Qian Shuren watched expressionlessly as a head of an infernal being rolled down the grassy, bloodied hill and joined the small mountain of them at the bottom. Her face was covered in crimson, some fresh and some dry, as she sighed and turned around, looking over the unending plains.
Today's attack was over.
Taking account of everything, she frowned; two hundred came with her, and twenty had died. While it was a slightly above-average incursion, it didn't feel particularly dangerous or difficult.
If it had been a one-off, she might have just waved it off, but this was the third time she'd lost at least twenty people in just the past month.
"Miss Shuren, we are done on this side," she glanced sideways at some nameless woman that she was assigned as a 'second-in-command'; she was merely an eye watching her, forever attached to that thing that crawled back on the island begging and crying.
"Are you? Let us depart, then."
"What about the dead?"
"What about them?"
"... w-what should we do'"
"What should we do?" the custom was simple--if you were felled in the in-between, you were to stay there. Why was she asking her such a pointless question? A set-up of sorts, unquestionably.
"I, uh..."
"Go pack and tell others. We are leaving in ten."
"... yes, Miss Shuren."
Qian Shuren sighed yet again.
Some parts of her regretted coming back and instead wondered where she would be at now had she joined that strange little man that she encountered in the mountains. All she got since returning was grief; interrogated for weeks, sent to self-reflect, and now assigned to guide hatchlings into their first excursion toward the Infernal War.
It was all pettiness beyond pettiness, fueled by Master's indifference. She'd completely fallen out of his favor, and now... now they were allowed to do whatever they wanted, with discretion. That was probably why she hadn't been outwardly attacked just yet; there were many guests of all cohorts on the Island, and Master liked to maintain a certain image--the kind that would come crashing down if it became known one of his Disciples was openly attacked and killed by another.
As such, she had to endure these little things, however inane they were.
"Want me to look into it?" a familiar voice slowly eroded the frown as she smiled a bit, turning to the side.
"It's fine, Lu'er," little Lu was her one and only Disciple, a boy she took in just shy of forty years ago, having come across him drowning in the lake. He turned out to be surprisingly sharp and talented, though not quite enough to catch her Master's eye. As such, she chose to take him in. "It's not as though we don't know what is happening."
"... tsk, how hateful," he said, his thick eyebrows furrowing. "I'm sorry, Master, for being so useless. If I were stronger, I could have saved some of them."
"Somehow, I doubt it," she said. "Rather, there is something we must discuss."
"What?"
"Your leaving of this place."
"Master--"
"--enough," she interrupted rather sternly, her voice leaving no room for discussion. "We both will one day leave this place, but we cannot leave together."
"..."
"During the next ceremony, I will ask Master to give you a boat," she said. "He won't be able to refuse a public request like that in light of your achievements. It won't be a good boat, and I will have to inspect it for awry arrays first, but it will be good enough to get you across the lake. Until then, however, you must reach Void Transformation Realm, Lu'er. So, from now on, while we're here, stay near me and simply cultivate. I'll make sure to protect you."
"..." he seemed indignant but stayed silent.
It reminded her somewhat of those kids she met with that man--none of whom would have stayed silent. It was no shortcoming of Lu'er's at all; it was merely that the relationship between them was... different. She cared for the little boy a great deal, but that was about it. She did not love him, nor would she die for him. She was merely giving him an opportunity at very little cost to herself.
Her Master will likely expect a bit of 'rebellion' from her, and would let it slide, all things considered. Qian, on the other hand...
Before she left this place, she knew she would have to kill that worm. Stealthily, however; if her Master knew it was her... she would die within a breath.
Looking ahead, she saw that the others were ready.
"Let's go," she said, a look of determination flashing across her face.
**
Song Jing was on his knees, bowing deeply toward the portrait of indiscernible figure, one shrouded in strange and thick haze of Dao. Despite the dozen candles that were lit around them, the entire room was as dark as abyss, that very darkness pressing into his soul.
Even if it was just a remnant portrait, it was still nonetheless the capture of a former Emperor, a heritage that his late mother gave him as she ushered him out of the flames. She, and everyone else, were hunted down all their lives, hiding like worms in the dirt. But it was for naught. In the end, they were found and slaughtered.
This portrait was the only thing he had left of them, his only connection to his family.
It was a portrait of Nascent Emperor, his late grand-grandfather.
As the heaviness subsided, he slowly looked up at the drifting haze, the look in his eyes complex. There was pride in them, pride that in his blood cruised the blood of an Emperor; then there was anger, anger that the man's actions ended up costing him everything. Song Jing's mother did not die for her own sins, but for the sins of their forefathers--that man whose face he still couldn't quite make out, all these years later.
His actions countless ages ago had the Heavenly Court judge their entire familial lineage and sentence them to extermination.
Because he refused to bow, Song Jing thought.
But, according to his mother, it was something far simpler than that: he simply refused to betray a friend.
It was not simpler, Song Jing thought--just far stupider. He condemned his entire family because of some other person, and that person had never come to their aid. Where was that friendship while Song Jing watched his family's estate burn into the night as he continued running away, shame ripping his heart apart?
Where was that friendship all these years as he struggled to rise through the ranks as a nobody?
There was only silence, long and dreadful.
Suddenly, just as he was about to get up and leave, he found himself frozen--frozen not by terror, but rather divinity beyond anything else he'd ever felt in his life. That darkness that veiled the image suddenly lifted, and the entire room turned as bright as dawn. Colors on the canvas bled forth and the edges became prominent, displaying a rather... ordinary, aged face.
Wrinkled forehead, pointed, low nose, a pair of gray eyes, a mole on the right cheek, and thin mustache. Were it not for the reverence carved into the canvas with every brush stroke, Song Jing would have thought it was a portrait of some ordinary, old man.
The pair of eyes suddenly shifted, sending shivers down his spine; before he could even process what happened, corners of the man's lips curved up into a smile.
"He's lived, indeed," the voice boomed inside Song Jing's mind like thunder... yet was as gentle as a mother's embrace. "I knew he would. Not even the Heavens could smite that cockroach. Oh, dear descendant of mine, forgive me--I cannot imagine your life was a pleasant journey, and this old soul is entirely at fault. Were I a smarter man like many of my peers, I would have taken the deal and ascended, like the rest of them. But... I could not go against my heart. Those very Heavens condemned me and left me to die, but he did not. My heart breaks for you, child, and I cannot find it in myself to ask your forgiveness.
"All I can ask is that you understand one truth: the Heavens... are broken. They have been broken from before I was born, and they will remain broken until a soul comes to remedy that. If he truly lives... then there must be a way. Join him and give him this portrait of mine; he will know what to do. If you choose not to... I cannot blame you. In that case, at the very least, burn me--so that the Heavens may never discern the secrets of mine. Hm. I wonder what he looks like, now? How is he hiding from her? Ha ha, aah. To think even I would regret dying. Life, truly, is a twist unlike any other. Tell little Tao his old grandpa returned the favor, and ask him to light some incense for me. Perhaps he's finally grown up enough to listen, for once..."