Chương 63: Arc 4: Chapter 12

Finally, they were reaching their destination – or one of them, at least. For whatever reason, Bianca’s eyes literally couldn’t see as far as the kitsune’s, but as the boat moved forward through the lake, the distant mists of the world faded and she got to witness something… grand.

It was nothing like the humongous sect structures she had seen on her first days within the Planar Continents, but the sheer expanse of tents of all sizes placed alongside one another still boggled the mind. She imagined that if everyone in the whole of Antania packed up and moved into a tent, they might still struggle to fill this much space – though that was likely an exaggeration. She didn’t recall how many millions resided within her nation of origin, but they were bound to be more numerous.

Still, the camp was akin to a forest, countless tents of all kinds scattered across the otherwise empty plains. At the outskirts were small tents that barely exceeded the height of the grass, and the closer to the centre of the camp she looked, the bigger and more decorated they became. In the very centre was a huge tent the size of a small mansion, towering over the rest, its outer side seemingly made of iron.

It was hard to tell from such a distance whether the symbols she saw on some of the tents matched, but their shape matched the few that she could make out – a draconic head facing right, with a long tail or body curling around into a spiral that ended near the middle with a sharp point.

“Is that dragon symbol, uh, Long Shiyi’s?”

“Indeed. To be fair, she could show just about any draconic symbol and people would recognise her, but the draconic spiral is her most well-known symbol. It has been compared to the serpent encircling the world, and considering her desire for controlling this region of the world, it may be considered appropriate for her character,” Xue Yaling muttered, pointing at the central tent, “You may consider that place her court, of sorts. She will be sitting at the far end from the entrance, on a throne to watch over us all…”

“Wish you could be in her place?” Qi Er suddenly shoved herself into the conversation, showing up on Bianca’s other side and keeping her gaze away from the kitsune, “You’re expecting to get in there?”

“We are-”

“Wasn’t asking you, kitsune. There’s a lovely lass right here that I’d much rather hear from,” she responded sharply.

“Eh… Well, if we do get in, I’ll be alright with it, I guess.”

“You should be a bit more decisive… though I imagine I put you on the spot. After all, you’re just being carried around to wherever the winds, and a certain bitch, take you, right?” Qi Er asked, sighing, “Shame that you didn’t find some way of collaring her and making her a subservient pet to your every desire. Would’ve done her plenty of good, I’m sure.”

“…” Xue Yaling stared at her with enough hostile intent to manifest an aura similar to Bianca’s around herself, though it faded quickly, “Was my attempt at sharing my knowledge that bad? I don’t believe I hate anyone quite as much as you seem to, Qi Er.”

“Wind’s rather strong today, isn’t it? It tends to be in the plains, so you ought to get used to it after a while.”

“Bianca, would you mind asking her the same thing? I think I understand how this has to work… at least if we’re going to keep this civil,” the kitsune sighed, “I would much prefer to handle this in a more mature manner, but alas, some are simply not up to it.”

She glanced between the two women, and couldn’t help but echo Xue Yaling’s sigh. If given the choice in a vacuum, she probably would’ve sided with Qi Er, but no amount of bias could prevent her from noticing that she did seem to be acting a little too immaturely. Considering how she wasn’t exactly a paragon of maturity herself – she had enough sense to see that – increasing the immaturity level probably wouldn’t go well.

‘Besides, if she sent too much time near me, I’d somehow steal that bow of hers… Been a while since I took much without permission, so it’s hard not to be tempted… So shiny.’

Realising that interrupting that train of thought would be best, she looked to Qi Er and pleaded with her silently to get her to talk. Qi Er met her gaze, then looked away, then looked again and finally added a sigh of her own.

“Fine, so that I don’t bother you too much. Wouldn’t be fair, after all,” she said, turning away again and lowering her voice, as if to make it harder for the kitsune to hear, “I assume you’re familiar with some of the side effects of cultivating improperly? It can damage the body and, in worse cases, the mind. Some call it cultivation deviation, though it’s more fair to call it as it is – planar energy destabilising the body and producing the inverse of its intended beneficial effects.”

“I might’ve heard about that, sure…”

“Well, now imagine being a teenage brat that’s tired of standard authority and then happens upon a book by a self-professed master of cultivation, which described a lot of striking and fascinating concepts, while also cultivating a technique that puts immense pressure on the body deliberately. When that goes wrong, it hurts. A lot, lot more than what you would’ve felt after our fight.”

She glanced towards Xue Yaling, whose head seemed to have turned away slightly since she last looked, “I can imagine that being rather… unpleasant.”

