Chapter 493 – A Good Work-Life Balance (Patreon)

Right on time, here we are, back again! Here's hoping I got some more chapters in me today, fingers crossed I can get some more shit done. Tbh I'm kind of approaching burnout levels between all four of the different projects I'm working on rn, but BELOW is almost ready for the public release, book 2's edits are 93% done, and VISCERAE and RfR have both stayed consistent. I'm hoping that I spend the next few days pushing forward, full steam ahead, so I can get over some metaphorical hills before I let myself unclench and relax for a day or two. Wish me well, as I wish all of you truly and joyously well indeed, beloved creatures!

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The Sunlit Flesh makes of us more. It makes of us greater. Where the weakness of the world and the sinful weakness of ourselves demands that we must forever fall, the taste of blood and meat, sacrificed divinely, grows from us our better selves. 

We exist in a war against ourselves. In a war against death. Against the Peaks, against the ground, against the Beasts, against that hateful Empire which has torn the world open and ripped from us all our hearts.

But the Sunlit Flesh offers us a dawn. A dawn made of our own voices, our own bodies, our own fates. 

What more can we ask? What less can we offer than our prayers? Than the faith which has been so entirely earned?

–Local street prophet, speaking on the nature of some of the great changes that have overcome the Morae in recent years. Available to all listeners is a sample of the god he proselytizes for. The first taste is free.

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“I don’t know if this is the best thing to do, master. It feels a bit… cruel.”

Chen Tai gives a yowl of disapproval, absolutely glaring at him. “It’s not cruel! Only cruel thing is when I run circles around you and leave you looking like an idiot!”

Wei Zin takes in a slow breath, his well-refined exterior, now softened by his time opening up in town, letting out some of his annoyance. “Or perhaps it is simply cruel to make a beast act as a beast when such is not necessary.”

“Fuck you! I’m a beast all the time, even when I’m using all this stupid people language and this shape. Just because you don’t have enough legs and wear a lot of colors doesn’t mean you’re better than me.”

Raika laughs. “She’s got a point, kid. Being a beast is plenty normal, and beasts hunt each other all the time.”

“Well she’s a person, and–”

“Beasts are people too, sometimes,” Raika interrupts. “Just because they think differently or act differently doesn’t mean they’re not people. Sometimes they aren’t people, sure, but you can’t keep your worldview so limited.”

“I know that they’re people too, I just mean that acting out one’s bestial roots is somewhat primitive, no? Is there not a more tasteful way by which we could procure this sort of exercise?”

Raika shrugs. “Probably, at least by your definition of it. But I don’t mind, and Chen Tai seems to see it in a very different light.”

“Yeah!” grumbles her youngest disciple. “It’s like… It’s like culture! Stuff! Like tradition, right?” she asks, looking over to Raika for confirmation.

“That’s one way to put it, yes. You wouldn’t deny someone their traditions, would you? Especially if it doesn’t cause anyone any trouble.”

“You’re asking me to chase her through the woods in an exercise with a real spear, barely a few minutes walk from a village of Qi-Gathering Realm mortals. That’s no tradition I’m familiar with.”

“Doesn’t mean it’s any less of a tradition. And also, there’s always room to make new traditions. And also, I’m here to keep everything safe, and Chen Tai is happy to do it, so really, the question is whether or not you’re up for doing a practical exercise that everyone agrees to and offers no harm or cruelty. At worst, it offers some of the illusion of it, and if that’s enough for you, well, that’s a decision that you’ll have to make.”

Wei Zin grumbles a bit beneath his breath, but really, he’s just getting over the last of his discomfort. He’s a polite and princely fellow, so his reluctance is understandable from a personality perspective, but really, he’s smart enough to have figured this out all on his own. This hesitation comes from a sense of propriety that she’s still trying very hard to teach him to use for himself, rather than to let himself be used by. 

“Fine. Fine! I’ll hunt my junior sister through the damn woods, if it’s what everybody is asking for.”

Chen Tai lets out a whoop and a holler, and almost before Wei Zin’s finished his sentence, she’s off, sprinting away into the woodlands. 

