PtM Book 16 - Epilogue

2/2 this week. Announcement post to follow. 

Two weeks after the start of the fiend outbreak, shortly after the last of the fiends were slain, a wind blew across the Chasewind Plane. To most, it was just a normal wind, the kind you saw every day. But to those in the law-stitching realm or the divine or demonic equivalent, it was a miracle.

This wasn’t just wind. It was a chasewind.

Wherever the chasewind blew, lightning receded, as did all manner of pestilence and flood and quake. Wounds healed faster, and cultivators progressed more rapidly in a single minute than they might during several months of arduous cultivation.

With the chasewind blowing in your sails, anything was possible. Whether it be cultivation, cure, or enlightenment one wanted, the chasewind would guide the way.

Most mortals did not notice the wind’s effect, disconnected as they were from the energies of heaven and earth. It was only people like farmers and doctors who realized things weren’t quite right. When crops grew inches overnight and patients that should have died didn’t, it wasn’t difficult to surmise that something magical was happening.

Cao Wenluan certainly noticed the strange effects of the wind. He’d never seen a chasewind before, but he’d read about them during his spare time. No one knew quite why they blew, but Cao Wenluan surmised that it had to do with excessive loss of life and stored energy. A plane, he knew, was not just a lump of soil floating in the void—it was a living, breathing creature, and the people and the animals and the plants that lived on it were a part of it. Every plane had ways to correct such imbalances, and this plane used the wind. Thus the plane’s namesake, chasewind.

Normally, such a wind would only help the native inhabitants of the plane. It was therefore surprising to Cao Wenluan that the wind sought him out just like everyone else. It blessed him just as it did his army and his ships and his army puppets. The blessing, he noticed, was proportional to the number of fiends they’d killed, which, in his army’s case, was countless times greater than the planar average.

Cao Wenluan was a different man than he’d been on the Inkwell Plane. Like everyone else, the Heartforge Realm had changed him. Externally, it was difficult to tell—he still wore black plate armor, though the material and the runes and the make had changed, and he still wielded the same black blade and commanded the same respect from his subordinates as he always had.

The difference lay in the way he carried himself and in the way he behaved. Fifteen years was a lot of time for anyone, but when you factored in time acceleration, he’d spent more time in the Heartforge Realm that he had on the Inkwell Plane.

Before his arrival, everything had been about competition and chaos and opportunity. Now, he held back more often and used his blade as a last resort. He now had a strong distaste for mayhem and chaos and was content to leave all those things to his enemies. He did not succeed by destroying those in power—his actions just naturally led to their destruction.

He still waged war—that much would never change—but he did so with purpose now, and with logic instead of hot-bloodedness. He and the fleet of thousands of ships he’d assembled were defenders of three regions, the bulwark against the dreaded fiends that sought to consume them all.

The sects knew it, and the people knew it. Joining his army was a point of pride, and many tried and failed to do so every year.

Cao Wenluan was currently standing alone on the prow of his flagship, the Wind Divinity. His armada had just destroyed the last of the fiends in this section of the southern battlefield.

Though it seemed like time for a well-earned rest, his armada could sense tension in the air. The fiends were gone, but the fighting had yet to finish.

An old man stepped onto the prow and bowed in a deep, ceremonial fashion. “Great General Cao, this subordinate, Dark Tooth, seeks an audience!”

“Speak,” Cao Wenluan said. He didn’t turn but continued staring at the blighted lands of the south pole where he and his men often went out on fiend-slaying expeditions.

“Great General, we have just received urgent news that requires your attention,” the old man said.

“What news?” Cao Wenluan asked, still not turning around. “Has the Paper Tiger Clan finally made its move? Has Baleful Vision revealed his true intentions?”

“Neither, Great General,” the old man said.

Cao Wenluan sighed and cocked his head. “You are afraid. You believe your words will anger me. Speak, Dark Tooth. When have I ever punished anyone for doing their duty?”

“I would never doubt you, Great General,” Dark Tooth said. “It is only that this concerns one of our comrades, Violet Rose. She is dying, Great General. She doesn’t have much time remaining.”

The world held its breath for a single moment as Cao Wenluan took in this sad news. Words of war on another front would not have surprised him, but this… He finally turned around and spoke, his tone solemn and icy cold. “How?” That simple word caused the deck’s wood to ice over. Smaller flags that had once whipped in the wind froze stiff.

