Sky Pride

Chapter 24- Not the Only Ones Knocking

Tian glowed for the rest of the day. He wasn’t trying to. It just seemed to happen. A faint white and gold aura surrounded him, wreathed as he was in the scent of lotuses. There was a cool sensation around him too, as though one were settling into a mountain pond on a hot summer’s day. Liren stuck close. Burning Heaven didn’t have any complaints either. It wore off by the next morning, but it was fun while it lasted. Tian’s energy body was a nice bit fuller, and he felt like his physical body had started properly filling the storehouses of energy the Dao body had opened for him.

The little wolf had found the demon’s stash- a hole dug in the ground, rather near the core. It would have been covered completely by the demon, usually. It was a midden, full of crushed bits of bone and cloth and metal, carelessly combined and left to decompose. Nobody was surprised when they didn’t find anything remotely valuable in there, not even an intact storage ring. What was a bit more interesting was that it had clearly been emptied before, and repeatedly. Tian shared his theory about the thing being the pet of some powerful heretic with a heavy tone, but the announcement was met with shrugs and “Seems plausible.”

Even if it was true, so what? What were they supposed to do about it? Camp out here until the Heretic returned to check up on the monster? No, they had places to be, and things to do. There was nothing worth staying here for. Tian collected the wolf spirit, and they flew off. Tian was a bit subdued. Not unhappy, just lost in his thoughts.

He kept thinking about the next villain that tried to outlast him in a fight, and had to control a giggle. Right now, he felt like it would be hard for him to run out of stamina even if he wanted to. Better still, he thought he had a clue about what aura was, and how Heavenly Demon was using it.

“I think it’s a blend of qi and shen. Not two separate things used together, I think it’s a single coherent thing for him. Obviously he doesn’t have the cultivation to use shen on his own, no revelations to elevate him, and his body hasn’t undergone the necessary transformations. Except.”

He smiled, mentally communicating with Liren over the reheated buns they were having for breakfast. Liren could heat a pot of water and have them freshened up with a quick steam in just a few seconds, no fire required. They were bland, but a comforting sort of bland when paired with soy milk. Filling, nutritious and easy on the stomach, that was what mattered.

“We need to loot a Heavenly Realm cookbook,” Liren said.

“We are talking about Heavenly Demon, not food.”

“Yeah, and I’m interested, it’s just, I realized that this is going to be my eternity. You are never going to change from eating the absolute simplest, most basic foods unless I make you, and that means I need to get a cookbook and then make it a project for the two of us to cook our way through it.”

Tian was about to protest, reconsidered, found the idea fun, and said, “I just had an excellent idea. We should loot a Heavenly Realm cookbook.”

“Oh, should we?” Liren asked.

“Definately.”

“You will pay for that later.”

“You will suffer worse.” Tian was unrepentant.

“We shall just see about that. Hmph!” She turned her head away, then turned it back. “Finish your thought about Heavenly Demon. I assume the next bit was about his body cultivation method.”

“What if it’s not his qi and shen? Or, what if his vital energy, qi and shen are all going to control the power that he’s manifesting into the world?”

Liren narrowed her eyes as she bit off a piece of steamy bun, washing it down with a big gulp of soy milk. “Specially prepared body. Something about star forged, wasn’t it?”

“Constellation Refining Furnace Body. Which, since he is a devotee of the Stellar Descent Cult which worships primordial stellar demons from beyond the material world, is a pretty interesting name. Also the fact that Heavenly Demon isn’t his name, it’s his rank in the cult and indicates a certain level of initiation into the cult’s secrets and mastery of their arts.”

“Stars, heavens, a refining furnace, ingesting a constellation and refining the power within him, making it the fuel for his growth and eventual ascension, I see it now. Do you think he picks one constellation at a time, or does he swap between them situationally?” She asked, draining her soymilk in a long gulp.

“No idea. Think I’m on the right track?”

“Yep. Not sure how it helps us, though.”

“I’m not sure it does. It’s interesting, all the ways people have found to seek transcendence. I wonder…” His voice trailed off.

“What?”

Tian just shook his head. It was just a feeling he was having, and he wasn’t sure he could put it into words even for himself. Heavenly Demon had said that he was the twelfth son of a duke, and had grown up in a side palace that was pretty humble, by his standards. Tian had read enough dynastic histories to know that “twelfth son” was an uncomfortable role. Outside of the Wasteland of Song, it probably wasn’t uncommon for the aristocracy to have a bit of cultivation to them too. A duke might live in excess of a hundred years. A hundred years of scheming brothers and mothers, a cold, indifferent father, fending off other aristocratic houses while trying to find your own place in the world. Tian really had no personal context for that kind of life, but he could imagine it was painful. Pain had a way of motivating change, given the right circumstances.

This text was taken from NovelPhoenix. Help the author by reading the original version there.

Flying deeper into the wastes, Tian started noticing what certainly looked like roads, or at the very least, marked paths through the desert. An unpleasant thought intruded. “Does anyone know exactly where Black Iron Gorge is?” He asked.

“This Demon does.”

“Are we, by any chance, heading there?”

“No, but not too far from it either. About eight hundred miles south east of it is our destination.”

