bluedragonauthor

VIP: The Blue Dragon: Chapter 18

Added 2024-05-22 15:07:49 +0000 UTC

-- CHAPTER 18: The Way of Water --

****

I struggled against the solid rock that had formed around my legs and arms. I poured every ounce of built-up sex-energy I could into pushing against the magical entrapment, to no avail. It felt like… well… it felt like I’d been encased in solid concrete. And the concrete wouldn’t budge an inch.

“Chezhou!” Ziyi screamed fearfully from halfway across my ice bridge. The Yi River was quite wide, and the bridge’s construction had halted with about twenty feet still to go. But I knew that her powerful serpent’s tail would be strong enough to make the leap across the gap.

“Run, Ziyi, run!” I yelled, urgent desperation in my voice while I continued to try and break free. “Take the sword and run!”

“I won’t leave you!”

“The sword is all that matters! RUN, ZIYI, RUN!”

“Yesss… The sword is all that matters,” purred the warlord behind me as he approached to within a few feet of me, absolutely secure in the knowledge that even from such close range I couldn’t do him any harm. His hands and face were now fully transformed into that of a rat all covered in fur, with beady black eyes and a pronounced snout. His focus moved down the length of the bridge to Ziyi, and he extended his arm while calling out in a strong, cackling voice, “Bring me the sword, child! Or your lover will die!”

“Run, Ziyi, R-- AAAAHHHH!!!”

I couldn’t help but yelp in pain as the warlord rat demon shoved the business end of some kind of sharp-and-pointy thing into my back. I felt my magic ice armor automatically forming around my entire body, the same impervious ice armor that had so easily deflected away the Huodou’s fireball. But my magic armor did absolutely nothing to stop the unbearable agony digging into my back - in fact, I could feel it cracking and shattering at the impact point - so for a few seconds all I could do was scream.

“AAAAHHHH!!!” I yelled again.

“Don’t hurt him!” Ziyi wailed.

“THE SWORD, GIRL!” Zhu Wen commanded. “BRING IT TO ME AND I GIVE YOU MY WORD I WILL LET YOU BOTH GO!”

“Don’t believe him!” I yelled, fervent determination somehow managing to steel me against the pain. I had no faith in the warlord whatsoever, no belief that he would keep his word. Of course, the warlord dug that blade even deeper into my back, causing me to howl anew, “AAAAHHHH!!!”

“Stop! Stop!” Ziyi cried. “I’m coming… I’m coming…”

“NO!” I roared. “He will trap you! Again! Don’t belie--”

My voice was cut off as a muddy tentacle emerged from the ground between my feet and clamped over my mouth. Some kind of earthy protrusion like a baby’s pacifier then pressed against my lips, threatening to push down my throat if I let it in.

Umm… yeah… A baby’s pacifier, Dong mutter. Yeah, let’s go with that.

‘I could use a little help, little dude.’

Sorry, but I’m not tangible, remember? I can’t directly interact with the real world.

‘Well I’m fucked then, aren’t I?’

Pretty much.

‘You did tell me that I was gonna die here.’

Yes, I did tell you that.

‘Shit, man. I’m really gonna die here?’

Yes, you are.

‘FUCK. And… shit, wait. You also said I was going to fail in my quest to retrieve the sword. Was that also true?’

Well you’re certainly going to fail.

‘But Ziyi can still succeed.’

Bingo.

‘She can succeed without me.’

She can succeed because of you. And she will. It’s her destiny, man. It’s her destiny to recover the sword. And this is yours.

‘To sacrifice myself. For her.’

It’s not so bad a trade, is it? You love her, don’t you? You’ll make the heroic sacrifice and she’ll live for another thousand years. And she will see you again, although you obviously won’t know it at the time.

‘Can you promise me that I’ll see her again?’

Unfortunately no. I can’t.

‘Wait, you mean I’m really gonna die here? Not just die and wake up still buried inside Hannah Hampton’s exquisite pussy, but really DIE-die?’

Closed loop, bro. The past has already been written. The ink is dry.

‘Ah, FUCK.’

Don’t get all depressed now. Focus, big dude. You’ve still got a job to do.

‘Rescue the damsel in distress, kill the bad guy, save the world.’

Once more unto the breach, dear friend.

“THE SWORD, GIRL! THE SWORD!” Zhu Wen howled. Flexing his arms, he called upon fresh earth from the riverbank, forming new muddy tentacles that rose up to either side of the ice bridge. But perhaps limited in length, neither tentacle had the range to reach her, and the two waving stalks merely hovered menacingly above me and the warlord.

