Abyssal Road Trip - 652 - Break the Cage (Patreon)

Amdirlain’s PoV - Bìnànsuǒ

Toko’s third strongest karmic link ran to her father, and Amdirlain used it to trace him to a large pavilion. The looming lynx beast-kin had thick, mane-like hair despite it only being a finger’s length; the blackness of it drank in the surrounding light, his short fringe casting his eyes into shadow. The massive tent he practised in was part of a sprawling tent city that held around fifty thousand beast-kin, most sound asleep in the late night.

Máo Guàiyáng charged the moment Amdirlain appeared in his training pavilion. He was an arm’s length away when she reappeared on the other side of the space with illusions and aura tricks set aside; her skin golden and eyes of blazing white flames.

“Who are you?” Guàiyáng demanded.

“My name is Amdirlain. I hope I find you well this evening, Grand General Máo Guàiyáng.”

“You use my title and name, yet you’ve intruded into the tribe’s lands,” Guàiyáng growled. “That your words show respect gives you a chance to explain yourself.”

“I’ve crippled the human kingdoms, and I’m here to arrange new relationships between tribes and kingdoms. My purpose is currently peaceful to the beast-kin,” Amdirlain said. “As a side matter, you should know I recently healed your daughter Toko’s crippled cultivation. That might be the easier discussion to address first.”

Guàiyáng's ears pricked up. “Her meridians are beyond saving.” 

“I rebuilt them and, in investigating the cause, I found a karmic tie to a beast-kin, its age matching the event of her poisoning. That is why I came to you directly, and I didn’t wish anyone to know I was here before giving you that news.”

Agitated notes trumpeted from him, but outwardly Guàiyáng stiffened. “A bold claim.”

“What evidence would you like?”

“You’ll exchange pointers with me,” Guàiyáng demanded.

“What does an exchange prove?”

“Words are nothing; only an exchange of pointers will show your truth and whether you are worthy of heeding.” His fingers spread wide, and his claws slowly unsheathed to full extension.

“Since you insist. What restrictions would you like?” Amdirlain motioned around them. “I’d prefer not to lay waste to the region. Though no matter what we do, it’s going to draw attention to my presence.”

“Are you trying to wiggle free?”

“I already healed your daughter once,” Amdirlain said. “I don’t want your enemies or allies killing her, as I can’t heal death.”

“You’ve proved nothing yet!”

“Stubborn.”

“If you are too cowardly, ‌leave and take your lies with you.”

“I’ll give you some details in case I knock you out. There were three people who earned karmic ties to your daughter at the time of her poisoning: two humans and a beast-kin. All of them are now dead,” Amdirlain explained. “It’s hard to trace back who got them involved with her, but it must have been someone with a pre-existing link. The first human was killed by the second the same day the poisoning occurred, and was then killed by the beast-kin at the border. Does that trail stink to you? Or would a human hire a beast-kin to hire a human? How difficult would it be for a beast-kin to even arrange that?”

An illusion of the lynx beast-kin appeared between them. Piercing notes of alarm rang from the depths of Guàiyáng’s theme, his hackles rising.

“Easy to say.” Guàiyáng lifted his hands and shifted into a forward stance, body tensing to leap.

“You recognised them; that tells me much. An exchange of pointers, with only martial techniques?”

“Agreed,” Guàiyáng growled eagerly. 

A stomp and feigned rush didn’t bait Guàiyáng into leaping, so Amdirlain circled wide, watching Guàiyáng’s smooth shift in balance as he turned with her movement. A sidestep flowed into a pivot, and Amdirlain rushed in. As he lunged to meet her, Amdirlain deflected his left hand up and to the side, then slipped beneath his grasping hand. A tap with the outer edge of her foot caught him mid-step, forcing a gap to dodge beneath his arm and past his front leg. Her elbow smashed into muscle and ribs. Braced by it, Amdirlain slipped sideways and started to turn. Despite his momentum, he slammed down the front foot she’d deflected and swept around with his back foot. The shockwave from his stomp and the air propelled ahead of his turn thumped across her skin. As his foot hooked towards her heels, she flipped into a low backward roll over the attack; despite the shift in positions, his hand grabbed her trailing hair. With fingers wound into her locks, Amdirlain snapped her head forward and added ‌force to shed the handful of strands on her terms.

