CC6 -ch 14-

Ash looked down at himself and found he was dressed in the old clothes Mother Far and Father Duyi had managed to get for him. He hadn’t really fit into Yan or Jing’s hand-me-downs.

Yan had been far too narrow in the waist, and Jing was too short, which had exposed Ash’s ankles.

It’d left him in the middle of being able to wear neither sets of clothes from either sibling.

Turning his wrist over, Ash looked to the bottom of the sleeve.

Mother Far’s stitching, small, neat, precise needlework, had been needed here several times. Ash’s growth had come in fits and spurts, as well as having to deal with being roughed up at the Spark’s Jump sect.

“I lost this coat somewhere,” murmured Ash, his other hand coming over to run his fingers over the stitches.

They felt real enough and exactly as his memory told them they should feel. That this was the very same coat and that he was here, in this valley, as if he had just left the training sect to be alone.

“Well. You’ve brought me to where I found the ring,” Ash confirmed and looked at the old brickwork that was a ruin to one side. It was still upright, which meant this was before he struck the wall out of frustration.

A strange blip ran through the world and Ash found himself standing amongst the knocked over ruins. Just outside of where it had all fallen down and the simple wooden box that’d held the ring in his hands.

Smirking, Ash turned it end over end and found it was just as he remembered. There were no engravings or markings. It as plain as it could be without any adornments.

He pushed his thumbnail into the latch and flipped it open.

Laying there inside was the Hall. A simple black ring that looked so inconspicuous that he had thought it was nothing more than a training ring.

“I’d thought it was just a training ring at first,” Ash explained, speaking his thoughts aloud. “It was actually pretty damaged. It’s taken me a long while to be able to repair it. There was a crack that went all the way through it.”

Ash pulled the ring out, dropped the box, and held the small metal band up. He could see sunlight spilling through the crack that was there.

“There had been some Qi in it which is what kick-started my Dantian. What you left in it was what gave me the ability to be more than an Outlander,” Ash continued and then slipped the ring on his finger. Right where as far as he was concerned it belonged.

“Yes. I see that,” groaned the One Emperor.

There was an odd rushing noise and Ash found himself standing just outside the ruins again.

Slowly, a set of buildings came into view atop the ruins. As if the One Emperor knew what this was and what it was supposed to look like.

Ash had always suspected that the ruins were a physical manifestation of what the Hall was. That somehow they were the original and the Hall was a duplicate.

“Ahhh… I let everyone out,” whispered the apparation. “For the ring to be here as it was, for the ruins to exist, it means that I let it all go. Or an ancestor did.”

“There’s no records of a One Emperor as far as I know or can tell,” Ash said, looking around at the ghostly buildings. “The Emperor exists, but as I mentioned, the emergency bunker is a prison, the realm filled with Citizens isn’t known of, and this ring was lost.

“If your ancestors existed in my realm, they existed briefly, or as regular people.”

The One Emperor’s voice was a low ugly chuckle to that.

“One does not simply rule without understanding those they are the lord of. You are beholden to them as they are beholden to you,” he grumbled a second before Ash was removed from this world.

He then found himself standing in the strange world of his middle Dantian.

“Explain this to me. Explain yourself to me. Explain it all and leave nothing out. Your life depends on it,” growled the ghost.

Ash actually laughed at that.

The request was so presumptious and filled with the expectation that it’d be met, that he couldn’t help himself. That the audacity of it was only outdone by the sheer belief that it would be achievable.

“Why not ask the world to explain itself in detail as well,” Ash retorted, still chuckling. “How about you explain all of what you were to me and your goals?”

The One Emperor said nothing but Ash could feel a strange sort of feedback from the projection.

“Who am I… well, I’m not entirely sure if I’m being honest with you,” Ash began. “Up until recently I saw myself as just a man. A man with an organization behind it to push forward and provide for those without backing.

“To raise up those who would be lost. Those that would be crushed beneath the Cultivator’s way of life. Brushed aside due to their lack of connections of being noticed.

“I believed myself to be a man that was a collector of lost talents and bringing them into the light so that they could… shine. Shine brilliantly and be more than they would have been.