Wei Zin curses, launching himself after her, and Raika leans back in her chair with a bit of weaving in hand. It’s not easy to do with only one hand, but it is doable, and it’s nice to have something to distract herself with while she’s supervising. 

Part of her training method really is to just let them train themselves. And each other. And her, in a weird way. She’s here to help, to guide, but never to actively instruct, not if no one’s asking for it, and so far, most of her students have all the tools they need for themselves. That’s part of the point of all this, after all– to give them space to decompress, to explore themselves, to gain perspective. 

Which means that she gets to sit back and enjoy the show as they take off. 

Her awareness covers pretty much the entire landscape at this point. Everything from the mountains outside the lake to the far forests on the opposite side is within her field of view from where she sits right now, beside her cabin, with a gentle firepit crackling beside her. Her integration with the land using the magics she’s put beneath the surface and her superhuman senses leave her with an inhuman level of awareness, and that’s all without really even trying that actively. There’s nowhere her kiddos can go that she won’t be able to perceive if she wills it, at least not without using Qi.

And they are, in fact, good kids, and not a one of them has broken her simple rules yet. No harm to the villagers, and no Qi usage. Technically, it’s no cultivation and no Qi usage, but, well, there’s limits to all that. Once one’s body has transformed enough, there’s really no way to stop it from being superhuman without actively restricting oneself, and that’s not really what she needs from them.

So as Wei Zin chases Chen Tai through the trees, they manage to stay all the way just below the sound barrier. 

Chen Tai in particular knows how to move in this way, capable of shifting between trees and through the underbrush while leaving barely a ripple. Wei Zin’s worse, but he gets better fast, faster than he should. The same sort of instincts that seem to follow him when he’s spear-fishing are present here as well, and as he channels techniques he may have only briefly trained with back in his tribe, he rapidly changes to move faster, more quietly, more esoterically through the woods. 

Neither one of them is in their home turf, per se. These woods are profoundly tame compared to the perpetual hell of eating and being eaten of the Overgrowth, and it couldn’t survive it if they used their full selves. And it’s no jungle, either, though in Chen Tai’s case, it also isn’t an abominable biome of flesh and flora blended together. 

But their chase is pure anyways. 

Raika sighs, turning back to the sandal she’s weaving.

There’s always room for fresh shoes in a village. There’s always a need for fresh herbs and medicines, for hats and robes, at tools and more. She might not be using her “true” resources, all of the crazy scary shit she’s using elsewhere, but there’s value in simple craftsmanship. And if she’s not too busy doing anything else, there’s a lot of value indeed in being kind to others. 

So, as Wei Zin sprints from tree to tree, and Chen Tai moves her dozen legs to turn to a speeding blur through the underbrush, she keeps working. Not because she has to, not because she feels she’s trapped in a cycle of perpetual self-improvement, but just because it’s nice, and because she can. 

It’s kind. And it distracts her, too. 

She’s dealing with a lot. 

Wei Zin and Chen Tai aren’t the only ones training or improving themselves. Geng He and Rai Jin are both working on themselves in their own ways, one of them by being out on the lake, fishing peacefully and close enough to wave and occasionally speak to his fellow fishermen. And the other, darling little shit that he is, is out at a girl’s house.

He brought her and her family a mix of home-mixed tea blends and a funerary statue for some lost family member of theirs. They didn’t seem too freaked out by it when he brought it up, though it’s obvious that no one told him about their loss, but he’s currently helping with household chores and charming the socks off of her parents, polite little idiot that he is. The information that he’s only a year older than their daughter has also been a bit of a relief to them, it would seem, and helps clarify the nature of some of his awkwardness. 

And Raika, of course, is doing small favors for people. 

At least, this part of her is. 

There’s also the part of her that’s terraforming a quarter of the world, working in tandem with the part of her that’s become an incarnation of industry, ruin, and reassembly.

Then there’s the part of her currently speaking to her many, many ghosts, and the things she’s devoured into their END, working on crafting fresh magics, negotiating with hostile necromancers, and dealing with a new and annoying older “brother”. 

And the part of her that’s in the midst of settling a superhuman revolution involving politics older than the Empire, multiple warring factions, and her own sins. 

And the part of her that’s just sort of pranking people, hiding out and moving through the evergreen as inverted shadow. 

