Heaven's Laws - Lifestone - Chapter 63

Chao felt her approach before she even entered the room. He didn’t wait for her. Shooting through the space tunnel, he appeared at the other side. He reached through the room’s barrier and grabbed her hand. All that it took was a touch. He was so intimately familiar with her body’s every working. Before he could say something, she attached herself to his neck.

As he was about to plunge through the barrier to inflict whoever it was that did this to her, she spoke. “They’re dead.”

He stood there glaring through the barrier into the next room. He could see that she was right. “Good,” he insisted, knowing she was probably bothered that she hadn’t been able to save the lower realm disciples. He knew it was his anger talking, but he simply didn’t care.

“Pangfua?” She asked.

“Alive. How bad is it, Huifen? Are you in pain?”

“Yes, but that’s the worst of it. I won’t be able to eat for a day or two, but I can still fight.”

“Absolutely not. You—”

“Chao,” she interested him. “The others.”

He realized he hadn’t looked at her once. When he did, he saw the unyielding side of her ready to let go of him and leave to find out herself.

He sighed, flying back the way he had come. They appeared in the midst of what was left of the joint sect disciples.

“Sage Huifen,” a voice called out.

She began to release him, and he planned to fight her, but she must have suspected as much. A burst of her aura separated them, even if it was only by a few centimeters. He let her go.

He watched her as she briefly conversed with an ice phoenix elder that was in the best shape.

“How many?” Huifen asked.

“Four.”

He glanced away in shame, but his wife was injured. His eyes darted back and followed her as if not believing what they told him. She began to help where she could when Lead Disciple Shoi-ming spoke up. “Sage Chao.”

“Yes?” he replied, watching his fairy another moment before turning to find the man still carrying Pangfua.

“It’s done?”

He nodded. “It is. The tunnel is safe. Do you think—”

“Leave the rest to me.”

Chao didn’t know Shoi-ming well, but he’d seen that look in Sage Fang’s expression the night the Fire Phoenix Sect Master had challenged him with Burning Cage. All he knew was how to give his everything. In that they were the same.

The Lead Disciple wasn’t the only one doing what they could. His Huifen had a girl floating before her in a half-conscious state. Her examination only took a few seconds. One of Jilpa’s ice poison pills appeared in her hand. She sent it speeding down the girl’s throat before commanding a fire phoenix disciple to carry her. An Ice Phoenix Sect elder was trying to command the disciples that could stand on their own into formation must like a mortal teacher might ask children to stand in a line. Not everyone had their wits about them. Those that could helped direct those that couldn’t.

When Shoi-ming flew forward to announce he’d carry them out, Huifen appeared at his side and swept Pangfua out of his grasp. There was no hostile intention behind his wife’s actions, but Shoi-ming hovered there as if frozen in stone.

Chao then saw his Huifen had wrapped the girl in an ice blue blanket. He realized Shoi-ming had been holding her just right with what was left of her ice phoenix gown wrapped over her so that her nakedness wasn’t on full display.

By the time she was finished, Pangfua started to stir. The Hundred Year Disciple’s head snapped to the side as she took in the room, and an instant later the blanket billowed outward only to show her dressed. The sage studied the group of disciples for a moment before sweeping back and finding Huifen and Chao.

“Harnish?”

“It’s done,” Huifen reassured her.

“Then we must rescue the rest of the sect. He wasn’t one to leave loose ends.”

As his wife was reading to gather the sect, Pangfua stopped her. “You’re injured.”

Before she could respond, the fairy turned to Chao, “Can you stop it?”

“One way or another.”

She gave him a nod, then turned back to Huifen. “Stay here and help your husband. We’ll be enough.”

When his wife began to object, Pangfua stopped her. “I only exhausted my qi and am uninjured.” Find Shoi-ming, she commanded. “Carry them for me.”

“Yes,” the man boomed. He didn’t wait and lifted the disciples and elders alike.

Chao flew over and grabbed Huifen by the hand to stop her from trying to follow. She watched them go.

He could feel the turbulent energy inside her and knew much of the turmoil was directed at him, but she didn’t protest. Instead, she asked, “Can you make it quick? They might need us.”

“Yes,” he said turning back to his defensive wall of space.

“You found the source?”

“No.”

“Look at me, Chao.”

He did.

“Are you going to attack the room’s surfaces? I have plenty of qi. What do you need me to do?”

“Nothing,” he replied. His attention turned to the ice holding her insides together as her body slowly healed. It also numbed much of her pain.

“Then what?” she demanded. He could hear her worry.

“I’m going to break it.”

“How? If you can’t find it…” Her eyes went wild when she realized it wasn’t Harnish’s hidden array he was talking about.

“Chao, it might explode. The spire might not be able to take it.”

He leaned forward and pressed his forehead against hers. “I know. Trust me.”

With a downcast gaze, she nodded. “Okay.”

Pulling away, Chao kept hold of her hand, dragging her behind him where she floated, supported by her qi. He didn’t want her to see his face.

***

When Dvora saw the chucks of mostly frozen flesh cluttering the Water Qi Cultivation Chamber, she’d already reached her limit and would have to react to have ghastly it was on a later date. It struck her how thorough Sage Huifen had been. There weren’t any pieces larger than a fist.

She wished she could vomit, or even just cringe. She just didn’t have the emotional energy left to bother.

They moved quickly. It wasn’t long before they had reached the ice palace on the first floor. Sage Pangfua spoke briefly with the disciples inside when she recognized the blond girl as one of Tong Tao—Sage Chao’s friends.

She’d thought she’d been through too much to feel much of anything, but realizing it was who she’d told Baros to find, a warmth bubbled up inside her and she was suddenly flying toward them.

The Sage announced she was leaving them there.

Dvora almost collided with her as she made it to the door’s edge and craned her neck to see in.

“Inside,” the ice sage commanded.

She was amongst the first ushered in. As soon as she entered, she scanned the faces, then shot past them. She went from room to room, only to be stopped at the second one by a fairy.

Dvora almost retaliated when she noticed it was the fairy Eu-meh. Her face wasn’t covered so she saw the girl’s scar.

“You’re looking for Brother Baros?”

As if her head was spinning, her focus snapped into place at the woman’s question. “I am,” she replied, half-bowing.

“He left the spire when we got here. He said that not all his sect was like Harnish, so he went to save those that he could.”

A gloomy shadow overtook her, but then she realized what it meant. She was the one that had requested he find them and ask the hidden Sage’s to come save them. It was the first time she remembered doing something simply because she thought it was right. Not only had he accepted her request, but come to find out he trying to save his sect as well…

Instead of responding, she shot back toward the entrance of the domed building. Everyone was already inside, and the doors were closing. She had enough of just being dragged around as she tried to survive. A surge of her own qi earned her a boost of speed. She exited just in time.

She knew there wouldn’t be much she could do in the fight, but Sage Pangfua was taking care of it personally. She wouldn’t need to. What she could do is support her fiancé by being there, so that’s what she’d do.