“Chezhou!” Ziyi called again, her voice weak and scared. “Chezhou?!”

I wanted to reply, but I couldn’t, not with my ‘pacifier’ still blocking my mouth. I tried to snort or otherwise hum something out from my nostrils, futilely trying to tell her again to run. But at least she hadn’t approached any closer, staying right where she was.

“I WILL KILL HIM!” Zhu Wen threatened once more. “BRING. ME. THE SWORD!”

“Chezhou?!” she called again, obviously crying. “Chezhou?!”

“Arrgh!” the warlord snarled before pointing at me. The pacifier tentacle abruptly crumbled into nothingness and I spat away the small plug that had been pressing against my lips. He turned and raised a sickly fingernail to my cheek, scratching right through my ice armor and drawing blood. “This is your last chance. Tell her to return the sword.”

“WO AI NI, Ziyi! I love you! For all eternity!” I yelled at the top of my lungs. “But this is your destiny! RUN, ZIYI, RUN-mmrph!”

Zhu Wen rolled his eyes, called up another pacifier tentacle, and clapped it over my mouth. But it was too late for him. In the fading twilight, I could see Ziyi sprinting for the end of the bridge. Like me, she must’ve realized she could still make the jump even though the bridge wasn’t finished. And I silently cheered within at the realization she was going to escape.

But then the bridge itself suddenly rocked and she was thrown from her feet.

The two muddy tentacles beside the bridge may not have been long enough to reach all the way across to Ziyi, but they were certainly close enough to start battering the single foundation of the bridge on my side of the river. Over and over again, the powerful tentacles bashed into the sides of the ice bridge, shattering the crystal lattice railings first before working into the base. And even though the magic ice initially held up pretty well - especially given that there was absolutely no support at the far end of the bridge three-quarters of the way across the river - the impacts at this end not only started cracking the ice, but they also sent powerful shockwaves rippling down the superstructure.

Ziyi tried to get up once, but the next shockwave from behind knocked her flat on her face again. She had to remain on all fours just to maintain her balance, at least initially. But then she morphed into her hybrid form, still with the Baihu Sword strapped to her back, and started slithering her way forward despite the rolling waves.

The rat monster beside me shrieked in frustration and called up two more muddy tentacles to join the first pair. All four of them started smashing into my bridge, and within seconds, the foundation started to crumble.

On this side of the river, the bridge surface dropped two feet immediately. At the far end, the bridge surface dropped halfway down to the river’s surface. Serpent or not, Ziyi went momentarily airborne before slamming onto the ice bridge’s surface. And I howled into my earthen muzzle, feeling impotent and useless.

‘Some heroic sacrifice. All I’m doing is sitting here, waiting to die.’

Then get off your ass and do something about it.

‘I’m trying! I’m trying! I’m fighting as hard as I can! But my arms, legs, and even mouth are all trapped!’

Use the Force, Luke.

‘What?’

Let go.

‘What?’

Let it go! Let it GO! Can’t hold it back anym--

‘DONG! THAT’S NOT HELPING!’

With a sharp cracking sound as loud as a thunderclap, the foundation of the ice bridge finally shattered. The near side of the bridge hit the water, and within seconds, all of the rest of the bridge likewise slammed down into the inky black river.

But it didn’t go under. Not yet.

On impact, the bridge had broken up into several large pieces. But like a chain of arctic ice floes, the different sections floated on the surface, bobbing up and down a bit like massive corks. On the furthest section, Ziyi seemed to gather herself and look around, realizing that she wasn’t sinking. And after taking one long, last, lingering look back at me, she coiled her powerful serpent’s tail and then launched herself into a high-arcing leap across the remaining part of the river, landing neatly on the other riverbank.

She’d made it.

‘FUCK YEAH!’

Don’t celebrate too early.

‘Why not?’

It’s not over yet.

What sounded like a massive wolf howled on cue from somewhere behind me, sending shivers of ice down my spine. I looked back over my shoulder and saw the warlord rat walking back towards me. I hadn’t realized he’d walked away in the first place. But then a moment later, my eyes went wide at the sight of a ginormous, flaming black dog slowly following the warlord from behind.

‘No way. I killed it! I saw it DIE.’

You did kill it. It did die.

‘Then?!?’

