199. Death & the Black Sun, IV (Patreon)

Wu Hao ran down the road. For once he was grateful for the tours that he'd gotten, because without them he wouldn't have been able to find his way just by the meager moonlight and the ability to see in the dark that becoming a second-grade martial artist had given him. It was a mark of how much qi he'd used fending off his pursuers that he had decided to only use the Dragon Gate Ascending Art every few steps instead of every single step.

One thing was for sure, though. As he ran towards the main buildings of the sect, through the darkness, he felt the world rumble underneath his feet, the two Sovereigns clashing in the distance. The qi was moving in such intricate, opposed patterns that he had not the slightest idea who was winning.

Shaking his head, he skidded to a halt in front of the building where the Sword Sovereign had stayed. He still couldn't sense the insides with any particular clarity, but if he had done all that just for Du Linglong to turn up dead in the end...

Running forward, he pulled his staff from the spatial storage. Weight filled his every thought and then his vision, phantom cracks spreading out over every surface of the house. The door itself had been reinforced, but when he looked a little more clearly, one of the windows didn't have the same protections as the rest of the house.

In one smooth move, running still, he planted his staff into the ground, swung himself up and around, and smashed through the window feet-first. A thin coating of qi prevented the glass shards from cutting into him, and he rolled with the impact against the floor before managing to regain his feet.

He'd landed in some sort of kitchen. It didn't seem to have been used recently, though - he presumed Du Linglong ate with the rest of the family, in the main house. She just slept here, he thought, but they'd never actually discussed it.

Damnit.

Like an assassin he took quiet steps towards the door, then pulled it open to find himself in the mansion proper. The main hall was cleaner, though he'd seen cleaner and there were well-reinforced spiderwebs covering dusty corners that spread outwards from the massive staircase in the middle.

Wu Hao cast out his senses, trying to feel if he could smell peaches anywhere inside the house. He'd known that his entrance hadn't been particularly quiet, either, but that had been intentional: that way if Du Linglong was inside, she'd wake up and be alert. Any attempt she made to kill him, he could probably deal with.

But there was no peaches anywhere. There were distant traces that led up the stairs, but they were old and very nearly cold. Trying to track using qi wasn't something that he usually practiced, so he couldn't tell how old these traces were, nor where they led. It was just clear to him that there had been some pacing back and forth here.

He decided to follow the traces up the stairs. The scent of peaches grew thinner there, and Wu Hao kept his senses focused for any sort of other trace too. If she had been killed, it stood to reason that someone would have killed her, and she was enough of a martial artist that qi would've had to have been involved.

It was therefore a good sign that he couldn't detect anything, but a good sign wasn't proof of anything.

But even upstairs, he found nothing and no one. There were several bedrooms, some of which looked dusty and didn't look lived in. The third of them was locked, and Wu Hao managed to force the lock with by using one of the array papers that Master Shu had given him. It'd been meant for particularly intricate or difficult locks, but whatever. He had more of them.

The bedroom that he burst into was girly, in ways that Wu Hao hadn't ever really seen before, but it was also messy. A few sets of hairbrushes and the like lay scattered across a vanity with a large mirror; there were products and clothes scattered around a chair set at the side of the bed, though there was also a small bag of snacks that had been shoved haphazardly underneath the bed and a jug of water. A beautiful calligraphy poster had been set out against one wall, reading the simple inscription "Kindness cuts through that which even steel cannot."

It'd been signed, though so artistically that Wu Hao couldn't read who the artist had been.

The only part of the room that had been carefully arranged was a small display stand where a series of hairpins and ornaments had been laid out, which proved this was Du Linglong's room, and besides that there was a large, very much ornate sword that had been hung up by the side of the bed.

The important part was that Du Linglong wasn't there.

Right, he thought, and felt somehow an immense sense of relief as the weight of doubt fell away from his shoulders. That was good.

It would've been even better if Du Linglong had been here, but that wasn't the case. He could only hope that she'd listened to his command to go tell the Patriarch, and that that was why she wasn't here.

