Interlude Three

Interlude Three

~~~ Huang Dong ~~~

Being the pillar upon which other's future rests is never easy, especially when one needs to account for life and death situations.

My squad were one of many assigned to checking various cities on the Golden Dragon Prefecture after our array masters relayed an irregularity in the Soul Protection Formations in multiple towns and villages, irregularities that suspiciously was not visible in cities which have more advanced Soul Protection Arrays in them and are thus far more sensitive to any changes.

It is for this reason that the three of us are now running across the vast stretches of forests between the cities of the prefecture. The trees serve as our footpaths, the specific species of coniferous tree we jump to and from serving as a hidden pathway and road only our sect new existed.

"Huang, do you think is there an actual reason we're forced to brave these taigas? Master Yishi Long told me that I am far behind my alchemy lessons and the last thing I need is to fall even further behind the lesson plan for nothing." Li Zi asked.

The golden haired woman was as always more focused on her alchemical studies than on her duties, but I did have to admit, this mission was unlikely to be anything worthwhile.

The Burning Eye Sect was the sect in charge of the Golden Dragon Prefecture where legends say the portal the honored Emperors from the Stars Shien and Xuan came to sing to all the worlds in the Constellation of the Open Palm of the Ascension of a new Divine. The two emperors probably meant for the news to be joyous as legends say this is the first divine this celestial province has ever produced, but not a single person I knew cared for that, and neither did the Empress and the sect masters.

Their news fell on deaf ears centuries ago and the only thing the rulers of the Empire cared for was the fact that there was a portal we knew nothing about and that others could use and due to this an entire sect and a Banner at double strength were posted here to ensure that any invasion is thwarted. The Burning Eye Sect and the Western Lemon Banner were the primary forces meant to blunt any invasion, with other banners and organizations being ready to assist or avenge us should we fall too soon.

It is an important mission, yes. It is also one that we have undertaken for centuries with no progress or really any sign of foreigners.

"I am worried that if we do find something we might not be enough. Nha Duong is a large city, large enough for its Lord Protector to be a Third Tier. We're only second tier so if something managed to get her, we don't have much of a chance." Shi Xi, ever the worrywart asked.

The woman was traditionally attractive, pale skin, full lips, long dark hair, bright brown eyes and… sizable assets she pestered her cousin Li Zi to enhance. I don't know what more she wants, she already has the largest bust in the sect.

She was an anomaly this far west where many of us had sun-kissed skin and some even had golden hair.

"The Lord Protector spends her time doing administrative work, how she managed to reach the third tier is a mystery to me, but according to our mission's briefing she isn't to be relied upon in a combat scenario as we can probably take her in a two-on-one scenario. You would know that if either of you bothered to read. Three Foundation Establishment Practitioners as well equipped as we are are capable of dealing with most Hardening Stage cultivators and even some Golden Cores." I answered.

Each of us were dressed in our sect's signature scaled armor, made out of Bronze, armed with our swords, helmets and red tabards that shined with the symbol of our sect, a black tower atop which a white flame burned bright. We also had dozens of talismans inscribed on pieces of leather at our belts

Bronze was better at holding Qi and being enhanced by it, so our sect like most others liked using it, more than Iron or steel which requires far greater ability to enhance to the same degree, which is why each of our scales had a small formation that was meant to increase the defensive capabilities of each piece in such a way that the more of them are present, the stronger the effect.

The trees started getting sparser now, our tree road having stretches where there were none of the trees we used instead of a road.

'The lumberjacks have been cutting more trees than usual.' I observed silently.

I am sure the others noticed it too, but they remained silent and pretended that it was my words that silenced them.

I took one of the beads inside of my pouches and ate it, the crystal thing breaking and empowering my jumps slightly. The bead also had a second purpose, to announce the sect that something was off and it send a silent signal, similar to those we've sent across our trip here, but instead of the 'mission going as planned' signal I sent before, this one meant 'Inform the sect master something is off'.

The bead fragments melted inside of my mouth and I felt the tiny bit of Refined Gu leave it and dissipate and with it so would the paired Gu Beast die.

The lumberjacks have a quota of wood they have to cut and each increase must be announced ahead of time, or at the very least quickly after so that we can assist. This entire region is under military occupation, all that happens here must be reported to us, even if we do not need to give them approval to do it.

Wood cutting is not one of the industries someone expects us to pay attention to, the entire province has more wood than dirt in it after all, and it is for this exact reason we use it as a warning sign.

The Wood's Master knows of the fact that some trees are 'sacred' to us and to avoid cutting too many of them compared to the others, so if a lot of trees are being cut then one of two cases happened: our trees were cut in the same proportion as before which tells us the emergency is mundane and the report just didn't reach us yet or two our trees are treated as normal trees, which is meant to clue us in that the Wood's Master has no control over things.

This is not what has been happening, I am counting the wood I am seeing, our own trees are barely a trickle now compared to what they should be and the proportion is far less than what is normal, our trees were targeted.

