Chương 6: Celestial Confrontation

It was the smell. The smell of rot and decay that shook Jianyi out of the strange mix of shock from all that had happened so far that day and euphoria from the amazing flight that Elder Sun had taken him on. He had no idea what could cause that smell—he had never experienced it before, after all—but he felt, deep in his gut, that he did not want to go into that cave without his full faculties. Should he even go into the cave? He mentally shrugged.

It was very unusual for him to act so much on gut feel, but he had earlier that day decided to trust Elder Sun, and he saw no reason to change that now. Certainly, he couldn't imagine anything that could threaten the sect elder. Jianyi dropped his bag, grabbed his spear tightly, and stepped into the cave. The stench of decay intensified the deeper they went into the cave, which was barely high enough for them to walk upright initially, but opened up quite a bit after about a dozen steps.

The sunlight was plenty for Jianyi to see his direct vicinity, but he struggled to perceive the full depth of the cave. Elder Sun walked into the darkness as if he were out for a pleasant stroll, hands clasped behind his back. The source—or at least the first one—for the smell appeared on Jianyi's left side. In a rocky depression in the ground lay the carcass of a creature. He couldn't tell what it had been as its flesh was almost entirely gone, eaten.

Given that the creature must have easily reached Jianyi's chest, based on the size of the bones lying around, something really big must have killed it. Something that was quite possibly still around. Jianyi quickly turned around, suspecting an attack any moment, but there was nothing behind him but the faint cavern entrance. Looking for the elder, he noticed that the man had already moved on and was increasingly hard to see.

"Elder!" he whispered, not wanting to alert whatever beast was lurking in the dark.

"You can call me teacher, now. We can actually use this little excursion to discuss a few things, too. If you like."

"Thank you… teacher, I would love to, but… I can't see," Jianyi said, slightly embarrassed.

"Oh," the elder chuckled, "I am sorry. How about now?" Elder Sun said as a wispy ball of light appeared over his shoulder, its yellow light letting Jianyi see that the cave was quite a bit larger than he had expected and that there were passages leading even further into the mountain.

"Thank you, may I ask why it is so important that nobody learns about my core card?" The elder continued to walk down one of the passages, talking while Jianyi struggled to keep up and stay close enough that he could understand what the elder said, despite him talking in the wrong direction.

"Mhh, there are two reasons. The first one is simple. There are greedy people out there, and the monetary value of what sits in your dantian is simply… immeasurable. Either for somebody else to use it—which is possible with the right demonic rituals," the elder said with distaste, "or for an alchemist to extract the essence and create an elixir that would have earth-shaking effects." He fell silent for a moment, lost in his thoughts as he followed paths seemingly at random.

"The second is more complicated. Maybe it's just my imagination running wild, maybe I'm just an old fool looking for some hope after fighting the demons for hundreds of years..." He paused again, but Jianyi thought he could see a shiver run down the elder's back.

"… you need to understand one crucial bit of information: We have been fighting the Celestial Confrontation for almost a thousand years. And—despite what the public is being told—we are losing the war." Jianyi froze. His mind just stopped, his body locked up, his legs wouldn't work anymore. He couldn't—wouldn't—comprehend what the elder just said. All his life, he had been told that they were doing fine. He had believed that his father's death had contributed to the inevitable victory of the Empire.

Now, hearing that his death had been in vain—well, not in vain, but only delaying the inevitable instead of truly pushing the demonic beasts back—was… he felt a cold fist clamping down on his heart, and he didn't know what to do with the feelings coursing through his body. Elder Sun, seemingly noting that Jianyi hadn't kept up, turned around and came back. He placed a hand on his shoulder and squeezed. The warmth of the gesture helped to return feeling to Jianyi's limbs.

From deep in the shadows to his left, Jianyi heard a clicking noise. A huge, ugly centipede, body as long as a horse and thick as a man's torso, with pincers the color of dried blood squeezed out of a crack in the stone, launching itself at him. Before Jianyi could even feel fear, the elder's spear had carved the creature in half, its pincers clicking once more against the passage's floor before falling still. Unperturbed, the elder continued where he had paused earlier.

