Abyssal Road Trip - 661 - Battleground (Patreon)

Amdirlain’s PoV - Constructed Space

It was nearly noon, and after thousands of practice runs, Mùchén shifted from sitting cross-legged near the arena’s entrance to join the group in conversation.

“I believe I have proper control of the technique. Since Amdirlain believes she can track him anywhere, shall we proceed?”

“We don’t know what aspects he commands or his current strength, so be ready to defend yourselves,” Panlong said. “Don’t aim for his head or chest; we need to shatter the nascent soul.”

“Yes. If the host dies first, the nascent soul could attempt to possess us. The barrier is to keep Yuxuan from fleeing, not for our safety.”

“Comforting words,” Jiayi murmured.

“Then burn your fear into focused strikes,” Baiyan said. Her cold blue eyes churned with wind qi, gaining flecks of white like froth atop waves of a storm-tossed sea.

The group spread out around the arena, ensuring that no one stood directly opposite on the far side of the circle. Mùchén received nods from those present and started the technique.

At the midpoint of the circle, a translucent cube snapped into place and spat Yuxuan out, already tumbling as he shrugged off phantasmal tendrils.

Power filled the air with blinding bluish-white light and screamed over the twisted melodies within Yuxuan, only to meet a silvery hemisphere that shrugged the energy aside and forced the electricity to ground into the earth. A multitude of glowing symbols spread out from Yuxuan, spinning into expanding orbits as they enforced the dome. More blasts of lightning and howling winds stabbed downwards from Panlong and Baiyan, to be met by shifting runes whose glowing energy deflected the strikes.

From his flank, Mùchén struck; a deluge of silvery blades of light launched from his jian in a furious roar. The hemisphere spun with each cut, bleeding force from every strike, but each still gouged and skipped across the arena floor. A cascade of rocks shattered in Yuxuan’s grasp, releasing wailing souls whose essence shredded and fed qi into more sigils before they vanished.

The slippery melodies dragging at the attacks that slid aside spoke of limits, and Amdirlain struck. Gravity pulsed across the middle region and, unable to deflect the strike or shed the pressure, the barrier shattered. Flagstones beneath Yuxuan’s feet buckled, but he stayed upright. A hand thrust a stone plaque into the severing winds of Baiyan’s attack, and the screaming souls sent up a banshee’s wail that caused streams of blood to burst from her ears.

As she fell back, Panlong’s blasts came in from the side to destroy the hold the wailing souls held on the earthly plane, turning the shattered pieces of spinning gravestone to dust.

As Baiyan fell back bleeding, Drakon growled and grew. In a sharp exhalation, two metres became forty, and the light behind him cast a long shadow across the arena. Yuxuan turned in sudden fear. A pulse of Drakon’s will pulled his hammer to him; it slapped against his palm with a thunderous crack, already expanded to match his new size. With a smith’s focus, Drakon struck in an overhead blow. With the outer shell gone, the sigils formed a frail net to catch a house-sized block of metal that blurred toward Yuxuan. Still weighed down by Amdirlain’s gravitational pressure, Yuxuan unleashed a blast to one side. The explosion hurled him across the floor in a spin, shredding sigils through tumbling impacts and raising a cloud of dust. Amdirlain reached into the host’s discordant songs, striking into flaws to pry the nascent soul from it. The attacks pulled at his focus, eliciting a scream of fear from the airborne Yuxuan.

His hand dipped to his waist, and hundreds of grave markers scattered in his wake, deliberately beneath the descending hammer. That treasure trove of soul-bindings pulverised into powder, and the tool borne from the Titan’s forge swept the tormented to their rest. Yet their banishment triggered the eruption of the techniques they were bound to feed. In a furious eruption of light and riotous screams, a flurry of curses and vicious elemental strikes wreathed the hammer and Drakon’s arm. The shockwave from the blow added to Yuxuan’s momentum.