"What do you think we'll find in the city? My guess is that someone tried a failed ascension to the third tier and this messed with the less sturdy arrays." I asked.

It would seem far too suspicious if we didn't talk now. My mouth tasted the air at regular intervals for anything unusual, my bone chewer physique allowing me to get far more information that should be possible for anyone else of my tier and I felt nothing. Whoever did this was most likely a Golden Core.

'Was it the spiders?' I wondered silently.

I was the formation expert among us, I knew very well that my theory was nonsense. It could in theory happen, the less sturdy formations in the towns and villages could have been affected, while those in the cities which were done with better materials wouldn't have, but if some Rogue Cultivator tried to Ascend we would have noticed, we have formations so tuned from our failed attempts to find the Portal we can sense someone Ascending to the Second Tier all the way to the lands of the Naga and sense if they are attempting to Ascend to the Third tier all the way to the other side of the continent.

"Maybe? Do you think it was some Jiangshi trying to remain hidden?" Li Zi asked back.

"A Jiangshi, here? We're far from the front lines and they always try getting their claws into the capital or the Eastern Provinces where there's few sects as to not offend Emperor Ming, here in the west is too dangerous for the spider freaks to ever come close, let alone try to Ascend." Shi Xi responded.

She was correct, perhaps the Naga have decided to turn on us like the Shu and the Stellar Blade Sect? Neither of those were ever friends to the spiders and yet the Shu now fight and trade with the spiders even if the Stellar Blade Sect continues to kill all spiders encroaching on their territory.

It made no sense though, the snake people hate the spiders more than even we do, as the spiders were responsible for ending their Hegemony over the South, something their Princes and Princesses haven't forgotten or will ever forgive.

Perhaps the Stellar Blade Sect is trying to divert resources from our offensive? The heretic's ways are strange and stupid, but the individuals there are still veterans of many conflicts, they must know that even with the Empress preserving her strength for the next offensive the other sects and their Nascent Souls are perfectly capable of defeating their sect master if they throw numbers at him.

"Do not think anything beyond the spiders, there is nothing they would not stoop to not doing, no evil they haven't considered and no depravity is beyond them." I replied.

"Just because they could do it, doesn't mean they would, the spiders are not dumb, if they do something there is a purpose behind it." Li Zi responded.

The city was visible now, and the lumberjacks have been cutting far more wood than they were allowed. There was a sea of stumps before us and it was far, far larger than it had any right to be.

We left the tree tops and started walking towards Nha Dong.

"Hey Huang Dong, you're the one that likes history a lot, what does Nha Dong even mean? It's not an imperial name." Shi Xi asked.

I sighed, my friend was as ignorant as always. Shi Xi was a battle maniac, this meant she was stronger than both of us put together, despite her attitude being what others would deem cowardly. The woman was no coward, she just really did not appreciate surprise fights and being ambushed, instead liking to ambush others and laugh at their misfortune.

What she was however was ignorant of anything she can't weaponize. She sensed my worries and is now trying to make me relax by letting me enjoy my favorite hobby, explaining to the two of them something I found fascinating.

"Nha Dong is one of the old shaman cities, some books say the oldest but that is debated. You are right the name is not imperial, nor is it of the Western dialect, but something of an orange language from the old Oghuric Cant, Old Imperial Ming and some extinct language nobody knows anymore. Nha means Your or second, and Duong is believed to mean Home, but it can also mean Crossing. The city is translated as 'The second home of the People', thanks to the interpretation of scholar Ya Xi who noticed the association of the word Nha and the way the locals originally wrote down the city name as Nhi, despite using Nha in their daily lives." I explained

Pre-Imperial cultures and societies have always fascinated me, and that fascination was heavily encouraged by sect master Huoyan Lao who found my fascination for such texts useful as he finally had someone interested in making sense of the thousands of books few in the province could even read.

This fascination lead me to finding out about ancient formations called Arrays which lead me to finding my second love, that being Formations.

Our conversation continued as I explained the rather convoluted ways Oghuric and Ancient Imperial Ming treated their spelling, the way the written word interacts and is treated differently to the spoken word and the interplay between the way both languages did the same thing differently and what that might mean for the orange language the old Bonechewer Shamans spoke before the Empress brought the scattered survivors of the spider's purges into her bosom.

"Both language have a way to write something down, another way to spell it and sometimes combine it with an entirely different word when spoken out loud to create an entirely different sentence which seems to only apply to names. I am however, starting to think this also applied to certain scholarly works as it would explain a lot of how some of them are just nonsense speaking about heavenly winds when describing rocks beneath the earth." I continued.

I knew they probably couldn't care less about the topic, but I enjoyed it, and similarly to how I indulge the Li Zi and help her with her alchemy work and scour any books I can find for any beauty enhancing plants and poultices for Shi Xi, so do they let me rant about my favorite topics and will even buy books they find that might interest me.

