Chương 43: Uxia Nevernight

Rowan The orphanage was a ruin. The structural damage had caused the roof to cave in during the fight, and the walls that hadn't sunk into the tunnels had fallen over as well. The beams that held the roof up had become little more than splinters. Shattered pewter roof tiles were all over the yard. It seemed that the locals had stolen any of the tiles that were intact. The front of the building was now collapsed onto the path. Rowan noted that the front door had also been stolen.

Whoever did it left the doorknob in the grass. He stepped over the rubble to where the parlor had been and stared into the hole that had been the room's floor. The sun was still high in the sky, and it shone directly into the tunnels. Adrenaline shot through his body as memories flashed through his mind. Flesh tentacles. The malignant qi. Blood. Bones crunching beneath his feet in the darkness. His Qi Sea started to fluctuate as though expecting an imminent battle.

Rowan took a deep breath, trying to steady his heart rate. He's dead. I killed him. The sound of footsteps echoed upwards Someone was there. Probably a scavenger. Bastin's barn had been completely picked clean too. There had been nothing there but bloodstains. But it wouldn't hurt to be careful. He crouched down.

"Hello?" Rowan called out.

"Greetings!" came an instant reply. The voice was wispy and melodic. There was an accent to the voice, but he couldn't place where it was from. More footsteps. A cultivator in dusky purple robes appeared at the base of the tunnel, stepping into the sunlight. A creamy gauze collar peeked out from under it, framing pale, doll-like features. Her hair was a shade of moonlight silver that shone when it caught the sun. Rowan was not in the mood to deal in pleasantries.

"What are you doing here?" She studied him, frowning.

"You're a disciple representing our esteemed hosts," she realized. She dipped her knees slightly in a well-practiced curtsy.

"Are you with the Dao Court? Is this area off limits?" Rowan ignored her inquiry.

"If you're investigating here because you sensed the Yin qi—" She shook her head.

"I'm not," she said quickly.

"I'm not here to absorb the Fading Yin. We wouldn't do that, unless it was the parting gift from a soul burial." She paused again, and pink dusted her cheeks.

"A soul burial that I administered."

"Then why are you here?"

"I heard that this was where a Helsing recently defeated a demonic cultivator." She played with her hair, coiling a lock around her finger.

"I'm an outer disciple of Halfmoon House, here for the Conference. I believe I am fated to fight demonic cultivators one day. I wanted to analyze the battle site, to see if I could gain any insight." Rowan wasn't sure if he believed her or not. His elders' hackles were raised about the suspicious arrival of Halfmoon House, enough to break protocol and assign them teams early. Who knew what Halfmoon House was actually up to? The silence bothered her.

"If the Dao Court considers this location off limits, I'll leave immediately," she said, a little frantically.

"I'm not trying to interfere with any ongoing investigations—" If Rowan didn't say anything, he was sure she would babble for minutes.

"I'm not with the Dao Court," he said. The girl didn't seem hostile, and Rowan was pretty sure that impersonating an official of the Dao Court could lead to a felony conviction, extradition to the capital, and up to a century of imprisonment.

"So you're here to see the battlefield as well," she said, looking relieved. She drew herself up to full height, and then curtsied again.

"This one is Uxia Nevernight, Daoist Violent Mercy, named as the third disciple of Elder Vilhalo, the Archbishop of Halfmoon House's Weeping Tower." The Archbishop named her Violent Mercy? Was this the sort of name his cousin Ash, who wished to be Daoist Grandiose Revelation, would name a student one day? Rowan made sure he didn't even show the ghost of a reaction. It was very difficult not to, so he gave an exaggerated bow.

"This one meets you as Rowan Helsing of Righteous Mountain." She looked quite excited.

"You must be related to the Helsing who did this? Would it be too much trouble for you to introduce me? Of course, I wouldn't be as impolite as to not have a gift for the great house and for anyone leading me to its gate." When Rowan didn't say anything, she began to speak again.

"I would understand if he or she was still recovering from such an intense battle. But I really would love to meet them." She looked at him keenly.

"I would be very, very thankful—""I'm the Helsing who did this." She stopped, taken aback. There was more silence.

"I confess, I don't have much of a sense of humor," she said, a little acerbically.

"What am I supposed to say to hear the punchline?"