As Yuxuan tumbled, Panlong exploded into his full form, his long serpentine body encircling the arena. A forelimb thrust forward, and Yuxuan came to rest upon an outstretched claw. The tip that speared through his abdomen shattered the dantian before it obliterated his spine. The nascent soul within burst in a wild klaxon of bass notes that throbbed across Amdirlain’s mind, yet behind the noise came a sigh of respite from the host as, freed from the parasite’s control, their soul departed.

“Overwhelming force,” Drakon murmured, then shrank to his normal size and released the still-massive hammer. Golden blood leaked from a myriad of cuts and burns from fingertips to a few centimetres short of his armpit. The elemental attacks had torn the upper robes away, leaving his striking arm and a chunk of his torso bare.

As Panlong transformed back to release Yuxuan’s host, Amdirlain appeared beside Drakon. Though his body was already sealing the wounds. Amdirlain activated reiki, only for Baiyan to join her in a blur and slap aside a hand already glowing with light. The crack echoed across the stilling arena. Shrill notes of fear rippled through Baiyan, warning Amdirlain there was no malice. Unsure what she was missing, Amdirlain questioningly lifted her gaze.

“Embedded curses. Stop the wounds from healing,” Baiyan instructed.

At the curt explanation, Amdirlain acted. Cutting songs drove into the injuries, each carrying sharpened notes that peeled away healing flesh that tried to encapsulate what she thought were fading notes. As she exposed them, they rang out with the growth potential of noxious weeds. The winds under Baiyan’s delicate control plucked the barbed techniques free, forcing them from flesh and flinging them skyward.

Jiayi and Mùchén joined in, their techniques lashed out to incinerate or freeze the curses Baiyan flung away. Despite her efforts, blackened flesh crept higher. With a snort and a squirm, Drakon dug hardened fingers into his shoulder joint and ripped his arm completely free. Amid the pulse of golden lifeblood that drenched the floor, he tossed it aside.

Mid-air, a shroud of blue flames and azure lightning leapt from Jiayi’s and Baiyan’s hands, incinerating the limb. With its destruction, hundreds of ongoing techniques writhed, seeking a new target, but the pair contained the curses within the inferno. The greenish-gold glow of Amdirlain’s reiki cut off the next pulse of blood, and Drakon worked with her to regrow the limb.

“You two share a strange disregard for your bodies,” Mùchén observed.

“Pay the price quickly and cleanly. Putrid wounds are hard to heal once corruption gets past certain points,” Drakon snorted and raised the other hand, his words stumbling. “Well then, melting the whole and rebuilding might be required.”

He is worse off than he is trying to make out.

“You’re mixing your analogies, and you’re not a wagon,” Baiyan critiqued as she monitored the regrowth of his bones and tendons. A creeping layer of nerves and muscle started to form along the limb.

“Organic beings are biological machines,” Drakon grumbled. “It’s all about mechanical leverage, tension, and pumps.”

“It’s not the flesh that is my primary concern,” Panlong rumbled. “That many curses landing will have compromised your aura. Even when you've regrown your limb, perforations will remain until you heal and reinforce it. I’d suggest cultivating near Bǎi Xǔ for a time; the density of qi around him should help.”

It seems my son introduced himself to his neighbours.

Letting out an unhappy sigh, Mùchén gathered the body into a storage device. “I’ll take the remains back to the Heavenly Veil Order; hopefully, they can return him to his family.”

The others waited until Drakon’s limb regrew, and Amdirlain nodded in satisfaction when he could finally wiggle new fingers.

“Amdirlain and Drakon, you’re welcome to guest at my peak,” Baiyan said.

“But-”

Amdirlain tapped Drakon’s chin. “You told me to take my healing seriously. You can rest up, and I’ll be along shortly.”

He frowned with concern. “What do you plan to do?”

“Odds and ends. I’ll sort out the hamlet, check on a few things, and then come spend time with you and Bǎi Xǔ.”

“That feels a bit evasive. What exactly do you want to check on?”

