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Chapter 80 – Xin Gang

Chu Xiang Gan stared at the empty compound before him, his spiritual senses sweeping within and finding it empty but for the rats and lizards that had taken up residence. No birds, since the windows had all been closed to keep them out, though a colony of bats lived in the eaves of the storage chamber to the right.

Even though his senses told him that the compound was empty, he still waved his team forward in close order. They broke the gates down, entered at a canter and then split, dismounting to search the building. Doors were thrown open, cupboards revealed and any crawl places had polearms thrust within, all to reveal their empty contents.

Other than objects too heavy to carry with them – furniture, statues, assorted cookware and large paintings amongst the number – the building had been emptied. Tracing his finger along the top of a table, Xiang Gan noted the light dusting it revealed.

Rubbing his gloved finger on the edge of his armor, he turned to Guard Qin, his face studiedly neutral. “A dozen rebels, holed up in the Jin mansion, you said. A foretelling that you acquired last night, while conducting your routine castings.”

“You saw the bone!” Lu Ong protested. “I showed it to you.”

“I do not read the bones like you do.” Xin Gang sighed. “Not that it would matter. Your methods are esoteric even by the standards of the court.” It was part of the reason why Lu Ong had not been drawn into another part of the imperial bureaucracy. After all, there were many uses for the ability to foretell the future, from heading off improperly stored rice to demonic beast calamities.

“It said they were here.” He gestured at the mansion. “They must have been.”

“So the reading you received was late?”

“Time shifted. Thrown from the past into the future, possibly. Or blocked entirely, till it mattered not. Or the twisting of fate itself snarled until now, rather than obscured…” Lu Ong muttered the last to himself, staring at the mansion with eyes that looked past the physical.

“Ah Ong?” Xin Gang asked.

“I need to work.” Lu Ong said abruptly. He dropped to the ground, pulling a treated, oil-skin cloth to cover the pavement. The oilskin was stained in places, from the blood and guts of the creatures he sacrificed. Xin Gang had asked him once, why he had not cleaned the cloth properly and been told the residual magics within the oil imparted greater strength to his castings.

With a wave of his hand, Lu Ong deposited the tools of his trade. Without a creature to sacrifice, he reverted to utilizing the bones of slain animals, ritualistically sacrificed – often for the autumn or winter festivals, when the creatures had grown fat or meat was required – and the bones removed and saved for such purposes.

He also had a plethora of spirit beast bones, though he rarely utilized them. Which was why Xin Gang was surprised when a femur, near the size of his armored thigh, was withdrawn.

“That serious?” Xin Gang said, pulsing his aura once in the shorthand method of the guards. He received pulses back from all of them, confirming that no surprises were to be found. In fact, another moment later and they were turning back to him.

“They exposed themselves, with this little trick. There’s no way to affect the flow of fate and time so heavily without leaving traces. Now that my opponent has shown himself, I will find him.” Lips curled up, a sharp knife was extracted.

“You can find him, then? This Ascendant you believe is thwarting your-” Xin Gang fell silent as a hand was thrown up in his face.

“Quiet. This is delicate.”

He glowered at Lu Ong, the disrespect rankling. Yet, the guard was a specialist, his skills too important to be lightly discarded. Nevermind the uneasy friendship the pair had formed, with Lu Ong the closest to a confidant he had in the squad, thanks to his particular position and skillset.

Still, he would have a word with the man. Later.

He watched with uneasy fascination as Lu Ong worked the bone with his knife, carving words and symbols into the bone. Energy warped and twisted, burrowing deep into the carved lines, pulled from the environment with each flick of the point. Xin Gang could feel the Dao stretch around him, as the threads of fate were manipulated by the immortal beside him.

As his guards returned to the front entrance, Xin Gang held a hand out to caution them about their presence. No large fluctuations of their chi, no usage of their dao or abrupt interruptions were to be allowed. While it might not matter in most other, smaller workings, the Guardian – still, even if he was assigned to another task right now – could tell this was not the case.

Fate and chi were stretched thin here, the environment boiling with constrained energy that was funnelled through Lu Ong’s body into the tip of his dagger as it carved into the bone, the massive spirit beast’s femur soaking in the energies with ease.

“The perfection of Heaven and Earth disperses calamity, within the mysterious void is the one true primordial energy. Heavenly spirits from all eight directions allow the world to be cleansed, the Ling Bao talismans will drive away all who seek to thwart way of heaven[1].”

Xin Gang could overhear the words of the guards as they arrived, Guard Zhao, the newest member of their group leaning over to whisper to another.

“What is he saying?”

“It’s the chant for purifying heaven and earth,” Guard Bu muttered. “Now, be quiet. You don’t want to see what happens when it backfires.”

That caused the newest member to close his mouth. They could all sense the pulsing of energy around them, the way it writhed and bucked against Lu Ong’s control. His body began to tremble, as energy poured into him and sweat formed on his brow, though his hand stayed rock steady as he continued to carve.

At the edge of Xin Gang’s perception, a smell began to rise around him. It was not unpleasant, or unusual, except in context. The smell of the earth after the rain had just fallen, the sense of potential and renewal forming around them.

He inhaled, sorting the sensation through his senses. Something about it tickled his subconscious, causing him to tighten his grip on his guandao. The polearm shifted in his hand, rising off the flagstones. As he opened his mouth to cry, the energy around them warped one last time.

That smell erupted, growing in strength and concentration even as the chi in the surroundings boiled and converged on the group. Energy from all around the compound, drawn inwards towards them without care or concern about the proper order of things.

In such a disordered environment, there could only be one result.

Ignition.

[1] This is not a direct translation, but a modification of the real-world Daoist fifth spiritual chant. The actual Chinese text is a lot more bare, more poetic and summarized, but for this, I chose to go a little more verbose.