Chapter 72: 144. Answers

Jia chewed thoughtfully on a spicy meat skewer—one of her favorites—as she quietly contemplated Jianmo’s story. She’d been trying to cut back on the snacking after being shocked by just how obese Yan Hao was, but this seemed like a perfectly valid time for some stress eating. Eui was looking just as thoughtful, with Heian sitting in her lap in cat form as Eui idly scratched between her ears. Jianmo finished his tale, and spoke through a mouthful of her own food—Jia had shared.

“So—any questions?”

Ancestors, there were so many. Jia had more questions now than she did before the story. She exchanged a look with Eui and they both nodded before taking turns firing off questions as fast as Jianmo could answer them. Jia went first.

“Why in the ancestors’ names would you throw away that key? Weren’t you supposed to give it to some worthy successor or something?”

Jianmo shrugged.

“I got tired of waiting. Maybe in a few million years either the dragons or humans would get cheeky enough to try to steal the other clan’s key, but I don’t want to wait that long. With an extra floating around, it forces them to act immediately.”

Eui frowned.

“It wasn’t humans or dragons that destroyed the academy. It was demons, and they were specifically looking for you. Why?”

“If I had to guess, it was their clan that found the third key. I’m the only one who knows where the entrance is, so I imagine that’s what they need me for.”

Jia pointed her skewer accusingly at Jianmo.

“So you threw our entire world into chaos because—what, you were bored!?”

“Mhm. Not for the first time, either. I wasn’t too pleased about being locked in this glorified prison cell of a world, and I might have thrown a tiny bit of a tantrum before getting sealed away in that cave.”

Jia and Eui both grimaced. Neither of them wanted to know what a Jianmo-sized ‘tiny’ tantrum looked like.

“Wait, how’d they even do that? Shouldn’t you be way stronger or something? If our world is sealed off from the divine realm like you said, that makes you a completely uncontested deity.”

Jianmo laughed at Eui’s question and shook her head.

“Haha! I don’t hate presumptuous kids like you, but I’m no deity, and I never have been. I’ve never really been all that interested in pursuing power for myself. That’s not my path.”

Though she suspected she knew the answer, Jia couldn’t help but ask the obvious question.

“Then what is?”

Jianmo didn’t stop smiling, but her eyes grew cold and distant, the smile taking on an entirely different edge.

“What do you think? I’m a weapon. I kill things. That’s who I am—the entire purpose of my existence.”

Eui stiffened, before carefully asking her next question.

“How—how many people have you killed, Jianmo?”

“Before I woke up? Who knows? Afterwards—probably a few billion or so.”

Jia choked on her food. Billion!? That was an unimaginable number. Literally—she couldn’t even imagine it. If she took every person she knew and put them together that was still—a tiny drop in the ocean of blood that Jianmo had spilled. She carefully swallowed her food, before hedging her concerns.

“Uh...if—if killing is your whole purpose, then why did you spare us before? And, um, not that I’m complaining, but you don’t seem to have gone on any bloodthirsty rampages...have you?”

Jianmo tilted her head and winked at Jia.

“Maybe. Hah! Your face! I spared you because I had no reason to kill you—and I owed you for releasing me. I’m not a monster, I’m a weapon, and a weapon needs a wielder. I don’t kill for my own purposes unless I have a reason to. Besides, you seemed interesting and I thought it might be fun to take the little demon on as a disciple if she somehow survived. I see now that you come as a package deal—really not what I had in mind when I thought she was going to eat you.”

This time it was Eui who choked, and Jia didn’t understand why Jianmo was laughing until she filled in the blanks with Eui’s memories and turned bright red. Eui urgently tried to change the subject.

“You still haven’t told us how you ended up in that cave. Even if you’re not a god, you still boasted about being stronger than the God-Emperor of Qin, but wasn’t he one of the ones that sealed you?”

“True! Well, he didn’t do it alone. The seal on this world isn’t perfect—there’s only so much they could do to twist the laws of heaven. In theory, a powerful enough cultivator could break out, and I certainly tried my hand at it. I think that little brat you call ‘God-Emperor’ came close, and struck a deal with the immortal faction. The wards would have been thin after his attempt at ascension, and it would have been simple enough for someone to send an avatar to finish him off before he could try again.

