Chapter [B5] 20 — What Must Be Done

Chapter [B5] 20 — What Must Be Done

Liuxiang stared at Elder Tian Feng. “There must be some way,” she asked, but her voice sounded blank even to herself. “You see the future. Is there any way to help him?”

They stood in a side chamber off the main cavern which Lu Jie’s master used as his residence, back in the day, before the war had changed everything. The chamber’s walls curved inward and were lined with shallow shelves carved directly into the stone. A low brazier burned with pale pills that released a steady heat without smoke. The smell of medicinal herbs sat heavy in the air, mixed with the sharper scent of blood from bandages that should have been changed an hour ago.

Elder Tian Feng had taken the corner under a lantern that never sputtered. The lantern’s glass was clear and showed the steady, condensed glow inside.

He looked smaller than usual because he had set aside his outer robe and left only the lined inner layer. His hair, always secured with a dark pin, was fastened without a single stray. The lines around his eyes had grown deeper in the last few months. Even so, his gaze was steady, and when he breathed, the air around him gathered some Chi.

Elder Tian Feng already knew. “None,” he said. “Unless you can convince the Divine Beast to help, there is no way to replace or even reduce his sacrifice.”

His tone held no emotion, no attempt to soften the words. The words were clean and left no room to place a hopeful interpretation. The lantern’s light made the edges of his jaw sharp. He didn’t lower his eyes after he spoke. He held her gaze so she would understand he believed what he had said and wasn’t hiding a more tolerable possibility.

That was all Liuxiang needed to hear. Her body moved before her thoughts could spread and multiply. Her feet carried her directly into the tunnels.

—

I sighed, feeling more and more antsy.

I was more and more tempted at the prospect of flying up and waiting with Zhang, perhaps staring at him judgmentally, when I saw Elder Tian Feng walking toward me. I straightened. He actually looked mildly concerned; immensely unusual, for the always composed elder.

“I think Liuxiang will do something very reckless right now unless you stop her.”

The sentence was direct and didn’t come with the slightest trace of accusation.

I blinked. “Where is she?”

“The divine tree,” he said.

—

This is a bad idea, Liuxiang. Zhi Zhu tried to persuade her, but she just ignored the spider spirit, much to its frustration.

Liuxiang kept to the right-hand paths where the supports were strongest. She shifted her weight easily, never scraping a boot tip, never brushing a shoulder against the wall where a carved seal had been set.

The tunnels ran cold, as usual. The air blew from deep chambers where the heat never settled. The stone underfoot changed every few paces, the older parts smoothed by decades of traffic, the newer parts rough with tool marks and patches where repairs had set unevenly.

She didn’t reach for her Chi until the first demon beast slithered up from a drain channel and opened a mouth full of uneven teeth.

Even then, Liuxiang did not slow. She drew her Chi in a short, controlled line and cut the head as it lunged, the blade passing through cartilage and gristle. Black-red fluid splashed her boot but slid off, rejected by the thin sheath of Chi she had pulled around herself at the first sign of movement.

Two more came at the second junction. These had grown fur along their backs that hid small barbs. She didn’t let them close. She extended her left hand, pushed a tight, straight thrust of Chi down the path, and pinned them against the opposite wall long enough to cross and cut both throats with two spare motions. Their claws scraped stone twice and then fell quiet. She paused to listen for the change in sound that signaled a larger pack. None came. She moved on.

When she surfaced, she let herself freeze, for just a second.

The divine tree rose from a circular basin cut into the cavern floor. Its roots braided through stone and disappeared into black water that no longer reflected steadily. The trunk was broad enough for fifty people to stand hand to hand around it.

The bark had once been smooth, a single sheet of pale gold. Now it showed long, dry vertical lines. Its leaves had thinned, and the ones that remained had lost their full hue. They still moved in air that didn’t stir because even in its weakened state the tree breathed.

Liuxiang couldn’t help but have her breath taken away every time she saw this sight.

But today wasn’t a day to stop and count leaves.

