“So you’re damn right I dared the absurd! I already know what it means to crash into that stygian river, even as it freezes your soul. It’s really no different than skinny dipping in the most frigid of lakes. Or at least, that’s how I try to think of it when I force my footsteps into it again and again, accepting the bridge of death between realms that my fallen enemies form. And you bloody well better believe I’m going to pluck free the cores of power fueling their souls, WiFu! If all I see is blackness, if all they’ve done is torture, kill, or enslave countless victims over half a dozen lifetimes? You can be damn certain I’m going to make sure they can never do it again. Or at least, they’ll be no more powerful than any other mortal forced to struggle just to survive in a world filled with powerful beasts and even more ruthless cultivators.”
WiFu’s gaze now seemed to be measuring Alex’s very soul. “And who more ruthless than the cultivator daring to warp abilities to such a terrible extent they could even be used to slay a god?”
Alex jerked a nod. “It was a sort of nightmare epiphany. Combined with a sense of just not really giving a fuck anymore, as long as I could stick it to those bastards one last time.” Alex flashed a fierce grin. “Soul Cleave. The ultimate expression of Black Swan.”
“An art you shouldn’t be able to use at all, disciple.”
Alex smirked. “It’s an art that, in this evolved form, effortlessly ignores all wards below Gold when I seek to slice open not just the body, but my enemy’s very soul. An art I can now use so well that I can pierce almost any defense if I push myself, even Jade, so long as I have the Qi reserves I need to hypercharge that one deadly swing, channeling ever more of death’s waters with my blow.”
WiFu shook his head. “Alex, not even a god would dare channel that river through their soul.”
Alex flashed a bitter smile. “I know. Because your clan wasn’t always ascendant. Once, an impossibly long time ago, probably in a universe vastly different from this one, you weren’t even gods at all.”
WiFu froze.
Alex felt the deity’s gaze suddenly measuring him in ways terrible and profound, and Alex knew, even with all that had occurred, all he had been through and endured, his beloved mentor could still kill him in a heartbeat.
Alex smiled in acknowledgment of that fact, and continued to speak his mind. “So, none of you would dare channel that river, fearing that you might forget who and what you were, all you had experienced, all the knowledge, wisdom, and power you all accrued over who knows how many thousands of years.”
Alex frowned, tilting his head. “Except maybe you, WiFu, perched on the raft with me when first you pulled me free of that river that could so easily have carried me off into the next life, if you hadn’t enticed me to find the strength to push through crippling fatigue and swim to the shores of the living once more. And maybe that’s one more reason your siblings are such assholes to you. They fear you. Fear you daring that which they, wrapped in their divine cloaks of power with the cowardly hearts of frightened little boys, wouldn’t dream of facing.”
WiFu’s gaze held his own for long, endless moments. “And that explains how you were able to kill a god?”
Alex nodded. “So much of the Qi reserves needed to channel the River of the Dead comes from forcing it through me and into the realm of the living with Soul Cleave, even if just for a single moment in time. But with that damned serpent god just a heartbeat from pulling me free of the living world entirely, I was more in the realm of the dead than the living. Yet still, for that final second, I was perfectly in tune with all my power and potential, and maybe, I don’t know, the combined power of all the forests I ever strode across in my time communing with this land.”
Alex squeezed his fist. “So, I didn’t lash out at that god with a mere trickle of water. Instead I channeled the entire damned river below, every howling enraged soul within strengthening my blow, all of us working together in that one final instant to cleave our tormentor in twain. And wouldn’t you know it? It actually worked. And even as I was falling into final death, the transcendent power of that stupid god was enough to instantly pull me back into the world of the living, because when the ascend option button popped up in my interface, you damn well better believe I hit YES!”
Alex swallowed, taking a deep breath, still unable to believe he had actually pulled it off.
He should be drowning in that stygian river below, along with all the other souls denied peaceful rest between lives, so great were their karmic misdeeds.