There was something different about the Huodou as it stalked past me. It was too early for rigor mortis to set into its muscles and joints, and yet the beast didn’t seem particularly coordinated, walking with a herky-jerky motion. Its corona of flickering flames used to have a thin layer of blue haze just above its skin, but now that color was a sickly green. The flames themselves used to be bright red and yellow but were now a pale yellow more the color of the rat demon’s fingernails. And its flaming eyes were now empty black pools of nothingness.

Funny thing about elemental earth powers…

‘Nobody said anything about elemental earth powers being able to resurrect dead dogs!’

He didn’t resurrect it. Not exactly. It’s more like he’s… temporarily reanimated it, that’s all.

‘Resurrected, reanimated, doesn’t matter. What matters is-- Oh, FUCK.’

The massive dog still didn’t seem to be particularly coordinated, but it was coordinated enough to start running forward and then leap into the air, bounding onto and then off of each of the still-floating sections of my ice bridge that were only now starting to separate in the water. The Yi River was wide and fairly calm, not particularly swift-moving. And so the reanimated Huodou was able to island hop from one section of bridge to the next before finally taking one powerful leap from the final section, with enough force to submerge that section completely beneath the surface, and then fly through the air to land in a semi-crumpled heap on the far bank.

Ziyi screamed, reformed her legs, and started running.

A spark lit within the Huodou’s mouth as it got to its feet. Moments later, the fireball burst forth, spewing flames far, far faster than Ziyi could run.

‘FUCK-FUCK-FUCK-FUCK-FUCK!’

She managed to dodge the first fireball by ducking to the side, her parkour agility serving her well. I knew she was quick, but I also knew the Huodou was faster, stronger, and deadly, even as a reanimated corpse. I knew that the fire elemental didn’t stand a chance against me, a water elemental. But I wasn’t there to defend her, and as a metal elemental, I knew her chances against the fire doggy were basically nil.

Same as my chances against the earth elemental beside me.

‘FUCK-FUCK-FUCK-FUCK-FUCK!’

I redoubled my efforts, fighting to break free. But no matter what I did, I couldn’t get a single millimeter of headway against the solid rock restraining me.

‘So fucking helpless. So fucking impotent. So… so fucking useless.’

Use the Force, Luke. Let go.

‘Dong, I really don’t have time for your pop-culture quotes right now.’

Search your feelings. Let go. Let it go. Let it GO!

Search my feelings? What feelings? Feelings of ineptitude? Feelings of helplessness? Feelings of… well… impotence?

Is that really your greatest fear? Impotence? I mean, it sort of makes sense for the man who had spent his entire adult years fucking everything with a pair of tits he could get his hands on.

‘I’m not talking about erectile dysfunction. I’m talking impotence in my complete and utter inability to do ANYTHING to save the girl I love!’

Are you truly impotent though? Are you sure you can’t do ANYTHING to save her right now?

‘What am I supposed to do? I’m completely trapped, completely immobile, completely unable to do ANYTHING!’

You’re absolutely right. So let go. Search your feelings and let go.

‘Let go of WHAT?’

Just. Let. Go.

‘Let go and do WHAT?’

Let go and do the same thing you’ve already done before. I told you before: I didn’t bring you here. You brought yourself here. I don’t give you powers. I help open you up to natural abilities you had inside of yourself all along.

‘Wait-wait-wait. You’re talking about how I showed up here in the first place?’

The way of water has no beginning and no end. Water connects all things: life to death, darkness to light.

‘You’re quoting Avatar 2 now?!?’

How about some Lao Tzu from the Tao Te Ching? Nothing in this world is as soft and yielding as water, yet for attacking the hard and strong, none can triumph so easily. It is weak yet none can equal it. It is soft yet none can damage it. It is yielding yet none can wear it away. Everyone knows that the soft overcomes the hard and the yielding triumphs over the rigid.

‘WHAT?!?’

The earth surrounds you right now, yes. But you have the ability to let… go…

Let go.

Search my feelings. And let go.

But how?

I searched my feelings.

Fear.

Fear for Ziyi, who was still dodging for her life and getting singed every now and again. The Huodou was faster than her, able to outpace her, overshoot her, and then force her to double-back towards the river. It was tirelessly using the river as a backstop, cutting off her escape routes. And I knew it was only a matter of time before it was able to land a fatal blow.

Love.

