Forge of Destiny - Threads 154-Rot 3
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Threads 154-Rot 3

Threads 154-Rot 3

A lacquered black inkbrush drew itself across a page of charred parchment, painting characters in the wild handwriting that filled every wall of the chamber, and a rattling breath emerged from the corpse’s hidden face, emitting another stream of buzzing flies to join the swarm.

Xia Lin fell back to where she stood, a disgusted look on her face. “A corpse immortal,” she spat. “To think that even a Hui would be so debased.”

Ling Qi’s cloak writhed on her shoulders, transforming into a scarf of pale blue silk that wrapped her mouth and nose. “What in the world is

that

?”

Focusing her spiritual senses, she could feel the thing’s aura, and it was just as rotted as its flesh. She could see the glow of its dantian, sickly and cracked, and see the flows of meridians that had swelled until they drew visible lines under squirming flesh. Half of them had burst open like a dead animal left to rot in the sun, and chaotic qi leaked freely. More worryingly, she felt a knot of energy in its chest, a second dantian, albeit shattered and broken. Not even a memory of more potent energies clung to the fragments.

“When a cultivator reaches the end of their span, they may attempt to cling on regardless. This is the result,” Xia Lin said grimly. “Mind and spirit rots along with the body, leaving an increasingly mad thing focused on whatever task it had obsessed over in life.”

“I want to kill it,” Zhen spoke, startling her. His crimson eyes fixed intently on the fly-shrouded thing. Hanyi looked a little ill, having abruptly swallowed her snack at the sight.

“As well you should,” Xia Lin agreed, scowling. “Is our target visible?”

Ling Qi looked past the disgusting thing in the center to scan the walls. There, under the hanging papers, she saw a soft blue glow, faltering and intermittent.

Even Sixiang seemed disgusted.

“Do you think we can kill it?” Ling Qi asked. “And why hasn’t it noticed us?”

“Such things can be unpredictable… but their obsessions consume them and can make them easy to trick if one plays to their delusions,” Xia Lin said, warily eyeing the creature. “It may once have been a higher realm, but the older a corpse is, the more its power has rotted. No corpse immortal lasts more than a century or so. I believe we can eliminate it, particularly with a hard first strike.”

Ling Qi was less sure. Power still burned in its maggot-ridden flesh and lower dantian, even if most of its meridians were in ruins. She could probably slip in and remove the stone, depowering the formation without having to fight it. It might notice her, but if what Xia Lin said was true, if it did, she could probably trick it anyway. They could then return easily with everyone to eliminate it.

On the other hand… Ling Qi’s eyes lingered on the resplendent robe and inkbrush that glowed with powerful qi in her senses. There, too, was a silver ring whose contents were opaque to her eyes. How often did one get the chance at such treasures, divided between only two cultivators?

“What are your thoughts on the spoils of battle?” Ling Qi asked casually.

“They are a soldier’s due,” Xia Lin replied evenly, “the reward for high achievement.”

Ling Qi smiled. They really weren’t that different under the exterior, were they?

“We can do this. Do you think it will react if we prepare ourselves?”

“It may,” Xia Lin allowed, cracking her neck. “We strike the moment it shows awareness?”

Ling Qi hummed in agreement. “My most potent damaging art requires physical contact. Can I trust you to pin its movements when signaled?”

“You can,” Xia Lin said. Traceries of light began to fill the engraved grooves in the head of her weapon again. “My most potent damaging arts require me to shed my own defenses. Can I trust your arts?”

“You can,” Ling Qi parroted back, summoning her flute with a flick of her wrist. Lake qi, dark and still, began to ripple out. “Zhengui, I want you to bring up your lava when we strike. After that, focus on supporting us, okay?”

“Yes!” Zhengui agreed in two voices. His shell began to glow, and beneath their feet, Ling Qi sensed the movement of roots.

The wind began to kick up around her, playfully tugging at her hair and gown, wafting away the stagnant air, and Ling Qi began to play the Spring’s End Aria. Sixiang hummed along, weaving their qi through Ling Qi’s to empower the art, ensuring that it would not end mid battle.

“Duet time!” Hanyi said excitedly, hopping down beside her. She was already beginning to hum the Aria, shrouding herself in glittering snowflakes.

Beside them, white radiance flared through the eye slits of Xia Lin’s mask and the joints of her armor. The girl’s outline sharpened as if her very silhouette was a blade’s edge, and Ling Qi felt the wind hiss, parting around her as Xia Lin lowered herself into a crouch, halberd pointed forward.

Pebbles around their feet began to rattle under the gathering power, and soft gray ash began to fill the air. Two weapons, one an intricate singing blade and the other a utilitarian thing of straight lines and humming gears, forme