“If that had been all it took to defeat you, I would have been disappointed,” Cha Ming said. He held out his hand, and his white domain shimmered with five colors. His alchemist’s flame, the coexistence of Grandmist and iridescent flame, appeared. He activated Dazzling Light of the Weeping Flame, and in it, he poured his joy, his pride, his satisfaction.
The flame grew. As it took from him, so it took from her. Cracks began to appear in Iridescent Torch’s haughty façade. Panic appeared in her eyes. Her legs trembled as she stood up from the ground, her wounds only half healed. He’d wiped away the last of her confidence.
“If you kill me, they’ll never forgive you,” Iridescent Torch warned.
“As I already told you, Iridescent Torch,” Cha Ming said, “to them, you’re already dead. The moment you abandoned your duty to your people to stalk me, you were no longer one of them. They have already judged you for your crimes. I am merely here for the sentencing.”
His flame grew brighter and larger under the constant influx of heaven-and-earth qi, and soon, it engulfed Iridescent Torch. Her own flames erupted as her appearance warped. She adopted her true form, that of a massive iridescent phoenix. She was flame incarnate, and his own flame struggled against her, not unlike that time when he’d faced off against Iridescent Virtue in an alchemist flame battle. But this time, he’d come prepared.
The flames wrestled back and forth, each one trying to smother the other, and unfortunately for her, he understood her flames, but she didn’t understand his. It soon became a one-sided battle, and before long, she began to bleed iridescent blood all over the ruined palace on the ninth floor of the empty city. No one remained in the city. Every man, woman, and child had been evacuated. She had stayed here in this corpse of a place to rob him, and it was that selfishness that would be her undoing.
It wasn’t long before she realized that there was no way she could win. Then, and only then did she try to flee. But it was too little too late. Iridescent smoke appeared all around her, but Cha Ming was quick on the draw. He summoned a demon-subduing formation and crushed her beneath his purple Demon-Subduing Pillar.
The Clear Sky Staff drank of her demonic essence. It feasted on her life. She barely filled a gap in its teeth. By the time the staff was finished, only a desiccated corpse remained. Her demon weapon and demon armor shattered, its bound demonic energy returning to the mountains. The rest of her corpse soon followed, leaving behind a few rings and scattered treasures. In her pride, she’d never sought to use them against him until it was too late.
Cha Ming picked up the items and scanned their contents. Most were useless to him. Pills for demons. Ingredients he couldn’t immediately utilize. The Censer of Iridescent Flight was still belching multicolored smoke. He inspected the treasure and realized that it was wasteful to use it for an individual. This was a treasure that could have protected hundreds of thousands of migrants. Yet she had kept it for herself in her greed.
“It’s done,” Cha Ming said, staring past the throne toward the crack in space he’d come from. “I hope the data I provided was educational. I’m leaving now.”
He left, not bothering with the stairs, hopping off the ninth floor of the abandoned city. He flew to the ground and broke into a run. He had three days before his duel. Three days to return to the city and help Huxian with Mi Fei’s rescue.
Huxian? Cha Ming said. I’m coming.
Then he took off, multicolored smoke obscuring his trail.
A large cloud of dust filled the air as Silver Fish and the badgers exited the intricate tunnel system beneath the mountain. The tunnel collapsed, burying the wild creatures that pursued them.
“We’re here,” Silver Fish said, taking a few seconds to catch his breath. “We survived. Barely.”
“I’m spent,” said Cleft Soil, the youngest of the two badgers who’d escaped with him. “Why don’t we rest a bit? Catch a bit of a breather?”
“Badgers don’t rest,” said Gray Stone, his voice filled with disdain for the younger generation. “Digging builds character. Back in my day—”
“Save it,” Silver Fish said. He pressed his hand to a tree and reached out through the link they had to the forest. Though he wasn’t skilled in wood like Clever Dusk, she had taught him to search for key signatures that indicated portal trees. “There.”