Love for Ziyi. I didn’t know how to define my love, other than the old adage: when you know, you know. And I knew. I really would have given up the quest to be with her. I really would have given up any chance of returning to my old life to stay here with her. We could’ve had a great life together, were it not for the grand cosmic designs of destiny. I wanted to believe that I had free will and the ability to control my own life, and maybe to some extent I did. And yet I couldn’t deny that regardless of the choices I’d made over the past month leading up to this moment, I was still here, fulfilling my destiny anyways.

Rage.

Rage for myself. Rage for Ziyi. Rage for my real MOM. This was all so fucking unfair. What was the whole fucking point of bringing me here, to let me fall in love with Ziyi, only for me to die and have us separated? Like seriously, Qinglong, what the fuck?!? And now to tell me I wasn’t even going to return to my own time period either? What was the whole fucking point? I still didn’t even know exactly WHO had killed my mom! I hadn’t completed the quest for the Golden Dragon. What a colossal waste of time!

Acceptance.

Acceptance of my destiny. I was helpless right now. Useless. Impotent. Struggling harder wouldn’t help me. I needed to let go.

Earth defeats Water, yes, at least in the short term. But water would always find a way. By adapting to change with grace and ease, water can flow around any obstacle, rather than waste energy fighting against it.

Water had shaped the world for millions and millions of years.

Slowly.

Gradually.

Patiently.

I needed to be patient. Despite Ziyi screaming and the Huodou roaring, I needed to be patient.

I needed to relax.

The Shu Yaoguai’s enchanted shackles were little more than a Chinese finger trap - the harder you struggled, the more tightly bound you became. Fighting head-on against the earth wasn’t the solution.

I needed to let go.

So I took a deep breath.

I slowly exhaled.

I took another deep breath.

I slowly exhaled.

I took one last deep breath.

I slowly exhaled.

And I let go.

****

On a chemical level, water is nothing more than a collection of hydrogen and oxygen atoms held together by inter- and intramolecular forces. A human body is composed of a far more numerous variety of atoms like carbon, nitrogen, calcium, sodium, etcetera. And to transform all of those different atoms into only hydrogen and oxygen would… well… it would take nuclear reactions requiring far more power than my body should be able to generate.

So I really have no scientific explanation for how I was able to shapeshift from a mass of carbon, nitrogen, calcium, etcetera into a body of pure liquid water - not that I ever had a scientific explanation for how I could create ice platforms that floated in the sky and allowed me to ascend them like a set of stairs, either.

Even on a magical level, Ziyi had told me she’d been unable to shapeshift in order to escape the Shu Yaoguai’s magical earth shackles, so it seemed inconsistent that I would be able to shapeshift. Perhaps I was simply more powerful. Or perhaps the solution was not to fight the shackles, but to let go.

Whatever the reason - scientific or magical - I somehow became a body of pure water that splashed free of the rat demon’s enchanted bonds, sloshed across the field to the river, and then rapidly zoomed through the river itself to the other side.

I was only dimly aware of all this going on. After all, I didn’t have eyes to see, a nose to smell, or ears to hear. Hell, I didn’t actually have a brain to process what was happening either.

The first time I became aware myself and my surroundings, I realized that I’d reformed my human body on the opposite riverbank, now in the shadow of the western mountains. The sunlight was gone, the night sky rapidly darkening. Still, there was enough moonlight for me to see the field around me. I could smell the humid air. I could hear the sounds of nature.

And of course, I couldn’t miss the ginormous flaming dog sprinting straight at me.

“Chezhou! You’re here! How?!?” Ziyi gasped from directly behind my legs. I risked a quick glance at her over my shoulder. She’d been scorched in several, not quite enough to kill her but plenty enough to do a lot of damage. Her scales were blackened and charred, with a few fresh burns on her skin. She was sooty, dirty, and exhausted. But I’d arrived in the nick of time.

I turned my attention forward to the Huodou still charging me. “Aren’t you tired of me kicking your ass?” I mocked while full-body ice armor surrounded me and the Buster Sword sprouted in my hands. I rather expected the doggie to stop, whine, and run away. But the reanimated corpse with empty eyes and sickly green flame didn’t appear to have anyone home inside. Rather, the warlord must still be controlling the zombie beast, because it didn’t slow down and instead opened its mouth to spew a fresh batch of fire at me.

My first instinct was to stand my ground, grit my teeth, and fight back at the monster HARD.

But that wasn’t the point. Pressing harder wasn’t the solution. I needed to let myself FLOW.

I took a deep breath.

I let myself relax.

And time slowed down around me.