Though surely no one could forget the loudest, least organized part of her. The one that’s sitting beside her right now, crackling away. 

She doesn’t really understand the Flame. She gets the impression that the Flame doesn’t really understand her, either. She’s not even sure what it’s doing, most of the time, as it seems trapped in a cycle of perpetual transformation. 

Tomorrow, it might be unable to exist as the small fire to her side. The day after, she might feel some small aspect of it reflecting off the sun above. It’s chaotic, transforming constantly, and it’s not as good or as likely to share as the other parts of her are. 

It’s spreading, though. Like all of her is, in different ways. 

Wei Zin briefly appears above the tree canopy, his head darting back and forth, and then he steps off the air, launching himself back down into the woods. 

It’s an impressive move, a proper movement technique, one that takes not a drop of Qi from within his body. There’s a sort of twist to his knee, hip, and ankle, and his foot shoots out fast and hard enough to compress the air into a platform. He does it like it’s a familiar trick, old hat, but she’s pretty sure she’s never seen that particular move from him before.

He’s growing, and fast. Where everyone else’s journey is in adding to themselves or refining their beings, his journey has had a lot more to do with rediscovering himself. There’s a whole history, a whole culture, that he’s lost, and he’s spent years defining himself by its absence.

Now, as he moves, spear in hand, at one with his surroundings and empowered by this space of peace, he looks like a different person. Like himself, but more, no longer holding himself back or locking away the grief he hasn’t had the space to deal with.

And Chen Tai… well, she’s on a very different sort of journey. She’s still growing, and there’s not a single thing she’s repressing. Her joy is infectious as she pursues an active chase through the woods, a familiar part of her history that she hasn’t had a chance to play with since she arrived in this village months ago. She’s just having a great fucking time.

And that’s how she grows. Her joy, more than her history or her rage or her peace or her maturity, is what drives her, defines her, and what she uses to define herself. 

She contorts around Wei Zin’s spear as he finally catches up to her, and she lets out a cackling, cat-like hyena laugh. She moves fast enough to act as a whip, the sound spooking birds for miles and sending small critters sprinting through the underbrush away. Wei Zin lets out a whoop, a wild sound that seems to surprise him.

Watching the diplomat, designed to fit the mold of the whims of the powerful and every culture but his own, finally get to be free of all that? It’s a hell of a joy. 

The fire beside her crackles a bit, in what she thinks is agreement. 

That’s probably the weirdest part about… well, all of her parts. 

Rai Ka and Kai Ra are both more-or-less the same person as Raika is, and all of them are the closest to the emotional core of the Ur-Raika that they all are. Pillar doesn’t experience the same emotions as the rest of them, but it has the same logic, just exponential and with unique shortcuts. Its processes, its logic, are practical, direct, sometimes esoteric but always comprehensible. The Effigy, on the other hand, is more muffled than the rest of her parts, more focused, like parts of her emotions burned away in the months and months of forever-war that transformed her into what she is, but what’s left is familiar, though changed. 

And Akiar? Well… she’s the opposite of Raika in a lot of ways, but mostly, she’s just a sassy little idiot. A jokester, a person in all the opposite ways and in some brand new ones born from very strange origins, but all of her inversions come from things that could, theoretically, come from Raika’s mind. 

But the Flame? 

Sometimes it / she does actively share emotions and thoughts, but they’re all… filtered. Like they have to be reconstructed from first principles, translated out of stranger things. Like something pretending to be a person, pretending to be herself. 

And the emotions that do come through without that intentional translation are weird. And for Raika, the bar for what is and isn’t weird is very, very high.

Chen Tai lets out a joyous howl out in the woods, a cloud of dirt springing up as she buries herself and tunnels into the earth to avoid Wei Zin’s attempts. His spear Dao, and the other Concepts that come along with it, are only getting more refined. More and more, he’s rediscovering or being empowered by his history, techniques engraved in his culture that he’s either remembering or rebuilding from the ground up. 

He makes another move, and she has to bend space to keep them safe. Even without Qi, he’s approaching the threshold where he’s starting to get a little too intense for a training exercise, but not so much that she wants to call a stop to things just yet. 