He ran to a tree that was half as wide as he was. There, he traced a doorway that opened partly into the tree and partly into empty air. No one would ever think to look for a doorway in a skinny tree. They entered the portal, quickly traversing hundreds of kilometers in an instant.
They emerged next to a fierce battle. They itched to join it, but Silver Fish moved over to the nearby inky well. He placed his hand on the waters, forging his own connection and using his senses as a half-step-investiture-realm demon. He saw not only from this well, but from all the inky wells remaining in the forest.
“Not good?” Gray Stone asked, noticing his frown.
“Not at all,” Silver Fish said. “We’ve lost a lot of ground. We’re actually not far from Stargazer City now.” He stood up and reoriented himself, sensing everything around him in a two-kilometer radius, then he expanded his general senses, sending his fused soul to an area ten times larger. “We need to go. Now.” He ran, and they ran after him, not questioning his orders after everything they’d been through.
“Lord, there’s a battle up ahead,” Gray Stone said. “Will we be fighting?”
“We’ll be entering the battlefield,” Silver Fish said. “I’ll fight. You stay behind and don’t get hurt.”
“We can fight plenty good,” Cleft Soil said indignantly, but cowered when Gray Stone growled.
“If it’s the Black Fish that says stay out of it, that means you’ll only get in the way,” Gray Stone said.
Silver Fish pushed ahead toward a struggling group of five demons that was holding off the main assault. They couldn’t see through inky wells like he could, so they didn’t know what they were up against. He saw the invisible threat that encircled them, hidden from their sight using patterns of artificial demonic ink. The inky patterns on their skin stood out like a sore thumb to him.
Silver Fish covered himself in a shifting half armor of ink and dove through the waters of the plain. He moved through the battle like a space-time demon, closing the gap between himself and the first assassin and garroting him with a tight string of summoned ink. Silverwing, the tempest of windy blades, turned around, stopping his sword bare millimeters away from Silver Fish’s chest. He looked to the dead assassin, and realization dawned on him.
“Assassin defense formation!” Silverwing yelled.
The change was immediate. He fought with sharp winds that tightened around them and formed a defensive perimeter. Gua pulled tight a massive bog that channeled poisonous water he’d mixed with water from the inky well. He controlled it in tandem with Miyue, who was no longer a flowing blue creature of water but an inked-up version of her former self. Together, they smashed through the human ranks, crushing middle, late, and peak cultivators.
“Detection!” Silverwing yelled, and Miyue and Gua immediately used their joint manifestation to fill the entire circle with murky water, revealing ten rune-gathering cultivators covered in inky-black markings. Mr. Mountain wielded his demon hammer and smashed two of them into a paste. Lei Jiang shot down from a massive gray cloud overhead, and when he landed, serpents of purple lightning burst out and incinerated the remaining assassins. What was left of the lightning didn’t make it to their tight group but halted when it reached a circle of purple pyramids. They absorbed this excess and shot them right back at the invading humans.
Where the hell does Huxian even find these monsters? Silver Fish thought. They were all so strong. Had they originally been this way, or had the Godbeast changed them? He didn’t remember Miyue being so powerful. What had once been an ordinary demon was now a creature with a top-grade bloodline and clones that sacrificed themselves in defense of their main body.
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br /> “We’ve been discovered!” the human leader said. “Kill them all, for the glory of the sect!”
“For the glory of the sect!” the others yelled. They drew their swords and charged at the five peak-initiation demons, who immediately fell back. Meanwhile, Silver Fish lurked in the background, still undetected despite his initial interception.
They haven’t spotted me yet, Silver Fish said to Silverwing. Keep them busy. He merged into the background, sifting through the waters in search of weaker members. He surfaced, summoning a massive shark of ink to slay an archer that wielded arrows of wind. Another shark dove out from the ground, swallowing a Daoist that wielded blue spheres of flame.
“There’s another one!” one of the cultivators shouted, but Silver Fish was already on him, swinging his anchor and sending a large ship of ink crashing down on the man. The ship exploded, crushing him and wounding two others.
