Chương 170: A New Mission

The darkness was complete, there was nothing there, no light and no sound and not even a single feeling that Li Yuan could hold onto, this was the prison that waited for him in between every mission he was sent on. He couldn't move his body, he couldn't make a sound, he couldn't even think properly, his mind just sort of floated there, stuck somewhere between being awake and being gone, and it never really felt like either one.

Time didn't work right in this place, what seemed like only a minute might actually have been several days, and what felt like it dragged on for weeks could turn out to be just a couple hours, the only thing Li Yuan knew for sure was that sooner or later the Masked One would summon him again, and when that happened he would have no choice but to go. When his awareness came back this time it happened slowly, in pieces.

First he could feel his arms and legs again, that weird prickling feeling that always came when his body switched from being a statue back into actual flesh, then his fingers started moving on their own, twitching like they were remembering how to work, and finally his thoughts got clearer and clearer until he was fully awake and thinking like himself again. A portal made of swirling black appeared right in front of him, it looked the same as the one that brought him to this place the first time.

Li Yuan's legs started moving forward by themselves, he didn't even have to think about it. As he walked through the portal, the emptiness around him gave way to the huge round chamber where the Masked One sat on his throne.

The room hadn't changed one bit since the last time he was here, the walls were still covered in random piles of treasure that looked like they'd just been thrown there without any care, the ceiling went up so high it just disappeared into darkness, and at the far end of the room sat that black crystal throne, the one that always made Li Yuan feel uneasy.

He had learned a long time ago that it was better not to look directly at the throne for too long, doing that always gave him a headache that lasted for hours afterward.

"Ah, my loyal servant has returned to the world of the living," the Masked One said, and his voice still had that strange quality to it, like several voices speaking at once but all perfectly in sync, like they were all the same person speaking from different points in time somehow. He moved his hand and Li Yuan's body walked forward on its own and dropped down onto one knee in front of the throne. He hated that feeling, the lack of control over his own limbs, but there was nothing he could do about it.

"Master," Li Yuan said, his head still bowed low.

"What do you require of me?" The Masked One made a strange motion with his hand, like he was flipping through a book that nobody else could see.

"I have located an interesting target for you. Someone who recently departed from the Azure Peak Sect, someone who shows... potential, shall we say." Despite himself Li Yuan felt a flicker of curiosity, the Azure Peak Sect was one of the strongest powers in this whole region, and if someone from there had caught the Masked One's eye, then they were probably someone very strong.

"Could you tell me more about this person, Master?"

"The details don't matter," the Masked One said, waving his hand like he was brushing away a fly.

"What matters is that this person shows signs of what I call protagonist energy, whether they know about their own potential or not, doesn't change anything, either way they will be much more useful as part of my collection than they would be running around free."

Li Yuan kept his face blank even though inside he was letting out a long sigh, of course that was all the information he was going to get, the Masked One's strange obsession with these "protagonists" meant he would fixate on the weirdest little details while ignoring what anyone else would think was important.

The Masked One held his hand out and a small crystal appeared in his palm out of nowhere, it looked almost exactly like a regular spirit stone except for one thing, the light pulsing inside of it had that same wrong rhythm that everything the Masked One made always seemed to have.

"This crystal will guide you to them, I have already marked their spiritual signature onto it, just follow the direction it's pointing." As Li Yuan reached out to take the crystal, the Masked One made another gesture with his hand, and a second portal of darkness opened up next to the throne, a young woman stepped out of it. Li Yuan had seen her statue before, back in the void, but this was the first time he was seeing her actually moving and alive.

She had pale skin and long black hair, and her eyes, every once in a while, flashed red whenever she thought no one was watching her, she wore dark robes that seemed to soak up the light around her the same way the Masked One's clothes did, except hers were cut a lot more... revealing than what most cultivators usually wore.

"Mo Qingyin," the Masked One said, introducing her, "this is Li Yuan, the two of you will be working on this mission together." Mo Qingyin looked Li Yuan over from head to toe, and her lips curled up into a smile that was probably supposed to look seductive.

"It's such a pleasure to meet you, Brother Li, I've seen your statue plenty of times before but it's so much nicer to finally meet you in person, in the flesh so to speak." There was something in the way she was looking at him that made Li Yuan think she was dangerous, a person who looked nice on the outside but would hurt you the moment you got close enough. He gave her a small polite nod and nothing more. The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

Mo Qingyin turned back toward the Masked One, and her whole attitude changed in an instant, she suddenly looked all coy and flirty.

"Master, you know I work much better when I'm alone, surely you don't need to send the both of us on this, right? I could handle this mission all by myself, and maybe afterward, we could talk about my... progress, together?" The air in the chamber suddenly got a lot colder. The Masked One's mask slowly turned toward her. When he spoke again, his voice, all those many voices speaking together, had an edge to it that could cut through steel.

"You forget your place, puppet." Mo Qingyin's eyes went wide, and she dropped down to her knees immediately, pressing her forehead against the floor.

"Forgive me Master, I spoke out of line!"

"Yes, you did." The Masked One raised his hand and Mo Qingyin's whole body locked up stiff. A small whimper came out of her as whatever power he was using took hold of her.

"Perhaps you need a reminder of your place here?"