She set her attention on the adjoining chamber, separated by a curtain of light that had been solid once and now flickered at the right edge. Beyond that curtain the Demon God was sealed. She couldn’t see him, but she felt the steady pull, a consistent drain like spiritual gravity. ṛάΝȫ𝔟Ës

“As long as I reach there… if I provoke him… Or try for the Divine Beasts or the underworld…” She remembered the way her grandmother’s fingers had pressed the rim of her own cup when she had said that the tree touched the Divine Beasts and the underworld in a direct line nothing could reproduce.

Please don’t, Zhi Zhu spoke helplessly, only to be ignored once more.

“Yes, if I can use the divine tree, perhaps I can communicate with the Divine Beasts, even in their corrupted states. Do something, anything…”

A pressure closed around her forearm an instant before she would have stepped into the inner ring of seals that nobody should enter. The hand was warm, gentle but insistent. She turned.

Lu Jie looked at her forearm, then up at her face, his expression stern.

—

“What were you trying to do?” I demanded.

Liuxiang stood in front of me, too close to the line. Her posture told me enough before she spoke. Her free hand had been lifted a fraction, the fingers spread the way she did when she prepared to send a controlled pulse forward. Her jaw was set. Her eyes were fixed on the trunk and then flicked past it. The muscles in her neck worked once when she swallowed.

“As long as I can contact the Divine Beast, with their help—” She rushed to get the words out before I could cut them off. She looked at me fully and I could see the tightness at the corners of her mouth.

I shook my head. “The four Divine Beasts have been corrupted, Liuxiang. I’ve told you that already. I can no longer sense their own spirits. They’ve been taken over by the Demon God, subsumed as part of its foundational power.”

I watched her reaction closely. Her shoulders shifted, then stilled. The breath she took was shallow. Liuxiang opened her mouth, then closed it. “But there must be some way—if we use the divine tree to try and contact the underworld, or—”

“Liuxiang,” I began. I stepped once to my left so the line of my body put a barrier between her and the inner ring without crowding her. “Do you know how reckless that is? What if you were to die trying to tamper with it?”

“Then it would be worth it.” Liuxiang spoke defiantly, with the dense heat of determination. “Dying for my first friend would be worth it if there’s any chance of helping him. Do you not understand that? You are not the only one who can sacrifice yourself for others.”

“But it’s not just you. Messing with the divine tree in its current condition could hasten the Demon God’s arrival. What would happen if your presence were to break the seal and it escaped when I wasn’t here to stop it?I opened my mouth, then closed it again, unsure what to say.

There were answers I could have given, and none of them would have been fair. My chest tightened, and the old ache in my ribs pressed against bone. I took a breath through my nose and let it out slowly, trying to set my face in a shape that did not provoke her further.

And then Twilight floated from the divine tree, twinkling as she circled us, breaking any and all tension as my shoulders relaxed. She completed one loop around the three of us, her path precise and even, and then stopped at face height in front of me.

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I thought she would reprimand Liuxiang, but instead she turned toward me.

“Master, you should not delay things any longer.”

“What?” I blinked.

Her tone wasn’t the playful cadence she normally used. There was something authoritative about her tone and appearance. Authority that reminded me of Ki herself. “You must fight the Demon God as soon as possible.”

“Why?” I asked, looking at Twilight breathlessly.

“The longer Master delays, the more Chi is absorbed from the atmosphere and the weaker your allies will be. Even now the seal is weakening. It will hold for a few more months, yes, but if Master goes to battle now, we can use the seal to injure the Demon God, and along with whatever the master has prepared, we can deal with him better than if we wait till he breaks free.”

“It’ll take time to prepare,” I finally spoke, after a few seconds of processing what Twilight had said, and how that’d alter my plans.

“The sooner, the better,” Twilight said.

I could only nod.

—

I looked at everyone in the room, one by one. My eyes lingered particularly at Labby, who looked down guiltily when I met her gaze, and then Liuxiang, who refused to meet my eyes at all.

I didn’t know what I was expecting. Of course they’d try and do anything they could to help me, to prevent me from having to sacrifice myself, but…

To risk harming themselves… Particularly Liuxiang. At least Labby had some fragment of a plan. Liuxiang, on the other hand…

I understood why, of course. To Liuxiang, I was her first friend, and so it was fair that she felt so heartbroken. But I wanted them to live healthy, long lives, to take care of themselves, to take care of this village. Only that would make my sacrifice worth it, wouldn’t it?

