6.31 - Realm of the Righteous

He Yu formed the Bracing Wind, layering Heaven’s Descending Blade on top of it. A shell of sparking heaven burst outward from him, shattering the nearest of Long Tingguang’s blades.

“Inside the cave!” he shouted. “I’ll hold him off as long as I can. Find a way inside!”

He Yu slammed his guandao down once more, the Crashing Wind surging along the blade as another pillar of heaven reached down to the earth. Long Tingguang raised his jian and met steel with steel. The ground beneath them shattered, then opened. Long Tingguang’s spirit devoured what was left of the valley floor, plants and earth alike tumbling down into the hungering, endless pit.

“What are you doing?” Zhang Lifen already had her bow in hand, its black lacquered limbs bent from her draw. A thousand arrows streaked forth, each of them aimed at Long Tingguang’s heart.

Ten thousand blades formed from nothing and came together like a forest. Their dull, blood-caked metal turned aside Zhang Lifen’s attack, and then returned it in kind. In the clarity of the Peerless Judgment, He Yu could see she’d avoided the worst of it, but she’d still taken injuries. Forming the Fist of the Heavens, He Yu slammed his dragon-enclosed fist into Long Tingguang’s defenses. It didn’t matter that he wasn’t making any real headway. All he needed was to distract his opponent long enough for the others to escape.

“Get inside!” he shouted again, hoping they’d listen this time.

Ren Huang grabbed Zhang Lifen by the arm and shouted something at her. The sound was lost in the screaming of metal and the constant cacophony of thunder. Whatever he’d said, it seemed to have worked. She cast one last glance at him over her shoulder, then disappeared inside the cave behind Ren Huang and Yi Xiurong.

“Foolish child,” Long Tingguang said with a laugh. “You think you can defeat me? You think a simple cave will protect those ants from what is to come? You have trapped them, and you have made all your deaths certain.”

As he spoke, he beat back every one of He Yu’s strikes with the immaculate form of a master swordsman. Under the effects of his released presence, Long Tingguang’s jian may have been coated in the dried blood of countless dead, but that did not mean the weapon was in poor repair. It was a treasure at least equal to He Yu’s guandao in both its power and significance. It channeled both the metal of Long Tingguang’s cultivation and the shadow and blood of his demon core. Each strike screamed of want. Cried in hunger. It wanted to consume, to devour. It made He Yu’s stomach turn. That someone could so completely give themselves over to this. That they could so fully fold this desire to hold and posses into their Way, that they could master it and make it theirs. The very idea went against everything He Yu stood for.

From his place atop the infinite stair, with the Heavenly Palace rising at his back, He Yu beheld misery given form. Far below, the blade-lined pit that was Long Tingguang consumed the stair. And though the stair was infinite in its length, never would that pit be sated. Never full. Never enough.

Should such an immortal become a minister of the people of the empire, how would he extract enough to satisfy himself? Enough to satisfy his empress? He wouldn’t. Couldn’t. Should Long Tingguang and Jin Xifeng both grasp and devour for ten thousand years, they still wouldn’t be satisfied. That was their nature, just as to oppose them was his.

Bolts of heaven great enough to shatter entire cities reached down into the pit. Metal screamed as it broke into countless shards. But more blades grew in place of every one he destroyed. More blood flowed as Long Tingguang opened up dozens more wounds with his techniques. He Yu found himself driven back, his attacks turned aside, and his techniques countered or simply endured.

Yet somehow he still lived. With every strike, with every call to the heavens, the song of his Dao of Heroism grew. It crescendoed to a thundering roar that sang with every swing of his blade, with every strike of the heavens. Its music accompanied his struggle, his stand. His Daoist Mind took in all the tiniest movements he saw with the Peerless Judgment, and helped him discern his way forward. Helped him place his strikes where they would be most effective, even if that effect was to buy him just another moment.

If the others could get inside, that would be enough. If the others could escape to find their way forward, that would be enough. If his sacrifice allowed another to rise, allowed those he left behind to finish the work Elder Cai started, that would be enough. As that certainty settled over him, his Wayborn Seed joined in the song of his Dao of Heroism. He let go of his doubts, his convictions. He let the world fall away and moved with the eternal. He accepted that what he did now was neither right nor wrong—it simply was. Just as all things were.

Long Tingguang’s expression was one of easy focus. His black robes swallowed the late morning light, and the crimson thread worked into designs of dragons, flowed like liquid. Blood from an open wound. His eyebrows were drawn in concentration, but he still fought like one assured of an easy victory. He was the stronger, after all, and he knew it.

“A shame,” he said through the clash of metal and the brilliant fractures left by heaven’s touch. “Had you accepted Empress Jin’s offer, you would have been truly mighty. To touch so firmly the Law of the universe, the Eternal Dao, at such a young age! Such talent. Such a waste.”

He Yu fought at the very edge of his ability. The clarity and ease of his Daoist Mind let him speak in return. “Standing against you here isn’t a waste. Fighting for what is right isn’t a shame. I have always known I would follow my Way to the end. If that end comes today, protecting those I claim as companions, then it ends here, today.”

The heavens split with each word, sending down great forking bolts of light and power. Thunder crashed against the world, shattering what rubble was left in the ruined valley they fought in. Long Tingguang remained unconcerned.

