Chương 42

Lorn was on fire inside and out. It began at his feet, a burn that crawled up his meridians, igniting the vast quantities of qi inside him, all the way to the crown of his head and then past it, into the totemic form of Huihun hovering around and above his body. The demon-dragon thrashed and convulsed in vain as the spirit beast's technique cleansed it in holy fire. The pain was breathtaking. Transformative. It locked Lorn's jaw, joints, and limbs in place.

He stood frozen in its burning grip and felt every instant of his immolation as if as if he'd been tied to a stake and doused in oil and lit by torches. There was only one thing to hold onto in this world of white-hot agony and it was the God Eater. He put every ounce of his focus upon it, and in doing so he found his will equal to the task, but only barely. It hurt. It hurt so badly he could hardly see, let alone think a coherent thought. But there was no way out of this maelstrom now, except through it.

He was devouring Wandering Flame, digesting it, becoming one with it. It came with memories. The feel of sunlight on his scales, the simple joy of flight, the water and the air and everything around him so rich with qi, the beautiful disharmony of the world of living things beneath him, hunting, feeding, mating, birthing, consuming itself endlessly, supported by the eternal elements. It was almost enough to forget the burning. And it came with understanding.

Insights Huihun had never shared with him on the nature of the world and of qi, of what this reality was truly made of, what held it together, how it functioned. It was one thing to be taught that all of the waters of the universe were connected, but it was another thing to feel that connection. Lorn stood in awe of it. But he was also aware that the God Eater was pulling in lesser souls, Yun's spectral soldiers, and with them came more mundane memories.

The grudges, fears and resentments of mortals whose souls refused to rejoin the cycle, to linger between worlds as hungry ghosts. Whatever technique that spirit beast was using on him, it was not only burning away Huihun's corruption but that of these lesser spirits as well. It made him think about that village. About the pit. It made him remember how he'd stood silently and watched the Shattered Summit Sect round up those people like cattle and execute them, defile their bodies, use them as ritual fodder.

If he lived through this, he would go back to that place and help whatever restless souls lingered there. If he lived. Three forces met inside him and he was the narrow passage between them all. The holy fire burned inward, scoured his meridians raw, stripped Huihun's corruption from the walls of his spiritual architecture the way lye strips paint from wood. Huihun fought it, thrashed against the burning, dug into Lorn's flesh the way a parasite digs deeper when you try to pull it free.

And the other half, the uncorrupted spirit of Wandering Flame, rushed in behind both of them, filled every inch the fire had emptied and the demon had abandoned, pressed against the freshly scoured channels until Lorn felt his body stretch at the seams. His bones groaned from the pressure of it, his heart thundered against the inside of his ribcage so hard he felt it might explode. Huihun's resistance aggravated every scoured nerve in his body.

The dragon and the demon fought for dominance inside him even while they burned, and Lorn was the bottleneck through which all three of them had to somehow coexist in a bonfire. And then Huihun tried to run. Lorn felt it before he understood it. A shift in the pressure behind his sternum, a pulling away, as if the spirit fused to his soul had found a seam and was trying to tear itself loose. The totemic fire above his body flickered and contracted, drew inward, compressed into a tight knot at the base of his skull.

The demon-dragon was coiling to flee, to rip free of Lorn's body and abandon its vessel to the holy fire the way a lizard sheds its tail. Rage hit Lorn so hard his vision went red. He'd given everything for this. His body. His freedom. His brother. He had stood in that village and swallowed his own humanity for this wretched, ancient, self-pitying creature. He had endured the pain, the possession, the slow dissolution of everything he was, and now, at the first real test, Huihun was going to leave him here to burn.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there. This demon had drawn him in with pleas for help, and before he understood the danger he'd placed himself in, Lorn had found himself in its thrall. All for this. To be discarded. No. The word echoed in his mind like a pronouncement from the First Emperor. But he did not have to act on it. The God Eater would do what it was made to do.

The formation caught Huihun's attempt to wriggle free the way a drain catches a leaf in a storm. The demon-dragon thrashed. It fought the pull. It screamed inside Lorn's skull, a sound that belonged to no human throat, and the scream shook his bones and burst capillaries behind his eyes. Huihun came apart at the edges, corruption and fire and ancient malice stripped away in ribbons that spiraled into the formation and dissolved.

The dragon spirit that had ruled Lorn's body, that had spoken through his mouth and burned through his hands and whispered to him in the dark, came undone piece by piece. And as Lorn consumed Huihun, he remembered black mountains against skies the color of blood. He remembered crawling on his belly across plains of frozen iron, demons clawing and biting at his ruined form, taking pleasure in his suffering. He remembered centuries of torment. He remembered the exultation he felt when Jin Shenlei knelt before him.

