AIR 105-108

I'm back, well I never really left. I have about 25 chapters to dump on here before getting prepared to write volume 2! That's right volume 2. Now that patreon is finally, finally going to be full up to the ten-dollar tier, expect regular updates. I will now be posting chapters as I write them.

Chapter 105

I have sat beneath this bodhi tree, and I have seen the path to Nirvana. I stare at Buhdha’s back and think in his shadow, and though my path is not the same, it shall follow. 

• The Hero of Heaven

Empire might have been a bit of a stretch. The beasts were small, but even at their current size some of them could destroy this realm entirely. But still, empire wasn’t the best word for their place. 

Back when I’d made the forest, I’d been inspired. It was a bit of an artistic piece, one inspired by old myths of a different world within a forest. In truth, it was a simple realm overlay, I made a separate realm and tied it with this one. 

A hidden realm of sorts, but with a different variation. It was complicated, but all I had done was change how the beasts existed relative to the forest, along with reinforcing the forest itself. 

It was a bit of common manufacturing for someone like me. I was an array master. We were the ones people hired to build qi streams connecting one realm to another. Dimensional building was, in a way, the highest level an Array Master could get to.  

And while that might seem godly to some, it really wasn’t. I was the construction builder of the multiverse. No, I was the guy who filled the potholes. 

But it gave the beasts room to breathe. 

The House of Many, The House of Strength, and The House of Wisdom all stood atop the table. The House of Many was a republic, each representative being a reflection on their species' population. The House of Strength accounted for the strongest of the beasts. And the House of Wisdom had been hand-chosen by Lin and me as a balancing force among them.

The Herd Union, the Fowl Kingdom, the Hunter’s Alliance, and the Free Beast’s Republic. These were the major parties within the current government. 

That’s right, the beasts had political parties. 

Each part represented a certain subsect of beasts. The Herd Union was filled with grazer and herd-like animals. They have included the groundhogs in the party since the last time I saw them. And while I had been keeping a peripheral eye on their actions, I never really paid much attention to them, but maybe I should have. 

“I am Dig, of the Herd Union and I shall speak on their behalf,” a male groundhog said as he stepped forward. 

A beast with a name?

“I am Latimas,” a female phoenix said, following the groundhog’s forward step. “And I speak for the Fowl Kingdom.”

“I am Arnim. I speak for the Hunters,” a grey wold mimicked. 

“And I am Menimer. I represent the Free Beast’s Republic,” a small monkey added. 

They all had names. That was new. I wondered if all the beasts had names, or was it just the important ones among them?

“First meeting of the court of beasts started,” Lin Tai noted. 

The room quieted. There was something human here. The order, the government, the niceties. It all spoke of order, reason, and reliability. 

But that was all on top of the nature of the beasts. Animals crowded, some hungered, and the killing intent was almost palpable. That was one of the reasons I had to be here. The beasts weren’t civilized. They couldn’t be civilized. They were beasts. 

There were… a few with daos. But they were rare and scattered. Most stood out like beacons in the dark, but their fellow beasts didn’t notice. 

This action was like a clean tablecloth on a shit-smeared table. 

I frowned. The stability here, it was… fragile. And while there was peace among the animals, there was also discord. 

A wolf in a cage, no matter how well-fed and well-kept, would still want to chase and hunt and kill. 

It was an empty peace. 

I sat through the meeting and it was…enlightening.

There were numerous documentaries of beasts behaving in a human manner, but it wasn’t my particular house of lore. 

But just like there were humans who became powerful beings of their own right, carving out a path and becoming an archetype others could strive to be, there were also beasts. 

Dragons were an example. The first child of Beast had been Dragon, and his archetype was as well known as his mother's. Whereas humans followed their own path that others could follow, beasts did something different. They redefined their nature. Dragons became something distinct, beasts still but something more, something grand. Their instincts drove them to horde power and wealth, and by birth, they could speak and talk, smarter than most humans innately. 

But they were still beasts and a beast was defined by instinct. 

And so were the beasts in the grove. Instinct made them, instinct bound them. 

But they were changing and I didn’t know where that would lead. 

I gave my leave to the girls and left Nai with Rin Wi and Lin Tai. 

After that, I stalked the forest, keeping my eyes on all the things that I could see, which in this place was every atom of every molecule. 

