Chapter 165

“Golden Child,” Xie Jin said, his voice barely above a whisper. “Brother Chen, do not move.”

Xie Jin didn’t need to tell him twice. Let alone move he could scarcely breathe, staring both transfixed and horrified into the eyeless sockets of the little skeleton. The child skeleton. It was not merely a dwarf or something designed to be small but looked as if someone had mixed ash with gold leaf and beaten the mixture with a hammer into the bones of a baby. The cloth he had brushed in the dark was part of the skeleton’s outfit. A red collared suit jacket that once upon a time may have been something formal but now was patchy with holes and its color faded, its intricate designs and embroidery undone and barely recognizable. Tiny shoes covered its feet. A flattened hat with a dirty puffball sat on its head.

The skeleton was nearly weightless, a disturbingly calm part of his mind noted. It was hanging slack from Chen Haoran’s hand. It’s feet dangling in the air. If he had the mind to he could probably pitch the thing clear over tree cover. He wouldn’t though. He couldn’t.

In the skeleton’s other hand was the Stainless Purity Lotus.

Chen Haoran had so many questions he didn’t even know where to begin. When did it approach them? How did it take the Lotus? The darkness and total silence that just occurred was obviously its doing. How could its spells affect them through the aura? Why did it help them hide from the Crystal Transformation monster?

What was he going to do now?

He looked to Xie Jin for any idea as to what to do.

Xie Jin was paler than a ghost. He hadn’t looked this bad even on the brink of death in the Trial Realm. Chen Haoran notched up the threat of the skeleton several more places in his mind. Phelps’s was pressed flush against his back. He could feel the sloth bristle and it let out a low hiss as he stared down the skeleton. Even Xie Jin’s Gu, ordinarily a statue at the best of times, had opened up its wings in a threatening manner.

Chen Haoran added a few more notches to the threat rating.

“Great spirit,” Xie Jin said, splaying his hands open in a peaceful manner. He flinched when the skeleton tilted its head and regarded him with its empty eyes. Slowly, carefully, he bent down to one knee, then the other, and bowed to the skeleton. “Please have mercy upon us Great Spirit and return to us our treasure. In return, we will make an oath of blood to repay your grace.”

The skeleton tilted its head as if to ponder Xie Jin’s request. After a drawn-out moment, it shook its head.

“Right. Negotiations failed. Get it, Brother Chen!”

Xie Jin launched himself from his bow and went to grab the Stainless Purity Lotus. Chen Haoran acted at the same time and brought his other hand to grab the skeleton more securely. Phelps threw himself over Chen Haoran’s shoulder and bore down his claws atop the skeleton’s little skull.

With a twist of the skeleton’s hand, Phelps was suddenly behind it and it was Xie Jin who fell onto Chen Haoran’s back instead. He easily ignored the unexpected weight but faster than he could grab it the skeleton raised itself and bit Chen Haoran’s hand, easily piercing his skin and going straight to the bone. Chen Haoran cried out in pain and instinctively loosened his grip out of fear it would bite his fingers clean off. When he realized his mistake the skeleton had slipped his grasp and darted away. Phelps flung himself through the air to intercept, a spinning, screeching cyclone of fur and claw. The skeleton adroitly flipped overhead of Phelps, grasping the fur on his head and yanking hard, whipping Phelps’s head back and slamming him into the ground.

The skeleton suddenly stumbled back, its grip on Phelps’s head lost due to it ripping out the fur entirely. Xie Jin’s Gu took this moment to strike, flying in low and rising with hideous mandibles aimed at the skeleton’s neck. The skeleton didn’t even bother looking its way before slapping it casually, sending the Gu bouncing across the ground like a ball. The distraction served its purpose however as the Yellow Dragon was right behind it. Its body of Liquid Qi utterly dwarfing the skeleton, its mouth opened wide and ready to swallow it in one gulp.

Chen Haoran didn’t know how to describe what happened next. The skeleton grasped the air in front of the Yellow Dragon with both hands and then pulled them apart. Something twisted in his vision and the next thing Chen Haoran knew the Yellow Dragon had been split into two, the Liquid Qi body and a thin, see-through outline that matched it exactly. The Liquid Qi dragon abruptly collapsed into formless qi while the shade roared furiously its form becoming warping and shrinking and escaped back into Chen Haoran’s body. When the Yellow Dragon reappeared inside his meridians he realized what had happened. The skeleton had directly ripped the Yellow Dragon’s spirit out from the qi it had been controlling. Despite its indignation, the fact the Yellow Dragon didn’t immediately leap out again was telling. Having its soul directly exposed to the world without a buffer hurt.