He chased Amdirlain as she pushed off from the roll and sailed explosively towards the pavilion end; the flick of a knife shed a mass of hair before she landed. Guàiyáng paused in mid-pursuit, eyeing the handful of hair he’d pulled free and the silvery strands that the hurricane left by Amdirlain’s passage kept swirling midair, even as the winds pulled at the tent walls.

Having landed at the far end, Amdirlain spun the knife and returned it to her soul void. Outside the tent, the noise of their initial clash prompted the estate to explode into a frenzy of activity in the pre-dawn.

I bet he’d normally have stuck a hand out of my shadow.

“You broke the privacy ward,” Guàiyáng noted.

“I’m no longer trying to keep this secret. You wanted an exchange of pointers, you can manage the mess,” Amdirlain said.

A few flowing steps toward him along the pavilion’s midline tested the waters, and he prowled forward at an angle. He approached at an angle looking to circle around her as Amdirlain continued down the centre line of the hall. A flurry of clawed swipes lashed out, her deflections unleashing thunderclaps as their hardened flesh hit. For minutes, the explosive impacts from their clashing hands and limbs shredded the pavilion’s side panels and drove bystanders back. She flowed along with his attacks, the two orbiting each other rather than giving ground. Throughout it all, she struck against the back of his hands, staying clear of hooked claws. With every shift in position, he kept balanced, not allowing Amdirlain another opening. A claw opened a cut along her ear, another a slit along her chin as she pulled her head back a fraction too late. He grinned confidently, and among the changing beats of their duel Amdirlain found the tempo shift to break his thumb in reply. As he pulled his hand back, she broke the pinkie on the same hand and twisted the bone. As he hissed, both her hands struck his other arm, nails sunk into flesh, and the wrist joint popped under the force as she raked back from the punctures.

She twisted away and let their orbits separate briefly as their bodies resealed and mended. They clashed again until, after long minutes, Guàiyáng’s claws opened her shoulder. In reply, Amdirlain broke his wrist and then his ankle when he attempted to catch her with a snap kick. Memories of battles overlaid his motions, and her dancing steps flowed in time with his melodies, a wind flitting about him.

A punch she blocked dead snapped a bone in her forearm. A jab blasted in, ripping through the air, and Amdirlain flicked a scythe kick up and around to shatter a joint, aborting the follow-up to his neck; she instead tumbled backwards. The thunderclaps from their blows couldn’t drown out the music of the sharp pop and grating of bone that came from behind her.

I definitely need to strengthen my body further.

When she came to her feet, she stepped back and resumed circling as Guàiyáng nursed a broken elbow; this time they both allowed their separation to continue to grow as their flesh mended. 

A confused frown twisted Guàiyáng’s expression as the separation grew further. “You’re letting me hurt you.” 

“Testing myself. Are we done playing already?” Amdirlain mock-pouted.

Guàiyáng lifted the hand he’d initially caught her hair with and glanced at the golden ichor on his claws. “Some women will try to murder a man who tampers with their hair.”

“Yet you grabbed a handful of mine.” 

“If you were that vain, I wouldn’t have trusted a word you said.”

“And now?”

“You backed off when you had created openings. The time it took me to heal would have been enough for you to savage me further. You rolled away when your body’s angle spoke of a kick to my throat.”

Why is he thinking aloud?

Amdirlain doubled the distance between them and came to a halt to observe him silently.

“Why do you have golden blood?” He stopped orbiting Amdirlain and merely paced back and forth, his attention riveted on her.

“I rebuilt my body after I destroyed the last Prince of Rot for invading the earthly realm.”

Guàiyáng opened his mouth, his broad features twisted in confusion, and his teeth clicked as he snapped his mouth shut. After a pause, he coughed. “Perhaps simpler matters. The image you showed me- explain what you meant?”