“It was Xing Tianlong,” Dark Tooth replied. “We were prepared for the armies he’d been amassing. We were prepared for many of his schemes. But we never expected him to have the foresight to have an assassin embedded into a tier-one sect’s organizational structure. The assassin was there since before we arrived.”

“How did it happen?” Cao Wenluan asked.

“The assassin was a poison user,” Dark Tooth answered. “Violet Rose killed the assassin but suffered a glancing blow. She then escaped through the interplanar portal to make her report. According to the doctors we spoke to, she has a few days left to live at best.”

Cao Wenluan’s jaw tightened, and his armor creaked as he clenched a fist. He remembered—she was one of his first subordinates in the Heartforge Realm, alongside Dark Tooth.

These days, he was normally calm, but this news well and truly angered him. Yet he did not let it out like lesser men would, instead allowing it to build.

The armada shuddered as the entire army felt Cao Wenluan’s murderous intent. The ship captains issued orders for their crews to prepare for mobilization.

“Xing. Tian. Long!” The words were uttered like the vilest of curses. “I tried very hard not to make war on humans or demons and focused my attentions exclusively on the fiends. I gave you the perfect chance to walk the path of righteousness and to interact with me peacefully.

“And this is how you repay me? With a poisoned dagger in the dark, and an attack on my faithful companion? You had many other paths from which to choose, but in the end you had to choose the one to ruin.” By now, Dark Tooth had his full and undivided attention. “Is there no cure for her?”

“There isn’t,” the old man answered. “It’s a yin-lightning serpent poison. Very deadly. At least rank twelve. Possibly thirteen. Moreover, it’s gotten into her bones and her marrow. Were it anything else, it wouldn’t have mattered, but the yin element happens to counter her strong vitality.”

Cao Wenluan remained silent for a few moments before speaking again. “I didn’t ask if there was an economic cure, Dark Tooth. I asked if there was any cure available.”

The old man hesitated. “In theory, there is a pearl. A pearl that grows in the tallest of mountains in the deepest of oceans. It grows only on demiplanes skewed toward sacred earth, and it is the bane of all lightning. Only such a pearl would be able to pull this toxin from her.”

“The cost?” Cao Wenluan asked.

“Thirty million points,” Dark Tooth answered. This was a fortune to any Invited, almost enough to buy an immortal-grade technique.

“Hunting in the south, I managed to earn around ten million,” Cao Wenluan said. “How much can you loan me, Dark Tooth?”

“Two million points,” Dark Tooth said without hesitation. “And I imagine the others would also lend you a combined sum of three million more if you asked.”

“What if we attacked and killed our two neighbors?” Cao Wenluan asked.

“I imagine we wouldn’t get anything unless we launched a lightning assault and prevented them from returning to the Heartforge Realm,” Dark Tooth answered.

Cao Wenluan nodded. “Then we can only borrow. How much do you think we can obtain?”

“This…” Dark Tooth said. “With things heating up in just about every trial plane, loans have become incredibly expensive.”

“I didn’t ask about the price, Dark Tooth,” Cao Wenluan said. “I asked if this sum could be borrowed.”

“As it stands, most of the loan market is tapped out,” Dark Tooth answered. “Only the snake and the fox and the crow, the biggest lenders on the market, remain. When you killed one of the crow’s minions, you blocked off any chance of ever securing funds from her.”

“She had it coming,” Cao Wenluan said. “No one lays a hand on my subordinates and walks away safely.”

“The snake is crafty and will likely extend you four million,” Dark Tooth continued. “As for the fox… Well, he hates you. He’ll lend you money, but he’ll gouge you and demand a karmic binding. As for the amount he’ll be willing to give…”

“He’ll give me the eleven million I’m missing,” Cao Wenluan said confidently.

“Eleven million is a lot of money to loan to a single player,” Dark Tooth said. “Let me send out a few inquiries first and—”

“He will lend me eleven million,” Cao Wenluan repeated. “As long as I give him certain assurances.”

Dark Tooth gulped. “What assurances, exactly?”

“Tell him five years of noninterference against his brother on my part, directly or indirectly,” Cao Wenluan said.