“Fine, before the hamlet, I’ll look in on the former General Sun. Once they’re both sorted, there are some nice beaches on this ocean. I might take a few days to fish and swim before I join you at Jade Peak. You like the quiet of routine, but I sometimes need solitude.”

He called the hammer to his new hand and, though it shrank to normal size, it slipped from his spasming grip.

“You need to rest,” Panlong chided. “Divine treasures stress their wielder’s aura. Just leave it here for now.”

“I don’t want it soaking up the lingering energies,” Drakon protested, though he clutched his arm as his regrown biceps kept spasming.

Worry and longing chimed within Jiayi’s song, and precognition dug up the conversation Amdirlain had with Drakon about her. A hopeful, bright crescendo grew, though threaded with dark warning tones.

If I take the right tack, it seems some meddling might help her.

Amdirlain picked the hammer up and slung it over her shoulder. “Mùchén, if you’d take the others to Jade Peak, I’ll see Jiayi home.”

She put a hand on his back and nudged Drakon toward the exit. The others drifted along with them in a casual stroll, shedding the battle's tension.

“I can move myself,” Drakon huffed.

“All techniques manipulate the aura, and you need to rest yours,” Panlong said. “No moving yourself, Drakon.”

“I hope you’re a better patient than I am, little brother,” Amdirlain said.

“It’s hard to be worse.”

“Stupid levels of stubbornness and self-abuse aren’t a place for competition.”

“Fine, I’ll behave,” Drakon grumbled.

“With the energy flowing from the peak,” Mùchén noted as they drew near the exit point. “Perhaps leave the arena where it is so the ocean’s qi flows can dilute and disperse Yuxuan’s malice.”

“Yeah, it might need some time,” Drakon agreed.

Panlong stepped outside first, and Amdirlain exited on Drakon’s heels. Black clouds rolled in from the west, carried by fierce winds that tore across the isle and set the trees in the lowlands swaying. With no cover on the sharp peak, icy winds scoured bare stone, and the silk banners of the barrier formation thrashed violently within the constraint of Yunxian’s control.

Near the closest writhing black banner, Yunxian anxiously examined Panlong from head to toe, her nose twitching at the lingering smell of blood.

“Baiyan took a minor blast, but Drakon took the only serious injury on our side,” Panlong reassured her.

The dragon matriarch turned to Drakon. “You look hale, but you’re giving off more energy than normal, Drakon.”

“Some curses ripped my arm up.”

“Some,” Panlong snorted. “Hundreds. You’re lucky your hammer banished the souls so fast. If they’d properly empowered those techniques, you’d be dead.”

As he was explaining, Mùchén emerged from the space. “I wasn’t expecting him to have souls bound in such a fashion. Given the defence he put up, I’m glad we didn’t seek him in the ruins.”

“Might I examine your aura, Drakon?” Yunxian asked, her ice-blue gaze softening with concern.

“Let us get back to Jade Peak first before you fuss over him,” Panlong interjected.

“The body hopper is no more, and no one died,” Baiyan said, as she and Jiayi stepped from the archway together. “It was a decisive victory, even if Drakon gave us a scare at the end.”

“Panlong had the honour of finishing him,” Jiayi said.

“How did he die?”

“He was a tougher nut to crack than I expected, but his nascent soul shattered on my claw tip.”

The box for the formation banners appeared in Yunxian’s hands as the banners shifted into an orderly line, rolled up, and settled into the container.

“Mùchén, did you buy these banners or were they a contribution to hunting Yuxuan?”

“I purchased them from the Tiānshū Sect after they backed out,” Mùchén replied.

“Might I acquire them from you?”

“Consider them a gift to the Jade Peak Sect with my thanks,” Mùchén said. “Your aid made this far easier.”

“I contributed nothing; there was no strain against the barrier,” Yunxian said, but the box disappeared into a storage ring.

“Yet knowing it was out here under your care, we didn’t have to worry about his nascent soul fleeing.” Mùchén bowed.

