Ryan couldn't help but notice the strange girl amongst the spectators of his duel. Where everyone else was dressed in the robes of the sect, she bore nothing but a scythe. How appropriate, he thought, that Death would be here to watch as he died at the hands of a Young Master. So with nothing to lose, and his soul about to rejoin the cycle, he decided to at least go out complimenting a pretty girl.
Which makes it all the more strange that he's still alive.
With a single word, the arena became silent. All around me, leaning out from the balcony above or pressing in from the raised walkway, spectators dressed in pale grey instantly stopped their gossip and gambling as the elderly figure at the very centre of the space commanded their attention.
But the black-robed Elder did not even glance towards the onlookers, instead crossing his wiry arms as his eyes focused entirely on me.
I pressed my right hand to my chest against the necklace of strung bronze coins and bowed. For once, long practice at debasing myself to others came in handy; I managed to keep the trembling entirely in my left hand, hidden behind my back and out of sight of the elder.
Or maybe not quite out of sight, considering the quiet tsk I heard, but by the time I lifted my gaze, the Elder was already looking the other way, towards the only other figure in the ring.
In comparison, my opponent's bow was perfect. Unlike my own flourish, he kept his hands firmly at his sides as he ever so slightly leaned in my direction, only even detectable as a motion by its sudden halt and reversal. It would have been an insult if he had been the same rank as me, but there were no illusions that this man was my equal. If it weren't for his own noble features and bearing, his blue robes would have made that clear. Throughout it all, he kept his own eyes firmly fixed upon me, his mouth set in a slight frown.
"This is a supervised exchange of pointers between Brother Ryan, no family name, of the Outer Sect, and Brother Wenhua Gareth, of the Inner Sect. May you both bring forth your whole might, speak clearly in your hearts, and walk away enlightened. Ready yourselves."
At the elder's words, I brought both of my fists up, keeping the left forward as I tucked my chin in and bent my legs, allowing my feet to shift slightly in the sand until I was in a comfortable stance. I took a deep breath, taking hold of all of my fear and frustration and anger and letting it slowly fade away into the background. Right now, none of that mattered.
My opponent took a breath of his own, and other than that did not move. With my eyes up this time I caught another tut from the elder, as he threw a fleeting glance in my direction. Maybe there was some encouragement in there, some faint sympathy, but I was good enough to understand what the Elder really thought.
It seemed we were both in complete agreement about my chances.
Not that it would change anything. The Elder stepped back from the centre of the arena, again ignoring the spectators even as they shifted to allow him a bubble of open space on the raised walkway. Once he was satisfied with his position, he turned again to look at the both of us, before nodding.
"Begin."
There is a strange sort of realisation one has when they are about to die.
Or so the manuscripts claim. Who this 'one' is, and what that one may see, seems to differ from page to page. The priests claim that someone sufficiently religious will experience a holy revelation that will whet their faith and buoy their spirits, should they survive the experience. Artists that have been on the boundary say that they saw impossible colours, scenes that go beyond mere mortal understanding that nevertheless remain in their minds, directing their brush forevermore. Warriors, who tend to have the most experience in the matter of being on the verge of death, claim that they feel the Reaper itself standing above them, weighing down on their souls, leaving their body cold wherever its shadow falls. To survive the touch of the Reaper, they say, leaves one with a stronger constitution, better able to resist it the next time they come into contact with that representative of the afterlife.
So I suppose I felt cheated when all I saw was a girl.
She sat on the edge of the gallery surrounding the arena, her back resting against a wooden post that supported the balcony above. I was familiar enough to the casual air sometimes carried by the higher-ranked disciples and Elders, but rarely had I ever seen anyone be so lackadaisical; one of her legs stretched out over the path, where any of the spectators could trip over it, and her other swung aimlessly off the edge of the walkway, kicking at the sand below.
Her manner of dress was also irreverent. Even the highest of the sect's members were required to wear the clothes and colours of the sect, with only the smallest variations allowed for trim to show favour. She did not even possess the white flannel of the sect servants, instead wearing clothes more suitable for the workmen and farmers of my home. I could only imagine the village mothers crying at the shame of the cut-off trousers and loose shirt on one of their own daughters.
In the privacy of my own mind, I could admit that I quite liked the look. Her bare arms and legs were muscled in a way that spoke to a strength cultivated through hard work and physical discipline, instead of rare pills and heavenly treasures. She couldn't have been more different than the delicate flowers or noble beauties that populated the sect, and I greatly preferred it. I could have been slightly biased however, considering that one such 'noble beauty' was currently right in front of me, his fist easily evading my guard as it embedded itself in my chest.
A mutilated scream tore itself from my throat as I was sent flying backwards by the bone-shattering impact of the punch, the sound soon enough joined by an awful snapping noise as I collided with the walkway that had been behind me. The onlookers roared in approval of the violence, those nearest to me already exchanging coins and tokens as they collected on their bets. Not one of them offered me a second glance, even as I felt my ribs and spine meet in the middle, and as the front of my robes turned from pale grey to deep red, my lifeblood dripping to the sand below.
Which just brought me back to the girl. All it would take is a glance to know that the girl wasn't meant to be here. The only people permitted to attend this so-called 'exchange of pointers' were those in the Outer Sect; my opponent couldn't even bring his own friends to watch my execution, such were the limitations. Supposedly not even other Elders could intrude upon these matters, let alone a stranger like this.
But, I couldn't say that I was necessarily embarrassed that this 'exchange of pointers' had been witnessed by someone from outside the sect. A glance might only inform the viewer that the girl didn't belong here, but with my spine crushed, I had time to do much more than glance. That is what clued me in to the fact that the girl was more qualified to be here than one might think.
After all, there were few better qualifications to be at someone's death than a massive scythe like the one resting across the girl's lap.
"Honourable Elder, this Disciple asks that you consider Brother Ryan. Is he still in a suitable condition to exchange further pointers?"
I'm sure I'd be spitting blood if viscera weren't already dripping from my lips.
As it is, I am entirely silent as the Elder clicks his tongue once more, tugging at his own black sleeves. "This Elder finds Brother Ryan of the Outer Sect in no condition to continue. May the both of you walk away enlightened."
I could see the girl sigh at those words, her swinging leg pausing to lever her up onto her feet, easily spinning her scythe up to land on her shoulder. It really did remind me of those old days, walking to the fields with a sickle in one hand, basket in the other, and a whistle on my lips.
That me would have laughed at the idea that I could have been a cultivator. He would have laughed harder, to hear his future self regret it so much.
I blink, and for some reason the arena is much emptier. The audience is long gone, as is my opponent. All that's left now is the girl herself, standing above me, her scythe now hefted in both hands.
"Fucking cultivators," she muttered.
I chuckled at her words. Even if I had been a cultivator, I was more than happy to laugh at them now. They really are the worst, aren't they?
"What?"
I blinked again, and looked back up to the girl's face, now staring down at me with surprise. Which was fair, I hadn't thought I was particularly in a position to speak either. Guess I still had some of my lungs left.
Still, if there's any way to go out, I'd do it my way. I lifted my right arm up, fingers stretching out-
And then closed them, leaving only my index finger pointing towards her, thumb raised slightly above it. The gesture felt natural.
I winked. So, did it hurt? When you fell from Heaven?
And then I died.
What a way to go.
Hi folks! With November here, I've decided to participate in the traditional novel writing project for the month, as it's been a long time since I've last done so. This won't be under the umbrella of NaNoWriMo, due to my own feelings on their policy regarding generative AI in a project meant to be about one's own ability, but they hardly own the concept of writing a novel, so here I am.
I'll be posting a block of three chapters initially, and hope to post another chapter at least every other day, up until the end of the challenge period. I'll also be posting on SB as The_Huntress or on RR as ArtemisW, if you prefer either of those sites. Please enjoy!
It took a few minutes for me to realise that I was alive.
The realisation wasn't heralded by some particularly dramatic awakening. Coming to was a slow enough process that by the time consciousness arrived in full, I'd already been staring at the ceiling of the sect's hospital for two chimes of the twelfth-bell, and had listened to the slow and steady thrum of the unit's healing artefacts for six more. Of course, while the delicate tones of five minutes passing by were easily missed, it took a little more to ignore the deep resonance of the Hourbell shaking the air with its commanding voice, dragging me out of the last of the haze that clouded my head.
Even with the comforting fog of sleep banished from my mind, I didn't immediately move from my bed. I took the time to lift a hand above my face first, turning it over and inspecting its surface. It was in a fair enough state, though the knuckles were still healing over from training my resilience against Steel-Barked Palms. This was the expected result of my cursory examination. Then, I pulled that hand underneath the covers of the thin blanket, running it over my chest to poke and prod at unbroken skin.
For a man whose last memory was death, that wasn't the expected outcome at all.
I let my hand fall to my necklace, fingers running along the bronze coins as I stared back up at the hospital's ceiling with unseeing eyes, my mind instead going to the conundrum. I knew I had died. Even if the higher disciples of the sect crowed about how much we didn't know, there were still some basic elements of life that even the lowest peasant is familiar with. Things like boiling water, or building a fire, or dying to your chest being caved in by a cultivator.
And while it had taken longer for me to experience Death in that form, I was still intimately familiar with its impact. I'd looked after livestock for my family, even as they'd gone still from the plague that infected them. I'd done the same for younger brothers and sisters, who simply hadn't had the constitution to make it to their Nameday. Those days I'd worked the pastures, or held my mother's shoulders as she'd cried out her grief, I had felt Death. It had approached us, surrounded us in its grim aura, and gently carried away the spirits of the deceased when it finally left.
So how was it that my spirit hadn't been taken when I surely should have gone? I pinched my thigh, acknowledging the slight touch of pain even as I pitched my body to the right, glancing down the rest of the hospital's hallway, its clean tiles stretching off in cold lines down past the curtains and bed carriages. Death was not something that could be denied. Only cultivators escaped that cruel fate, and if there was anything that exchange of pointers had revealed, it was that I was no cultivator.
"Ah, would you look at that! Still alive! And awake, too!" Any further thoughts of Death fell from my mind, as a familiar voice intruded upon my thoughts. Even as I tried to turn my head I felt a hand grip my chin to hold it in place, as a sharp face bearing thin-framed glasses appeared above me. "Now now, don't move just yet, you were still a puddle when you were brought here, and we don't want you shaking loose any more bits just yet! Or at least wait until I get a bucket underneath you to catch what falls out, one moment-"
The face disappeared once more, only to return as the white-robed figure walked around into my field of view in the direction of the storage cupboard that laid across the hallway. I took the time to slowly pull myself up, leaning back against the headboard of my bed as I properly checked myself over. Despite the man's remarks, I couldn't find any other sign of my duel, and my body itself felt as good if not better than it had for months.
"Doctor Lei." There was nothing else for it than to ask the man as to what had happened. "How bad was it?"
"Aha, well, young Ryan, I'd say it could've been worse-" the Doctor leaned out the back room, promised bucket in hand. "But it really couldn't. Your condition was utterly appalling. Honestly, I'm surprised they even bothered dragging you back here."
To someone else, the disgust apparent on the Doctor's expression would've seemed more related to what had been done to me, and the insult of not even granting me a proper burial. Seeing the tall man scowl like that, crossing his arms across his chest and staring out over his glasses towards the entrance of the hospital might even have made such an unfamiliar spirit more comfortable, happy to be in the hands of a Doctor so concerned with the welfare of his patients.
I'd even thought the same thing once, on my first visit to the hospital years ago. But I'd long since learnt the lesson working underneath the Doctor that the actual condition of those under his care was immaterial to him. It wasn't that he didn't value human life; he just valued human life starting at 15,600 Imperial yuan, going up from there the more interesting the specimen.
The trick, I'd learnt, was to not think about it too much. "Maybe they thought that the Witch Doctor of the Seven Falls would've had more use for my body than the crows?" I joked.
Doctor Lei sneered at the implication. "As if the mess they'd made of you would've even been worth picking through. Your ribs did an excellent job tearing through most of your organs. It would've barely been worth recovering your liver and kidneys. And your heart? A total lost cause."
"Well," for a moment, I actually felt touched. "Thank you then, for doing your best anyway." And I did feel great; apart from the sensitive skin that laid over my sternum, I felt like I could leap right into my standard training regimen.
"The two who brought you back insisted upon it." Of course, Doctor Lei was more than happy to dispel my wrong impression of his generosity. "It seemed that the Young Master you decided to kill yourself upon thought you deserved to live. He purchased several healing potions and a guarantee from me not to do anything else to your body." Lei chuckled at his own words, drumming his fingers against the rim of the bucket. "I figured, why not, right? Your spirit was totally severed from your coil. Without the spirit to nurture the magical properties of the medicine, it would have been as effective as water to a man already dead of thirst."
"But-" the air in the hospital was turning cold, now, a breeze pushing past the sterile curtains to brush lightly against my skin, sending a shiver up my spine. "...I'm still alive."
"Indeed." Lei was giving me a very dangerous look now. "When I said you were dead, I was not exaggerating. To lose the connection between your immortal spirit and your mortal body is to invite Death to take your soul off to the Cycle. Even restarting one's heart and invoking an impulse in their brain would accomplish nothing in bringing them back to life. And yet, it worked for you."