If the skeleton could do that to the Yellow Dragon, what could it do to him? Chen Haoran raised his sword toward the skeleton and let the world’s color break against its edge. The skeleton looked at him in such a way that could be called curiosity. Chen Haoran gritted his teeth as he stared at it. The blade of the sword became a monochrome white but progressed no further. He was in a dilemma. If he messed up attacking the skeleton and hit the Stainless Purity Lotus then he’d condemn them all to a slow death to the Green Hell’s air. Or worse if he didn’t mess up but the skeleton took the initiative to destroy the Lotus then they were screwed. He stared fiercely at the skeleton. Not confident enough to move but also ready to end it in one overwhelming attack if the creature tried anything.

“How accurate is your sword?” Xie Jin asked.

“Do I need to explain it?”

He could hear the grimace as Xie Jin recalled his last attack in the Trial Realm. “Fuck.”

“Xie Jin what the hell is this thing,” Chen Haoran demanded.

“For now you can just consider it a Gu,” Xie Jin said, he slowly began to step to the side to flank the skeleton.

“You said Gu can’t use their spells inside the aura.”

“Well it can,” Xie Jin snapped.

“How strong is it?”

Xie Jin bent low, ready to pounce. “Peak Liquid Meridan.”

The skeleton took one look at Chen Haoran, then at Xie Jin. It raised the Stainless Purity Lotus shaking it in a clear taunt.

They tensed.

The skeleton turned around and ran into the jungle.

Chen Haoran’s and Xie Jin’s reaction was the same. “Fuck!”

Xie Jin shot after it. Chen Haoran flung a hand out and scooped up Phelps before catching up with him in an instant. They lost sight of the skeleton immediately amongst the trees, only able to track it through the direction the aura was moving. No matter how much qi they pumped into their legs, however, they failed to close the distance. Their chase quickly turned into running away from the edge of the aura as it quickly caught up to them and they found themselves running for their lives with exposure to the Green Hell licking their heels.

Where the skeleton was leading them Chen Haoran wasn’t sure but the change in environment couldn’t be missed. Devil Trees that once stood bare and alone became dressed with climbing vines and bloody red flowers. Heretofore unseen foliage began to take up the space in between the trees and fought their roots for more. Thorn bushes that sucked black sap from the bark. Mushrooms that spread like a rotting disease up trunks. Large flowers whose petals were filled with splinters and sap as if they’d finished a messy meal.

Chen Haoran and Xie Jin paid no mind to being quiet or stealthy. They crashed through the underbrush shouldering aside plants and crushing leaves underfoot. The Green Hell responded, hidden lurkers emerging from green shadows. A large pincer grabbed at Chen Haoran’s waist from a bush. He kicked it away with such force the claw cracked with a noise akin to metal rending. Phelps howled and blue qi flooded from him, catching a centipede that unnaturally extended from a tree above. The centipede’s inertia was dissipated and it helplessly floated backward, exposing its vulnerable underside to Phelps to gut with a quick slash.

A disc of earth popped open from the ground like a lid and a snake struck out like lightning to twist around Xie Jin. He chopped it in the neck, paralyzing it for a short second that his Gu took to swoop down and sting it. They abandoned fighting it and kept running and before the snake could turn around and chase them something bubbled beneath the surface of its skin and it exploded in a mass of green and purple poison the aura quickly purified away.

It wasn’t just the animals they had to be wary of however.

A mosquito flew straight to Chen Haoran, its proboscis a six-foot spear threatening to run him through. As it attacked a tall plant suddenly shifted amongst the shrubbery and it lashed out downward like a whip. Its head was full and heavy like a mace, covered in long hairs slathered in some kind of ruby-red liquid. Chen Haoran grabbed the mosquito by the mouth before the tip struck him, a violent rush of qi filled his arm and using the spear as a lever he swung the mosquito into the mace plant. It pulped the mosquito’s thorax and though it survived it could not move, the ruby liquid adhering it to the mace head as it was dragged away.

Above them, the red flowers decorating the Devil Trees bloomed, in the center of each one was a hand-sized spider as red as ripe apples. The spiders leaped down from their perches. Phelps screeched and his qi flooded to cover their heads, floating the spiders away before they neared them. The Yellow Dragon flooded out of Chen Haoran at the same moment, sliding across the ground and scattering the monsters ahead of them.

All the while the edge of the purity aura crept on them.

“Brother Chen you’re faster than me,” Xie Jin bit out, sweat dripping from his face. Liquid Meridian he may be but so was everything else here. Not to mention Xie Jin was only a First-Layer one. “Go on ahead and catch it.”

