6.33 - Trials of the Four Symbols Pt. I

Zhang Lifen moved throughout the village, tending to the wounded. She only half paid attention to her work. Frail as mortals may be, they were worlds easier to heal than cultivators, even without the ability to cycle qi to their wounds. When she’d first joined the Shrouded Peaks Sect all those years ago, she’d briefly worked in the medicine hall to earn her contribution points. At least before her talent had set her apart, and earned her tutelage and access to ever greater resources.

It took hardly any effort for her to patch up even life-threatening wounds suffered by the villagers. It left her with plenty of time to observe as things unfolded during their reconstruction efforts. As it turned out, Yi Xiurong had more than passing knowledge of farming, of all things, and quickly stepped into the role of overseeing their food stocks. He Yu and Ren Huang mostly helped with lumbering and rebuilding once the debris had been cleared away. All four of them tended to work from before dawn to well past sunset and through most of the night. They’d little need for rest at their advancement, and what few techniques they used hardly spent so much qi that they couldn’t simply cycle while they worked.

He Yu, shockingly enough, had easily stepped into an informal leadership role. He consulted regularly with the village elders and acted to coordinate everyone’s efforts—Ren Huang and Yi Xiurong included. For their part, they accepted his instructions easily enough. Perhaps it was in part because he’d surpassed them both in advancement. That explained Yi Xiurong, at least. She was the sort of person to defer to advancement over any other consideration in status or rank, so she made sense.

Zhang Lifen would have expected Huang to put up more of a fuss, though. He’d never been one to pay too much attention to propriety. Not as bad as she was, but she couldn’t think of anyone who beat her in that particular failing. No. Ren Huang listened to He Yu out of personal respect. That was worthy of notice all on its own.

The days turned to weeks, then into months. Bit by bit, the village rebuilt. It hadn’t taken her long to see what He Yu had grasped so clearly on that first morning. They hadn’t been meant to stop the fire. That had been an impossible task, meant to set them up for the true test of this realm.

They had always been meant to help rebuild. And what a rebuilding they had wrought.

With He Yu and Ren Huang leading the gathering of lumber in the nearby forest, then lending their strength to the actual construction, the resulting buildings of this village were larger and sturdier than the ones that had burned down. Although Zhang Lifen had never actually seen what the village had been before the fire, she couldn’t deny that a magnificent one had risen from its ashes.

Under Yi Xiurong’s supervision, not only had the season’s harvest been successful, but their next planting was done in record time. Together with Zhang Lifen and her command of water, they even reworked the irrigation. The food supply of the village was secure, and the rice crops would yield tremendous results for generations to come. It hadn’t hurt that Zhang Lifen had infused the irrigation water with her qi. Not enough to disrupt the day-to-day of the villagers, but they would find any rice grown here to be more fortifying than typical. Starvation would be a thing of the past, disease would be infrequent, and they would enjoy longer and healthier lives. It would all be within normal for particularly healthy or fortunate mortals, however. Just enough that they’d benefit without really noticing the difference.

What intrigued her most, though, was how He Yu responded to all this. There was an eagerness to his efforts that had taken her a bit to figure out. Eventually she realized this came as a sort of redemption to him—he’d failed two separate villages back when she’d sent him and his two friends after that bandit king. This was a chance to rebuild, rather than destroy. Fitting, she thought.

They finished their efforts just in time for the Lunar Festival. Zhang Lifen couldn’t help but feel a bit self-conscious as the entire village came together to celebrate them. The villagers had poured the greater portion of their sweat and labor into the nearly year-long rebuilding project. The four immortals who had helped had done so out of a sense of duty and kindness, yes, but it hadn’t cost them anything. Just a little time. Time that Zhang Lifen was all but certain hadn’t actually passed.

As the festivities wound down and the villagers turned in to their new homes one by one, she found He Yu sitting atop a flat stone on the hill behind the village. She sat next to him, and for some time they looked out over the rice paddies that descended like steps to the village below, lit up with brilliant reds and golds from the festival lanterns.

“We’ve done good here,” he said after a time. “Thank you for helping.”

She laughed. “You’ve done good here, my once-disciple. Without your prodding, I don’t think any of us would have realized what we were meant to do. It’s fitting, now that I think about it. A gate decorated with a vermilion bird, and a test that saw a ruined village rebuilt stronger than what it had been from the ashes of its own destruction.”

“It is fitting, isn’t it?”

“I think I see what you’re always on about with being a hero, you know,” she said, her tone light and teasing.

“I just want to see the world a better place,” he said.

If it was the conversation, or they’d just reached the natural end of the trial, Zhang Lifen couldn’t have said. But as soon as the words left He Yu’s mouth, the world was washed in a red light, and the hillside, the farms, and the village, all faded.

*

He Yu stood with the others before the jade statue of Yunchang once again. There was no indication of whether they’d passed the first test. Only a trail of light leading away into the gloom once more. This time, the light was a pale, wispy white, rather than red. Despite the lack of acknowledgment from the trial or statue, He Yu felt they’d done what they were supposed to.

“Off to the next one?” he asked the others. He didn’t need an answer. They all already knew.