“I already told you most of it. Before the incident, he had no karmic link to her,” Amdirlain said. “The moment she took the pill, it formed.”

“He’s been dead for years, so how do you know this?”

“My brother can open windows to the past, and I can trace karmic ties.”

“What is your interest in this matter?”

“I healed her, and I’m working on removing a disease from the human nations on First Peak.”

“You seek to help them, yet you come here? They raid us constantly and enslave our kin.”

“Slavery is the disease which I’m trying to cure. They’re going to have other things holding their attention, and they no longer have an easy way to keep new slaves. I’ve scattered all the sects involved in the vile trade, and ruined all the family homes of slave keeping nobles as well. I don’t know what would form a lasting peace treaty, but I expect your tribes to try.”

Guàiyáng growled. “And what about those they hold? Our tribes have lost many over the centuries.”

“The former slaves of those nations are sleeping on beds in a space I constructed. Those with family in the beast-kin nations I will give the option to return home today,” Amdirlain said. “They’ll return only if they choose so.”

“Why would they not wish to return?”

“I’m sure you know how some slaves come about, so do I have to say it aloud? Whatever slaves wish to return home to the tribes, I’ll send them to kin they wish to go to, but others might not. I’ll settle those who decline somewhere safe,” Amdirlain said. “Though, speaking of distant lands, why do your nations keep the First Peak encapsulated and not simply move away to avoid the raids? Other people have left in the past.”

“Why should we leave these lands? Our ancestors were born on the mountain just as the humans’ were, but they have driven us further from its heights every generation.”

“Well, the humans lost a lot of their ancient defenders tonight, and two of their nations are now wilderness. Rather than slaughtering everyone, I’d appreciate it if you’d use your influence among the beast-kin nations to propose a treaty.”

“Why shouldn’t we press our advantage and drive them away?”

“Then they will have a reason to come seeking revenge on your descendants. Does that cycle ever end? They’re weakened now, so you can end the cycle or make it worse,” Amdirlain set an image between them of an estate being reverted to wilderness and dozens of aerial fortresses disappearing from the sky.

“Better to kill a snake or drive it off than keep it close enough for it to use its fangs.”

“Many sacrificed themselves to get your ancestors to safety from Sun Wukong’s old realm, and you show you’re unworthy of what they did. I don’t know what peace your people will accept, but there will be peace on First Peak. If I check back in a decade or a century and find that fighting has resumed, none of you will remain within ten million li of First Peak.”

“What do you mean?”

Amdirlain replayed the illusion of the aerial fortresses vanishing.

“I won’t need to kill anyone, but I’ll scatter all the nations and tribes across the earthly plane. No matter who is involved in the fighting. So you’d better ensure peace between your groups,” Amdirlain declared, jabbing a finger towards the outer borders. “There are enough dangers out there, and you’ve all shed too much blood, caused too much misery.”

“And if some won’t accept peace?”

“Then you’ll have failed.” Amdirlain glared at him, the white flames wreathing her body.

Guàiyáng raised his hands in surrender. “I meant if there are only a few isolated groups—be they tribes, sects, or clans—that oppose a peace treaty that most on both sides agree to.” 

“If that comes to pass, my son will construct a gate to send them far from here to qi barren lands that need the care of people to revitalise them.”

A frustrated growl rumbled in the back of Guàiyáng’s throat. “Who is your son?”

“An earthbound immortal with an expansive reach throughout the earthly plane. He’ll introduce himself when you have the treaty ready.” Amdirlain withdrew the flames, but smoke from incinerated grass and melted soil rose around her.

Guàiyáng swallowed hard and cleared his throat. “I don’t suppose you’d consider another exchange of pointers with weapons?”

“Tired of haggling with me?”

“With so many places of power wrested from the sky, it's clear you and your son have the upper hand. I’ll let the other tribes know.”

Yeah, they respect greater power, not reason.

Amdirlain vanished, and Xuelian, Toko, and Minzhe—no longer astride their spirit blades—appeared in her place.

