6.41 - Insights of the Cloud Emperor

When He Yu emerged from the cultivation chamber, he found an unexpected gift awaiting him. An armor stand had been placed just outside the door, and upon it was a finely crafted scale breastplate and a pair of bracers; a shimmering blue and green. He recognized the hide immediately. The wind serpent, Qingzhao, that had blocked his path over the Mountains of Heaven on his way to the great northern steppe.

Even now, having been fashioned into armor, the scales shimmered with the flickering light of heaven. A quick examination of the formation script confirmed—as if there’d been any doubt—the armor was meant for him. It would ease the channeling of heaven, wind, and water qi, much in the same way the robes he’d gotten from Yongnian had. A gift he’d cherished for years, but that now he’d long since outgrown. The armor would serve as a fitting replacement, a treasure in the truest sense, and a welcome boon in the upcoming battles.

He sent his panoply to his storage treasure. There would be plenty of time to try it on later, but judging by the formation work alone, he was certain Chen Fei had at least some hand in fashioning it. It would fit, he was certain. For now, though, he had more pressing concerns.

It was well past sundown, and when he stepped onto the Li estate’s central courtyard, he found Chen Fei awaiting him. She sat in a cultivation position, her chest slowly rising and falling with each measured breath. At his approach, she cracked open one eye and flashed him a small, slightly nervous smile.

“Everything alright?” he asked, taking a seat next to her.

She gave an affirmative nod.

“Is it the prospect of annihilating your very spirit, or what lies beyond?” he asked. Although he’d intended to inject some measure of humor into the question, he regretted asking as soon as the words left his mouth.

Fortunately, she didn’t seem to mind. “A bit of both, I guess. It’s just come sooner than I thought, is all.”

“Yeah,” He Yu said. “And we aren’t anywhere near ready.”

“When have we ever been?” she asked, allowing herself a smile.

The tension He Yu had been holding onto before that moment broke. He laughed. “Never.”

“And its never stopped us before.”

“Well,” he said, “Maybe we’ve been ready a few times.”

“Don’t ruin it,” she laughed. “Anyway. What’s your plan? How are you going to get me and Li Heng into the Eighth Realm?”

“So, I’ve been thinking about what Li Renshu did before we headed to the Jade Kingdom. He told me to keep it a secret, but I think we’re all advanced enough that it’s not an issue. He did something with, or to, my Dao. Like he made it stir, or awaken, I’m not sure. But I saw it. He said he couldn’t do more, because he’d only just awakened to his Daoist Mind. I figured I could use my Daoist Mind to do something similar.”

Chen Fei gave him a skeptical look. “Doesn’t sound like much of a plan to me.”

“I have the Peerless Judgment to guide me. I also have Elder Cai’s inheritance, fully realized now that I’ve broken through. And unlike last time, I’ve been awakened to my Daoist Mind for over forty years.”

“Okay, fair,” she said. “But how? Like you can’t just shove the insights we need to reconstruct our spirits into our Daoist Minds, can you?”

“That was more or less the plan, actually.” He held up a hand to silence her disagreement before she could speak. “I know how it sounds. But think about it for a moment. It’s all connected, isn’t it? Sure, we follow our own Way and we each follow our own personal Dao, but that’s just a fragment of the true Eternal. It encompasses all under heaven. Somehow, Li Renshu was able to connect to my Dao and reveal it to me before I’d fully embraced it myself. And he did it through his Daoist Mind. There’s a way to do it.”

“But you don’t know how,” she pointed out.

“That’s what the Peerless Judgment is for. And I think that with its full inheritance unlocked, it’ll be up to the task.”

“Well, I trust you. Just don’t obliterate me. I’ll kill you if you do.”

He Yu let himself relax as she laughed again. The fact that she could joke about it was far more a boost than he’d realized he needed—and one that gave him confidence he’d only partially felt until moments ago. Turning his focus inward, He Yu reached for the Dao of Heroism. Thankfully, the dissonance he’d felt earlier during his breakthrough was absent. It seemed whatever conflict he’d had with himself was resolved. Or at least set aside for the time being.

Guided by the Peerless Judgment, he reached for the eternal through his Daoist Mind. He let conscious thoughts fall away, sinking into the depths of thought without thought. Allowing the all symbolized and approximated by the endless rotation of the taiji to subsume him in a greater all than the mortal mind could comprehend. But his mind was mortal no longer. For countless hours, he’d mediated on the Dao. And in that time, he’d come to intimately know the tiniest fragment of it.

The Dao of Heroism.

Grasping it, his connection to it, he reached through it. Into the eternal. It was almost too much. A flood of all, of possibility, of potential, and each their opposites. But anchored to his own senses by his Daoist Mind and guided by the Peerless Judgment, he reached through the infinite for another shard. A shard like his own, but this one a representation of the desire to protect. To keep safe those cherished and held close. Of friends and family.

The Dao of Protection gleamed in his inner sight, a shining beacon of safety, resolute and strong against all threats and calamities. And in it, he found a spot of familiarity. His own desire to bring justice to the world, to protect those forgotten by the strong. The essence of what had come to form He Yu’s own Way resonated with Chen Fei’s desire to keep close those she cared for.

For an instant, two Daoist Minds touched. A torrent of insights passed between them, and when the world returned, He Yu found himself leaning against one of the pillars running along the edge of the Li estate’s central courtyard. Chen Fei looked just as disoriented as he felt. He picked himself up, and she shook her head as if clearing away the lingering effects of sleep.

“Wow,” was all she said.