“I’ve found a great many people who could be so much more if they were only given a chance.

“Or if not given a chance, not crushed beneath the boot of someone looking just to empower themselves.”

“Cultivator’s way of life,” the One Emperor spat back in a mocking tone. As if Ash’s words had a child-like lilt to them and was nothing more than whining. “You—”

“Yes, the Cultivator’s way of life,” interrupted Ash. He wasn’t about to let this point go and if he had to try and over-talk the One Emperor’s ghost, he would. “I’ve come across a great many people who would’ve been lost to that way of life.

“A Qi-Healer who’s ability strips everyone you’ve likely ever come across, to begin with. A woman with such kindness in her that Qi-Healing fits her personality so perfectly that it’s almost painful to think of her trying to live as a Cultivator or martial artist.

“Yet I could have carried her off, enjoyed ten minutes of my own pleasure, and ended her life just to be sure there would be no fall-out. A small insignificant candle snuffed out for nothing more than existing in the wrong time and place.”

As Ash spoke, countless visages flickered into the world laid out in front of himself and the One Emperor. A number of Brides and even Knights that came and went in what seemed a near endless parade.

People that Ash sometimes recognized but more often than not, didn’t. Incorporated into the Sheng Alliance by others who saw worth in them and wanted to cherish them.

Bringing them into the organization one way or another to give them the chances no one else would.

“That’s your Cultivator’s way of life,” Ash continued and jabbed out mentally at the One Emperor. As if he were thrusting a finger into th eman’s chest. “A me first mentality. I got mine, I don’t care anymore, way of thinking. An ugly belief that even among equals there are no friends.

“The type that would go to a meal with friends and family, then take the main course as it’s laid down and stuff it into a bag. Tray and all.  Then have the audacity to wonder why everyone is glaring at them.

“To complain that they didn’t kill someone they’d injured, rather than make restitution and concern themselves with the wrong they’ve done.

“Someone who would complain about the rest of a village hating them when they’ve been nothing but a bully to everyone around them.

“That’s your Cultivator’s way of life. That’s the world that you left behind for everyone and it’s sickening.

“I’ll be the first to admit I can’t claim to know a better way, or that I could do better, but I’m sure as hell going to try. Nor would I settle for what it is now.

“If this was your goal and what you tolerated, you’re nothing more than a complacent dictator who barely understood the dirt beneath their feet let alone the people you claim you’re beholden to.”

With the last words spoken Ash shook his head in absolute disgust.

Disappointment.

“If you truly believe this mentality is what’s best for the realms, than I very much misjudged you,” Ash finished. “Misjudged you and will be sure to never claim myself as your inheritor. If anything, I’d be best if I insured that you were forgotten to time and never remembered.”

Ash only now noticed that his middle Dantian had risen up as he spoke.

The Dao of momentum began to thrum and beat.

A heavy and domineering booming. They were the tread of heavy footfalls coming closer with each.

On top of that, there was no mistaking the fact that the entirety of the Brides were all forcefully projecting Qi to Ash. Drowning him in it along with endless feelings of anger and resentment.

Directed at the One Emperor’s projection.

“I’m Lord Sheng,” Ash added when it seemed as if the One Emperor wouldn’t be replying immediately. “My goal is to bring the world back into alignment and with a momentum that’d allow it to steadily grow.

“Because right now? Right now it’s stagnating.

“Dying.”

Ash experiencing the feeling of strange feedback from the One Emperor once again. As if he were standing too close to something that had an electrical charge and he was just waiting for the static-shock to cross the distance.

“Your life ends here, miserable thing,” cursed the One Emperor.

Ash was forcefully ejected from wherever he was and he found himself still caught within the One Emperors ethereal form. The strange white mist was attempting to bend him backward now.

To perhaps break him in half at the waistline.

Putting the whole of his being into the immediate moment, Ash grasped at Spring step, his momentum, and attacked the mist surrounding him with a flash of Qi-Thorns to surround him in a shield.

Designating the entirety of the apparation as an attack worked it seemed as the One Emperor’s projection dropped him.

