The Trials

Chapter 80

The Trials

Once again, Leo found himself alone.

Well, never alone, but without a human companion. By the time he returned to the camp (after spending almost an entire day playing with the flaming hawk), Lu Yang had left, leaving a message etched in the small stone by his room... except, Leo couldn't read it. He felt a bit frustrated, having the ability to read the supposed ancient, extinct language, and not the modern one.

Nonetheless, it was likely that the man simply told him he left and that he'd back soon. 

Leaving the longhouse, he stepped out into the night once again. There were no animals present this time around, with most having retreated into the longhouse, and a few into the mud huts.

Looking up at the sky, a full moon stared back. Though Leo wondered precisely how this world shared so many similarities to Earth, it wasn't as though he'd ever find the answers, so he seldom wasted too much time on it. 

Sitting down, he took out the tablet that he received from the system as a reward, running his fingers gently over the cool surface and wondering what the letters meant. It was an alphabet entirely alien, with curves twining unto themselves and crossing over stitched lines, connecting like coiling serpents to the characters next to them. The entire text looked like one letter, as there seemed to be no 'natural' breaks between either letters, words, or paragraphs. Rather, it was impossible to discern whether the text had them or not. 

Then again, it was entirely possible that there were characters representing all those things, and he simply didn't know them. 

His blood froze momentarily as he heard a distant, strange weeping swirl through with the wind. Standing up, he drew out the sword, swallowing a knot in his throat and keeping his ears perked. It wasn't long before he heard another, this one coming from an entirely different direction. 

Looking around once again, he sought comfort of one of his furry friends... but none were to be found anywhere nearby. He always felt off about the forest at night, and had even bore witness to a few of its... oddities once or twice, but it was always well away from the home, far into its depths. Nothing had ever approached here, and he simply assumed that the system had granted him protection... sort of like when he first appeared in this place.

Another wail soon echoed out, and Leo saw... something. A swirl of shadows merging out of the distant darkness, a shapeless thing arising between the trees. He wondered, yet again, whether he'd changed the genres, but couldn't contemplate much further as yet another wail came out, this one closer to a painful howl.

Suppressing the surging fear, Leo braved a few steps out of the camp, still holding onto the sword firmly, as he saw something relatively nearby. As he passed one of the tall shrubberies, it came into view: it was one of those misshapen animals that he'd only ever see at night, with no counterpart to compare them to. This one was a large ball of sorts with hundreds of arms poking out and several eyes dancing around its scuffed, hairy surface. 

It was the ugliest of things, and Leo would have let it be in its insidious suffering had it stayed as it were--but it did not. Qi within him churned abruptly, and he felt it coming into his eyes against his will; as soon as it did, the world around changed. It grew brighter, more prominent, but the greatest change was that of the thing in front of him--it morphed from the misshapen abomination... into a person. Well, not a person. But a humanoid of sorts.

It was a woman, he supposed, breaching seven feet in height, draped in torn-up night gown, her skin pale blue, eyes as silver as the moon above. She had strange protrusions jutting out from her cheeks shaped almost like gems, and her forehead was sunken toward her brow, making her eyes narrow. Besides that, she also seemed to have a tail, and it whipped violently behind her, long and thin like a whip. 

Just as he was about to wipe his eyes and recognize that he was dreaming this entire thing up, she turned... and her eyes met his. Leo felt his heart tear open and bleed at that instance, as though it was being broken repeatedly with pain impossible to understand.

A set of words came to his mind like gilded letters, chanting unto his soul. For once, he knew precisely what to do.

**

Yue stepped back into their room, spent and tired. Liang had decided to go for a round of drinks with some of the people they went with, but she was too tired and decided against it. 

Their first 'expedition', as it were, into the caves was... uneventful, and yet draining at the same time. There was something about having to keep her mind sharp at all times and be conscious of every shadow, every noise, every everything, really, that she wasn't used to quite yet. 

She didn't have to do much... or anything, really. They only encountered a few scattered Demonic Beasts that were dealt with swiftly. Even though she figured that the first 'mission' would likely be just to ease the newcomers into this world, she expected a bit more, at least. 

Tossing herself onto the bed, she took out the feather from her ring and caressed it gently. It was, next to the Void Scroll, her most valuable treasure. She knew, should she will it, she'd be able to level this entire place to the ground within seconds. For a moment she questioned whether any one person should even be allowed to possess that much strength, but not for long. She had no intention of using the feather short of another instance like the one by the forest. It truly was the last resort.