He turned on his heel, left the door open behind him, and sped out of the room. After throwing himself through the same window again, he rolled and came to his feet again.

Then he set off to the main building. This time he could use the shortcuts that Lu Bowin had shown him earlier in the day. He hadn't thought they'd come in handy, but they had.

The main building was always huge, but it felt at least three to four times as huge in the darkness. Guards stood posted at the entrance, men who looked like they wouldn't take any attempt to enter the building lightly.

So Wu Hao slowed, then came to a halt before their crossed swords. Their eyes - clad in shadow beneath their helmets - stared down at Wu Hao. Another man stood at the side, watching the situation carefully, one of his hands clenched around a cord that presumably led up to a bell or something.

"Young friend Wu," one of the guards said. He didn't seem unkindly or anything, but his tone made it clear that he expected some sort of explanation. It was odd, though, that he seemed to know who Wu Hao was.

"It's my master," Wu Hao said, panting. "He's fighting the Bl- the Moonlight Sovereign. He ordered me to tell the Patriarch."

The guards' eyes widened, but then the one who'd spoken turned to the man at the bell.

"Run to the commander of the guard," he barked. "Tell him there's a Sovereign-level battle occurring."

The man at the bell blinked, as if wondering if it was directed at him.

"Go!"

He went.

The guard turned to Wu Hao, who was frankly wondering why he'd been believed right off the bat. Shouldn't there have been a few questions to ask, just to make sure that he wasn't lying for whatever reason?

But when he looked down, he realized why. He had slashes littering his clothes, gashes that had been cut into him either by a spear's tip or a sword's edge, and he probably stank of blood and sweat. Some of that blood was even his own. No wonder they'd assumed that he'd escaped a violent brawl or something.

Faced with a sudden flash of light, Wu Hao was forced to blink. When he'd opened his eyes again, Ke Taiqi stood in front of them in his night robe. It looked more comfortable than the robes he'd worn to the banquet, which had been stiff and formal, laying oddly against his bulk as if they had been made for a smaller man. He looked awake and alert - but then Sovereigns didn't need to sleep, anyway. Unless they wanted to.

"Speak," Ke Taiqi said, focusing his attention on Wu Hao.

A heat began to burn from the force of Ke Taiqi's regard. It felt like it wasn't the night anymore, but instead like he was standing in the sun even though midnight had to have gone by already.

"Master is fighting your brother," Wu Hao said bluntly. They were the first words that he'd said to Ke Taiqi at all.

The Glorious Sun Sovereign didn't seem entirely able to tear his senses away the distance.

"They're fighting on equal ground," he said. Wu Hao was unable to read the emotions on the man's voice. "Brother..."

He shook his head.

"Awaken everyone," he said. "If anyone asks, tell them to gather in the main building. Gather the other guards, the guests."

"Sir!" the guards chorused, and went. Before they could head up the stairs, though, they nearly bumped into another small contingent of people who were hurrying up to the Sovereign.

It was Ke Taiqi's wife, together with a few guards.

"What about my sons?" his wife asked anxiously. "How are Boyi and Jiazhong doing?"

Ke Taiqi glanced at her, then cocked his head as if staring through the walls.

"In their chambers," he said. "Boyi is sleeping, as per usual. He's not alone. Jiazhong is awake, though."

His wife heaved a sigh of relief, but before she could say anything, Ke Taiqi frowned.

"Where's Shuang?" he asked sharply. A bead of sunlight rippled through the surroundings, a wave of qi that wormed its way through the surroundings like the northern lights Wu Hao had vaguely heard a mention of.

Wu Hao decided to keep his mouth shut. He kept a tight rein on his qi, allowing not even the slightest quiver, and he cycled the jewel carefully so that a heavy, rock-like qi emanated. Hopefully it'd keep his emotions from being as easily read.

"Where," Ke Taiqi repeated, his voice slightly more desperate now, "is Shuang?"

