Chapter 184: Death & Sunset, IV

Wu Hao felt like he'd been punched straight in the gut. Master Shu's hand on his shoulder kept him upright, but the look on his face was more grim than anything Wu Hao had ever seen.

Then, with a breath, Master Shu undid the veil around his qi, and Wu Hao saw him as the Sovereign he'd been ever since they'd met. Not the old man, not Master Shu - the Absent Sovereign, furious as he'd never been furious before.

The sheer depth of his feelings was intense enough that Wu Hao felt almost choked. He was furious, yes - but he wasn't furious at Wu Hao.

Master Shu was furious at himself. For dallying too much. For not just blasting the door down and killing whoever stood in his way. For standing idly by as a child was killed. That fury served only as a backdrop, though, compared to the endlessly deep abyss of self-loathing. If before his qi was a mix of black and white, always touching but never mixing, then his qi was now almost completely black.

"Arrest?" he asked. His voice was quiet, but several of the men flinched back. "You intend to arrest my disciple?"

Ke Jiaming strode forward, bullying Lu Bowin aside as he marched forward.

"Yes," he said. "We do, Shu Renqing. Step aside."

"What evidence do you have?" Master Shu demanded.

"The evidence," Ke Jiaming said, "of blood. Nephew?"

He flicked his finger and pulled a thin robe from his storage space. It was flecked with thin streaks of blood. Wu Hao recognized it, because it was the same robe that Du Linglong had been wearing yesterday. She must not have had time to change before - before the murder.

Somewhere deep inside, the last hope that she wasn't actually gone flickered out, a lamp whose light was pinched dead by a pair of unfeeling fingers.

But that wasn't his blood. He hadn't bled on her, hadn't even bled near her. The only blood he'd been worried about was the blood that he'd lost near the shack. How could there have been so much?

Something clicked, and he realized what it had been. During the duel yesterday, Ke Shuang had inflicted scratches on him repeatedly. The other boy wouldn't have been able to take Wu Hao's blood, but a Sovereign might have been able to, if he'd had the opportunity.

Like during a moment where everyone else was distracted by the clash of Heaven-grade techniques. When Ke Jiaming had enveloped him in a momentary frost. He hadn't thought much of it, but thinking back - was that when his blood had been taken?

It must have been.

That was why Ke Jiaming had allowed the duel to happen and why he'd stopped Ke Shuang by proclaiming Wu Hao's "victory". They'd achieved their aims already by taking his blood as evidence for whatever they wanted. Ke Shuang's loss hadn't just been because he'd been about to pull the spear of ash, which was a signifier of his demonic technique, but because there was no point in continuing.

Even at that moment, they had been outplayed.

"Daylight Detection Art," Ke Boyi intoned softly, after taking almost reverent hold of the robe. "Red Dust."

The bloodsplatter on the robe lit up. Buzzing softly, it began to boil, a flame erupting out of nowhere that wasn't the normal red or even blue, but instead a deep purple. It didn't seem to consume anything as it made its way almost like a living thing, gravitating over to the bloodstain.

It latched onto the blood and drank almost greedily, the fire flickering as it drained the vital qi that must have been within the blood. Then, raising itself up and levitating into the air as everyone stared, it suddenly began to rush in Wu Hao's direction, picking up speed as it went.

Ke Shuang smiled. He'd crept up out of nowhere behind the rest of the group, the bruise on his face still clearly visible, but his hair was slightly messy and there was more ash in his qi than there had been the day before. With his second-grade senses, Wu Hao saw the clear satisfaction on the man's face, and the thin traces of peach qi that still clung to his skin.

Master Shu smashed it out of the air before it could reach them.

"That proves nothing," he growled. "You have blood. So what?"

"You intend to dismiss these charges, in spite of the evidence?" Ke Jiaming asked languidly. "What other explanation do you have for the blood being present on the robe? For your disciple's nightly incursion which just so happened to coincide with the period she would have been murdered in?"

Growling something under his breath, Master Shu said nothing for a long moment. It was clear he couldn't think of anything, though.

"Enough," he said. "I will not stand here and allow you to take my disciple away for whatever tortures you've got planned to extract a confession from him."