"I wasn't being funny." The girl took a seat on the edge of a couch that had fallen through the hole during the battle, mirroring him. She stared up at him with a sarcastic little grin, swinging her legs back and forth.

"Alright, I guess we're doing this," she said.

"Tell me a bit about your heroic deed, then. How powerful was this demonic cultivator, and what was he practicing?"

"He called himself Dao Lord Apex, but he was at the fourth layer of Qi Condensation," said Rowan.

"He–""Fourth layer of Qi Condensation?" she asked, interrupting him.

"I suppose you're hiding your power from me right now," she said, scoffing incredulously.

"It just so happens that this demonic cultivator was at the same layer of Qi Condensation as me." Rowan sighed.

"Seriously? Come up with a more believable story next time." She tilted her head to the side. She drew her long hair into a ponytail and began tying an intricate bow with a purple sash around it.

"A fight against an opponent two layers higher than you, in his evil lair. When you're an outer disciple of Righteous Mountain."

"Where do you think the Helsings are from?" asked Rowan, aggrieved by her tone of voice.

"Is this not the city we founded?"

"I was assuming that it was a Helsing who was talented enough to learn elsewhere." The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings. Rowan scowled.

"Like where? Like your sect?" he said, returning the same type of disdain she showed him. He pushed off the edge of the hole and landed beside her.

"Do you know what this building used to be?" She stood up, and finished tying the bow.

"Some sort of manor, I'm assuming," she finally said.

"This was a secret room that was part of the original architecture of the building." She looked around.

"And it was built long ago."

"It was an orphanage," said Rowan.

"An orphanage? How could it have been an orphanage?" The girl looked fascinated.

"There are no fixtures in the yard for children to play. There are no cribs, or small beds. How is that possible?" Rowan assumed she'd never seen an orphanage before.

"Roughly forty girls lived in the building upstairs," said Rowan, retracing the steps he'd taken when hunting Apex in the darkness.

"Those were the ones who didn't sell. The drought this year has led to many refugees flooding into the city." He stopped at a stained table, bent down, and picked up a snapped femur, yellowing with age. He'd stepped on it during the battle.

"That's–-" Uxia Nevernight leaned in, staring at the bone.

"It does belong to a child," she finally said.

"And the marrow was drained… it's too clean."

"Daoist Apex cultivated a scripture that required the girls to be deboned, mashed into a paste, and consumed. There are over a thousand estimated victims over many, many years."

"That's impossible," the girl said softly. She was no longer derisive, now that she'd seen the bones.

"The amount of Fading Yin generated from that much death would've been noticeable from the top of your sect's mountain, if that had been the case." Rowan strode over to where he remembered seeing the formation.

"To hide from the Dao Court and the sect, there was a Seven-Toned Folding Yin Formation, which redirected any detectable evidence into an infinite loop around the edge of the threshold boundaries. It was here, before the Dao Court retrieved it at the end of their investigation." He pointed at the wall.

"What? There was a Seven-Toned Lock here?" She stared at the spot in the wall intently.

"Can you describe it?"

"A sigil of Yin as the central anchor," he said, recalling the sigils and shapes. He pointed at the spot which had been the center of the array.

"Slight purple glow." Rowan used his fingers to show how far apart each of the circles were.

"Seven concentric circles turning at different speeds so the sigils stayed parallel."

"Do you remember which way each ring spun?" She traced a finger where the anchoring Yin sigil had been.

"From inside out. Clockwise, counterclockwise, counterclockwise, clockwise, clockwise, counterclockwise, clockwise," Rowan said.

"And the activated array faced true east, slightly offset from the wall, perpendicular to the main door." The girl paled and began to count on her fingers again, mouthing the names of trigrams and elements. It seemed to be some form of divination.

"Did you say they were from 'out to in' or from 'in to out'?" she asked.

"From the center to the edge," clarified Rowan.

"A Seven-Toned Lock would be able to capture all the Fading Yin," she said.

"And everything you mentioned fits the description of that formation perfectly. But…" She repeated the counting once, then did it again, looking perplexed.

"The Seven-Toned Lock is an incredibly important formation for exorcists. But those aren't the correct directions. Someone modified the formation's formula. But-""But that isn't something that can be done on a whim," finished Rowan.

"Or by just anyone. Is containing Yin what the Seven-Toned Lock normally does?" The girl fiddled with the bow in her hair.

