Chapter 31 #5
Xien Tang then took another deep, shuddering breath before waving his brother forward, the pair swearing the previous oath in unison. And, Alex was pleased to note, the four wujen were also brought down with a clap and swore the same oath, for all that their eyes were heavy with bitter contempt.
Alex flashed a toothy grin despite his growing mental fatigue, so EAGER to hone himself against their hate.
“Stop it, fools,” Xien Tang warned his suddenly chagrined men.
“You saw his Lightning. Faster and stronger than all of you, and he can run through the air! Lucky bastard broke through my wards like they were nothing. Body cultivation alone saved me. He’s a wujen-killer, rare as they are, who just ascended to Gold.
And I’m not losing any more elites to this wildcard! ”
The pair of brothers then gave Alex mutual bows of respect from one warrior to another, Alex giving a single dip of his head in turn.
Xien snorted, clapping his brother’s shoulder.
“Come, Brother. It’s time for us to leave this place and pray that the Fox’s Disciple will be wise enough to savor his victory in this tiny corner of the desert where, if he’s lucky, no divine retribution will come his way.
” The giant Gold then abruptly stiffened, before turning back with a final glare.
“One city alone you may keep in the name of the Fox, and no more.”
Alex blanched, heart pounding in his chest.
The former furious exultation of glorious battle, such a heady high, had been replaced with ice water in his veins, freezing him where he stood.
It was all he could do to force himself to speak, staring into eyes that were no longer Xien Tang’s own. “I’m not claiming Wanshi. I’ll be leaving just as soon as Dongfang Hong’s men have departed. But I will remember your words. One city alone may I keep within the Golden Realms. And no more.”
Stormy eyes radiated an alien intensity that Alex was suddenly certain could obliterate him in the blink of an eye, and somehow, despite the terror clawing up his spine, he forced himself to hold the divine being’s gaze, oddly certain that he recognized who stared at him with such terrible intensity.
Certainly it wasn’t Long Wang or Zheng Yi, and Shalu daring to manifest would mean the end of absolutely everything.
Alex accepted that as a bleak given. Nor was it WiFu or his wife, Qing Bai.
No. In one sense it was a neutral party, above their conflict, perhaps the weakest of all the deities of the pantheon. And in other ways…
Alex shuddered, all but certain that he was matching gazes with Grandmother Yi Wang herself.
She who held inconceivable power over all mortal souls embracing the cycle of rebirth and reincarnation.
And thanks to her—in the guise of a punishment for daring to strike her twisted psychopathic descendant who perhaps even she realized was a threat to them all—Alex was no longer permitted to forget his previous incarnations before bursting free of the River of Souls once more.
He had effectively died twice, at least, since first taking on an infernal ritual in a desperate effort to save Cui Zhe’s children from demonic sacrifice…
and all three lives he now remembered as one.
He alone could raise himself from Death’s eternal waters…
So long as he could slip free of Shui Jun’s coils, of course. A serpent who had once been WiFu’s Chosen.
A girl Alex was now all but certain had been isekaid, just like him.
A girl he had once known in the most intimate way one human being could know another.
A fellow disciple he had killed in a moment of desperation, when he had known nothing at all.
Alex flinched, unable to bear the sudden flash of horrific memory as he choked back a sob, leaking bitter tears upon the broken plaza flagstones before forcing himself to look up once more.
Yet all he saw was Xien Tang’s stunned gaze.
Grandmother Yi Wang was gone.
If she had ever been there at all.
Xien Tang stumbled, eyes wide with existential dread.
“Brother!” Xien Su’s panicked concern was oddly touching, Alex thought in a dazed, dispassionate way.
Xien Tang shook himself. “It’s all right, Brother.
” Yet when he turned back to meet Alex’s eyes once more, his was the haunted stare of a man forced to understand that the storybook fairy tales were the furthest thing from fantasy.
They were existential dread and nightmare and the knowledge that titanic forces could crush you to dust in the blink of an eye.
The knowledge that man was the most casual of playthings to alien divinities, and would never be anything more than that.
“May we never meet again,” Xien Tang whispered before retreating so fast that were he anything other than a massive Gold with a movement technique, Alex would have called it a panicked run.
Xien Su wasted only a single moment looking back at Alex, clearly shaken, as if only now realizing just how grave were the stakes in the game he had up to that moment taken so damned casually. Then he, too, fled at a sprint.
At which point Alex finally crashed to his knees, overwhelmed by exhaustion and despair that he would never show his foes.