“It’s the Black Fish!” the leader yelled. “Attack him together!”
To which Silver Fish responded by drawing back his ink in an egglike shape. Their swords clattered off it, but some of the stronger ones pierced through. They were stopped by his half armor before they could do any real damage.
Retaliate! Silver Fish sent. His instructions weren’t necessary, for the five had already fallen upon the human army. Gua and Miyue’s tentacled monstrosity smashed through their ranks, and Lei Jiang was already zipping through them, forcing them to defend against his lightning instead of worrying about Silver Wing and Mr. Mountain, who were mowing them down with hammer and blade.
The humans tried to teleport away, but Silver Fish wouldn’t let that happen. The egg he was hiding in burst into a sea of inky flames that clung to them like alchemist’s fire and anchored them to their surroundings. Instead of teleporting a hundred meters away, they made it two meters out. Not far enough to escape Silverwing’s blades, Lei Jiang’s claws, and Mr. Mountain’s hammer. And Silver Fish’s anchor.
“Where the hell have you been?” Silver Wing asked, wiping blood from his blade.
“Busy,” Silver Fish said. “But I got it.”
“Good,” Silverwing said. “In that case, let me make a call.” He took a leaf and whispered into it. A few seconds later, he raised his hand and sent a whirling but colorful wind in the air. A signal of some sort? The demons began an organized retreat, and the humans pursued for about a half minute before they realized it was an ambush. Their front ranks fell, and they didn’t chase any further.
“For safety reasons, no doors currently lead back to the Tree of Life,” Silverwing said. “The humans hijacked the passage once.”
“I’ll just go there the hard way, then,” Silver Fish said.
“No can do,” Silverwing replied. “Your mission is important. They’ll take care of defending. I need to get you back as soon as possible.
“How—” Silver Fish started, but they were already flying. Gentle winds pushed him onto Silverwing’s feathery back. They cut through trees and pierced through branches, attracting a barrage of ballista bolts and long-range techniques.
What the hell are you doing? Silverwing asked. If I’m giving you a ride, the least you can do is protect me.
“Right,” Silver Fish said. He summoned his own birds of ink that flew beside them, colliding with obstacles and self-destructing. He wasn’t strong in the air, but he had a few tricks up his sleeves.
The air writhed around Silverwing, and markings of ink appeared all over his feathers. His speed instantly increased as he cut through the air more effortlessly. Friction became a thing of the past.
“You cheat,” Silverwing muttered.
“Says the one with the roc bloodline,” Silver Fish said. He looked back, combing the battlefield, wondering. “If you five were here, where the hell is Cao Wenluan?”
Cha Ming rushed through the forest, sometimes running through trees and having trees run through him. The human guards didn’t see him, and they didn’t hear him either. He didn’t trip their traps and he didn’t activate their wards, for he was the wind, and the wind was he. Such was the power of the next stage of the Seventy-Two Earthly Transformations.
It was a wondrous technique. With every set of twelve, he obtained a way to change his nature. The first had been his self, increasing his talent. The next had been shape, enabling him to take on the form of any animal. Before coming to the Inkwell Plane, he’d mastered mass and could become any human or demon of the same level.
Now, having completed the next twelve transformations, Cha Ming had mastered essence. He barely counted as human now. He was a demigod. He transcended mortals. Moreover, he was a creature of the five elements. He chose the shape he took. Now, he was no longer constrained to physical shapes but could take on elemental forms as well through his modified ability, Elemental Affinity—no longer lesser.
In his current form, Cha Ming was the wind, a combination of the five elements. With but a thought, he could become fire or water or earth or metal. He could become one of the many trees in the forest if he so wished—that was one of the Monkey King’s most famous tricks. He was pretty sure that he could become lightning, though in all honesty, he was a little leery about that. So the wind it was. The wind was best suited for flight and infiltration.
The wind wasn’t fast. Moving too quickly would arouse suspicion. He might be invisible, but he wasn’t invincible. If a rune-gathering cultivator took action, they could cause serious damage to his defenseless self. So he floated, unseen and unheard as he passed across the camping army.