Limiting their impacts on the world too much will make for bad habits, but just a tiny bit? Well, it’s her job as their master to give them opportunities and tools, after all. She’d be remiss in her duties if she didn’t create an environment safe to spar in. 

And they’ll all be in for an interesting surprise when they leave this place, whether it’s back to where they were, out into the wider world, or to join in the coming war. She’s been limiting their powers and their impacts for months now, though them keeping their Qi in their bodies is all them. 

The Flame crackles beside her, sending an impression of…

Actually, it takes a while to parse it. 

No neurochemistry to reflect on. No memory crystals to share data from. It / her senses are built out of entirely different mechanics compared to magic or biology or even cultivation, experiencing the world purely through concepts that aren’t dependent on the shared foundations of the rest of her. 

And it has so very many different mechanics. So many different experiences. 

At last count, Pillar thinks that there’s about seven hundred and eighty-eight thousand or so different Flames, all overlapping in ways that share minimal similarities to each other. 

But with the number of brains Raika as a whole has, and the sheer breadth of perspective, it can be figured out. 

The Flame crackles beside her, sending an impression of satisfaction, hunger, joy, disappointment, the relief when disappointment is disproven, and the understanding that other people exist outside herself.

She nods, sending back a sense of satisfaction, acknowledgement, curiosity, and communication. 

The Flame sends back acknowledgement, fear, joy, satisfaction, lust, anger, contentment, and the specific experience of having just had children made of itself that it then consumed. Which… yeah, Raika probably could have done without that last one overall. 

The Flame acknowledges that, and she / it briefly sends up a burst, almost like a burp, of “hey don’t worry about it, happens all the time”. 

Wei Zin’s spear sublimates a hole through a tree trunk, grazing Chen Tai’s tail, who responds with a bark and a bite that severs dozens more trees, her Dao of Teeth extending the attack beyond where physics and Qi would allow. 

Alright, so she has to modify the restrictions on her a bit, too. Easy to forget sometimes, considering she’s the goofiest and youngest of her children, but beyond Geng He, she’s probably the most directly powerful of Raika’s disciples. 

Bubbling flesh and searing restlessness shaped like boredom, the sky is like my meat, that me’s meat is flavored of satisfaction and orgasm and loathing, I found big snakes hello am I here?

That one takes a moment to figure out. It felt intentionally translated, too, but even still, the Flame is not easy to interpret. Raika has to loop back in a few dozen other brains to figure it out and process it in a quick time frame. 

“You found something? Something you want to share?

Big snake hello i am here

Alright, sure, that… sort of made sense.

“Anyone else want to weigh in?” she asks the rest of her.

“What, too busy being a mom to handle all the existential super-horrors of the world?”

“Yes, obviously.”

A roll of the eyes, transmitted through a few hundred thousand brains and more-or-less seven identities. 

“Procuring analysis. Volunteering for active engagement. Information-gathering commencing.”

“Thanks, Pillar. No projects you’re worried about leaving alone?”

“Currently running seventeen-thousand, four hundred and fifty eight terraformation projects. Seventy three active late-stage infrastructural and technological advancements approaching completion and completing the experimentation phases. Thirteen active combat engagements. Forty-two subterranean installations in development. Four atmospheric installations in development.

“No major projects requiring direct oversight for a period of 0.16 days. Volunteering for active engagement.”

Fair enough. 

Raika rebuilds space, force, movement, impact, all of physics and all of the magics of the world that she can reach, making it so her ever-advancing students don’t go out accidentally blowing up the local landscape as they play chase. 

She wrestles down the Deaths she has consumed, rebuilding new magics born of entropy and dark arcane forces. 

She builds machinery of alien purpose and superhuman intricacy out of metals that do not normally exist in this form of reality.

She manages the politics and religions of a rapidly advancing, rapidly collapsing society of superhuman demigods. 

She nibbles at the roots of the evergreen trees. 

And then, pursuing the Flame, she shuts down several hundred thousand neural complexes, revitalizing and activating a few hundred new ones and some novel bio-architecture, and goes further south than any part of her has ever gone. 

Besides the Flame, obviously. But she’s weird as hell.