Chapter 671 - Tempest (VI) (Patreon)

There was a deeply buried zealotry attempting to shatter its way out of Qian Yuan's soul. The kind that was unfitting for a mortal avatar whose purpose in life was to crest waves and sail the increasingly un-lake like waters of the Heavenly Star Lake. A mortal man, with a pair of mortal eyes, old and weathered and wrinkled like leather, ought not to know the depths of these children's waters. Yet, with each passing moment, it was becoming harder and harder to keep the mask fastened to his face. Cruel, he mused, of the man to tempt him so--crueler still if he was doing it without an express purpose.

He had no intention of ferrying anyone today, as he merely stepped out past the land bridge to see the newest batch of visitors. That was why he hid himself imperceptibly, why he looked like the sort that would bury his passengers in the waters, yet the man insisted. There were no shortage of martial artists that were after his throat and his head, and the sweeping assumption that the man was one of them was rather easy to make. Any time a soul stood out in the sea of conformity, there was a poignant reason for it. Though Qian Yuan may not have always known the true depths of that reason, the surface of it had always been fairly simple--to kill him.

But if he had been so easy to kill, he would not have lived for as long as he did. He'd evaded death from Emperors and Empresses, so a young pup still wet behind his ears hardly tickled his fears. All the same, curiosity got the best of him, and he allowed the man and the strange assortment of children to come. And now... now, the mask was slipping. He wanted them. He wanted them so desperately he was almost ready to ferry them to the northern parts of the island surround them immediately.

Enduring years of his life, however, have taught him better than that. If he were to ever have these children, he could not do it through force. Burning stars like them would never bend, no matter how hard he pressed. They'd sooner shatter their knees enduring and die writhing in pain than submit to some external force. They were like old oak trees, their roots webbing out endlessly underneath the ground, spreading out in every direction, while the trunks thickened and strengthened against the biting weather, their canopies tall, wide, sprouting as if crowns of the world.

Greed was merciless, regardless. He couldn't stop thinking about what he'd just witnessed--a boy who looked to be sixteen at best cut a waterspout with a simple sword array that had a fading tinge of Indominable Qi; a girl, or perhaps a young woman, who let a bolt of lightning strike her directly, suffusing it through herself and dispersing all excess energy with barely any mark on her; and a young man, a Shaman, who somehow managed to kill Leviathan using just a few words. He wasn't even certain what words the young man used, but he was certain that despite Jianhong's talents as a Shaman, he fell well short of the young man.

Though the latter could not match up with circles, as Jianhong was an 8th Circle Mage, circles in Shamanism were even more fluid than realms in cultivation. What circles usually represented was simply the breadth of Mana one could utilize while word-writing, not the complexity of the words themselves. Besides, no Shaman fought whilst actively writing words; they would write them beforehand, which was why Circles weren't a terribly clear way of distinguishing a strong Shaman from a weak one.

And those were just three--there were many others in the group, a few of whom he could not even read. There was the youngest girl, her hair as silver as rhayna, a flower that blooms only at the hearts of silver mines. However, it was the pair of eyes that he could not cut through--their hue seemed to drift, from twilight-colored to pastel, and their depth could not be measured. All instincts that he had honed in his life told him a truth that he was unwilling to accept no matter what--that the young girl who seemed to be ten years at most could kill him.

Not an Avatar of his, not a projection, not some fake he'd built up to monitor the situation on the island, no: kill him, his truest self. Though he didn't consider himself particularly strong, even less so when contrasted against others in the Imperial Realm, that should not have mattered. The girl was in the Foundation Establishment Realm. She'd just barely started cultivating. Even if he was the weakest worm to have ever reached Imperial Realm, there should be no way under the heavens for the young girl to so much as harm a hair on his head, let alone kill him.

Yet, his instincts were telling him otherwise. The way the girl looked at him... it was empty. Hollow. As if she were staring at an insignificant oar that was to be capsized by the sea of eternity soon enough.

Then, lastly, there was that boy. He sat at the back, one leg crossed over the other, eyes wandering away over the waves. It was as if he were looking at a statue of a god, one that underpinned his reality. And though he wanted to sink the boat and kill them all, he knew well enough by now that it would be futile. These people would not die crossing the lake--rather, doing so would just expose him. Despite everything, it was clear that the man didn't actually know this mortal vessel was merely an Avatar. The reason why he so confidently boarded the rickety boat that looked just about ready to collapse was because there was nothing that could threaten them enough. As such, how they got to the island was irrelevant.

And though Qian Yuan hardly for a second believed they were simply going to the island to 'sightsee', it was entirely possible that they were going there for the same reason all children of the Holy Lands went to the island: for opportunities. From the looks of it, they didn't belong to any of the major powers, and seeing just how many Disciples he had with him, it was outright impossible to have enough resources for all of them. In fact, Qian Yuan was slightly terrified at the number that came up in his head when he tried to calculate the annual cost of raising just a few of these kids, let alone all of them.

But that was also his in. If he could show these kids that they didn't have to live a destitute life, scrounging up scant few stones and fighting for every pill, it was possible to pry them away. Heavenly talents yearned to ascend, and if he could show them that he held the keys to that ascension, it was wholly possible they'd come under him. There was no need to kill them--he would simply buy them, as he had with hundreds of others, and their terrifying talents would be his to keep.

He had to shuffle some Avatars around the island, for he now needed to write a story. And who better to star in it than he and he alone, guiding the lost lambs away from the shepherd who couldn't give them the sky they so yearned?