It was tempting, so tempting to simply rush off down into the sewers herself, to phase out of this room, fly to the nearest cistern location and dive into the thick of things. But that wasn't the path she had chosen, was it.
Freedom Concept advances to II
Choosing to be bound for the sake of others does not dull Freedom's edge
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a shape move, saw felt qi flicker. She flicked her wrist, and a diamond snare, claimed by possession from a son of the Thunder Palace expanded, glittering in the air as it wrapped Yan Shenyi. Who fell mid lunge to the floor with the crack of a face meeting floor.
"Did you really believe that would work," she asked absently, listening and thinking as Sixiang relayed communications to her, the Ministry was demanding more detailed answers to what was going on, they were moving agents to the buildings at the four sites, evacuating them of people, but that wasn't enough, if what she suspected was true.
She needed them to see that. And for that she had to do more than give terse reports. She needed to convince them.
"Was worth the attempt," Yan Shenyi grunted, looking mournfully at the transport circle.
She could understand it. For all that she had saved him, he was still a dead man. A quick and merciful execution was the kindest path remaining. That was the path he had chosen for himself.
"What did he promise you?" Ling Qi asked, grasping the knotted diamond wire that held him and hauling the man off the ground, to dangle from her hand like an awkward and traitorous parcel. There was some actual benefit to her height it seemed.
"Power, position, what else could matter," he said darkly as she mountain the stairs. "That thing was supposed to be a cultivation aid."
"I bet it was," Ling Qi. "But how does betraying the Empire get you position exactly?"
"What can an easy talent like you understand. The empire has always cheated the Yan family, always dangled the rewards we deserve just out of reach. That little bastard said they needed human governers, go-betweens," he said sourly. No regret in him, much to her disgust, just spite for the one who betrayed him.
She took a little pleasure in it as she briefly took a skipping step across the border of dream to bypass the security door, appearing in the tearoom above, and he wretched on the carpet. A glance at the door saw it bang open on a hrash breeze revealing a hall populated by servers and curious guests peering out no doubt sensing her unrestrained qi, and the frost it spread across the floor.
Apparently one look at her expression had them pulling their heads back in and slamming the doors, the servers withdrawing to the walls to avoid her path. She glanced at one, a young man holding a tea tray to his chest. "You should inform your employer that the Ministry of Law will be along to investigate
unsanctioned construction. Any attempt to hide or destroy what I have found will go very poorly for them."
He visibly swallowed, nodding his head frantically as the doors in her path burst open in tandem and Ling Qi flew out, drawing a high pitched scream from Yan Shenyi at the acceleration. People scattered away from the front of the building as she flew out, rising sharply into the sky.
"I don't understand why you think the underground folk are going to win. You must know the empire is stronger," Ling Qi said conversationally, a pulse of pressure pressing down on her prisoner internally she tasked Sixiang with guiding her to Pan Xi and the Ministry teams communication base.
"The- I- Everyone knows things will collapse here the second that monster disappears and ascends. The clans will war, the center will fall," he wailed, squirming in the grasp of the snare, eyes bugged out as she rose over the rooftops. "The Empress has a weak, soft way, and can't reign in the provinces! If-if everything is going to break, why not look out for yourself!"
Like a starving child in the cold, without even that much of a reason.
There was a quiet boom as Ling Qi landed, dust kicking up in a circle as she landed within the cleared square Sixiang's directions had brought her too. Before her the elderly Pan Xi's robes flapped in the breeze, and his expression was neutral.
"Lady Ling has acquired the suspect," he said. "Please tell me what this escalation is about."
Ling Qi fought down the urge to be impatient, instead dumping Yan Shenyi on the ground before him with a thump. "This man was conspiring to trigger an attack which would have appeared to be Twilight Cult attack on the city. I removed the primary triggering device but the attack assets are still in the sewers."
His eyes widened marginally as he studied her, shooting a look to nearby aids. "Conspiring with who precisely, who would dare bring the Ministry of Integrity down upon themselves like this? No mere criminal or intriguing noble would be so foolish."
"The Empire has more enemies just the Cloud Tribes these days Detective," Ling Qi replied. "There are genuine traitors in our midst. This man's cousin is not dead. There are barbarians beneath your city."
Crude words, but she needed the visceral reaction they would invoke.
The old man blinked, a horrified look passing over his face as he made the connections, before turning dubious. "Lady Ling that is a truly incredible claim…"
"And not one I would make lightly," Ling Qi stressed. Giving the man at her feet a kick. "Interrogate this one for details if you must, but we need to clear the sewers
now. Alert the district Minister, alert Viscount Xu. This is no longer a small matter."