“You’re too kind, Mùchén.”

“Shall I return you to Jade Peak now?” Mùchén asked.

Drakon sighed. “Whenever you’re ready. Try not to be too long, Amdirlain.”

“I’ll send messages, but I need some quiet.”

Once all except Jiayi had accepted Mùchén’s offer, he swept the group away, leaving Amdirlain alone with Jiayi.

With a deep sigh, she stared out over the ocean.

“Your brother is frustrating,” Jiayi said.

“I take it you’re not talking about the fight or his injury.”

A gust across the peak sent Jiayi’s long red hair fluttering wildly, and Amdirlain shortened hers in reflex.

“Why won’t he accept my offers?” Jiayi asked. “Has he said anything to you, Lady Amdirlain?”

“Jiayi, it’s not that he doesn’t like you. It’s because he doesn’t want to hurt you.”

“I’m a nascent soul as well,” Jiayi protested, pressing a palm against her sternum. The form-fitting silk of her dress wrinkled as her fingers flexed. “I’m sure I can get my strength close to his.”

“I don’t mean physically,” Amdirlain cut in as Jiayi’s protests built steam. “You both want very different things from a relationship.”

Jiayi’s mouth hardened. “He takes plenty of momentary comfort from others, but declines me.”

“He doesn’t believe that will bring you happiness. Are you sure a momentary dalliance is really what you’re after?”

“Yes.”

The tone beneath her words shifted pitch, a hollow dissatisfaction that Amdirlain recognised. “While you say you would be happy with a casual dao mate, that isn’t the truth. Drakon can instinctively feel the disorder in your claim, and I can hear it,” Amdirlain said.

“I’m not lying.” Jiayi declared, her gaze sparking defiantly.

“You’re not intentionally lying, but I can hear the dissatisfaction. To be crass, fucking for relief of sexual frustration will not cut it for you,” Amdirlain said, patting her arm. “Have you had a dao mate previously?”

“I had a dao mate once,” Jiayi said, the fierce light in her gaze fading. “He didn’t make it past a block at mid-energy and died centuries ago.”

“The pain from a loved one dying never fades,” Amdirlain said, moving down the peak from the archway with the hammer. “You merely get used to carrying the weight of it after a time. Their place in our heart stays empty, and if we’re fortunate and open, we instead find room for someone new.”

Jiayi nodded jerkily. “I still miss him. I wanted someone to climb beside me.”

“A friend once told me that managing relationships with mortals is hard.” Amdirlain perched on a rock ledge, the hammer planted at her feet. “It applies to anyone with a drastically different lifespan.”

“What do you mean by manage?”

“Handling the eventual grief,” Amdirlain clarified.

“Oh,” Jiayi sighed, rubbing her hands down her thighs. “Perhaps I should take my sisters’ advice and focus on my cultivation. Yet some days I feel this emptiness where he used to be. I’ll hear a story and think I can’t wait to tell him, or find something in a book and want to discuss it with him.”

“Only you can’t,” Amdirlain squeezed her hand. “It twists a knife and reopens the wound.”

Sudden hope shone in Jiayi’s gaze, and she moved to sit beside Amdirlain. “You can trace karmic ties. Would you be able to see if he is alive again?”

“Karmic ties go between lifetimes?”

“That’s what some treatises state,” Jiayi replied.

“Even if they are alive, how would I find them among the rest of your karmic ties? Never mind the fact that he could possess a very different personality, species, or now be female.”

“You found Yuxuan.”

“Which was a unique situation on several levels,” Amdirlain countered. “Two karmic ties twisted together and going to the one body was a giveaway.”

Not to mention the music of my precognition leading to the tie.

“Would you please try?” Jiayi asked, longing and grief peeking out from behind the public mask she wore.

“And if I find them, and they are female in this reincarnation, or a spiritual beast who can’t transform?”

“Then I’ll hope that they’re at least someone with whom I can be friends again.” Jiayi’s lips pressed tight, and her voice thickened. “Please, I miss my friend.”