Ash’s boots struck the ground and he mentally grasped out to call forth his weapons. While he wasn’t sure that they’d do anything, right now he was scrabbling for any and every possibility.

Holding his hands up defensively Ash felt an immediate connection from his weapon to himself. The solidness of the weapon gave him a reassurance he was immediately grateful for.

“If you’re so weak you can’t even handle the truth, then you’re not even the One Emperor’s cast-off. You’re nothing but a turd left behind that hadn’t been scraped off and disposed of,” Ash hurled at the hazy shade that floated before him.

Right now it was sparking a blue and white color as it suffered from the flashback of it’s own attack. Rebounding from Ash to the creature.

Launching himself forward, Ash slashed out with his right hand, bringing the butterfly-sword across in a deep attack. The hilt was the only part of it not lodged into the mist.

Once the attack finished, Ash lunged forward with his left hand.

As he extended his arm, he only now realized that the blade was his broken butterfly-sword. Cracked halfway down it had lost more than seventy percent of it’s mass and was no longer usable as a weapon.

As a stabbing weapon, it performed adequately and penetrated the mass without an issue.

Once Ash finished his attack with his off-hand, he launched a low-kick into the apparation, then Spring stepped backward with his left foot no sooner than the right foot touched the ground.

Putting more than ten feet between himself and the monster Ash brought both weapons up in front of himself.

Despite one of the swords being broken, he felt far more complete with them in his hands.

These swords had been just about gifted by the heavens when they’d dropped into his hands after one of his first victories. They’d been with him through a great many things.

He hadn’t wanted to think about how much of a loss he had felt when the break had occurred, though now holding it he felt the loss far more keenly.

As if he were working with a friend that’d vanished and only now appeared again.

Incomprehensible shrieking filled the cave as the strange cloud of the One Emperor roiled back and forth atop itself.  Color flashing inside of it from white to blue and back again.

“Foolish!” hissed the apparition. “Foolish and stupid. You’ll accomplish nothing in fighting me. You can’t win!”

In the next moment the cloud filled the entirety of the Cave, covering Ash and preventing him from seeing anything other than the strange mist all about him.

Colors continued to blare into existence and fade away in the next as his shield activated itself and attacked back to the perceived nature of the cloud.

Ash had an odd idea about what to do in this moment but he hesitated.

If this strange being left behind by the One Emperor was a projection, and was more or less Qi, than releasing the Knights would give him an option to attack with.

The reason he hesitated was that if it wasn’t Qi, all he’d be doing was condemning the Knights to their deaths.

“That doesn’t mean this isn’t the fight I need to take,” countered Ash. “I’m the lord of the Sheng, Lord Sheng. While I’m not the Emperor, or the One Emperor, I’ll have a name equal to their own in the fullness of time.

“Because your own momentum is failing as mine grows. Mine continues to rise up as it grows and yours recedes.

“Your time has ended.

“Be gone, shade. Go back to the grave with the one who made you and leave the world to the living.”

Changing the way he wanted to fight this, Ash instead dropped down to his knees, swapped the broken butterfly sword to his right hand, and began carving into the floor of the cave.

Fine.

I can’t fight you directly?

Not as I am?

Then I’ll fight you by not fighting you.

You’re unwilling to give the future of the world over to the next generation, that you think you’re the all knowing, all seeing, ruler of the realms.

I’ll give you a realm to control all your own.

Ash strangled the odd thought in the back of his head that he hadn’t heard from Locke so far. Nor did he feel anything from the Brides or Knights.

About the only external thing he felt wasn’t really even external. His Dao continued to boom away a beat all on it’s own in direct conflict with the shrieking of the projection.

The discordant mess of noise and power that was the apparation made no sense to Ash.

At times it was opposed to him directly, others it lined up with his Dao, then other periods it acted as if it wasn’t interested at all.

Ash carved quickly at the rock floor.

Rune after rune sprung into his mind and he laid them out, etching them into the stone.

Despite working as swiftly as he could, the One Emperor was going to have more than few opportunities to attack him, Ash figured.