Liren slapped her forehead. “You do understand that us Burning Heaven Cranes are kill-on sight for any heretics worthy of the name. I’m fairly sure there is a bounty on our heads, though I don’t know how much.”

“So?” Heavenly Demon shrugged. “They would want to kill us all regardless, unless we were marked as merchants or something. This Demon will not disguise himself, nor does he see a need to. If you are so worried, this Demon supposes you could put on a different robe and wear a mask or something. However, This Seat is quite sure it won’t spare you any violence.”

Liren shrugged and put on ordinary brown robes and a brass mask. It looked rather skeletal on her, which suggested it was from the loot they got from Threadcutter or some other heretic. It did give her an extremely martial air, however. Tian, for his part, hesitated over what to put on. His instinct was the roughly bleached funeral robes, but he had been seen wearing those a lot in Burning Flag City. Not exactly subtle. He could opt for brown robes like Liren, but he did have a few spare that he had been saving to tease Liren with.

Well. No time like the present. A quick move brought his hair up into a high bun and tucked neatly under his hat. He pulled on a long robe of shimmering green silk, decorated with orchid blossoms and lotuses. To complete the effect, he snapped out a fan, making sure to momentarily display the malachite bangle underneath his sleeve.

Liren stopped breathing. Tian fluttered the fan.

Heavenly Demon coughed. Nobody looked at him. Liren’s eyes were locked on Tian, glowing gold beneath the mask. Tian fluttered his eyelashes instead of the mask this time. Liren lunged at him.

“Ah! Not on my back, Sis’! On the ground, on the ground!”

There was a brief interlude as Tian laughingly fought off Liren while Burning Heaven threatened to dump them both on the ground. The fan was confiscated for “Public Safety,” but the robe was permitted. Tian’s smirk was unconcealed. He had suspected that Liren’s love of flashy things would extend to how he dressed. It was worth scheming with Sister Mei to have the robe made. Heavens knew they had enough spare cloth!

Burning Heaven, once chaos had exhausted itself, announced that she could use her art to change the color of her feathers. So she did. Her snowy white plumage turned jet black, from wingtip to wingtip. The beak and feet remained red. It gave her a sinister air, added by the odd riders on her back. Oddly enough, Heavenly Demon didn’t seem bothered by their silliness. If anything, Tian got a feeling of faint approval.

Heavenly Demon proved correct about running into heretics. There were two attempted ambushes in two days, neither of which were able to evade Tian’s eyesight nor Heavenly Demon’s aura. Tian could see what the editors of the Dragon-Phoenix rankings were getting at. Heavenly Demon was simply not an opponent most in the Heavenly Realm could face. Their spells were slapped aside with a contemptuous hand, their weapons never even reached him. On one memorable occasion, the tall cultivator stretched out a hand, and slowly closed it into a fist. The heretic’s head exploded. There was no chance to resist.

Tian dutifully passed all the storage rings over to Heavenly Demon, who quickly glanced through them, sniffed, and passed them back. It was fair enough. There weren’t many things that could rival such a giant core in value.

The rate of ambushes ticked up quickly. The last day of travel was practically a running battle, with heretics emerging from the sands, attacking from concealing formations, transforming from a swarm of insects, anything to give them an edge. Tian, naturally, pretended to be oblivious before launching his own counter-ambush. The Burning Heaven Cranes once again found the rhythm of their teamwork, returning to the old days of wandering the country and slaying bandits. They just had more, and stronger, methods, now. Heavenly Demon managed to fit in quite well, mostly by not trying to insert himself into team plays. He always picked lone heretics, usually the ones at the furthest range, and brutally ended their little lives.

It was silently understood that demon summoners would be left to Heavenly Demon as well. He just seemed to get so much satisfaction out of it.

Tian’s Heavenly Imperial Swallows art had grown dreadful to watch. The needles now moved in formations. Tian would attack from the front with his staff, while the needles struck from below, above and behind. With the amount of force he could put behind them now, it took a particularly well prepared heretic to survive the first exchange. They rarely survived past the third.

The destination had a semi-permanent camp next to it. The emerging hidden realm was easy to spot- there was a twisting point in the air that glowed blue-white, even in daylight. Through the haze and shimmer, a cave was visible, marked with ancient seals and the ruins of grand doors. No one in the camp had any thoughts of entering. Not any more, anyhow. Most who had tried failed to even make contact with the shimmer, and were left standing awkwardly in the desert as their… colleagues… pointed and laughed. And plotted.

They were still better off than the one adventurer, allegedly at the peak of the Heavenly Realm, or even one step into the Human Realm, who managed to use an array to force contact with the shimmer.

There was still some debate about how to describe what happened to his body. Some said “wrung,” others “chewed” and yet more went with “braided.” The more poetic and whimsical turned to simile- “Ever made hand-pulled noodles? Like bang-bang noodles? It was like that, except with less screaming and blood. I don’t think there was enough of his consciousness left to scream.”

Tian and the others didn’t hear any of that, on account of Tian’s well known heretic related hearing deficiency. They kept well clear of the camp, and headed directly for the weak spot in the air. With only the minor problem left to solve of how to use Liren as the key, without losing her.