“That I understand,” Amdirlain said; the worries that niggled at her didn’t possess a precognitive itch. “I know from experience a reincarnation’s personality can be very different.”

“Yet it’s a chance,” Jiayi persisted. “You and your brother both have this profound effect on people. You settle into our lives, but I don’t think you realise how few cultivators consider others friends. Most relationships between cultivators, even within sects, are more a balance sheet of favours owed.”

“Everyone is trying to get the resources to progress their cultivation.”

“Yes. Neither of you cares about those resources, so your involvement rings differently. That you asked us to help others after we insisted on repayment… you change the whole dynamic. Can you see that?”

The energy of her grief might stir a resonance. No, not grief; that’s a severing.

“Okay. Meditate on that longing you hold for your friend, and I’ll see if it stirs a thread among your karmic ties.”

Jiayi’s gaze brightened with unshed tears before she swallowed the emotions away. Her eyes closed, and Jiayi folded her hands in her lap. Fingers twitched as memories stirred.

The melodies in Jiayi’s thoughts churned around a common theme, and Amdirlain spread her attention across the strings of Jiayi’s karmic ties. For a moment, an image of a harp overlaid the net, but Amdirlain kept her hands clear of the strings. With a sharp breath, she pushed past preconceptions and preferences, reaching for this realm’s truth. The pattern shifted back into a three-dimensional spider’s web, with ties radiating out from Jiayi in all directions.

No exact memories lived in the threads, but her link to Jiayi was a thick cable, its tension echoing with barriers pierced. Others contained as much emotion as a clerk absently flicking an abacus stone while tallying dues, wispy strands that were as dispassionate as an accountant’s ledger.

My threads don’t resonate that way. Maybe it’s because she sees most relationships as transactional, so the strands carry that sense of a tally owed.

Centuries of even a cultivator’s isolated life had the strands layered around her in a thick mist. Some strands held a sense of death and bloodshed along with the debt owed. Yet the people at their ends were simple villagers, some living lives scarred by demonic beasts.

Among the mist came an echo of Jiayi’s resonance of longing; a sliding shift lost it, and Amdirlain hurriedly reversed course. After a quick game of hot and cold, Amdirlain found her goal.

Instead of a cold, misty strand, a thread of spun silver glowed in the fog. From its far end came a face Amdirlain knew, and her own karmic tie rang out.

Is his tie to Jiayi why Haobai found the courage to speak up when we met? His former sect makes him being a tiger beast-kin a little amusing.

“He’s alive,” Amdirlain said. “Though, given his youth, I won’t introduce you yet. Disparities in strength can distort relationships.”

“Youth?”

“Yes, he’s only just starting on the path of a cultivator. He had a hard life this time around, surviving slavery.”

“He was among those you saved at First Peak?” Tears streamed from Jiayi’s eyes, and she flung her arms around Amdirlain, squeezing her tight. “Thank you so much. Is he with those training for sect admission?”

“I’m not telling you. If he makes it to core rank, then I’ll introduce you. By then he’ll have decided his focus in life.”

“I can wait.” Jiayi’s words came out muffled, her face buried in Amdirlain’s shoulder. “If we don’t meet in this life, we can meet in another. Knowing that you can find him… I can’t… I’ve missed him so much.”

A comforting touch against Jiayi’s back set the fiery cultivator sobbing. With the storm needing to run its course, Amdirlain simply held her as the pain vented.

“You and your brother are completely unfair,” Jiayi murmured after a time, sitting back as she wiped at her face. “I’m normally more guarded.”

“Not according to your sisters.”

“Fine,” Jiayi huffed. “Except in matters that make me angry. I can’t tell you how much having the hope of seeing him again means.”

“Careful. His personality could be very different.”

“The soul is the same, just more experienced,” Jiayi countered, using flows of fire qi to dry her tears, her garments already shedding the marks. “I believe aspects of him would still show through.”