And I saw something strange. 

I was old. I didn’t even know how old because time didn’t exist in the void. I had seen many things.

All the animals had their own camp, and while the pack animals were grouped together, there was a certain level of organization that threw me off. Beavers built small dams, wolf packs hunted insects, and elephants gathered in puddles. 

The strange thing to me was how much they cared. Not in the way that humans cared but in the way that beasts cared. It was strange to see them hunt when they didn’t need to. The dams and the water, all of it was unnecessary. They were gods and immortals. What use was a drop of water to an elephant that drank from universes? 

Then I saw it. 

The water, for a moment, held law. The prey mantis, for a moment, satiated them. 

Weight. 

“Oh,” I spoke out loud. 

I had brought the beasts here as living batteries. Their purpose was to shed. They each contained laws of numerous nature. They were metaphysical powerhouses, each with a different level of control over a law. That was the food for the array.

If qi was carbs, then laws would be vitamins. I understood a wide variety of laws but lacked the depth that beasts naturally contained. What was my understanding of fire compared to a phoenix’s and what was my understanding of water compared to a water dragon’s? 

But the array didn’t use up all of those laws. Some of them it ate, but some it left, and others it would produce. 

Waste product.

If the array were a forest, then the beasts were the animals.

A cycle of resources. 

“Oh,” I repeated again. 

For a while now, WuKong’s interest in me had bothered me. The book from the library had bothered me. 

I had nothing for them, at least I thought I didn’t.

My goal with the array had been simple. A growing stabilizing force, one that would ensure there would be no violence. The Primordials were powerful, but in my eyes, they were stained.

Each of them fought to survive and their children did the same. War was the natural conclusion to life, insects, ants, humans, animals, and even germs, they all fought.

But I had changed that. I had failed the array in one way. I had clouded its purpose and made its heart in a simple way. 

But I had succeeded in another way. I had made peace among beasts.

Dragons danced with fireflies and wolves that could crush realms were sated on insect meat.

I had failed in my arrogance. I had failed in my attempts to hide. I had failed in my array. I had even failed to be human in many ways. 

I was a man of mistakes, but I suppose I did this one thing perfectly.

********

Chapter 106

I stared at the book and the book stared back at me. It was ancient. It was old. It was a treasure that anyone under the fifteenth rank would covet. 

And it was mine. 

The room was empty. Nai was down in the village. Wriendlier was asleep. Gauntlet was wandering the forest and I was here, with a book. 

I hadn’t touched it till now. I didn’t like God-Imperiums. I didn’t like cultivators in general, not when they were stronger than me. But then, who did?

They were scary, like wild monsters deep within a forest. It was easy to grow around my weight when I was the strongest one within the realm but now I stood in front of something beyond my comprehension. 

Physical reactions were beyond me. I didn’t gulp or stammer or shift my feet.  

And to anyone else within this realm, my aura would seem as calm as it ever was. 

But that was a lie. 

I was terrified. Wukong was different in many ways. God-Imperiums had their natures and Wukonfg had gifted me something and he had even stared into the very core of my being and laughed at my small thoughts. He had laughed at me and gifted me things. That implied favor and favor implied safety.

But this was not Wukong. This was a thing of a different nature, an unknown.

There was the promise of peace, yes. My life might not be in danger. But the promise of peace was not peace itself. 

I was nervous.

I debated opening the book or not, but then someone else seemed to have decided for me. The book opened and The Book opened. 

I was in a house in the middle of the forest adjacent to the village in the valley located within the Great Desert Strip in a small region in Ah-Marin. 

But I was also in front of The Book. 

Fool, it spoke. Why did you wait so long before consulting me?

It was like the first time I had met with the Monkey King. The suppression, the power, the overwhelming will threatened to annihilate me. A thought from this thing, a passing idea, was worth more than anything I could gather for all of eternity. I could feel my mind ache and my soul tired. 

I could feel myself thinking, staring, studying, growing, changing. 

Wisdom threatened to consume me. 

Wisdom not your own is not wisdom at all, The Tome spoke and my mind quieted down. 

It hurt. Being in the presence of this thing hurt. It made me think. It made me know. And it wasn’t the type of thinking that happened naturally but the type that took effort. It was like doing complex math against your will. 