We were close enough that the non-cultivator guards could easily see us, which was also where the old tree line should have been. This was half the distance between the new tree line and where the old one was.

We were walking at a leisurely pace to announce our presence and allow the cultivators to inform the Lord Protector of our presence and yet as I focused my Qi into my eyes I only now saw activity on the wall, something my two friends no doubt also saw.

"I am still not over calling this city the second home. If it is debated that it is the oldest, shouldn't the name be a clue that it isn't?" Li Zi asked.

"Also why are these ancient languages so complicated? New Imperial is perfectly complicated if you want to speak it right, but learning a simplified form is easy. If their languages were simpler then they would still be spoken." Shi Xi asked a breath after.

"New Imperial is a simplified form of Old Ming Imperial, which is still being spoken in Ming's Domain and some border lands. Also Oghuric was being spoken quite extensively before the spiders killed off most of the people that could read it and the Empress created New Imperial and spread it across the realm to make sure the dozens of different peoples speaking half-dead languages could understand one another." I said to Shi Xi.

Then I turned pensive, Li Zi's question was a difficult one.

"As for your question Li Zi, I still don't understand exactly why, I haven't had the time to properly read through the tomes explaining it, but there is a certain expectation among the Oceanic Westerns that people have three homes, the home they are born in being the first, their settlement being the second and the third being their tribe or kingdom as many had no notion of something larger than a single settlement. 'The Second Home of the People' could mean the second settlement ever made, but it could mean the city, as in the only one, of the people. We genuinely don't know as the settlement was old, before even the Bonechewer Shamans rose to rule over it and the texts describing it are translations of translations." I explained.

That was a gross oversimplification.

There were dozens of other possible explanations as to what the name could mean and how that could affect the status of this city as the oldest Oghuric settlement. The old scholars among the Bonechewers had entire schools of thought with dozens of individuals presenting several interpretations of given texts and speaking of alternate translation I have not had the time to read or even been able to find.

I am but one man trying to make sense of the works of thousands of my ancestors, because nobody else was interested in them. Hopefully if I can lower the barrier of entry into this field of study, then others will come and join me into finding more about our ancestors.

"Hail disciple of the Burning Eye Sect!" One of the guards shouted.

We reached the range where most inexperience archers could be expected to hit and our conversation died immediately as we looked at the guards for any sign they would turn on us. We did not stop at his words the way strangers would. We were comrades in a sense, the local Western Lemon Garrison taking part of the duties of looking over the Golden Dragon Prefecture.

The lumberjacks have had their minds taken from them and right now we are in a position where if the guards also had their minds taken from them, then they would easily turn on us.

Their muscles did not tense, the guards were relaxed, as if nothing was wrong. This gave me some measure of hope that I was merely over-reacting and that something happened that the sect was just uninformed of.

Perhaps the city lord had focused on some sort of building project and they replaced the Wood's Master when he refused to go over the quota for wood cutting? That would certainly explain a lot.

I raised my left hand and started to speak.

"Hail bannermen of the Western Lemon Banner, we are Practitioners of the Burning Eye Sect!" I shouted back.

None of them reacted to me using the wrong hand to greet them. They even used the same hand to greet me. I did my best not to show any reaction to that even as my heart cried out in pain.

'The bannermen are compromised too.' I cursed myself silently.

Now wasn't the time to chastise myself for giving me false hope, I had bigger worries now.

Subverting people is the work of days or weeks of gentle nudging until one does as their new master demands of them. This was what the Soul Protection Formation was meant to protect villages and cities from and prevent all but Nascent Souls from being able to do undetected. These men were completely rewritten down to their habits if they even greeted me with the wrong hand, and this meant that the entire city was now an enemy one.

Whoever did this to the city could very easily do the same to us and the only thing that could take on a Nascent Soul this capable in the mind arts was another Nascent Soul. I was suddenly very glad I called the Sect Master, the trees could have genuinely been a misunderstanding but this?

This was enemy action.

AN: Orange language: Mixed/half breed language. In imperial vocabulary an orange is an individual that enjoys other cultures and occasionally tries making a hybrid of one or more cultures. Orange Prefectures are meant as Prefectures where other species are allowed to settle in and not merely travel through.

It also means individuals that love having intercourse with individuals of other species thanks to how eager oranges are to crossbreed.

Orange Prefecture which Tai Su hails from, is a Prefecture originally meant for foxes to come and mingle in with the Imperials and where they are allowed to settle in in highly limited numbers. This hit a bit of a snag as Imperials kept executing foxes, as most of those that came in were merchants and they often ran afoul of local laws, habits or generally found themselves going bankrupt because they couldn't integrate or figure out the rules.

On the same note, Dragon means 'Hidden Danger'. Golden Dragon Prefecture was given the name due to the presence of the portal otherworlders can use to travel to and from their world unseen, because it is a very dangerous thing nobody has been able to find.