Fates Parallel Chapter 368 - Proud

Eui put her hands on her hips and looked up at the structure dominating her vision. From up close it was more like a wall than a gate, stretching high enough that she could no longer see the top of it.

“Have you tried pushing it?”

Xiao Chong narrowed her eyes.

“No, I thought I’d try digging first—of course I tried pushing it! It’s as solid as it looks.”

There was a visible seam where the gate was theoretically supposed to open. Eui tried bracing herself on the door next to it and shoving, to no avail.

“Yeah, that’s pretty stuck...”

Bai Lin scoffed and rolled her eyes.

“Brilliant deduction. Any productive ideas to contribute?”

“Nah. You?”

“We could...try flying over it? We saw the top of it from a distance, it doesn’t actually go on forever.”

Jia shook her head.

“It’s ridiculously high up, and not all of us can fly. We’d be leaving people behind. Speaking of which, Xiao Chong, where did your friend go?”

She shrugged dismissively.

“Lost track of him at some point. Probably dead. The masters really scraped the bottom of the barrel to get those guys.”

Jia sighed. Four dead and one crippled was not an inspiring casualty report for the very first challenge the tomb offered. Not that they’d actually cleared it yet. But as menacing as their slow approach was, the farmers weren’t attacking yet—they had a moment of reprieve.

“Han Yu, where’s Yu Xiang’s leg?”

Han Yu started, surprised that he was being addressed.

“Why are you asking me?”

“Because I told you to bring it.”

“Tsk, I had other things to worry about at the time.”

Jia buried her face in her hands.

“Ancestors, what is wrong with you people?! Isn’t he your friend?”

“He’s only an inner disciple. I’m not sure why you even wasted your time bringing him along, crippled as he is. He’ll only slow us down.”

Yu Xiang stared down at his missing leg in shame. Eui had stopped the bleeding, but without the missing appendage, they wouldn’t be able to heal him completely. Reattaching was one thing, regrowing was quite another.

She knelt down next to Yu Xiang and inspected his wound, furrowing her brows.

“Why do you let them treat you like that?”

The Awakening Dragon cultivator chuckled weakly.

“They’re core disciples, and as he said, I’m a mere inner. Much as I might lord it up over outer disciples and mortals, my seniors have as much or more power over me. That’s the way of the world.”

“That sure sounds a lot like what Xiao Chong was saying. Doesn’t your Emperor frown on tyranny and oppression?”

Yu Xiang grimaced.

“I’m not a philosopher, Miss Lee. Senior Han Yu is right—I’ll only slow you down. I appreciate your assistance, but you can leave me behind.”

“You’re really willing to die for that? Just to avoid inconveniencing your precious seniors?”

“If the road to immortality was easy, we would be drowning in xiantian cultivators. I knew what I was getting into, and I’m proud of what I’ve accomplished. I have no regrets—that’s what it means to be an imperial citizen.”

Jia sighed.

“Not a philosopher my ass. I’m sorry I called you cannon fodder earlier.”

“Wasn’t that Miss An?”

Yoshika blinked.

“Right, yes. Well, I’m sorry on her behalf then. But also, we’re not giving up on you just yet. Eui, what do you think?”

Eui kicked the gate in frustration.

“I think this fucking wall needs to die, that’s what I think.”

Jia just stared insistently until Eui sighed and scratched the back of her head.

“Yeah, it’s possible. We’ve done it before, just not on others. Regrowth is going to take a pretty deep level of precision, though, and the only time we’ve gone that far was with Rika, which...”

Which had been after her tribulation, and required an intimate knowledge of her anatomy, made possibly only by the fact that they’d spent some time in dual-cultivation with her. Jia sighed.

“How long?”

“Depends on a bunch of factors, but we’d need time to draw the formations, teach him the right meditation technique, and then actually do the healing. We spent weeks practicing with Rika before actually making a real attempt.”

“It doesn’t have to be perfect. A one-way connection like Xiulan showed us would be enough.”

Eui pursed her lips.