It wasn’t that I could move any faster. It wasn’t like I could move normally while everything else in the world moved slowly. Rather, the director’s slo-mo version of reality gave me plenty of time to see and react to the progress of the universe.

Slowly.

Gradually.

Patiently.

Flipping the Buster Sword around in my hand so that the pommel was under my thumb and the blade pointed down, I cocked my right arm back like an Olympic javelin thrower, took two steps forward, and then let the sword fly.

It accelerated into a graceful arc, unhurried and inexorable, flying straight and true toward its target: the Huodou’s gaping mouth.

The fire demon’s fireball started forth, but only for a second before the pointy end of the massive blade speared straight through its open maw. The fireball cut off and the monster squealed as the magical water blade continued on in a roughly straight line through the rest of its body, all the way until it exited out the back of the big dog and embedded itself in the ground some twenty feet further on.

Thusly carved more or less in half, the Huodou’s corpse collapsed, no longer capable of movement even if the warlord could keep reanimating its corpse.

Speaking of the warlord, the rat demon roared his impotent rage from across the water.

I looked back at Ziyi. “Let’s get you to the cave.”

Her eyes were half-lidded and she nodded at me wearily, having spent all of her energy trying to dodge the Huodou. I knelt to scoop her into my arms, holding my lover tenderly against my chest. Ziyi shivered and then swooned, her eyes closing while her head lolled against my shoulder.

“Wo ai ni, Chezhou. Wo ai ni.”

“I love you to.”

The rat demon roared again, this time accompanied by what sounded like an earthquake. Still holding Ziyi in my arms, I turned to look back across the water, and the sight before me made me abruptly take a step back.

Oh, shit.

Apparently, I wasn’t the only one with elemental bridge-building powers. The rat demon was calling up tentacle after tentacle of rapidly thickening mud, each of them the size of a tree trunk. He braided them together, assembling a twisting, turning morass that gradually grew further and further across the river. And he rode atop a concrete platform at the leading edge, floating his way to catch up to us.

“Gotta go,” I told Ziyi. “Give me the sword and then shapeshift into a necklace.”

She nodded slowly, removing the wrapped sword from around her body so I could take it and wrap it around mine. Moments later, she transformed into a Mangshan pit viper and coiled herself around my neck. And then I took off running, feeling a strange sense of déjà vu.

But then something started to happen.

Something bad.

I started to slow down.

“Oh, shit,” I panted.

“What’s wrong?” Ziyi asked quietly from around my neck.

“I’m running out of sex-energy.”

“What?!?”

“I’m running out of energy,” I repeated.

The sex-energy I’d gained from fucking Princess Puning and her maid Juhua had lasted all throughout my escape from the Imperial Palace and then for another hour of me running through the distant farmlands south of the city. I didn’t know whether it was a limitation of fuel consumption or a countdown timer. Perhaps a bit of both.

The sex-energy I’d gained from fucking Ziyi had lasted far longer, at least. We’d gone through a protracted battle requiring me to use my water elemental abilities more than ever before, not to mention whatever the hell that shapeshifting my entire body into water thing was. I hadn’t the foggiest idea how much energy that special little trip had consumed. Point is: it had been hours since Ziyi had charged me up, and by now I was feeling pretty much spent.

“Umm… Hang on. Stop for a second,” Ziyi told me, and I stopped running. Then I looked down in surprise to see Ziyi’s human head appearing on the end of her serpent body (which looked really weird by the way), but all scaled down to normal pit viper size. Even weirder was when she ducked her head beneath the waistband of my pants…

… and then she started sucking on my dick.

No seriously. Ninety percent of her body was still snake, which I could feel coiled around my neck and extending down the front of my torso. Her head itself was hidden beneath my pants, save for a rather strange-looking bulge in my crotch. I could feel her mouth sucking my dick, but from the outside it totally looked like a snake was wriggling around in my pants, and to be perfectly honest, I couldn’t be entirely sure whether it was Ziyi’s human head or her snake head doing the sucking, and the idea of a snake’s mouth around my prick, fangs and all? Yeesh.

But it worked. Well, kinda. I was still tired and worn down, but I felt a little more sex-energy feeding into me. And yet, I already knew that it wouldn’t be enough. The warlord had almost crossed the river.

“It was worth a shot, but we’re outta time,” I sighed. “Either I run or I fight; I can’t do both. If we run, the warlord will just keep chasing us, and when he catches up, I won’t have any energy left to fight him. The right move is for me to stop here and fight, to make a stand, but you can still get out of here and disappear. Transform back into a human. Take the sword. Get to the cave.”