Her attention withdrew from the pavilion and focused on her new locale at the height of First Peak. She had appeared beside the capstone of this realm’s creation. It sealed a passage to the realm where the fleeing survivors of Sun Wukong’s original realm had waited while he’d planned and then set this realm in motion.

Carved into the side of the snow-covered boulder were two scenes Amdirlain had first seen within General Sun’s manor; except in the first scene, the four winds didn’t hold their signature weapons. They guarded those who retreated through the gate from Sun Wukong’s failed realm with their natural weaponry alone. Around them, other celestial generals lay dissolving.

In the scene depicting First Peak and the populace's reincarnation, phoenixes carried the Four Winds weapons. One had a furious gale twisting in its claws, while a second carried a black jian, a third held a straight sword from which black winds and fiery serpents crawled, and the last struggled with a massive polearm longer than its wingspan.

From the sorrow etched into the stone, Amdirlain caught the melodies of two foreign realms, and something else. A section of scale consumed the far chaos that pressed at the sealed entrance and transformed it into local qi that fed down into the mountain’s depths and through the earth plane.

Not wanting to risk disturbing something crucial, Amdirlain expanded her reach to include the full mountain again, and the melodies in the capstone became background noise. Down the mountain’s slope, even those estates she hadn’t attacked had seen their watchful guards stir the residents to full alert. 

She sent a few messages and knelt in seiza by the capstone, waiting for dawn’s approach.

It was still an hour before dawn when a cultivation spiral she’d set off the previous day ended. She wrapped herself back in the illusion of Jinfeng before considering what to offer him. As the alchemist stirred in his apartment, Amdirlain appeared atop the back stairs. The stairs smelt of damp and a mix of herbs wafting up from the basement. The shop on the ground floor below sat locked up tight, with stone shutters over its windows.

With the back of her hand, she gave one sharp knock that echoed through the apartment behind the door. Still rousing from his cultivation, Hóng’s hand slapped the wall as he levered himself to his feet in the apartment’s entryway. Cloth rasped against woodwork, and the rattle of a bumped vase on a wooden stand sounded as he tried to get himself to his feet.

Finally, Hóng yanked the door open, one hand clutching the edge of his doorframe. With his eyes fastened on Amdirlain, he clasped his hands before him and bowed until his stomach prevented him from bending further.

“Welcome back, esteemed one.”

“The city is experiencing a touch of chaos. Do you still wish to vacate the region?” Amdirlain asked.

“May I first know what has happened?”

“I killed or broke the nobles and sects who enjoyed inflicting slavery on the beast-kin, and freed those suffering from its blight.”

Hóng gulped hard and stammered. “I think it’s best if I flee quickly.”

“What will you do?”

“Pack what I can carry, get my clerk his pay, and then use what coin I have to hire some mercenaries to escort me far away.”

Afraid, yet still looking to pay your staff, you've just earned yourself an upgrade.

“I can hear where he lives, and will see he gets paid,” Amdirlain said. She released some qi into her palm and formed it into spirit coins.

“I don’t owe him anywhere near that much,” Hóng said.

“Yet he’ll need time to find a new job.” Amdirlain teleported the coins and an apology note to where the clerk would readily see them upon waking.

Their surroundings lurched, but the building settled into its new location without so much as a brick cracking or a chip of glassware.

“You are now the only alchemist in hundreds of li. You can teach the local towns how to gather things and trade with them. There are many new cultivators. Upriver there is a gate to a sect with whom you can trade, so I’m sure you can reach a beneficial arrangement with someone. If not, you can use that gate to reach new lands and make your own choices.”

Before he could ask further questions, Amdirlain vanished.

Her new location was at the midpoint of the constructed space, modelled after the birthplace of the Anar and Lómë, and she found alterations there. Though she had expected Drakon to only move them to pallets to rest on, he’d gone a few steps further and settled each person in their own private cubicle, with clothing and a tiny facility to tend to mortal needs. He had organised the groups by blood ties rather than keeping them with those from the same locations.

It would have been a logistical issue, so I’m glad he’s ahead of matters.