"We are giving it our all, and we are killing demonic beasts by the thousands every day, but the truth is, it is not enough. Every year, the frontlines move a bit further south." His hand formed a fist in a mixture of anger and frustration.

"It is not much, and the Empire is large—billions of people, much larger than most can even start to comprehend—but we are losing, and soon the first major cities will be taken. From there, the downward spiral will accelerate."

"How long do we still have?" he almost whispered.

"Until we are defeated, you mean? Hundreds of years… which might sound long to somebody who is sixteen—but now that you are a cultivator, if you rise through the realms, you can easily live to see the Empire fall." The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. Jianyi wondered if there came a moment when one would be inured to shock. If so, today would be the day for him. But unfortunately, he hadn't reached that point yet.

It felt easy to give in to the creeping despair, but he shook himself and took a deep breath—which he immediately regretted because the stench of decay had intensified, not gone away. The elder chuckled, but Jianyi hardly noticed. He used his spear to poke the dead centipede at his feet.

"Was this a demonic beast?" he asked, uncertain about his own state of mind.

"No, not at all. This is a spirit beast, a weak one, actually, but perfectly in balance with the elements." The elder turned around and started back down the path into the mountain.

"What is it that makes demonic beasts the twisted abominations that they are?" Jianyi stepped over the dead creature and tried to come up with an answer while his mind was still in turmoil.

"It is their nature?" his voice raised questioningly towards the end.

"You are not wrong, but it is a circular answer," the elder said while slaughtering another centipede.

"Unless our schools have failed completely, you know about Wuxing—the balance of the five elements. With it comes the generative cycle: Wood feeds Fire, Fire creates Earth, Earth bears Metal, Metal enriches Water, Water nourishes Wood." Jianyi nodded, even though the elder could not see it.

"The balance of the generative cycle is what gives our realm stability and order. As a side note: Those are also the only dual affinities that humans have ever had, like my Fire and Wood dual affinity, but I digress.

"Demonic beasts are different. They come from an environment ruled by the destructive cycle." Jianyi remembered the destructive cycle, but when it had been mentioned in school, it had sounded like an abomination that should not appear under the Heavens.

"Fire melts Metal, Metal cuts Wood, Wood breaks Earth, Earth absorbs Water, Water douses Fire."

"Very good. You are correct. The destructive cycle itself is not evil, but it tilts toward instability, and that imbalance is believed to twist the beasts into the horrible, evil beings that they are. Imagine a world where Fire does not provide warmth but only consumes, where Earth collapses rather than stabilizes." They entered a large, narrow cavern, the elder's light reflected in tiny crystals or quartz that were visible in veins along the side walls. The stench of decay was overwhelming.

Jianyi couldn't see all the way to the end of the cavern, but he could hear clicking. A lot louder than before—it sounded like an army of the creatures was on its way to eat them, or just a very large one. The elder continued his explanation, just raising his voice above the ruckus.

"All of this brings us back to you. The reason why nobody may ever know what I suspect.

"There are rumors, speculation really, that there is something—or someone—who directs the Demonic Tide, who is the root cause for all the pain and suffering of the last thousand years. That speculation includes the idea that this being, this demon, has access to all the elements, generative and destructive combinations both, and that it is… searching for something." Piercing purple eyes, hunting him. Cold sweat started to run down his back, and Jianyi had to take a sharp breath to not let fear overcome him.

In that moment, the spirit beasts showed their presence. From the depths of the cavern raced a centipede at least twice as large as the ones the elder had killed so far, and more of the smaller ones crawled through cracks in the walls from all sides. The clicking noise was what made Jianyi break through his fear and fiercely grip his spear. From the corner of his eye, he could see the elder look at the creature curiously.

