The air tightens as the presence gathers in Ren Jiang's grasp, coiling itself into form. Light warps around his hand, metal taking shape in the distortion, until a weapon emerged. Its origin divine, yet its arrival wrongs it.
A twisted wire with three loops, that look like leaves, settles in his palm. In a low voice, Ren Jiang calls its name.
"Adityastra."
A legendary weapon used by Arjuna from the epic of Mahabharata, said to dry up waters born of darkness by unleashing overwhelming light and heat.
This is Zhang Xiyu's natural enemy.
But for this artifact to be in Ren Jiang's hand is a blasphemy. He had never been authorized, never trained, never meant to touch it. This is equivalent to stealing from the gods.
Still, that is not the immediate problem.
Right now, the weapon can cauterize Zhang Xiyu's domain and wound his cultivation beyond repair. If the stolen core is allowed to run wild after that, nothing would remain to stop it from bringing ruin to the mortal world, which would only draw more carnage and anger from the devis. Eventually, heaven and hell will collapse into one another, the realms caving in from both sides.
For once, Zhang Xiyu is stunned into stillness.
The situation has slipped beyond every measure of his control. He can feel it now, with a clarity that is almost humiliating: there are plans even his reach cannot touch, designs that belonged to gods alone.
A faint indifference creep over him, cold and strange, until the thought of his two companions snaps him back from it.
He is caught in a circle of helplessness.
His domain warps on instinct, trying to protect its master even as he racks his mind for a way to protect the domain. But it is already too late.
The final chant leaves Ren Jiang's lips, and the Adityastra begins to heat. At first, it is like a concealed coil catching fire, then the glow deepens, turning red-orange, molten as lava. In seconds, the intensity turns so extreme it seems as though the sun god himself might descend to scorch them both into ash.
Then—
SPARK.
Like a camera shutter flashing in the dark, the heat vanishes in an instant. The Adityastra hangs lifeless in Ren Jiang's hand.
He raises it, squinting at the weapon as if to inspect the failure.
Plop.
His hand slips free of his body in a clean cut and sinks into the black sea of decay, taking the Adityastra with it.
"How—?"
The palms of Zhang Xiyu's domain recede, no longer sensing danger, and his wary expression comes into view. He had not been the one to take Ren Jiang's arm.
The severed flesh slowly shrivels into a stump as Zhang Xiyu reaches through the domain with his consciousness, searching for the fallen weapon.
A moment later, his eyes widen.
It is not there.
He has no time to dwell on it. Ren Jiang's feathered wings burst outward again, flinging a thousand blades of chemical heat toward him, or at least toward the place where he had been standing.
Then comes the sound of tearing.
Before Ren Jiang could react, Zhang Xiyu had flashed to his side. He seized the prince's right wing and began ripping it apart with his bare hands, as if it were nothing more than cardboard soaked through with blood.
"What—"
Zhang Xiyu clamped down on the wing and stopped him from fleeing. His fingers dug through feathers and tendon alike, tearing into the scapulars with relentless force until Ren Jiang's body sags under the sudden weight. The gravity of restriction binds him, not allowing him to move.
A quiet intervention, this is a small gift from the Sun god because as Zhang Xiyu had rightly deducted, the god wants his grandson dead. More so after the blasphemous summoning of the Adityastra.
But that incident has touched his final nerve. Ren Jiang's defiance had snapped whatever restraint Zhang Xiyu had left.
There is no redemption for Ren Jiang and no control left in Zhang Xiyu. He wants to bash the prince's head until there is nothing left but dust.
This time, his movements are no longer swift and efficient. A savage hunger has risen in him, and he lets himself feel it, he lets himself savour Ren Jiang's helpless screams as he tears the wing apart.
From the curve of the wing down to the shoulder blades, he flays them like a butcher gone mad.
When Ren Jiang dissolves beneath him in a pathetic state of tears and blood, Zhang Xiyu catches the shape of his trembling lips moving through the ruin.
"Stop… it…"
Expressionless, almost inhumanely, Zhang Xiyu looks down at him with bottomless eyes. So dark and frightening, like the mouth that has opened in the mortal world.
