It was a day and a half prior to the concurrent events…
Xinyu's heart sank as the snake zodiac slithered up to her shoulder and told her what she wanted to hear least: a group of angels had descended from the Westland heaven, demented by a strange black magic, and were heading towards the greatest concentration of magic energy in the land, Wunderdum. They had destroyed every town in their path, slaughtering everyone in sight, and were slowly encroaching upon the capital in great numbers. As Kitsune prophesied, the first wave of calamity consisted of angels corrupted by black magic.
There was no one else who could stand up to heaven's soldiers. Only her. Xinyu alone would have to face the battalion of evil and win, lest she wished the smiles she sought after to cease. She felt guilty leaving Brax behind, but she didn't have a choice, for he wasn't capable enough for such dangers. Not yet.
As she let her mind go blank, she summoned the electricity of Leigong in her feet and began to wonder, was she running off to her death, or her destiny? Only time knew such answers. She did not. What she knew for sure was that the kingdom, whether she liked it or not, had placed itself onto her shoulders, and she'd have to fight carrying that heavy weight, protecting it all. But more than a kingdom of smiles, she also wanted to protect her friend.
"Do not worry," Xinyu said to Brax. "There is no foe, heaven or earth, in all of fate that could fell the great Xinyu Ma! Of that, I promise. Now, I must be off."
With a quick smile and a bow, Xinyu took a giant leap onto the roof of a small coffee shop and began running atop the buildings of the city. Electricity started sparkling in her feet as she nimbly sprang through the sky, and in the blink of an eye, she was gone, wisped away from Brax's vision.
As Xinyu dashed through the Westland plains, she could see the dark amalgamation in the distance with Erlang's eye. She shuddered at the winds she sensed, but ran forward all the less. Even without anyone to witness her sprinting at unseeable speeds, she still smiled.
She smiled until she arrived at the eye of the storm.
And then, standing atop a hill before her, was the black witch from the pond, irradiating shadows and staring down the Merchant of Joy with pretentious, cold eyes, and behind her in the darkened skies was a line of rotting angels, floating above and leaking pus and blood onto the ground. Xinyu sensed each one with the third eye. Not quite dead, yet not alive, they were mere existences. A maggot-feasted, abominable existence. They were one hundred and seventeen corrupt angels, commanded by a black sorceress.
"Welcome, thief of gods," the witch cackled. Xinyu was silent, acting as if she couldn't hear those wretched words.
"Oh? You were so talkative before, and now you've got nothing to say?" the witch muttered. "You spit in my face, and then run far away… You really do anger me. Might I remind you, one touch whilst you use magic, whether it be by you or me, and you'll face a similar fate to those angels. Or perhaps, the fear wrought by that notion is the very reason you remain silent."
The witch waved her hand, and a black fire wall erupted from the dirt, much larger than the one at the pond, entrapping Xinyu with her and the angels. Without a tunnel to escape, there would be no choice but to fight the magic that countered hers the worst.
Even knowing such odds, Xinyu was calm.
Behind the grand wall of fire rose another wall of flame; taller, hotter, and even more fierce than the witch's. It consumed the black arms into their red fury and grew even higher into the sky, crackling as it stood firm as an unpassable fortress between the eastern girl's enemies and the world.
With a thunderous boom, Xinyu disappeared from the hill's summit and appeared behind the witch, crepitating with electricity. As she wound up a steel fist and swung it at the witch, Leigong's electric magic vanished the instant before contact. Xinyu's knuckles met the center of the witch's face, cracking bones as they commanded her to the ground.
Before the witch's back touched the grass, Xinyu wound up an electric kick, then released the energy right before contact once more. She was knocked off the hill, and Xinyu jumped after, trying to stomp the bony woman into the ground.
As they fell, tentacles seeped out of the woman's cloak and pierced towards Xinyu, who weaved through the air with magic she released off-and-on like a switch. Mayhaps she could not use magic to harm the witch directly, but she could use it to give her own strength the opportunity to shine. It was for moments like those, ones where magic failed, that she trained her body ceaselessly.
The witch used a tentacle like a whip to propel her body back before she hit the ground, and avoided Xinyu's foot as it indented the ground. The black sorceress, trembling as she ungraciously tumbled down, turned pitch black and sank into the earth, tunneling away as a puddle of black ooze. Using a move modeled after Brax's own cowardice, the witch escaped from beneath the ground where the walls of fire could not reach, and she ran. Having realized the merchant was well beyond her own capabilities, her fear began to show. And as she ran, she gave the angels a command:
"Kill the thief of gods."
