I fell through darkness toward my chanting body, and that distance was one without integer, only intent, and I hoped it was great enough that I could kick loose this weaponized version of myself before it touched my body. Deep down, I knew, that if this deadly creature touched my human body, it would take control.
And it would be me cast out into the spiritual void.
“Let go of me,” I said as I kicked at the iron grip.
I want to be in control!
“No!”
I want to be free!
“You only want to kill!”
Yes! Don’t you love the power I grant you? Don’t you want to feel that all the time? If I’m in control, that is the only thing we will feel!
No matter how inhuman this thing was, I couldn’t lie, not to myself.
“I want to feel powerful, but I also want to be me.”
I am me.
I frowned, and it sent a fold through the darkness.
“No, I’m me.”
You’re you, and so am I!
His words were pleading, grating, the sound of a sharp blade slicing through meat, blood gurgling, drums pounding beneath a burning sky… and those drums were summoning others to his cause. As I tried to swim down to my body and kick him away from me, my past selves drifted closer. They fluttered toward me as though they were moths and I were a flame. In their eyes, their goal burned clearly: if that weaponized thing can take over the body, then why can’t we?
“Get back all of you!” I shouted as my panic rose, and far below, my uttered prayer stuttered. “Aren’t I living how you want? Aren’t I doing enough?”
You traveled north, but stopped at this mountain, and my father may already be dead…
Where even are the Windswept Praires from here? Can you point to them on a map?
My eyes darted between my merchant past and my farmer past, and then locked onto my street rat past. He alone smiled and winked. With a sudden movement, he kicked off the darkness and tackled my past lives away.
You are picking the flower, and for that I thank you.
His words rang with faith, and the darkness trembled.
“Thank you.”
The weaponized version of myself grabbed at my legs and hauled me closer as he split a mouth filled with fangs.
I am the strongest!
“Yes, you are,” I said. “Lend me your strength, and I will honor you like I honor the others.”
You have betrayed the others.
His words stung, for I felt the truth, and in the distance, my farmer and merchant pasts echoed their agreement.
“I’m sorry. I forgot my past, and even though I don’t know it all, I shall carry it with me now.”
My weaponized self looked at me with confusion.
How will you carry me?
“I’ll eat cultivators.”
Even being me, he hadn’t expected that statement. His eyes widened and his grip loosened, and that reaction told me everything: that while I could remember, my pasts could not predict.
Kicking away from his grip, I sailed down to my body. While my street rat memories held back the farmer and the merchant, my weaponized self simply floated, watching as I reached out to my swaying head.
As I touched the back of my skull, their voices, my voices, filled the darkness.
You are not us, you are you, and we are you, but don’t forget us…
I looked back with a smile.
“Why are you all floating so far away?” I said. “If you want me to remember you, then come closer.”
With a wink, I vanished from that dark space and returned to the world. The last thing I saw was my four pasts drifting down toward me…
###
Cabbagy stopped chanting the memory mantra a moment after the kid stopped swaying. He watched with trepidation as the kid retracted the blood tendrils into his body.
“Are you alright, kid?” he asked.
His disciple’s eyes looked about with momentary confusion, and Cabbagy was terrified that the one who answered wouldn’t be the one who went under, but as the kid turned to face him, all those worries melted away.
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“I remembered the ritual, Cabbagy.”
“I can tell,” Cabbagy said with a scoff that masked his relief. “You’ve been painting blood on the floor and walls for an hour now.”
“Walls?”
“This space isn’t that big, kid. The darkness hides a lot of things.”
“Yes, it does…”
Cabbagy wanted to probe, but he was tired. Over in the distance, a drunken Cabbajoe continued muttering the mantra. The kid held up a hand. Flames gathered in his palm before shooting up brightly into the sky. They burned with a bright red light and fell slowly, casting light onto the tall room’s walls. In truth, it was a large space. Once upon a time, it was stacked with ice and kept at a dangerously low temperature, but now it houses only dust. In his trance, the kid had drawn sigils in his blood across the floors and walls.
Even after watching him do it, Cabbagy found the sight terrifying, especially when cast in that bloody light. There was something deeply unnatural about the designs, and it took a lot to scare something that was bred and born to be eaten.
Still, pride warred with that fear.
It was his disciple, the one he had encouraged to get up out of the dirt and swing back against the world, who had painted such heaven-defying sigils inside the heart of a mountain.
“Your skill with that stolen qi has improved,” he noted.
“There’s not much of it left,” the kid said with a wince. “So I have to make it last until I get more.”
“More?”
“Yeah, I kind of promised someone I would… are you all right, Cabbagy?”
“I’m fine, kid. But how are you? I was almost afraid one of your past lives might take control.”
“Did you really think that was a possibility?”
“There’s always a possibility of anything, that’s why they call it a possibility!” shouted Cabbajoe as he finally stopped chanting. “Even an impossibility is just an in possibility… wait… no, I was going somewhere with this, like, what’s it called when —”
“Shut up, Cabbajoe!” disciple and master said simultaneously, before looking at each other and smiling.
Even as the red light fell slowly, Cabbagy still had doubts worming in his heart like his cousin Cabbajeff, who was eaten by worms.
“Are you sure you still want to go through with this, kid? It’s not too late to let things go the way the heavens intend.”