I see. Death hadn't spared me at all. She'd just been too busy and decided that someone else could finish the job. I slowly edged a foot out from underneath the blanket to anchor on the tiled floor. "Perhaps we could discuss this?"
Lei wasn't even paying attention to me any more, his eyes firmly affixed upon the bucket in his hands. "Someone who maintained their existence even despite impossible harm to their body would surely be of immense use to my experiments," the Doctor murmured. "In fact, several cultivation methods that would usually induce unbearable, fatal pain would now not cause an issue at all. Pairing that with supremely concentrated elixirs would also avoid the usual issues of powerful aids rotting away the body of those not strong enough to handle them-"
I'd made a mistake. The Doctor had no interest in killing me, not when he could do far worse. Just the thought of an unkillable test subject for his work was already leading his brain off into horrors better left unmentioned.
Ignoring my body's cries of pain, I hurried out of the bed, necklace jingling as I gathered up the belongings of mine I could spot at the end of the bed, hopping on each foot as I quickly donned my sandals and outer robe. "Actually, Doctor Lei, I feel my soul returning to my body as we speak. In fact, if you were to cut my head off I'm sure I would die right now."
"Oh, truly?" The mention of my death seemed enough to pull him from his daydreams and my nightmares, leaving him simply disappointed as he looked up from the bucket. "That's unfortunate. You've always been a valuable assistant, your value would have only gone up."
"Very unfortunate indeed," I lied through my teeth as I kept hopping backwards towards the hospital exit. "Still, I hope that I'll still be able to assist you as normal in the future."
"Yes, yes, of course," The Doctor waved his free hand even as he tossed the bucket onto my bed. "That'll be fine, I suppose. Just let me know if you ever do have another bout of immortality, eh?"
"Most assuredly," I lied again, now with both sandals on and accelerating into a run. "A good day to you, Doctor!"
"And to you, Ryan! Don't be a stranger!"
The Doctor's parting words were met only by the wind from my steps as I beat a hasty retreat.
I kept running for a few minutes longer, just in case Dr. Lei decided he wanted to investigate my claims of mortality for himself. As it was, by the time I finally slowed to a walk I was well outside the hospital's boundaries, and had made it back into the hustle and bustle, falling into the crowd as but one of hundreds of Outer Disciples, and only one of thousands of the many who called the Sect their home.
To put a name to every face here would be an impossible task; they ranged from teamsters and haulers, working together to deliver basic mortal necessities to the various shops and restaurants, to the less burly but significantly stronger Disciples who carried their own cargo of immortal necessities that would end up in the storerooms of alchemists or the stomachs of higher ranked cultivators. Here and there you would even see a few of those lofty ones, their blue or gold robes forcing the masses to part around them like sheep before the wolf. Even more rare were the few who did not part, immediately recognisable as outsiders that stood and gawked, occasionally needing to be physically pulled out of the way before they got trampled.
Not that I could blame them, considering the views. The Seven Falls sect was more than some petty gathering of so-called cultivators; it was the greatest Sect for thousands of miles, and its prestige was clear in every marble slab and mahogany awning of the illustrious buildings around us. Here, hundreds of thousands of mortals and thousands of disciples lived and breathed cultivation, with a history stretching back ten thousand years.
The only thing that could hope to match its grandiosity was the very wonder that the Sect was built upon; seven gargantuan waterfalls that were audible even through the clamour of the crowds, their unceasing flow rising in volume in those spaces in between the cliff-top islands on which the Sect was built. There, standing on top of ancient bridges carved from single pieces of silver and stone, you could look down to where the falls rushed between the islands and crashed down a mile below, splitting into vast rivers that reached towards the horizon.
I knew that if I looked, I could trace the curves of the largest river, and pretend to see the village that was once my home. If I were a more powerful cultivator I'm sure I could see it in truth; that small little farmhouse where I was raised, where my mother spoke to me of how blessed I was for being born to the First Son, the greatest of the Seven Siblings that descended from the Tzangtze.
For a young farm boy who had thought the First Son was his entire world, the Burial Fault and the Seven Falls that poured from them might as well have been the Heavens themselves. To have been chosen by the Sect's recruiters, to be granted the opportunity to ascend those heights and join them as a Cultivator, was an opportunity like no other.
To that young boy looking out over the Sect, he saw a promise. Those gleaming palaces represented that first rung on the ladder he'd climb away from his lowly station, to become greater than the circumstances of his birth. Just as the Sect defied the roaring Falls, he would surely defy the Heavens, and become the greatest Cultivator the world had ever known!
Ten minutes later, I stood in front of my shack, and gently pulled at the decrepit door. After a small battle against rust and gravity, the poor thing fell to the ground with a loud thud that easily echoed out along the street. Other outer disciples, preoccupied with their own troubles or with performing maintenance on their own hovels, ignored the second-most common sound of the Initiate's Alley.
Supposedly the ramshackle nature of the Alley was meant to be a challenge to the dignity of a cultivator, and force them to push themselves forward through might and grit. What actually happened was the initiate's from rich backgrounds quickly found the yuan and sect points to upgrade to the nicer suites closer to the training grounds, and those from poor backgrounds stole the doors and beds from their now-empty huts.
And, in my absence from my own shack, someone had clearly seen me as a valid target and stolen my door, replacing it with one so old that it had probably gained a Hundred Year Spirit.
"Got hit, eh?" my neighbour asks, standing next to me.
"It's my fault," I replied, staring at the door now lying across the Alley. "I've been at the tender mercies of Doctor Lei for the past few days."
"Now there's some bad luck," my neighbour clicked his tongue. "You'd think people like us would catch a break."
"Good fortune comes to us all eventually. Your door, for example."
And now my neighbour took a step back, eyes narrowing. "What about it?"
I glanced between my neighbour's wary stance, and the door to his own shack; a door which I had called my own a few nights ago. "It's as the Sect says; the only providence is one you take for yourself."
"Ha!" Relaxed again, my fellow disciple came forward and slung an arm around my shoulder. "It's true, y'know. Sorry, but my own had been taken by Vincent just a few blocks down, and-"
His next words were interrupted as my right hand came up to his neck, and I fixed him with the deadest look I could muster. "The Sect also says that it is the privilege of a good soul to pass on their fortune to others. So unless you feel less attached to your limbs than you do my door…"
Five minutes later, with an eyeful of daggers from my less-friendly neighbour and with my true door firmly back in place, I settled down in the middle of my shack to examine my belongings, grimacing at the results. It was clear that in the few days I'd been gone, one of the storms common to the Seven Falls had passed through. With my original door replaced with one barely fit to be called such, the rain had got in through the gaps, leaving nearly the entire floor covered in a shallow puddle.
I quickly got to work, pulling the soaked straw bed outside to dry in the sun. My spare set of robes that had been left atop it were damp, but that didn't concern me. What was more important were the few papers wrapped within, the rough paper slightly crumpled and ever so slightly wet with water. With some careful extraction, I was able to hang them up from some loose twine stretched across the glassless windows of my shack, hung like a delicate set of sun-shades, light bleeding through the yellowed parchment and illuminating the crudely-written characters upon them.
None of those letters were particularly long, nor were they particularly detailed; they spoke of simple lives led in a small village along the banks of the First Son. In crude letters made with charcoal and oil, they detailed the simple lives of a few mortals, who did their best with what little they had.
I stood there for a moment, staring out through the window of my little shack, wondering what those mortals would think of their son now. Whether they'd be shocked at my living conditions, a hovel even worse than the small one room house we had all lived in. Whether they would be proud of all the work I had put in, all the blood and sweat I'd shed to push myself as a cultivator. Whether they'd be sympathetic that I had become just another unfortunate casualty of an Inner Disciple.
That, at least, was still a shared experience between me and my parents; no matter how my life had changed in the years since I'd joined the sect, we were still all ants compared to those cultivators. What did it matter that we struggled, when our efforts were so far beneath them? And if by some miracle our efforts were enough to attract their attention, then what else would one do when confronted with an insect?
I didn't even notice the ruffling of cloth at first, so light was the touch against my own robes. I kept my head down and walked onwards, focusing instead on the eight hours of manning the Sect's information office in mind-
"Beloved! Did you not see that? Did you not notice the piece of trash who dared disturb you?"
At this, I froze, and looked back at the voice shouting after me, blood already freezing in my veins. Had I drawn the attention of one of the more powerful Outer Disciples? There was a reason I'd stayed away from the sparring grounds, now that I could no longer afford to match their development.
"Look at the scum now, how his only concern is that he's been caught."
But when I turned fully, what I saw weren't grey robes trimmed with the silver leaf to identify those who'd caught the favour of the Outer Guardians. Their clothes were instead a pale blue, like the mist that hung above the Falls in the early morning. I felt pure confusion at the sight. What were Inner Disciples doing here in the common areas?
"And now he stares at us with dumb eyes. Does he not know he stares at his betters?"
Pure fear returned to my heart. Whether or not Inner Disciples should be here, I would not survive explaining that to them. But even as my cultivation waned, I still possessed abilities that would leave any other Outer Disciple in awe. I knew exactly how to handle these Cultivators who towered above me.
I immediately fell to the ground, pressing my forehead against the cool wooden path, hands at either side. "This lowly disciple apologises for his insolence! Please forgive me!"
Already, I could feel the technique working its magic. The other blue-robed disciples put me out of their minds, an ant so far below their consideration that I'd become invisible to their eyes. Even the one who I'd brushed against let out a considering hum at my words.
But it seemed I'd made a convenient target of myself today, for the woman who'd called me out wasn't done yet. "He grovels, but a worthless toad should know better than to disturb a member of the Wenhua Clan. Beloved, perhaps an exchange of pointers would teach him a lesson."
I'd finally been stepped on.
And standing there in my shack, with two sets of threadbare robes and a door that was already starting to fall off its hinges, staring at letters from a family who I hadn't seen in three years, I wondered whether I would ever reach the heavens.
I'd already made great sacrifices to be here, and more sacrifices after that to simply hold on for as long as I could, like a drowning man hanging on to a piece of driftwood. Was it worth the struggle, if it could all end so ingloriously? I could let go, and simply lie back, taking in my last breaths as I stared at the sky above.
A yellow sky, with characters written upon it like a great constellation.
Gingerly, I pulled one of the letters off the string, allowing the unfiltered light of the day to pass through the open window once more. With most of the water dried off by the sun, I carefully coaxed the crumpled page open, careful not to smudge the cheap ink that had begun to run from the moisture.
Ryan,
The sheep are well. We were blessed with two lambs, though one was given back to the Cycle.
Your mother misses you. She hopes you are eating enough. You can't reach the heavens on an empty stomach.
The River has been good, and the fishers needed every hand. Spend it wisely.
I could see the fishers now, throwing out massive nets into the First Son and wrestling against the current, pulling in a bounty of salmon and trout. I could see my father among them, sweating under the boiling sun as he hauled in a harvest of fish and gutted and scaled them in their hundreds. He would work from sunrise to sunset, and when he returned home with his pay in hand he would set every single coin but one into an envelope, with the last saved for the merchant who would eventually deliver it into my hands.
With one hand, I ran my fingers alongside my necklace. In total, it amounted to one thousand four hundred and twenty yuan, a fortune for a mortal. And for all of my father's efforts, I could afford twenty bowls of rice from the Sect's cafeteria, three pounds of spiritually enriched meat from the Sect's butchers, or one cultivation pill from the Sect's alchemists.
To waste the money so frivolously would be an insult to my father's only request of me. To not spend it at all would be its own betrayal. So instead it sat around my neck, growing heavier and heavier.
I sighed, leaning against the wall as I watched the letters slowly dry, listening to the gentle clink of the coins against each other as I fiddled with the necklace. A few days ago, trying my best to eke out an existence here and agonising over whether it was worth spending my family's money would have been the greatest of my concerns, with actually reaching the heavens being a distant second.
Funny how quickly death can change your perspective on life, because now none of those things seem to matter at all. Instead, thoughts of that strange girl filled my mind, that stranger who'd stood out from the masses of cultivators who had come to witness my execution. The one who remained long after the rest of them had left, her scythe in hand ready to return me to the Cycle.
So why didn't Death take me?
Death was the end of all mortal things. When one's soul is severed from their body, Death was meant to arrive to carry that soul away, so that it could reincarnate in a new body. And yet, for reasons that not even the gods could know, she'd hesitated, even as her scythe had hung above me to deliver me onwards to the next life. The mystery of that rattled around in my head, on why she had stopped at the very last moment. And, of all those questions that filled my mind, it was the simplest one of all that was loudest:
Why was Death a farm girl?
The myths had always said that Death used a scythe to collect souls. Perhaps the answer was as obvious as, who else was more qualified to use a scythe? But one would think then that the Harbinger of the End would at least appear wrapped in a deep cloak to cover either an excess of muscle or an absolute lack thereof. Instead she…was a she. And for some reason, that fact had caught my mind in a trap.
Why did it even matter?
I was alive. I was healthy, even. The potions that the Inner Disciple had foisted upon my corpse had put me in the best physical state I'd been in months. With such a blessing, I should simply return to my normal existence of doing jobs and scraping by as a cultivator. Would that not be the reasonable thing to do?