Then he heard the words that followed.
"One wing left."
The violence turned uglier still. Zhang Xiyu came for the other wing with blood-stained hands, driving his fingers deeper into wounds that had already abandoned the effort to heal. Every blow carried years of frustration, years of pain. His gruesome, straightforward, and primal attack on the immobile prince bear no grace of a martial art.
It is only bloodthirsty violence.
"Hng—"
The otherworldly stillness is broken by the sickening rhythm of wet blows, the sound echoing through the emptiness where only the two of them remain. Each strike landed with a dull, rupturing force. The violence drags on until even that begin to thin, the impact of each punch growing weaker, the tempo slowing, then fading altogether.
And then they stop.
Zhang Xiyu's hand falls still.
At last, Zhang Xiyu no longer raises a hand against Ren Jiang, who has been reduced to a pathetic ruin. The tyrannical prince who has toyed with the fates of cowering demons and ghosts is gone.
Bloody and battered, he lay on the ground, his consciousness drifting in and out. Under this pain he hears a weary sigh.
"Tired…"
The word leaves Zhang Xiyu's mouth like a breath he had been holding for centuries.
"I am tired."
Ren Jiang tried to crawl away from the pain tearing through him from the inside and out, but his body barely obeyed. Still, the instinct to survive had not left him. It clung to him with stubborn, feral strength.
Just a little more.
Zhang Xiyu's dark eyes, only moments ago blazing with rage, had gone strangely vacant. The emptiness in them seemed to mirror something within him.
"I am tired of…" His blurred gaze sharpened by a fraction. "Hatred…"
It struck him with the force of revelation, the eureka moment that he had been looking for. After centuries of struggle, this is all it amounted to. No family. No true belonging. No place in any world. A forgotten ghost that belongs nowhere and has fallen into the hands of insignificant mortal and immortal politics.
Hatred was the only thing that kept his soul alive and he is very grateful for it. But now, even this crutch has worn out. And he is tired of using it.
He just wants to go home, to a place where he will no longer have to look at the revolting faces of mortals and immortals alike, all of them forever measuring his worth with their probing eyes.
Home.
And where is that, exactly?
While Zhang Xiyu stands dazed before the shape of his new findings and emotions, the person beneath his feet grits his teeth and seizes the opening with the last of his strength that had mysteriously left him.
"Argh!" A low, raw cry tore from him.
Putting all of his strength in his left leg, he sweeps Zhang Xiyu's feet out from under him. The foot cleanly swipes through air as Zhang Xiyu dodges it, flipping at a distance away from him.
Just a little more…
Ren Jiang drags himself upright, breath tearing through his chest. Showcasing the opposite image that he held before. His brilliance has been shredded savagely. Blood spills from his mangled wings that trail at his feet, now reduced to dead weight.
Zhang Xiyu is not much better. His black robes drip red. Blood streak his pale hands and climb to his jaw, deepening the feral look in his eyes.
Right. He mustn't lose his focus now.
In a flash, both men summoned their swords, the blades lengthening soundlessly in their bloodied hands.
He must complete the task at hand before he contemplates his life anew. He pushes the doubt aside and lets killing intent rise again through him. It seems that the Sun god's aid is limited to just this capacity.
The blades rise again.
They strike with enough force to spark on contact, each blow driven with the grim urgency of men who want the other dead and are no longer bothering to hide it. They swing, thrust, and parry, locked in a terrible calm that is only rage with better posture. Blood runs from Zhang Xiyu's mouth, his ears, the corners of his eyes. The Blue Lotus is eating through him, but he remains standing.
Seeing an opening, Zhang Xiyu moves to pierce his chest.
CLANG.
Their swords lock, and so do their eyes, both filled with murder. Each blade strains to force an opening, but neither yield. Muscles bunch, veins rise beneath skin, and their arms tremble under the weight of their own force. Rage narrows their vision to a single demand: the other's decapitated head.
So fixed on each other, they forgot the third presence closing in.
So blinded, they did not see him come.
