6.29 - A Running Fight

Ultimately, they decided that a running fight was the best option. Zhang Lifen laughed when she heard He Yu’s suggestion, pointing out that’s what she and the others usually did. If they stood and fought, they risked getting overwhelmed as more and more core users and loyalists to the empress piled on.

Running had its own drawbacks. As fast as they both were, their pursuers were advanced enough to keep up—at least for a time. Even then, they’d have to fully release their presence to do so, revealing themselves just the same as if they’d stood their ground. That would draw the same sort of attention, and perhaps make it easier to lay ambushes in their path.

The biggest problem they faced was the fact they couldn’t simply kill their foes and be done with it. The presence of core users meant they had to cripple them, lest their battles strengthen Jin Xifeng. This limited the power they could bring to bear, and further slowed them down. Zhang Lifen said this had been the dilemma she’d faced with the others. And the reason they’d settled on their eventual strategy of fighting a near-constant running battle while trying to stay ahead of reinforcements.

So they kept moving as fast as they could without drawing more attention than absolutely necessary. The second part of what could only loosely be called a strategy was to make the core users chase them for as long as possible before they stopped to fight. He Yu hoped that by doing this, they’d gain as much ground as they could between the very noticeable fighting and potential reinforcements. Also, every second they delayed was a second they spend drawing closer to Yi Xiurong and Ren Huang. A second they didn’t spend on pointless battle, and a second they potentially bought from Long Tingguang.

That was the crux of it. Long Tingguang put a countdown on all of this. If it weren’t for him, they could perhaps use the time to come up with better options. Hide, and wait for the core users to pass them by. Travel at a more sedate pace, as to better sell their disguises as lower realm cultivators. Or perhaps even go slow enough to pose as mortals. Or just stop, make their stand, and pick apart their foes with the methodical care fighting a core user without killing them demanded.

But the mere threat of Long Tingguang’s search for Ren Huang and Yi Xiurong meant they were robbed of all their better options. It put a sort of pressure on things that He Yu didn’t care for at all. Even when he was on some quest to protect mortals in all their fragility, he could solve his problems by being stronger than them. Now, that strength seemed almost a hindrance. Were he at the same stage as the core users, he wouldn’t have to hold back.

“It’s a bit of a pain, isn’t it?” Zhang Lifen asked as she wove between a volley of techniques, returning a volley of her own. “Holding ourselves back, and making sure we don’t outright kill them, while they can fight at their full strength and with no regard for their own safety.”

That was the other issue he’d come to realize they had to deal with. The core users didn’t fight like normal experts. They fought with a recklessness that was driven in part by the demon core itself, but also by the knowledge that should they fall, their cultivation would return to Jin Xifeng. And the very nature of their core pact meant they saw victory or defeat as roughly equivalent. Win, and they defeat their empress’s foes. Die, and they serve to grow her power.

If a silver lining existed to their situation, it came in the form of the core user’s numbers. As more and more foes piled on to their growing skirmish, they focused less on guarding themselves, and more on inflicting as much damage as possible. It was almost like that many demon cores near one another caused a sort of frenzy in them. Like the reckless abandon of the single, half-sane core user He Yu and his friends had faced in the caves beneath the Shrouded Peaks.

As he fought in that serene, detached manner afforded him by his Daoist Mind, He Yu considered what that meant. There had to be something more there. Something that he could pull at, that would provide some insight that would allow him to unlock at long last the means to defeat Jin Xifeng.

Since his return to the Dragon Empire proper—he mentally refused to call it the Twilight Empire, still—he’d been picking at the edges of what felt like some broader tapestry. Little nuggets of truth, clues in the nature or Jin Xifeng and her techniques, had kept presenting themselves. If he could only figure out how to piece them all together in just the right way, he could find his path forward. With the aid of the Cloud Emperor’s Peerless Judgment, he was certain he could do it.

He just needed to find the way.

For weeks, they fought a near-constant battle while they flew. They had moments of respite in between the waves of core users and un-pacted former members of the Sunset Court. He Yu was grateful when such opponents arrived. They fell in moments to the fully unleashed might of himself and Zhang Lifen, either reduced to smoking ruin by the opening of heaven, or buried under thousands of arrows unleashed from Zhang Lifen’s bow.

When they could, they took breaks. They took medicinal pills, first using what they looted from their fallen foes before dipping into their own stores. At least the breaks were spaced far enough apart that they suffered little risk of a backlash from too much medicine. But that also meant their qi reserves slowly dwindled. Their breaks were too far between, and stopping to get any proper cultivation in was all but impossible.

For perhaps the first time, He Yu could truly see how overwhelming numbers could, eventually, wear down a much stronger opponent.

“A challenge I grew rather familiar with before getting chased all the way to Iron Gate City,” Zhang Lifen said when He Yu mentioned it during one of their infrequent breaks.

They sheltered in a shallow depression tucked between some hills. They were in the very same badlands Zhang Lifen had taken him to train in before he formed his Golden Core. This time, however, the stone spirits were nowhere to be found. Nothing here was strong enough to withstand an open battle between cultivators at their level, and the spirits had wisely fled at the approaching storm and it’s accompanying flood.

He Yu leaned back against a boulder and scuffed at the dirt beneath his heel as he cycled yet more looted medicine. “I’d have expected them to give up by now.”