“But the price…”

“He won’t gouge me either,” Cao Wenluan said. “His brother is not in a good way, and he’s been pulling a lot of strings to safeguard him. I’m one of the last holdouts, as I wanted him to owe me a big favor, but it seems that Xing Tianlong has forced my hand.”

“Let me inquire,” Dark Tooth said. He took out an interplanar communication device, and several minutes later, he looked up. “He agreed to nine.”

“Four years of peace,” Cao Wenluan said.

“He replied he can live with four,” Dark Tooth answered shortly. “He said he would lend the full eleven, but nine is all he has.”

Cao Wenluan sighed. “That makes us short two million points. I don’t suppose there’s a way to get a discount?”

“Not with our timeline,” Dark Tooth said. “Though I must remind you that this may not be the wisest use of—”

“I suggest you stop speaking, Dark Tooth,” Cao Wenluan cut in.

“Great General,” Dark Tooth said. He took a step back and bowed to a ninety-degree angle. It was a perfect imperial bow, the type you gave to an emperor when speaking to him. “You are our leader, and the final decision is naturally up to you. Whatever your decision, I will follow you without a shadow of a doubt, even to death itself. But I will remind you to think three times on this. Violet Rose would not want you to squander such a fortune on her poor life.”

Several minutes passed in silence as Cao Wenluan did as asked. He’d already thought once, but he did so a second time, then a third time. You are right, Dark Tooth,” Cao Wenluan said with a wistful smile. “And yet, you are also wrong. She would not want me to squander such a fortune, but she would also feel relieved at my decision.

“I am not a good person, Dark Tooth. I can slaughter people by the millions and make war for profit and personal gain. But Violet Rose’s life… is priceless. When it comes to my people, I will do everything in my power to protect them.”

“I can’t just try to save her—I must save her! If I can’t even do that much, how could I ever claim to be your leader? People do not follow me because of benefits, Dark Tooth—they follow me because everyone else in their life has disappointed them. Doubt has festered in their hearts for their entire lives, and they cling to me like a piece of driftwood after a shipwreck because I will never betray them.”

Dark Tooth took in a deep breath, stepped back, and bowed once again. “If this is your decision, Great General, I will abide by it!”

“Two million points isn’t much, but it isn’t little either,” Cao Wenluan said. “I can easily earn that much in a few months if I press hard enough. Is there a way to extend her life?”

“An elixir, Great General,” Dark Tooth said. “An expensive one. One million points will buy us a half a year.”

“Come here, Dark Tooth,” Cao Wenluan said. He took the gold invitation medallion from his full plate and touched it to Dark Tooth’s own medallion, transferring over every single point in his possession. This was how far he trusted his subordinates. Every single one of them.

“Go to the others and take what they will give you,” he continued. “See if you can get us a little closer to that thirty million. Meet up with the fox in the Heartforge Realm, take his money, then stay there and try to scrounge up what you can, whichever way you can. And no matter what you do, don’t come back here. Those points aren’t just currency—they are Violet Rose’s entire life!”

“Great General, I—”

“Go!” Cao Wenluan said. “I will find a way to secure the rest. Xing Tianlong wants war? Fine. I’ll give him war. I was willing to play nice. I offered to give and take, but he stabbed me in the back, so I’ll stab him in the chest.”

“Great General—”

“Go!” he said a third time, and this time, Dark Tooth ran, leaving Cao Wenluan with his anger and loathing and grief. Violet Rose… he had not known her before the entrance trial, but since then, she’d followed him faithfully. Just like Dark Tooth.

“In the end, I’m not surprised,” Cao Wenluan muttered to no one in particular. “I’m just disappointed. I had hoped that you would join me in fighting our common enemy, but in the end, you could not put the politics of the Inkwell Plane behind you.

“So don’t you dare blame me for what’s to come, Tianlong. Don’t blame me when you start to lose everything you thought was yours. Don’t blame me when your fair-weather friends start to see what kind of man you truly are and abandon you one after another.”

He then turned his attention back toward the blighted lands. This was where the worst of the fiends were hiding. The intelligent ones. The ones that amassed armies. It was no one’s protectorate, but a neutral zone where danger and fortune coexisted.

On his signal, the Wind Divinity and his thousand-ship armada mobilized. They flew with righteous anger, boiling blood, and a chasewind in their sails.