As much as it would have been an advantage to wipe them all out at once, only a single corrupt angel broke from the line and darted to Xinyu with its black blade. It landed, then slashed at her, and she narrowly avoided it, trying to duck and sweep it with her leg. It propelled itself up with its wings, then went for another heavy slash.
Xinyu summoned the Sword of Heaven's Will, the sword that decides the fate of kingdoms. With its golden sheen in her hands, she swung back, and the sharp edges collided at their centers, screaming as they rubbed against each other. With a thrust of power in their bodies, they parted and swung again in tandem.
Over and over again, they clashed, meeting each other at the center like equals in swordsmanship, screeching as they slid tip to tip, and splashing sparks with each hit. More and more, Xinyu had to keep outputting all her strength to overwhelm the angel, getting faster with each swing. Stronger with each strike. And with her unbreakable will, she broke through the corrupt angel's defenses and cut its waist, slicing it in two.
As the torso hit the ground and the legs fell forward, Xinyu was left huffing for air. She couldn't go all out right away, unless she desired a quick death. That was because, though one fell, there were still one hundred and sixteen left to take its place.
"Why do you fight?" the cowardly black witch's words taunted from afar. "Why fight for a world that you should despise the most?"
"Why do I fight?" Xinyu asked herself as three more angels descended from the line. The fires began to die down, and Xinyu's eyes closed as she recalled the reason she walked forward, despite it all.
They took her from her, yet she did not seek revenge. If her sister hadn't smiled as she died, then she would have desired to destroy it all, but that day, her fate was forever changed. For a girl who had not a single ounce of magic within her body, she'd be the one to inherit the secret of the gods and carry the dream of her sister.
It was an obnoxious weight, their wills, their dreams. It made Xinyu's knees buckle, and her chest burn, yet she had to bear it with a smile. Not because she wished to do so, but out of obligation.
Do not give up, do not falter; not even for an instant. Keep smiling, til death, Xinyu heard. A smile in battle hides your fear from your enemies, but shows your courage to your friends. Above all else, a smile is…
"I fight because I must," Xinyu answered. "Even without an ounce of magic in my torn body, I will make the impossible possible over and over again, because that is just who I am. I cannot help but look at cute boys and girls, or stop drooling over delicious-smelling food, or suppress my selfish desires. I just want to be happy. And I cannot be happy in a world that seeks to take the joy from others, so, even if it means I must die, even if it means I must destroy the world, then I will continue fighting with this smile until the very end."
Above all else, a smile is a hero's most significant weapon!
"Lightning of Leigong, third eye of Erlang, crescent sword of Guan Yu, bow of Hou Yi," Xinyu chanted, piling the powers of the gods into her body, overstuffing her small vessel as it cracked and crumbled. Not one, but many, she kept summoning energy even as it pulsated beneath her skin and sent magma through her bursting veins. "Yu Qiang, god of water, Zhu Rong, god of fire, Gou Mang, god of wood."
It was pain that drained away her life, thrashing her body side-to-side as she tried to acclimate to the burning sensations enveloping her being. She knew she couldn't falter, and so she grit her teeth as her ravaged body steadied and her heavy breaths subsided. It was only a tiny bit from each, but the accumulated power was more than she had ever taken before, overwhelming her body and senses to the point where her consciousness waned by the second.
Xinyu, however, did not succumb. Instead, she mustered her will and pushed back the prospect of impossibility. Her roar, her screams, her pain, her smile; they were all integral aspects of her fiery heart, and each propped up her failing bones as fate trembled in the presence of her existence.
Gou Mang's wooden roots sprouted from the earth and disrupted the five angels diving at Xinyu. It blocked their paths and whipped them back with sturdy flexibility. Waving all around, those thick tree roots created winds so harsh that they began to disorganize the line of angels and flung them into chaos.
As if commanded by a sole mind, each angel held their swords facing front, and morphed them into bows of black. In tandem, they stretched their bowstrings back and aimed right at Xinyu with shadowy arrows.
In a unified thwip, all arrows were released at once, and became a flurry of deadly hail which was melted by Zhu Rong's fire that burns the air. Each arrowhead evaporated into charcoal and blew away before reaching Xinyu's own bow, which she stretched back well behind her back. Aimed straight up at the sky, she released Hou Yi's greatest arrow, and as it rose to where the sun should lie, it exploded into a thousand strands of light needles which rained upon the foes surrounding her. The needles pierced their bodies and brought many of the angels to the ground, missing chunks of their flesh and covered in wounds.
