Chapter 101
Chapter 101
The sights of the Old Royal City flashed past Xie Qingling. She had no attention to spare for its history or scenery, but the voice in her head spared no effort in narrating them for her.
[In the new mortal realm, the Old Royal City preserves many pulses of bygone days. A moss-covered brick at the bridgehead was once, hundreds and thousands of years ago, part of the royal avenue beneath the city, trodden by galloping horses. A willow by the street, craning its neck in expectation, was once, hundreds and thousands of years ago, an umbrella shading children from the blazing sun. A Tree-Dwelling Ghost once stood here, showing lost peddlers the right road.]
[Now the clatter of the peddlers’ rattle drums has been replaced by the roar of car engines. With navigation installed, people bow their heads over the electronic compasses in their hands and no longer lose their way in the city. Along with the aging willow and the midsummer cicadas’ song, the Tree-Dwelling Ghost slowly grew old and died inside the tree.]
[Outside the shops stand wealth-attracting Pixiu, with mouths but no anuses. Outside a decaying old residence stands a broken Qilin. Gods and ghosts withdraw; the deities yield the way. O mortal realm, mortal realm, you remain such a hopeless mess.]
[The Day Patrol God, who roams the four seas and all eight directions by day, passes this place and halts his enormous stride. In white robes and black boots, a wooden tablet in his hand, the Day Patrol God lowers his enormous eyes toward the mortal realm, his gaze conveying a helpless sigh.]
[An ominous god who roams the four seas and all eight directions, he brings calamity wherever he travels. The Day Patrol God has only just passed this place, has yet to send down any ill omen, and already the people of the mortal realm fight to the death.]
Bifang swooped down from the sky, circled a few times, and finally landed on the roof of a building.
Xie Qingling and Shen Huaizhou jumped off Bifang’s back. Tang Yuanxiao did not move. Still seated on Bifang, he told them without looking back, “Keep yourselves safe. Don’t get in my way!”
With that, Tang Yuanxiao drove Bifang away at speed, leaving only the sparks stirred up by the bird’s wings to shower Xie Qingling and Shen Huaizhou’s heads and faces.
Watching Tang Yuanxiao’s retreating back, Shen Huaizhou gave a quiet “Tch.”
Xie Qingling raised a hand to wipe the lingering warmth of the flames from her skin; it was neither scorching nor painful. Flicking out her skirt, she planted one foot on the rooftop railing and leaned forward to look.
Not far from where they had landed, an entire stretch of buildings had collapsed. It was easy to locate the fighting.
Black figures kept darting through the empty streets. They were probably Operations Department members hurrying to provide support.
The layers of buildings blocked their view of the full battle, but the occasional howls and sounds of things collapsing told them the fighting was already fierce.
“Forget about him. Getting them support matters more,” Xie Qingling said. “Let’s head over and see what’s happening.”
Shen Huaizhou nodded. Then, their skirts flying, they leaped from rooftop to rooftop, hurrying toward the sounds of battle. At times they jumped from a higher roof to a lower one. Their broad skirts spread like the wings of eagles gliding through the air, both slowing their descent and helping them glide farther.
After leaping along for a while, they finally reached the heart of the battlefield –
Xie Qingling and Shen Huaizhou stood on the roof of a building more than ten stories tall. On the street opposite stood a person over five meters high.
He was probably human.
Despite his enormous height and bulk, his features and limbs, the arms he swung and the feet he walked on, were all human in form.
The five-meter giant was fat and powerfully built. He wore only a pair of black trousers on his lower body; his upper body was completely bare.
Layers of fat hung down his body and piled up above his waistband. Fold after fold of slick flesh overlapped, like a flesh-colored layer cake.
His arms were huge and round, like those of a baby not yet fully developed, all fat and soft cartilage. Even the elbows were barely visible. When he slammed a fist into a building, half its wall collapsed with a bang, raising a thick cloud of dust.
A person crouched like a frog on the giant’s shoulder.
Small and thin as a monkey, that person clung tightly to the giant’s shoulder.
The two strange figures made an eerie pair. They were also responsible for all this devastating carnage.
Had it been only these two humans, the Operations Department would not have struggled so hard to deal with them. The problem was that they had help.
Monsters and ghosts were being summoned continuously at the giant’s feet.
The dark, skinny person clinging to the giant’s shoulder held a gourd. Every time he tipped it down, another monster or ghost emerged.
Some fed on desire, others on flesh and blood. Some were born of unwillingness to let go, others of resentment. Everything had an origin, a rule it followed. To create fighting machines they could use, the people of the Eleventh Realm employed their own methods to deliberately cultivate these harmful things.
Wide-eyed with fury and devoid of reason, the monsters and ghosts kept the Operations Department members occupied.
Behind them, the giant used his tremendous destructive power to sweep aside everything he encountered: buildings, people… Wherever he passed, blood covered the ground. The sight was unbearable.
[The Gu Witch has cinnabar-red eyes and horizontal folds across her belly. Feeding Grass Ghosts with her own body, the Gu Witch uses their gu insects to rear a human puppet a zhang[^zhang] and two meters tall. Its belly is filled with the medicines the Gu Witch has fed it since childhood. Shh. Do not ask. You would not want to know what it has eaten.]
These sick bastards.
Xie Qingling’s eyes went utterly cold. “Let’s go,” she said under her breath.
Then she jumped straight off the roof.