Splatter.
They feel it before their eyes drop down.
Their flesh and blood are already dripping over a blindingly white blade.
Its hilt is buried deep in Ren Jiang's back, while the point has driven into Zhang Xiyu's stomach.
Liu Xue stood behind Ren Jiang, rapier in hand, his expression calm, his eyes empty. Killing two birds with one stone.
He drives the blade forward.
It pierces Ren Jiang's back straight through the core he had been born with, the one untouched by Enma's stolen power. The core shatters, its remnants destruct inside him as ice piles on, keeping it from bursting out. This pain is more intense than being directly bomb. But what can Ren Jiang do. The ice prince has made sure of his immobility. To watch him flail and suffer helplessly. Ren Jiang jolts, convulses once. His eyes roll up his skull and finally he goes still.
But Liu Xue had not stopped there.
The rapier had kept going, punching through Ren Jiang's gut, through the space between them, and into Zhang Xiyu.
Zhang Xiyu looked down.
Ice protruded from his side. Deep but not fatal. But there he gets a message. A reminder.
He lifts his gaze to Liu Xue.
Liu Xue looks back.
No words pass between them and none are needed. Because this is not betrayal. Liu Xue had come to kill his brother, not to serve Zhang Xiyu's purposes. The wound made that plain enough: they are not allies, not friends, and certainly not fools. They were only using one another, and both understood the cost.
Zhang Xiyu's lips twitch, almost smiling.
Then Ren Jiang's body goes slack between them. Or perhaps it is only Zhang Xiyu's own hands that have gone numb. The adrenaline is draining away now, and with it the walls of their domains, which begin to fade as though they had never existed at all.
And there beneath their feet, the maw awaits them.
First, it is Ren Jiang. As the cold blade withdraws from him, carrying with it the remnants of his damaged core, all light leaves his eyes. His body turns heavy, as though whatever had been holding it together had suddenly been torn away.
Then the prince falls.
Maybe he will wake up maybe he won't. No matter, it will be too late for that decision to matter.
Zhang Xiyu, still conscious by a sliver, watches him fall as the final sacrifice to the devis. With a bleeding hole in his abdomen, he then sees the third prince crush an augmentation stone without a flicker of emotion.
As his body slips through the rift and back toward hell, Zhang Xiyu's throat moves.
"Wait."
Take him with you, he had meant to say.
But of course, Liu Xue would never have listened. It is too absurd of a request to be made. But Zhang Xiyu saw no trace of absurdity at that moment. Without thinking, or perhaps with no fight left, Zhang Xiyu steps into nothing, pulling the air out from under his feet.
Then he too falls.
I made a promise. His eyes flicker until they could no longer remain open. I promised to keep him alive.
I need to send Ren Jiang back to hell.
And the last thing left is the quiet motion of dark robes, folding into the void as both of them disappear into the sacrificial fall.
----------------------------------------------------------------
Time slipped away; six years gone without notice. He had been there for six years now. In eight more years, his soul would face judgement. That's what that demon Foghand had said.
But will it be okay? He hadn't completed any round of punishment he was assigned. What happens now that he is stuck in the Kaigan Pit?
Zhang Xiyu woke up from his slumber. During the years his appearance had changed, the cue hairstyle had grown to full length now that he wasn't required to shave the front part off. It felt good to break out of it. He was no longer required to prove his loyalty to the government by making his ancestors sad.
He sighed. Value of independence after death came with the restriction of freedom. He had changed but the stone walls remained the same. It trapped out the light, trapped in the players.
Let us talk about that year's festival. Since Liu Xue had pressured him to break away from the competition and do his bidding, he was no longer an active player of the Kaigan Pit. In his theory, the ones who could be easily tracked (that is if they are alive) were the ones in the run to be the winner. Considering they actually declare one.
What he didn't know was that after that year, the heavens had conducted a strict audit and the entertainment division fell apart. The players were naturally abandoned.
That was in fact the last occurrence of the Kaigan Pit Festival.