I looked around my hovel, at the letters that had mostly dried in the time I'd spent thinking. I stared at the pile of robes that sat in a sodden heap upon the floor, a reflection of my own existence here at the Sect; too worn, too miserable, only holding together through the barest sense of determination that was more akin to a simple inertia of purpose, lacking any other reason for continuing on. Was that really a life? Could I even consider my existence living? I ate, I slept, I trained diligently and I worked away for the Sect, as my dreams faded to dust.
And again and again, my fingers traced the rough edges of the coins around my neck. Maybe Death was just a reflection of my own longing. My thoughts in that last moment had drifted home, and so the Harbinger appeared in that form to make the passage easier. It would've been a small mercy, but still greater than any I'd received here in this Sect. I was ready to go.
…
But even if I wasn't meant to be a cultivator, I still had a bit more time upon this world. And if Death had seen fit to grant me a reprieve, I'd find a way to put it to use. There were unanswered questions about that girl and her scythe, and I wanted to find out their answers.
I shook my head, and carefully gathered up the rest of the letters, making sure that they were all dry before folding them and placing them inside my robes against my chest; it wasn't worth leaving them in the shack just to get wet again. I hung my robes in the window next, where they would hopefully still be there by the next time I returned.
And without a glance to my straw bed or my door I left my shack behind, ignoring the most common sound of the Alley breaking out behind me as my neighbours converged upon my hovel like a pack of piranhas. Instead, I turned my focus to the next challenge, on how I would get the answers I sought on the mysteries of Death itself.
And how I would survive that process, I thought grimly, as I began making my way towards the Great Library of the Seven Falls Sect.
And that's the first three chapters. I've even got the fourth ready, so that'll come out tomorrow. I'm hoping I can maintain this pace throughout the rest of the month, and I'm excited to see what I can do. Please let me know what you think!
The Seven Falls Sect is set upon the seven waterfalls barely ten miles from the source of the Tzangtze river. This is also its end, as from here those waterfalls split off into each of their own branches, known collectively as the Seven Siblings, which continue off deep into the countryside. Truthfully, it is not particularly appropriate to call the Tzangtze a river at all. Can anything a mere ten miles long be worthy of such a thing, when its own children each outspan it by many hundreds of miles? Those foreign to these lands would almost certainly shake their heads at the absurdity.
But the alternative to calling it a river would be calling it a lake, for at its widest point the Tzangtze is eleven miles across. And this, at first, sounds like the much more sensible solution, except that no lake has waters that move as swiftly as the Tzangtze, or that reach as deeply as the Tzangtze; certainly no lake pours out in seven great waterfalls from cliffs that themselves tower half a mile over the surrounding landscape, a product of a fight between gods that is appropriately called the Burial Fault. And so, the Tzangtze River it is.
Those who set eyes upon the Tzangtze after ascending the Fault in the massive brass elevators will happily confirm that 'River' is as appropriate a term as any for the unfathomable flow of billions of tons of water, if they are not distracted instead by the view of the Sect itself. Because just as the Tzangtze defies any reasonable description, so too does the Seven Falls Sect defy any sensible construction, placing itself upon the islands that balance precariously on the edge of the Fault. Gigantic palaces made of jade and silver sat comfortably on those outcrops, their balconies watching out over courtyards that hung thousands of feet above the ground and rivers below.
This was the place that I had called home for the past three years, and in that time I had learnt to navigate the winding bridges, and put names to those oversized manors. Hidden behind the grandiosity was the Alley, of course, providing easy access to the entirety of the Sect if one was willing to risk an abrupt confrontation with an enthusiastic Outer Disciple looking for a fight; on the Western Isles was the Hospital, where I'd spent many an hour with my hands inside some poor bastard's corpse, pulling out their organs at the behest of Doctor Lei; towards the Centre Isles one could find the Main Compound, which I avoided at all costs for fear of meeting a Core Disciple interested in pulling out my organs; and of course there were the Eastern Isles, where the Lifts were located, and where the flow of trade and vice entered and exited the Sect.
Today, I wasn't sticking to the Falls, but instead walking to the North. For there was a select island that didn't lean out over the Fault but instead punched up like a great fist through the Tzangtze, splitting it so harshly as to leave a path along the riverbed totally dry even as walls of water rushed by on either side, and leaving the massive spur to tower ominously over all those who dared approach. But for those who wished to challenge Heaven, there was no choice but to approach, for built upon the rock was the last of the great buildings of the Seven Falls Sect: its Library.
If one were to read a new scroll every hour of every day for an entire year, you would not come close to completing a fraction of the knowledge contained within the Great Library of the Seven Falls Sect. If one were to read a new scroll every minute, you would still not even be a tenth of the way through one of the greatest repositories of information in all the world.
During the first six months of my time here in the Sect, I had taken that as a challenge. Here, I lived and breathed cultivation, stalking through every one of its halls carved deep into the bedrock, poring over every cultivation manual and treatise I could. If I found a tome that had anything to do with the process of cultivation, I read it. If I stumbled across a scroll that discussed techniques and abilities one could incorporate into their arsenal, I absorbed it. I would spend twelve hours here, plumbing the very depths of this Library for the secrets of reaching the Heavens, and then I'd spend another twelve hours in the training yard, bringing my muscles to just as much exhaustion as my brain felt. Somewhere in that schedule I'd find the time to eat and sleep, but I couldn't remember exactly when.
Those six months had been a heady time, when I truly felt like I had a chance at beating the Heavens. It was then that I had first met Doctor Lei, and decided it was worth the risk to my life and internal organs to learn the secrets of medical cultivation from a master. It was also then that I met the Head Librarian, who had guided me to the knowledge I so desperately sought. He'd insisted I call him Brother Yun, and I felt for a moment that I'd met a kindred spirit.
"Senior Librarian," I now greeted him, the one-time familiarity now replaced with an uncomfortable, cold formality. "I hope you've been well."
The massive ape behind the desk snorted, thick plumes of smoke rushing out of his nostrils as he pulled the pipe from his mouth. "Well, if it isn't Young Ryan in the flesh. What a pleasure for such a promising disciple to make the time to see me."
Contrary to his words, the Senior Librarian's thick hair had raised across his body, and his lips had peeled back in a snarl to reveal a vicious set of teeth. I could see the way his hands were clenching, as if desperate for something to tear apart, that something probably being me. Really, it was impressive how one's words could be so at odds with themselves.
I was quite familiar with the curiosity of the Senior Librarian's differences. He had probably been my first and only friend here in the Sect, a bond strengthened through a mutual background and mutual desire to grow stronger and surpass those who'd started off so far ahead. He was a story of success in that regard, and I saw him as a mentor, just as he likely saw me as a junior to help along.
That he inhabited the body of some species of gargantuan ape hadn't been much of a concern after the first meeting. The one time I'd asked about it, he simply said it had been part of his own tribulations, and even as he'd grown powerful enough to revert the change he found himself quite comfortable with the once-punishment. It made it easier to navigate the sprawling halls of the library, or so he said. That, and it scared those who'd otherwise disrespect his domain and the books inside. We'd chuckled quite heartily over that, I remember.
It didn't seem quite so funny now that I was on the other end of it. "I really do apologise, Senior Librarian Yun. The last while has been challenging for me."
After those first six months, I'd finally run out of the initial stipend that had been given to me by the Sect. Where before I could eat from the cafeteria every day, consuming qi-enriched meats to strengthen my body and special elixirs to keep my mind sharp through long days of cultivation, I now had no money for any of those things, not without cutting into my training regime. And even as I had first raced ahead of the other new Disciples, I'd begun to fall behind those rich enough to simply call back home for all the resources they could ever desire.
I'd tried to keep up with the previous pace for a month. Even as my muscles failed me, and my mind fell into a sluggish haze. Without the fancy foods, without the cultivation aids, I'd tried to push through just through sheer determination. It didn't matter that I'd spend hours reading the same page of a book, unable to incorporate the knowledge. I ignored it when my body screamed at me for rest as I pushed through another kata.
But in my furious advancement, I'd made enemies, and they were all too eager to remind me as I slowed to a crawl. One by one, they would find the time to 'exchange pointers' with me, breaking an ankle, dislocating a shoulder, and even at one point knocking out several of my teeth. It took Doctor Lei telling me that I'd exhausted my 'free credit' with him for me to finally realise that I had to stop.
Once I'd recovered and found myself in the dreadful position of owing the Witch Doctor one thousand yuan, I went to the Sect's job board and got to work. And that was how I had spent the last two and near-half years; I'd become another small cog within the Sect, a courier and cook and salesperson, just one of thousands of Outer Disciples who kept their heads down and slowly, patiently cultivated.
And not once in all that time had I returned to the Library.
"So busy as to not have any time at all in the past two years and four months," the Ape said, eyes narrowing as he leaned across the desk, towering over me even from his cross-legged position. "And what has kept you so busy, might I ask? Is it carrying sacks of rice like some common labourer? Or perhaps killing rats, like an exterminator? Are the hours of the Visitor's information centre so inflexible as to keep you from ever setting foot in my Library? Has all that been so much more difficult than when you first arrived here, where you fought so hard for your right to challenge the heavens? Because looking at you, I can't see what could possibly be so exacting."
"Yun-"
"Daring such familiarity after refusing to show your face?" The Senior Librarian snarled, leaning across the desk, the air itself bending around his form in a mirage of heat, as the rage under his dark, furred skin bubbled. "Watch your words, Ryan, and respect those who try."
It wasn't just anger that lurked beneath his skin. Having seen it from the other side so many times, I could detect those faintest differences in the fury directed my way. The challenge in Yun's eyes, prompting me to respond. To lash out and defend myself, to let out all that bitterness within me. I would've done that, once. I had done it, to all those nobles that thought I didn't deserve to raise my head.
Try? All I do is try! Every last moment, from dawn till dusk, is spent scraping out a miserable, pathetic existence in this gods-forsaken Sect! If there were any path to Heaven built solely on the sweat and tears poured into it, I would already bethere, damn you! Instead I watch the undeserving be supported by the uncaring, and I am left to be judged by hypocritical bastards like-
I exhaled minutely, and bowed lower. "You're right, Senior Librarian. It's above my station to refer to you in such a manner. If you would have my apology, Senior Librarian, I will make no further bother to you. I will simply go and find the scrolls I seek."
With my eyes firmly fixed on the floor, I only knew Yun's response by the temperature in the air. It hovered at scalding dryness for a few seconds, but soon evaporated, leaving behind just the natural coolness of the library.
"I accept your apology, Outer Disciple," the Ape grunted, leaning back once more and returning his pipe to its place in his mouth. "Go do whatever it is you believe is necessary, and stay out of my sight. I'm afraid that I'm busy with more important matters."
With that, he turned his focus to the papers and scrolls scattered across his desk, and I moved on to the Library beyond, disappearing into the shelves and leaving the Senior Librarian behind. Only once I was absolutely sure I was outside of his range of hearing did I lean against one of the shelves, taking a slow, deep breath as I did my best to settle my nerves, emptying my mind of some self-righteous tirade.
And then I began looking for information on Death. My path into the stacks had taken me down my usual route, in the direction of the cultivation aides, but that wasn't my target for today. Instead, I turned my foot towards…I paused. Where would one find information on Death?
I would have once asked Yun, but that wasn't an option now. And considering how broad the topic was, I might be better served by asking each of my questions first, and figuring out where to go from there. And so I walked in the direction of the mythology and folklore section, with my very first question in mind:
What exactly is Death?
Death was as I'd always known it to be; the end to all mortal things upon this plane. Few of the books were able to offer up any more information than what a village midwife or a shepherd could easily confirm. The only truly novel information I learnt came from a quick walk over to medicine and biology, where some exhaustive tomes just confirmed that some particular beast could in fact die if one applied sufficient force.
I was also able to confirm another thing I'd been certain of there; Cultivators couldn't die, not easily. For someone who was far enough along in their path, it would take the complete and utter destruction of their body to kill them. If one failed to do this, then the Cultivator's body would just get back up again. Without a conscious mind to guide it, it would then become a monster of one kind or another. The Sect had been very clear on educating every new Disciple on the consequences of fighting other Cultivators and not finishing the job, which they insisted required the immediate and vigorous application of fire.
Of course, if one were to find the body and take it before it became an Abomination, then naturally the corpse would be filled to the brim with whatever power the latent Cultivator had possessed. This was very pointedly not in any of the books I picked up, but a piece of cursed knowledge that Doctor Lei had left in my head. I was sure any of the books with that information would be behind lock and key, like Doctor Lei should have been. I cleared my head once more, and moved on.
Why didn't Death take me?
The next of my questions took me away from biology and towards early cultivation instead. There was a particular moment in one's Cultivation where the soul was so anchored to the body that things like decapitations became nuisances rather than endings. The aptly-named Soul Anchoring phase was also appropriately where the bar for being a 'true' Cultivator was set, and as I had known already, I was nowhere near that bar. So, no matter the preparations I had put into refining my body and soul, the connection between the two were still sufficiently mortal enough that they broke under the shock of the Inner Disciple turning the bones in my ribcage into festival confetti.