But he wasn’t.
He had survived yet another trial, and was now more powerful than he had ever been before.
And for all that he had expected judgment in even this ancient god’s gaze, what he received were golden peals of laughter, his mentor now juggling the pair of prizes he had held so solemnly moments before.
“Oh, well done, Alex. Well done! You’ve stuck it to my brothers and prune-faced grandfather more handsomely than ever before with that final gambit!” WiFu winked. “And the looks on their faces when they found out their beloved guardian wasn’t tormenting your soul at all, but was, in fact, missing from the Waters of Life and Death entirely, and even more shocking, was now little more than an enslaved spirit, chained to the will of the fragile mortal cultivator they had thought so easily bested... Magnificent, Alex! Their howls were a symphony of outrage and lament I shall take delicious pleasure in savoring for all time!”
Alex couldn’t help grinning back. “Always happy to please my DM.”
WiFu sighed. “Alex?”
“Yes?”
“You do realize you have the soul of a god wrapped around your heart, yes?”
Alex flashed a fierce smile. “I know. The fast track at least to Gold, and maybe far beyond.”
WiFu nodded solemnly. “The offer of ascension was genuine, Alex. For all that power was expended in raising you back from the dead, the remarkable truth of the matter is that’s a journey you yourself have completed any number of times since you first emerged from the tomb we share. Thus, remarkably little power was expended restoring you to life.”
“Which means there’s a shit ton left that might, what, push me pretty darn close to godhood?”
WiFu solemnly nodded. “Now, Alex, being as you were ever the savvy player, it’s time for you to understand what the cost of that perk truly is.”
In a flash, Alex saw it. He was there.
A throne room filled with powerful Silvers fueled by infernal hate.
A royal couple with heads cleaved from their shoulders.
His ears tormented by Liu Li’s shrieks of despair when her betrothed was cut down before her eyes.
Before she herself was run through.
Wide eyes filled with terror, so different from the gentle warmth he remembered from the day she had invited him into her family alchemist shop and became the first friend he ever had in this world.
Save for the god even now showing him the dark paths strode by bitterest fate.
Just a heartbeat before a magnificent city, filled with temples, parks, palaces, pagodas, cultivation academies, and all the treasures and wonders a population center of twenty million could hold, near the size of modern day Beijing, was swallowed up in a maelstrom of infernal flame, millions of shrieking souls damned to the monsters who had done all they could to rupture this fragile vision of reality put into place by none other than WiFu’s clan, and countless other divine clans just like their own.
Then the vision shifted, and instead of fire, the city was washed in alien waters so cold and frigid that none could withstand its touch, and the entire city and all its citizens were washed away, without even leaving a memory of their passing. A remarkably different end, but the shrieks and screams of the lost souls within remained exactly the same.
Twenty million innocent souls torn free of their lives. Doomed for all time.
Just the opening gambit in a war between empires, each comprising a surface area a dozen times greater than the landmass of
Earth itself.
Countless billions to be lost in the games played by gods and their champions, the most insignificant of tiles in a contest whose scope transcended mortal comprehension.
Alex crashed to his knees and shuddered when the vision let him go at last, haunted eyes gazing into WiFu’s own.
“This world. This... reality. You made it. All of you, together, made it.”
WiFu nodded. “We did.”
Alex blinked. “How?”
WiFu smirked at that. “Even I have trouble putting into words the magnificent scope of what my race accomplished before our birth world was destroyed, and this realm became our own for all time.” His gaze grew thoughtful. “Imagine your world’s ancient China, but if it had been allowed to grow and evolve in perfect isolation over ten thousand years. We learned to manipulate the fundaments of reality using tools having elements of what you might consider super computers, magic, or perhaps, living song. The rules between our realities are different, but close enough that the metaphor should hold.