She stood atop the platform that was modelled after where Nicholaus had once greeted the twin races and resumed her silver-haired elven appearance as she waited for the dawn. Her aura shifted, hiding her flames behind blue irises, and her golden skin turned luminescent white. The breeze carried the sweet aroma of blooms and recently ripened fruit. It rustled the branches of millions of trees and lifted a fine spray from the gurgling streams that circled the bowl. As the first ex-slave awoke in the strange place, they screamed in surprise, rousing others. With their hearts racing, their hands scrambled at their throats and found their collars absent. 

“Good morning, all. First, let me apologise for the fright. You are safe and free,” Amdirlain said, her words reaching everyone in the bowl at a conversational level. “Please take time to compose yourselves, wash up, and greet your relatives in the surroundings.”

Murmured frantic questions washed from the crowd.

“The fruit is safe to eat; just pick the ones that give slightly to the touch, not those that are hard. We’ll see you home or let you choose a new start shortly. You are no longer slaves, so the choice will be yours. You will notice your old scars are gone, and I hope you accept this as a token of our goodwill to you.”

Though some dashed from the tiny rooms Drakon had created, immediately seeking children and loved ones, others broke down in tears and hid away until they’d composed themselves. Amdirlain kept her attention out of the chambers, only listening for signs of self-harm and projected a calm reassurance to those until they ceased.

A tiger beast-kin with thin black streaks through white hair, and the lanky limbs of a teenager, eventually exited a chamber in the fifth ring out from the dais and stalked among the trees. After pacing about, he hid in the shadows of one where he eyed Amdirlain and bit into a fruit. His nostrils flared at the sweet juices, and he inhaled the first and went back for more. As the noise of reunions grew louder, his ears flattened, and he advanced from tree to tree; his blue feline gaze never shifting from her.

“Since you’ve no one you wish to celebrate with, why don’t you come to the dais and share your name with me?” Amdirlain cast her voice to his ears alone.

The boy flattened out in the long grass; the tips of his ears momentarily twitching before they flattened again. After a few minutes, he peeked out of the grass again. The themes within him were unique among those gathered, and even other tigers showed no relation.

“No? Okay, your choice, but I don’t mean you harm.”

Amdirlain stood at ease with her hands folded behind her back. Eventually, a male wolf strode close, his head low in a beaten fashion that twisted Amdirlain’s stomach into knots. The braced melody within him rose as he inhaled, and Amdirlain set the air to repeat his expected question for all ears.

“Great one, might we know what happened?” he asked.

“Last night we freed all the slaves the humans of First Peak held. Anyone who had physically tortured or killed slaves for enjoyment is dead. Those who had done so because of orders or laws intended to degrade beast-kin, I punished in different ways depending on their reason for said behaviour,” Amdirlain said. “The nations’ kings and a sizable chunk of the highest nobles are dead. In two of the nations, most nobles’ estates have reverted to wilderness, and we’ve scattered the worst of the human sects.”

Discordant themes of disbelief and questions ran through the crowd.

Images of the First Peak showed the estates and possessions dissolving, the faces of wailing nobles cast from their homes, and the sect fortresses disappearing into the sky. Briefly, tiny one-way windows let them take in the fresh scents that held the misery of their former masters.

At that, an uproar of cheers and shouts filled the air, but the tiger boy still only silently watched her.

After celebrating with his family and exchanging hugs, the wolf returned to her. “Might I know your name, great one?” 

“My name is Amdirlain, but I’m uncomfortable with titles. What is your name?”

“I have only the name my former master gave me, and I don’t wish to use it.”

“Time to think of a new one then.”

“Will you guide us, great one?”

You see me as a great one, yet I feel I’m merely at a different point on my journey, with so many flaws to address.

“Some choices you need to make for yourself. This realm allows any soul to progress to gain the same strength in time, so believe in yourselves,” Amdirlain said.

The male wolf again retreated to rejoin his group, and the tiger boy darted forward between trees until he hid behind the first ring of them.

After an hour, with the initial celebratory excitement faded, Amdirlain cleared her throat and ensured the sound carried to everyone. It quickly brought silence.