Again they walked, following the trail of light into the darkness, and again they came to a gate. This gate was painted white and adorned with figures depicting a mighty tiger. The character for metal was etched into the two pillars, and the roof was topped with shingles fashioned of iron. As they approached, the trail of light they’d followed here filled the gate itself to form a swirling portal. As before, they stepped forward and into the portal.

He Yu emerged onto a battlefield. All around him, he heard the clash of weapons, the screams of dying men, and the shouts of victorious attackers. Two armies clashed, one made up of low-realm cultivators, and the other of twisted, half-animal, half-human shapes. It was immediately clear who the winning side was—the bestial attackers surged forward as one, whooping and shouting as the cultivators before them buckled, fled, and fell.

It was, in that way, much like the first trial had been. The four of them had been thrust into a situation already in progress. One in which they had to act decisively, with no opportunity to really assess what they were meant to do. Even in the moment it took He Yu to gather his bearings after being transported to the middle of a battlefield, two dozen soldiers died around him. And that was just what he could immediately see.

A surging tide of attackers, each of them bearing dull red eyes and various animal features, cut through the defending army with hardly any effort. The yaoguai came in all shapes and forms. Bears and boars led the charge, while birds acted like cavalry, charging into pinned blocks of soldiers or chasing down any who fled. Monkeys launched volleys of arrows, and still more kinds of manbeasts poured toward the battle lines from the smoke and mist filled edge of the valley.

He Yu and the others leaped into action.

Zhang Lifen faded back, her bow felling hundreds of the attacking archers with each release of the string. Yi Xiurong floated above the battlefield on her peacock feather, raining beams of radiant destruction down on the yaoguai lines. Ren Huang and He Yu waded into the action, each fighting in a manner consistent with their own style. Ren Huang swept his wolf tooth club before him, and great cresting waves of flame crashed over the advancing lines. He Yu charged forward, skimming the ground with the Sky Dragon’s Flight, and calling down heaven in his wake.

They fought. The attackers died by the hundreds. The tides of battle refused to turn.

Their four presences combined were more oppressive than any of the soldiers on either side should have been able to endure. But they endured regardless. He Yu brought his storm, with its howling winds, relentless rain, and furious bolts from heaven. Ren Huang was a great black wolf, wreathed in flames and with embers for eyes. He tore into the yaoguai, but still more came. Yi Xiurong’s colorless star and nine golden discs obliterated all in her path, but the enemy fought on. Zhang Lifen crashed over the army like a flood, but where they ought to have been swept away, they instead remained.

Hours passed, and despite the countless dead, neither army seemed any closer to exhaustion—neither in number nor in their will to fight. As He Yu pressed on, as he felled one demonic beast after another, as he saved one soldier from a stray strike only to see him take an arrow to the throat, he tapped his Daoist Mind.

Were they meant to win through brute force, they’d have done so long ago. Surely. No army could fight for so long—especially not when standing against four immortals of the Sixth and Seventh Realms. So the solution to this trial must be something else. He Yu soared to the heavens. High enough that he could grasp the shape of things. He launched techniques down upon the field below, arcs of wind and heaven from the Crescent Winds infused with Heaven’s Descending Blade. Just in case they were simply meant to grind through a seemingly infinite amount of foes.

With the calm detachment afforded him by his Daoist Mind, he observed first the battle itself, and then the field upon which it was fought. The battle raged on the floor of a broad valley. The far side was shrouded in a mist that couldn’t be natural. It was too thick and had no clear source. The yaoguai army poured forth from the mist in an unending tide. As good a confirmation as any that this wasn’t a battle meant to be won.

The defending army, made up of mostly Body Refining cultivators led by Golden Core officers, had its back to steep mountains, functionally cutting off any chance of mass retreat. As the yaoguai cut down ever more defenders, they pushed them closer to the slopes at their back, closer to utter destruction, but never quite reaching that point, never making any actual progress somehow.

It was as if the battle had been frozen in time while still raging. Men and beast still died, and the press gained ground but at the same time not. Even so, the number of injured mounted, and so did the number of the dead. But not nearly as many dead as the ferocity of combat might have suggested. He Yu paused, considered. The defending cultivators fell, but the overwhelming majority were injured. Most lived. Most would recover, if given the chance.

He turned to the mountain slopes, and the apparent wall preventing escape. And he saw a gap. It was partially obscured by debris and vegetation, but also the defender’s command tent. He opened his perception to the Peerless Judgment. The gap was large enough to let half a dozen men to pass through abreast. It opened up considerably a short distance in, forming a valley passage that would take the entire army past the mountains they’d been pinned against.

Any retreat they made through that passage would have to be carefully coordinated. First the wounded, protected by anyone more capable of fighting. Then, as those last soldiers retreated, they would also need to be covered. He Yu and the others would be more than capable. The sheer number of yaoguai they’d already cut down was evidence enough of that.

This was it. This was what they were meant to do. The White Tiger represented both generals and protection against adversaries. The solution was contained within the aspects of the guardian that governed the trial—just like the last time.

He Yu landed before the command pavilion in a burst of wind and heaven. “Sound the retreat,” he shouted to the generals even as they made to salute him. “This battle is lost. We fight to save who we can.”