"Please," she gasped out, "I understand, I made a mistake…" The Masked One closed his fist and Mo Qingyin screamed as her body convulsed like something was tearing her apart from the inside out, but there wasn't a single visible wound or mark on her anywhere. After what felt like forever, but was probably only a couple seconds really, the Masked One opened his hand again and Mo Qingyin dropped to the floor, breathing hard.

"Don't forget," the Masked One said, "you exist only to serve my will, nothing else."

"Yes, Master," Mo Qingyin whispered, her whole body still shaking. The Masked One turned his attention back to Li Yuan, who had watched this whole thing happen without showing any reaction at all. When he was first brought back from death, his own Master had punished him this exact same way, just to show him how much power he had over their souls.

"You have your mission now. Explain the details to her, and do not fail me." Li Yuan bowed his head again.

"Yes Master, as you command." The Masked One made another gesture and a new portal opened up, and Li Yuan felt his body being pulled toward it without his permission. Mo Qingyin scrambled back up to her feet and followed after him, still shaking a little from what had just happened to her. As they both stepped through into the world outside, Li Yuan couldn't help but wonder what trouble this mission was going to bring them, somehow he doubted things would go as smoothly as their Master had made it sound.

The portal dropped them off in a clearing in the middle of a forest, under the light of a moon that wasn't quite full anymore. Li Yuan took a second to get his bearings, then checked the crystal the Masked One had given him, it was pulsing with a faint light, pointing off toward the northeast.

"Well then," Mo Qingyin said, her voice already back to its usual seductive tone, though Li Yuan noticed she was keeping a little more distance from him than before, "shall we get our little hunt started, Brother Li?" Li Yuan started walking in the direction the crystal was pointing without bothering to look back at her.

"We need to move fast, the target already has a head start on us." He heard her footsteps hurrying to catch up behind him.

"So cold! And here I thought we could use this time to get to know each other a little better, after all, we're the only ones here who can really understand what the other one is going through..."

"I understand your situation just fine," Li Yuan cut her off before she could keep going.

"You sold your soul to the Masked One, same as I did, that's really all I need to know about you."

"Oh, so you think you've got me all figured out then, do you?" Mo Qingyin laughed.

"Let me guess, you take one look at how I dress and how I act, and you think you already know what kind of woman I am, right?"

"I think you're someone who tries to manipulate everyone around her, even though you know perfectly well it doesn't work on our Master." Li Yuan kept his eyes forward, focused on the path ahead of them.

"You're desperate, and I think trying to seduce anything that moves is probably what got you into trouble to begin with." There was a moment where neither of them said anything, then Mo Qingyin spoke up again, and her voice had lost most of its sultry edge.

"Well well, maybe you're more observant than you look after all." She moved up to walk right beside him instead of behind.

"But you're wrong about one thing, seduction had nothing to do with how I fell, would you like to hear what actually happened?" Li Yuan thought about just ignoring her, but they had a long way to go still, and talking would help pass the time at least, plus knowing more about his temporary partner's past might end up being useful later.

"If you're going to tell me anyway, then I guess I might as well listen."

"How generous of you," Mo Qingyin said dryly.

"It's actually pretty simple really, I was born into a tiny sect, one of those places that's so small it barely even counts as a sect at all, the strongest elder there could barely even reach the Elemental Realm. But I had real talent, actual talent, and I wasn't about to just waste my life away in a place like that." She paused there, probably for some kind of dramatic effect. Li Yuan just kept walking and let the silence drag on until she kept talking again.

"I found this ancient text hidden away in the sect's library, the elders had hidden it because they thought it was too dangerous for anyone to use. It described a cultivation method that promised power way beyond what should be normal, the Demonic Bloom Path it was called." Her voice took on a bitter tone now.

"What the text didn't say anywhere was that the method was incomplete, that it would slowly poison my own spiritual essence over time, turning it toxic to me and to everyone else around me too. By the time I figured out what was happening to me, it was already too late, my own cultivation was literally killing me from the inside." Li Yuan's pace slowed down just a little bit. He already knew where this story was headed, it was always the same story with everyone the Masked One brought into his service.

A moment where someone was desperate enough, a deal that seemed better than dying, and then an eternity of servitude after that.

"The Masked One found me while I was dying, my own power was eating away at my meridians one piece at a time," Mo Qingyin said, confirming exactly what he'd been thinking.

"He offered me a new body, one that could actually handle all that corrupted energy inside me. All I had to do in exchange was give him my soul." She laughed again, but there was no seduction in it this time, just cold, bitter irony.

"I really thought I was being so clever back then, you know? I figured I'd find some way to break free eventually, I had no idea what it actually meant to sell your soul to someone like him."

"None of us did," Li Yuan said quietly, old memories of his own death and his own rebirth pushing their way to the front of his mind again.

"We were all desperate, we all thought we were smart enough to outsmart him somehow."

"And now here we are, hunting down other people to add to his little collection." Mo Qingyin's voice turned thoughtful.

"I wonder sometimes how many of them there really are, and how many of them are sitting there thinking they'll find some way to escape too, in those few moments when they actually wake up and can think for themselves again…" Li Yuan didn't say anything back to that. He didn't really want to think about the other statues, about how many souls the Masked One had already taken for himself, or about how he was about to help add one more person to that same collection.