Ziyi let go of my dick, and her head popped out of my pants. “I won’t leave you.”

“You must leave me,” I insisted. “It’s your destiny to recover the sword.”

“You take the sword and keep running. I’ll hold him off.”

I frowned. “You can’t hold him off, not in your condition. You’re already wounded.”

“And you won’t be able to hold him off either. Earth defeats water, remember?”

“I shouldn’t have been able to get free of his shackles, and yet here I am. I’m The Chosen One of Qinglong, aren’t I? Have a little faith. I was destined to do this.”

I tried to keep my tone light, to act like it was no big deal and that I’d catch up to her in a few minutes. But I think she could tell I didn’t expect to survive.

Ziyi slipped off me and transformed back into a human. She still had her scale armor up, and it was still blackened and charred in several places. She looked weak, but a bit of rest had helped significantly. Even dirty, smudged, and bleeding, she was eminently gorgeous, and I couldn’t help but take her into my arms and give her a passionate kiss.

She sobbed into my embrace, feeling the pressure of imminent doom. She clutched my shirt like it might be the last time she ever got to hold me like this, which… well… it probably was.

“Hey… hey…” I soothed when she finally pulled back, sniffling and crying and looking up at me with red-rimmed eyes.

“What if it’s your destiny to die today?” she whimpered.

“Well I know for sure it’s not YOUR destiny to die today,” I countered. “I already know that you and I will meet again. That version of me won’t remember you or have any idea this is going to happen, but you’re going to live for a long, long time, Ziyi. Take the sword. Run. The warlord WILL be defeated. This is how it’s meant to be.”

“But I don’t want to lose you! Not again! I already thought I’d lost you back there on the bridge, but then you went and got my hopes up when you came and rescued me now. You can’t make me go through leaving you AGAIN!”

“Just once more, Ziyi. Just once more. I’ll always love you. For all eternity. Wo ai ni.”

I kissed her again.

She sobbed again.

The warlord roared somewhere behind us, his land bridge crashing into this side’s riverbank with a thunderous boom.

Time to go.

“Wo ai ni, Chezhou,” Ziyi sobbed as I took the sword off my back and wrapped it around her.

I smirked and replied casually, “I know.”

Ziyi gave me one last kiss. And then sobbing even harder, she pushed off my chest, turned, and ran.

And she ran. And she ran. And she ran.

I knew she’d be fine. It was her destiny, after all.

Me? I turned around.

I took a deep breath.

I let myself relax.

And time slowed down around me.

The rat demon continued to ride a concrete platform across the field rather than be bothered to use his legs to walk.

“Alright, ugly,” I muttered, continuing to take deep breaths as I gathered up what remaining energy I had left. “Let’s dance.”

****

Earth defeats Water. That’s just how it works.

Water can work its way around Earth, true enough. Slowly. Gradually. Patiently. But I didn’t have the luxury of being really patient, not while actively trying to buy Ziyi as much time as possible for her to make her escape. I knew that the best way to ensure her safety was for me to kill the motherfucking warlord myself if at all possible. But like I said: Earth defeats Water. That’s just how it works.

Time continued to move in slow motion around me. Every time the rat demon tried to punch me with a muddy tentacle or summon the very ground beneath my feet to wrap around my legs like concrete shoes, I always had enough time to dodge the punch or step aside before the earth could solidify around me.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t doing much better at causing damage to the warlord. For one thing, he remained on that concrete platform, not exactly flying but still floating around and moving up, down, and to the sides like he was riding a magic carpet or something. So getting in close enough to do any melee damage was really difficult.

I tried hitting him with ranged attacks, of course, but he seemed virtually impervious to all of them, with hardened concrete armor beneath his luxurious linen clothing that literally shattered my ice arrows or neatly deflected away my spinning water balls, even the explosive ones.

I tried the slow and patient approach as well, surrounding the warlord within larger water balls, imagining tiny droplets slipping through the cracks in his armor before freezing and expanding within. Those attacks were a little more successful, and I actually shattered some of his armor that way.

But I was running out of energy, my fuel gauge reading near empty.

And I was running out of time, my countdown clock nearing zero.

The next time Zhu Wen tried to encase my right foot in a concrete shoe, it very nearly trapped me before I managed to slip out.

The next time a muddy tentacle tried to hit me in the face, I just barely dodged and wound up catching the impact against my shoulder. It was hard enough to knock me to the ground, and as soon as I did so, time started to flow normally again.