Again, all of this confirmed the things I'd already known. And in what scrolls I could find that explored the existence of this connection, few went into deeper detail on what it meant to have that section so thoroughly severed. Some discussed how near-fatal strikes could strengthen that bond, but I had the word of Doctor Lei that I hadn't even had a single point left where my soul should have connected to my body.
For this question, there were no answers. There was no existence that could survive without a soul driving its body. Abominations did still possess a soul, they merely had no mind driving them. Beings of pure soul existed, such as spirits, but they manifested through the bodies of others, or were intimately connected with such things as rivers and mountains; they still possessed that link to the mortal world.
My continued existence had become an enigma. Nothing in the texts before me could explain how I was able to read them. Several discussed the possibility that I was simply living out the fevered dream of a mind that was already dead. Others suggested that I had maybe lived a virtuous enough life that I'd already reached the Heavens. One said I should stop personalising text so much and get on with answering my questions.
I listened to that last one, and considered the last, and strangest of the mysteries that circled around in my head.
Why is Death a farm girl?
The first few books that I pulled out about farm girls were immediately returned to their shelves, where they'd hopefully never see the light of day ever again.
The ones after that, carefully screened and selected by virtue of not having art of half-dressed peasant women within their covers, were less invigorating but still far from enlightening. The forms in which Death appeared was a much-discussed topic, but only because the writers seemed to believe it was more a matter of opinion or personal experience than cold hard fact. The only tomes that made a definitive stance on the appearance of Death were all religious in some manner, and their depiction of the Reaper of Souls fell towards black robes and white bones rather than beige work-shirt and tanned skin.
Scrolls, tapestries, paintings, pottery; so many hundreds of thousands of ways to represent mortality, and none of them were right. Perhaps it was some growing insanity within me that forced me to reject all the other options out of hand, but what else could I do? I had seen her, been so close as to touch her if my body hadn't been in the process of dying. She had stood right above me, scythe ready to cleave forth and take my soul away, and she had stopped.
Why? Why was Death a farm girl? Why had she been there for my duel? Why had she sounded so angry about cultivators? Why hadn't she finished the job? Why didn't Death take me?
…
The questions revolved around in my mind. Again and again, spinning by so fast, spinning out new threads, new thoughts, new tangents that all demanded my attention. And at the centre of it all, something moved.
Well…
It was an idea. It formed amid that storm of thought, nestled in between a few questions for just a moment before it was cast off to bounce with the others. Questions connected to it, stuck to the idea for just a few moments before releasing it once again. As the idea bounced, the storm began to slow; that idea had begun to drink from the questions, quelling their frenzy and taking that energy unto itself. As the questions finally settled, I was left alone in my head for the first time in days.
The thought was insane. I was insane. Clearly, the Young Master had succeeded in knocking something out of my body, if not my soul then at least my ability to think clearly and avoid walking towards my very literal death. Was it not enough that I'd already died and came back to life? Any other person would count their blessings and return to their mortal existence with a fervour. Even a cultivator would take the narrow brush with doom with at least some measure of caution.
But, I reasoned, I've survived Death once. Going by precedent, I should have nothing to worry about, right?
Something was definitely wrong with me, but with the lack of information to be found in the library, and the strange desperation I felt wrapping around my heart, I moved decisively. I gathered up all the books and scrolls that I had collected, which had grown into a fairly large pile, and returned them all to their appropriate resting spots. Once the last scroll was safely tucked away in its niche I left the Library behind, for once able to ignore the heavy weight of Yun's gaze that followed me out through the doors.
It even seemed that the Heavens themselves favoured my purposeful steps. In the day that must have passed since I'd entered the Library, the sun had risen once again, seeing fit to banish the usual mist that sat over the Seven Falls, leaving me to be graced with warmth and light. It was the sort of day where even the most hardworking disciples would allow themselves an hour or two to find a nice patch of grass on one of the cliffs and simply bask in the bright rays and enjoy what it meant to be human.
I'd never been one of those, I realised, as I passed by several groups that had chosen to take the time away from cultivating or training to instead pass around a bottle of spirit wine. For one, the Second Son Vinyard Imperial Blend was 4,950 yuan a bottle, an expense so ludicrously extravagant that their mere presence was enough to make me feel queasy; secondly, in the time it would have taken to choke the red poison down I would've lost something far more valuable: that precious time that I needed every single second of to grow stronger.
And, of course, in the years since, I'd spent far more time stocking those same bottles in the marketplace, and it didn't take more than finding one broken bottle with a rat that had somehow managed to crawl inside to question just what was in that Blend the vinyard so proudly touted. At least I was able to gain some pleasure from selling a crate of the stuff to the same group of disciples that had been so eager to humble me after my stagnation.
But the indolence of the rest of the Sect had granted me an opportunity which I didn't hesitate to take advantage of. Hopping up the silver filigree of one of the bridges, I was able to jump over to grab onto the gutters of a pavilion, pulling myself up onto the shingles with barely a sound. From there, I made my way along the rooftops over the heads of gossiping disciples, going from building to building as I approached the very centre of the Falls, where silvery walls ringed the Main Compound.
While the rest of the Sect often had a fair number of guests and visitors, be it merchants or labourers or even just tourists, the collection of buildings that sat at the very middle of the Burial Fault was entirely off-limits to any who did not wear the Sect's robes. Not even Outer Disciples could enter through the jade gates under normal circumstances, but considering the general attitude of powerful cultivators towards their lessers, this was just seen as good sense. As it was, if you did not have at least a silver trim or symbolic token, signifying that you had some favour with the Elders of the Outer Sect, then your path would be barred.
Fortunately, the intimidating nature of the Compound worked in my favour. The guards posted at the gates were rarely ever approached by any who did not bear the blues and golds of the Inner or Core, and in the absence of those colours they were far more keen to focus on the blacks and reds of the playing cards they had surreptitiously laid out on a table hidden from view from the main bridge. Their intent to keep their game hidden from the watchful eye of a passing Elder also served to distract them from properly manning their stations; I only had to wait until their game erupted in muffled laughs and frustrated whispers of promised comeuppance for a chance to simply stroll on through.
The real obstacle to entry presented itself the second I stepped beyond the gates. Where the sun had been able to burn away the fog that usually hung around the waterfalls of the Sect, it hung thick in the air here. The mist was brimming with qi, a heady aura of potency from the cultivators who called this Compound their domain. I wasn't even at the villas at the very centre of the Compound where the Core Disciples resided, but I could already feel the energy in the air looming over me, watching, judging. You don't belong here, it seemed to whisper.
But an ill-advised trip into the Compound years ago had prepared me for this excursion with the perfect technique for avoiding notice. I huddled slightly, rolling my shoulders forward, and put upon the best harried expression I could as I moved forth, fingering the edges of my robes. It was the perfect image of some worthless disciple, reduced to nothing more but a courier for those more powerful than him, and soon enough the invisible gaze pulled away, deciding I wasn't worth its time.
And with that, I was through, the gates left behind me as I moved deeper into the Compound and disappeared into the crowds of Inner Disciples. The potent mist seemed to match the attitudes of the blue-robed disciples themselves, who never gave me more than a glance as I hurried along the paths of pleasant courtyards, even taking care to move out of my own way as I passed them by. If it wouldn't have disrupted the disguise, I would've laughed at the sight. Where was this purposeful ignorance the first time I'd accidentally bumped into one of their kind?
I was thankful for their consideration, if nothing else. Considering my objective tonight, I had no time to deal with some other Inner Disciple that wanted to create a problem for me. After all, I had a solid objective in mind, because while the circumstances surrounding my death were a mystery, I knew exactly how I was going to figure it out.
By killing myself again, of course.
But how I did so mattered. Fundamentally, my best chances were by repeating the same events that had led to my first meeting with Death. It was an approach inspired by Doctor Lei, who had never hesitated to talk through his process of research and experimentation, and alongside the millions of other things that I'd much rather forget he'd made one salient point:
"Variables?" I repeated, confused.
"Yes. Heavy emphasis on the plural, pass the bone saw," the Doctor muttered, not even looking up as I wordlessly handed him the gruesome implement which he applied to the cadaver in front of him. "Variables are a fact of life. They are as innumerable as the stars in the sky, and don't even have the decency to glimmer when you try to find them. But you need to, because why?"
"Because you can't perform an experiment if you don't know them all?" I hazarded a guess.
The Doctor just laughed. "How utopic! That's a sign of a theorist, expecting that it is possible to know the world without ever stepping out into it. Pliers, quickly."
I offered out the tool, taking the blood-soaked saw back in return. "But if we don't know all the variables, how can we properly do an experiment?"
"Therein is the secret, young Ryan!" The Doctor looked up and grinned. "You hold the variables you know closely, and see what new stars appear when you pull."
Death had appeared to me after the duel with that one Disciple, the Young Master. While I was sure my chest was utterly agnostic as to who crushed it in particular, I needed to be thorough. With the goal of being able to meet Death once more and figure out the answers to my questions, I couldn't accept any form of substitute. And so without any further clue as to what had caused her appearance, the best place to start was with him.
Even though my head was bowed forward, my eyes scanned back and forth constantly, watching the passing faces of the Inner Disciples as they went about their days, trying to match them to the Young Master who had killed me the first time. And while I didn't spot his face, I did have a chance to read the expressions of the Disciples who passed me by. Some were serious, some were smirking, others chatted back and forth with their own coterie who always knew how to laugh at exactly the right time. It would have been a wonderful image of normality, if it weren't for the fact that any of them could kill me in a heartbeat.
I was reminded that these cultivators weren't merely people, like the Outer Disciples were. I could see it in the way they moved, careful and controlled, suppressing their own strength. I could feel the power rolling off of them, leaking into the air and adding to that suffocating haze that pressed down on my shoulders. They didn't need to brag or boast, like some Alleyway hooligan who wanted to claim the nicest door for themselves. After all, what reason did they have to oppress others when their sheer presence was enough to make you crawl?
At least, that's what it felt like to me as a mere Outer Disciple. My harried state became much more sincere as I staggered past one of those cultivators, whose eyes didn't even glance to the side as they easily sidestepped my own path. To such a person, I really was nothing more than an ant, not worth the time to crush underneath their feet. But even the mightiest of creatures could not ignore an insect so determined on making their life a nuisance. I had been stepped on once already; what more could my betters threaten to do? So I continued to seek out the one who'd first put me in place to see Death-
And bumped against someone's shoulders.
"Apologies, didn't see you there," I muttered automatically, stepping back and to the side as I bowed slightly. The Disciple I'd bumped into didn't even seem to notice or hear my excuse, so lost in thought as to not even have the blessing of the automatic pathing that his peers had. He simply continued on, frown etched upon his face-
That's him, I realised as I stared at his back. It was the Young Master who'd killed me. The same frown had adorned his expression when I'd first apologised. I instantly scanned the area around me. If that woman was also here, I wouldn't even need an excuse to summon his attention; she would already be sniffing blood and cheering at the opportunity to enact her petty cruelty upon her lessers. For once I was even happy for the fact, knowing that I wouldn't have to say a word before she encouraged the other to 'put me in my place'.
But she wasn't to be found. The Young Master was totally on his own, now five paces past me. I could follow him, perhaps, and wait for such an opportunity to strike, but no matter my luck in going unnoticed so far inside the Compound there was no chance I'd make it to the living quarters for the Inner Disciples without being apprehended, and then I'd have to wait yet more time that I just couldn't spare.
"Oi, you!"
…
Ah, I faintly realised, as the Young Master jerked slightly and slowly turned around, that was my own voice.
He had a surprisingly soft voice for someone so capable of putting his fist through my chest. I hadn't had a chance to hear him speak the last time, but that calm tone was quite apparent to me now. He possessed a general air of refinement about him, now that I was looking carefully. He had the typical noble features of a wealthy cultivator, with a delicate face housing two sharp green eyes and his hair tied back in a neat tail. I'm sure poets would call him beautiful, but after having been on the dying end of his fists I was more occupied with just how distracted he seemed, as if-
He didn't recognise me. That was what that blankness was: he didn't have a clue who he was talking to. Just that I was some random Outer Disciple who'd apprehended him in the middle of the Inner Sect after we'd both bumped into each other. The man who'd killed me didn't even have the decency to recognise my own face.
In any other world, this would be a boon beyond measure; I would simply apologise again and continue on my way, hoping that his own apathy would lead him to forget about the entire interaction. For anyone looking to live, this would be the thing to do.
But unfortunately for him, I was looking to die today. "Yes, you. You bumped into me."
"Oh." He opened his mouth for a moment, as if searching for the right words. "I suppose that happened. Not to worry." And then he made to continue walking-
"Not to worry?" And I stopped him once again with my words. "That's all you have to say?"
"Ah?" He turned again, the frown back on his face. "I'm…yes? Is there anything else to say?"
"Do you not think it would be appropriate to apologise to the person that you bumped into?"