“It’s time for choices to be made. For those with families to return to among the beast-kin nations, and who wish to do so, please raise a hand, palm up, before you.”

Some among the full-blooded beast-kin touched hybrid children, and with worry and concern chiming in their minds, kept their hands lowered. Those with hands raised had a cold copper coin appear in their hands.

It seems the tribes don’t always receive part-bloods fairly.

“You can lower your hands now. You’ll receive an image of your closest blood-relative. If you don’t wish to be sent to them, then drop that token I provided within four breaths of the image appearing,” Amdirlain instructed. “You don’t have to explain why; the fact that you don’t want to go to them is enough. I’ll show you other faces after everyone else looking to rejoin relatives gets sent home.”

Those who had people to reunite with were unfortunately in the minority among the millions of freed slaves, but Amdirlain soon had them sent home. Following her instructions, those who had dropped coins saw new images and collected the image when one they wanted to rejoin appeared. Once they were all gone, Amdirlain nodded in satisfaction, hiding her actual dismay at the millions who remained.

I expected that to whittle down the number of those we had to help directly.

“You have all had part or all of your lives stolen from you, and no home to call your own.” Amdirlain swallowed back her own emotions. “Hands up, those who would like their youth restored? It won’t guarantee you the same number of years, as foolish mistakes or misfortune could still find you. It will just put you back into your teenage years.”

“Why didn’t you offer that to them?” the tiger boy whispered.

She ensured everyone heard his question before Amdirlain smiled reassuringly. “Then how would they have explained it to their relatives? Would they want to outlive loved ones who had retained their freedom? Those of you here are going to a new life in a distant location, so I offer you that advantage if it's desired.”

Most of the adults ended up enfolded by primordial motes that manifested as white phoenixes, which healed their ageing but didn’t set a primordial flame in their dantian.

“From now on, parents, whatever option you pick, your children will go with you. You’ll hear an option once. I’ll send people away to follow that option, and it won’t be offered again. Does anyone have questions about that? I’ll hear you even if you speak normally.”

Among the clamour of questions, the tiger beast-kin asked. “What will happen if we don’t like any of the options you offer?”

Amdirlain raised a hand as the boy’s words repeated for all to hear, and only then answered. “I’ll send you to a safe place away from First Peak with enough funds for a few years to get yourself established. However, you’ll have to find your own path and make your own arrangements.”

There were thousands of questions, but most were variations on similar themes, along with basic ones about living quarters or equipment. Images of the nearly empty farming and mining towns, with sheds filled with supplies and equipment, answered most of them.

“Time to start choosing. Raise a hand, anyone who would like a farm of their own?”

Those she sent off to where Drakon and Mùchén were creating townships in another of her created worlds. With more questions, she identified groups and dispatched them to organisers whom Mùchén had arranged. Many sought lives around the crafts or professions they already knew rather than starting on something new.

The better the option sounded, the more leapt at it. Soon she had the number in the orchard whittled down to a few thousand, and had moved those who remained closer to the central platform.

“Anyone who would like a chance at cultivation, please raise a hand.”

A jumble of startled melodies rang through the surrounding crowd.

“Do you plan to turn us into soldiers?” The tiger beast-kin asked, brushing a white lock from his eyes.

“The purpose of your cultivation is your own, be it for healing, hunting, farming, seeking enlightenment, or gaining martial prowess. As long as you don’t seek to inflict the suffering you experienced onto others, or seek Di Yu, you can walk your own dao with no objection from me,” Amdirlain projected reassurance. “As I promised the others. You’ll receive a general education suitable for your new life, and then you'll have time to decide where you go from there. I’ll organise teachers and accommodation for you. If you work hard, you might qualify for a sect placement, but that will be up to you.” 

Only a score of parents didn’t raise their hands.

It seems like a common dream.

“Those who don’t wish for that opportunity approach, and we’ll discuss what sort of place you’d like your new start in,” Amdirlain said. “While I might not match it exactly, we’ll find something together.”

She smiled at the first who approached and listened intently to their shy, mumbled request.