I’d lost the ability to see in slo-mo.

The effect was immediate. A concrete shoe snapped around my left foot and I was far too late to step free. Another concrete shoe shaped around my right foot, and right then and there I knew I was doomed.

Muddy tentacles with Piranha Plant heads gulped down on my hands, and I made a face, waiting for the pacifier tentacle to seal my mouth shut. But thankfully, none came. Instead the warlord smirked in triumph, and the wet, squelching sounds of all his muddy tentacles quieted down as they sunk back down into the earth.

“At last,” Zhu Wen pronounced with a bitter smile as his concrete magic carpet settled down to the ground and disappeared. He walked towards me, adding, “I must admit, you held out far longer than I would have ever expected a water elemental to last.”

“Go fuck yourself,” I spat in English, and the rat demon merely frowned at my incomprehensible words.

But he understood the tone just fine, reaching up with his sickly yellow claws to scratch me across the face, spitting, “Insolent fool!”

“AHHH!” I yelped at the searing pain that felt like rusty razor blades opening up my skin.

He gave me a smug grin, took a deep breath, and then morphed back into his human form. The middle-aged man with the neatly shaven mustache and beard and fine linen clothes (in stark contrast to my caveman clothes and haven’t-shaven-in-a-week growth) evaluated me coolly with narrow, beady eyes. And he cocked his head while slowly walking around me, studying me as if for the very first time.

“Strange. You seem… different… from the last time we met.”

“You sure we really met? I would have remembered your particular stench had we ever met before.”

His eyes narrowed again. “It’s not just the increased powers. It’s your whole attitude. Your whole demeanor.”

“Yeah well this is what a real resurrection looks like, and not your zombie reanimation bullshit.”

He frowned. “She kept calling you ‘Chezhou’. Why is that?”

“Because it’s my name?”

“Your name is Liu Kang.”

“So I’ve been told.”

“You disagree?”

“Bruh, there’s a whole lot about this world I disagree with.”

The Emperor frowned again, looking perplexed. He took a deep breath, sighed, and then shook his head ruefully. “There is a part of me that wants to keep you alive, if only to unravel this particular mystery.”

“Leave me alive and I’ll find a way to kill you, asshole. You can count on that.”

He smirked. “Not inclined to beg for your life? Not even after I gave you such an opportunity?”

“I know better than to expect mercy from a Shu Yaoguai.”

“Oh… yaoguai is such a harsh word, isn’t it? Your hui girlfriend is a yaoguai, isn’t she?”

“Some shapeshifters are merely misunderstood.”

“I agree.” Zhu Wen pressed his fingertips together (still with exceptionally long and sickly fingernails, despite having returned to his human form), and he leaned in close to my face, close enough for me to smell the garlic on his breath. You’d think that after witnessing me escape his shackles once already, he would have been more cautious. Yet he remained within arm’s reach, absolutely secure in the knowledge that even from such close range I couldn’t do him any harm. And he stood up straight with a surprisingly welcome smile, adding, “So many of us are merely misunderstood. All I’ve ever really wanted is to be free of other people’s judgment. The old Tang Dynasty nobles saw me as nothing more than a monster. It was only because of their persecution that I had to take matters into my own hands.”

“Well they’re all dead now, so congratulations, you got your revenge.”

“Why thank you!” He smiled broadly and actually patted my shoulder.

I rolled my eyes and sighed.

“You know I could use a man like you, wielding the kind of powers you possess.”

“I already told you: if you leave me alive, I’ll kill you, asshole.”

“But why? What did I ever do to you?”

“Well you killed me once, for starters.”

“True, true. Then again, you were trying to steal something from me.”

“We didn’t merely try tonight. We succeeded.”

He waved me off. “Oh, tracking down your little girlfriend will be no trouble at all.”

“Tell yourself that all you want. The only reason why you’re trying to convince me to join your side is because you know it’s the only way you’ll ever find her. You’ve lost the sword, Warlord. And without my help, she’s as good as gone.”

The warlord’s teeth clenched, and I knew I’d struck a nerve. He snarled and lashed out with his claws again, slashing my opposite cheek. But all he succeeded in doing was to make me start laughing.

“Well then if you are of no use to me anymore, what reason would I have to let you live a minute more?”

I shrugged. “No reason at all. At this point, every minute you waste talking to me is another minute for her to have an even bigger head start. In fact, I’d keep you talking and talking and wasting even more time just to give her the biggest head start possible except for one simple fact.”