***

The chasewind that followed the extermination of the fiends did not blow from east to west. It blew from every direction in pursuit of every worthy recipient.

It was a wind with a purpose, but it was not intelligent, and therefore had a difficult time tracking down a certain meritorious fox. Others had spent their time fighting, but this fox had spent countless hours stabilizing spatial corridors at no small risk to his life.

The region where the fox resided was called the Twisted Horn Region, and out of all the regions, it had stamped out the outbreak the quickest. Its army had then moved on to reinforce two other regions before calling it quits.

It was therefore not surprising that the chasewind blew particularly hard in the city where the fox and his friends lived, despite not being able to get a lock on his presence. It took hours for the wind to finally track down the fox. It found him in a palace made of spatial glass.

Jadefall was the first to notice the chasewind. “A natural blessing?” she wondered aloud as the wind poured into her and the others.

“A boon,” Wu agreed. The golden light around her intensified as she broke through in her understanding of her favorite spell, Heavenly Xuanwu Shield.

As for Huxian, he had not yet broken through to the fusion realm, but he was still strong enough to identify the wind and its nature. “It’s a chasewind!” he said. “Lucky!”

Huxian, Jadefall, and Wu, were currently having dinner. It was the first meal they’d shared after two long weeks of bloody fighting. To other cultivators, this much time was nothing, but to the two ladies who’d been spoiled with Huxian’s cooking almost every day for the past two decades, it was an eternity.

Jadefall was especially vigorous. She’d wolfed down no less then three steamed hams, four crescent wind pheasants, and dozens of side dishes. She was just eyeing a cherry pie when the palace suddenly trembled, and she closed her eyes in frustration. “Not again,” she groaned.

Wu put a hand to her face, and even Huxian let out a helpless sigh.

“Let me in!” a voice called out. “It’s me, Twisted Horn!” The palace trembled again as the demon knocked on the door a second time.

“Fine, fine!” Huxian called out. He had the main door open before the demon broke it down a second time.

A head was the first thing that poked through. It featured two prominent horns, one straight and one twisted. The twisted horn was covered in devilish runes.

Twisted Horn’s body was covered in thick fur. He had a broad chest and abnormally skinny legs, which ended in hooves instead of feet, as per the nature of his demonic heritage. His bloodline was that of the Twisted Horn Devil Ox, and he was the enclave lord of this region, which was the equivalent of a tier-one sect master in the human-controlled places.

“Eight Directions, we have a situation,” Twisted Horn said, stopping just short of the dining table. He wrinkled his nose and looked down at the table with disdain. Then his eyes widened, and drool began to leak out the corner of his mouth. “Is that… pie? Cherry pie?”

“It’s my cherry pie,” Jadefall said with a glare, but Huxian shook his head.

“Yes, it’s cherry pie,” he said. “Grab a seat, Twisted Horn.”

Normally, the enclave lord had enormous stature. He liked to walk around as a five-meter-tall abomination, which was why Huxian had built this palace with eight-meter ceilings.

At the mention of pie, however, he shrank to a more manageable three meters and took a seat in front of Jadefall. The Fallen Jade Ox Queen was not pleased by this, especially when the devil ox reached over, took the pie she’d been about to eat, and plopped it onto his plate.

You could cut the tension with a knife. Huxian eyed Jadefall’s fork warily and wondered if today was the day that she finally stabbed their unwelcome guest.

Fortunately, the devil ox finished the pie extremely quickly, after which Huxian cleared his throat and got to business. “Twisted Horn, what seems to be the issue?”

“The issue?” Twisted Horn said, licking up the last of the pie on his plate. “Right. The issue. Lord Eight Directions, it is as you predicted. The Paper Tiger Clan has made its move, and so has Dao Lord Blood Leech. They attack us from within and from without. Already our armies meet them on the battlefield.”

Huxian’s eye twitched. “You didn’t need to tell me that, Twisted Horn. I already knew.” He pressed a button, and a giant projection appeared inside the dining room. There wasn’t enough space for it, so the room expanded to accommodate it.

The globe was spinning, and on it were many labels alongside tiny dots representing large populations of cultivators. They were labeled as human, demon, and fiendish. The human and demon regions were color coded according to allegiance. The fiends were not.