To her distressed eyes, as Xinyu looked around, she saw them regenerating their bodies and repairing themselves with the black ooze that leaked from their wretched sockets. Even the one she had sliced in half had revived and was lumbering towards her with a sword drawn.
Still, even if they were not so easily killable, they were not indestructible. Xinyu knew that was only a quality of the gods; one which their creations did not wield. She would find their weakness, and if that did not work, she would erase them in a way from which they could never recover.
Over and over again, she cut them down, and over and over again, they rose from death. They hadn't the power to take her down, but she couldn't slay them either. At the rate at which they fought, she would fall without having felled even a single one.
How many hours have passed? Xinyu wondered, exhausted. Has it been one? Two? Ten? She had lost track of it long prior and only focused on each painful breath. She could barely demand her weary muscles to move, and she wasn't sure if there was an end in sight.
Then, in the midst of an unwinnable fight, she saw it. She saw with Erlang's eye what lay at the center of each undead angel's chest: a heart that still beat.
Thump. Thump. Thump. The angels were not of the world any longer, yet they still had the beating heart of a living being driving them forward, and it was the thing that she would aim to destroy next.
Screaming in might and summoning her willpower, her body moved with thunder as she leapt to the sky and cut an angel's chest open with Guan Yu's curved sword. Though it was black, the pulsating lump of flesh in the angel's body was alive, and what kept it moving. Quickly, she stabbed the heart, and the blackness in the angel's eyes faded as it slumped onto the ground, at last, dead. She had found their weakness, but they had also seen hers. Her humanity.
With a failing body that could barely contain her stolen magic, she smiled, laughed, and fought, finally having braved impossibility with new light.
Many who met the Trader of Joy thought her special. Many believed that, unlike the common folks of the lands, her prodigious soul was bestowed upon the world, filled with talent and wisdom far surpassing even the fate-favored chosen one; that she was a glorious golden girl descended from powers greater than humanity to shield it from darkness and lead them towards the light in the dimmest of nights. A woman of her power and confidence must have been extraordinary.
Xinyu Ma was not special.
Xinyu Ma was born with no magical power of her own. She was, perhaps, the only one in all existence with such an impediment, and thus once had the weakest potential of any human. She trained her physical body to no end, but regardless of how many stones she could carry or punches she could throw, she fell short in any scuffs she had with the other kids who could dabble in spells. Since the beginning of creation, strength had always been farce in the face of magic's overwhelming might. As it stood, no matter how strong she got and how good at fighting she became, she could never contend with the power of those who controlled the world's mythical energy.
In futility, she continued on in her struggles for years on end, fighting for something in the distance she could not see, but had hoped was there.
And then, after a certain sequence of events, she had at last found a way to fight. To steal the magic of the most powerful beings in existence: the gods. Some might think her strength unearned, yet there was indeed a cost. What she had given was greater than anyone else could afford, and thus, there was no one else in the world more worthy of such a skill. Despite it all, she really did love seeing others laugh and smile.
For any other human, a smile was worthless in a fight. But to her, it was everything. The Merchant of Joy, the hope of the world. Her true magic was the ability to make the impossible possible. It was not a spell, nor an ability, nor a gift of heaven. It was a trait of her very being.
Despite her efforts, in the final moment against the last angel, she made a mistake. She shut her eyes for a moment of rest, and it escaped. She chased, but her legs lost their strength, and she fell face-first into the bitter mud wetted by her own sweat and the blood of a hundred corrupt angels. In that moment of weakness, the final fiend darted off into the distance so fast she lost sight of it. She had nothing left; her will, her power, her stamina, they had all reached their limits many hours prior. All she could do was crawl with her weakened arms until she passed out.
When she awoke, the sun was high, and the dark storm had moved on into the distance. Her body still wouldn't move as she wished, but she willed it to do so regardless as she stood. She had to find a way to continue on, just a little longer. She took a few minutes to soothe her cramped calves and then began to clumsily hop after the angel, hoping that it wouldn't reach the city before she could finish the job.
While her nervous system threw her off balance as she began to run, she prayed that someone would have the courage to stand up to the angel, even if for a minute. That's when she saw them fighting: Cygnus, a strange woman encased in shadows, and even Brax. They were outmatched without a hope of victory, yet they still stood in their convictions despite knowing their deaths were inevitable.
"I am chagrined," Xinyu said. "I have the greatest power of all, yet I must still rely on others to make up for my mistakes. Allow me to carry these corpses upon my back with the others."
Xinyu, imbued with the blue rush of Leigong's thunder, began to pick up speed and turned into a streak of lightning rushing through the terrain.