As Cha Ming traveled, he listened. He heard the latest news on the demon wars. They were surrounded but stubbornly clinging onto their territory near the Tree of Life. Cao Wenluan had ordered an aggressive siege. His goal was to take down the Tree of Life within the next three days. The same timeframe as Cha Ming’s duel.
As for the Burning Lake Prefecture? He only heard whispers. Rumors spread about by Cao Wenluan, the sects, and the clans. Having spoken to Huxian, however, he had a better idea of what was happening. Mi Fei had been captured by her family. She was safe—for now. Huxian had a plan to rescue her, one that they could move up if he got there early enough.
Wei Longshen was not coping well and had resorted to extreme measures to get her out. Cha Ming wasn’t pleased to find out that involved marrying into the enemy’s family, but then again, it solved two of his problems. The only issue with that part of the plan was that Mi Fei didn’t know about it. At least, not yet.
Just hold on, Cha Ming thought as he finally passed over the bulk of the army. He was almost out of the woods. On the open plains, he would be able to travel much faster. I’ll get you out. I’ll protect you. I promise, he thought.
He was about to push free when his body, spread out as it was, caught an interesting tidbit of information. He froze, gathering around a group of individuals. They were officers, not normal soldiers, so their words were more trustworthy than normal.
“Are you serious? He abandoned our flank just like that?” one of the soldiers said.
“Abandoned isn’t how I’d put it,” another said. “Rather, he received some information and repositioned.”
“What could be more important than breaking the Five Directions?” another spat. “They’ve been a pain in our side.”
“It’s got to do with Shimmerwing,” the officer said. “They secretly left in a giant boat. The entire city. They’re on their way to Stargazer City. And if they get there…”
“Seven hells, that’d be a tough fight,” another officer said, paling. “I don’t know about you all, but I’ve fought phoenixes before. They’re clowns normally, but in a straight-up fight, you can’t beat them.”
“Therefore, the repositioning,” the more well-informed officer said. They had a map rolled out in front of them. “They’ve set up an ambush here.” He tapped on a spot. “In a day, the Phoenix Clan will be history. Every one of them is in that ship. We’ll get rid of the old and keep the young. They’re excellent alchemists and smith
s, I’ve heard.”
“As good as the dragons?” the last man asked. He drew a golden blade and felt at its edge. “I got me one of those. Thing is hard. Never dulls.”
“It’ll shatter, though,” one of the others replied. “Plus, weapons made with iridescent flames are stronger. Can’t beat them. Powerful effects, and durable as hell.”
Cha Ming left them to their arguments. He’d heard enough. Though he wanted to get back to the city early to save Mi Fei, he was going to have to take a detour. The Phoenix Clan was in danger, and he’d killed Iridescent Torch. That meant they were down a treasure they might need to escape the ambush. The censer that would cover their entire ship with iridescent smoke.
Damn you, Iridescent Torch, Cha Ming cursed. The winds picked up and headed back into the forest. Cha Ming flew north, where Cao Wenluan and his forces waited.
Cao Wenluan floated above the treetops on a solid metal disc. Nine other men stood beside him, patiently waiting as he surveyed the terrain, their scattered troops, and the ship that flew between them, unaware of the danger it was in.
“The ship is in position,” one of the men said. “It’s best to spring the trap now.”
“We wait,” Cao Wenluan said, his voice calm and in command. “Have the men adjust the plan for a less-direct ambush.”
“Commander,” a woman said this time, “we won’t have a better opportunity. We’ll lose many more men on this assault if we wait. Should we not take this opportunity to wipe out the Phoenix Clan once and for all?”
“You assume that wiping out the Iridescent Clan is my goal,” Cao Wenluan said, looking over his shoulder. Her disrespect at their opponents irked him, but he let it slide. “We wait, because the main target hasn’t arrived yet.”
Claddings of Light : Book 12 of Painting the Mists Page 57