For the past six weeks they’d been fighting a near-constant running skirmish, leaving a trail of crippled core users and dead un-pacted servants of the empire in their wake. They’d looted what they could, and ran when they needed to. He Yu was amazed he’d been able to keep it up for as long as he had. Sure, the ordeal was taking its toll. His meridians suffered a near-constant dull ache, and day by day his dantian emptied. But he still had plenty of fight left in him.

More astounding was that their pursuers had kept it up for as long as they had. By He Yu’s reckoning, they were just over halfway do their destination. They’d long since turned their course to head roughly due east. The coast drew closer every day, and with it, Ren Huang and Yi Xiurong. At least, he hoped.

“They’re relentless,” Zhang Lifen said. “Ren Huang thinks it has something to do with how the core affects them. It’s a fragment of Jin Xifeng herself, after all. A living technique that imparts a portion of her cultivation base in the host. Huang thinks that it somehow also implants her will, her desires. She has to have some means of controlling her servants, after all.”

He Yu drummed his fingers and considered her words as he cast his spiritual perception the way they’d come. Their most recent flock of pursuers was closing in. They’d have to either get moving soon, or get ready for another fight.

“There’s got to be an answer there,” he said aloud, and not for the first time. He ignored her slip in referring to Ren Huang so informally—something she’d taken to doing more often as the days passed them by and both they, and Long Tingguang, drew closer to the others.

“I think our best hope at this point is to meet up with the others. Hopefully, they’ve learned something more about the demon cores since I last saw them. At the very least, we can get a couple more minds churning through the problem.”

He Yu nodded his silent agreement, stood, and made ready to move once more. Zhang Lifen was right. Their goal was to reach the others before Long Tingguang. That alone would ease their long-running fight against Jin Xifeng’s fanatical servants. And perhaps, were they fortunate, the two of them would have something that would provide a way forward.

One could hope, at least. For all He Yu knew, they were already dead. For Zhang Lifen’s sake, at least, he hoped that wasn’t the case. Although he knew that she and Yi Xiurong didn’t exactly care for one another at all, they’d spent years on the run together. Surely they’d left some of the animosity from their time at the sect behind. But more concerning was Ren Huang’s fate. He Yu had glimpsed between the lines enough on that front.

For how long the two had been involved, he couldn’t rightly have said. What he did know was that the last thing Zhang Lifen needed was to lose someone else she was close to. She may be a master at hiding her true emotions, but he’d seen the mask slip more than enough times by now.

He’d seen the worry she allowed through when she thought he wasn’t paying attention. Mostly for Ren Huang, but also for Yi Xiurong. At least a little. He’d also seen the grief. First, when he mentioned Elder Cai, her former martial father. Likely a better father than her real one, given what she’d said about how she’d left to pursue cultivation so many decades ago, rather than allow herself to be married off for financial gain. He’d also seen the grief slip through in those moments where her resolve faltered, her hope that the others had made it failed her.

He hoped for all their sakes that Ren Huang and Yi Xiurong lived. For a balm on Zhang Lifen’s spirit, and for the sake of their cause. They needed all the allies they could gather, and two peak Soul Refining experts would be strong ones indeed.

By the time they reached the coast, He Yu and Zhang Lifen were both growing perilously close to their limits. Yes, they’d had medicines looted from their foes to sustain them. He Yu was certain it was the only reason they’d made it this far. But the constant ache of his meridians, and his ever-draining dantian, made things less and less certain as the days passed by. They needed to find Ren Huang and Yi Xiurong before long. With the addition of two fresh fighters on their side, they could hopefully buy themselves enough of a respite to properly restore their cultivation base.

The southeast of the empire was as lush as it was rugged. Thick forests that reminded He Yu of the area around Shulin covered the mountain slopes and the valleys. The air was cool and moist despite the season, and he could smell the distant sea on the breeze with his enhanced senses of Divine Body Attainment. The biggest difference between here and the souther forest he’d grown up in was the ambient qi. It was much more potent, similar to the area around the Shrouded Peaks.

As they made their way ever more east, through valleys and over mountains, the natural spirits and beasts of the land fled before them. Although He Yu caught the odd Sixth Realm beast, most were equal to Golden Core or below. Nothing advanced enough to know better was going to let itself get caught by the approaching storm of two Divine Body Attainment experts and their pursuing horde of Fifth and Sixth Realm foes.

For several more days, they fought. Zhang Lifen took on more and more of the fighting herself, giving He Yu the chance to scout using his movement and perception techniques. For several more days, they searched. And for several more days, they found nothing that resembled either Ren Huang or Yi Xiurong.

It took its toll on Zhang Lifen, he could tell. Both the fighting, and the lack of any signs that the others were close by. He Yu allowed himself to wonder if this had just been a foolish adventure. Yan Shirong had said this was their best lead, after all. Nothing about this had been certain. Even if it had, Long Tingguang could have found them weeks ago. Had he gotten to them first, he’d have arrived back at the capital before He Yu and Zhang Lifen had even arrived.

They crested a hill and fought their way down into a secluded valley—one of many they’d battled through in the past days. Hope was replaced by relief as two spirits flared in response to their coming. One was a giant black wolf wreathed in flame, and the other a brilliant colorless star.

In the distance, to the north, another spirit unfurled. A gaping pit lined with bloody blades, and screaming its want to the heavens.