“This…” Twisted Horn’s jaw practically hit the floor. “You had this all along? Why do we even bother collecting information?”

“Because it’s my information, and you refuse to pay me for it,” Huxian said.

“But this… this could change the result of the entire war!” Twisted Horn said.

“Yes, it could,” Huxian replied. “But I want to be paid, and instead all you do is come here and eat Jadefall’s pie.” He sighed. “Whatever. Fine. I’ll take a loss to get you out of my hair. But I’ll make you pay for it eventually.”

He swept his hand, and the globe spun before stopping a few regions down the road from their territory. “Pick up your jaw, Twisted Horn, you’re embarrassing me. Now let’s see… as you can clearly tell, our territory is purple. All three regions. Here, here, and here are where the Paper Tiger Clan and Dao God Blood Leech are attacking. Notice the covert attacks at these five points? You probably want to intercept them, and fast.”

“What are these other colors?” Twisted Horn asked. “There’s a lot of them. They must be important.”

Huxian sighed. “There are a few other large factions to worry about, so I’ll give you a rundown, I guess. First are these territories highlighted in yellow. They’re aligned with the Crimson Lotus Imperialists. On the surface they’re all right, but when you get to know them, you discover they’re pretty rotten.

“For example, they recently attacked the warden in this territory, Dao God Violet Rose.” He spun the globe until it was on the opposite side. “She belongs to Cao Wenluan’s faction over here. He’s normally not a nice guy, but for some reason he was playing nice for a change. Who knows what’ll happen now? Then there’s these guys here.”

The globe settled a few regions down from Xing Tianlong’s area. “This region’s warden is a princess from Slovana’s imperial bloodline. She’s been playing things cautiously. She’s extremely smart, and one of our neighbors is actually her subordinate.

“As for these regions beside her, their wardens make up a team under Oster Fireblight. He’s built up a mercenary company, and we could potentially hire him to help us fight the Paper Tiger Clan.

“Just beside Oster are Dao God Thunderclash and Dao God Blood Seal. They think they’re being very smart, but they just attacked Oster and another territory simultaneously. These guys are friends with Dao God Blood Leech, in case you didn’t spot their color coding.”

Twisted Horn’s eyes had already glazed over. In fact, he was drooling a little. Huxian nodded to Jadefall, who happily kicked the devil ox under the table. The demon yelped, then looked around in a panic before realizing he was the one at fault. “What? I was paying attention!”

“Don’t make me draw on your face again, Twisted Horn,” Huxian said. “What did you manage to make out?”

The devil ox shrugged. “Something imperial, two warlords, a princess, and allies of Blood Leech,” he said dutifully.

“Good enough, I guess,” Huxian said. “Any questions?”

“I remember you talking about infighting in the Paper Tiger Clan,” Twisted Horn said. “One of their princes. Where is he?”

“Baleful Vision would be here,” Huxian said. “Between Cao Wenluan’s group and the Paper Tiger Clan. A terrible geographical location.”

“Will he be helping us fight off his brethren?” Twisted Horn asked.

“No,” Huxian said. “He’s busy cultivating a technique and can’t be interrupted. We’re on our own for now.”

“And what about this one?” Twisted Horn asked. He poked a point on the map. The territory was golden, an eye-catching color.

“That is my bonded brother’s territory,” Huxian said. “My very naïve bonded brother, who probably still has no idea about all the games we’ve been playing. He’s mostly been busy helping people and fighting fiends. I don’t think he expected Dao God Blood Seal’s attack in the slightest.”

Twisted Horn shifted uncomfortably. On the Chasewind Plane, human–demon bonds weren’t very common. They weren’t common anywhere, really, but here bloodlines weren’t as strong, so the skill didn’t materialize very often.

“What?” Huxian asked.

Twisted Horn shrugged. “I just wonder why you haven’t included him in any of your plans. Or why you haven’t mentioned him much at all.”

“Because he’s injured, Twisted Horn, and has yet to recover,” Huxian said. “Although now he’s starting to pull himself together.”

“If it’s an injury, we have excellent medicines,” Twisted Horn said. “I could talk to the old dragon turtle. It’ll cost you, of course, but we’re allies, aren’t we?”