The kid stared at him as the red light finally hit the ground. Only the candles burned now, and in their flickering shadows, the kid’s face shifted back and forth as though different people gazed out from those eyes.
“Why are you acting all creepy, kid?”
“I don’t think I ever had a choice.”
“Born creepy! Hee hee hee!”
Cabbagy ignored the drunk cabbage as he tried to suppress his anxiety.
“What are you talking about? You had no choice about what?”
“About doing things the way the heavens intend.”
Cabbagy let go of the last of the regrets and put his trust in his disciple.
“I’m proud of you, kid,” he said. “No matter what happens, I’m glad I picked you up out of the dirt.”
The kid scoffed.
“Who picked up who now?”
“It’s hard to remember.”
“Don’t worry, master,” the kid said with a smile. “I remember a lot of things.”
With a twist of his fingers, stolen qi burned into the air, and the sigils glowed. No matter what happened now, the ritual had begun.
###
Scarlet light painted the rocky face of the Great Northern Mountain as though it were a freshly forged sword. The Dreaming Blade strolled through the outer gardens of the City Lord’s estate with the City Lord at his side and studied the way the light slanted. Truly, was there anything as fast as the sun’s blade? He might have devoted one of his nine pillars to such a thought if light weren’t so ridiculously soft.
The City Lord was still talking, but his tone indicated he was wrapping up a thought, and so the Dreaming Blade focused his attention on the fat politician.
“So, in short, I seriously doubt that you have come in good faith.”
“My master told me to tell you that he has canceled the expedition.”
“You already said that! Do you think repeating it makes it more believable?”
The Dreaming Blade shrugged.
“I don’t care if you believe it or not.”
“You better! Since you’re also asking me to hand over 50000 silver!”
The Dreaming Blade shook his head.
“No, my master wants you to believe it, and so I will do my best to convince you.”
“This is your best?” the City Lord asked with an expression that someone once described as incredulous to the Dreaming Blade.
“You look incredulous.”
“...”
“We’re not doing the expedition, and we want the money,” the Dreaming Blade said with his most convincing expression.
“Aren’t you forgetting something?”
The Dreaming Blade considered as they walked past some stone flower bushes.
“Please?”
“Please?!”
“Please, honorable City Lord?”
“...”
“I don’t know what else to say.”
“I can’t believe I tried to deal with people like you.”
The City Lord pinched the bridge of his nose as he staggered away, and the Dreaming Blade went back to studying the sunset. It was still falling, and the color deepened. In his mind, he attempted to slash like that. Could it work? Perhaps if he did his best to hold onto his leaking qi for several days, he might be able to attempt to replicate the sun? It was worth an attempt at least. It might even impress his master, just as he hoped to impress by delivering these messages successfully.
He’d already informed the expedition members from the Shen and the Ran, because to tell them after telling the City Lord would be the height of stupidity.
And if there was one thing the Dreaming Blade wasn’t, it was stupid.
“Normally, I would explode in anger,” the City Lord said from behind him.
“Oh?” the Dreaming Blade said as he turned around.
Five women stood between him and the City Lord. From their dark clothes, cold expressions, and emotionless killing intent, he knew they were assassins. They kept their qi hidden, but he doubted any was below the peak of Qi Condensing; there might even be a Foundation Establishment Realm cultivator amongst them. Last week, none of them would have been a threat, but his strength was not what it once was.
A sweet floral scent blew through the odorless stone garden.
“These are my plum blossoms,” the City Lord said with pride. “Magically, they turn any situation into sweet victory.”
The Dreaming Blade assessed the assassins.
“Which one of you has the money?” he asked.
The City Lord laughed, though nobody else present even changed their expression. The fat politician wiped away a tear as he sighed.
“I want to thank you for that laugh; it has been a truly stressful few weeks.”
The Dreaming Blade said nothing. He floated on the balls of his feet, and his soul smiled. He had been storing up his qi since unleashing his presence in the park to back up Chen Ai. Though his slowly healing core still leaked like a sieve, if he truly put in the effort, he could store up his power.
His hand moved slowly, so slowly none of the assassins even twitched, and came to land on the hilt of the four-star jian his master gifted him.
Tension built in the air, and the City Lord stepped back.
“I suppose you should know, I’ve been tracking the movements of you, your master, and that woman you travel with. Right now, the order is going out to slaughter all of you. When the sun rises, there shall be no trace of your expedition, all thanks to my sweet plum blossoms.”
The Dreaming Blade raised an eyebrow.
“Flowers are meant to be picked. That is one thing my master has taught me.”
The assassins moved as one being. Their killing intent cracked the ground and shattered the stone flowers as shadowy qi flooded the area, blotting out the dark red sunset. From the darkness, two dashed with their swords thrusting for his throat and heart. They activated their concealment techniques, becoming less than blurs to his eyes. Two threw daggers that would hit him if he dodged in any direction. The last leaped high overhead, aiming to land behind him and slash him to pieces should he try and retreat.
He had nowhere to go, and less than a second to act, and so it was with a smile that he drew his jian. It was time to answer the question that had plagued him since he last saw his master: how does a dreaming blade cut?
Read 28 advanced chapters now!
I will be taking a break from posting from the 22nd of December to the 2nd of January. The last chapter of 2025 will be posted on December 19th and the first chapter of 2026 will be posted on January 5th.