Ke Jiaming's lips pursed. "With all due respect, you are a novice Sovereign. It is not your place to make such demands. All of us grieve the loss of a young girl - a girl who was like another niece to me."

Wu Hao nearly laughed out loud, though it would have been the bitterest laugh he'd managed yet. If anyone had killed his "niece", it would've been this man. He'd threatened her with death already in the future, and yet he was shifting the blame to Wu Hao while trying to say something like that?

It was sickening.

"Ke Shuang killed her," he said. It ripped out of him. "Ke Shuang killed her!"

No one seemed to care. At best they sneered at him. Master Shu stepped forward.

"Novice Sovereign or not," he declared. "I do not intend to let you take my apprentice, whatever fabricated proof you show."

With an impact that shook the mountain, Ke Taiqi landed out of nowhere. Heat burst into being, melting the snow across the entirety of the mountain. Above them the sun shone so hard that the clouds were ripped away, leaving only a bleak winter morning sky without a cloud in sight.

There was no more of the genial uncle. Instead, Ke Taiqi looked like he was ready to kill.

"Hand him over," he growled. "Now, Shu Renqing. You have no idea what the boy has done. Murder is but one of his sins."

In a twisted way, Wu Hao reflected, Ke Shuang had been right when he'd flipped out after the slap.

They had two Sovereigns, while Master Shu was just one man.

Master Shu let out a short sigh, but he didn't look surprised. Just disappointed. His qi coiled with more self-hate and something so black that had coiled through his meridians like a serpent. Despair.

Some of that qi, black tinged with specks of white, extended out of Master Shu's shoulder, forming a gossamer thin link to Wu Hao, where it touched his shoulder.

One tap meant yes. Two taps meant no.

A third tap rang out in the master's qi. Wu Hao's head whipped around.

Three taps meant run at all costs.

"Go," Master Shu said quietly. "I'll buy you time, boy."

He pulled his hands from his sleeves. Behind him, qi rushed out like a colossal sea, as if his reserves were endless. Master Shu pulled his staff from storage - not the one he'd built from ink that he'd used for sparring. It wasn't beautiful, and neither did it look like it might suit any sort of ceremonial use.

This staff was made of a dark iron that Wu Hao had never seen before. Strands of ink attached themselves to the flat front, forming into a brush that suddenly inverted and went utterly pure white. Qi jetted from the butt of the staff, rivers of black and white that entangled into impossible figures that formed an enormous rectangle.

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A canvas was taking shape in the sky.

Master Shu raised the staff and touched it to the canvas almost casually. Power erupted from his every pore, thousands of arrays suddenly surging from the ink that surged in waves from around his feet.

"The second law of Absence," he spoke. "A lack indicates a possibility to become."

Something impossible rippled through the air. A dragon made entirely out of ink manifested on the canvas and tore itself free from its confines, roaring silently like a living being even though it was made up of uncountable brushstrokes. It curled up around Master Shu protectively, its eyes shining with the light of intelligence.

And then more and more creatures leapt from the canvas. Lions. Tigers. Bears. Bulls. Horses and men to ride them. The four guardian beasts. Fish flew through the air, swimming as if they were still in the sea. An army of beings came crashing forth like a wave, all surrounding Master Shu, whose face was still grim.

Because the Twin Sovereigns of the Diancang Sect had manifested their own powers, as well.

Ke Jiaming had drawn himself up into an armor made of glittering power, pure white in appearance. His spear was a thing of beauty, its spearhead manifesting dozens of thin frost-bitten edges as deep bone-chilling cold transformed it into a different weapon entirely. A driving cold seemed to suck both heat and light out of the surrounding sky.

Ke Taiqi was floating in the air, his sword out. He was staring like an angry god at Master Shu, the sun of power behind him forming into the face of a thing Wu Hao had once seen in a temple - an asura, its wrathful face exposed. Tyrannical power emanated from every bit of that sun, so bright that even closing his eyes Wu Hao could see it clearly outlined.

Where their two domains met, nothing could remain alive.

Master Shu looked over to Wu Hao, met his eyes squarely, then smiled.

"Go," he said, and though the beasts under him took it as a command to leap forward, his qi made it clear that he meant it for Wu Hao as well.