Liang came stumbling into the room sometime past midnight; as she was away from the forest and in an unknown place, Yue didn't actually dare fall asleep. As such, she meditated and cultivated as she used to before meeting Master. 

Her Junior Brother's countenance shifted as soon as the doors were closed; the drunken youth with flushed face was gone, and he got that look in his eyes, the one that appeared sporadically, where he knew something... dangerous. 

"Liang?" she asked as he lifted his index finger and pressed it against his lips, indicating she stayed silent. She nodded, using her Divine Sense to try and figure out what he was seeing, but there was nothing. Past the few scattered cultivators loitering around the fort, she couldn't see anything. 

"Something's off," he broke the silence after a few moments, his voice hushed. It was then that she noticed he'd drawn an isolation array, shocking her doubly--that he knew it even existed, and that he knew how to draw it. Once again, for a moment, she questioned whether her strange Junior Brother was just pretending to be a bit of a simpleton... 

"What?"

"There was ten of us drinking," he said. "But three kept using Divine Sense to inspect the rest of us, almost to make sure we were getting drunk. I'm also pretty sure that my drinks were poisoned, or, at the very least, laced with some sleeping agent. Had it not been for Master's food reinforcing my body, it might have been enough to knock me out for good." 

"Are you serious?" she arched her brows, alarms ringing inside her mind. "What for?" 

"I don't know," he said. "I also noticed that something was off in the expedition. We barely encountered anything, let alone anyone. But I often listened to my Seniors who came back from the Cradle talk about their experiences, and each said that every expedition was a matter of life or death. Did that one seem that way to you?"

"Hardly," Yue scoffed. "I figured they were just going easy on the newcomers."

"Nobody cares about that here," Liang said, shaking his head. "No, I have a feeling... something else is afoot." 

"What?"

"I... don't know," he smiled sheepishly. "You're the smart one between us, Senior Sister. What do you think is happening?"

"Ugh, how the hell am I supposed to know?" Yue grunted, feeling a bit embarrassed. Still, she gave it a thought, and came up with a relatively far-fetched but possible idea. "Maybe Others have somehow infiltrated the fort and are trying to take over? That would explain trying to poison you, and even why that expedition felt empty."

"... that must be it," Liang said, his lips suddenly stretching out into smile. Yue knew that look--he got excited. But excited Liang was... not needed, at the moment.

"Calm down," she said. "If it really is true, then we need to get the hell out of this place before they attack!" 

"We came here to become stronger and test ourselves, Senior Sister," he said rather seriously. "And you want to run away at the first sign of trouble?"

Yue fell silent, feeling the weight of his gaze as well as his expectations. It was true--they came here to become stronger, especially her. While Liang was a Sect Disciple, and one of the most talented ones at that, and had likely experienced the outside world quite a few times, she... hadn't. All she ever knew were the martial platforms of her Clan, and the occasional inter-clan tournaments. Going to retrieve her Grandfather was only the second time she ever left her Clan for longer than half a day. 

"Fine," she relented. "But we need to be smart about this. Tell me who you suspect is with the Others." 

"There is--"

Just as Liang was about to list names, the room shook and bells began to howl loudly into the night. Explosions began to erupt one after another, flashes of brilliant lights piercing through the slits in the walls. The two looked at each other and realized something monumentally terrifying: it wasn't just this fort... it was seemingly every other fort in the vicinity, as well.

"Let's go," she urged as they headed toward the doors. "What the hell is happening...?"

**

"Interesting," a voice tore through the membrane of space, prompting Mei to slash sideways with her sword. However, it was as though she hit a rock wall that would not budge... but looking at the tip of her blade, all she saw was a pair of fair fingers holding it as though it were made of paper. She shuttered backward, heaving, short of breath. "Truly fascinating. You've undergone a Root Nirvana, haven't you? But that's impossible. Even if you, by some miracle, knew how to do it, there is no way your pathetic swill of a Sect has the means to do it. Not for one of you, and especially not for the three of you."

They were simply heading north, trying to explore when, out of nowhere, they were attacked. Luckily, Senior Brother Hao managed to just barely deflect the attack, but he was now lying at the rear, bleeding profusely. Song and Lye stood by his side, while Shen Tao stood in front of him. Mei tried to attack back but to no avail--despite the fact that only three people who seemed to be their age, if not younger, intercepted them, she knew by merely glancing at them that she stood no chance.

They were all at the Peak of Core Formation, effectively a single breath away from breaking through, and were no less talented than Mei herself. No, she was largely incomparable to even the weakest of them. 

