepared to cultivate bitterly without the aid of heaven." The elderly cultivator pulled out a pamphlet and tossed it to him.

"Profound Atlas Refinery Technique," Ian read aloud.

"I am Hu Jian the elder in charge of healing in the Atlas sect. You'll find that hard work will get you far here." The elder said.

A small squat wooden golem waited for him outside. "Until you reach Aura Foundry you are a servant." It handed him an axe. Each morning you will follow the other servants to the woods to chop down trees and harvest wood. Exchange wood for sect points. Trade sect points for resources." The wooden puppet said before tossing him an axe.

"Follow me." It led him to the servant's quarters. He had a bed, and an oil lamp. There were no sheets or a pillow only a straw mattress. The oil lamp was beat up and looked like it had seen better days.

He turned the oil lamp on and read the pamphlet several times. After reading the book and closed it, he was disappointed. What it suggested was both profound and flawed by its very nature. It was a cultivation technique reliant upon the heavens that couldn't use the heavens. As an outsider new to the sect he recognized the flaw which meant the elders probably did too.

Ian didn't get it. He stood up and left the servants quarters to explore the area a little. Under the moonlight he came upon three statues. One consumed, another stood full, and the last defecated. Something about the statues left him transfixed.

Nothing made sense to him. The profound atlas technique didn't feel right to him. It relied upon the conceptial weight of the heavens to act as a grindstone to refine qi into something useful. The heavens were locked away.

An hour past while he pondered the meaning behind the statues. He turned his head to the side to see a white dress wearing girl his age. Needless to say, he jumped ten feet and immediately became self-conscious of his scars.

"Do you like the statues?" She asked.

"Yea, they really are something." Ian said.

"When I hit a bottle neck, I like to come out and look at them. They're the perfect metaphor. As cultivators we learn many different techniques, take what is useful, and throw out the rest. For some reason no one visits them." She said.

"Why are you out so late?" Ian asked.

"While the day is nice, I live for the night. There is something about this time that fills me with life."

"So, if something doesn't fit, I should throw it out. What if I can't find anything to replace it?" Ian asked.

"Then you are no worse off. Sometimes its better take a part out rather than leave it to throw off the harmony of the greater machine." She said.

���I'm More Ian it was nice to meet you." He turned to see she had vanished.

Ian thought about what she said and about the three statues. What could he replace the heavens with?

Despite how complicated the question seemed to be the answer was simple. He consumed chaotic qi, digested what parts benefited him, and expelled the rest. If he couldn't crush the qi into a digestible slurry, then why not mince it?

He followed the exercises and felt with his will for the wild qi around them. Despite his desire and his will, he couldn't feel the qi around him. Just as the sun began to rise, he went to sleep.

Ian was woken quickly by a gong and took his axe to follow the servants out. He found his tree and began chopping. His days in bed and an empty stomach hadn't done him any favors. There were wild chickens all over the forest, but he wasn't fast enough to catch them. He kicked over a log and heard the tell-tale rattle of a blue throat rattlesnake.

In his hunger he struck with his axe without thinking. The head of the snake came off along with some of the coils. Its tail jumped and began coiling around the axe. There was no chance he'd start a fire and he remembered seeing someone steal a chicken earlier.

He cut a line in the snake's skin with his axe and took off the skin before biting into the raw meat. It might have been a long shot to hope none of the venom would get into his system. After a few bites his stomach stopped troubling him and he fell over. He felt nauseous and his heart wouldn't stop pounding in his chest.

If his heart rate didn't slow down, he'd die. That was a certainty. Desperately, he reached for qi. His body was in chaos if he couldn't find a way to help himself soon, that was it. Ian would never have his revenge and his family would have died for nothing.

His mind touched something wild. It raged like a hurricane and swirled just beneath his notice. It was like white noise he'd experienced his whole life. Only when his body was in utter torment could he notice what was going on around him. The world was transformed into a chaotic war of concepts and ideas manifested as energy forced into an incredibly deep ocean. When he pulled the ocean threatened to fall upon him.

Cut, cut, cut, he slashed with his mind. He pictured every idea of cutting he could think of. The severing of ties, straps, and even the splitting of snake's skin with his axe. Ian was like a balloon under a facet eventually he'd pop.

The thought of the severing of his family the final cut of separation, death halted the flow. The ocean was no longer trying to burst him like a melon, but he was filled with wild qi. Ian began the slow process of mincing the qi.

He was unaware of how long it took but eventually the qi in his body was minced and he began to cycle it. Every pore of his body ached as cheese like filth was squeezed through. His body acted like a filter and he cut and cut. After all the qi was cycled, he minced it again and cycled again. Each cycle and mincing forced the waste out of his body. With the passage of the waste the poison left him as well.

Ian stood up and felt better. He was coated from head to toe in brackish filth and his skin burned worse than ever, but he felt good. One of the squat wooden golems stood beside him. It pointed toward a trail covered in signs giving directions to the river.

After washing the filth from his body and putting a new set of robes, he began chopping wood anew. Every swing of his axe was stronger than before. In an hour he felled the tree and began dividing the wood.

He carried his wood to the nearest collector. When he returned four other sect members stood over his wood pile. With his new senses Ian could tell that they were each in the third stage of qi refinement. The leader smiled at him like a shark.

"We'll carry your wood for you but consider the sect points the price for our labor." One flashed a fire snake around his forearm in warning. The creature hovered in the air ready to strike. Ian gripped his axe hard. He'd remember their faces.