There was something immensely freeing in being able to say something so abominably stupid. It felt as if I'd suddenly gained the ability to stop time, as the tens of other Disciples within earshot immediately froze at my words. Even the mist itself seemed to hang still in the air, unable to reconcile my appearance with my audacity. And as my mystical 'technique' faded, those cultivators pivoted in unison to face me, inspecting my every quality, determining exactly what a messenger like me was thinking in saying such a thing…
But with the protective guise thrown away, I no longer appeared to be a courier tasked by someone immensely more powerful than even them. Silver trim didn't adorn my robes, to indicate that I might actually join their ranks soon enough. I didn't even have a token of favour, indicating that some mighty Elder or Core Disciple considered me their cousin or friend. I had revealed myself to be a simple Outer Disciple, in a place where I shouldn't be.
They didn't move a step closer, but I could feel the ring closing around me. Not to entrap me and trample me, as if I was some wild Spirit Beast to be brought down; they were just spectators settling in to watch a goose attempt to poke out the eyes of a dragon.
But oftentimes it is the most absurd of actions that prompt the most unsure reactions. The dragon in question blinked a few times, not quite ready to laugh at a joke that he didn't know the punchline to. "I…didn't think it would be necessary."
"And why not?" I sniffed, glancing down at the path. "This path is clearly wide enough for two. We should've both passed right by each other. Instead, we collided. Do you not think you should apologise in such a situation?"
The noble cultivator blinked, before considering the path, as if properly seeing it for the first time before. It was indeed sized suitably for two individuals to pass right by the other, like I had said. What I had not mentioned, but what his eyes were immediately drawn towards, was my own position solidly in the middle of the path, while he had in fact been walking along the side.
This is becoming dangerously fun, I reflected, as I watched the noble cultivator go through the entire gamut of human emotion before eventually settling on a tight smile just a hair away from a grimace. I think I understand why cultivators are like this so often.
"That is…an immense shame," the Young Master managed to say eventually. "And I apologise. Are we done here?"
I blinked.
The noble didn't even pause for a moment at my surprise before walking off. "I'll take that as a yes. Good day."
The entire courtyard was silent as he walked off. The ring of spectators had come for an execution, and instead had watched the dragon turn tail and run. I was just as stunned. No, I was dumbfounded. I'd never felt so out of place in my life. It was like the entire ground had fallen out from underneath me, leaving me still floating above a chasm that wanted nothing more than me to fall. What sort of Young Master doesn't immediately kill anything that disrespects him!?
This wasn't the plan. I shouldn't have needed to do more than look him in the eye to receive a beating within an inch of my life, and instead he was positively running away from a confrontation that he would win handily!
This couldn't stand. "Where do you think you're going, huh?" I shouted after him. "Do you think such a weak apology is enough!?"
The Young Master slowed again, the confusion and exasperation growing further on his face. "I'm really not quite sure what more there is to talk about," he insisted. "Do you- I'm incredibly busy right now. This disciple sincerely, humbly apologises for whatever trouble I've caused you. Can you please stop bothering me?"
I scoffed. "Busy? You think I care about how busy you are after you've treated me so poorly? You think such a poor, pathetic apology is enough to satisfy my wounds?" You dare think you can possibly stop me from killing myself?
The audience was absolutely rapt with attention, their heads bouncing back and forth between the Young Master and the suicidal idiot. I could see some of them reconsidering me, searching for any hints that I was some powerful cultivator who'd simply thrown on a pair of grey robes, and then searching harder when they found absolutely nothing.
Time to finish this. I raised a hand, now pointing directly at the Young Master. "With these insults you've hurled upon me, perhaps it is my duty to exchange pointers with you, to show you what missteps you've made, eh? Perhaps that would help you understand your grievous errors."
The Young Master's mouth moved silently, pausing as if to consider words before throwing them away. He began to raise a hand of his own, only for it to drop, and then to lift, and then to fall again. "What?"
"Clearly your hearing is in need of work. I do recall I said we should exchange pointers-"
"Oh." The noble exhaled. "Now I remember. You're the one I'd bumped into nearly a week ago, aren't you?"
"And now it seems like your memory is finally wo-"
The Young Master bowed. "I am genuinely sorry about that business. We'd returned from a mission and my fiancée Mei was…anxious. Unfortunately, she took it out on you, when you deserved nothing of the kind." The Young Master straightened, looking me in the eyes. "I understand that simply paying for the treatment for the wounds I'd inflicted on you is far from a fair deal, when such a thing shouldn't have happened in the first place. I'm more than happy to reimburse you for the trouble, if that's what you're looking for."
…
Huh?
Words failed me. The spectators were in a similar position, not even whispering in between themselves as they kept their eyes on the best entertainment that they'd seen in probable months. I could hear the question in their minds, wondering just what my relationship to the Young Master was, who my patron could possibly be for me to act so carelessly.
My own question was much simpler.
Why won't you kill me!?
"I'm unsure what an appropriate recompense would be," the Young Master continued, watching me carefully as if I was an untamed beast, and not an ant he could crush in a single blow. "It's been a while since I was an Outer Disciple. Would twenty- no, would thirty thousand yuan suffice?"
Of course it would suffice. Thirty thousand yuan was more than six times the original stipend that the Cult provided all its newest disciples. If I resumed my original path of determination, if I went back to Senior Librarian Yun and begged and pleaded for him to resume his tutorship, if I returned to the sparring arena and bled upon the sands there in return for strength beyond measure-
I could cut short this farce. I could graciously accept this gift from the heavens, properly apologise for my rudeness, and return back to the Outer Sect. I could focus once more on being a true Cultivator, like I had dreamed of when I was a child. One day, I could enter this Inner Sect properly, in blue robes of my own, and look upon this Young Master as an equal. I could laugh about how silly the entire situation had been, and perhaps ask him for a true fight. I could live forever.
Or I could throw that all away on a hopeless bet. On some random girl with a scythe who didn't belong.
…
I sighed, and glanced towards the ring of spectators. "If one of you gawkers would be so kind as to find an Elder?" I looked back to the Young Master, who returned my own gaze with a look of terrible understanding of what was about to happen.
"Tell them that I have challenged this Young Master to a spar."
Despite my best attempts, the koi was unable to read my thoughts. Instead, it eyed me up and down, doing its best to determine whether I would fit inside its mouth. Considering it was approximately twice my size, it might honestly have a fair chance. I sighed, and took a few steps away from the pond's edge, removing the temptation. The fish gave me one last look before swimming off deeper into the pond that surrounded the garden I was in.
In the aftermath of the announcement, we'd quickly hustled off to another one of the many private courtyards that seemed to fill the Inner Sect. Unlike the well-used arenas of the Outer Sect, where half the sand's weight was the blood of disciples, this small slice of peace was the sort of place where I would happily spend hours at a time. The artificial island that sat within the pond was a soft meadow, with delicate blades of grass that yearned for one to rest their head upon and a quiet that was almost foreign to my ears now. Here within the boundary of the Compound, the Tzangtze's roar had been tamed into gentle streams that filled the calm pond, perhaps the first time in years I'd seen still water that wasn't in a mug or a dirty puddle.
It seemed absurd that a delicate park like this was only used as a site for duels. The koi fish especially were exactly the sort of worthless luxury that I could imagine nobles wasting their money on. Then again, the way they all seemed to stare at me hungrily told me that they might well serve the same role of the arena attendants who dragged the bodies of the losers away from the ring. Unfortunately for them, however, I wasn't here to get eaten by some glorified magical carp; I was here to get my ass beaten by an Inner Disciple, hopefully badly enough that I would find myself in front of Death again.
I snuck a glance at the Young Master, who was still in the same spot on the other end of the green. He seemed to be as lost in thought as I was, considering a small bed of flowers in front of him as his face twisted in time with whatever internal struggle he was having. Of course, whatever unpleasantness he was considering still did nothing to detract from his noble features, so clearly in proportion to each other and unburnt by seasons upon seasons of farming. I had to stop myself from reaching for my own face in response, to trace over skin that had already seen too much sun, to tweak a nose with an unfortunate bump in the middle, to wipe at murky eyes I'd only seen for the first time when I'd found a mirror in one corner of the Outer Sect.
It was funny how one's ego could respond to the strangest things. The shrivelled and tattered remnants of my own had long since abandoned any hope of being a better cultivator, but was still stirred to bitterness by someone being more attractive than me. As if a peasant even had a chance against what must have been years of directed cultivation, decades of careful grooming, and centuries of good breeding.
It was what had made the choice for me in the end. Betting on that farm girl to show up here like she did last time was a fool's hope at best, but assuming that I'd ever have a place here was an outright delusion. There was no shortage of us commoners in the Outer Sect, who had through potential, determination, and a good amount of luck had proven ourselves to the recruiters that had passed by our village. But how many of us had ever actually ended up in the Inner Sect? Senior Librarian Yun had managed, but from what he had mentioned (and what he'd very carefully not said a word about) it took much more than simply being the most talented to earn the right to wear the blues.
That didn't mean I wouldn't try to enjoy the amenities while I was here though. I laid down on the grass, enjoying my last moments in the peace and quiet of the garden. The lack of spectators shouting out the odds and howling for my blood really brought the place together. It appeared that ritualistic bloodsports were less ad-hoc here, and generally weren't open to an audience unless both parties agreed to it, which the Young Master had vigorously declined. I was hardly about to complain.
And with that thought, the very last component of our duel arrived with a boom. The silence of the garden was instantly annihilated as the very centre of the garden disappeared in a massive plume of dirt, the ground underneath us shaking at the impact. I outright left the ground for a few moments, limbs flailing as I tried to catch myself before I crashed back down again. Even the Young Master didn't fare that much better, the shockwave sending him stumbling to catch himself before he fell.
And as grass and flowers fell back to the ground, the Inner Sect Elder was revealed. Slowly standing up from a low crouch, the mountain of a man stretched out his arms to his side, taking in a deep breath. The blue he wore barely felt appropriate, merely a token suggestion of a robe tight upon his frame that did nothing to cover his broad arms and trunk-like legs. His skin was as dark as ebony, littered with pale scars that spoke of a life of pain, of challenge, of victory.
It seemed I was mistaken. You don't have to be some noble raised on the teat of the Seven Falls Sect's bosom to be granted the blues. But what else could you expect from an Inner Sect Elder? This wasn't some ancient soul at the Third Step who had been put in charge of the Outer Sect for their undying loyalty.
This was someone you gave the robes for fear of what they would do to you otherwise.
Even as the Elder continued to straighten, arms now reaching up towards the sky, I prepared to run. It was so obviously clear I'd overstepped that it wasn't even funny. Had I somehow managed to meet her manager? Was there even going to be a tiniest fragment of me remaining to even meet Death?
"I-" The Elder heaved in a breath, staring down at the both of us with a stone-like expression, "am Inner Sect Elder Umzuli of the Spearpoint Clan of the Southwest Continent! And I…" The Elder brought one hand to his face, slowly dragging it down as his expression twisted into an unknowable, unfathomable hurricane- "...am so very pleased!"
I faltered slightly.
Umzuli's arms snapped out with a whip crack, pointing at the both of us as he grinned so wide as to eat the Demon Wall of the North in a single bite. "Oh, how many years has it been since I've seen such a marvelous pairing? An Outer Sect Disciple, fire in their eyes and powerful cultivation in their blood as they reach up to challenge one above their station! And an Inner Sect Disciple, firm in his position and ready to defend it to the last! I'm so very glad you called for an Honourable Judge to witness this fight!"
The Young Master bowed towards the Elder as the gigantic man finished his speech. 'Thank you, Elder Umzuli. I apologise that this was on such short notice-"
"Bah!" Umzuli, waved away the apology with a smile. "It was hardly any trouble! Cultivation is important, but nowhere near as important as seeing your juniors succeed! Speaking of, Gareth, I'm impressed by your own level of growth! I'm especially glad you've already absorbed the lesson of helping others, without even needing me to say anything!"
"...Indeed," the noble intoned, glancing at me wordlessly.
Should I say something? I bowed in Umzuli's direction, following the Young Master's example. "You have my thanks as well, Elder, for whatever they're worth from this lowly disciple."
"Truly, no thanks are needed!" The Elder chuckled, thumping a fist the size of my head against his chest. "I'm sure you feel quite nervous being here, but with your Senior's invite you belong just as much as any other."
"...Indeed," I laughed nervously, returning the Young Master's look.
"Well, if you're both ready then!" The Elder clapped his hands together loudly enough to cause me to flinch- "How about on the count of three, eh?"
I choked as my mind tripped over itself. Too fast! What sort of Honourable Judge was this? Even if I wanted to die, I at least wanted to know when it happened! Three seconds of run-up time to one's funeral was too short-
"Just a moment, Elder Umzuli!" The Young Master interrupted, stepping towards me with both of his hands raised. "As this is an exchange of pointers, I just wanted to converse with my Junior Brother here about what we wanted to work on, respectively!"
"This…is only to exchange pointers?" The Elder faltered. "But- it had been described to me as some grave insult, that it was a matter of Life and Death." It was almost as if the Elder was deflating before my eyes, so demoralising was the news. As if he'd absolutely been expecting us to immediately dive into a blood match. Which, to be fair-
"We'll both be trying our best, of course," the noble assured the giant, "it's just that this is only our second spar, so we're not familiar with each other's repertoires. I figured we should quickly settle on what techniques we could use to be a most impressive display of our respective skills."