"Tell me," the holder of the voice was a young, rather handsome man with short, blonde hair and a pair of twilight-colored eyes. However, the way he smiled sent shivers down Mei's spine--it was less so a smile of a person, and more that of a devious serpent. "If you are honest, I may yet spare your pathetic lives."

"Who are you?" she questioned. "Is there really need to fight?"

"Fight? Ha ha ha. Ah, dear me, that was funny. This is not a fight, little simpleton. Fight implies at least some level of equality between two parties. No, this is a very simple case of extortion: tell me how your roots underwent a nirvana, or I will skin each one of you until I can hang your skeletons so that the entire world can see them." 

Mei felt a chill in her bones, and knew well enough that the man wasn't lying. He truly would do all he said, and all she could do was wonder how bad their luck was to come across these people out of everyone in the realm.

"That attitude," the voice was that of Senior Hao who suddenly stood up and walked past Mei, stepping in front of her. "That look in your eye. There's only one place in the Lower Ashlands that would birth such vile things."

"Oh? You can stand up? Interesting. Not nearly as much as those three, but interesting in your own right. So, just one place? What place is that?" the man smiled widely as he quizzed.

"Heavenly Pavilion," Long Hao's words shuttered Mei's heart, and she quickly felt herself sink as though the earth beneath her feet turned to quicksand. Of all the Sects, of all the groups, they just had to run into... them. 

"... correct!" the man exclaimed. "Then again, if any one of you had an iota of intellect, you could have just looked at the insignias woven into our robes. Or, don't tell me... you dolts have never seen it before?" 

"Do you really intend to start a war over something like this?!" Long Hao spoke up, though Mei was far more focused on his fingers that he hid behind his back--he was telling her, telling them, to run. 

"A war? Hah," the man scoffed, his expression turning even colder. "Suppose your Sect was willing to go to war for you, and suppose we even entertained your nonsense instead of just sending one of our Elders to wipe you off the face of the world, what would it matter to you? The dead have no cause with the living, last I heard. And though I admire your striking bravado, even if you somehow managed to buy an hour, they will never escape us. Your fates were sealed the moment I laid my eyes on you, and fighting fate is for the Chosen only... which you are decidedly not. So, move." 

Before Senior Hao could utter another word, Mei watched in horror as blood sprayed toward her, dyeing her battle robes scarlet red, the body and the head felling separately toward the ground. Despite every instinct in her body screaming at her to run, she could only stand frozen in place, her lips quivering. 

"Now--hm?" a screen appeared in front of Mei, and soon a figure came into her view. "What is this?"

"There's only so many things I'm willing to part with," Shen Tao's voice was mellow, though interspersed with seeds of anger. "And you've already made me use one. So, I will give you a chance to get as far away from here as humanly possible."

"Or?"

"Or I'll disintegrate your subhuman souls into ash," he said, taking out a small, aged, and worn-down hourglass. Despite it seeming like a useless trinket, Mei felt a thread of fear erupt from within her at the sight of it. And if she felt, she knew that the disciples of the Heavenly Pavilion did too. 

"You want to compete with us treasure-wise?" though the man seemed somewhat surprised, he didn't back down, merely smiling. "Besides, there is no way we can leave now. I need to skin your lips and tear your tongue from your throat for besmirching our souls. That crime cannot go unpunished."

"... haah, I'll have to ask for major compensation when we go back," Shen Tao, similarly, didn't retreat. Instead, he took out six other treasures that all began to float around him in a halo-like ring. While one didn't cause much uproar on the other side, the six most decidedly did. The Disciples' faces turned ashen pale with fright, and they, without a said word, turned heel and disappeared, leaving behind only wind. Shen Tao scoffed and put the treasures away, glancing at her. As though knowing what she was thinking, he broke the silence. "I honestly didn't think he'd kill him so quickly. I was planning on stepping in if there was no other way, but his was a card we can only play once. Though they ran away, they likely have a way of tracking us, and the next time we run into them... they'll be prepared."

"S-so, what are you saying? That we should just wait to die?"

"No, of course not," he shrugged. "I say we go where even they won't dare come."

"... you can't be serious. We may as well actually die, in that case!" 

"You kept asking me how to get stronger, and kept pestering me to show you the way," he said. "Well, here it is. Your chance to become stronger. If we try to hide or run away, we will die. Well, you will die. I'll probably manage to survive somehow. So, instead of waiting for the inevitable, take a chance at only the probable. The road to becoming stronger is paved with sacrifices, with hurt, and with blood thick enough to flood a river. If you aren't willing to have your soul broken, then you do not deserve to call yourself a cultivator."