He still looked somewhat unsure, and so Ling Qi grimaced. She had one more card to play here, and she had to hope the ith'ia were not simply withdrawing and destroying evidence of their presence. "Detective Pan Xi, I will stake the honor of the Cai on this, your city is coming under attack."
As a retainer, invoking her liege like this was a twin edged sword. If she proved to be wrong, it would be a stain on the Cai, it would wreck Renxiang's credibility and most people would understand that it would be ruinous for Ling Qi personally to speak these words and be wrong or lying.
The elderly man swallowed heavily, and those around them other Ministry agents, who she had very much not been hiding their conversation from. "If it is as you say, we must take preliminary action, but this one must ask that you carry this message directly to the Minister, your words will carry much more weight if spoken yourself."
Ling Qi grimaced, frustrated but understanding. "Can you at least mobilize the lower ranks to begin a sweep?"
"This I will do, and descend myself if need be," Pan Xi said, bowing. "I will inform the Minister to expect you and the prisoner. I am sure that he will understand after ripping the details from this traitor's head himself and hearing your words."
On the ground Yan Shenyi squeezed his eyes shut and wept.
"Fine, let's proceed as quickly as possible."
***
The District Minister had been dubious as well of course. Something like this would not happen here after all, but with prompting to engage his own arts of interrogation on Yan Shenyi and her promise that this was not merely delusion or the artifice of false memory, staking her own reputation on the matter. It was enough.
Of course, that was when the first indication of danger had poured in from a frantic officer. The team overseeing Yan Shenyi's house reported something like a black fog beginning to leak from the ground, toxic and poisonous. Pan Xi's efforts had already seen the streets around evacuated, so the damage came mainly from rotting wood and crumbling stone.
She'd barely spared a word for the Minister after that, moving to the front. But she heard through the communication talisman going up the general alarm being raised. The Ministry mobilizing, the guard activating. All cultivators, local, traveling or otherwise were called upon now in the defense of the city.
She'd arrived to a sinkhole in the street where Yan Shenyi's house had been, toxic vapors spilled in every direction, contained by a cordon of cultivators, a wall of purifying stone and gusting winds that kept the boiling caldera of poison air inside.
With the Ministers writ, and her own rank, she gathered the most combat capable of the defenders, and cloaking them in her own Mist and still dark qi, they descended into the pit.
Among the crumbled and broken passages of the partially collapsed sewers, they found sights familiar to Ling Qi the bioluminescent growths of the underground swelling with hostile life, but they died just as swiftly, growing and dying in in an artificial rapid cycle, unleashing the rotten vapor which was flooding out.
And then there were the rats. Well rats and other vermin, normal creatures swelling and growing and dying with deathly qi, cancerous and twisted, boiling out of the tunnels.
Ling Qi's toes touched down on the toxic swamp the rotted pipes had made, and sang, she sang her song of winter, and lonely death, the hoarfrost Caress. For even the cold was kinder than this. Ice rippled out, oily vapor turning into dull purple and green and grey slush, squealing maddened beasts froze and died and alien feelers and fungal caps died with them turning everything in the bottom of the crater and the pipes immediately beyond to silent and sterile garden of crystal ice.
Five sets of feet dropped into the filthy snow around her in a series of crunches, and she glanced at the men and women with her out of the corner of her eye. Three Ministry Officers, Two of the city guard. One third realm from each, old veterans of middling stage and three others in the early steps of the third realm. As the poison dispersed, more would follow.
"This will aid the ones above greatly Lady Ling," said one, an iron haired man with a gruff voice and an ugly scar that turned his expression into a permanent snarl. His uniform was scuffed and bloody, he'd been one of the first to respond when the poison and broken beasts had begun to emerge.
"I detect no movement out to fifty meters. "Lady Ling, how far does your protection extend?" Spoke another, a short, blocky woman with her hair in a tight bun. She'd been overseeing the Minister's office, his secretary.
"It goes as far as my Mist does," Ling Qi said. She was not restraining herself at all, her mist clashed and rolled over the dissipating toxic, clean and silver grey, shadows formed in it, sharp eyed watchmen, crouching beasts with hackles raised, a low and insistent beat could be felt in the bones. "Some hundred meters I can guarantee safety and be there immediately."
"We fan out then," said another, a guard uniformed woman. "If you approve?"
"Yes," Ling Qi agreed. "Our target is the cistern, clear all approaches for ambushers then press the source."
"Understood."
Five voices echoed, and they descended into the dark.