“This is just a guess, but I’ll bet they instead arranged for him to ensure that nobody else would try to ascend again. It would explain why everyone on this continent is cultivating wrong—the dragon clan has the same thing happening on the other continent with the fiends and elementals. It was with their cooperation that Qin managed to lock me away in that damn cave with only your spirit friend for company.”

Jia’s mind was reeling. That was a lot to take in, but she tried to latch onto the important parts.

“Cultivating wrong?”

“Yup! It’s so unbalanced. Fiends and elementals don’t have much of a choice, since they are sort of born that way, but the dragons make sure they don’t figure out the ways to correct it. Your God-Emperor has been telling everyone to cast away their bodies and minds in the pursuit of the soul, but—as I’m sure you’ve figured out by now—that’s tantamount to self-mutilation.”

“What about the other nations?”

“Probably thought he’d just wipe them out. Though—in my time it was just Qin against the ‘savage’ southern barbarians. A lot has changed since then.”

Jia knew that Goryeo had apparently split off from Qin at some point in their past, but how or why was never clearly explained in any of the history books that she’d read. Admittedly, she didn’t read very many—they were really boring. Eui scratched her head, scowling as she tried to wrap her head around everything Jianmo was telling them.

“If all of that is true, then why did the Empire even let the academy exist? The emperor himself should have shut down any talk of unifying the disciplines, shouldn’t he?”

“Hahaha! That’s a good question! Well, apparently Qin’s been getting pretty lazy, and hasn’t directly governed for some time. A certain sneaky young cultivator managed to find my prison and we had a long chat. He wasn’t strong enough to break my seal, but he agreed to help me escape and send my little gift to the divine realm. He never did tell me why, but I wasn’t in a position to be choosy, and I don’t hate manipulative little snakes like him.”

Jia’s eyes widened.

“Do Hye!? Is that why he disappeared before the demons showed up? You’re working together?”

Jianmo shook her head.

“I only spoke to him a few times while I was in my prison, and he wasn’t very forthcoming about the details of his plan. He just said that he’d been pulling some strings over the last couple of centuries, that it should be coming to fruition soon, and gave me directions to a place where space would be thin enough to tear open a rift. That was the last I saw of him, and I thought he’d double-crossed me when that damn Fire Elemental decided to squat in my cave.”

Just how deep did Do Hye’s schemes go? Were the rise and fall of the academy both part of his plan? What did any of it have to do with them? Eui clutched her head and groaned in frustration, causing Heian to jump from her lap into Jia’s.

“Okay, okay, so your dad or whatever became some kind of evil, genocidal super-god, but he got bored of living so he put all his power into making some kind of tomb for himself that he hid somewhere in our world. Then you got bored, somehow managed to rip open a hole in space, and send out an invitation for the gods to come here and wreck up the place—fuck you for that, by the way. What does that mean? Is the world just going to get destroyed as collateral damage as they fight over the stupid tomb? How does that help you, and why are you telling us all of this?”

Jianmo grinned as Eui panted to catch her breath after the long-winded rant. She stood and stretched, looking down at the two girls from her considerable height.

“They won’t destroy the world. No matter how much they pretend otherwise, they all covet the Sovereign’s Tear. What I want is to escape this dreary little planet—or barring that, for something interesting to happen. I think the fight over my master’s tomb should be worth a few years of entertainment at least.”

Jia stood up as well—if only so that she didn’t have to crane her neck up quite so much.

“Entertainment!? You basically destroyed our lives for your entertainment, Jianmo! How does any of this get you closer to ascending?”

Jianmo crossed her arms and chuckled.

“My, so feisty! I don’t hate angry little kittens either, you know! I can’t ascend on my own. I thought I’d try using my master’s strategy of just killing everything until I was powerful enough to smash through it, but that made people rather justifiably angry and got me stuck in a cave for ten thousand years. And it was dreadfully boring to boot. So—new plan.

“The gods want the Sovereign's Tear, but there’s a catch. Even with the keys, they have no way to get it—mortals only, remember? Even the weakest denizen of the divine realm is at least a true immortal—xiantian, as you would call them. I’ll bet that by now every major faction has sent their people to scout mortal representatives that will brave my master’s trials and fetch the Tear for them. Well, consider yourselves scouted to be representatives of the Jianmo faction.”

Jia and Eui froze. Eui was the first to voice their thoughts.

“What!?”

“You heard me. I want you to inherit my master’s legacy, break the seal on the world, and get me the hell out of this suffocating box of a world. It should be pretty easy with the Tear’s power.”