“No,” was Chen Haoran’s swift answer. While he could definitely move faster he wasn’t sure if he was faster than the skeleton. He didn’t forget how it suddenly appeared within their midst. If he sped up now it might provoke the skeleton into going even faster. At that time what would Xie Jin do?

So they ran. Through foul fauna and flora, across a trail of fouled earth made fecund by the Lotus for the briefest of moments till they passed. The skeleton never appeared in their sight but it would change direction rapidly forcing them to pivot on their heels. It would slow down slightly and give them hope before doubling its speed. It would abruptly run back the way it came, startling them into stopping and preparing to attack before it revealed the fake out for what it was and kept running.

It kept running until Xie Jin’s qi reserves started to lag and bottom out. Until even Chen Haoran was beginning to feel the bite. The Yellow Dragon aided his qi recovery to help him maintain himself but he had also taken over fighting the majority of the obstacles in their way. Chen Haoran was about to bodily pick up Xie Jin and run with him instead when the aura finally stopped in place.

They ground to a halt. Before them was a camp. It was in disrepair and disarray, its fence long rotten and fallen, its grounds overgrown and its tents in ruins. But it was a camp. It was built in the shape of a playing card. The remains of a wooden tower stood in the corner and Chen Horan could imagine the other corners would have had similar. His eyes lingered on the organized setup of the tents before settling on a blocky stone building in the center of the camp. One of the few structures still standing.

“It wasn’t running away,” Chen Haoran said.

“No,” Xie Jin agreed, hands on his knees as he caught his breath. “Damnit.”

“Take a minute to gather your qi,” Chen Haoran said.

Xie Jin collapsed into a haphazard lotus position and began to restore his reserves. Chen Haoran pulled Phelps off his back and checked him over. Some of his fur was a bit thinner on his back where a mantis monster almost skinned him but fortunately, Chen Haoran had reacted fast enough and he wasn’t cut. He was otherwise fine besides being a bit tired. He whined at Chen Haoran and shook his head. Chen Hoaran scowled seeing the bald spot where his fur was ripped clean off.

“Xie Jin what the hell is that skeleton?” Chen Haoran asked.

Xie Jin opened his eyes. “A Golden Child.” His expression was ugly. “A monster and the biggest taboo for every shaman.”

“You called it a Gu…” Chen Haoran trailed off. It was an infant’s skeleton. The realization filled him with revulsion.

Xie Jin nodded. “Many things can be made into a Gu. A child is no different.” His voice was filled with disgust. “It’s the most profane act a shaman can ever do.”

Chen Haoran was horrified. “Why the hell was something like that ever made?”

“For power, what else.” Xie Jin spat. “A Golden Child is something an order of magnitude stronger than even a Golden Silkworm. For that kind of power, there’s always going to be a madman that tries to acquire it.”

“So the fact it could use Gu spells inside the barrier…”

Xie Jin slumped. “Nine and Ten Hells I had heard the stories but it was worse than I thought.” He held out his hand. A trail of liquid qi sputtered from his fingers and dissolved in the aura. “A Gu’s spells are fundamentally based on miasma but not precisely unique to it. Miasma at the end of the day has its origin in qi. Whatever a Gu can do can thus be replicated using enough qi in the right way. It’s just that miasma is much more efficient and effective at doing it. Through their connection, shamans can learn the trick of a Gu’s spells and replicate some of them over time if not exactly. Black Bone Shamans can cheat this process because we’re connected enough to our Gu to mix a portion of its miasma in our qi though it’s screwing me right now inside the aura. Even then however I can’t use this miasma qi as effectively as my Gu can. Humans use qi, Gu use miasma, they don’t cross.”

Chen Haoran caught his meaning immediately. “At least that’s how it usually is.”

“A Golden Child uses both,” Xie Jin said. “One or the other, at the same time, mixed. It doesn’t matter. They can completely translate Gu spells to qi equivalents and vice versa. They invalidate nearly every method to counter Gu there is. Their abilities over regular Gu are so exaggerated they can even command them like a Gu does insects.”

Chen Haoran glanced at the Beetle Gu. “Will there be an issue?”

Xie Jin shook his head. “I’ll be fine. Our method of raising Gu make them uniquely resistant to that sort of ability. It’s why Black Bone Shaman’s were some of the first people looked for along with the Peach River Swordsmen to deal with a Golden Child.”

“Any idea on how to deal with it then?” Chen Haoran asked.

Xie Jin looked up to a sky that couldn’t be seen.

“If we’re lucky I’ll figure that out before that monster gets bored and decides to dance in our entrails.”