Zhu Wen scowled, not wanting to bite, and yet he couldn’t help but ask, “And what simple fact is that?”

“The fact that I’m fucking over this already. I did my job. All I’ve got left now is to die. I would have rather been out there with my girl, having sex and having sex and having even more sex day after day after day. I love her. I always will. For all eternity. But this was my destiny, to come here and fuck up your life. I did that, and now I’m ready to leave. So hurry up and kill me already, will you? This was a boring conversation anyway.”

The warlord snarled and whipped out a chiseled off-white dagger. It looked like it was made of bone, although it shimmered subtly with an unearthly glow. If I had to guess, this was the sharp-and-pointy thing he’d dug into my back earlier, and I took a deep, calming breath as I waited for the end to come.

Slowly.

Gradually.

Patiently.

The way of water has no beginning and no end. Water connects all things: life to death, darkness to light. Water would always find a way. Water flows around obstacles, rather than wasting energy fighting against it.

In fact, hanging out having this boring conversation had given me quite a bit of rest, restoring some of my energy. And right when the warlord started stabbing that bone-white dagger straight into my chest, time slowed down.

I watched his face slowly contort into a frozen mask of rage.

I watched the dagger’s tip moving inexorably towards my chest.

I watched my life about to come to an end.

I took a deep breath.

I slowly exhaled.

I took another deep breath.

I slowly exhaled.

I took one last deep breath.

I slowly exhaled.

And I let go.

I didn’t transform my entire body into water this time, just my right hand, just enough to pull it free of its enchanted shackle.

I watched the warlord’s arm slowly moving forward to stab me. I watched the bone blade impact my chest just above my heart. I felt my nerves exploding as if they were on fire. And I felt searing, intense pain start radiating outward from the impact site.

I also saw myself materializing my own ice blade in my hand - nothing fancy or ornate, just sharp and thin and deadly.

I saw myself pushing the very thin blade into a chink in the warlord’s hardened concrete armor over his chest, one of the very few chinks I’d managed to make with my earlier ice-cracking attacks. I didn’t try to go through his armor. I slipped around.

Time sped up again. The warlord stomped forward as his bone dagger pushed deeper and deeper into my body. Then he arched his back and screamed in pain as my ice blade slipped through the cracks to push deeper and deeper into HIS body.

“AAAAHHHH!!!” he screamed in a screeching, high-pitched tone that sounded very much like a Los Angeles urban street rat getting crushed beneath the wheels of a metro subway train, collapsing in a heap at my feet.

“For Ziyi…” I muttered weakly, tasting blood my lips.

My vision swam with vertigo.

My hearing willed with a crescendo of rushing blood that rapidly tapered off as my heart slowed down.

Slower.

And then I collapsed in a heap as well.

I was dying.

My fuel gauge read empty.

My countdown clock had finally hit zero.

Time’s up, dude.

‘I know.’

Can’t stay here any longer.

‘I know.’

I’m gonna miss this place. Being in Imperial China was kinda fun.

‘I thought so too.’

I’m gonna miss Ziyi and her amazing titties.

‘Sigh… Me, too.’

My world faded into infinite white.

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Chapter 19 will post on May 26. For anyone who can't wait, Beta Tier will be maintaining a 7-chapter lead from that date on until the story is complete.

Remember that all authors thrive on feedback, so let me know how you're enjoying the story! Leave a comment here or come chat with us on Discord! And be sure to connect your Discord account here on the Patreon website to get access to the Patron-Only channels! https://discord.gg/fg3m6MdfN9

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

Prologue & Chapter 1: The Ax Effect: https://www.patreon.com/posts/99894240

Chapter 2: Santa Monica: https://www.patreon.com/posts/100614606

Chapter 3: The Zellij Fountain: https://www.patreon.com/posts/100887440

Chapter 4: Euhemerism: https://www.patreon.com/posts/101140816

Chapter 5: The Fremont Troll: https://www.patreon.com/posts/101373122

Chapter 6: Jade: https://www.patreon.com/posts/101713211

Chapter 7: The Blue Gecko: https://www.patreon.com/posts/101962728

Chapter 8: Yaoguai: https://www.patreon.com/posts/102225122

Chapter 9: Rome: https://www.patreon.com/posts/102437581

Chapter 10: Seeing Sights: https://www.patreon.com/posts/102690886

Chapter 11: Liu Kang: https://www.patreon.com/posts/102919633