I didn’t want to leave them alone, I wanted to stay and live alongside them, but I had no choice. And I knew that wouldn’t make it feel any better for the friends I’d be leaving behind.

I looked around at the room. The space felt oddly foreign, now. This was home, and still it felt like a place we were only borrowing for a few breaths. A sense of nostalgia lingered with a sense of anxiousness.

I looked at Labby and Zhang. The thin thread of worry in Labby’s eyes was easy to read. Zhang’s jaw was set, the tendons at his neck showing in a way they only did when he held too much back. Clearly, their attempt to seek the Lunar Court’s help had failed.

Granny Lang sat with her hands around her cup as if the heat should have reached her by now and hadn’t. My master had his palm on the table, fingers spread, fiddling with the map on the table idly.

“I love and value all of you. You are all my family. I do not want you to die. I do not want you to sacrifice yourselves for me.” I paused, taking a deep breath as I let the words linger. “I want you to stay safe. I want you to stay happy. I want you to take care of each other. Only that would make the sacrifice worth it.”

The words felt small after I spoke them. I meant every one, yet speaking them did not ease the tightness in the room. For a second there was no response; then it was Liuxiang who argued with me first.

“And I want you to stay happy, to stay safe, to not have to die. I will do my best to help my friend, to save my friend. You cannot expect me to stand by on the sidelines while you sacrifice yourself.”

She sat straight-backed, hands hidden inside her sleeves, knuckles probably pressed to her palms the way she did when keeping herself from shaking. The line of her mouth did not waver.

“The reason I’m okay with doing this myself is so that none of you have to suffer or die. If all of you get yourselves hurt, if you can’t move on—then all my sacrifice will do is—”

“But why do you have to be the one to sacrifice yourself, Master?” Labby interrupted. Her voice had that edged tremor she got right before her eyes overflowed. “Why is it always you who is in pain? Why can’t Labby help? Why are you always the one who has to hurt himself, sacrifice himself?”

At that, I was struck silent. I fidgeted, trying to come up with any response at all, before I looked towards Granny Lang and my master for assistance. Granny Lang, luckily, chose to speak up.

“He’s not doing this willingly. It is fate that has been forced upon him, and the more we fight against this, the more we make it heavy, the more he will hurt.”

Liuxiang’s eyes shifted to Granny Lang for a heartbeat and then away again. Liuxiang just looked down stubbornly, and I knew that no matter what I said, it wouldn’t really get through to her in this moment.

I thought about Matriarch Shie. Would it be better to ask for her assistance in this? Could she even get through to Liuxiang? The thought brought with it a string of other thoughts I did not have space to entertain right then. I looked at all of them.

“I am thinking of taking on the demon god soon.”

That got all of their attention, except for Liuxiang, who already knew about it. Labby’s head jerked, ears lifting. Zhang’s gaze focused blade-sharp. My master’s hand tightened on the table. Sheldon and Ash looked at me too, their bodies turning just the slightest more rigid.

“What?” the old man asked. “Didn’t you have months left?”

“I spoke with Twilight. She told me that the longer we take, the worse the situation will be, and the more I think about it, the more I agree with her. We should start war preparations now and get things done. There’s no point in stalling, we cannot win a war of attrition.”

A demon god did not need to eat, unlike us, and it constantly grew stronger using the Chi in the atmosphere in its efforts to break through the seal. We were already stagnating if not regressing. “The sooner we take down the demon god, the better.”

There was only silence to my words. What could they say in this uniquely messed-up situation?

I became aware of my heartbeat in a steady, annoying way. I made myself breathe slower until it matched the hum I could feel through the wall. My gaze drifted to Zhang, who looked particularly downcast, with an expression I’d only seen him don when he’d been lying in that bed, having given up on life.

He stood up, reflexively smoothing the front of his robe before he spoke. “We will have to get things ready. I assume we need all the soldiers ready and all the guns on standby?”

I nodded. “Yes, that would be ideal.”

“We’ll have to traverse the tunnels to the Divine Tree. I’ll take our most skilled soldiers for this. Once we start this war… There’ll be no turning back. When would you want to do this?”

