The Will to Die

Chapter 18

The Will to Die

Death, destruction, violence. Tian Yu was tired. 

Rather, he'd been tired for decades now, watching the budding youths fizzle out in a desperate array of screams, desiring strength above all else. And yet, he couldn't tell them otherwise--most his life, after all, he was just like them, pursuing strength and disregarding everything else. Now that the death was slowly grasping his throat and squeezing, regrets were blooming. From tiny buds in the depths of his soul, they were now a forest of trees bursting out of him.

Sighing, he picked up his cane and slowly continued walking. His destination? The very dream he'd always feared pursuing, the one regret he wanted to overcome before his death: the Nameless Forest. Just the name itself evoked terror in all those who lived within the Lower Ashlands. Very, very, very few who ventured between the cursed trees ever came out alive, and none who ventured past the periphery did so. 

Haunting legends of the place were endless--it was as though it was a shadowed duality to its southern neighbor, the Cradle of the First men. Every Disciple of every Sect yearned to spend a cycle there, and yet, sitting at its northern border was the Nameless Forest, a tombstone for the countless desperate. 

Tian Yu paused, having reached the very edge of the forest. He recalled standing here once before, a long, long, long time ago, when he was just sixteen years old. His mother had fallen terribly ill, and was struggling to breathe. No matter which doctor, alchemist, or even shaman his father invited, none of them could understand what happened to her--nor could they concoct a cure. However, they all said the same thing: Flower of the Dawn, just a single petal from it in fact, would be enough to cure her.

However, such a rare flower--even if it appeared in the Lower Ashlands--would never fall into the hands of a mid-sized clan like theirs. Thus, there was only one place they could go to search--the Nameless Forest, the place said to house the most exotic flora in not just the Lower Ashlands, but the entire continent. 

Thus, he came here, full of vigor and determination--so much so that he was certain he was willing to die if it meant helping his mother. And yet, he stopped here--precisely by this boulder... and took no step further. He simply stared at the swaying trees and the darkness therein, and he remembered the stories, all the shorn lives that never saw the sky after stepping past this place. And he couldn't move--not a step forward.

Just two weeks after, his mother drew her last breath. 

Naturally, his father didn't blame him--nobody truly did. It was the will of heavens, in many ways, for her to die of an illness that nobody could identify. And the fact that he didn't dare step into the Nameless Forest was a fading story nobody cared for; after all, martial masters at the Soul Ascendance Realm didn't dare to venture past the very broad outskirts, so why would a child at a Foundation Realm be ridiculed for failing to do so? 

Despite that, he felt shame--and, no later than three months after his mother's passing... he left the clan, abandoned his name, and became Tian Yu, the Wandering Sword of Lingshan.

It has been just shy of a hundred years since then, and now... he was tired. Tired, weak, and old. He'd depleted all his natural talents and just barely managed to reach the peak of Fusion Realm, but that was all he amounted to. It was as though, over night, his desperation for power waned and he was enlightened, putting it all behind him.

Thus, he'd come here, to the nameless edge of the forgivable, to die. 

The step he was unable to take when he was a young boy, he took it. And then another. And then another. Soon, the plain fields faded back behind the curtain of the trees, and he found himself surrounded by the silent buzz of the forest. 

It was strange; it seemed no different than any other ordinary forest that he'd been in. And yet, his instincts and senses, the things he'd honed all his life, were screaming at him. He knew that he was being watched--not by the eyes sticking behind the bushes or the trees, but by a will much larger than life. It was as though his entire self was being wrapped and slowly pulled into the embrace of destiny.

While others may have turned their heads and ran, he walked forward faster. He wanted to see--the depths of the most notorious tomb in the world. All this beauty framing a graveyard... was there anything, indeed, more alluring?

Bit by bit, his back straightened and his steps became more convincing. The slumbering Qi within him awoke, like a river that had finally managed to break through the plaque blocking its way. Though he would die, he didn't want to die a frail, old man, but rather a Martial Artist. He wanted to die as Tian Yu, the Wandering Sword of Lingshan.

But there was nothing around him--there were no spirits, no beasts, no divine hands clasping at his throat. In fact, there was simply silence, only ever broken by his own footsteps. The more he walked, it felt, the more silent it got. 

"What the hell...?" he mumbled in agony as he finally fell to his knees, spent. There was no Qi left in him, and ashen vapors began to coalesce around his frame--Death Qi, abuzz with a want for the determined. He turned frail once again, his back hunching and skin withering. "Please," he mumbled, gasping for breath. "Please... just grant me the last wish." 