“Still hours, at least. We don’t have time to do it right now, but if we get a chance later, we can try it. Oh, and by the way, it would have been ten minutes tops if someone hadn’t left behind his fucking leg!”

Han Yu just sneered at her. Yu Xiang, meanwhile, looked between the girls with a confused expression.

“What are we talking about?”

Jia pinched the bridge of her nose.

“We can heal you. It just takes...let’s say special techniques we learned from the Cult of Harmonious Stars.”

Yue raised her eyebrows.

“You’re actually considering dual cultivation? With a man? I hadn’t realized you were looking to expand your horizons so.”

“Don’t you start! I was trying to dance around that subject.”

“What? It’s not like you’ve been keeping it a secret, your patient is just dreadfully oblivious.”

Yu Xiang blushed bright red.

“I—um—not that you aren’t attractive, Miss Lee, but—oof!”

Jia kicked him in the side.

“Get your head out of the gutter! Don’t make me regret trying to save your life. And Yue, this is exactly why I didn’t want to be so direct!”

Yue smirked and turned away, fanning herself as if she had no idea what Jia was talking about. Jia shook her head in resignation.

“We can figure it out later, but for now, we’re not leaving you behind.”

Sukarto snorted.

“We’re not exactly going anywhere, either—unless you’ve figured out how to get through this gate.”

Yoshika looked at the gate again. Like Sovereign Chou’s avatar—or whatever that was—it existed in both the physical and spiritual realms simultaneously. Maybe it had to be opened in both.

“I do have one idea...”

Steps of the Stalker allowed Yoshika to access the spirit realm, but she was already drained after the previous ordeal, and it was a prohibitively expensive technique to use just to check on a theory.

But perhaps she had another option.

“Heian, have you been watching?”

Her spirit daughter sent affirmation from within her soul.

“Mhm. Too noisy to sleep.”

“We’ve never asked before, but you can manifest in the spirit realm too, can’t you?”

“I always do. That’s why only mana can touch me.”

Yoshika had spent too much time around cultivators. It had been so long that she’d completely forgotten that mortals couldn’t actually touch Heian at all. Even most cultivators had to learn how to sheathe their bodies in a layer of mana.

“Do you think you can help us open this door? I want to try pushing it from both realms.”

“I’ll try.”

Heian appeared next to Eui, her long black hair falling in messy curls all the way down to her ankles. Her cat ears and tail twitched as she stretched and yawned.

Zheng Long crossed his arms, unimpressed.

“Your idea is a small child?”

“She’s a spirit, Zheng Long, you know that. Her appearance doesn’t matter.”

Ruiling's eyes widened in wonder as she flapped her wings excitedly.

“You have a spirit familiar?! I thought only dragons knew how to bind them!”

Eui frowned.

“She’s not bound. You might call her a familiar, but to us, she’s our daughter.”

“O-oh, sorry.”

Bai Lin turned up her nose and sneered.

“What’s so impressive about one loose spirit that they’ve allowed to possess them? I have dozens bound to me, strictly trained to follow my commands directly.”

Eui narrowed her eyes and pursed her lips.

“Yeah. Good for you. Come on, Heian.”

Working together, Heian and Eui both pushed on the door. It still didn’t budge, but it felt different. There was some give, but it was just too heavy for them to move.

“It’s working. Everyone help me push!”

That got the group’s attention. Everyone lined up to help except for Yu Xiang with his injured leg, and Bai Lin, who simply stood by. Jia grimaced—even Xiao Chong was helping.

“Bai Lin, what are you doing?”

Rather than respond, Bai Lin just crossed her arms, tilted her head, and smirked. After another moment of fruitless pushing, Heian manifested her cat form next to her to help push, then groaned in frustration.

“Too heavy! I need help!”

Bai Lin’s smile widened.

“And there it is. I’m not sure how you deduced that you need spirits to help open the gate, but did you really think your little kitten would be sufficient? You were so flippant about my power, before.”

Jia rolled her eyes.

“Okay, fine! Your spirits are very impressive, now can you get them to help us open the door?”

“No.”

That gave everyone pause. Eui whirled on Bai Lin angrily.