“It’s an injury of the heart, I’m afraid,” Huxian said. “He needs to wake up and remember that life is filled with sadness and grief. Sometimes it’s just not possible to catch your breath. But enough of that—I don’t need to involve him in my plans. As for Dao God Blood Seal pushing into his territory, I’m confident he can deal with it.”

“About the Paper Tiger Clan and Dao God Blood Leech…” Twisted Horn said.

“If they want war, we’ll give it to them, obviously,” Huxian said. “Do they think I’ll just sit pretty while they invade our three regions?”

“Great!” Enclave Lord Twisted Horn said. “Very good. I’ll inform the others. It’s just that I was wondering what kind of support we can expect, now that the spatial portals have stabilized.”

Huxian laughed. He held up his hand, and the palace they were in shattered. Countless shards of spatial glass scattered in the wind. Then the skies opened up, revealing a fold in space. Inside it was a crystalline battleship.

Twisted Horn let out a soft hiss. “Is that what I think it is?”

“You enclave lords have always been complaining about aerial inferiority,” Huxian said. He snapped his fingers, and another fifty ships rose up. They were smaller than the first, but they could hold a large number of combatants. “If they want to fight, then let’s fight. Let it be known that this fox isn’t easily pushed around!”

***

The chasewind had no beginning or end. It blew across the entire planet and blessed all in creation. Most of its recipients were easy to find, but like the fox, they hid deeply.

A curious property of this holy wind was its ability to cross spatial barriers, which was why Cha Ming, despite having hidden away in the Clear Sky World for an entire week, felt it blowing through his personal realm, blessing it, strengthening it.

A week had passed since the battle for Soaring City. The fiends had been pushed back, and in the end, the city’s forty million residents had been saved. The price for this victory was that he’d needed to sit out the rest of the outbreak. A fortunate turn of events for Cha Ming.

He wanted to continue fighting, but in the end, he was too exhausted.

They had won. Everyone had sacrificed much, and many lives had been lost, but they had won. In the outside world, Cha Ming knew they were celebrating, but he had no desire to join them because to him, it didn’t feel like victory.

It had taken a week of isolation for Cha Ming to recover to a point that he could walk around on his own, able to do nothing more than watch on grimly as updates rolled in. Some were from his mission jade, but most were from the Azure Tempest Sect as they confirmed the heartbreaking death toll.

It wasn’t all bad news. The fiend outbreak was a grinding stone that refined and polished the local cultivators. An unprecedented number of Daoists and demigods had broken through to the next level, and a large percentage of the surviving core-formation cultivators had already used the crucible of battle to carve their cores. The battle had weakened the Azure Tempest Territory in some ways but had strengthened it in others.

Cha Ming, too, had grown stronger. His River Lake Brush Art had broken through to the next level. He’d mastered Savage Deity Crush, or at least a likeness of it. He’d also started fusing the Savage Deity Battle Arts with his Clear Rune Arts.

But Cha Ming took no pleasure in these tiny victories, and neither was he pleased by the progress he’d made at the end of the battle. What made him most displeased was the fact that he’d accumulated enough merit during the battle, thereby healing the worst of his soul wounds and restoring the grace to one of his wing pairs.

If he could turn back time, he might choose to do it all over, because now he was starting to remember, and he could no longer ignore the heartrending pain that had broken his heart and shattered his spirit.

Yu Wen was gone. He’d always known, but that fact came crashing down on him like countless leaden weights. She had spent everything she had to wake the Monkey King just a little earlier, then had fled with an angry goddess on her tail.

Cha Ming had followed her, fully aware that doing so might result in his death. In the end, it was she who’d perished. They were simple facts—things that Cha Ming had always known but only now acknowledged.

They caused him great pain, and this pain accompanied him throughout the healing process. They accompanied him as he restored the damage to his meridians and stabilized his foundation.

When the worst of his wounds were healed, he stood up and walked. He did so without thinking about where he was going.

His footsteps took him through most of the Clear Sky World. He walked around Jade Moon Garden for a time before finally stopping in front of the painting he’d once made for her, the first true spiritual painting he’d ever created.

He stayed there several days before finally heading back into the empty whiteness of the Clear Sky World. There was nothing there, and at the same time, there was everything. Whatever thoughts came to mind came into being in this place of endless imagination. Most of them were fond, but in his state, they were nightmares.