Jia hesitated. She didn’t like the sound of this at all.

“You mean you don’t want us to recover it for you? It feels like you just want to use us as pawns, and I don’t think I want to pick a fight with gods on your behalf.”

“Tsk, I told you I’m not interested in personal power. If my master wanted me to have his treasure, he’d have just given it to me. I’m not worthy of it.”

Eui raised an eyebrow skeptically at Jianmo.

“And we are?”

Jianmo offered her a toothy grin in response.

“No, of course not. You’re better than worthy...”

She paused for effect, glancing between them with a huge grin on her face, as if holding back laughter.

“You’re available!”

Jianmo doubled over as the girls’ faces fell. Jia wasn’t impressed, but she also recognized that she was standing in front of someone who might be the most powerful entity in the entire world—maybe not, now that actual gods were apparently sending their avatars.

“Do we even have a choice in all of this?”

Jianmo stopped laughing in an instant, her face becoming dead serious.

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“Of course you do. You can turn away right now, if you like. I won’t stop you, chase you, or hold any grudge. It’s not part of my path, but I’ve learned to value freedom too much in the last thousand years to lower myself to shackling others.”

Eui frowned, glancing nervously at Jia before speaking.

“And...if we accept?”

Jianmo smirked.

“You’ll still be free. It’ll be years before those idiots dig up the tomb without me—if they ever do at all. I’m not about to just follow you around everywhere either—I’m terrible at hiding, and it would put you in danger. Not to mention—boring! I’ll come around now and then to give you pointers, help train you for the trials, and maybe point you in the direction of something interesting, but for the most part you’ll be on your own.”

Eui scoffed, shaking her head.

“Sounds way too good to be true, honestly. More like, you give us some training, then at some unspecified point in the future you send us off to our doom in some insane murderer’s tomb. What’s the point of what you’re offering if we’re obligated to die on your behalf later? I think we’d be better off without your ‘help’.”

Jia had to agree with Eui. As tempting as the treasure sounded, she’d already experienced first hand how much trouble one treasure could bring. Besides which, they’d be a target for these greedy gods and their representatives. In the first place, Jia had no desire to unseal the world and become a deity or whatever. She only wanted enough strength to keep herself and her friends and family safe. This was far too high above her head.

“I’m with Eui. I’ve already jumped headfirst into danger enough times. Let someone else get the treasure, we just want to survive.”

Jianmo sighed and shook her head, looking genuinely disappointed.

“Well, I don’t hate such a pragmatic decision either. Though I suppose I should mention that if anyone else gets the tear and hands it over to one of the divine realm’s factions, this world will probably be doomed.”

Jia paused, sharing a worried glance with Eui before looking back up at Jianmo.

“Uh...could you clarify that? Do you mean that there will be more fighting over the tear again and we’ll get caught in the crossfire?”

Jianmo nodded her head in acknowledgement.

“There’s that, yes. But even more presently—the Sovereign’s Tear is the only thing holding this world together. If it’s removed without a proper deity to preside over this world, then it’ll be gone in less than a decade.”

“Gone how? And why?”

“Gone as in ceasing to exist. Becoming nothing. Without any divine essence to give it form, it will dissipate into nothing. Why do you think they sealed it off in the first place? They were trying to destroy it. The power of a demiurge is just too much for the divine realm to overcome.”

Eui grimaced.

“Wait, so our options are to go with your plan and die fighting for some treasure we want nothing to do with, or walk away and die anyway in ten years when the entire world gets starved of essence? How the fuck are these divine representatives even going to convince anyone to help them?”

Jianmo shrugged with a grin.

“By not telling them that part, I imagine. Oh, and don’t forget—you could always get caught by those Qin enforcers chasing you and die that way. You two cuties are just spoiled for choice when it comes to the nature of your imminent demise. If you’re that keen on suicide, I could always do it for you—quick as can be, you won’t feel a thing.”

Jia and Eui shuddered as Jianmo mimed swinging a sword at their necks.

“No, thank you. Um, could we have a minute to talk about it?”

“Take as long as you like, darling.”

Jia and Eui turned away from the insane demon and began speaking to each other telepathically. Eui started them off.

“She’s completely insane. There’s no way we can trust her, right? How do we know anything she’s said is even true?”

“Well, what reason does she have to lie to us? And, she’s insanely strong, maybe she can help protect us from Yan Ren and his sect, or those weird white-robed guys.”