“You waste your potential, child,” he said. “Were it up to me, I would grant you clemency should you beg for it. I would find you a place in Her service. Find a way for you to make amends, to grow into the power you so clearly posses. But you have chosen a foolish path. One that ends only in your death, then the death of your so-called companions. Would they make the same sacrifice for you, had they the chance? Strength is the rule of the world of cultivation. There is no time for the weak.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

Long Tingguang laughed as he slapped aside a strike from He Yu’s guandao. It was a motion so casual, so unconcerned, that it was the clearest evidence yet of just how outclassed He Yu was. This was the man who fought Li Renshu and Tan Zihao both at once. He may not have won, be he’d been able to survive. Survive and escape. Tan Zihao himself had admitted that Long Tingguang was likely the stronger compared to him.

“Truly, you don’t believe that. Truly, you don’t think those three are worth throwing your life away for. Especially since it will all come to nothing, anyway? Surely you must know that when I’m done with you, they’ll still be inside that cave. You’re only delaying the inevitable.”

“It doesn’t matter,” he said again. “If there’s a chance for them, I’ll do what I can so they can take it.” He didn’t mention anything that could allude to the reason they were here. Long Tingguang must not know. Otherwise he’d have mentioned the tomb, and the mythic sealed realm within.

“Why?” The first crack in Long Tingguang’s demeanor to slipped through as he spoke. “Why throw your life away? And for nothing?” Each word was marked by a strike from his jian. He Yu did what he could to turn them aside, calling the Spring Rain Mirror and pushing his defensive technique to its limit. Were it any other method, he’d already be dead. Had he any perception other than the Peerless Judgment, he’d already be dead. But as it was, he lived. For now.

As he pushed himself, his Dao, to beat back the assault, a trickle of power flowed out from the cave. The two statues on either side of the entrance stirred. For perhaps the first time in a thousand years, they heard. Their eyes opened, and they saw.

“Because it’s right,” He Yu said. A faint glow, like the bulb of a firefly, shone from the eyes of the two guardians.

“According to who?” Long Tingguang asked. He Yu realized he was angry, but he couldn’t fathom why.

“I don’t need anyone to tell me what’s right,” He Yu said. “I stand for what I believe in. And I believe my companions are worth saving. So that’s what I do.”

As the words left He Yu’s mouth, his Dao of Heroism hit its final crescendo. The truth of what he’d said, and how it reached to the most profound depths of his Way, thrummed as his words placed their stamp upon the world. Behind Long Tingguang, and to either side of the cave entrance, the two guardian beasts bowed their heads.

The world fell away around him, and everything went black. He stood on solid ground—stone judging by the feel. In his spiritual sight, powerful flows of qi coursed all around him. Then, a rustle of cloth sounded from somewhere close by.

“Well,” Zhang Lifen said in the darkness. “That’s one way to get inside, I suppose.” She couldn’t have been more than an arm’s length away.

A dim, colorless light winked into being, pushing back the darkness. It hovered above where Yi Xiurong stood, with Ren Huang and Zhang Lifen both at her side. It was only the tiniest fraction of what she could normally call forth, but with his advanced senses He Yu could see as well as if it were full daylight.

They stood within a hollowed out cavern. The space stretched out for hundreds of feet in each direction before Yi Xiurong’s meager light finally failed, and the cavern itself disappeared into the gloom. The stone he’d correctly identified they stood on was masoned tile, expertly fitted and pristine in its construction. Likely the same tile that lined the path outside, the one that had led them to the entrance of this place to begin with. However long this place had been sealed, the flooring showed no evidence of it. The stone paving was spotlessly clean, as though it had been swept mere moments ago.

Just past where Zhang Lifen and the others stood, a lone statue dominated a raised dais. Platform, steps, and statue alike were all carved of green jade. The statue itself was of a man with a flowing, magnificent beard. He was clad in armor and carrying a guandao much like He Yu’s own. The stature towered over them all, and even with its exaggerated size, it depicted a figure who would have been larger than even the massive Ren Huang in life. A small altar sat at the statue’s feet. Candles and incense that had remained unlit for countless lifetimes, along with a pair of votive bowls for offerings, adorned its surface. Aside from the altar and those few signs of worship, there was no other evidence of veneration.

Extending his spiritual perception to examine the qi he’d first noticed, He Yu confirmed the powerful formation scripts that ran through this place. Most of the qi it drew in was directed toward the statue itself, but the flows did branch off in four separate paths, likely aligned toward each of the cardinal directions.

“Yunchang,” Ren Huang said as he turned toward the statue.

“This is the sealed mythic realm? The tomb you were searching for?” He Yu asked.

“It must be,” Yi Xiurong said. “That’s his statue. And there’s a shrine at his feet. Although I don’t know how anyone could get in here. The cave we sheltered in was just a shallow crack in the rock. The floor was paved with stone tiles, like the ones in here, but there was no other evidence of an entrance, or any sort of tomb.”

“How did we get inside, then?” he asked. He suspected he knew already, though. Ren Huang had mentioned only the righteous could enter. If Yunchang was a general during a period of strife, perhaps fighting against one who would bring such strife back to the empire had proved his righteousness.

“I’d like to know that, too,” Zhang Lifen said. “But I think we have more pressing matters. Like figuring out exactly what this place is. It’s clearly what you two sought in this valley, but if the qi is any evidence, there’s a lot more to this place than a giant empty room with a statue.”

“Guess we’d better start looking around, then,” He Yu said.

With no words needed to signal their agreement, they all made their way toward the statue.