“Really? I thought it sounded lovely and peaceful…” sarcasm practically spilled onto the ship’s deck from her remark, “I got lucky in the process and figured out something, but even then, neither I or my teacher have forgotten this. In particular, I would very much like to see that the asshole that dared be so bold and confident in their work when they were in the first or second realm and knew the equivalent of fuck all to never, ever have the chance of spreading her nonsense again. However, if Long Shiyi wants to see her, and if you are benefitting in some way from the kitsune’s presence, then I can only shut up and accept it… For now, at least.”

Qi Er shook her head and stepped aside, taking one final venom-filled gaze at the kitsune before walking off… hopefully not to simply reappear beside Bianca a few moments from now. It was rather concerning just how easily she was able to sneak up on her, to the point that she wouldn’t be surprised if, one of these days, they were out and about wandering the wilds when Qi Er would suddenly manifest and tease Bianca about something or other.

‘Although I should be more afraid of random people’s spiritual perception dwelling just about everywhere, this feels more real of a threat…’ Bianca shuddered, then looked at the kitsune, “Well, happy?”

“Eh… As you know, it’s not my proudest achievement. I wouldn’t mind if my deeds had harmed my foes, even if I wouldn’t have known about or intended it at the time, but I have enough of a conscience to be ashamed at my stupidity… and stop looking at me like that. What impression have I been giving you if you think otherwise?”

“I, uh, am not sure you’d actually want to hear the answer.”

“I know, you and Song Ming have been suspicious of me from the get go, but did you need to carry that with you the entire time?” Xue Yaling asked, shaking her head, “Never mind, think what you want. Just follow me while we’re here, and you ought to be fine.”

She turned away, though it didn’t stop her from suddenly greeting Song Ming out of nowhere. Bianca turned around and spotted her pet standing there, waving to her once their eyes met.

“Were you also going to sneak up on me?”

“Hm? No, I was just approaching normally. Did you not spot me with your spiritual perception?”

“You forget who you’re talking to, I think,” Xue Yaling muttered.

“… Oh, right, sorry Bianca. I wasn’t doing anything to hide the sound of my footsteps either, though…” she said, trailing off by the end.

‘Perhaps that’s the result of growing up in a modern city with low crime rates. There’s lots of noise at busier streets, so it’s easy to disregard it all, and unlike this world, it doesn’t usually mean that you’ll miss someone seemingly just appearing right next to you…’ Bianca let her thoughts wander for a while, recalling the streets and amenities of Vardium.

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It may not have been that long since she last saw them, but the images within her mind were already growing faint and vague. Many details she knew she’d have been able to point out before were hard to place, and she couldn’t even be sure that she had been remembering some of them correctly.

Perhaps much of it was just an idealised image of what she had lost, what she might never get to see again. Perhaps the saryte coins and paper bills that she had once held within her hands were little more than a dream of some greater world… or perhaps she was getting way too philosophical and down about this whole thing. Her memory was never her strongest aspect, and with so many new experiences after leaving her original world, it was no wonder that she struggled to recall minor details.

She might’ve needed perfect eidetic memory to keep those kinds of things in her head even after all that this world had shown her – or so she wished to tell herself, at least.

“Bianca?”

“Oh, sorry, I was thinking… Guess I just don’t have the experience in me right now to know to listen out to all this stuff,” she mentioned, “Anyway, what are we going to be doing over there? Just standing around until we’re allowed to leave?”

“More or less. You two will be following along with me, whether that’s as slaves, servants or whatever else, and once our time there is done, we should be able to depart. Logically speaking, unless Long Shiyi is getting extremely desperate, a few weaklings like us shouldn’t affect her forces in the slightest,” the kitsune replied, “So, we’ll be allowed to depart, perhaps with the request or order to return at some later time. These sorts of things aren’t generally necessary to adhere to, since it is easy to insist that you were simply occupied elsewhere and it is rarely possible to prove otherwise.”

“You, eh, sure you want the others to hear that?” Bianca asked, glancing at the several sailors that were doing things around the ship.

“Oh please, this may typically be unspoken, but it is commonly accepted. Unless I was to literally approach Long Shiyi and tell her to fuck herself – which I’m not, and do not plan to – then there’s little that can or would be done to you or I. This is true even in more peaceful times, but as it is, only the most devoted few could ever claim to believe that there is nothing more important than respect or decorum.”

“I don’t have much experience, but from what Xi Wu Lin told us, the sect disciples that visited our village would be more rash and proud than disciples on more dangerous missions. Something about their lives not being at stake, letting them worry about needless things…”

“That Xi Wu Lin said something basic, but it often appears that most have no idea about it. Nonetheless, to make things simplest for yourselves, the less you stand out, the better. Try to stay close whenever you can, and don’t follow any strangers that insist that they’re able to provide you with a superior cultivation technique or some red fruit that can give you a few hundred years of lifespan and one or two realms of cultivation,” the kitsune explained, pausing when she noticed Bianca staring at her more intensely than usual.