“The sooner, the better. Ideally, within a week. I would like to surround the demon god, and with Yin making as many bombs as she can…” Yin perked up at her name, and I nodded in her direction. “Of course, I’ll bring her as many divine leaves as I can meanwhile, but with the bombs, weapons, and with our militia surrounding the demon god, we should be able to take down any of the army he spawns within the castle and also damage him using the seal and the bombs. The Divine Tree should also be able to shield us all, during the detonation of the bombs, and then I’ll face him, ending him.”

Zhang’s eyes moved as he ran the paths in his head: supply lines from the east storage to the southern gate, relay flags on the ridge, tunnel mouths, the places where guns would jam if the cold stayed like this, the speed at which we could grind more powder if everything was mobilized. He was already there, arranging people I hadn’t named yet.

Then he nodded. “I can get things ready.”

“We’ll take him down,” Granny Lang said, though whether that was for her reassurance or for ours, I did not know. She set her cup down and wiped an invisible ring of moisture off the table with her sleeve. It was an old sleeve with a burn mark near the cuff from the last time she’d jerked her hand back too slowly over a kiln. She wore it without care. She always did.

“I’ll meet with Lord Zhou Fang,” Zhang added. “Explain our situation, get his support. We’ll run two drills a day for the next three days. If the snow turns, we’ll keep them indoors and drill disassembly and assembly. We’ll test the leaves with Yin’s casings tomorrow morning. If they hold, we can… start by the fourth day.”

I gave a short nod, thinking through the plans I had left with the Divine Tree’s leaves. Any and all experimentation should not take longer than four days. Yes, that’d be fine.

Labby wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, then pressed her fists together. “Labby will help too! Labby can carry messages. Labby can test the new bombs with Yin. Labby can—”

The old man’s mouth tipped into a small, weary smile. “We know, Labby. You’ve always been doing a lot. Just don’t… forget to rest and eat.”

“I won’t,” Labby lied badly, nodding with the tips of her hair brushing her cheeks. The air around her had that faint crackle that never fully left now. She glanced at me again, and I could see the unspoken questions and emotions still lingering.

All of which boiled down to the same thing. Do you have to? Please tell me there’s another way.

I looked at everyone gathered in the room, then I took Liuxiang’s hand, seeing how her expression was still mixed.

Her fingers were cooler than mine. She didn’t try to pull away, only looked up at me with that same desperate pleading, as though holding herself back from grabbing me and never letting go.

“Zhang. I’ll be back in a second, and then we’ll go to the Lord together.” I then turned towards Liuxiang. “Come with me.”

We stepped out into the corridor first. Light from the courtyard fell across the tiles in long bars. Two disciples passed, talking in low voices about demons and rifles, each carrying a crate. Our city did not stop because my decision hurt the people closest to me. It moved. And that felt soothing, in a way I couldn’t explain.

We crossed the courtyard in silence. I hoped she’d speak, even just argue, but she didn’t, and I didn’t, and we arrived at Matriarch Shie’s residence.

I knocked on the door before entering, leaving Liuxiang outside. The house smelled of medicinal herbs baked into the grain of the wood, of clean water, a lot more alive and peaceful than it had been previously.

Matriarch Shie looked at me with a curious gaze. The lines at the corners of her eyes were deeper than they had been a few days ago, but there was a clarity in them now. She had a shawl over her shoulders and a pot of warm water at her bedside with a cup set upside down on its lid to keep the dust off. The window was open a hand’s width to let the air change, and the wind made the curtain lift and settle in an even rhythm.

“What brings you here, Lu Jie?” she asked.

I took a deep breath, and then words spilled out of me in an uncontrolled rush. I recounted what had happened and what Liuxiang’s reaction had been. I told her about the plan for this last week, about tunnels and leaves and bombs, about lines of men and women I could already see moving along the routes we had carved.

For a second, Matriarch Shie stared at me silently; then she sighed. “Well, that is only to be expected. Please, let me talk to her. Can you stand outside?”

I nodded, leaving the room, pulling the door open for Liuxiang. She didn’t even meet my gaze as she entered and I let the door close behind her.

I made myself breathe slow. In. Out.

As much as I struggled to do so, I emptied my head of all of my concerns, of all of my worries, of all of the guilt and pain, and simply stood silently, looking at the sky.

It felt right to do so.