Chapter 424 - Hate. Let Me Tell You How Much I Have Remembered To Hate. (Patreon)

Bit of a clunky title, but we'll workshop it as needed! Gonna do some funny stuff in between the direct quotes / references too!

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There are a near infinite number of ways in which a conflict can be resolved. Thousands upon millions of combinations of words that can lead to outcomes you desire. If you’re smart enough and lucky enough to see things coming, there’s a literally indefinite amount of ways you can prepare a battlefield ahead of time, modify the conditions of the encounter, influence the context of enemy actions. Blind, brute violence has as much depth to it as any other art, but there are large infinities and small infinities, and it’s good to know when to use one over the other. Pay off your enemies. Confuse them. Distract them. Make it more expensive for them to fight you than for them to leave. Hold hostages. Devastate their logistics. Make them fall in love with you. Draw another enemy into the field to distract and destroy as needed. Serve your enemies tea so good they cum their pants off, then use the splooge in a ritual to throw them into a pocket realm of splooge that they can only escape by drinking their way out. 

The expression on your face is exactly why I chose that example. You think I’m making a joke. I’m not. You need to broaden your mindset about what constitutes combat now that you’re in a realm where a person might be immune to force, piercing, slashing, strangulation, starvation, or a million other ways of being defeated. Indirect combat, direct combat, non-combat, and any other variation therein have to be the bare minimum in your understanding. Conflict is inevitable, and if you always try to face it the same way, you will fail. Be creative. Think about the ways you have available to you, most especially because the one that your enemy does not expect is the one most likely to grant you victory. 

Victory is asymmetry. There are a near infinite amount of ways to win and to lose, and the ones that are most obvious to you will also be most obvious to your enemies. They will expect it. They will prepare for it. Falling into an arms race is an easy way to dance on a knife’s edge, and in a conflict you want to wield the knife, not trap yourself upon it. Find the ways that conflict can be resolved that your enemy does not expect, because there are infinite ways, and the one that you possess that they do not is the one that will see you go the furthest.

-”Path Of The Deathless”, primer on Cultivation of all forms, written by Sun “Murder The Heavens And Eat Their Thrones” Dailou, Burning Ambitions Made Flesh, The Screaming Sunlight Turned Sweet And Savory. Redacted by official Imperial Decree, held in perpetuity amongst the Divine Vaults.

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Half of the mountainside evaporates. Stone sublimates into gas and then into plasma, furthering the explosion, igniting a lesser sun into the world, and then the direction of the detonation blasts it forward, distorting and warping the explosion. A malformed egg burns brightly enough to blind mortal eyes, and then-

A blade Cuts. 

Three figures, clad in dark armor, stand in the void of emptiness carved into the explosion as it destabilizes further. One of them holds a simple, unadorned Jian in his hand, a look of focus in his eyes and a slight vibration echoing from the sword. 

The light of the explosion, undercut by its premature severance, dims in comparison to the other sources of light around it. Defensive artifacts and arrays have been deployed at their highest level, three Warrior Realm experts standing in front of dozens of veterans of the Nascent Soul realm with their own protections. Jade beasts, constructs of energy, rivers shaped into intricate formations, and stone of iridescent beauty all stand in the way of the destruction, keeping it from entirely destroying the mountainside. 

Still, there are wounds. Several of the Nascent Soul realm cultivators sport major injuries, ranging from missing limbs to severe burns. The explosion was fast enough and abrupt enough that many of the slower cultivators didn’t make it, the toughest among them leaving behind bones and seared flesh in place of corpses. The encampments of a dozen different sects have been turned to rubble, at the center of which remains a ripple in space, surrounded by already-regrowing patches of purple and flesh-colored grass.

A voice sounds across the mountain, combatting the echo of the explosion. 

“Behold! Proof that you are incapable of containing the danger!”

The man in black waves his Jian, every shadow and movement of it casting sharp-edged power over the world. Several of the defensive artifacts and powers flare up, sparks cast just from the presence of the weapon he wields, and several disciples of Morae’s sects turn as if ready to face a battle on two fronts. 