And, centuries later, the ripples of power when a bright-eyed boy from a distant world flexed the incredible might of his Gates. Lorn was eating memories of himself, and of everything else. Learning secrets. Learning things he wished he didn't have to learn. But regardless, Huihun and Wandering Flame were becoming a part of him. As the pain subsided, the world slowly came back into focus. It arrived in pieces, a mosaic of light and sound and qi that assembled itself through his expanded senses. The frozen lagoon.

Cultivators in battle on the ice, the Jade Nettle Sect and the Steel Serpent Sect locked in combat with Yun and Suwen and the monsters they had brought to the field. The spectral army had thinned to wisps. The great frog behind him, wreathed in white fire, hands flat on the ice, still pouring his technique into Lorn's body. And closer. Feng Xiaohai, wreathed in blood-red flames, traded punches with Lodin on the broken ice. His brother's face was split and bloody and grinning, and Xiaohai's was worse.

The air folded. Han Yuan appeared before him at a distance of five paces, jian half drawn, the blade a sliver of pale gold visible above the scabbard's mouth. The Patriarch of the Divine Gale Sect was beautiful and still and his eyes held nothing in them but focus. The smallest of smiles curled the corner of Han Yuan's lip. - - - - Lodin saw Han Yuan appear. He froze, knowing what was about to happen next.

His feet blasted off the ice and the distance between him and his brother vanished in a single stride, and the world compressed to a narrow corridor between Han Yuan's half-drawn jian and Lorn's body. He planted himself in front of his brother, feet wide, arms spread, chest open. The draw was already in motion. Han Yuan's hand moved and the blade left the scabbard and the air split along the path of the slash. The God-Slaying Threefold Cut hit Lodin in the center of his chest. It made no sound.

There were three razor-thin seams of golden light, in the shape of a triangle. Lodin felt all three slice into the center of his chest. And deeper, into that space he only conceived of during meditative states, to the center of his being. The first cut severed the Roots from the Gates. The second cut severed the Gates from the Seals. The third cut severed the Seals from the Roots. He felt all three of them keenly. The precision of the cuts was admirable.

Han Yuan had been trained well, unlike his predecessor he had executed his technique flawlessly. Lodin wondered if Yuan could sense those fine lacerations mending already. Because they had just struck a system crafted specifically to mend itself in such ways. In fact, larger or more irregular wounds would have taken longer to heal, or perhaps they would have blown his internal garden to bits. But not three perfect cuts, each less than the width of a sheet of rice paper.

He wondered if that was the reason for the look of shock and rage on the Divine Gale Patriarch's boyish face, the expression of a mind casting about in alarm, wondering how such a thing was possible. He loved it when cultivators looked at him like that. He realized, with a grin, that he'd never get tired of it either. And then he punched Han Yuan like an angry God. It connected on the hinge of Han Yuan's jaw and the Patriarch of the Divine Gale Sect took flight.

His body sailed backward and his jian spun from his grip and clattered across the frozen surface of the lagoon. Lodin's feet hammered the ice in pursuit. Han Yuan hit the ice on his back, slid, and Lodin closed the gap and threw a right hand at the Patriarch's face. Han Yuan rolled aside, fluid even on his back, and the punch cratered the ice where his head had been. Yuan found his feet before another strike could land.

Pale gold light condensed in the palm of his hand as his jian materialized in his grasp, and he brought it up just as Lodin's next punch arrived. The jian cut a golden arc at Lodin's throat and he leaned back from it, felt the edge part the air a finger's width from his skin. He threw a jab and Han Yuan deflected it off the flat of the blade and riposted, a thrust aimed at the hollow of Lodin's neck, fast and precise.

Lodin slapped the blade aside with his palm and threw a cross over the top that Han Yuan ducked beneath. He cut low and Lodin jumped it. He thrust high and Lodin moved his head an inch off the line of attack. He feinted a slash to the ribs and converted it into a rising cut at the jaw, a seamless transition that would have opened a lesser fighter from hip to chin. Lodin caught the blade in his fist. And pulled. Han Yuan came with the blade, hauled off balance, stumbling forward into the punch that met him halfway.

The uppercut caught him under the ribs and folded him in half, and the air left his lungs in an undignified sound, a squeak, a yelp. The stricken look on Han Yuan's face told Lodin the noise itself was cause for shame, more than the fact that he'd just been countered so soundly. Lodin released the sword and hit him with a left hook to the temple that spun the Patriarch off his feet and sent him skipping across the ice like a stone thrown across water. Han Yuan had that crazy look in his eyes again.

The eyes were wide, not with shock, but with a terrible, focused intensity. The whites were clearly visible all around the iris, giving a look of mania and detachment. The pupils were pinpricks, tiny black dots fixed on their target. But Lodin noticed he wasn't the target. The target was something over his right shoulder. Yuan blurred sideways, and Lodin gave chase. He was going for Lorn.