“Or maybe she leads demons that are just as strong as she is right to us and we get caught in the crossfire. She said herself that it would put us in danger being around her.”

“Hey! Is that telepathic communication? You’re not using a technique...oh! You’ve linked minds through your domain! So that’s why you shared a single spirit form—oh, that’s so precious. You two are just adorable together!”

Jia ignored Jianmo’s interjections as she responded to Eui’s concerns.

“What do we have to lose?”

“Uh, our lives, Jia! Even if we don’t end up being murdered by the Awakening Dragon Sect, the demons attacking the academy, or the literal fucking gods that Jianmo is asking us to take her side against—that tomb is going to be a deathtrap. I don’t like the sound of ‘trials’ one bit, and that’s not even considering other cultivators trying to take out the competition.”

“But if we don’t do it, we’re just delaying the inevitable. We’ll die anyway in a few years along with everyone else. Our friends, your parents, my sisters. Everyone will be gone.”

Eui hesitated, pinching the bridge of her nose and groaning audibly. Jia could feel that Eui wasn’t really serious about not believing Jianmo’s story.

“Damnit, Jia! This really isn’t our problem. Maybe Jianmo can find someone else—”

“Someone else who’s going to believe the words of a demon, has the strength to compete with multiple third stage cultivators, and won’t just go running off to some other faction to betray her?”

Eui sighed.

“Maybe we can give her up to the Yan. They might leave us alone if we present Yan Zhihao’s killer.”

Jia gave Eui an incredulous look.

“You want to betray the most powerful cultivator we’ve ever met in the hopes of getting mercy from Yan Ren and Yan Hao?”

Eui slapped her own face.

“No, you’re right. That was a stupid idea. I’m grasping at straws. I hate this! I don’t want to agree, but I don’t think we have a better option.”

“If it’s between a slim chance at survival and certain death...”

“Yeah. Alright. Fuck it, let’s do this!”

Eui grasped Jia’s hand tightly, stood up straight, then hesitated for a second. Jia felt it coming, but didn’t resist as Eui pulled her into a tight embrace and kissed her. They stayed like that for a long moment, ignoring Jianmo’s catcalls, before Eui broke off the kiss, panting for breath.

“Ancestors, I love you, Jia—but you are a terrible influence on me.”

Jia covered her mouth and giggled.

“I love you too, Eui, but I could say the same thing about you.”

Jiamo sauntered over, her hands on her hips.

“I take it you girls have made a decision?”

Jia and Eui intertwined their fingers, and Yoshika stared up to meet Jianmo’s eyes.

“Almost. There’s one other thing we need to know.”

Jianmo was unphased by Yoshika’s sudden transition to speaking in chorus, simply raising an eyebrow and gesturing for her to continue.

“What about our friends?”

It was something neither Jia nor Eui had the presence of mind to think about in the moment, with so much new information to process and the stress of the day weighing upon them, but Yoshika was more than just the sum of her parts. Jianmo chuckled lightly.

“What about them?”

“We want assurances that they’ll be okay. Some of them are evacuating to Yamato, two were taken by Seong Misun, and Yue was left alone with one of the God-Emperor’s personal guard when we last saw her.”

“And what would you like me to do about it?”

Yoshika hesitated—she hadn’t really thought that far ahead.

“Save them? Take them with us—maybe they can help with the trials!”

Jianmo shook her head, giving Yoshika a condescending look.

“Save them from what? I don’t know who Seong Misun is, or where she went with your friends. The ones that are evacuating sound like they’ll be just fine. I could easily kill a few dozen of Qin’s little abominations, but how long ago was that? Is she even still there, or would I be pointlessly exposing myself to enemies for nothing? I don’t hate that self-sacrificing attitude of yours, but be realistic. If you want to bring them with you, find them and ask them yourself—what am I, your mother?”

Yoshika fought the urge to break eye contact and simply stared Jianmo down angrily. When the demoness refused to budge, Yoshika let out a weary sigh and relented.

“Fine. We’ll accept your offer and become your disciple. In exchange, when the time comes, we’ll explore your master’s tomb and try to recover the Sovereign’s Tear.”

Jianmo clapped her hands with delight.

“Fantastic! I was really hoping you’d say that—you’re just so interesting that I’m not sure I could bring myself to leave you alone even if you’d said no. Well then, don’t fret the loss of your little academy, girls—or is it girl? Because as of today, your education has only just begun!”