6.34 - Trials of the Four Symbols Pt. II

Ren Huang had to admit, it was a clever solution. Not one he’d have ever landed on. He at least had enough awareness of his nature that he could admit as much. If he’d been the one in charge, they’d fail this test from the White Tiger.

Of course, that’s why he’d always been content in his role as the second ranked core disciple back at the sect. It was why he’d long deferred to Yi Xiurong during their running fights against Jin Xifeng’s followers, speaking up only when he thought her choices were truly foolish. He’d never been one for leadership. Neither had he the patience for it, nor the calmer judgment it required. He was most useful when someone could point him at something, and he could make that something gone.

So he’d never have come up with the sort of plan that He Yu had. Neither would he have gotten those incompetent generals at the back of the army to execute it so well.

When the order to retreat had first been sounded, he’d thought it absurd. But as instructions trickled from the generals to the officers down to the individual soldiers, he saw the shape of it. He may be impatient and prone to anger and acting before he had all the facts, but he wasn’t stupid. He Yu’s plan was clearly the right response to this trial and its infinite waves of yaoguai.

Those soldiers still able to fight formed a defensive line. Somehow, there were just as many as there had been when they’d arrived hours or days ago. It was hard to tell how long had passed, just as it had in the village from the first trial. The soldiers blocked both access to the gap that led into the valley beyond, and to the injured who needed attention. Once the line had formed up, ten ranks deep at its weakest, reserve troops began helping the injured into the valley, and toward safety.

First, they carried those unable to walk. In ones and twos, they ushered the wounded through the gap. An honor guard stood by, formed from the army’s best soldiers, ready to collapse in on the entrance to the valley and cover the soldiers beyond in the event of a disaster. The gap was only large enough for six men to fit across—as defensible a position as any Ren Huang could think of. Once the most grievously injured of the defending army were through, those still able to move under their own strength pulled back. This went far more quickly, as these soldiers only had minor injuries.

Piece by piece, He Yu’s strategy fell into place. With the longest and slowest portion of the retreat at the beginning, the most vulnerable of the army would be pulled from the battlefield while those tasked with defending them were freshest, and had the most fight left in them. As progressively more able soldiers pulled back, each phase would take less time than the one before it. As fatigue eventually set in, the lines collapsed in on itself. The ranks deepened, the semicircle of defenders shrank, and the chance of getting overwhelmed faded.

If he didn’t know better, Ren Huang would have said the kid was the reincarnation of some great strategist from ages past. He chided himself for thinking of He Yu as a kid still—it was easy to forget how long it had been since he’d first picked him up off the trail when he’d collapsed barely half a li into their run. Hell, he’d hardly recognized him when he showed up in the valley, and likely wouldn’t have figured out who he was at all if Lifen had been with him. Somehow, that weak and wheezing kid with stars in his eyes and a target on his back had made something of himself. Turned out Lifen had been right about him all along. She’d never let him live it down.

Ren Huang fought on the front lines. It was where he was most comfortable, and most useful. Each of the four of them were worth at least a hundred of these soldiers. They could have dealt with the yaoguai themselves, and if this were a normal battle, they would have. The problem was twofold. First, the yaoguai were endless. They emerged from the smoke and fog at the far end of the valley in a tide of fur and feathers and flesh. Second, they charged straight for the defending army. Didn’t matter how many Ren Huang or any of the others obliterated during the advance, the yaoguai simply acted as if the four of them weren’t there.

In practical terms, this meant that even with all their power, the most destructive aspects of heaven and earth at their command, more would come, and many would make it to the defending lines. At least until those lines collapsed and shrank. Reduced their front. Presented a smaller face for the enemy to throw itself against.

As the retreat proceeded, fewer and fewer of the yaoguai made it to the defending lines. Ren Huang, Zhang Lifen, Yi Xiurong, and He Yu brought their full might to bear. As the tide of attackers tried to assault an ever smaller, and ever more well defended pocket of soldiers, they just got in their own way. They clumped up and died by the hundreds. Then by the thousands.

Before long, it was just the four of them. They stood at the mouth of the valley, that narrow gap leading to safety. Protected on either side by walls of living mountain stone, and in the front by four immortals. The White Tiger was the aspect of war, metal, and protection. Well, this was certainly a war. And He Yu had certainly managed to protect all these men.

The last of the soldiers fell back into the valley behind them, and Ren Huang swung his wolf-tooth club for the ten thousandth time. A wave of flame swept out before him, and hundreds of yaoguai burned to ash. The others released their own techniques, and for the first time, the attacking army faltered.

“Looks like you did it,” he said when the battle let him get within easy speaking distance of He Yu.

“It seems such a waste,” He Yu said. “But we saved who we could. We should easily hold them back while the rest of the army escapes.”

At the far side of the valley, the fog that had so far only obscured the yaoguai reinforcements rolled across the ground at an ever-increasing pace.

“Somehow, I don’t think we’ll have to wait that long,” Ren Huang rumbled.