"Hm? What is it, Blackie?" A voice! Tian Yu's dispirited heart was rekindled once again as he fervently looked up. There wasn't supposed to be anyone else in here, so... how? "E-eh? Are you alright, Sir?" 

The source of the voice finally came out between the trees--it was a young man, perhaps in his thirties, with rather unkempt figure and somewhat tattered robes. Tian Yu's heart fell for a moment as he sensed that the man was only at Qi Condensation Realm, but a deeper probe revealed something that tore his understanding of reality apart--the sheer purity of Qi within the man... was impossible. 

It was so pure, in fact, that it rivaled the legendary Divine Pool of the Heavenly Pavilion Sect. He had the privileged to merely cast a brief glance at it, and that alone was enough to tear open the bottleneck he'd been suffering from for years. 

"Here," the man gingerly bent over and held Tian Yu's back, handing him a cup of colorful liquid. However, Tian Yu paused--his heart sensed something, something tempting. If he drank the liquid from that cup... he would break through, and perhaps even gain an extra year or two of longevity. It was akin to giving a man lost in the desert a cup of water--ultimately, it wouldn't be enough to save him... but it would give him a few extra hours, perhaps even a whole day. Tian Yu, however, did not want that. He'd come here determined to die. 

"No," he rejected, seemingly surprising the old man. "Who... are you?" using the last vestiges of his strength, Tian Yu stood up on his own and faced the figure in front of him. Once again, however, he came very close to passing out from shock--the figure was not alone. There was a strange owl atop his shoulder exuding such intangible pressure that Tian Yu found it hard to breathe. He knew, should he even contemplate attacking the man, that owl would rip his innards out in a second.

It wasn't just the owl, either--there was a bat hanging loose from the man's robes, and the strange, cat-sized panther at his legs, as well as a python coiling around the man's left arm, hiding within the robes. All of them were creatures that defied the normal--and all were capable of ripping him apart with a single thought. 

"You can call me Leo," the man smiled rather faintly. "If you don't mind me asking... why are you here?" 

"I've come here to die, Venerable Leo," Tian Yu said, clasping his hands in front of him and bowing. Whether the man truly was only at Qi Condensation Realm and was being either groomed or simply protected by these animals, or whether he was a secluded hermit living out his final days here... it did not matter. It was someone who warranted respect of a martial artist. 

"... to die?" the man replied softly, seeming in disbelief. 

"Yes," Tian Yu said, still bowed. "I've come to the place of my greatest regret to sever the last bond with life. Please, permit me entrance, if only for a day, to bear witness to the beauty of this place in full." 

"... follow me," the man said after a moment's silence. Just as Tian Yu was about to say that he couldn't walk any longer, he stopped--his body was freshened up, rekindled once again. Though it wouldn't last for long, he was happy, once again walking with his own two feet, unhindered.

He followed the man up the slight slope and past the trees. As they moved, Tian Yu noticed something harrowingly terrifying--there were more and more animals gathering around. Some approached them and either walked by the man's side or climbed on top of him, but most stayed within the trees, only their faint, linger traces of Qi visible. However, even those tiny amounts were more than enough to swallow him. 

Soon enough, the trees cleared and they emerged onto a clearing--there were six very simple mud huts scattered about, all occupied by various animals. Some were as imposing as the owl, but some were simply ordinary and mortal. Besides the six mud huts, there was an additional one to the side, cloaked in such thick layers of array protection that Tian Yu was certain even the Sect Master of the Celestial Orchid Sect would be unable to peer past them. 

"Please, sit," the man pointed at a log of the tree and sat opposite of it; between them was an extinguished campfire of sorts, and around them a gathering of animals that were akin to an army. Rather, Tian Yu was convinced--if they were to invade the Lower Ashlands... the lands would fall, and those inhabiting them would die. How did the man, then, make them submit to him? "What's your name? You never told me."

"It's Tian Yu, Venerable Leo," he replied, sitting down. He decided to ignore the animals, lest his last day be spent wrangling with his sanity. 

"And you have come here to die?"

"Yes."

"And I can't persuade you otherwise?"

"Forgive me," Tian Yu said. "But no."

"... rest, then," the man said, standing up. "We'll go on a walk a bit later. If you really are determined to die," he sighed. "I'll at least accompany you until your last breath."