Zhang Xiyu would not know of this fact anytime soon. He put on his robes, transferred his stuff into his interdimensional ring, pulled his hair up with a ribbon, and picked up his longsword.
After six years of tracking, he could finally reach the fragment. While figuring out its location was relatively easy, a biased opinion, he couldn't just recklessly barge in and snatch it away.
His vessel did not have the strength to shield his soul from the immense aura of the fragment. Zhang Xiyu had to eat his own mocking words and actually cultivate under the fragment's presence. Apart from that the pit also had its fair share of demonic energy. Since he was not an expert in cultivation, in his early years he very well ingested that demonic energy too. Its existence was seen through the light red lines that bordered his eyelids.
With time he strengthened his vessel to the point where it resembled a human's body. Previously it was just a weak shell that contained his soul power, breaking it or 'killing' it would mean that the energy would get scattered and become demon feed.
Zhang Xiyu walked out of the hideout he made himself. It was a small cave he blasted out from the mountain. It was necessary to live under such shelter as one cannot roam the pit unguarded.
The ghosts are always there. Watching. Waiting.
Their limbs camouflage beneath the dark background, always reaching out for prey. It was raw hunger incarnated.
The pit was also infested with numerous monsters, malicious ghosts, and demons who made it their home. As he got closer to the fragment, the number of these ghosts and demons dwindled while the monsters increased significantly. It was as if they were putting their life on the line to protect the fragment.
Zhang Xiyu looked at the cleared-out area, there were barely any monsters. He walked briskly towards the target area. Zhang Xiyu had killed them all. He used their skin to create various articles and consumed their Dantian to progress his cultivation.
Why do I even bother? This thought had pricked his mind countless times during the years.
'Why can I not just give up? Let them eat me. Have my soul scattered. It would not be as painful as living.'
He crosses a small river by jumping over the stones.
'Do I really want to reincarnate? Why work this hard? For Liu Xue?' Zhang Xiyu laughed.
He looked up at the entrance of a grand cave. The entrance was ladened with priceless gemstones that lit up the entire area. The gemstones replicated the flora, hanging down as fruits or glittering up like soft petals. Zhang Xiyu was mesmerised for a moment. He hadn't seen actual light for a long time.
His hand reached out to pick up a yellow 'flower'. He brought it near his face and stared at it for so long that his eyes dried out and they spasmed under the unusual brightness. But Zhang Xiyu could not bring himself to drop it. He desperately wanted to forget the eternal darkness that fell over this blasted pit.
Later, he would fondly grow these flowers in his residence, the Last Fortress. After a while, he forces himself to composure and slipped that flower in his ring. The ring he had collected from some other player he had killed.
I did not go through all of that just to give up at this moment. His willpower returned to him slowly.
Zhang Xiyu inhaled deeply.
He stepped inside the cave resolutely. Right in the centre of the cave there flowed a pond. In the midst of that clear crystal-like water a familiar object floated. The blue fragment was larger than the one owned by Ren Jiang. Its spiritual pressure grabbed at him, trying to figure out what foreign creature had entered its territory.
"So, it is you." A light feminine voice echoed in the cave.
Is that the fragment who's talking?
"Who are you?"
"Why? Do you not remember me?"
"Huh?"
The still pond then rippled up into a large fountain. From the fountain a figure dressed in turquoise emerged. Her blue hair floated around her waist, gems hanging down her neck. The pond went silent again.
The woman smiled. "I was the first sister you met."
Zhang Xiyu looked at her blankly, waiting for her to continue. Met? Whose sister?
"The fragment string that strengthens your body belongs to my other sister. That is why I had allowed your presence."
"So…. you are… that fragment?" He pointed behind her.
"Yes. This is my spirit form."
"Okay. You know why I am here."
"You are here to take me."
"Correct." Zhang Xiyu nodded.
"You were not allowed to, back then."
"What?"
The sister's smile broadened. "You could not. Not in this form. I did not allow it."
Zhang Xiyu frowned, ultimately shaking his head. "I see the misunderstanding. I do not want you. The third prince of Hell, Lord Liu Xue wants you."