But there were no answers to be found in the distance. If there were any, they were in two parts at the bottom of a lake.

"He might be off training again," Ke Taiqi's wife said. Wu Hao was surprised to realize he didn't actually know her name, but there was some dislike in her voice. He vaguely recalled something about Ke Shuang being a bastard or something like it. He hadn't cared then and he didn't care now, but experience had shown that little tidbits like these could wind up being useful. Most weren't, but still.

"In the middle of the night?" Ke Taiqi muttered to himself, then shook his head again. "Unfortunately, I can't find him. Wife, send some guards on a tour of the sect. Tell them to sweep the grounds and find my son."

There was a spasm of dislike in her qi, but she nodded stiffly.

"Be safe," she said, and rushed off without waiting for an answer.

"Wait," Wu Hao said. "Where's Du Linglong?"

"She attempted to come to me with some story," Ke Taiqi said, infuriatingly dismissively. "My men had told her not to wake me from meditation, so she waited in one of our rooms instead of heading back to sleep. It is no business of yours either way. I must go."

So. At least she was probably safe.

Still, Wu Hao grit his teeth. He could have protested against the idea that it wasn't his business, but what would have been the point? He knew himself. He wasn't some sort of smooth-talker who could convince Ke Taiqi that his brother was actually part of the Demon Cult just off the cuff. He would need evidence, and he didn't -

Oh. Well. Maybe he'd underestimated the usefulness of Master Shu's plan.

"It is my business," he said, looking up at Ke Taiqi. "I was the one who told her to say that."

Ke Taiqi's look hit Wu Hao with that same blast of summer heat. It was a light so thick that it felt like a liquid coursing against him almost, though he couldn't say if that was a physical sense or something more than physical.

"And what exactly did you tell her?" he asked, his voice quiet.

They were currently standing alone in the entrance to the main mansion, Wu Hao realized, and there was a fight between Sovereigns happening in the distance. If Ke Taiqi wanted to crush him like a bug, there would be little Wu Hao could do about it, and there wouldn't be any witness who actually cared what had happened to him.

He would return back in time, obviously. But Ke Taiqi had no way of knowing that.

Wu Hao raised his head, staring Ke Taiqi straight in the eye.

"I told her that there's someone in the Diancang Sect who's part of the Demonic Cult," Wu Hao said. "I have proof."

Ke Taiqi' anger, already mounting, hit a new pitch. It became hard to look at him as his power began to leak out of his skin, the snow barely even having time to sizzle before it evaporated into nothing but steam in a mile-wide radius. Wu Hao felt like he was suddenly standing in an oven, and that was with the Heat Resistance I that he'd gained once.

"Let me take you to the proof," Wu Hao said, his voice calm.

If he had to reset now, he'd at least get to kill Ke Shuang again. It'd be unfortunate to have to lose everything again, but in principle he could recreate it, given enough tries...

So go on, he thought. Give me another principle.

"You will - " Ke Taiqi began, but another impact shook the earth, and he shook his head, breaking off whatever he'd been planning to say.

His power drained away. The anger simmering in his massive core didn't dissipate, but instead reduced itself slightly, contained to the confines of Ke Taiqi's skin. It was still there, still within easy reach to incinerate anything the man wanted to, but not being brandished at him outright.

And Wu Hao wasn't exactly sure, but he thought that he'd seen a flash of a glassy-eyed stare.

"First this conflict among Sovereigns must be resolved. Then - together - we can investigate properly."

"Fine," Wu Hao said. "Can we just go already?"

The blinding lights that served as an answer made it clear that Ke Taiqi did not appreciate being talked to in this way.

His large hand rested on Wu Hao's shoulder. From Master Shu, the gesture would have been reassuring, though Wu Hao wouldn't have admitted to it. When Ke Taiqi did it, though, it didn't seem that way at all. It seemed somehow threatening.

"Let's go," he said, and then they disappeared into a flash of sunlight.