“In any case, we carved this plane out of chaos and quantum flux. But we did not try to shape the rules governing this reality. We wouldn’t dare! All we could do was nudge it in a certain direction, and let it evolve as it was.” His gaze grew sad. “Countless realities were forged. Some reminiscent of your visions of heaven. Others, like the one that consumed Baidushi in your vision, far closer to Hell. All that really mattered to us was finding the most stable one imaginable, one that might actually last as many billions of years as would take our own universe to reach utter discordance, or your own to die a heat death. This reality became our bulwark, and we chose as our home the heavenly realm so close to this one that the rules of existence are virtually identical, though it’s more a matter of choice real estate than actually being the home of saintly spirits.”
He flashed a bemused smile. “The River of Souls is our greatest masterwork. Spirits with positive or neutral karma are allowed to sleep until a child is conceived with a spiritual resonance that’s a perfect fit for a reborn soul. Those with corrupted karma must suffer through an agony of drowning, for how many weeks, months, years, or centuries it takes for their own rebirth to occur, every soul born free of the sins of their past.” WiFu furrowed his brow. “Though how you managed to transform a skill useful for reading an opponent’s Qi attacks into a gift any inquisitor or inspector would kill for, able to read the karmic merit of past lives, is utterly beyond me. Oh well, I’ll chalk it up to yet another absurd corruption of the universal constants that make up this realm that you can bend far easier than any mortal or god before you.”
“Alright, I get that,” Alex said, still shaken by the vision and the screams haunting him still. “But how the hell does that play into Baidushi falling? And why would any mad god—or, what, Jade cultivator?—channel the power of some demonic realm into that city, butchering twenty million innocent souls?”
WiFu’s gaze turned grave. “As to that, I’m afraid, I don’t know.”
Alex blinked. “Wait, what? How could you not know?”
WiFu sighed, and for a heartbeat he seemed to be no more than rustling leaves and shadow. “There are two forks in the path before you, disciple. In one, you surrender the divine spirit entwined around your heart. The gods restore the guardian keeping our clan’s empire from being flooded with restless dead, and in gratitude, give you the boon you desire most.”
Alex frowned. “And what boon would that be?”
“Time.”
Alex felt a cold chill in his gut. “How long was I out, WiFu?”
His mentor chuckled softly. “Best we not collapse that wave function just yet, disciple. Let’s leave it a wildly flickering variable until you have made your choice.”
Alex swallowed, heart suddenly hammering as he understood what was really being said. “If I give up Shui Jun, I’ll be forsaking an easy path to incredible power. But in return...”
“You will be given the gift of time.” Hard eyes locked with his own. “A chance to save twenty million souls from damnation, and rescue the girl who first touched your heart, before you fell in love with another.”
Alex flushed, lowering his gaze. “Liu Li was the first friend I ever made here. I grew so close to her, so fast. It hurt like hell, seeing her gazing at another man radiating so much power. Gazing at him just like...”
“Hao Chan gazes at you?”
Alex winced. “Yes. Exactly. But I’d still do anything to protect her. To keep her safe, to know she was able to smile and savor life’s sweetness, one day creating a beautiful family of her own. I might not see her quite as my promised any more, but when I think of my own sisters, who died so young, when I imagine the beautiful, happy, strong women they would have grown up to be, I see Liu Li every time.”
WiFu’s smile was a balm to Alex’s soul. “You’re a good man, Alex. You always were. And if you’re willing to give up the easier path to power, you’ll be given the greatest gift any man could hope for.”
Alex swallowed. “Time. Time to save her. Time to pull Baidushi from the brink.”
WiFu nodded solemnly. “That you will. And you will gain something else as well.” He bowed, presenting the tarnished ring from before.
Alex gazed at it in breathless hope, regardless of what his mentor had said before. “Will this ring act like my other?”
