Legend of The Young Master

Chapter 198: Did you ever suspect?

Xilai threw up a shield to block the lightning, like a Qi warrior defending against an attack. The two forces collided and vanished in a flash of light.

Xilai stumbled and had to draw power from the array well at his feet.

"Righteous Heavens, have mercy," he mumbled. One strike. Luding could drain all his power with one strike.

✶ ✶ ✶

Wuyi was first out the gate, with Yun Ming right behind him, leading their Qi Warriors to the right and out of the temple.

The hall was filled with sleeping swamplings. The killing began. Wuyi counted the armored shapes rushing past him but lost track and had to guess.

Meiying kept her promise and was last. "Last out!" she called and moved to the right around the gate. Wuyi slammed the great doors shut, locking them from the inside. As the doors closed, their power merged, and the gate vanished, leaving a black stone wall behind the altar, with only the shape of the doors imprinted on his vision.

Wanxie and the archers were clearing the hall. Yun Ming had already climbed over the broken wall. Wuyi started to fight his way to the front of the temple.

Luding cast his second lightning bolt, and without pausing, cast a third.

✶ ✶ ✶

Xilai's second defense was better than his first – a weaker spell than Luding's, but it deflected rather than resisted. Luding's strike bent like light through a prism and blew off a piece of the ridge.

His third shield wasn't fast enough – he tried to block like a sword parry, but Luding was too quick.

Xilai widened his defense , but with too little power. He stopped most of it. The rest hit the wall to his left. A section of wooden defenses burned in a flash, and part of the wall collapsed, killing two archers and crushing two older men. Xilai felt them die. His failure made him angry, and his anger made him lash out.

His counterattack was small, weak, and too late. But it was unexpected. Like a slow strike in a sword fight, his angry burst of power caught Luding off guard. Pain enraged Luding. It always had. He struck back.

✶ ✶ ✶

The Lower Town square was covered in corpses.

Wuyi stood in the temple doorway, looking for his Qi Warriors.

The archers were spreading out to the right and left.

"On me," he said. "Let's go!"

He ran across the square, and they followed closely behind him. Groups with ladders broke off and headed east, through the rubble. He could hear fighting to his left and more straight ahead. Yun Ming's attendant appeared out of the darkness.

"Master Yun Ming prays for your aid," he said formally. "On me," Wuyi repeated, following the attendant. He had no time to comment that Yun Ming was off course. A vast burst of light lit the sky, like all the summer lightning ever seen combined into one single flash.

The flash showed Wuyi that the attendant was bleeding from the shoulders of his Qi armor; the archers were splattered with red and black, and ahead of him, Yun Ming's Qi Warriors were caught in the flash, illuminated like a painting of warriors fighting monsters

"Beware!" Wuyi shouted. "Yingmo demons!"

Wuyi saw terror strike his subordinates like a heavy mallet. He set his teeth and pushed himself forward. There were around thirty of them; these were not ordinary swamplings that could be easily cut down. They were Yingmo. The Yingmo were releasing an aura of pure terror. Anyone caught in the aura would struggle to move.

The Yingmo noticed Wuyi's group and charged at them. Before they could get close, a red-giant appeared in front of them.

The Red Daoist alone engaged the charging demons. Seeing the large number of demons, Wuyi joined the fight to end the battle as quickly as possible.

One of the creatures noticed Wuyi. It seemed to be the leader of the group, stronger than the other demons fighting the Red Daoist. It turned on Wuyi with supernatural speed.

Wuyi also had supernatural speed.

The demon's blade clashed with Wuyi's sword, sending sparks flying. Wuyi yielded before the creature's immense strength, rotated his blade around the fulcrum of his Qi-armored wrist, stepped inside its aura of terror, and thrust his point into its brain. The demon fell away from his sword, and he moved on to the next. It turned its head, its eyes locking onto his.

The demon's taloned hand moved up too fast to block, but his sword came down just as quickly.

The demon stumbled away, spraying an aura of terror like a skunk sprays scent. The blood it sprayed was not ordinary. They had prepared well; it seemed Luding had personally helped these demons prepare for battle. But what kind of spell could make their own warriors have poisoned blood? Wuyi found himself almost retching. He was wearing his mask, with only his eyes exposed.

There was blood in his eyes, fortunately, they were shielded by his Qi.

But there was a special Qi in this blood too, darker than any Qi Wuyi had ever experienced. He felt a cold fear, heavier and more oppressive, settle in his gut. The shadow statue within him acted and swallowed all the dark Qi trying to affect him. Without hesitation, Wuyi cut off the demon's head.

The Red Daoist had defeated more than half of the demons; their ichor was mixed with the blood of men on the ground, and the demons were retreating. As they began to distance themselves from their foes, the fear among Wuyi's men abated. Wuyi saw there were fewer than a dozen of the demons left. He attacked another one and wounded it.

The archers, who had been frozen in place, suddenly sprang into action. The last demon – the one Wuyi had wounded – sprouted arrows like a field growing grass. The creature turned, its fear intensified, and it fell. Yun Ming was shouting for his men.

"Stand," called Wuyi. His voice was not very loud.

Yuei roared it from behind him. "Stand!" he echoed.

Yun Ming paused.

"The tower!" Wuyi insisted.

✶ ✶ ✶

Luding's burst of rage fell like a hammer. Xilai watched the strike coming, helpless to stop it, feeling his death approach in a sickly gray radiance. He sensed the fortress's array defenses activate, but he knew they wouldn't be enough.

The great array that powered the defense was brilliantly designed – they funneled, channeled, and reflected energy with such precision that they almost seemed intelligent. New practitioners tried to meet Qi force with Qi force, but skilled ones knew to meet force with guile, deflecting the opponent's energy like a master swordsman. Most static runes were easily overcome, but this...

In the moment of his expected annihilation, Xilai thought, "Who built this?"

The wards caught, turned, and covered. But there was only so much the ancient array runes could do. And the rest burst through the great wards like a river in flood bursting through a levee. He raised a hand ready to feel the burnt of it.

The Pavilion Mistress reached past him and stopped the overflow of the great spell of wrath just short of their place on the wall. She flung it back down the path of the casting. She reached out and put her left hand on his shoulder.

"I know nothing of this sort of war," she said. "Let me in."

Xilai realized he was in a conscious space. He saw the Pavilion Mistress. And he witnessed the art of the Lotus Pavilion. Through her, he could feel her Pavilion members chanting in the Pavilion hall. Their power did not fuel the Pavilion Mistress directly. It was far subtler than that.

Despite the situation, he paused to admire the magnificence of the structure – the fortress, the array, the runes, the members who could maintain the power of the runes indefinitely, regardless of their individual weakness.

He wondered, yet again, "Who made this?"

Then he gripped her spiritual hand in his own and led her through his conscious space, like a bridegroom leading a bride. "Welcome," he said.

In the conscious space, her appearance changed. She was a much younger and less spiritual woman in the Aethereal. Suddenly he had a frisson of memory – of this same woman dressed for hunting, standing outside his master's chamber, tapping her whip on her hand, trying to get his master to go out riding.

He dismissed the memory, although here it took on a visible aspect, so that she saw it and smiled.

"He was the worst lover imaginable," she said with a sad smile. "He didn't hunt, didn't ride, wouldn't dance, he had no carnal desires. He was always late and made many promises he couldn't keep." She shrugged. "I wanted him. And look at the consequences. Some sins do not wash away." She spread her arms.

"It is very nice here."

He flushed with her praise, feeling like a much younger man. Time in the conscious Aethereal had virtually no meaning, so he had no sense of urgency. "Did you ever suspect?" he asked carefully. "When he turned?"