She shook her head. "If he wanted me then he should have done so personally. I am not something to be delivered."
"No." Within a blink of an eye, she was right near him, her hand rested on his shoulder. "You wanted us, right? Why else would you be here"
Zhang Xiyu did not dare to move. The woman looked amicable on the surface but her immense strength radiated towards him. The pressure was so strong that he could barely stand to maintain his dignity.
He gasped, out of breath, and choked out the words. "I- I do not know…. what use you are to me."
"I just want to reincarnate and leave hell. I am sure you and Liu Xue can work something out. I do not wish to take any part of it."
The fragment laughed wildly. She laughed at him.
"Young boy. Do you not remember who I am? A fragment. But of what?" she scoffed and stood behind him.
"I belong to hell. I am its will. I am power and I belong to power." She covers his frustrated eyes with her hand.
"Let go and remind yourself of what we are." Multiple voices rang in his head.
Zhang Xiyu was engulfed in pure darkness. He could not even make out his own limbs within the pitch-black space. That's when he heard a mad laughter. The crazed guffaw sending chills to his back. It said nothing, it did nothing. And yet he has never felt so belittled.
The space transformed into the inside of a huge volcano. His body floated above the sweltering ocean of lava. This time the laughter was accompanied by countless screams. The numerous souls trapped under the lava tried their best to break out, seeking for help and mercy.
"Forgive me God!"
"Save me!"
"It is so painful…."
No matter how many souls yelled, the insane laughter yet again overpowered it. Zhang Xiyu felt nauseated when he looked at the charred corpses trying to crawl up. He felt himself being thrown up in the turbid sky. Intense dizziness gripped him, the voices still ringing loudly.
DONG
Now he faced a ceiling. He was lying on the cold floor gasping for breath. Within the dim lighting he sensed that someone was watching him.
He could hear the wet smacking of lips and insistent chewing from his left side. Licking and sucking. Horrified, he moves his head towards its direction. Head of a goat and eyes of a human, the monster's yellow eyes glowed as it nibbled on a carcass. Bones and flesh lying around in black residue. Its hands and face drenched in warm blood as it drowned its face in the corpse.
Zhang Xiyu cried silently. He cried because he knew that once he turned his head around, he would find more of such ghouls behind him. He stayed dead still.
Evil in its purest form.
The monster in front of him opened his blood-stained mouth. Shreds of meat stuck between its sharp teeth. A strange gurgle came out from it followed by a muffled laugh. "Heh heh."
The wild laugh from before merrily mingled with the monsters.
Zhang Xiyu couldn't take it anymore. He forced out every strength inside his lead-like body and stood up. He kept his head low, tears dripping down his face, and angrily roared.
"Shut. The fuck. Up!"
The monsters went silent. But now they were staring at him eerily. Zhang Xiyu did not know which one was worse. The laughter or the silence.
Fortunately, he didn't get the chance to ponder over it in fright as the scene rapidly changed again. This time he was thrown into thousands of pictures spanning only over a few seconds. From flowers blooming to crops withering. From a cub's birth to a lion's death. He saw life flash through his eyes like a never-ending montage.
"This…. Is…"
--- The Order.
"You?"
--- Yes, we.
Zhang Xiyu was still falling through life.
--- We are the maintainers of equilibrium. Life grows, life falls. Good grows, evil falls.
His mind went completely blank all of a sudden.
--- We showed you. The imbalance.
Memories of those monsters peering into his soul pierced him poisonously. They cannot be allowed. Their existence should not be allowed. He didn't realise that he was shivering.
He was back to where he started from. The walls of the volcano hissed out the steam but he did not feel any of it. In the middle of that boiling lava a familiar object floated. He had never seen it but the feeling of familiarity was unshakeable.
The Blue Lotus.
The overbearing lava could not diminish the sapphire glow of the flower as it obediently flowed around it, thriving in that sea of fire.
--- The balance is breaking, Zhang Xiyu. Take this and own your destiny.
Take this! Take this! Take this! Take-
DONG
The hand pulled away from his disoriented eyes. The sister stood beside the fragment with a knowing smile.