“Your foolish desire to cast yourselves into that which you do not understand will only get you killed. I say one final time, without the gift of patience I have been continually offering- leave this place and abandon your interest in it. Those better equipped to understand and contain this threat have arrived, and your presence is as harmful as it is meaningless.”

A presence from the side of the crater that was the plateau that housed the Peak of the Iron Tortoise lights up. The presence of a mountain inviolable, taller than the highest peak and with roots down to the deepest realms, suddenly stands, blocking out an entire horizon. 

“YOU DARE?” 

The mountain has not moved, and yet, its position relative to the three black-armored figures has changed. All three of them now stand in its shadow, beneath an impossible peak, which could as easily crush them as it could turn them irrelevant beneath its sheer scale. 

“YOU STAND BEFORE US, INTRUDERS UPON OUR TERRITORY, AND DEMAND WE BOW TO YOU?”

There is outrage to the words, but very little anger. Above all else, the mountain’s thundering voice speaks of incredulity, that something would be so mad as to stand before it and make demands.

And yet, none of the three figures in black armor seem intimidated. 

The one in the lead, holding the Jian, lets out a little sigh. True to his words, he doesn’t attempt any further dialogue. 

His sword rises. 

A second bomb enters the conversation.

Out from behind the mountain, which is both a literal mountain and a man who stands, hands on his hips, a second bundle of flesh and skin flies out of the fold in space. Qi-rich muscle convulses, pointing the entire detonation out like a shaped charge towards the three men. 

The Jian flashes out, cutting a second time. It cuts through the blast earlier this time, but the bomb, too, has been shaped differently. 

Twin beams of devastating force form, split like a river against a stone and blasting out into the world on either side of the armored trio. There’s enough destructive energy and enough heat in the explosion to light the air on fire, a flaring ignition that leaves flickering trails of flesh-like growth in the air before they too evaporate. 

The Jian vibrates with the force of energy required to cut through the blast. The other two figures have also drawn their blades, their presences beginning to expand and manifest into the world. Not one of them seems lesser than the mountain, though none of them hold its depth. Three forests, intermingled into a single whole, each of them lit by their own shadows. Only the details of the trees change, and yet, every one of them exists as if born from a single tree, whose presence looms over the forest like a deity over a shrine. 

On some pre-planned signal, the three of them dash apart, circling around the mountain while the one in the lead stands firm-

The fold in space ripples open, and approximately thirty-seven more bombs all greet the forests. 

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It would be easy if Raika could use fire or touch the Qi directly. That would make things a lot less complicated. As it is, she either doesn’t remember or never knew how to incite those sorts of chemicals. What she does now is Space and Flesh. 

Flesh, in particular, has plenty of concepts that connect with themes of destruction and explosive violence. Digestion, production of gasses, contraction, chemicals that turn into movement and back again- all of them fall under the same umbrella. Sort of. Kinda. She has to squint, but they are a part of Flesh, even if they’re not what it is or what it’s for in and of themselves. Enough Qi, imbued with a blend of these properties, can have devastating effects that lead to fire and explosive force, even if they aren’t a part of them. 

Taking a chunk out of the landscape of her being, she fills it with Qi flavored by the right concepts, mutating and transforming organs as needed. Then, she makes a system of those Qi-crystals she’s been building, made of keratin and quartz, and pumps them full, making a completely unstable Qi dynamo, imitating a system of malformed meridians, or something approaching a formation.

Then she clenches. Space becomes more compacted, denser, allowing her to put even more of herself into a neat little package. 

By the time she’s stopped to think about whether or not she should, she’s already made her first fifty. If she doesn’t throw them out of her, she’s going to have to deal with them exploding on the inside of her landscape, which would not be pleasant. Flesh and living things self-destruct all the time- nothing in the concept negates that directly. 

By the time she’s stopped to wonder if there’s a way she could keep it contained if she wanted to, she’s also come to the conclusion that she does not, in fact, want to. 

That name. That green. 