Umzuli hummed, drumming his massive fingers upon his forearm. "I see. A fiery display, a promise of the fight to come. That is acceptable. Gareth, Junior Brother, I'm looking forward to your very best!"
Even as the Elder stepped to the side of the garden to give us privacy, the Young Master had already pulled me in the opposite direction, nearly pulling my arm out of its joint as he spun me around and seized me by both shoulders to stare me in the eyes-
"What, exactly," the Young Master emphasised quietly, "do you think you're doing?"
Eh?
"Is this a matter of a bet?" the Young Master whispered, searching my eyes for any semblance of sense. "Have your so-called friends convinced you to fight an Inner Disciple for some forsaken reason? Or is this some matter of proving yourself? Are you utterly unaware as to the level of difference between our respective cultivation levels, even after nearly dying?"
It was none of those things. I had no friends, I had no need to prove myself, and I was painfully aware of the difference in our cultivation.
And so I said nothing as the Young master continued, the words pouring out faster and faster as whatever frustration he'd been harbouring came to the surface. "Whatever your reason is, there is absolutely nothing to gain from this other than me suppressing your cultivation, at the very least. The more likely result is that, once more, you end up dead on the ground and I am left in the uncomfortable position of having killed one of my juniors. Even worse, it's the same junior who I've already almost killed. Just-"
I stayed quiet as the Young Master removed a hand from my shoulder, rubbing at his face with a sigh, before he looked back up at me, eyes far more weary now. "You feel angry at me. Rightfully. I'm sure I could've avoided this entire situation in the first place, no matter Mei's wishes, but I didn't. What you want, it's a chance at revenge, right? I understand that, I've been in the exact same place as you. But whatever it is you're hoping to get out of this, you're not going to get it!"
Exact same place? Was this a joke? This fair-faced noble who hadn't ever done a day of work in his life, who had likely been fed cultivation aids from the day he could walk, thought that we shared a single commonality? It was enough to make me laugh, if it didn't make me so immeasurably furious.
"Enough," I hissed. "Whatever your justifications, I didn't come here to hear them. I came here for a fight, and I'm not leaving until I get one."
"You-" The Young Master took a step back, a curious expression falling across his face-
"So how goes the planning?" Umzuli whispered next to both of us.
The Young Master did not jump. My feet may have left the ground for a small moment, but I was able to recover quickly enough, spinning to face the giant who had, somehow, managed to sneak up on the both of us. "Ah, Elder! We were just about done, I think." I sent a glance the Young Master's way.
The Young Master still had that strange look upon his face. "I think so as well. Very well, Junior Brother; let's see if what you've learnt can make the difference."
What I've learnt? I didn't have time to consider the words before Umzuli had vanished once more, reappearing on one of the balconies of the buildings that surrounded the courtyard. He looked down on us with a grin, arms crossed over his barrel chest. "Then, in that case!" The Elder took a deep breath, and this voice boomed out over the island. "This is a supervised exchange of pointers! To the West, we have an Outer Disciple, who has struggled and fought so hard but who still yet yearns for purpose! To the East, we have an Inner Disciple, whose power is great but knows it must be all the greater for the challenges ahead! May you both bring forth your whole might, speak clearly in your hearts, and walk away enlightened! Are you ready?"
Looking back down from the balcony, I saw that the Young Master had already moved to the opposite side of the garden. I hurried to my own spot, trying my best to ignore the teeming masses of fish that had begun to accumulate on my side of the arena. Taking a breath, I slowly settled into position, feet spread and knees bent, hands curled into fists and hovering up in front of my face.
In response, the Young Master slowly lifted his hands from his sides, and raised them in a mirror of my stance. "We are ready, Elder Umzuli."
"Begin."
The courtyard was still. The fish behind me had ceased their thrashing, ready for the fight to come. Whatever light breeze had once caressed my face had disappeared, leaving behind dead air. Not even the grass beneath my feet dared to waver at this moment.
The Young Master didn't move. "I think," he said, eyes meeting mine, "that it would only be fair to allow you the first strike."
I ground my teeth and clenched my fists harder. How on earth have I found the one cultivator in this world that refuses to murder another in cold blood? But my opponent's refusal to make the first move left me in an uncomfortable position. I would, somehow, need to press him hard enough to receive a death blow. A challenge made all the harder by how far beyond me the Young Master was.
The Steps of cultivation were long and arduous, and both of us were fairly early on our path in the grand scheme of things. We had both crossed the First Step, where a would-be cultivator strengthened their body through focused exercise and careful application of reagents; in doing so, one increased their body's ability to naturally create qi, a power that emerged forth from the blend of a cultivator's physical, spiritual, and mental might. Once that qi had accumulated to a certain point, its user would break through to the Second Step, and gain a conscious control over that innate power.
But it took much more than determination and some minor pills to cross the Second Step. Conscious control did not mean proficiency; it took years of practice to develop a fine sense for directing one's very life force, to efficiently use every drop without waste. Conversely, one could never grow their pool of qi without using it to the point of exhaustion. As such, the most efficient method of training was to learn complicated new techniques, advancing the ability to carefully weave qi together while emptying one's reserves in the process. Then, a cultivator could simply consume a Replenishment Pill to refill their pool and continue where they left off.
If they didn't have the yuan for a Replenishment Pill? Then they'd spend the next week of their life curled into a ball wishing for the pain to end as they slowly recovered from qi exhaustion.
And so I sat at the very beginning of the Second Step, where I had remained pitifully stagnant for the past two and a half years; in comparison, the Young Master was at the apex of the same step, a veritable bonfire of power. Where I could just about coax my qi into a technique and exhaust myself in the process, I had no doubt that the Disciple across from me could wield elemental blasts and enhanced martial arts without breaking a sweat.
And yet… I felt a smile slowly creep across my own face. …Exhaustion hardly matters to me right now, does it?
For the first time in four months since my last attempt at training, I willed my qi to move. For the first time ever I didn't even try to hold back the flow, bright lines of fire spearing through my muscles and veins as I unleashed every last drop of my life-force into the Seven Falls Sect's Stance. Without the practice to carefully adjust the output, to carefully manipulate and weave the threads of energy to match my body, the generic technique given to every Second Step cultivator at the Falls would simply drain my reserves in a single second. It was, after all, only intended for practice, for a Disciple to rein in and adapt to their own circumstances. The unoptimised technique was an ungodly, weighty thing, like the waterfalls themselves that crashed down the Burial Fault. But for that single second as I burst across the courtyard, feeling my ribs creak and tendons snap, I stood level with the Young Master.
His brow furrowed as I approached. His feet shifted slightly, back foot digging into the grass. His fists relaxed, fingers straightening out.
Just behind him, a farm girl with a scythe watched the both of us with wide eyes.
And my technique was utterly overshadowed as the Young Master used his own qi, his right arm whipping out in a knife-hand strike towards my neck, making contact with a swift crack. My body sailed past his, my technique unravelling even as my body collapsed in a boneless pile at the farm girl's feet.
We've got to stop meeting like this, I thought with a smile. So, how have you been?
I died before she had a chance to respond.
—
This time, I did not wake up to the sixthbell, or even the Hourbell. Instead, I woke to incredible pain, my emptied reserves crying out in exhaustion even as my broken neck sent awful spikes of pain echoing throughout my body. My first conscious breath was a stuttering thing, ending with a coughing fit that only made every last part of me feel worse.
And yet it still felt so far away, compared to knowing I'd failed once again. "Damn it," I muttered, blearily opening my eyes.
And then throwing them wide open as agony surged through my spine once more, as the blunt rib of a scythe pressed itself in against my throat.
Standing above me, only barely illuminated, stood a farm girl. Her hair was still in a loose pony-tail, but it seemed like a few more strands had managed to escape since the last time I'd seen her. It gave her a slightly frazzled appearance, only reinforced by her disbelieving eyes and slightly open mouth.
"What," the girl began, leaning in slightly over the scythe, "the fuck, are you doing?"
Death herself stood over my bed. Who else could it be? The very air was chilled in her presence, a cool hint of what was to come. The scythe against my neck gently hummed, the smooth curve of the top not nearly far enough from the wickedly sharp blade on the other side. In this moment, I felt so painfully aware of how much agony my body was in, but I didn't dare look away from the spectre who loomed over me.
Because I couldn't help but notice other things, like how despite the dark room she still wore clothes better suited for working out under the sun, or that her toned arms flexed ever so slightly to hold the scythe steady against my neck. Even the expression of disbelief cast across her face did nothing to detract from her sharp features, and the cold air only highlighted rosy, warm skin.
She's really pretty, isn't she?
"Wha-" and just like that, the scythe against my neck pulled away, the girl stepping backwards to hug the scythe against the chest. "S-stop that!"
I blinked. "Sorry?"
"The fucking-" she bumped against something behind her, one hand leaving the scythe to steady herself against the frame. I tried to turn my head, but could only just make out the top of a table before my focus returned to the annoyed glare she sent my way. "You fucking know what! Gods, how in the world is that the only thing you think about around me?"
What I think? "Can you read my thoughts?"
"Hardly need to read them when your soul is shouting so loudly," she scoffed, then gestured with her scythe towards me. "You know that it's not even hanging on by a thread, right?"
My soul… I recalled Doctor Lei's examination. "To lose the connection between my immortal spirit and mortal body is to invite Death to carry your soul off to the Cycle," I muttered. "There's nothing keeping me here. I should be dead. And you're Death."
The girl nodded, face now grim as her right hand tightened upon the scythe. "That's right."
The room only grew colder at the admission. Even as the pain rang through my body, I couldn't help but notice how distant it all felt; as if I was falling even further back into my own eyes, the walls and ceilings rushing away as the entirety of my world was instead occupied by the girl before me. In the next few moments, I knew that my fate would be decided.
Moments passed. And then a few more.
"...So, uh, why aren't you killing me?"
"You don't think I will!?" The scythe swung out, its gleaming point now just barely gracing my throat. "You think I would hesitate to take away a cultivator's life!?"
"Gods, no no no! I'm sorry, that's not what I meant!" I tried my best to lean further away, but my body refused to respond, too busy reminding me of all the sins I'd committed against it. Instead I had to stare wide-eyed at the girl whose expression had tightened, her lips pinched together. "I really was just asking a question! I didn't mean anything by it!"
"...Good." After what felt like way too long, the scythe slowly pulled away from my neck, the weight of death going with it. Death was looking away now, out into the dark. "You shouldn't make assumptions like that, it'll get you killed. Shouldn't a cultivator know not to question someone stronger than you?"
I managed a weak laugh which turned into another pained cough. "I wasn't ever much of a cultivator. You were there to see what the real deal looked like."
"Yeah." She turned back towards me, her face now grimacing. "Bastards. Though if there was anyone who could be said to deserve a cultivator's wrath, it's definitely you. Seriously, what the hell were you thinking?"
I wanted to see you again. "I wanted to see you again."
If there was any memory from my years of existence that I would treasure until the very end, it was watching the all-powerful representation of mortality, Death herself, with scythe in hand and my very life in her grasp, slowly go beet red.
"Y-you-" her lips slammed shut, and she shook her head wildly, as if to banish the blush across her face. "Who the hell is suicidal enough to want to see Death after avoiding it the first time?"
I tried to shrug, and failed. "I did tell you I wasn't much of a cultivator. And when I tried looking up any information on Death, nothing seemed to know what it even was, beyond the end. And I didn't expect you to be..." I searched for the right word.
"You think a girl's not good enough to reap souls?" The very aspect of Death said tonelessly, grinding the scythe's haft into the floor. The image was only slightly ruined by her still-red cheeks.
"I just didn't expect you to be like me," I said honestly.
The girl clicked her tongue, looking away. "Yeah, well. World's a mystery." She hopped up onto the table, setting the scythe at her side and letting her feet kick back and forth. "Guess I'm curious too. You're the first person who's ever seen me. That's why I haven't taken your soul," she added, glancing suspiciously at me.
That's impossible. "No one?" I said incredulously. "Not a single person? Not even some powerful cultivator?" Surely there's some Elder out there with a special technique for this.
"Ha!" She laughed sharply. "As if a cultivator would even deign to meet their inevitable end, or even waste the time developing a ritual to do so. And besides," Death shook her head, "their souls aren't mine to take."
I could feel the bitterness in those words, but before I could ask any more she fixed me in place with another glare. "So no. Not once has any person, dying or otherwise, so much as glanced in my direction. And now here you are. And since you won't be leaving this hospital without my say-so, I think it's time you give me a real answer-"
"Sorry, what was that you just said about the hospital?" I interrupted Death herself.
An act that even Death seemed to be surprised by, considering she'd immediately stopped, leery at my words. "What about it?"
"We're not in the hospital." The hospital's rooms were fairly spacious and well lit, which this room certainly wasn't, and without the ability to even turn my head all I could see was the top lip of the table that Death sat on and the grey stone above. "Why did you say hospital?"
"I'm not quite sure what else you'd call this place.There are more of you cultivators recovering upstairs, and I've seen no shortage of doctors and nurses administering medicine. The guy who killed you and that other cultivator brought you right here after the duel."