*

For the second time, they appeared before the towering figure of Yunchang. The jade statue seemed almost to radiate a sense of approval. At least He Yu thought it did. He could have just been fooling himself. The solution to the second trial was one he felt rather proud of, after all.

As He Yu looked around for their next trail of light to lead them toward the third gate, he nearly missed it. “Light” wasn’t really an appropriate was to describe what he saw. Neither was darkness. A trail of black, somehow visible against the absolute darkness of this place, stretched away from the statue, just as the red and the white trails had.

“I wonder which beast will test us next?” Zhang Lifen asked as they set off into the darkness, following the strange trail of visible not-light.

When they arrived at the gate, it was exactly as He Yu had expected. A freestanding gate, this one painted black and adorned with figures of a tortoise with a serpent for a tail. The roof tiles were of stone this time—slate worked to a dull smoothness. The character for water was inscribed on either of the gate’s pillars. Just like the two previous times, a swirling portal formed from their guiding color, this one a featureless black against all the rest of the featureless black in this place.

Again, they stepped through, entering a scene already in progress. This time they stood in a large hall. The space was decorated with weapons and artwork in equal measure—each of the paintings the product of a true master, and each of the weapons a significant treasure equal to any of their own weapons.

The four of them stood atop a raised dais, two of them on either side of an immortal dressed in fine robes. Although his long hair and beard were the color of new steel and his face was etched with lines of age, his bearing was strong. His spirit, even restrained, radiated the power of a peak Seventh Realm expert, or perhaps even an early Eighth. Before him stood a hundred other cultivators, all dressed in robes of the same black and gray, just of a less luxurious make. Their heads were bowed and their hands clasped in salute. All were at the Golden Core stage, aside from a scattered few who had reached Nascent Soul. Finally, before the gathered experts, two Soul Refining cultivators stood at the base of the dais itself.

These two—one man and one woman—did not bow, nor did they salute. Both were dressed as all the others, but of a clearly higher status. Judging by their posture and the furious looks they kept shooting at each other, they seemed to be having some sort of disagreement. A disagreement that needed to be sorted out in front of what He Yu could only imagine were the inner disciples and leadership of a sect.

The older man was clearly the sect’s patriarch. Everyone in the room deferred to him, including the two disciples, who clearly held great animosity toward each other. Given the advancement of the hundred saluting cultivators, He Yu guessed they must form the inner sect. What role, then, did he and the others play here? Core disciples? Perhaps even elders? Or maybe just outsiders, brought in by the Black Tortoise to mediate whatever disagreement transpired in this room so their decisions could be judged.

“With respect, patriarch,” the man said, finally bowing over a salute. “This disciple does not see the need to gather everyone. Not to make this decision. It is a simple thing, best done quickly.”

“That’s your problem,” the woman snapped. “You never think. At least not until it’s too late. We don’t have the luxury of making mistakes this time. If we fail in this, the sect is lost.”

“Your thoughts, brothers and sisters?” The patriarch’s tone was one of consideration, measured and prudent judgment. Although he didn’t turn, didn’t call out any of them by name or rank, He Yu knew he spoke to the four of them. So they were elders, then. And rather than choose based solely on his own judgment, he sought their council.

He Yu took a moment to gather his thoughts. The Black Tortoise was the aspect of water, longevity, and wisdom. But he was also the aspect of winter, and thus of the end of one cycle so another could begin. Well, longevity was certainly represented here. The patriarch showed more than enough evidence of age. Nobody reached his stage looking like that without being positively ancient. Within the timeline of this trial, he may even be older than Jin Xifeng was out in the real world.

He Yu shook his head. If he wanted to do this properly, he shouldn’t think of this as anything less than real. While the consequences of his actions might fade for those within the trial as soon as it was completed, his choices would be judged. Of that, he was certain. The decisions he made here were owed the fullest of his consideration.

Like longevity was represented by the patriarch, it seemed like so too was wisdom represented by He Yu’s presence along with the others. He Yu couldn’t begin to count the times he’d leaned on others for guidance when the way forward was uncertain. Even if he went with his own instincts, rather than the advice he’d received, he was never worse off for having sought council. So was their role here to provide wisdom, then?

He didn’t have enough information. That much, at least, was obvious. It was also consistent with the trials they’d faced already. Just like the previous two challenges, the larger situation was unknown, and they had to move forward with only the information at hand. Or did they?

If he was right, and their role here was to act as council, providing their opinions to the patriarch so he could make the best decision he could, shouldn’t they know all the facts?

There certainly didn’t seem to be any pressing time constraints on this trial like there had in the realm of the Vermilion Bird or the White Tiger. If anything, what purpose could the two rival cultivators serve here? Especially with each clearly wanting to push for different and opposing courses of action.

“I think,” he began, addressing first the two cultivators at the base of the dais, “we should lay out all the facts of the situation before moving forward. A sage does not act from ignorance, after all.”