Shen Huaizhou followed close behind, charging toward the battlefield.
[^zhang]: A zhang is a traditional Chinese unit of length, equal to approximately 3.33 meters under modern Chinese measures; historical values varied.
Some of the monsters and ghosts noticed the two humans who had just joined the battle. They rushed toward Xie Qingling and Shen Huaizhou, surrounded them, and prepared to attack en masse.
This drew some of the attacks away from the other Operations Department members, who were at the end of their strength and waiting for reinforcements. With the two newcomers taking part of the enemy’s fire, the others found the pressure easing a little.
Xie Qingling ran swiftly toward the giant.
She had to break through the defensive line as quickly as possible, reach that spot, and cut their heads off!
At the same time, Tang Yuanxiao swooped down from the air astride Bifang.
With the monsters and ghosts entangling them, the other Operations Department members could barely break through the defensive line, let alone hurt the giant and the dark, skinny man behind it.
Tang Yuanxiao attacked directly from the air, bypassing the monsters and ghosts and going straight for the giant’s face.
Tang Yuanxiao specialized in fire attacks. Fire attacks were not meant for close combat, and getting this close to the enemy put him at a serious disadvantage. But he was the only one who could breach the monsters’ defensive line now. He had no choice but to grit his teeth and go in.
“Blazing Stream!” Tang Yuanxiao shouted.
Dazzling sparks burst from his fingertips, forming a brilliant tongue of flame that rushed toward the giant’s face.
The flames wrapped around the giant, burning him until he howled. The dark, skinny figure crouching on his shoulder jumped clear of the flames, then struck downward with his palm. The tremendous gust from the blow extinguished the fire.
Burned charcoal-black, the giant roared even louder. He kept punching buildings to vent his rage and slamming his body against walls, like a mindless beast.
Tang Yuanxiao drove Bifang beneath the giant’s raised arms as he pounded his chest, hoping to kill him in one attack.
“Mars Encroaches on the Stars!” Tang Yuanxiao roared. Fire ignited out of nothing, and an enormous ball of flame instantly engulfed the giant and began to burn.
“Aaaaaah!”
The giant shrieked and screamed. Though clearly in agony, he ignored the fire on his body. Instead, he reached out, seized Bifang’s wing, and, with a roar, slammed the bird viciously into the ground.
The throw hurled Tang Yuanxiao dozens of meters away. He and the bird crashed hard into a wall. Bifang cried out in pain, and blood like flowing molten liquid spilled from its wing.
“Bifang!” Tang Yuanxiao’s eyes were wide with anguish and fury. All he could do was blow his bone whistle and send Bifang away.
He rose, intending to rejoin the battle. But the moment he moved, a dense swarm of monsters and ghosts surrounded him – the giant had thrown him out of the fighting circle.
Tang Yuanxiao gritted his teeth furiously. He could only fight his way back in.
“By decree of the Yinshan Patriarch – Water Talisman!” The dark, skinny figure suspended in the air traced a talisman in empty space and slapped it downward. The flames on the giant went out. Like a burning piece of charcoal doused with cold water, he was drenched from head to toe.
His entire body was blackened, yet he was still alive.
The dark, skinny figure settled back onto the giant’s shoulder, like a frog lying in wait, or a sinister hand controlling everything.
The intense pain made the giant even more savage.
He singled out the short-haired young woman nearest him, slammed her hard against the ground with one palm, then lifted her and hurled her away.
Like a kite, she arced through the air and hurtled toward Xie Qingling.
From that height, at that speed, even a Spirit Wielder would probably be in serious trouble if she hit the ground.
“Shen Huaizhou, give me a hand!” Xie Qingling shouted.
Shen Huaizhou raised both hands, braced them against her back, and flung her upward with all his strength, straight toward the young woman the giant had thrown.
Propelled into the air, Xie Qingling adjusted her course, caught the young woman flying toward her, and landed with her in her arms.
The force of the impact sent them rolling twice before they stopped.
The moment they landed, the short-haired young woman retched and vomited a large mouthful of blood.
Holding her, Xie Qingling tried to take her somewhere safer to wait for the Logistics Department to carry her away. But when she touched the young woman’s gold-trimmed black uniform, her hand came away covered in blood.
She was terribly wounded.
“Reinforcements… finally…” the short-haired young woman said with difficulty. “I… I almost broke through their line…”
“But I… I can’t hold on anymore.”
She forced her eyes open and stared at Xie Qingling’s unfamiliar face. “You… hurry… hurry and stop them… Stop the Eleventh Realm… They started attacking the city this morning. They’ve gone mad.”
Her blood-covered face rested against Xie Qingling’s chest. Xie Qingling’s golden badge pressed against her cheek, cold and unyieldingly hard.
The pattern and the sun’s corona on that badge had a texture every department member knew.
The young woman smiled dreamily. “Wanted… wanted to die fighting, like a brave warrior.”
“But I… I can’t… My organs… they’re all shattered…”
After those few words, the short-haired young woman stopped breathing. Her head tilted to one side, and she moved no more. The pair of weapons she had clutched tightly in her hands, Meridian Mandarin Duck Axes, fell to the ground with a clatter.
She was dead.
Xie Qingling set her down, left her lying on the ground, and lowered her eyes to look at her.
Her face was still so young. She could only have been in her early twenties, yet her life was already gone.
Xie Qingling tapped the ground with the tip of her foot and called in a low voice, “Soul Recall!”