Death genuinely sounded confused, and even began to ask questions, but none of the words ever made it to my ears as I felt a dreadful pit begin to open in my stomach. "Oh, fuck," I whispered.
The hospital of the Seven Falls Sect was a short, squat building sitting on the western-most outcropping of the waterfalls. It didn't possess any bridges, balconies, or even a second floor; after all, the wheeled carts they used to push patients around in could hardly navigate steps, and mortal orderlies could hardly heft cultivators around on their own. It just made more sense for the building to be expanded horizontally, building up on stilts or carving into the rock as necessary.
The only exception to this were those who were already dead, for their remains would universally be handled by the Doctors themselves who were one and all cultivators. After all, the bodies of high-level cultivators had an unfortunate habit of rising again as monsters. That was why, underneath the clean tiles of the hospital, down a stone staircase littered with claw gouges and burn marks, you would find the morgue. Here, the Doctors would undertake the unpleasant work of putting a cultivator to rest, even if their bodies disagreed.
I had been brought to the hospital. I'd been taken to the morgue. With that knowledge, I could now recognise that the table Death had propped herself on was the same granite top that I'd seen no small number of times, though never from this angle. Here, I'd spent hours mopping up blood, rubbing away ash marks, or scooping organs out of dead bodies, with the occasional moment of running away from those same bodies as they came to life. I'd hurdle tables and hide around corners, hoping that my value as an assistant would be higher than whatever worth those shambling corpses would have to-
Oh, fuck. I needed to get the hell out of here, now. I finally, properly tried to get out of bed.
Nothing happened.
"Okay." I wet my lips. "So I wasn't going to mention it, but I think I'm paralysed."
"Not sure why that matters." Death narrowed her eyes, hopping off the table and approaching me again. She held her scythe at the ready, as if to threaten me. "You haven't told me why you can see me yet, and I'm not letting you leave here until you explain."
"I don't fear Death." But I absolutely fear the Witch Doctor of the Seven Falls. "Right now, none of that matters, because we need to get the fuck out."
"Did you not hear me?" Frustration had written itself across the girl's face. "How can you see me? Who is this Witch Doctor? Tell me!"
"I'll tell you later. In fact, I promise you I'll do whatever you wish, bring you anything you desire," I pleaded to the girl. "I'll bring you the moon and stars, or happily walk into the Cycle of my own accord. But please get me out of this building. Please." Even as I spoke, I intently focused upon my hearing, ignoring the faint droplets of water or squirming flesh in what must be some of the cabinets around the room; instead I put all of my attention on the stairs that I knew laid behind me, waiting for the inevitable footsteps that would spell my doom.
"Fucking- fine! They keep medicine upstairs, right?" Death disappeared from before my eyes, reappearing only moments later with a bright red jar in her hand. "Here, got the first thing I saw. Will this do?"
I stared at the clearly labelled jar of Ruby Tears of the Phoenix Sovereign Remedy, which sold for 40,000 yuan a piece and were kept firmly locked away in a warded safe, only to be brought out in the case of an Inner Sect Disciple's terminal injury. Did she just grab it out of a Doctor's hands?
"Maybe." Death pulled off the lid with a satisfying thwoomp. "Open up."
"Ah-mmmmmfmff!" Without even waiting, Death began to pour the priceless pills into my mouth.
My first thought was that even if this healed me I'd still simply choke to death. And then the first pill began to dissolve and I felt every single cell of my body cry out in relief, the pain inflicted upon them fading in seconds, nerve damage undone and muscles healed back with such ferocity that they almost tore themselves all over again.
And then the rest of the pills dissolved.
I had been enlightened. Immortality had been distilled within the contents of these pills. I slowly lifted up my left hand, rotating it slightly, checking it over. I did not simply look at the surface for faint scratches; I saw within, and understood that I had truly ascended mortality. The panacea in my veins had taken me past all mortal concerns, and now unburdened by the nature of existence, I looked towards Death and made my thoughts known.
"Mmsfmsfeelsgood."
"Whatever you say." Death tossed the empty jar to the side, and I looked forlornly after the shattered container that now laid on the floor. Surely, by the transitive virtue of enlightenment, the jar itself would ascend to the Heavens? I wanted to let Death know that perhaps we should take a moment to ensure the jar's remains would be enshrined in some appropriate location for lowly mortals to worship, but she interrupted my well reasoned explanation before it even started, instead slamming the haft of her scythe into my side and sending me flying across the room to crash against the wall.
I slowly stood, feeling slightly less immortal even as the pills I'd been force-fed knitted my freshly-broken spine back together again. I glared at Death, rubbing at my side. "That was unnecessary."
Death was utterly unrepentant in the face of my displeasure. "I've done my part, and you owe me. Now let's get out of here before that Witch Doctor of yours arrives."
I spun back to face the staircase which was, blessedly, still free of visitors. "Good point." Glancing back towards Death, I hesitated. "Then…"
The stone rumbled above, and I heard the faintest echo of a shout of anger. Death just twirled the scythe in her hand, a sharp smirk falling over her face. "Better get running."
And so I did. I ascended the steps in seconds, peering left and right before bursting out into the hall, rushing towards the exit. Somewhere far behind I heard another roar and the loud clamour of boots, but I didn't dare look back. Of course, the other hospital workers and visitors couldn't help but look, and I found myself ricocheting down the hallway, outright jumping over one poor clerk and bouncing off an Inner Disciple. I couldn't offer them anything more than a "Sorry!", focused as I was on getting out.
I exploded out the doors of the hospital into the afternoon sun, the golden hour casting everything in a beautiful orange glow. I didn't stop there; I sprinted across the bridge connecting the hospital to the rest of the Sect, leaping over the crowds of navel-gazers and tourists. I bounced off the walls of buildings to reorient my direction, dipping into the darker passages, even making a momentary detour into the Alley, accidentally starting a fight as I brushed against two poor bastards repairing their doors.
I kept running until, at long last, I'd found myself on one of the rare few outcroppings without any buildings; connected to the rest of the Sect by only a single hidden bridge, with nothing more than a bench looking out over the Falls. Here, I finally allowed myself to collapse onto my hands and knees, panting heavily even as my body continued to process the near-half a million yuan in invaluable drugs. That's going to bite me in the ass someday.
But for now, I was far more concerned with my immediate fate. With slow, soft steps, Death walked over to the bench to sit down in front of me, resting her scythe right next to her within arm's reach. She laid her hands in her lap and fixed me with a piercing stare. "Tell me everything."
As waterfalls cascaded down past the outcropping, with the sun above burning a hole through the mist to light up this small, forgotten corner of the Sect, I began to tell Death the tale of Ryan the Outer Disciple.
The Seven Falls Sect's Hospital was in an uproar. Heads peered out from behind privacy curtains into the main hallway to watch as a screaming match capable of waking up the Heavens was waged. Mortal orderlies and nurses did their best to get out of the way of cultivators whose wrath had begun to eclipse reason. Patients were unceremoniously dumped out of their beds and searched on the spot as Doctors did their best to recover a fortune's worth of unfathomably powerful pills which simply did not show up.
And somewhere towards the entrance of the Hospital, an Inner Disciple rubbed his shoulder absent-mindedly, gaze turned towards the exit.
I killed him, Wenhua Gareth thought numbly. Without one shadow of a doubt, I know I killed him.
It hadn't even been a day since Gareth had felt that other Disciple's neck break underneath his blow. It almost feels like he's standing there again now, watching as the Outer Disciple bore down on him with speed that better approached Gareth's own. What had he been thinking, that grey-robed figure that had tried to challenge him, surrounded by that ridiculous aura of qi? What had been going through his head at that moment as he used the Sect's own Stance, without even a hint of modification?
What had he been thinking, to have that unsettlingly satisfied smile across his face?
For it to widen, even as Gareth's strike had taken his life?
Gareth had barely even been able to pay attention to Umzuli's bellowing admonishment at the end of it, of how he was above such things as to needlessly injure one of his juniors in a simple exchange of pointers. He simply stared at the broken body of a man he had fought twice now, and wondered what on earth had possessed the other cultivator to do such a thing. It was a question that kept ringing in Gareth's head, louder and louder with each passing second. And Gareth couldn't let it go unanswered.
It took some time to adequately receive Umzuli's rebuke, but in the end the Inner Sect Elder was understanding to a fault; a heartfelt promise by Gareth to take the other cultivator to the Hospital and do his very best to see the dead Disciple treated with honour seemed to satisfy the giant. The various Doctors seemed to have less faith in the matter, clearly looking at the corpse with little more care than a butcher looking upon spoilt meat, but the offer of a minor research grant from the Wenhua Clan's coffers seemed to be enough to encourage them to give a genuine attempt at learning whatever mystery was buried within the body.
And then just as Gareth had returned to determine what had been discovered, the Disciple who should by all means be dead had just run past him with nothing more than a momentary apology. By the time Gareth had been able to help the others who had almost been trodden over, either by the chaos that seemed to be swallowing up the Hospital or by the Outer Disciple's escape, the once-dead man was nowhere to be seen, and that question just kept ringing in the Inner Disciple's head.
Just what could possess a cultivator to do such a thing?
But the question would have to wait for a moment, as Gareth began moving deeper into the hospital towards the origin of the chaos. It was an unmistakable presence that drew him further in, one that so very clearly stood out even amongst the talents who had the right to call themselves Doctor. In that familiar aura Gareth could read the frustration, the indignation, the bloodlust, and so many all-consuming desires that it almost threatened to swallow up the world around it. But who else could have such powerful feelings than a cultivator who had somehow broken through to the Third Step at a mere fifteen years of age, who had spent the decade since embarking upon the Fourth Step of Soul Refinement at a pace that was utterly extraordinary?
In one of the central rooms reserved for the inner Sect alone, this genius stood by an occupied bed, verbally eviscerating some poor bastard who laid on the ground before her. "-me to simply accept such an utter failure in your duties? When the Wenhua Clan give so much to your pitiful clinic? Then perhaps you should accept that your life is simply forfeit, trash. If you aren't even capable of managing an inventory, perhaps I can turn you into a purse instead, one appropriately enchanted to never lose its contents. Perhaps then you'd finally be able to accomplish the task so simple that a mortal could see to it."
Gareth knocked at the entrance to the door, before dropping to kneel as everyone within turned their attention to him. "Young Mistress. Sister Wenhua Li. Doctor."
Wenhua Mei, the Young Mistress of the Wenhua Clan, currently standing over the poor Doctor, gave Gareth a soft smile. "Beloved! I didn't realise you were also coming to attend Sister Li's recovery. I thought you had some small matter to attend to?"
"I did, but I couldn't help but notice the commotion," Gareth replied, slowly standing to his feet again at Mei's gesture, returning the vice-like hug that strained his ribs. "Is everything well?"
"Well, this trash was just telling me that he'd misplaced the Sovereign Remedy that the Wenhua Clan bought from them! Go on, my future purse," Mei retracted her grip from around Gareth's sides, turning to her victim on the floor, "tell my Beloved exactly how careless you were with the medicine we graciously purchased from your disgusting institution."
The cowering Doctor was none that Gareth had met before, though going by his shattered hand it seemed he was new enough to not know when not to talk back to the Young Mistress. The tell-tale glow of a medical technique seemed to be doing its best to pull the bone splinters back together, but it faltered as the Doctor realised that another of the Wenhua had arrived to see to his punishment. Instead, the Doctor turned pleading eyes towards Gareth, hoping against hope that some reason would be seen.
"Doctor," Gareth said calmly. "For your sake, I hope that you have a good explanation."
The medical cultivator didn't hesitate to prostrate himself before the two. "Young Master, I am afraid I have no answer. The Ruby Tears of the Phoenix disappeared from my hands as I was carrying them to your Clan member. None of the orderlies or nurses have it, nor have they revealed knowledge of any other that would have it. Several other Doctors are searching even now for them, and I'm sure that we'll find them soon-"
"How did they disappear, Doctor?" Gareth interrupted. "Their recovery is one thing, but their loss is entirely more concerning."
"I'm so glad to hear your priorities, Gareth." came the cutting remark from the bed. Wenhua Li had managed to pull herself into a sitting position, content to ignore the gangrenous wound in her side to instead stare daggers. "Is the nature of the Doctor's failure somehow more important than the fact that they lost it in the first place? Or does family matter so little to you?"
"I'm sorry you feel that way, Sister Li," Gareth answered. "Perhaps I'm unaware of a vaunted family tradition to overlook such matters. It makes sense now how that Rot-Pronged Mudfrog took you off guard, if you were instead focused on the inconvenience of the Umber Marsh being wet."
The bedridden cultivator sneered, her qi rising up into a forming technique-
Gareth winced slightly as he felt his Mei flare her own energy, instantly overwhelming everyone else in the room with her own might. "Save it, Li. Beloved, darling, please don't provoke her. Besides, I'm sure the rubbish here will clarify matters soon."
The Doctor had done his best not to move from his huddled position. "Young Master, please forgive me, but I didn't see even a flicker. If some cultivator had stolen it, then they were utterly beyond my power."
