A Tale of Forgotten Gods

Chapter 23: A Scar Remains

Mo Fei’s one eye was closed; the other was an empty socket. He couldn’t see the world through eyes, but he could see the threads in the dark.

***

The cold hit Han’s face. Looking at the open field, he saw Jian Yue in the centre of the snow plains.

Han’s feet stopped... and the world itself stopped, just to look at the hollow victory clearly.

Jian Yue stood in a pool of crimson that wasn’t a shadow anymore. His clothes that were once the colour of storms were now fully crimson. Viscous blood froze in the cold. Every closest major part of him had holes and wounds, as if something had pierced through and kept piercing. His chest, his arms and shoulders, and his legs.

Han could see through some of them. He could see snow on the other side.

And yet.

Jian Yue stood restless. His hand still gripped his blade tightly, white knuckles unmoving from it. As if his life depended on the sword... As if letting go meant collapsing and then never getting up.

His authority tried to keep him alive.

”Jian Yue!” Han’s voice slightly cracked, but he swallowed it back. He closed the distance in seconds, hands reaching out, then stopping... ’Where do you touch a man made of holes?’

”You’re... you’re bathing in blood. What happened? What–”

Jian Yue’s eyes found him. They were distant. Like someone looking through fog.

”Cathedral.” In a desperate voice he continued. ”Zhuo... He went, he went for the eye. It should have taken him only five minut—” He gasped, a wet, terrible sound. He coughed, and blood fell on the snow. ”It’s been five minutes already since the Xul-Thal was gone.”

Han’s hands traced the air, catching nothing but disturbance. ”I can’t leave you like this. You’ll...”

”I might live.” Jian Yue’s grip on the blade tightened more. Drops of blood fell from his knuckles. ”Or I won’t. But it doesn’t matter. He’s fifteen, Han. Only fifteen, and I sent him alone.” His voice cracked on the last word.

”I’ve lived at least a few years longer than him. I don’t want anyone living less than me. I’m not...” He swallowed and winced under his breath. ”I’m not watching another perish...”

He tried to push past Han. His leg buckled, but before he could trip over. His hand found his sword. He’d been holding himself up with his weapon this whole time.

Han’s arms held to support him.

For a matter of seconds, Jian Yue’s mask slipped away totally. Currently, at that exact moment, he wasn’t an ascended of an Authority. He was just a man who was broken, bleeding, and terrified.

Then his eyes hardened. ”Go,” he said. ”Ascension will heal me... Don’t worry about me but Zhuo... He can’t ascend if he is not in the situation to kill himself.”

Han looked at the direction of the Cathedral from a distance of more than 10 minutes away for him.

”Someone younger than me that passes before me. I think I can’t bear that thought too.” With these final words, Han launched himself towards the cathedral as fast as he could.

***

Within ten minutes he reached the entrance of the execution chamber; his eyes scanned around heavily. There, Han found Zhuo at the edge of the Cathedral’s mouth. The Kholkis lay beside him. A mountain of frozen flesh that was finally still now. Its chest was open. Its leg was gone. Its throat was a ruin.

Around there gathered...

Soul-eating vultures.

Their heads were completely still, staring at the torn flesh. One fluttered its wing, then two others did, then three. They were vultures, but they wore armaments made of bones.

Han had heard of them. The soul devourer not onlt eat flesh but also the very thing that came after it. The soul. They, who lurch within a group filled with not just ravenous hunger, but with the hunger of innocent and dark souls. They had never attacked the living, but they always waited. When death approached someone, it pursued the soul and feasted on it.

Han’s eyes shifted to Zhuo, who lay in the snow, his frozen hand still wrapped around the dagger tightly, his breath so shallow that Han couldn’t feel it.

Surprisingly, he was wearing different clothes that kept him warm. The light blue and white coloured robes that he didn’t have before.

Han dropped to his knees and pressed his fingers to Zhuo’s neck. His finger twitched when a nerve pulsed, faint but alive. He found his courage to speak anyway, barely holding things together.

”Zhuo”, Han whispered, a small soft voice, not the hard-loving tone of a veteran, but a real soft one. ”Zhuo, I’m here. We’re going...”

He didn’t know how to finish that sentence. He didn’t know what to say. He wasn’t a healer, a doctor, or an herb expert.

Though, he picked Zhuo up anyway.

The boy weighed nothing. Or it was maybe because Han had just forgotten what it felt like to carry the hope of youths.

He turned towards Still Point. Behind him, the cathedral breathed its last. The soul devourers hiccupped a sound that felt like laughing, perhaps at the calamity whose pride was remembered but never acknowledged.

Or perhaps laughing at the epilogue itself, a mystery only they knew. Then again, to look back.

They had reasons either way, didn’t they?

***

Jian Yue didn’t move yet. His body screamed when numbness receded, pain flooding in like a broken dam. He only prayed to Zhuo’s well, his eyes watching the direction of the Cathedral without looking away.

Every second acted as a year.

A spark ran through his eyes when he saw a figure running toward him. Han and in his arms...

Jian Yue’s breath hitched, his eyes flickered with hope. He finally breathed when Han reached him, then dropped to his knees beside him. Zhuo’s face was too pale, but his chest pulsed with faint breathing. His eyes caught the robe. His eyes widened; that was the last thing he’d have ever thought.

He shook his head. He didn’t care; he was thankful that at least Zhuo was saved.

With his bloody palm, he touched Zhuo’s face, which was freezing cold. ”Did I fail?” he whispered.