Everything was and my mind sought to know the heart of existence.

Study consumed me and curiosity swallowed me whole. Thought, knowledge, wisdom, desire, I must have it.

Stop, a voice spoke and my mind came to a halt. 

You things are so fragile. All of you, long-lived mortals calling yourself gods. Preposterous. 

There was a common idea that those who beheld the true form of a god would be burnt to nothing. But that wasn’t true. The real consequence was erasure. The God-Imperium whole being rewriting you into its image. 

You’d think they could stop. You’d wonder how omnipotent beings couldn’t just limit their own actions. But it wasn’t their own actions. It wasn’t something they did but something you did in reaction to their existence. 

No matter who you were, in front of a God-Impeirum, you were almost nothing. In their presence, you changed and whatever defined you was forgotten in their image. 

It wasn’t them changing you. 

It was you changing for them. 

That’s why Wukong had to do something to stop me and that was why this person, no this thing had to tell me to stop. 

I wondered what the consequences of that would be. What was the outcome for having talked to these creatures? Each time they touched me and commanded me. Would that twist my nature? Break my soul in some way?

After all, the only thing God-Imperiums couldn’t do was go against their nature. 

They said all of the Heavens and all of the Hells and everything in between could not make Buddha hurt a child.

Was that the true meaning of-

Stop, it repeated.

And I did. 

It took me an instant to get a hold of myself. An instant for me, an eternity for it.

The world settled down.

I still felt powerless, mortal, and empty. Except this time, I could still feel my qi but I could also feel these things. 

Not its qi, nor its outline but the shadow of its existence. It was like being in a pit so deep that when you looked up to the opening, all you saw was darkness. 

I felt smothered and overwhelmed. 

Bill Terrance, I have come to meet with you. You have kept me waiting.

I nodded. Sorry, mercy, what do you desire? All of those things could be said but none of those things needed to be said. It spoke only for me to understand it. It already understood me. It knew me in ways I couldn’t possibly imagine. 

It knew. 

I was like an insect, aware of the giant human mass above me. It studied me and knew of my inner workings, of the things in my soul, of my karma and power and all things about me. 

But all I could do was stare back at the microscope of its all-knowing divine eyes. 

Be not afraid, it spoke like an angel from the bible. 

Yes, like the turning wheel of eyes and fire from your dead world. I jest. 

Oh. 

Laugh, it spoke. 

And for a moment I was filled with fear because its joke wasn’t funny and I wondered if it would kill me for not laughing. 

I will not harm you.

Oh. 

Think as you are, let not my nature infect you. Keep yourself. 

And I did. 

In an instant, I was back in the room staring at the book in front of me. 

“Why?” I asked. 

To touch you, as Wukong did. You are worth observing. It wrote. 

It was referring to me not like a great hero in the early mornings of his endeavors but like a scientist staring at a beetle he had found. 

I was a curiosity. 

More than that, but not much more, it corrected. 

“Then why? Really why?”

You are mangled. A molestation of the soul the like of which I have seen before. But few maintained their sanity while in such a state.

“Dane’s soul manipulation?” I asked.

Yes, It replied. 

Did you think you could lie to me? That you could bargain with my people with small lies?

Oh shit. 

Be calm. I am not offended by your attempts at a fib, Do you remember your talks within my halls? The words you spoke?

Attempts?

Yes.

“You mean-”

Somehow the writing seemed to cut me off. 

Yes. You parade around with the strength, memory, and power of an immortal. But you contain a mortal’s heart. A well-fit piece for a broken soul. 

Then I saw what it meant. That was the best way to describe it. The knowledge and understanding of it all plopped into my mind whole and pure. 

What was sanity, I thought. What was the lens through which we lived? What were the guardrails of the mind that kept the world in place? What was purpose, what was the use of purpose, and what were morals and love? What was spite and hate? What was thought and reason? 

What was the soul?

That was Dane. Dane the Unravler.

Dane was insane. He had acted sane and reasonable. He had acted maintained but he was broken. He had broken himself. Immortality had broken him. He had betrayed his nature. 

Words weren’t enough to explain his failures. 

I was though.

“I…. see.”

Primordial qi. Reflection of existence.

Dane was a human. He had rejected not only humanity but everything in pursuit of knowledge. 