He Yu still couldn’t quite process what had happened. Something had transferred in that moment. Some ineffable spark of knowledge had crossed the bridge of their Dao connection and had implanted itself in her spirit. Her eyes shone with the light of knowledge, and the look she gave him was unmistakable.

Still, he ventured the question. “Did it work?”

She nodded vigorously. “I’ll have to reconfigure the scripts on Li Renshu’s cultivation chamber, but yea. It worked.”

Clearly not quite in the way he’d anticipated, but she seemed both eager and confident. That alone was all he needed. She stood, kissed him, and went about to her task. He understood her enthusiasm. The prospect of launching into a new realm was always exciting. More so when on the brink of a legendary confrontation.

Leaving her to her work, he sought out Li Heng. Eventually, He Yu found him sitting atop a guard tower on the city wall with a jar of wine. He Yu took a seat next to him and allowed the silence and moonlight to embrace them both as they looked out to the east. Toward the capital, and the seat of the empress. Wordlessly, Li Heng passed him the wine. They sat like that for a moment, enjoying the simplicity of it. It reminded He Yu of all the times they’d done the same back at the sect. It had been too long.

“It’s been a while,” Li Heng said eventually.

“It has. Over forty years from my perspective.”

Li Heng gave a small laugh. “What was it like?” he asked. “Hunting down the resting place of an actual legend at last?”

For a time, He Yu considered his answer. “More and less than I’d once expected,” he said once he’d made up his mind. “I mean, I was put to the test by the God of War himself. I think I passed. At least I managed to gain more than enough insight to advance to Divine Soul Apotheosis. And I narrowly avoided getting killed by a cultivator a full realm above me.”

More silence. Then, Li Heng said, “I never really thought we’d get here.”

“No?”

“I mean, you’d clearly already convinced yourself that you’d make it to the absolute peak by the time I met you,” he said. “I thought you were either an idiot of delusional at first.”

“Probably a bit of both,” He Yu admitted with a laugh of his own. It was good to sit and talk like this again. It really had been too long. He let the silence stretch between them again, before finally broaching the subject that was on both their minds. “What do you really think of the plan?”

“I don’t like it, but I see why we need to do it.”

That had been about what He Yu had expected him to say. “I don’t either,” he admitted.

“There really isn’t another way, then?”

“I saw what I think was Elder Cai’s memory of Jin Xifeng’s suppression a thousand years ago. She tore through something like a dozen experts, all at her own level. And from what Elder Cai said, she killed an entire generation of the most talented cultivators in the empire. Mostly by herself.”

“She had her followers helping her,” Li Heng said.

“Exactly. She was able to draw upon their cultivation to empower herself. That’s the essence of her Immaculate Monarch’s Boon. I think that’s why she used the connection between her arts and mine to approach me. She wants more power. She’ll never be satisfied, but I don’t think she cares.”

“What if she manages to take control of one of us?” Li Heng asked. “You’ve got to know she has more techniques than just the one. And remember what happened in the wilds?” He fell silent for a few long minutes, then admitted, “I’m afraid she’ll cloud my judgment again. Turn me against the rest of you. I’m afraid she’ll do it to all of us.”

“We’re all far stronger than we were then. And we’ll have the benefit of at least being in the same realm. We’ve fully aligned ourselves with our Dao, and our minds are far more tempered than they were then.”

“And if we’re wrong? If killing her followers doesn’t weaken her?”

“Then I guess that’s it,” he answered. In a strange way, it was liberating. Knowing that one way or another, this was it. This was the end.

“One way to look at it, I suppose,” Li Heng said, allowing himself a small grin before he finished off his wine.

“Don’t really see how else you could look at it,” He Yu said. “Victory or death.”

“More grim than I’d have expected coming from you.”

“Maybe Tan Zihao has rubbed off on me.” Silence. He Yu glanced over and saw the too-familiar pensive look on his friend’s features. “Want to talk about it?” he asked.

“There’s not really much to talk about. My father’s been… difficult to deal with in the past twenty years. With my grandfather fully emerged from seclusion, and with my advancement outpacing his, I think I understand where I got it from.”

He Yu didn’t need to ask what “it” was. “What about you and Tan Xiaoling?”

“I think that’s the easiest solution in his eyes. Our betrothal is official, much to her father’s delight. I’m officially disinherited, which is honestly a tremendous relief. My father has been not-so-subtly searching for consorts.”

“A relief?” He Yu asked. He’d always thought Li Heng took his duty as the only scion of the Li incredibly seriously. Hearing that he was relieved to be disinherited came something as a shock.

“I think, deep down, I never really wanted it. Or maybe I thought I wasn’t truly cut out for life as a marquis. Or something. I’m not entirely sure myself. All I know is when my father agreed to the betrothal, and then officially disinherited me, it was like a massive weight had been taken from around my neck.”

“I think I know what you mean,” He Yu murmured before he could stop himself.

Li Heng looked over at him and arched an eyebrow. “Something you want to tell me, little brother?”

He Yu allowed himself a small laugh at the term he hadn’t heard in far too long. “I think you know what I’m talking about as well as anyone else does.”

“I do. Ready to ascend the Dragon Throne?”

“Haven’t made up my mind yet, if I’m honest.”

“Best get to thinking then,” Li Heng said. “Tomorrow’s coming a lot sooner than any of us wanted, I think.”

“Still got time,” He Yu said as he stood. “And speaking of tomorrow, we’ve still got to shove some insights into your mind. Ready?”

“Ready as I’ll ever be, I guess. No sense in delaying things any further now, is there?”

There really wasn’t. Once Li Heng and Chen Fei broke into Divine Soul Apotheosis, they’d head out. And whatever awaited them in the imperial capital of Jiankang, they would face it.