Heaven's Laws - Lifestone - Chapter 16

Chao and Huifen continued north. They took their time training as they went and taking breaks to try or see anything that caught their fancy. Even though their schedule was less disciplined than in the past, there was a natural flow to their days and nights that traveling freely allowed. It was like a gentle salve for their souls after all the training and their battle of life and death.

On their third day of their journey, they found another inn in a quaint little village. They had dinner amongst the locals, and even enjoyed a poet accompanied by a musician. They seemed to be a local couple that simply had an appreciation for the arts.

They set up their array formation like normal. After dual cultivating, Chao laid down to get some sleep for the first time since their departure. He could’ve gone a few more days without sleeping, but having a well-rested mind was of more benefit than if he waited.

Huifen moved a well-cushioned seat toward the window and opened the drapes to look out at the moonlit night. The moon was waxing, but nearing its fullness. The window faced the treeline of a dense forest near the base of a large hill. The hills were growing larger in this region which meant they were getting closer to the outer edges of the monoliths. They should arrive in a day or two.

She set up there and began to tinker with her nature laws. To absorb and to bestow. Both were concepts as much as they were characteristics of the nature element. She was allowing the competitive side of herself an outlet. She was hoping to develop these concepts and unlock them before Chao noticed. Her ice laws were stronger than his, but to use a law he didn’t would be something else entirely. It wasn’t one of her main focuses of study. She would slowly work on it when he wasn’t paying attention in hope of surprising him one day.

Glancing back, she saw his steady breathing where he lay atop the covers. She was tempted to think of some practical joke to pull on him but thought better of it. There’d be time for that later.

***

A woman with a worn veil over her face and covering her hair entered the inn late in the night. Her dress was ragged at the edges and stained from long days in the field. Despite the veil, there was nothing intimidating about her manner or stature. She seemed rather frail. Even when speaking with the innkeeper, her voice was meek. “One room for the night, please.” She seemed to glance up before dropping her hidden gaze. “The one on the second floor with the window, if it’s available.”

“I’m afraid it’s taken, dear customer. There is one below it on the first floor with a window with a similar view.”

The woman nodded weakly.

When offered a late dinner, she rejected it and wish them a good night. Heading to her room, even her steps lacked strength. It must’ve been from a longs day’s travel.

She entered the room and locked it behind her. From beneath her stringy collar, she pulled out a tarnished silver chain. Looped at its end was an exquisite ring of aqua-silver. Runes were etched into its surface all around.

Array flags appeared in her hand. She set them against the walls and waited for them to be in place. There was no energy current, so it was untraceable by any normal cultivator.

She sat down in the middle of the floor without removing her veil. It was made of the same wood as the walls. It was all the connection she needed.

Her qi slipped out of her into the floor. The wood didn’t reject it even though it had died decades ago. She was careful not to enliven it. She simply used it as a pathway for her qi to crawl through the floor and into the walls. The flags simply guaranteed this connection. If the construction was good, they were completely unnecessary for this step. Their main duty was to help conceal the fluctuation of her qi.

Like the lazy crawl of a serpent, her qi slithered up the wall. She could sense the flow of qi in the floor above before she even reached it. It was the sure signs of a defensive array formation, and a good one. To one so intimate with the element in which the qi traveled, the array held no power over her.

Her qi slipped into the floorboards above without sounding the alarm. Normally, having such arrays in the room above was a small blessing. They would warn the people around them as much as the people they were meant to protect.

She didn’t go against the flow of qi, but simply ignored it and traveled along the grains of wood. This type of array that made use of the building was handy. Its convenience also made it lacking in certain areas. One area being that it ignored the wood itself.

It didn’t take long until her senses had stretched across the floorboard. Her sensor layer didn’t have the drawbacks of her upstairs neighbors. If they wanted to get passed it, they’d have no other option than to break through the floorboards. It afforded her something else. She could also feel what the wood felt. She could feel the uncommon stress of weight near the window where somebody sat. The wood had settled under the bed’s placement, so even the extra strain from the person lying there was obvious to her.

She didn’t need much more confirmation. Still, she would practice prudence. Her qi slithered up the wall at the head of the bed and the one holding the window’s frame. Within a minute she had a clear picture. The ice qi from the person sitting by the window was faint, but the wood felt its cool touch. The person lying on the bed had a mortal’s warmth. They either weren’t a cultivator at all or practiced a neutral element. She knew he was her target.

Disrupting the array’s qi flow was the only way to trip it. The small vine that began to grow out of the wooden floor did nothing of the sort.

It curled around the leg of the bed as it slithered up silently. It held no more presence than that of the smallest plant. It reached the bed level and creeped in under the blankets. She was careful as she located her target. The loose skin of the elbow wasn’t completely without feel, but it was one of the preferred points of entry for an assassin. Poison could be injected there without much need for a pain-numbing agent, and it was slow to spread. It would give her plenty of time to do the deed and escape before there were any signs of what had happened.

The most difficult part was piercing the skin of a sky realm cultivator. With a vine of this size without any real force of qi backing it, it was impossible. That’s why acid was used.

The amount was so minuscule it was hard to see with a mortal’s eye. As tough as a cultivator’s body could be, there were still acids and poisons that held great power over them—especially when refined.

As if giving the skin of the man’s elbow a tender kiss, the tip of the vine nuzzled it. The acid ate through his outer layer of skin without so much as causing him to flinch. It pulled back, and second vine took its place, injecting the poison.

It was then that the woman hesitated. She could easily recall her vines or let them dissipate. One thing nature cultivation allowed that most other forms of cultivation didn’t was permanence. The vines themselves were not anything great. Granting them life, even if they would only survive a few days, could strike long lasting fear. Was that what she desired in this instance?

She wasn’t sure. Her struggle wasn’t one of the moment, but had persisted for days. In the end, she took the extra time to grant the vine permanence to leave there as a sign.

After she’d completed her work, she stood and retrieved her flags. Placing her head and both palms against the outside wall, she seemingly began to melt into it, excect she wasn’t the one melting. Passing through it, she glanced back and confirmed the wall was as it had always been. Then skirting the outside of the building, she kept to the shadows and left.