One step.
A
ring that echoed on the wind, the sound resonating ever so softly with the cool stone floor.
In the darkness there is only the quiet echos of feet and metallic blood marking their progress to the source of Qi-rich air, deep beneath the desert sands.
Why was she here? The young woman wondered. It would have been simplicity itself to await the bandits return, and then betray him during the negotiations. If it were successful, she would have been healed. If the gambit had failed, then death would have been swift, rather than this aching and distracting pain that echoed deep within the core of her being.
What was she doing? As a young girl, she had sought to pursue new and greater stories. Reliving the glory of her esteemed Ancestors. Succeeding where all had fallen short. The Myia were a storied branch of the Golden Devils, their history extending far into the past, but their defining feature, their true unique quality, did not appear until long after the Golden Devil Clan had been driven from their place of glory. Some part of her had wished for that glory, had foolishly believed that it could have been
her.
Where was she going? This young cultivator, only on the 4th Heavenstage, was marching blindly through the deep places in the world, only trusting in the sounds and faint echoes of the flowing wind to guide her. An attunement with the sound carried by air, gifted by the body who's essence she left drop by drop, drip by drip as she stumbled forward. There was no more faith in her skill. No more disillusion of the lofty fantasy that was due to her, after all the suffering her family had endured.
How was this all going to end?
Aretaphila Myia could only ask herself that, musings her only distraction from the pain and drudgery. She had no more illusions that she was some destined scion of the Golden Devils, on course to revive their fortunes after millennia at the heel of the self-righteous heavenly powers. She had seen that child, on that first day. The short girl was something else, a true genius that the Clan had sought, where the Bronze Blood was thickest. That was not her destiny, as Aretaphila's visions of the future narrowed to a single step in the darkness, guided by the sounds carried by an errant breeze in the deep places beneath the earth.
As she continued to stumble forward blindly, Aretaphila could only see her dreams fall apart and shatter, driven from the pain and sorrow and terror of being caught deep underground. Forced to confront the reality that she had not been ready for this, the Miya scion knew that there was a final question to ask, but one that she was not quite ready to answer.
So, thoughtlessly, staggeringly, one foot stepped forward into the darkness.
Each shuffle accompanied by a quiet ringing as blood drip-drip-dripped unto the cool stone in this place deep beneath the earth.
In those dark places, where one's thoughts are their only companion, pain of death clashed with the agonies of cultivation, giving birth to those dark thoughts that await us all in the shadows where we wait alone in the twilight between sleeping and wakefulness.
---
Why.
Why.
Why. wHY? The word rings within her being, an aberrant echo that resonates and distracts, a Dao-question that swirls endlessly within as the life's blood is pushed out slowly yet surely. For an immeasurable and yet all too short amount of time Aretaphila Myia continues on her single minded road, applying the most reliable methodology of all to traverse her path shrouded in darkness. The echoing questions are halted.
A new stimulus. Lacing the feeling of Qi, the air now carries a dampness that is not born of the humid musk of fungi or other things which call the deep places home. The scent of fresh water, pungent and crisp in a way little else could be, and for a moment Aretaphila's heart quickens, and she attempts to rush. Yet the tunnels are still deathly quiet, and enough of Aretaphila's waking mind remains to know that as she strides forward, so too does the interval between the soft rings of her life's blood shorten. The shorter woman pauses, her self asserting control and rising to the surface once more. Rigid stubbornness and will set their feet down, and the peals of panic quieten and subside, leaving the Golden Devil girl calm once more.
Time moves more slowly now that she is aware of it.
But whether slower or faster, time moves past all the same, and it is with the certainty of a goal to strive for, direction long sought now found, that Aretaphila continues stepping forward. One foot forward. Then the next. Repeat once, twice, five times, a hundred, a thousand as the scent of crisp, clean water fills Aretaphila's nostrils ever more strongly, marking definite progress until eventually the monotony of darkness is broken by a faint cerulean glow finally defining the narrow hall in which she had hollowed.
A wide stone hall, immaculately carved and every inch of it inscribed with immaculately carved symbols and runes. Aretaphila's eyes adjust, and she begins to recognize her surroundings for what they were:
Within this hall, no, the
hall itself was an impossibly intricate Array, resembling those that the Clan itself leaned on heavily to maximize the output of the Spirit Stones which they relied so heavily upon. Amplification, reproduction, distribution all in one. Aretaphila was no prodigy of the Array, but the faint echoes upon the breeze spoke of days when those characters burned ever so brightly, taking the strands of Qi in the air and magnifying them exponentially. The Suan La Tang Temple had been an ancient treasure once, a place to secure and safeguard a fraction of the bounty that had existed within the Organ Meat Desert before the arrival of the Chef, and the death of the Turtle upon who's corpse now all lived their lives. Qi-laced air originally only capable of supporting up to Second Heavenstage Cultivators would be amplified and driven outward, enriching and enabling up through the 9th Heavenstage. A sanctuary meant to safeguard and elevate anyone who had found those place to the ranks of the Foundation Building Stage, so long as they proved lucky enough to survive tribulation.
Yet those ancient scripts, the hard won legacy of Cultivators thousands of years past was now inactive. Their lights shut off by unknown means, and the girl could easily guess as to why.