Feng.

Like thinking through wire. Like pulling thoughts from between shards of glass. So many safeguards, so many redundancies, so many pieces overlapping each other to carve her very being apart. And yet, in spite of everything, that name stands out. Somehow tied to so much and yet not important enough to fully quarantine. A part of who She used to be that was defining, but not so defining that her system kills itself to touch it- barely. 

It comes with a hatred. It comes with fear. It comes with agony and loathing and disgust and contempt, and anything else that might be is all razor-blades and daggers in her mind. 

By the time she’s done coming to all these realizations, the first bomb is through. It feels good. 

The next one feels better. 

The next thirty feel exceptional. 

It’s not hard to aim at them. It’s hard to get eyes out through the fold, but the fold is her, and she can sense through her synesthesia the smell of forests.

She launches more in that direction. Clusters of herself with just enough brain and muscle to squeeze every bit of violent, radiating Qi in them out at her targets. 

There are others, the organizations and groups and sects, but she doesn’t care. Other Raikas in her are still entertaining themselves with their new toys, the little visitors still oh-so-engaging, but every part of her that’s connected and aware of what her largest self is thinking screams alongside her and makes more bombs. 

The next twenty bombs are basically just leftovers. She’s got a hundred more in the pipeline, enough that it’s starting to dig into her reserves and actually cost something. 

But the fold still smells of forest green, too-sharp, too-dark, and she hates it. 

She extends an arm out through the fold.

It’s not an arm, of course, not really. 

A tower of ligaments shoots out like a pressurized snail from the fold, growing scaffoldings of bone out like harpoons to dig into what’s left of the mountainside. What was a plateau has become a concave crater in the side of the mountain, which now has great and yawning cracks cutting through miles of it. The air smells ionized, ozone and heat screaming, and the hiss of still-cooling lava fills the air. 

And yet, a hundred-thousand eyes open up to see, and find themselves faced with a forest. 

There are others here. A river, so wide that its banks cannot be seen, beneath whose waves vast forms slumber. A mountain so vast it can barely be comprehended, immovable and divine. The sound of rushing waves in a place with no shore, flapping wings loud enough to match it echoing off its waters. 

They’re in the way. 

She stares with a thousand eyes at three forests that are one, that are shadowed, that are bleak and barren and sharp and hateful, and she hates in turn.

[Growing Lumber Of The Perfect Tree]

[Forested Hills Seek Shadow]

[Sharpness In Swaying Leaves]

Three Souls, their flavor perfectly unique and yet entirely similar. 

The clacking of teeth and squirming of tongues echoes as the forests approach, returning from the direction in which they retreated beneath her assault.

“STAY OUT OF THE WAY.”

The river, the sea, and the mountain do not move at first. She hears them communicating with each other, smells the colors of it, and does not care to translate. 

They don’t leave, but they do move further back.

None of them are between her and the approaching forests.

Black armor and robes are only just coming into view. Three Jians, bladed edges facing outward, cut at the skein of the world, cut the eyes that see them, Cut in every aspect of their being save one with will- and they are the least of the weights she can feel coming from the forests. 

She vomits, and a hundred of the mountain-crackers she’s made disgorge in a blind mess.

She smells it, there, beyond the taste of trees. 

Fear.

The ensuing detonation burns her alive. Even shaped to fire away from her body, the sheer mass of Flesh and mutation and raw Qi she emits causes the air to combust, the atmosphere around her catching fire from the attack. There may not be something as convenient as explosion Qi in the bombs, but the sheer force of transformation and flesh-generation they hold is enough to cause the sort of chemistry that is more than lethal.

It won’t be enough to kill them. She’s glad it won’t be. She hates, and they have only begun to exist within it.

A cut from one of the swords comes out of the ionized glow of the air, particles sparking electricity between each other as the world is severed in a line. Raika tries to move but she can’t- there’s too much weight, too much mass, and she can’t fit it all through the fold or move the fold itself. Maybe, with time, but not on a whim, not unprepared.

The limb is severed.