So when the first attack landed on Ash’s back, he wasn’t surprised.

What was surprising was the pain of it though.

It’d felt as if something had been slammed through the back of his shoulder and into him. As if he’d been stabbed, in fact.

“Scribbling out your last words?” croaked the One Emperor’s projection. An ugly sound that was less than what someone could even charitably describe as “human-like”.

It’s almost like what the tarpits sounded like when I visited it.

Bubbling, croaking, churning.

The thought was strange given that Ash couldn’t even move his left arm anymore. He was in fact holding himself up in a kneeling position even as he scratched at the ground with the shattered remains of the butterfly sword.

“Why, would you like to read them?” Ash ground out, working with all the speed he could manage. Only to cough twice after asking.

Blood spattered the ground where Ash was working.

It made him realize it hadn’t been his shoulder by itself that had been stabbed through, but his lung. The One Emperor’s projection hadn’t just stabbed him without aiming.

“What?” gargled out the monster. Somewhere above and behind Ash yet also from quite a few places. It felt as if the voice didn’t have a single location in fact.

“What indeed,” Ash mumbled as he continued to scrawl and etch at the stone floor. He had already finished up setting the limits of the realm.

He had constructed this more than a few times now when he had been building out locations to add to the Hall, Manse, and Castle.

There was also the flower garden, arena, and warehouse now.

The space where the Bridal Manse and Castle were being guarded had more than a few sections added to it now. It was turning into it’s own little miniature model world.

And I’m going to turn you into a prisoner.

An attraction.

I’m sure my beautiful Locke Sheng can figure out how to pry out all the secrets in your head. I’m sure you know a number of martial arts, abilities, and other things that could be helpful.

And if not… well… we’ll drain you of your power over time and send you on your way.

Maybe we can turn you into a crystal or something.

Ha.

“Fucking dickbag that you are,” grumbled Ash aloud as he set down the knife and drug his finger through some of his blood splatter. Rubbing it into the runes.

There was a click followed by a whooshing noise

“What?! What’re— what?” squawked the apparition.

Ash shimmied to one side, moving on one hand and his knees. Shifting out of the shallow circle filled with runes he’d cut into the floor.

“Yeah, eat a dick bud,” muttered Ash and then he began to start carving more runes into the floor. Along the outside edge of the circle.

These were runes that would permanently seal the circle in. Locking it in place.

After this line of work was done, then all they’d need to do is pull the circle out of the ground and put it either directly into the Hall, or send it to the miniature sect.

“Ashley!?”

Frowning, Ash looked up from his work to find Siu and Hui bent over him. The former had a stricken look on her face filled with worry.

The latter had actual tears running down her face and her hands held out in front of herself. As if she weren’t sure what to do.

“Hey,” Ash said and then went back to the carving. “Whatever he stabbed me with hurts. It’d be great if you could get my beautiful Qi-Healer over here.

“Or one of the others. I need to just finish this… this carving up.”

Ash shook his head and then coughed again.

A large splatter of blood hit the ground and he found it was much harder to breathe.

Unwilling to stop, he kept working.

He believed that Locke, Rou, and everyone else would put him back to rights. He just had to make sure he handled the ghastly remains of the One Emperor so that it couldn’t harm anyone in his group.

Grimacing, worked steadily.

The One Emperor shrieked, cursed, and babbled incoherently inside of the barrier he’d been banished into. Ash’s blood had sealed it up as firmly as any artifact would be.

Because Ash had assumed that what the projection was, wasn’t a living thing.

That meant it fell into the same constraints as spirits, items, objects, living golems, and other things might. Anything that existed but didn’t have a soul bound or attached to it.

Chuckling, Ash continued to etch and scrawl at the rocks.

I’m Lord Sheng, a master of golems and Scrivening.

You, my dear not One Emperor, are nothing more than an echo.

One that I’ve… I’ve… stuck in a jar.

Ash coughed again and he felt multiple pairs of hands press to his back, shoulders, and even his head. There were a number of people standing over him.

“Almost—done,” he wheezed as he worked. “Almost.”