"It is, and that makes this even more concerning. Modifying formations is really hard. Really, really hard. Master spent decades changing one, and the new one bears his name."

"The Senior Investigator told me that they set up formation plates to scaffold the Yin qi before they removed the formation. The Astrology Bureau has been notified." Uxia nodded.

"That's good, because formation plates don't last forever." She followed a dried bloodstain along the side of the wall down the tunnel.

"This is from the battle," she muttered.

"The blood was thick and clumped. That's what happens when incompatible blood is poured together. But how did–" She stopped.

"Blood doesn't spray like that. Whether it was a slash, or a puncture wound, or blunt force trauma expelling it from a previous injury, there–" She examined the base of the wall.

"There are no droplets. This was smeared," she said.

"But that makes no sense either." Rowan nodded.

"Apex grafted limbs formed with the flesh and blood of his victims onto his body. That's what those limbs left behind on contact…" His voice trailed off as he met a dead end. He vividly remembered every detail about Daoist Apex's lair. He had stepped through every inch of this place searching for survivors, for clues. This had been the location of Daoist Apex's living quarters. Rowan stared at the seamless rocky surface. The entrance was gone.

The smear of blood from Apex's appendages cut off suddenly at the dead end. They both stared at the edge of it. Uxia knocked on the wall with the back of her fist, and then again with her ear to it.

"It's solid. Rock, or compacted dirt." She returned to the smear, and then tapped on the wall again. She stepped back, her eyes shut in concentration. After a minute, her shoulders slumped and now she looked as worried as Rowan felt.

"I just can't imagine how it could be that none of the blood got on this wall," she said.

"It doesn't make sense." They stood there, both trying to come up with an explanation.

"I'm going to check on the formation plates," he said in a low voice. Uxia stepped back unsurely. With a flick of her wrist, a scythe appeared in her hand, the curve of the blade as wide as the moon. They made their way back to the main room, and started to search. Before long, Rowan spotted one of the plates. It had been placed on the floor, in a corner. He crouched down to inspect it. The plate was pure white, and the formation carved upon it had four arrays.

He'd never seen a formation plate in person - they were even more expensive than a typical formation. Though less effective than a formation crafted specifically for a certain location, a formation plate was mobile and could be reused. It emanated pure qi, similar to a spirit stone. Rowan ran his index finger along the plate. He winced when a droplet of blood bloomed along his finger, the skin stinging. As soon as the injury appeared the cut healed over. A sinking in his gut.

He tilted his head, looking closely at the formation plate in the darkness. A long, nearly imperceptible hairline crack ran over its surface.

"What is it?" asked Uxia. Rowan's voice caught in his throat. Should he tell her? What if she was the one responsible, and she'd just been pretending otherwise?

"Nothing," he said, standing up, heart crashing against his ribs.

"I've just never seen a formation plate before."

"Really?" She seemed genuinely surprised. He walked out of the tunnel with purpose, feeling out for any anomalies or discrepancies in the nearby qi. Uxia Nevernight pranced behind him, intensely interested in every stray bone or skull she came across. Even if there was a fracture in the formation plate, did that mean it wasn't working anymore? Or was it simply a bit less effective?

"Hold on," she said.

"Let's go back to the basics." Uxia touched two fingers to her palm and a small ball of fire formed in the cup of her hand, dancing and flicking. She walked along the walls slowly, watching the fire as it waxed and waned in strength, following it like a compass. Rowan, despite his better judgment which was telling him to use this time to escape, followed her from several paces behind. Then, suddenly, the flame blew out. She was standing in front of the wall where Daoist Apex's living quarters had been.

The wall strangely free of blood despite the smears cutting off around it.

"I can't feel much Fading Yin qi, but something is definitely here," Uxia murmured to herself.

"Here, hold this…" Rowan blinked as she distractedly handed him her scythe. Maybe she wasn't involved in this. Uxia stuck a yellow paper talisman on the rocky surface, made another hand sign, and blew a gust of breath onto it. The smell was strangely fragrant, like woody incense. Like she had a burner in her lungs. The rock wall trembled slightly before a thin, pitch-black line of wriggling Yin energy formed the outline of a door, opening with a howl of Yin wind.

Uxia shielded her eyes from the lashing winds, grabbing the scythe back from him. Rowan only stared at the sight that met him, his gut sinking to the floor.

"No…" he whispered.