Legend of The Young Master

Chapter 179: Owe The Heavens

Xilai looked up. "In a way, all the summons are demonic, as they are not of this world, but no righteous faction will use that against you. Just how you have fortified your consciousness. Can you channel them through your body?" he asked.

Wuyi frowned. "I know what you mean," he said. "I have tried it. My strength is poor. Over time, I was taught that we grow in strength by the ceaseless exertion of muscle, and that the exercise of power is no different."

Xilai nodded. "True. Mostly true. You have unique access to the power of the beings of different worlds, unlike many bloodlines do." He shrugged.

"But I don't pray or support your heavens as you do maybe that is why i can't channel them through my body," said Wuyi. "What do you expect?"

Xilai shrugged. "You can wallow or you can grow. I doubt you can do both." He leaned forward. "So listen. So far, everything he has done is foreplay. He has thousands of fresh-minted swamplings; he has all the spectrum of fearsome demonics of the eastern Wild—Yingmo, flying serpents, daemons; Nomads; duskreavers.

He has the power to launch an attack on you—who has fortified consciousness to a level beyond my imagination. When he comes against us in full measure, he will destroy us utterly."

Wuyi shrugged and drank some wine. "Best surrender then," he said with a smile.

"Wake up, boy! This is serious!" The old man slapped the low table. They glowered at each other.

"I need your powers to be deployed for us," Xilai said. "Can you take instruction?"

Wuyi looked away. "Yes," he muttered. He sat back and was suddenly serious. He raised his eyes. "Yes, Xilai. I will take your instruction and stop rebelling against your obvious authority for no better reason than that you remind me of my old alcoholic guardians."

Xilai shrugged. "I don't drink enough to remind you of your alcoholic guardians, whoever they were," he said.

"You left out the Talons," Wuyi put in. "When you were listing his overwhelming strength. We caught some of them in camp, in our first group attack. Now he's moved them elsewhere, and I've lost them."

"Talons?" Xilai asked. "The hidden organization of demonics that live among the righteous?"

"Yes," Wuyi said. "They want a change in power."

"You sound sympathetic," Xilai said.

"If I'd been born in a low clan, I'd be a Talon," Wuyi looked at his Qi armor on its rack as if contemplating the social divide.

Xilai shrugged. "How very archaic of you." He chuckled.

"Things are worse for the commons. They keep getting worse. You don't think there will be consequences," Wuyi asserted.

Xilai stroked his beard and poured a cup of wine. "Lad, surely you have recognized that things are worse for everyone? Things are falling apart. The Demonics are winning—not by great victories, but by simple entropy. We have fewer farms and fewer men. I saw it riding here.

The kingdom is failing. And this fight—this little fight for an obscure castle that holds a river crossing vital to an entry to the kingdom—is turning into the fight of your generation. The odds are always long for us. We are never wise—when we are rich, we squander our riches fighting each other and taking everything for our own clan.

When we are poor, we fight among ourselves for scraps—and always, the demonics are there to take whatever they can."

"I will not fail here," Wuyi said.

"Because if you are victorious here, you will have finally turned your back on the fate that was appointed to you?" said Xilai.

"Everyone has to strive for something," Wuyi replied.

Xilai was about to leave when Wuyi suddenly spoke, "Do you know anything about Dark Sun or Black Sun?"

He had remembered that entity had called him something similar.

Wuyi watched Xilai's reaction. The old man had a shiver run down his spine.

Xilai calmed his nerves and spoke, "Where did you hear it?"

Wuyi thought and spoke, "I will tell you where. If you tell me what it is."

Xilai shook his head and spoke, "Let's survive this first. If we survive this war, we can talk about it."

Wuyi nodded.

✶ ✶ ✶

A leader is seldom alone. For Wuyi, there was logistical work, often done with Xianfeng Zhai. He had drills to supervise, general inspections, particular inspections, and an endless host of small social duties—the expectations of a band of people bonded by ties forged in fire. A band of people who, in many cases, are rejects from other communities because they lack even the most basic social skills.

Wuyi needed to be alone, and his usual expedient was to ride out over the fields of whatever countryside his little army occupied, find himself a copse of trees, and sit amongst them. But the enemy occupied the countryside, and the fortress itself was full to bursting with people—people everywhere.

Xilai had left him with a set of complex instructions—in effect, a new set of skills to learn, all in aid of defending himself against direct workings from their current enemy. And there was a plan, too—a careful plan—reckless in risk, but cunning in scope. Wuyi had to accept the old man had knowledge and skill in the art of phantasm and illusion.

The old man was teaching him how to create illusions for the enemy and maybe turn it into reality.

He needed time and privacy to practice. And he was never alone. Jia came, served him some dishes, and was dismissed. Shen came to pass a request from some of the farmers that they be allowed to visit their sheep in the pens under the Lower Town walls. Wuyi rubbed his eyes. "Yes," he said.

Meiying came in with an idea for a group attack outside. "No," he said.

And he went somewhere else to find himself some privacy to practice the art of illusion. The cultivation he had received from the pavilion mistress he had stopped trying to learn for the time being. A cultivation technique of that level needed a lot of peace and quiet and concentration.

Neither he nor the Statue of Knowledge were able to achieve that, to add to that there was that being on the door of his consciousness, desiring god knows what.

The healing hall of the pavilion seemed like the best bet. He climbed the stairs without meeting anyone—evening was falling outside, and he felt as if he'd fought a battle handling everything in the fort. It was not easy being a leader, especially if you have answers to all the questions because of your special cheat. He needed to rest and meditate.

He passed an elder at the head of the stairs with a muttered word—let her assume that he was on his way to visit the wounded. In fact, he did visit his wounded first. Chenguang, an archer, lay on the bed nearest the far wall with a line of sutures from his collarbone to his waist, but by a miracle, or perhaps by the arts of the pavilion healers, he was not infected and was now expected to live.

He was also in a deeply drugged sleep, and Wuyi merely sat by him for a moment.

Xiaoli Tang, an attendant, had just been healed, where they had set his broken arm and broken leg. He'd been brushed from the wall by a flying serpent's tail. Nothing had set properly, and the pavilion healers had just reset the breaks. He was full of some drug, and muttered curses in his sleep.

Junjie Dai, a Qi adept, sat reading slowly from a beautifully illustrated scroll. Fifty-seven years old, he'd received a crushing blow from the behemoth in the fight by the crossing.

Wuyi sat down and clasped his right hand. "I thought I'd lost you when that thing put you down."

Junjie Dai grinned. "Me too," he said. "Don't make me laugh, my lord. Hurts too much."

Wuyi looked more closely. "Enjoying reading?" he asked.

"Yes. I might stay here, Young Master," Junjie Dai spoke.

Wuyi nodded. "You'd be well suited," he said. "Although I doubt whether you are too old to chase pavilion elders."

"As to that," Junjie Dai said, and turned crimson. "I am considering taking orders."

The things you don't know. Wuyi smiled and clasped the man's free hand. "Glad to see you better," he said.

"I owe the Heavens," Junjie Dai said, by way of explanation. "They saved me, here. I was dead. That behemoth crushed me like an insect, and these holy women brought me back. For a reason."

The smile was wiped from Wuyi's face. "Yes," he said. "I, too, owe something to the Heavens."

He moved on down the line of cots. Xuanxian Luo lay with his face to the wall, his back carefully bandaged. Justice tended to be instant, in the group. He did not get injured in war but was punished for harassing the women in the fort. He had beaten the girl's brothers and friends to get her attention. He moaned.

"You are an idiot," Wuyi said with professional affection. Xuanxian Luo didn't roll over. He moaned.