“What the fuck do you mean, ‘no’?!”

“I mean I won’t help you until you acknowledge that you need me. Not too long ago you threatened to murder me. You’ve called me names, you embarrassed me in front of my own sect, in front of my fiance, in front of the world with your absurd antics during our tournament match. For as long as I’ve had the misfortune of knowing you, ‘Yoshika,’ you have never once given me an ounce of face.”

Even Zheng Long was grimacing. He cast a worried glance towards the encroaching farmers.

“Bai Lin, we don’t have time for this.”

“I don’t care! A debt is owed! What if An Eui had made good on her threat and killed me? What would you all have done without me?”

Yoshika could have probably spirit-walked to do it herself, but she wasn’t in the mood to argue, and she wasn’t too proud to take the more expedient option.

“Alright, I’m sorry I threatened you. We need your help, alright?”

Bai Lin shook her head.

“Bow.”

“What?”

“Bow. Lower your head. Prostrate yourselves before me and beg for my help, and perhaps I will consider lending you my power.”

Zheng Long stepped forward, his tone warning.

“Lin...”

She held a hand up to preempt him.

“No! I won’t hear it. This moment has been a long time coming. These beasts have gotten too comfortable with their betters. What right do they have to make demands of us? I’m sick of it! It is time for them to learn their places once and for all.”

A pregnant pause hung in the air. Nobody dared move for fear of breaking the tension. Xiao Chong met Eui’s eyes and mouthed the words ‘Told you.’

Yoshika didn’t have much pride. She knew where she came from. Jia and Eui had both been homeless—forced to do unsavory things to survive. Be it killing merchants on the road, or feeding themselves on garbage scrounged out of the alleyways of the Goryeon slums. She was no stranger to begging and groveling.

But she had some pride. She was proud of who she was and what she’d accomplished in spite of her backgrounds. She was proud of Heian, her adopted daughter trying so hard to understand the confusing world of humans. She was proud of her clever little sister and her indomitable older sister. She was proud of her parents, keeping things together even after her mistakes had ruined their business.

Bai Lin was a living insult to every bit of pride Yoshika had. She looked down on Yoshika, on her friends and family, on her entire race. She existed in a position so privileged that even the empire’s typical discrimination against her gender—the same discrimination that had driven Yan Yue to the edge of despair—bent over backwards to accommodate her. She had earned nothing. Fought for nothing. And cared about nothing.

Yet Bai Lin was proud of herself. It was as if she knew that pride was all she had, and she clung to it desperately, for fear that without it there would be nothing left of her. As much as she hated Bai Lin, for just a moment, she felt pity for the girl. What a sad, hollow existence she lived.

Eui shook her head ruefully.

“You’re right, Bai Lin, no—Lady Bai Lin.”

Bai’s smile widened as Eui began walking toward her.

“This has been a long time coming. Since our first meeting we’ve been nothing but antagonistic. For a long time I’ve been trying to be better, and a little while ago I swore to remember and correct as many of my past failures as I can.”

“Spare me the speech, beast. I don’t need your life story.”

“Sure. I guess what I’m trying to say is, I’m sorry for not making things right the moment we met again, back at your sect.”

Bai Lin laughed.

“I remember what I told Lee Jia, then. That I would enjoy seeing you both put in your place when you didn’t have powerful backers to hide behind. I have to say, it’s everything I thought it would be.”

Eui smiled back.

“And I remember telling you that I’d be waiting eagerly.”

It was almost too easy. Yoshika’s lunge was faster than anyone—least of all Bai Lin—could react. In the blink of an eye, she closed the distance between her and Bai Lin, summoned a sword from Jia’s ring, and thrust the destruction-charged blade through the noblewoman’s chest.

She hadn’t summoned any of her spirits. She wasn’t even on guard. Bai Lin had been so caught up in her own twisted view of the world that she hadn’t even considered the possibility that she might be in danger.

Eui leaned forward to whisper in the dying woman’s ear.

“I should have just killed you back at the academy.”

Then, following Master Ienaga’s example, she pushed Bai Lin off her blade and severed her head in a single stroke.