"And you imply they were beyond my power, trash?" Once again, the room was filled with bloodlust as the Young Mistress of the Wenhua turned her rage on the Doctor, no longer a mere flare but an overbearing pressure that threatened to crush the one who had dared insult her-
Moving through the bloodlust with a well-practiced and hard-earned ease, Gareth rested a hand on her shoulders, pulling on it slightly. As the Young Mistress turned, Gareth relaxed the courtly bearing that had been driven into him, instead favouring the young woman with a buck-toothed smile. "Mei. Jus' let me handle this, yeah?"
The aura vanished instantly as his fiancée sighed. "Ah, my apologies, Beloved. You're right, this is beneath me. Sister Li, I hope you recover well. Beloved, I shall be off to meditate. If some interloper has managed to circumvent the hospital's security, please bring them to me so I can show them my displeasure."
Wenhua Mei left, wind kicking up behind her as her movement technique propelled her out of the room and down the hall towards the entrance. Waiting an appropriate amount of time for her to be beyond reach, Gareth kneeled down and slowly helped the Doctor to his feet. "Careful there. In the future, perhaps ask one of your seniors to handle the Young Mistress."
The Doctor hissed, his healing technique stuttering as his qi struggled to reassert itself within his own body. "They said that it'd be a learning experience."
And they've learnt to stay the hell away from Mei when she gets in a bad mood. "Please inform them that I'd appreciate their attention on this matter anyway. I'll look into the matter of what happened to the Ruby Tears."
The Doctor thanked Gareth profusely before leaving himself, likely to retreat to whatever corner of the Sect was furthest away from the Wenhua. Understandable, given the circumstances. With that, Gareth turned towards the last inhabitant of the room, whose qi had begun to rise the second that Mei had left. "I trust that you're still no closer to death than before, Sister Li?"
"I'm no Sister of yours, peasant," Li spat. "And you'll keep the Young Mistress' name out of your mouth."
"I have nothing but the utmost respect for the Young Mistress and her choices, Sister Li," Gareth said. "Including her decision to marry me. Perhaps you should consider doing the same."
The Wenhua Clan cultivator glowered, but thankfully did nothing else, allowing Gareth to leave the room behind. If she'd started a fight, then Gareth would have had to finish it, and he had no desire to be a kin-killer, not so soon after having gained kin to kill in the first place.
Frankly, he was glad he'd been able to avoid it for so long. Family was troublesome.
Still, it was his family now, and so he'd do his duty to determine what had happened. Ruby Tears were fairly expensive pills as things went, and if it weren't for the Young Mistress' tendency to get what she wanted he wasn't sure if the money would have ever been spared for Li's quickened recovery. But the money had been spent with nothing to show for it, and the Wenhua would not be denied their due.
Gareth spent the next half hour talking with every nurse and Doctor he could, Mei's outburst serving to encourage their answers. They were, unfortunately, much the same as he'd already heard; some of the nurses had also watched the container of pills vanish from the Doctor's hands, and others confirmed it had been there in the first place when the vault of valuable medicines had been opened. Some of the patients who'd been nearby had even felt the potent power of the container's contents, confirming it hadn't been some tactile illusion used as part of a heist in advance.
And all the while, the ringing in his head grew louder and louder, until he could ignore it no longer. Stepping away from an interview with a polite thank you, he walked along the hospital's halls, slowly retracing his steps back towards the entrance, then winding his way back inside along another route, away from the main bulk of patients. In these back corners dedicated to the care for Outer Disciples, Gareth descended a staircase leading down deep into the rock of the island.
At the very bottom was a room filled with tables marked with ash and blood, gruesome tools hanging from the walls ready to serve a foul purpose. Corpses sat atop those butcher blocks in various stages of disassembly, but one laid conspicuously empty. One that Gareth remembered laying the body of that strange cultivator upon. Scattered across the floor at its foot were shards of pottery, holding a faint echo of the contents they once held. And what had started as a warning chime had turned into a mournful peal.
Just what could possess a cultivator to do such a thing?
Gareth was starting to realise that his question had already provided an answer.
On a small outcropping hidden away from the rest of the Sect, I told my story. For a few brief moments, I allowed myself to return to the glory days of first arriving at the Sect, to the initial insults I'd received and the promise I'd made to ascend to Heaven, no matter what came. I spoke of short-lived allies and bitter rivals, of a race to earn some worth in the Sect, to prove myself the best of the Outer Disciples using every last measure of grit and perseverance to reach the top.
I spoke of a dream that came crashing down. I talked about how those first six months had only served to sharpen the pain of the next thirty, bare survival made all the more sour in comparison to the life I'd had. And, at the very end of that painful drudgery, I explained how nothing more than a momentary brush against my betters had led to the end of that sad existence.
I awaited judgement.
Death clicked her tongue. "Sounds real tough, Ryan."
I slumped forward, hands braced against the mist-soaked grass. "Couldn't you at least do me the honour of treating my life with the smallest measure of respect?"
"Nah," Death flippantly replied, scratching her chin against the top of her scythe that leaned against her shoulder as she gazed off over the landscape beneath the falls. "Honestly, not sure what there is to respect. Do you know how many hundreds of thousands of young cultivators I've seen who were cruelly killed before their time by their seniors? If I had a yuan…"
"And that's it, then?" I pushed myself off the ground, staring at Death in disbelief. "This is barely a novelty to you, but weren't you the one who'd demanded to know everything about my life?"
Death shrugged. "I mean, I was hoping you'd reveal that you had some special heritage, or perhaps that you'd been granted a blessing of some kind from a spirit. But you're nothing special."
"Nothing special!?" I gestured towards myself. "Then how do you explain me still being alive, huh?"
Death harrumphed, still refusing to look in my direction. "The matters of Life and Death are none of your business, mortal."
None of my business!? I stepped forward and leaned into Death's view, hand braced on the bench she sat on as I glared at her over the top of her scythe. "I have died twice. It is absolutely my business. And if not respect then at the least treat me with the same straightforwardness that I've offered to you."
Death returned my glare with one of her own, slowly rising to her feet and forcing me to move with her as she did, her scythe now in her hand. "Oh? You'd make demands of Death? And what right do you think you have to my knowledge, Outer Disciple Ryan? What rights do you have to the mysteries of Death? To the fate of all cultivators?"
I firmly refused all her assumptions. "I don't care about any of that. Tell me, why-" I weaved my arm around the scythe, finger pointed firmly at her in accusation, "-do you look like a farm girl?"
Death choked, her breath caught in her throat. "That's what you care about!?"
"It's the only thing that doesn't make sense," I countered. "This entire situation can be traced back to that!" It just didn't make sense for such a pretty girl to be Death itself!
Death reeled back, retreating from my superb offensive manoeuvre. "I-I told you to stop that!"
"Then answer the damn question!"
"Fuck off!" Death began her counter attack, pushing me backwards with the haft of the scythe. "Seriously, what's wrong with you!?"
So many things are wrong with me. Even before I'd had my chest caved in by some noble. You certainly don't reach the Second Step in six months by being normal. But two and a half years of bare survival had only pushed me beyond what most cultivators would consider as merely 'driven'. I let her shove me a few steps back, but I only used that as an opportunity to cross my arms and look down at her. "I'm not hearing an answer."
Death watched me for a few moments, holding the scythe between us as if it was some sort of shield. But as my calm stare continued she sighed, letting the scythe drop to her side even as she wiped at her face with the other hand. "Gods…" she muttered quietly, before returning my look. "Because I am."
It took me a moment to connect her words to my own from earlier. "You're actually a farm girl. So you're…not the real Death?"
"Real as they come." She glanced down towards the scythe, tapping its base against the ground. "But I got the job from someone else. I think they'd be more what you expect."
In my mind, I could already see the figure; some black-robed individual towering over me, their scythe looming with a deadly promise, their head shrouded in darkness. And then I thought of this Death, standing in front of them with a job application in hand. The questions in my head multiplied. "...How did that happen? Did they just give you the scythe? Did they say they'd ever be back for it?"
"As for the how, I just happened to be in the wrong place at the right time," Death ran her finger along the blade. "And yeah, they did. Said they'd be right back after they milked the cows."
I glanced out to the world below, where the seven great rivers wound their way out towards the horizon. "Uh, out of curiosity, how long ago was that?"
She shot me a withering look. "A while. Any more questions?"
"Well, I mean," I tried my best to chuckle. "It's just, if I'm the first person to see you, am I meant to, what, take over? Is that what I'm meant to do?" Is that my purpose in death, now that my life is over?
Death's grip tightened on the scythe. "Every last living being on this planet will die, and the world itself will shatter, before I ever give this to a cultivator." She spat the word out like it was a curse, before glaring at me once more. "Do you even know what a cultivator does?"
My answer was immediate. "They challenge the Heavens."
"And what do they do on the way there?" She prompted me, gesturing out to the world, the razor curve of her implement tracing its way along where the sky met the earth. "Their gaze is so focused on what's above them, that they don't care a bit for what they trample over on the way there. Do you think I was being hyperbolic when I said how many hundreds of thousands of wannabes I've seen crushed by their seniors? How even that pales compared to the hundreds of millions I've watched, slaughtered like ants?"
The scythe cut down, as if to bisect the lands before us. "They take whatever they want. They do whatever they please. They think that their might makes right. But it doesn't matter how powerful they get, or how many more people they can kill: they will always be the absolute scum of the earth."
My eyes didn't once leave Death, watching the girl as she glared out furiously over the world, her blade looming over it. I could feel the truth in her words, in each exhale hissed out between gritted teeth. No matter how common her appearance was, or that she'd admitted to me that she'd come from a background just as low as my own, I could feel the weight of the role upon her shoulders, and how even the smallest fragment of that could force me to my knees.
"And those cultivators," I began, afraid of the question I was about to ask, "what happens to them when they die?"
Death's response was to laugh. It wasn't a pleasant thing, empty of any joy and filled with bitterness instead. When she finally turned to look at me, it was without a hint of that bloody rage she'd had just a moment ago, instead filled with a bone-deep grief and hopelessness that I couldn't stand to see.
"I don't know."
A few seconds passed, my tongue working in my mouth but unable to make a single sound. What?
Death just laughed again. "I don't know! Out of every single soul I've delivered to the cycle, I've never once had to deliver a real cultivator's! Of course, if you're young enough or weak enough, like you, then perhaps there's a chance that I can be pulled to the moment of your death to deliver you on to your next life…but no more than that. At some point, a cultivator is beyond my reach."
"But- no, hang on, just because a cultivator is immortal at the Third Step doesn't mean they can't be killed!" I don't know why I argued with Death, but the idea seemed- was- preposterous. "I've literally been up to my elbows inside their corpses!"
More than that- I'd watched as the bodies of unfortunate Disciples who'd been killed on excursions beyond the sect had been carted in. I'd seen just how empty their eyes were, their spirits having clearly departed to leave behind nothing but their corporeal shell.
"Just because they were killed doesn't mean they die," Death insisted, "and they're challenging the Heavens, aren't they? Perhaps the Heavens claim them in turn, as recompense for daring to defy them."
What do you mean, perhaps? "That's just a guess!" I replied incredulously.
Death snorted. "Like you can do any better?"
"I can do better than saying the Gods did it!"
"Then," her eyes narrowed, "prove it!"
I froze. Then, glacially, I lowered my eyes down to the scythe that was now pointed in my direction. I lifted my eyes up again, into Death's own. "What, exactly, do you mean by that?"
Death's eyes widened, and the scythe pulled up sharply, well away from my own body as she lifted out her free hand to wave at me in denial. "No! No no no! That's not what I meant!" She took a few moments to steady herself against her scythe, the blade looming above her head as she took a few deep breaths. She slowly collected herself, her face twisting in thought for a moment before settling on a serious expression that she directed my way. "I'm not going to kill you. But you promised me back there that you'd do anything I wanted in return for your life, right? So your life is mine to do with what I please!" The scythe came down again, the haft thumping against the ground as the girl stepped forward, nodding imperiously as if assured by her own decision. "So I want you to help me figure out why."
Another step. "I want you to help me figure out what they've done to put themselves beyond my reach."
Another step, now within reach. Her expression began to lose its impassiveness as anger began to sharpen her gaze. "I want you to figure out how I can stop them."
With one more step, she now forced me to pull back ever so slightly, only to halt me in my tracks as her free hand reached out to grab at my robes. I was forced to lean down to her height as she matched my gaze. "And I want you to figure out," Death said, biting out the furious words, "what it takes for these bastards to die!"
Unable to move with her grip upon me, forced to stare into her eyes as she made her deadly purpose known, there was nothing but a single thought in my mind. Beautiful.
The image shattered as the girl almost tripped backwards, fumbling with her scythe for a moment before catching it and glowering at me, even as her face slowly turned red. "I told you to stop that!"
"I can't help it!"
"Then start helping it!" She retorted. "Now focus! You cultivators have to know why you're able to avoid me. You mentioned the Third Step, right? How does it work?"
"I don't know," I admitted. "It's beyond my advancement. And it's hardly like they just have it out in the open for anyone to read."
But I could already see the parted waters of the Tzangtze in my mind, and feel the shadow loom over me. I could feel the stacks of scrolls surrounding me, trailing off into the halls that stretched for miles. And presiding over it all…