A groaning noise from Zhuo’s mouth came, and his eyes opened. ”Didn’t I say?” he breathed. ”I have grown.”

Jian Yue’s mask finally cracked, completely gone now. He could not hold on any longer. Tears froze on his cheeks before they could fall. With a soft whimper. ”Yeah,” he said. ”You have.”

Han called out Elara. ”Elara, we need a little bit more support.”

Elara was already sitting near the door and occasionally checked the wounds of Mo Fei. She listened to Han’s words and ran for help.

Han carried Zhuo through the snow. Elara came out and saw the horrible situation of Jian Yue, almost as if walking on a strand that could snap.

Lin waited for them. She couldn’t leave the sigils. But her face pressed against the barrier, and her mouth chanted the words, maintaining the still point.

Mo Fei saw the threads before they arrived. One bright but fraying thread. One dark and riddled with holes, barely together. Two were steady, carrying the others.

He knew the rules of that cosmic horror. The true death. ”They’re coming back alive.” he whispered.

The door opened.

Lin’s eyes first lay on Zhuo. His eyes were closed, breathing softly, and then she looked at the terrible state of Jian Yue. Alive only because of his Authority. She had realised that he had asked for help from the Warden... and the help from the ’Gods’ never came free.

”Let go.” A voice distracted her. It was Mo Fei’s voice. He finally opened his good eye to look at her, then spoke again. ”Let go... We will ascend the very next second you do that.” Mo Fei’s eyes landed on the knives.

Jian Yue groaned when he breathed. ”He is right; we need to ascend. Zhuo won’t be alive longer if he doesn’t... Let go of this.”

Mo Fei’s voice followed. ”But before that”, he looked at Han and Elara. ”What will you do? You can’t ascend like us.” His voice was different than ever; they couldn’t quite put their finger on why and how, but it was... or maybe only to Han and Elara.

Jian Yue sat against the wall. His eyes closed, hand resting on Zhuo’s ankle as if afraid that he’d disappear.

Lin’s hands had stopped shaking; her tension lowered now. The sigils were stable. For now.

Mo Fei sat apart, waiting for them to speak. The empty socket was covered by a cloth.

Han stood by the door, his mind racing with thoughts. ”I have to go,” Han said quietly to Mo Fei. Elara stood with him.

Mo Fei’s thread-sight caught them... Two threads, bright and warm, moving towards the door. ”Yes, I know... But where?” He asked.

Elara looked at Han and nodded gently; she had decided it, and they both, in fact, had.

”We will find Grig in the Vraalk; he is already alone. We will find more people like us and build a home comfortable enough to live.” She paused with a small bright smile on her face. ”And live the way we want...”

Mo Fei said nothing. But his hand found the Glaive beside him. Home... Home. His mind repeated the words.

”I might someday look for you,” he said, ”so you won’t owe me anything.” His head ached, but at that moment he forgot it. He missed living in his apartment, waiting for his parents to visit him, and when they did, they’d give him lectures about not slacking around.

He missed it all.

Han almost smiled, and his voice carried a small fondness. ”You’re half blind.”

”I can still see more than your veteran eyes, old man.” He forced the wittiness that time so they would remember him.

Before they could go, Jian Yue stopped them. He opened his eyes and pointed in a direction.

”Take that key. Anyone who uses it gets a temporary hideout... though you can use it only once in three days. Use it wisely,” he said, giving them a final gift before the farewell, and he continued, ”Han.”

The older man turned.

Jian Yue met his eyes. ”If you find others, if you build something there...” He paused, searching for words. ”Don’t wait for permission; you don’t need to ask if you’re allowed to live. Just... live.”

Han gave a small smile. ”I wasn’t planning to ask.”

Elara stayed silent; her gaze shifted to Mo Fei, watching silently with a noticeable smile. She said to him, ”Thank you...”

”I really hope someday you find your home.” She paused, hesitant to say the next words, her gaze softening with a mixture of pity and affection. ”Or... At least you create one.” Mo Fei looked at her and then looked away, staring down at the ground. He had no words to say anymore.

Then Lin finally moved her hands from the gateway, and the sigils began to get dull. She raised her hand, and suddenly a door opened in the air. ”This will lead you to Vraalk; now hurry and stay hidden.”

The door opened, Han and Elara stepped through it. In front of Mo Fei, Zhuo breathed. Beside him, Jian Yue’s hand tightened on the boy’s ankle.

A howling wind emerged as if someone had chuckled... above, far beyond the imagination.

Mo Fei finally lifted his Glaive and prepared for the ascension.

”Geez... again, I really hate it.” As always, the cost of ascension was death, inevitable death. He put the Glaive to his throat.

Mo Fei’s one eye found Jian Yue. And then looked at Zhuo, still breathing. Finally, his eye found Lin, exhausted but present.

”I’ll see you on the other side,” Mo Fei said.

In response, Jian Yue nodded before speaking. ”Try not to die on the way.”

”I always do.”

After, Mo Fei said it. Lin’s voice cut through the air, sharp and clear. ”The world five longing heaven... there is the city named South Cleveland; wait at the entrance of the city.”

”How will I know where this city is?”

”It will find you.”

”HUH?”

”We will be there soon.” The sigils had dimmed now; her eyes flickered at them.

Mo Fei nodded, and the Glaive came down with a small hint of hesitation. He slashed down his throat. He felt pain just for a second before his eyes closed. His body lay lifeless on the ground.

Then exploded into fragments, scattering into the void. He was gone.