"So, young boy. You never had a choice."
Zhang Xiyu looked at her blankly. "Why me?"
The sister chuckled. "Who says it was only you? The order did not put all of its eggs in one basket."
She raised an eyebrow. "We had other subjects. You were the only one who survived."
"Do you still not remember? "
Silence hangs like a suspended pendulum, each sway merging with the rippling of water. Suddenly, Zhang Xiyu's pales and his steps stagger backwards. His eyes shake as they bore into the rocky ground and the river with suspicion.
It is now when the landscape had shifted, the gravity had doubled to withhold him. It was at this moment he had been captured by the Blue Lotus.
Slowly, he releases a breath he didn't know he was holding. And when his eyes finally move back on the sister, he finds a more familiar face greeting him back.
"I will destroy you, bitch." Her elegant voice do not match the words.
"Back then, those were your last words." The Blue Lotus' original form peers at him. The fragment long gone from between them. Her smile deepens as if the memory she is reminiscing was fond. For Zhang Xiyu, it is anything but that.
He exhales, and his shoulders straighten back. "I remember." He acknowledges the last question. Ren Jiang, Enma, Yutao, Renhu. The mortal world, and the fatal stab in his gut, he remembers it all now.
As his hand grazes the perfectly fine abdomen, he states. "I must be dreaming."
"Even in my last lucid moment, I am stuck here with you." He adds dryly. But his signature snark is no longer present. Only the resignation of a man on a death row.
He could not fulfil his promise, save his friends or even himself for that matter. In the end it was all useless.
More than two centuries of gruelling hardwork was all useless.
And to make sure that he remembers that in death, this appalling goddess is here. Surely, she is here to unload her frustration.
Then he hears a light laugh. His eyes snap to the rare gentle expression of the goddess and the rarer sound that is coming out of her.
This is... She can… laugh?
What more, it sounds very pleasant! Very angelic!
And that horrifies him even more.
"So am I, young man." She finally speaks. Seeing his enforced poker face, the goddess pursues her lips and continues. "I wonder why you have worked this diligently to keep that brat alive."
That brat. Ren Jiang.
Inspite of himself, his brain rushes to conjure an acceptable excuse for his reckless behaviour. Anything to placate the mad goddess. But this time there is no need.
"I am sure that whatever maybe be the result that you wanted from doing so," She raises her chin at him. "You will get it."
"That will never happen." Zhang Xiyu sneers half-heartedly.
"I have involuntarily sacrificed Ren Jiang to them. Your power has burned my body from the inside and I guess I have also landed in their mouths like garnish."
"In front of their anger, I don't think they will be considering any old feelings between us. Our strong bond of one-sided fear and returning indifference."
This time it was the goddess' turn to sigh. "What?" Zhang Xiyu's eyes narrow as he reflexively asks. What's wrong now?
"I am afraid that the two of you together have no chance of satiating her."
"…"
"All bones, no flesh."
Oh, now she's making jokes. How fucking funny.
"On a serious note," Her expression shifts, the levity dissolving. Her gaze drifts past him, through something only she can see. Zhang Xiyu knew that she was peering through the realms. "Your yagna is not a complete success. It requires a greater sacrifice."
In hell, the monks do not share the dumbstruck expressions of the angels but their complexions still look waxen. It's all because of what the Blue Lotus has commanded them to do.
"Expand the array." She had said. "Chant the mantras used to shatter me."
"You mean…?"
"My work here is done." She looks out across the realm, wistful, as though savouring something already lost. A fleeting spark of happiness flickers through her eyes before it fades. "Enma's core will be returned. The queens are gone. And every disaster I hoped to avoid…"
"They all came to pass."
"But not at a graver cost than it has."
"My hell… shall prosper again." Her voice lilting towards the end. "It will not need me."
Monk Shoji's frowns deeply. "But your grace- "
"Sacrifice me to the devis."
Sharp intakes of breath echo through the stone walls. "Sacrifice… a goddess…"
Monk Masashi slaps his thigh, his voice rising an octave. "What blasphemy is your grace compelling us to do?"