He saw a road. He saw a flower. He saw the countless times they’d shared together. Their journey had been short in this life, full of twists and turns and excitement and agony.

His journey lasted several days, and in the end, he arrived at a painting. The painting was familiar to Cha Ming. It was actually one of his battlefield paintings, the very first one he’d ever painted.

He’d always wondered where this one had come from but had never dwelled on the root of the painting. But now that the worst of his soul injuries were healed, it was all coming back.

The painting titled Yang Memory was not originally a battlefield painting. Instead, it was a slice of time and emotion captured on a canvas. Looking at it now, he had no idea how he’d managed to paint it.

Yang Memory depicted a calm prairie, including windblown grass and a beautiful sunset. At its center was a mulberry tree, where two phoenixes perched on a single long branch.

It was inside this painting that Cha Ming had somehow infused all of his love and emotions. The Savage Deity Aura would normally never have let such lasting emotions slip through—so he’d done so unconsciously by rationalizing it as a battle painting.

Looking at the scene, Cha Ming couldn’t help but remember their journey through the Garden of Memory. It was there that they’d cut off the past for their future together, however short it had been.

“Yu Wen,” Cha Ming finally whispered to the grass, the sun, and the trees. “I miss you.” It was a simple admission. A simple fact. Yet when he said it, he felt like a boulder had been lifted off his shoulders.

The boulder was the last of his inhibitions, the last of the seals on his emotions. When he removed it, his three auras finally reached a stable balance, a compromise inside his spiritual sea.

His Savage Deity Aura could no longer suppress his emotions or his wishful thinking. Yet at the same time, it was a part of him, one that would not hesitate to do what was needed.

With his inhibitions gone, the memories came, this time stronger than ever before. They hurt him deeply. But now that his inner savagery was under control, he realized that as much as they hurt, remembering was far better than forgetting.

Most things faded with time, but some things you remembered forever.

Cha Ming lingered there for several days, ignoring everything and anything in the outside world. There was warmth in this painting that was lacking everywhere else.

If it were Cha Ming from before, he would have locked himself away for centuries. Fortunately, he’d changed greatly since coming to the Heartforge Realm, and it only took him a few days to finally pick himself back up.

“I should probably go out now,” Cha Ming finally said to himself. “Life’s not perfect. It never was. And besides, there are people out there that need me.” He took one last look at the Yang Memory painting before summoning a portal to the outside world. Then, bracing himself, he took a step out and appeared in Elder Choking Tide’s cabin on his Chasewind ship.

It was then that he began receiving disturbing alerts from his mission jades. Alerts that somehow had been kept from him all this time.

The southwest border has been contested. Southwest border region has been annexed. All friendly sects have been eradicated or capitulated.

“What in the…”

The midwest border has been contested. Midwest border region has been annexed. All friendly sects have been eradicated or capitulated.

The Lone Wind Clifflands have been contested. The Lone Wind Clifflands have been annexed. All friendly sects have been eradicated or capitulated.

On and on the notifications went. They came suddenly and all at once, and by the time they stopped, Cha Ming’s protectorate was ten percent smaller than it had originally been.

Cha Ming couldn’t help but laugh when he read the notices. In a single moment, he realized how naïve his thinking had been. “Thirty-two of us were sent to the Chasewind Plane,” Cha Ming mused. “Cooperation achieves the best overall result. If we play nice, all of us will be able to obtain enough points for an immortal technique.”

In the end, people were people. The Chasewind Plane was a gold mine of opportunity. There were points to be had and resources to be harvested. Each of these things would have a profound impact on all their futures.

Cha Ming couldn’t help but laugh at the irony of it. They’d been sent here to protect a dying world, yet the game was practically rigged to ensure conflict. Angels and devils. Points and resources. Differences in opinions and beliefs. All of these details were colliding in the worst way possible. “Well played, Patriarch Heartforge. Well played.”

They hadn’t been sent here to fight evil beings from the outside world. They’d been sent here to sharpen their swords and temper their hearts.

What was friendship worth to you? What would you do for revenge? Would you betray your friend for a fortune? Could you work together with your enemies?

These questions and how they answered them, Cha Ming realized, were the Heartforge Trial.

– End Book 16 –