WiFu’s smile was both sad and hopeful. “Not quite. If I’m completely honest, right now it’s just the slightest shadow of what it could be. Far, far inferior to your destroyed ring.” He held out a hopeful finger when Alex furrowed his brow. “But! This glorious little treasure has potential that would astound even the Jade Emperor who swore fealty to our pantheon centuries ago! When fed a portion of your experience, it can advance and grow in all sorts of fascinating ways. Just like, I don’t know, what’s that odd term in the back of your mind? Ah, yes... a dungeon core!”
Alex froze, gazing at his mentor with wide, disbelieving eyes. “This ring acts as a dungeon core?”
WiFu smirked. “Hardly in the way you’re now thinking. Rather, it will start with a single small chamber you can shape to your will, and pop in and out of, just like you could your original ring, though it will be very limited in the amount of treasure it can carry. It can serve as either the start of a budding garden, the beginnings of an alchemical laboratory where the very laws of nature can be bent for the sake of your concoctions, or a luxurious bedroom that will be the first chamber in the palace of your dreams, which might eventually be filled with spirit servants able to cater to your every need and prepare the most fantastic meals, pageants, plays, and extravaganzas that you could possibly imagine.
“You could even bring into existence a chamber filled with doors that will absolutely astound you when you dare to peek through, as they will be anchors to any physical location you have ever explored before. And as your experience progresses, they could lead you to places seen only in the mind’s eye of your closest friends and loved ones. And from there, who knows? Of course, the number of doors is limited to the potency you have invested in that particular room, or miniature realm hanging in space within an indestructible pocket dimension much like this universe we both call our own, connected to other realms by astral bridges.” WiFu shrugged. “It’s all semantics, really.”
Alex smirked. “So I can get a ring with a couple specialized storage rooms and help a bunch of strangers and the girl who chose some spoiled prince over me, or I can keep the divine serpent spirit hissing gently in my chest and blast my way to Jade before you know it?”
WiFu shrugged. “Pretty much. Of course, the world will be filled with restless dead who manage to burrow between realms, but most of them will be no match for any decent Bronze, and a great source of experience besides! And hey, my brothers will have won their bet, and you’ll never have to see my face again, or theirs.”
Alex smiled. “And I’m guessing by that vision I had of you fading into shadows and the rustle of leaves, that the stakes are even
higher than that. If I say ‘fuck you,’ and take the path to the right, that’s pretty much it for you, isn’t it, WiFu?”
WiFu nodded. “You guessed it, Alex. Glorious as our hand together was, the general got the best of me on another board with a gambit first laid out five hundred years ago.” His mentor gave a rueful chuckle. “It looks like I wasn’t the only one cooking up clever twists to my favorite pieces when I thought no one was looking.”
“Like the one that allowed some version of me to what, catch gossip in an innocent life long gone, only for that gift to now let me hear choice bits of rumor and outrage between you and your fellow gods during this life?”
WiFu grinned. “Exactly. And the best part is, with every step you take down the path to the right, you’ll begin to forget every adventure we ever shared, every last glimmer of every life you had ever lived before this one. Before you know it, you really will be no less and no more than an incredibly powerful young cultivator able to forge his own path in this world, and go wherever your heart leads you. Free of all guilt or sense of obligation, no longer burdened by weights that should never have been yours to bear in the first place.”
Alex gazed fondly down the rightmost path, a part of him glorying in the sense of finally being free, and strong enough to protect himself from everyone who sought his downfall.
Who knew how far he could rise? He did have an eternity, after all.
Best to make it count.
He smiled at the thought of forging his own kingdom, of millions cheering his name in fear and adoration as he strode past chambers filled with sparkling earthly treasures and an endless harem of nubile wives eager to please their ruler.
How would it feel to no longer have to care about anything save his own glory, his own gratification?
He’d be just like WiFu’s brothers in no time.
Alex glared at WiFu. “And I’ll bet you just had to say just those words. Maximize the enticement, don’t show anything of the desperate man trying to save twenty million souls.”
Silver Fox & The Western Hero: Warrior Redeemed: A LitRPG/Wuxian Novel - Book 5 Page 29