The Heaven's would never countenance a resource of this magnitude existing where the Golden Devils could get their hands upon it. Now, a great masterwork had been reduced to near uselessness. Invalidated, just as another way to spite those who held true to
real justice, not the as-convenient thing which the barbarous Righteous Sects adhered to only when it suited them.
Another reminder unfairness which none saw fit to do anything about. Accepted quietly, rather than raged against as it deserved.
Aretaphila growled, and slowly dragged her weary body towards the cerulean light ahead.
---
A massive grotto lay at the end of the tunnel.
Before the girl lay a huge underground lake, it's clear waters glowing with the light of qi emanating from it as it flowed ever so slowly, it's radiance reflecting off the countless crystals growing from the vault high above her head. Aretaphila approached the liquid, her throat suddenly protesting it's dryness, however many hours it had been finally taking it's toll on the young woman. On instinct more than anything else, the Myia scion stumbled towards the waters edge, where she saw the water deform and shift, a current carrying it along hidden eddies and rivers beneath the stone. For a moment, the young woman considered trying to follow, but there was previous little strength to spare.
Here, at least, the qi was thicker, far moreso than the air which she was normally exposed to. She would make her stand here.
Aretaphila paced around the chamber, a relatively small thing that her eyes judged to be a mere 5 li from one end to the other, in search of place where she could hide herself and rest. For several hours the young woman paces around, the light cast by the qi-emitting pool illuminating the jutting formations of stone. But her eyes can find no easy place to hide herself. That is when she decides to stop using her eyes.
In the darkness, what had guided her was not something so base as sight, but the sound of the breeze.
There is risk to using more advanced methods, of course, but to remain unhidden was an even more dangerous prospect.
Strangely, in that moment, Aretaphila's mind travels to the one word which the Grand Elder had granted her, so many years ago-
Scream.
Aretaphila still had not understood the meaning behind the word, why it was given to her. No great insight had come, but...As a Myia, the young woman had thought herself beyond such weakness. Why scream? She wasn't scared. She wouldn't let pain stop her. She'd be
strong...Until she wasn't. Not anymore. That illusion had fallen away.
So why not scream? What was there to lose now, other than her life?
A shrill note rings out, carrying frustration and worry, panic and fear and the terror of death. Pleading for safe haven amongst the stones. Aretaphila Myia waits quietly, her eyes closed as she desperately prays for a reply to her plea. The sound echoes, returns to it's origin, and the Demonic Tune users eyes snap open as her prayers are answered. Hidden within the stone, a thin airhole that carried fresh air to a pocket hidden beneath the stone, only accessible to those with arts of the earth, or could find the hidden entrance deep beneath the water.
But sound carries through water exceptionally well, and within moments Aretaphila knew where to go. How to drop herself into the water so that her weighted, bronze physique would not cause her to drown before finding her way to salvation. She grimaced, then, a hand pressed forcefully against the wound in her side as the Golden Devil moved take position for her dive.
---
As damp, golden hair breaches the water, now slightly stained, Aretaphila Myia is greeted by the heart of the Suan La Tang Temple - a vein of Spirit Stones, thick and dense across a space that was only a half a Li wide, nine pillars glittering with arrays that drew in ambient qi and channeled it into channels which sank into the stone walls and floor beneath them. None of them appeared to be greater than low-grade spirit stones, but that was enough. A hidden cache of spirit stones surged qi into the great pool above, where the water evaporated and filled the air, before being amplified by the arrays that filled the temple and carried through its channels to enrich and empower those who lived within.
The Qi here would be enough to keep Aretaphila alive for long enough that her injuries could recover naturally, she hoped.
Blood dripped onto the floor, producing a now familiar
ring, but as the Myia took another step she was struck by something odd.
Another
ring, one that was neither echo nor imagination, that resonated within her Physique. The Clear Summer's Bell recognized something similar to itself, and thusly did Aretaphila march deeper into the hidden chamber deep beneath the earth. Some final reserve of strength fueling her, even as the exhaustion of blood loss, the pain of her wounds and cultivation, the exertion of climbing up from the depths of the grotto to enter the chamber. All of these built up and dragged down her limbs, but Aretaphila glared forward in the Qi-bright light.
What lay at the rear of the chamber was a simple dais, raised up and filled with script the young woman did not recognize. Yet upon it was something far too obvious;
A beautiful bronze
Zhong, crafted as if from an uncountable number of metallic fish scales. Around it, ambient Qi clung like a bright fog. Hesitantly, Aretaphila reached out to it, one eye closed in wariness. Her hand clasped the instrument, and a powerful
ring echoed through her Physique, batting back the pain and causing the ambient Qi near her to brighten temporarily.
But it was only for a moment, and the pain returned.
"No helping it, then." The Golden Devil muttered with a wry grin, "Guess I'll be in your care."
So Aretaphila did sit down, hidden deep beneaths the depths of the sand and filth, and stubbornly fall asleep. The first to look upon the hidden Zhong of Deep Waters for the first time in countless millennia.
A.N.: Third part of this omake series done. Gonna go to sleep in a bit. @occipitallobe I'd like to make this a Life Saving Treasure if at all possible! With the Trials and that once-every-six-turns Secret Realm opening up I feel like she'll need it!