Imagine a man looking at his body and ripping away at every part that would age and slow him down. First the limbs and muscles, then the skin and organs, then the major organs and tissue systems. Then the sensory organs, until eventually all that would be left was the mind. The ego, the center of the soul. 

He had destroyed his humanity. He had tried to become a machine of qi. In his desire to not change, he had destroyed the very meaning of his existence. 

He had destroyed his brain, and when that happened, the soul became nothing but an empty husk, waiting for anything to complete it. 

And then I had come along. 

Chapter 107

“But why does that matter?” I asked for the book. “I thought you were here to watch the array?”

Because you are important. The first raindrop of a hurricane, the first dustmite in a dust storm. You are a harbinger, but more, you are a creator, but more, you are a broken soul. You are many small things folded over into one. Each interesting, none notable. When I write the Great history books of this era, you will not be in them. But you have piqued my interest, more with your mistakes rather than your accomplishments.

“My mistakes?”

Yes. You stole from a God-Imperium and assumed you could hide from him. You walked upon my lands and assumed you could hide from me. You made an array yet you were blind to such an obvious fault. Your failures make you interesting, not your acts. 

“I took precautions-”

Ha! It laughed. There it is. There is that mortal nature that refuses to die. Do you not hear yourself? Precautions? Against God-Imperiums? You only managed to do what you did because of luck or dare I say fate. Tai Jey had many like that girl and he had tossed them among his sect to be watched in his moment of weakness. In his struggle to maintain his power, he slipped. And the only thing that could make him give such effort was another Imperium.

Then there was Wukong, who saved you nearly in the nick of time, and then there is me. Yes, me. Who has come to see what you have and to warn you of your flaw?

“But-”

Your flaw, boy. You have shown me something I did not see and for that, I tell you this. Your nature is torn between one and the other, your soul wet and delicate like a frozen parchment, but your ego young like fresh ink.

“How do I fix it?”

Strengthen the soul. Dry out the paper. Dane tore himself in pursuit of power. He refused his humanity. You have found it, but not enough. You are like a mirror reflecting a broken man. The man is one, yes, but the cracks separate him, misalign him, mortal there, immortal there. Slow your growth but deepen it. Care for the cracks in your mind. I will leave you with something, it will be your duty to use it. 

“I understand that, but why? What have I given for you to do this? I don’t think the array is enough for all of this, is it?”

There was nothing for a moment. 

Ah, my wisdom touches you. Very well. I knew you the moment you entered my domain. I knew all you had done, and possibly all that you could be. You are full of possibilities, many failures maybe, but something else as well. Too many things touch upon you, from your soul to Kin Jey to Wukong and even to me. It is not fate nor greatness but something far more simple and intriguing. 

“What is it?”

Paradox. You are a paradox of sorts. From your dao to your nature, everything pushes against itself. Paradoxes are rare before the fifteenth rank, and you seem to be a great bundle of them.

“I don’t know if I understand.”

You don’t, yet you do. It matters not, you will one day, and when you do, I look forward to seeing what you become, though I already know it.

Then the book closed and reopened. 

To Heal the Soul, A Collection of Cures for the Fabric of Your Being.

I frowned. 

Was this how Chin felt when I spoke to him?

How cruel of me.

I looked at the book and read its title, then read it again. 

I flipped through the first page, then the second, then the third. Eventually, I had read ten thousand pages but the pages were so thin and so small that the book looked like it was barely opened. 

I grabbed my head. This was a tome, something designed to hold nearly infinite knowledge. Even though it had so many pages, each page also seemed to contain an absurd amount of knowledge. It was unfathomable, the type of stuff that would turn mortals mad with a mere glimpse. 

But for me, it was just a very dense textbook.

But I kept on reading.

It turns out the soul is complicated. Extremely complicated. 

It was the one thing that allowed people to create qi. Even gods at the twelfth rank and higher couldn’t truly grasp it, and it was how Dane had died. 

As far as I could figure, mine was still broken. 

I was in awe of the meeting and while a part of me wanted to ponder over the moment for eternity, the things the Tome had said to me had stuck.

My mistakes. In hindsight, there was nothing insane with my thought process. Not truly. 

I had miscalculated, but the miscalculations were ones that even Dane would make. My fight with Kin Jey was minor, a mere descendent of an Imperium.  He was one of millions if not billions, if not trillions. 