Other lifetimes where Amdirlain recognised Sarah's spark in varied forms swarmed in her mind.

“I agree with you there.”

“What do I do, Amdirlain?”

“For now, you’ll be waiting, so I’d suggest you find something else to occupy your time.” Amdirlain stood and collected the hammer. “Let’s get you home.”

Drakon didn’t think my soul void could hold this. Shall I see?

The hammer vanished without issue, an internal pressure briefly running through her but fading just as quickly. With a quick push of will focused on the melody of another location, they moved safely. The air shifted from a gale to a gentle spring breeze, filled with a floral aroma from the surrounding forest. North of where they now stood lay the valley leading up to the Vermillion Tiger Sect; in the ploughed fields a host of farmers were busy planting. The breeze carried the sounds of conversation, the town's clatter, and river traffic.

“You mentioned plans to see Wèilán before the fight? Are you still doing that or will you allow yourself some solitude first?”

“I seeded her with self-doubt. I need to resolve that situation.”

“It doesn’t sound like you want to talk to her. Would tea and some time to relax help?”

“That’s kind of you to offer, but I’m not picking an argument with her. I might not even speak to her. While I don’t like her attitude, I thought to restore her cultivation. There are dangerous creatures around that the kingdoms need powerful defenders to ward off. Even ones whose path I dislike can contribute to keeping kingdoms whole,” Amdirlain said. “Be kind to yourself, Jiayi, perhaps meditate on what you want as a person instead of just as a cultivator.”

With that, Amdirlain shifted location again, appearing in her forge room. Sunlight spilled through the unshuttered windows, overwhelming the glowstones in the ceiling.

She took a breath against a sudden weight in her gut. Though her soul void had absorbed it, the sense of mass had spiked with her teleport. The long-shafted striking hammer reappeared in her hand. Its head briefly gleamed gold. It drowned out the sunlight streaming in the window for a brief heartbeat before it calmed. With the scent of lingering flame twitching at her nose, Amdirlain’s gaze scanned the room.

Don’t become sapient. Now, Drakon left you resting for a bit in the north tower, so you should be right in this one.

The filled racks of tools across the stone walls felt wrong for holding the hammer. The metaphysical mass promised disaster unless she placed it carefully. A few careful pokes among the apartment’s melodies narrowed the choices. Finally, she positioned it atop a load-bearing wall that ran beneath the middle of the room. The wards within the stone threaded through the construction there and promised stability. Though the floor dimpled under the mass, no groan sounded, and the stone didn’t crack, so after a few minutes with no sign of collapse, she left it there.

Now to call on Sun Wèilán.

Given the trouble on her last visit, Amdirlain locked her aura down tighter.

A mirage of the hills she sought surrounded her, and Amdirlain confirmed that no foliage or animals overlapped her target before she released herself to a spot west of Tuancheng. Various construction projects were underway in the city. Alongside mundane methods, numerous cultivators used earth qi to expand the city’s outer ring, building new infrastructure such as communal kitchens and schools.

She delved further into a constructed space in the city’s inner ring and dipped past the themes lining its dimensional hold. Within, Amdirlain found Sun Wèilán in semi-disarray. Pristine enchantments kept her black-and-white wushu uniform immaculate but couldn’t tame her unpinned hair, which cascaded wildly down her back. Around her sat the remnants of shattered cups crusted with now-dried leaves from an assortment of herbal teas. Strained chords of distress, fear, and the poison of self-doubt Amdirlain had sown screamed through Wèilán.

Within the constructed space of Wèilán’s moonlet, demonic beasts circled the once-orderly manor grounds. Drawn by the focused qi they smelt inside. With no living servants or guards, only slowly fraying wards kept them at bay. A charge from a giant boar sent massive clods of dirt and crushed plants into the air. Head down, it raced along the ward’s edge. Pushing hard with each stride to force itself on course, the beast kept its head tilt, and the tip of a tusk carved a deep, glowing scar along the barrier’s course.