"You are not only a goddess. You hold the position of our mother. We cannot sacrifice our dear mother that has given this realm life!"
"You dare defy me?"
The sky rumbles and the serene river surges into a violent tide, battering its banks. The ground trembles; a piercing frequency floods their minds, sharp enough to split thought itself.
Then, just as abruptly, it stops.
Stillness returns, complete and unnatural, as though nothing had stirred.
"We- kindly pardon our disobedience." The monks' head bow to her. "However," Monk Shiraishi adds resolutely. "We cannot even conceive of such an act. Let alone do it."
"Spare us this karmic burden, your grace!"
Now the monks pay obeisance to the goddess. They have lived and meditated for millenniums to break free of the path of reincarnation, to settle all karmic debts and to achieve Moksh. On this narrow path, how dare they take up such an irreparable debt?
An act that takes centuries worth of penance. What will happen to their cultivation? However—
"Fear not, my sons." The Blue Lotus is adamant. "This shall not reflect on you. You are merely catalysts for my yagna and I… "Her voice stills.
"Must now sacrifice myself."
Zhang Xiyu's blank expression adds to his blank stare because what did she just say?
Back in the cave of Kaigan Pit, she meets his disbelief without flinching. "You heard me." A genuine smile, a tiny one plays on her lips.
"My time has come."
"But… why…"
Why you? Why not use me again?
"Young man, you have done enough."
She exhales, almost amused. "Sadly, I cannot fulfil my promise. I cannot give you the world to rule and I won't lie; I never intended to."
The fire of the yagna blazes to the ceiling as if making a wall of red fire. The mantras intensify and more ghee is offered to the holy fire. Bells toll wildly and the walls start to crack.
"But you knew that." she says softly. "You have always been perceptive."
Barefoot, she steps into the ritual circle and walks toward the kund.
"This is where we part. Thank you for being my pawn, Zhang Xiyu."
The goddess steps into the wall of fire.
Red flames surge around her, deepening to violet, then burning into an unnatural blue. The angels grit their teeth, unable to look away as the fire consumes her, skin burning yet her form unyielding. Her back remains straight and tall. The fire consumes her skin, yet she stands within it unflinchingly.
"I concede your life back to you."
The blue fire razes everything offered to it with a violent roar.
BANG.
Zhang Xiyu's closed eyes twitch, the loud noise bringing him back to reality. Just like a distant dream, the secluded cave of Kaigan Pit fades away like smoke. And just like that, pain floods back into his body with brutal clarity.
"Argh…" He groans, struggling to open his eyes.
What was that sound?
He asks rhetorically, but another voice enters his mind. It's the tongue.
"Huh?" The massive maw beneath him collapses inward, the writhing tongue folding in on itself like falling dominos. Flesh hardens to stone, then fractures, crumbling into the sealed pit. The devouring abyss is gone. No longer an open gullet that swallowed rivers and mountains alike.
Apart from this, Zhang Xiyu realises that he's not inside it. That faint, gentle smile flashes across his mind again, giving him a headache.
She is gone. The Blue Lotus is… gone.
He presses his face into Yutao's back as they move away from the ruin. Yutao carries him on his back with steady ease, Renhu's skinny figure slung at his waist, Ren Jiang dangling unceremoniously from his other hand as if he is carrying a trash bag.
All three of them knocked out from the fight that lasted the entire night were now being carried out at daybreak by this dependable man.
"Cut it out." Yutao mutters. "Or I'll drop you. You seem to be a fan of falling into pits anyway." He says with spite and embarrassment as he hears the last part through their telepathy channel.
A breath escapes Zhang Xiyu, thin and tired. "Not anymore, my friend. I have decided to retire."
They fall into silence, watching the devastated landscape drift past. The carnage holds nothing but the sad remains of destruction. One such being in Yutao's left hand.
"Thank you." Zhang Xiyu says quietly. "For catching us. Also, him."
The grip on Ren Jiang's nape loosens precariously. "Seriously, cut it out. It's disgusting."