Then there was Nai, but how was I supposed to know about her? Then there was Wukong and even then I- I did nothing wrong. I did all I could. If I hadn’t killed Kin Jey, I would have died eventually, even if I had let him go. 

How were these mistakes?

What other options did I have?

You could have run away. You could have lost him in the void, a part of me thought.

But the Maidens.

You could have tossed all your belongings and run away.

Then they’d be in his care. 

And what of it? What do you owe them?

“I- I had to help them? Didn’t I?”

No, it spoke. You didn’t. You owe them nothing. You are Array King Dane. You survived untold eons by hiding. By protecting yourself, regardless of the evil. 

It was a memory, not a soul, not a mind, but a memory. It spoke of what Dane would have done. It spoke of what Dane would have planned. It spoke of Dane’s weariness, caution, and desire for detail and methodology. 

It was Dane that had kept this body alive for this long and it was Dane that had that spare realm that allowed me to avoid an attack of the fifteenth-rank caliber. 

For a twelfth rank’s ability to even avoid a World King’s attack. That spoke of intelligence, of power. 

And it was all Dane. 

Dane would have never gone to the Divine Beast Emporium. He would have captured the creatures himself. He would have hunted for them in the void. 

But my mortal ego didn’t. 

“I am not Dane. I contain all that he was but I am not him.”

It wasn’t a matter of power or soul or even strength. It was a matter of ego. How could the personality of a mortal ever act like an immortal? 

If you took the smartest fifteen-year-old in the world and made him president, would he rule better than his predecessors just because he was smarter than them? Even if the boy was a genius among geniuses, would that make him a competent leader? 

Would that replace the things that age did to you?

Should I be more like him?

I am dead and whatever remains lives through you, the memory spoke. 

I could see his mouth moving. A cold still stone man looking at me with nothing but reason. A man who never smiled, a man who never cried. Someone even now from the depths of my memory held true to logic. Someone who would speak of their death as fact, nothing more, nothing less. 

And for all your faults and errors, you are alive. You are a rank higher. You are me but more. Know your failings and fix them. Remember me and remember Bill. You can live as Bill but act as Dane. As kind as a dove and as discerning as a serpent.

Grow. 

I nodded.

“Grow,” I said out loud. 

And then I turned the page and kept on reading. 

Chapter 108

Cai stared out at the village from the hillsides. He did that a lot now. 

Less in wonder and more in contemplation, looking out into the world to try and see more within himself. 

And again, he found nothing. 

The village itself was only a few miles wide. But still, it stood shining a ways away. It would be hard for a mortal to make out anything but he could make things out as if he were right there. At least if he was channeling qi into his eyes he could. 

He could see the Ivin Wood homes. The material was a weed in the cultivator world. He knew Hidden Viper's outer disciples would walk around their forest and cut down the tree as one of their chores. 

But here it was a revolutionary building material. It grew at a faster pace than other trees and it grew everywhere. Over the course of a year, a single sapling could root ten feet into the earth and grow ten feet in every direction. For cultivators, that was too fast and too much. 

The Hidden Viper’s territory was vast and small forgotten pockets would fill up with this plant within a century. 

But to these mortals, that was almost too slow. They shaped it over the years, growing it around their mud and stone houses and then tearing down the mud and stone and having wood there instead. Their roofs were covered with foliage.

It seemed silly to him like children making hats with leaves. But that was the way of the mortal world. Whatever trash cultivators threw out mortals would use as treasures. Broken drained spirit stones became their currency and their weeds became their houses. 

Scrolls written by trainee cultivator scribes became things kept in mortal houses as decorations. They were like ants scrounging for the crumbs of the men above. And sometimes those men stumbled and those men stepped on these ants. Then they’d scowl at the dead insects on their feet, wipe their shoe against a stone, and walk forward unchanged. 

This was the cultivator. 

The man above the ants. 

But this was also the cultivator, the ants below the feet. 

That was what he was. Something above the mortals yet below the fifth rank. For a moment he had shined, but then he had been dulled. 

He should have been stepped on. He should have been squashed by that uncaring thing of a man, but another man had tripped him up and here he sat, gazing down at the mortals beneath. 

An ant among ants, that's what he was now. An insect. 

