Chương 5: Chapter 4

There is quite the ruckus up there. Wu Zetian was mildly impressed by the breadth of her perceptions. The Abyssal Underworld was blackness made manifest. The darkness swirled like ink here, the Qi so concentrated that a Foundation Establishment Cultivator would have been crushed by its weight. More than anything, it was quiet, fully so. Sound and heat and movement; they were all frozen in a moment of perfect stillness that sounded like a clear note in her eyes, like the echo of a crystalline accent.

The only light, if light could be made out of darkness, came from beneath, the Shadow Dragon Vein pulsing as an impossibly deeper shadow in the shadows. Standing here, one could imagine that chaos and noise were myths, but she couldn't be mistaken. She felt the battle above like a mosquito on the back of her hand, teasing at her skin. In a way, it reminded her of that time, back in 19XX, when a coalition of so-called new-age managers had attempted a hostile takeover of her company.

"Out with the old, in with the new," they had said, as they filed lawsuits against her business practices and launched pressure campaigns to lower her stocks' value. They had bought, persuaded, pressured, threatened and beaten shareholders off their shares, until they had enough to drown her voice in the board. She had played by their game, recited the part of the obsolete businesswoman who could be bludgeoned out of the game.

Meanwhile, she had spun and sold the R&D division of Wistamere, the most valuable section of the company, and taken massive debt on its behalf. When she raised her white flag and meekly stepped back, her opponents had strode in, only to find that she had left them with a gutted house. Thanks to her extensive contacts, even the doorknobs had been mortgaged, with payments due on very short notice and nothing of value to sell to fulfill them. Her return had been triumphant.

She had bought back her shares at a pittance and then turned and used the money she had amassed to buy her rivals out of their socks and shoes. Wistamere had been devastated, but what mattered was accomplished: she wasn't a woman you could trifle with. If you tried, she was willing to burn down the house on herself and you if that's what it took.

That dark fame served her well during her later career, made her into a bit of a dread legend in the corporate world and one you didn't cross unless you were ready to be burned. The feeling she felt now was surprisingly similar, both annoying and familiar. These ants, trying to muscle into her territory, to steal and despoil what was hers… But she supposed it was her fault. Or rather, it was Wu Zetian's fault. Eight hundred forty-seven years, eight months, thirteen days and a few hours of seclusion.

Even for an Immortal cultivator, it was a massive amount of time, more than enough for her stories to turn into legend and the legend into distant myth. Any other cultivators would have given up or gone into Qi deviation. It spoke volumes about her former self's obsession that she never did. Not so strange that her Sect collapsed on itself during such a long absence. Wu Zetian had been its pillar. As for the crows that came to feast on what remained… that was just obvious.

Wu Zetian let a soft breath out of her nose. Nuisances, nuisances. A ray of moonlight split the darkness. For a moment, it was like watching the heavens turn, motes of silvery lights acting as stars that rushed from east to west in an accelerated whirl. But they never set. Instead, they froze, and ribbons of starlight connected them in constellations the true sky never saw, stairways for her to ascend. Wu Zetian trodded them steadily.

Yet, her will overrode space here and each step saw her appear to a new height, her figure flickering like a dark star herself. Above, the darkness split again, two colossal half-circles marked with the character for Abyss and Darkness emblazoned over steel that seemed wrought out of shadows. Beneath her, the Abyssal Iron Blossom swirled serenely in the void. Wu Zetian felt a pang of longing for its serene vastness, but her step remained directed to the Gate above.

Her Qi flared as, following motions that were alien and yet familiar, she sent for a mental command. Above, something massive uncoiled, the sound of scales sliding on scales echoing in the dark. Wu Zetian stopped. Caught between the open Gate, balancing on a star, she was all but floating in the night sky. Yet, she felt only calm, the quiet joy of seeing a beloved one after a long time. She extended a hand and the darkness clustered over the pale fingers, covering them like fluttering leaves.

There was a soft hissing.

"Good morning," she murmured fondly, caressing with the back of her fingers in the way she knew the creature would like. She remembered well. The Sun-Eating Serpent leaned into the caress, a deep sound that may have been a purr emerging from its barrel-wide chest. The spirit beast – a Seventh Rank her previous self had raised since it was an egg – was intelligent. Their spirit blazed like a bonfire, radiating joyful recognition and… was that a sulk?

"Oh dear," Wu Zetian murmured, running her fingers over smooth, cool scales.

"I seem to have been away for far too long, haven't I? And you've been quite lonely." If pouting could be expressed through Qi, the Serpent was doing just that. But Wu Zetian was tricky and canny. She knew just the thing to reconcile with sulky beasts. Why, a nice rub under the jaw and behind the neck, slow and deep soothing circles that would have a Dragon melt into a puddle. The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement. Which the Serpent could turn into.

And exactly what they did turn into, as an undying testament to Wu Zetian's legendary skills.

"Sorry to have kept you waiting," she murmured, chuckling softly. The Serpent's presence shimmered with gladness, any shadow banished. But then, they nosed her. Wu Zetian was surprised for a moment before realizing they were trying to attract her attention to something. Or someone. The girl must have been thirteen at best. She was quite fetching, with pale, blemishless skin and long, silky hair tied into two buns. She was also not breathing.

Wu Zetian hummed, sending a strand of Qi into her body even as she kneeled beside her. Still alive, good. The foolish girl, barely a middle-rank Foundation Establishment, had courted death by coming here, where the Night wafted strongly enough to squeeze the life out of those lacking the strength to sustain it. With a flicker of will, Wu Zetian drew the Night Qi away, turning it to revitalizing instead of smothering. Instantly, the girl's breathing resumed, slow and regular, and some color returned to her features.