Wu Hao cast a long look at Master Shu. He wanted ton do something - anything. What did it matter if he died, anyway? But then a blast of qi sent him staggering away, one of the fishes having smashed into him to send him on his way.

"Go!" Master Shu forced out, before the rest of his attention returned to the battle that was starting. "Or else I will force you gone, boy!"

With no other options left to him, Wu Hao went, pushing more and more qi into his feet as he leapt into a jump that blurred the world around him. He landed and twisted on instinct, throwing himself off to the side to dodge a sword-strike that had extended several times the length of the sword itself, contorting like a whip.

Without even trying to counter he jumped away again, but during his uncontrolled flight he wound up smashing face-first into Lu Bowin, who had taken to the sky by standing on a cloud made of qi. There was a sudden jumble of impressions - his stomach flipping upside-down as they spun together, before he could sense more qi gathering above him as Lu Bowin prepared a strike.

Wu Hao pulled the staff from his storage space to have something in his hands. Together they plummeted back down to the ground, where Wu Hao smashed into the snow with the pole extended in an impact that ran all the way up his spine and made his teeth clatter. He leant himself on the staff while it was falling and then forced qi to rocket through the staff, pushing himself away again.

Lu Bowin's sword missed his face by inches, catching only a few locks of hair. It hadn't been intended to be a fatal strike, but Wu Hao could read the signatures around him well enough.

Not all of them were keen on taking him alive.

He could hear the distant echo of the world ending where, just a half hour earlier, he had slept. It sounded like the entire mountain was coming apart, the heritage of a thousand years being ripped to shreds as three Sovereigns fought for domination.

"Catch him!" Ke Taiqi roared. "He must pay!"

Finally, after running himself nearly ragged, he found a small alcove at the side of the mountain. It might have been a training spot at one point, he thought idly, hands on his knees after his all-out sprint. It certainly had the right amount of atmospheric qi available to make a good spot.

The lantern hanging by a hook nearby meant it was a known spot, though, and that lantern's oil looked like it had been refilled recently.

Fuck, Wu Hao thought. At least he'd bought himself some time, but how much time did he really have left?

Just enough for this, he decided.

Plunging the staff into the ground, he pulled the saber into his hand and the spear over his shoulders. Several knives were slid into his sleeves. Then he pulled the cask of poisons that he'd gotten from the Tang, just days ago. Weeks ago.

At no point had he thought he'd use them already. His fingers flicked over the containers. Fire poison. Cold poison. Blood-clotting poison. He still had all of them.

Did it even matter which he picked? He doubted it. As long as it acted fast enough, at least.

Resolve firming, he plucked the bottle of fire poison from the casket and then placed the entire box back in his storage space, before activating the various safeguards that Master Shu had said he'd never need. The spatial pocket made a sort of bizarre keening noise before it ripped itself apart, the items within lost forever.

They wouldn't get anything from his corpse. Fuck them, he thought fiercely. Fuck them all.

Wu Hao stared at the vial of poison. Let him get something from this, at least, he thought. Hesitating only a fraction of a second he pulled the plug from the flask, put it to his lips, and threw his head back.

The name fire poison proved to be apt. It picked up an enormous heat as it travelled through his body. He was getting better at feeling out what type of heat was trying to kill him now, and this was the kind of heat that burned even ashes to nothing. Good.

The distant sounds of people making their way through the underbrush were getting louder. They would find him soon.

Pain like one he'd rarely felt before ripped through him. His mouth felt like it was burning and his brain felt like it was being cooked. He could see no flames but he could feel them chewing through his insides, picking up speed. A small groan escaped his lips and he saw someone's head snap over to his little alcove, but they were already too late.

The pain had reached his heart. He could feel it try to pump blood through his body in a desperate panic, but it was much too late. Even his blood felt like it was on fire.

"Hurry!" someone called. "He's here!"

The poison continued ripping through him, but with the ease of long experience he ignored the pain of dying to instead stare at the face of the man who had found him - the martial artist who had been guarding the shack yesterday. He didn't look bored or inalert now. The man lunged forward, his sword striking out in a blazing-fast technique.

Wu Hao rose to his feet and blocked it, though it cost him vastly more effort than it should have.

Poison or not, he was not going to die easily.