“Augh,” a baby said next to him. 

Cai jumped and stared at the child. She stared back, offended at his offense. 

“Ao Ao bou,” she said with an offended front. 

Cai didn’t know babies could look offended, but he picked up her intent through her aura. 

This is my spot. You are the intruder.

“Apologies young miss,” he said giving the baby a slight bow. 

The baby nodded and was quickly appeased. 

Cai sat back down. What a strange child. 

He was about to go back to relaxing when he felt a hard smack against his missing limb. 

He looked over and the baby had somehow snuck up to his arm without him knowing it. 

She smacked his arm a couple of times and looked around and into the distance. 

Where is your arm, Cai understood. 

“I… lost it, young miss.”

The baby gave him an inquisitive look. 

“Gao,” she mumbled. 

Who loses an arm?

Cai didn’t know how to answer that and the child gave him the most disappointed look possible. The type of look that said ‘I didn’t know people could be stupid enough to lose an arm. You have individually lowered my standard for humanity.’

“It- it was taken, young miss. It was taken by a cultivator.”

The baby gasped.

Arm thieves?

“I- I supposed. It was an assurance,” Cai spoke. “I lose the arm to ensure my life.”

She pointed to his other arm. 

“Ah, well this arm isn’t as strong. Most of my techniques and meridian pathways were located in this arm. I reinforced it with qi. While this other arm is far less capable.”

She nodded in a sage-like manner and stoked her chin in thought. Then she yelled, with qi. It was so loud that it made Cai’s ears ring for a moment. 

A single alert raccoon came out of the woodwork and walked over to her. She whispered to it as if to exclude Cai…but still spoke with her aura. 

Watch out for arm thieves. Keep all hands accounted for. 

The raccoon looked confused, then nodded and walked away. 

The child gave him a nod. 

Cai smiled and nodded back. 

Then a dog came by and the baby, who couldn’t have been more than half a year old, grabbed onto his fur and climbed onto his back. 

She gave him a single wave and ran off towards the village. 

He watched them weave through the farmlands, passing by many villagers who occasionally waved at her. And then she entered the village. 

“Who’s baby is that?” Cai wondered. 

This place was so strange. First the immortal, then the Bloody Fist Sect, and now… this… cultivator baby?

Well, he had heard of young prodigies before. Maybe she was just really talented. 

 That didn’t seem likely, but it was a curious idea. A curious idea, a curious baby, a curious immortal, and a curious place. 

Cai watched the rest of the village operate. People took small things and put them back. Farmers carried wagons full of crops to the village and some went past the village, the small outpost a good mile or two away from them. That was next to the cultivator camp, and it was also the place where food was cooked for said camp. 

Cai could see a great number of merchants and traders congregating at the spot, thousands it seemed. The village prepared for this season and farmed all year with this specific time in mind, but even this seemed like a larger amount than accounted for. 

Indeed there were warriors, and cultivators just passing through. Rogue clanless men and women sightseeing the home of a new immortal. 

Some had even set up shop, having come up with some kind of compromise with the village chief, a few permanent buildings had been erected on one side of the camp. A whorehouse was the first thing that had been built, which was an attraction all its own for most people. 

They were common in big cities, but whorehouses capable of catering to cultivators were rare. And whorehouses who had ties to immortals were even rarer. The rumor was new but widespread. It was said that the owner of the whorehouse, a lady by the name of Madem Rose was not only close to Gai Jin, the first immortal of the region in ten thousand years, but also associated with the immortal who lived here. 

Cai knew the truth, of course, he had talked to the Honored Immortal, or as he was now calling him, Mister Bill. 

But word had gotten around rather quickly and that had caused an influx of spies and information gatherers quickly flooding the place. 

Overall this village was booming with potential. 

It had appeal and growth, and more than that, it had peace. 

Here was a land of ants and giants, a place where power meant little and survival wouldn’t be tested. 

That was why Cai was here after all. 

He smiled. 

It wasn’t home, but there was something about it that he just couldn’t describe. Seeing a fifth-rank cultivator negotiate with a mortal and be forced to give the man respect was something Cai could never have dreamed of. 

But it happened here. 

Here the ants would yell at the giants and the giants would listen and bow. 

Here, it was safe. 

And that was something all its own.