Then, with a smooth gesture, five translucent cards materialized in front of him, and without hesitation, he threw one of them to the right, not at all what Jianyi had expected. Jianyi focused on the nearest centipede but turned around as he felt searing heat, almost hot enough to burn the air out of his lungs, from where the elder had thrown the card. The stone itself seemed close to melting, but no flames were to be seen. The distraction almost cost him as the beast before him launched itself at him.

His eyes widened, and he felt sweat forming on his brow, but he managed to center himself and fall back on his training. He slightly lowered his center of gravity, took a step forward, and thrust the spear at the leading centipede. A hit. But the attack only scratched the chitin armor of the beast and did not penetrate. He did, however, manage to push the creature away from himself and into the path of another one.

Remembering his fight against the two guards in Administrator Deng's house, he carefully paid attention to his surroundings and quickly retreated two steps to make sure he wasn't flanked by another centipede. He sidestepped and lunged, and this time he was successful, managing to land his thrust in the beast's hand-sized mouth. Before he could make his next move, the same white-hot blistering spark of fire that had killed the administrator appeared, just not one.

Half a dozen burned through the bodies of the centipedes around him, killing them. Jianyi was out of breath, his hands shaking despite the physical exertion being limited. He had just used his spear for the first time in anger—and it didn't even rank amongst the top five most shocking events of the day.

"Very well, my young friend, thank you for your help," the elder said behind him. Jianyi had no illusions about having helped the elder in any form but nodded anyway. The elder winked at him and moved towards the large centipede that lay on the ground, twisted in its death throes. He produced something from his spatial ring and held it over the creature's corpse. After a few moments, a card materialized above the beast, and the creature seemed to… diminish somehow. It was hard to explain.

The elder snapped the card up and put it away. He then put the whole body into his spatial ring, making Jianyi question even the little he had thought he knew about these devices.

"Excellent. Dark-Dwelling Centipede ordered and delivered…" he said, seemingly satisfied with himself.

"Shall we go?" Jianyi nodded, and they retraced their earlier steps. He tried to remember what the last piece of shocking information had been that he had learned about before the fight. It didn't come back to him until the elder resumed his explanation as if nothing had happened.

"The rumors about this unique demon are old, very old—until now I thought them fairy tales, but if there is a possibility for one person to hold all the elements… that would change everything." The purple eyes. A possible explanation for his nightmares? Somehow, Jianyi couldn't muster the energy for more fear or shock. His limit was reached. Not knowing what went on in Jianyi's head but sensing his emotional turmoil, the Elder continued.

"Don't worry, I neither want to put the world's hope on your shoulders nor strike fear in your heart with these stories. However, there is no doubt in my mind that if what rests in your lower dantian became known, you would never enjoy a quiet moment again. Now, let us forget about these grand things and exit these caves." For the next few minutes, Jianyi thought about nothing. His mind was blank, and the only thing that pulled him out of his stupor was the sun shining on his head as they stepped out of the dark.

The elder wrapped him up into his qi, but instead of flying to the sect, he just jumped to another small plateau not very different from where they had just been, only without the horrendous smell. He pulled out a half dozen metal plates from his storage ring. They were connected with a thin thread, and Jianyi saw a card embedded in one of them, though he couldn't read what it said.

"Now that we are outside, let's make sure to never discuss these things without a formation like this that will block others from listening to our conversation. And don't worry, I will get you back to the sect in no time. I just want you to remember a few things.

"Going forward, your main responsibility will be to learn and grow, both with your cultivation and your spear.

"The things you need to remember—we met at your trial. In general, people don't ask for one's affinities, but if they do, you are a Fire and Wood dual affinity cultivator. You will stay at my residence to do your duty as my new servant. Any questions?" Jianyi shook his head. While the details were hazy, the big picture was clear: keep his mouth shut, learn, and serve the elder's household. After a moment, Elder Sun collected the formation plates and lifted Jianyi up again with his technique.

They were off to the sect.