She immediately tries to generate more tissue- and fails. The Cut is powerful enough to ensure its own existence even after the fact, and she has to discard all of the damaged tissue instead, sloughing off a layer to then start to regrow. By then, two of the three Fengs have gotten into range to let out more Cuts of their own.

The mountain starts to come apart as massive chunks of it are cut off from the center, and what’s left of the flesh-tower she’s created falls apart just as easily.

She puts up thicker layers of tissue, more infused with Qi- that slows the cuts, but doesn’t stop them entirely. They start aiming for the fold in space, and she plants bones around it in a cage to compensate, thickening and enriching the bone with the keratin-crystals of Qi she’s developing. Still, they strike at her.

It’s been maybe five seconds since she spoke. 

As the twentieth Cut slices her body perfectly in half, she starts throwing bombs out blindly.

The air is lit with beams of incandescent, unshaped Qi, mutation and regeneration alone igniting explosive blasts all around. One at a time, the blasts cook her flesh and knock the tower about, but they also infuse the Qi with blinding amounts of Flesh Qi, and the half-random detonations force her attackers to block or dodge as they approach.

She can feel their swords shivering, actively growing more unstable Cut by Cut. They have limits, and she can outlast them.

They have more tools, so that doesn’t matter. But so does she. 

Using the Qi in the area, she keeps growing, expanding, blossoming out more tendrils and more support structures. In seconds she’s built architecture linking her to the crumbling mountainside, anchoring it in place as her enemies approach.

A forest blooms out of her flesh as one of them gets in range. 

Razor-sharp leaves grow out of tree trunks that explode from her, the sound of shattering bone and wood almost identical. A Cut arrives a second after, carving out a chunk of her around the woods. She retaliates, forcibly constricting cords of muscle strong enough to crush stone, reconnecting over and below some of the severed pieces and cracking the forest as it grows, but it doesn’t die easily. Parts of her become ontologically something else, unclaimable, alien, and it hurts.

But Pain is familiar. 

Another bloom erupts out of her other side, disrupting multiple of her anchors. More bombs fire off, and the third Feng-

They’re in range.

The tower of flesh opens along its seams and sings.

With lungs the size of hills, vocal cords like woven steel, and an understanding beyond intimate of biology, Raika sings at a frequency that liquifies flesh.

One of the Fengs immediately starts vomiting, bleeding from every orifice and screaming. The other one, closer, survives longer, his cultivation having pushed his body in a different way, or some technique, and the third one, only just arriving, singed and tanned from the explosions, merely flinches back for a moment.

She continues singing her hatred as they approach, continuing to cut at her. 

She can’t dodge, so the trick, in turn, is to ablate the Cuts. A hundred layers of crystalline energy, exploding with Flesh Qi every time they are broken, inciting new, chaotic growth. Malformations and cancers sprout up wildly, but they just become more armor, more scaffolding to grow from, more anchor points. As the forests tear through her in wild, unchecked, violent growth, she matches it with cancerous mutation and layered keratinous latticing, and she sings, and a rain of bombs and beams of violent devastation orbit around her. 

One of the Fengs steps out from behind one of the trees-that-are him, blade ready to Cut her at the base, its edge shivering with barely contained energies. 

A hand grabs him by the throat.

It’s attached to another hand, which is attached to a torso, which is attached to a central mass of tumorous, poorly-stitched tissues. 

It would have been nice to keep the parts for more study, but she has other priorities.

The first of her fused abominations tackles a Warrior realm cultivator, slamming its body against him and turning to a fleshy paste as it does- and slamming the very, very different, very supercharged spiritual organs within it into a Qi-deviation the likes of which the natural world would never allow. 

The forest is consumed in a flood of black water and malformed weeds and twisting stone and burrowing crabs and bright skies and other nonsensical combinations as the first construct self destructs. 

She opens more mouths, modulating the singing further, finding the right frequencies to hurt them. She follows the taste of Pain.

She drenches the world in bombs. 

And the rest of her very first horde emerges from within her.

It all feels very cathartic.