Quite effective. She's fairly well attuned to Night Qi. It's almost like… oh. Gently, Wu Zetian turned the girl's face toward her. Her breath itched. The girl had features that reminded hers. The eyes, the bridge of the nose; the resemblance was uncanny. Not to speak about the pale skin, and the hair. She expected her eyes had her same tone. A… daughter? Wu Zetian ripped her hand away like the girl was burning. No, no… I was in cultivation, and she's too young. A descendant, then.

She touched her again, reverently this time, and her composure shot through with concern. Of course. Her old self had fostered many children during her lifetime, and those children must have fostered their own. A whole bloodline could have sprouted in the eight centuries she had been absent, branches mingling and dividing. Still, her blood was clear as day in the girl, both in the appearance and the way her Qi breathed and reacted. Foolish girl. Why did she come here? Maybe… to awaken the Serpent.

To recruit them for the Sect's defense. It must be so. Brave then. Still foolish, but brave nonetheless. Wu Zetian was well aware she was greedy. Greed was part of her like flesh and blood were. But her greed ever only extended over one person, and she had severed it when she let him go. As she carefully picked the girl, she felt that same greed rear its head, mingling with a possessive avarice that clutched her heart with claws of gold-plated iron. A daughter. A Wu. A brave, fierce, reckless Wu.

An avalanche of questions shot through her mind, but she repressed them. There would be time for them. Gently, she set the girl on the Serpent's back, the creature radiating with concern as they stood obediently still. Of course they would be worried. Only Wu Zetian could lower the Night's intensity. The Serpent had likely been forced to watch as the girl collapsed. Wu Zetian smothered the guilt like a baby in the crib.

She made sure the girl's head was well cradled amidst summoned strands of darkness and then swathed both herself and the Sun-Eating Serpent in a cocoon of the same. It took just a thought for the world to turn into motion. She didn't traverse the Underworlds; the space between her position and the surface had long been entwined with the Night and enslaved to her whims. It quivered as she plucked at it, then obediently twisted as she turned it.

In a moment, what should have been a distance of dozens of li turned into the space between three steps. Straight into the sky above the crater. For a moment, Wu Zetian was disoriented. Not from the impossibly fast spatial jump; from the lack of light. Why was the Night as thick here as it was close to her Blossom? She realized the reason. It's me. The Night radiates from me. Even as she floated far high above the crater, the air ran like syrup.

Thick strands of Night Qi folded and unfolded, enshrouding the sky in a serene tangle. Wu Zetian found it breathtaking. She gestured, and the Night Qi – cool, pure, serene – arrayed itself around her. Great currents of darkness redirected obediently, flows of still silence braiding themselves into a great Queen of the Night flower that encompassed the sky. Wu Zetian floated at the center of serenity.

Part of her would have gladly remained there to admire the shadowy depths, but the mundane world called to her, in quite the offensive way. If the Night close to her was her mantle and her breath, pure of impurity and impossibly deep, beneath the cloak was tattering. Night Qi – impure, shallow, tainted with noise and colors – flailed in strands, a ragged wind instead of a majestic fog front; it mixed and fought with foul Qi that had nothing of its sanctity.

The reeks of offal and hunger, the flailing of a bloody pig in the mud, the metallic taste of practiced malice; they all offended her senses and the blessed stillness of the dark. Wu Zetian shook her head. If this is a coma-induced dream, it's the most realistic out there. The ash-strewn air, the distant fires; they all felt so real that she struggled to hold on to anything other than the possibility that this was her new reality. But how? How did she transmigrate here? And why her out of all people?

She never asked for this. And… everything felt so familiar. Her meridians, like massive aqueducts running with rivers and floods of Night. Her Spirit Roots, painstakingly refined to a sharp point. The Gates, nodes opened and forced open by thousands years of Cultivation. And the Cultivation… how the Night Qi wafted from her Immortal soul like the breath of another, more serene world, flowing through her, emerging from her, only to cycle back and return the way it had come.

A virtuous cycle that was as majestic as the Moon's own voyage across the heavens, that left her thrumming with power deep enough to swallow mountains. She knew them all with the innate familiarity of someone who had worked thousands of years to their refinement. The original Wu Zetian's memories had their tangles and blind spots, but apart from that, her body, mind and soul were hers, completely joined, not an inch apart. And yet, I am still me. My memories are right here.

If it can be called anything, it's an addiction. Be as it may, the world, as it was its due, wouldn't wait for her to find answers. Beneath, barely visible beneath the layer of Night, the invaders filled the Wu Plateau with their filth and rust and crooked limbs. A mild disdain washing over her, Wu Zetian thought about crushing them all, but no, it wouldn't do to rush things.

She could still perceive the enemy commanders, and there were enough of them to warrant caution, not to speak of any possible secret weapons they may carry and keep invisible from her sight. Rather, she turned to her Disciples. Ragged, wounded, and so few of them left. That wouldn't ever do. With a sweep of her hand, she sent a wave of Night Qi across the Ring and its defenders. The tattered strands of Night wove themselves anew in a fluttering cloak, then into a wafting sea.

Wu Zetian smiled faintly as she felt the Disciples drink deep, their flickering lights brimming with new strength into her Night. Like so many tiny hands pulling at the hems of her robes… One in particular. Wu Zetian felt her attention click on the Cultivator like a constellation setting into place. Early-stage Core Formation, very talented, twenty-seven-year-old. Healthy, proper form, well-established foundation, high-quality Roots, well-defined Nature. And another of her children. Wu Zetian barely paused.

Space folded for her, and she appeared beside the young man in a blossom of dark shadows.