Chapter 100

  When the Heavens Weep (V)

  His soul was shaking, he realized.

  Under the weight of something ethereal, something that could not be grasped, he found himself small. An ant staring up at the peak of the mountain that he will never climb, forever condemned to stay in its dark and long shadow.

  Yet, amidst the curling flow of fear, there was... anger.

  This.

  He was denied precisely this.

  No matter how hard he worked, no matter how many Seeds he carefully consumed, no matter how many years he suffered... he was nothing beneath this.

  A mere servant of a young girl was a Demigod, a sovereign of life and death, and he was a pitiful nothing.

  How was it fair?

  Who dared proclaim that there was nothing fairer in the world than Dao and the Heavens? Perhaps those Ancient Sages whom the Heavens favored. Only they could proclaim something so false as true.

  The servant in front of him changed--from the appearance of a boy to that of a thirty-something man. The somewhat emaciated appearance was filled out, the sallow cheeks were now jutting out alongside the square jaw, and the pair of listless eyes were all but glowing under the washing of Qi.

  Ah, for how many thousands of years did he suffer under the weight of his own failed talents? In eternal pursuit of the realm of separation, the one that marked the end of Mortal Ends and marked the beginnings of the Heavenly Path.

  "... who are you?" He squeezed the words out, using the scant few artifacts he had left to shield himself from the pressure.

  "It used to be that I was one of the Eternal Guard," the man said. "You should be familiar with them, no? Kang Lei, the Inverter. That's what they used to call you, no?"

  "Hah. Eternal Guard. Should you not be out there with your brethren, chasing the Seed?"

  "No. I'm precisely where I need to be. We were on the run for a few years before I heard of this place--a third-rate sect in the middle of nowhere. Thought it was as good a place as any to lay down our roots and die. It was the last thing on my mind, that I'd find the Seed that was so viciously thieved from us right here. But by the time I realized it... we got caught in its clutches. Dai Xiu had yet to fully awaken her physique, which meant that she couldn't contain it."

  "She didn't deserve it," he spat out.

  "Yes. I've caught your scent a few times, when you came down to ensure she failed. It was, I think, the fourth time around that I finally realized who you are. Beneath that wrinkled skin and the sagacious appearance, I recognized the monster who, unable to contend with his own failings, went against Dao. And that's when it all made sense--how someone managed to steal the Seed and how it was possible that we hadn't found it in all these years."

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  "Heh. You say you left the Guard, but you certainly still speak as though you are one of them."

  "I left the Guard because they wanted to sacrifice cities upon cities to forge a new Seed and use Dai Xiu as a transient host. The old Guard had grown greedy and, well, old. It turns out that even the most benevolent can falter in the face of doom. They wanted to do exactly what you were planning to do--use the young girl as a vessel to undo their aging. So, I grabbed the child and left. Not without having to do certain things, thus breaking my Seal."

  "Ha ha ha. And now that you have a new lease on life, you decide to end it here? Do you really hate me that much?"

  "... no," the man said. "I seldom feel much for you, to be honest. You were well before my time, after all. While I don't hate you for what you did to the Guard, I do… resent you, perhaps, for what you did to this place. It was you, wasn't it? Who leaked the Seed's location to the Holy Lands?"

  "... all the mystique about the thing," Kang Lei chuckled oddly as he began to reminisce. "The myths about affording the powers of the heavens themselves. All lies. It took me two hundred years to charge it the first time. And all it offered was twenty years of lifetime in return. Barely any progress in cultivation. I thought it was just a matter of the quality of the souls I was giving it, so the next time, I was patient. Six hundred years I've spent carefully curating souls for it, taking the old monsters from the Ancestral Peaks and having them die in the chamber rather than in their homes.

  "But it changed nothing. A few extra years, a few bits of Qi. A useless thing. That's when I met that prick who called himself Demon God. Made him a pill that saved his life, and he shared the few things he knew: the Seed is like a sword, useful only for those who know how to wield it. And to wield it... I needed to host it. Host it? Ha ha ha!! He was mad! Insane, I thought! To host that thing within myself?! It would suck me dry in a day!"

  "..."

  "And then, three years ago, I... sensed something. A disturbance within the Seed. I hurried over, thinking it had finally awakened, only to recognize it had reacted to a newcomer. A young, shy girl accompanied by a boy servant. The Seed seemed to... desire her. Not her soul, no. But her. It didn't take long to put pieces together. That's when I realized how the Guard wielded it--they bred a unique physique, stuffed the Seed in the child, and then activated it whenever they needed to win. The child would die, of course; there isn't a physique under the heavens that can contain a fully erupting Dao Seed. But..."

  "That didn't matter."

  "That didn't matter," he nodded at the man's words, smiling bitterly. "By the time I realized it, however, the Seed had trapped her. And try as I may... I couldn't free her. It wouldn't let me come close. When I saw her liberated, when I saw that dull child carrying her up the mountain... I couldn't believe it."

  "And that's when you spread the word."

  "I needed to charge the Seed fast. And the best way to do it is to wage a war in its vicinity, which you should know already, no doubt. Something went wrong, however. I didn't expect so many of them to show up. This isn't a war at all--but a crusade for extermination."

  "Do you regret it? Any of it?"

  "... only that I let the two of you live," he said, closing his eyes. He felt the fingers cradle his heart, invisible fingers, ethereal in their make. Put up a fight? Struggle to survive? It was pointless. There was a greater distance between the man and him than there was between him and a random mortal.

  "One last question. Who is Elder Lu?"

  "... originally," he said. "He was my son. Who he is now? Truly, only the heavens know."

  The fingers squeezed, and the life perished, the body molting into ashes adrift in the passing gale.

  Nothing remained but silence... eternal and cruel.