‘Is this the Planar Continents’ equivalent of luring kids into trucks with promises of candy?’ Bianca couldn’t help but wonder, though she came up with something smarter to voice, “Is that sort of thing even real, by the way? Red fruit – or any fruit, I guess – that gives such a great advantage to someone?”

“Things like it are real, but anyone that thinks they’ll not only find one at complete random, but also be offered one by a random stranger that doesn’t want it for themselves despite knowing what it is… that is beyond absurd. If someone finds a thing like that, the only reason to ever give it away is to secure greater rewards for oneself or a faction that one has a comfortable position in. For instance, the son of a sect master donating such a thing to the sect master to get into their good graces, earn their favour, and ensure that the sect remains strong for long enough that they can make the same progress they would’ve made with the fruit but on their own.”

“Makes sense…”

 

In a field nearly flooded with grass and devoid of trees save for one or two within sight, a grey-haired woman lay beneath a lone tree. She looked up at the sky past the branches and leaves, relaxing beneath the morning sun.

The temptation to yawn suddenly overwhelmed her, so she opened her mouth and let it out lazily, taking her time as if there wasn’t a single concern in the world to disrupt her. Just as she was about finish and shut her mouth, a small red fruit suddenly fell from the tree and straight into her mouth. In her surprise, she swallowed it up, and then she felt as if her whole body lit up with flames. They spread throughout every single vein and artery, and then…

A wave of fire came from her mouth as if she was some kind of dragon, but after it receded, she felt renewed. Her whole body felt fresh and sensitive, and more importantly, her realm had leapt forward, bringing her to the third realm within seconds.

“Ha… I’ll never get used to things like this…” she got up, coughing as her throat still burned from the heat, “What even was that thing? Well, should be good for me regardless…”

She raised her hand and let out some of her energy, experiencing the difference her sudden growth had given her. Her power manifested as a nearly transparent ball, with the outer portions being faint enough to be overlooked at a casual glance, but the inner portions seemed to distort the world behind them in a most peculiar way. The deeper one looked, the more it seemed as if one looked upon a slightly different world, where the winds were just a little different.

Where they blew west in reality, within the depths of the sphere they blew south-west, and where there were a dozen birds flying overhead in truth, the sphere contained only eleven. It was an odd sight, and not even the woman knew for sure what all the secrets of her energy were.

However, the benefits it granted couldn’t be denied, even if they weren’t entirely without consequence.

Overhead, storm clouds gathered, and she could clearly feel her dantian tremble in response. Though she may have never experienced one herself, the signs of a tribulation were beyond obvious, and judging by the prominence of the storm clouds above, it seemed like she would be expecting a greater tribulation than someone that challenged it prior to rising in realm – in other words, the vast majority of people.

Thus, she sighed and focused, gathering her energy and looking up at the darkening sky past the branches of the tree behind her. The winds grew more intense, and she soon found herself struggling to stand still against the winds. Her body was thin and light, so the supernatural winds were nearly powerful enough to take her away.

And then, the skies cracked, and the first lightning bolt fell.

 

They had gotten half-way into the camp when the weather suddenly changed. Storm clouds gathered overhead, seemingly appearing out of nowhere, and light rain started to trickle down not long after.

Despite that, Bianca seemed to be the only one disturbed by such a thing, so she leaned over to Song Ming and tried to silently get her attention, since they were slowly being surrounded by more and more people not only on the boat, but also on the side of the river. It seemed like they were coming just in time for the main event, and so there were plenty exiting their tents and walking towards the central part of this great camp.

Eventually, Song Ming noticed, and leaned in to whisper.

“I think that may be a tribulation. A third or fourth realm one, perhaps… I’d imagine it was from someone in Long Shiyi’s forces, or else they’d never be allowed to endanger the camp like that…” she responded, “And if they aren’t, I imagine some guards will be sent after them soon enough.”

That information got Bianca to look back towards the centre of the storm clouds, just in time for a bolt of lightning to fall from the skies. It flashed vividly and with such might that it seemed to shake not only the earth, but the water and the ship they were in, momentarily dyeing the world a silvery white and flooding her ears with an immense thunderclap.

In that moment, she saw the power of a tribulation for the first time, and that bolt of lightning forever imprinted itself onto her memory. She couldn’t yet be sure whether to feel fear, reverence, or something else entirely, but she knew then and there and she could never forget a phenomenon that seemed to split the world itself apart. The silver bolt tore the very fabric of reality apart, splitting it aside and unveiling power unlike anything she had ever seen. It even made itself known to her spiritual perception, despite her keeping it within herself at most times.

This was the thing she would need to face. This was the power that this world contained. This was the foe she could never, ever avoid.

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