Master, This Poor Disciple Died Again Today

Across the field. An endless monotony repeated itself before them. When Hui glanced back, no trace remained of their crossing. When he looked ahead, he saw no way to differentiate the field before him with the field behind. Am I even moving? Maybe I should stop. It’s pointless.

Hui shook his head hard and slapped his cheeks. No! Don’t let the realm get to you. It’s a trap realm, a trap! I have to keep my mind clear, or the realm will slip in and interfere with me.

He closed his eyes and quickly redrew his mental barrier talisman. A shining barrier appeared around his mental energy. Although the despair remained, the barrier lessened it somewhat, lowering it to the point that he could identify it as external energy, rather than his own despair. He breathed out, circulating his qi.

“You’re a resourceful one,” Chen Wuya commented, striding along beside him.

Hui glanced aside at the man. He tightened his grip on the ball that was all that remained of Gu Tian’s soul. I have to stay on guard. This man is dangerous.

He glanced at Chen Wuya again, then dropped into a short bow. “Patriarch, would you grant this small cultivator a question?”

Chen Wuya inclined his head.

“Respectfully, sir… when you were thrown in this realm, why didn’t they destroy your soul transferal array? Why just attack it, but not completely destroy it?”

“They did,” Chen Wuya said bluntly.

“They—eh?” Hui said, startled. But… it’s been used since then. Li Xiang, me, Gu Tian…

He nodded. A sly smirk crawled over his face, and he raised a hand to his chin. “It’s not that easy to destroy the spell array of a consummate master like myself. If they didn’t tear up the foundation stones and raze the mountain, it should be possible to revive the array. I made sure to leave hints everywhere so someone in the future could receive my legacy and rebuild it. I’m guessing one of my loyal followers found my legacy and revived the spell array.”

Hui nodded as well. Come to think of it, both Li Xiang and Gu Tian were… transferred about two hundred years ago. I’m the only outlier, but it’s possible that whoever revived the spell array used it immediately on Li Xiang and Gu Tian as a test case, then came back and used it again much later for me.

But… wait. There was no Midnight Massacre two hundred years ago, only when I appeared. What was different about me? Was it because… I came from another world?

A chill ran down Hui’s spine, and he put a hand to his mouth, eyes widening. How powerful was that expert who revived the spell array, that he could break through Starbound Sect’s barriers, walk past all its experts, and use a hidden spell array without being detected? Or… was he a member of Starbound Sect? But who? Sect Master Lan? No, I don’t think so. It doesn’t fit his character to massacre innocents. Weiheng Wu? Absolutely not. Master would never!

He sucked in a breath. “Lan Yunxu…” Yunxu was a member of our sect. He was expelled two hundred years ago. Was he expelled for reviving the spell array and using it on fellow sect members Li Xiang and Gu Tian? Then… twenty-odd years ago, he would have had to sneak back in…

I know he’s a Sect Master, but Yunxu didn’t feel that terrifyingly powerful to me, to the point that he could ignore Master and Sect Master Lan and galivant around freely enough in the sect to activate a forbidden spell array. Is it not Yunxu?

Or maybe… is someone else, someone unspeakably powerful, helping him?

“Don’t drift off, now. I need you to find that body of yours,” Chen Wuya said, waving a hand in front of Hui’s face.

Hui startled back to reality. He blinked at Chen Wuya, then frowned. “Loyal followers?” How could he have loyal followers, when no one knows his name?

Chen Wuya’s eyes narrowed to slits. Fluctuations began to wobble off him again, heavy and unstable. “Don’t tell me. Is my name completely forgotten in the outside world?”

Hui backed away, bowing repeatedly. “Many apologies, Patriarch. Even this poor, pitiful cultivator did not recognize your illustrious name.”

“They completely erased me from the sect… That damned Fen Long!” His fist clenched, and his eyes began to burn again. The fluctuations grew stronger, smashing into Hui as almost physical blows.

Hui hunkered down, quickly drawing a barrier talisman in the dirt in front of him. A barrier sprang up, then shattered, barely enough to protect him from a single moment of Chen Wuya’s pressure.

Someone unspeakably powerful… was Chen Wuya helping Yunxu? But… no, that can’t be right. He doesn’t know anything about the outside world. Not what’s happened to the sect, or that he doesn’t have followers… Besides, if he could exert that much energy on the outside world, he would have escaped this realm long ago. I don’t think Chen Wuya’s the one who helped Yunxu.

Another wave of pressure slammed into Hui before he could draw a second talisman. He flew backward, tumbling over the dried poppies. Rather than fight it, Hui let himself be buffeted by the waves. He tumbled away, casually falling further and further from Chen Wuya.

Oh no, I’m getting so far away from Senior! Ah, Senior, forgive this small cultivator if he gets lost and goes on ahead, okay? Hui thought smugly to himself as he rolled along. I didn’t even have to lift a finger, and Patriarch helped me escape from him all on his own. This small Hui is really too clever, just too clever!

Between one roll and the next, a ragged pavilion appeared suddenly in front of Hui. Where Gu Tian’s had been old and ruined, this one was far more ancient. The wood seemed on the verge of rotting away, the silk curtains barely more than scraps. One of the pillars had broken in two, and many of the floorboards were missing. Dried poppies sprouted through holes in the pavilion, as if it had broken down in such antiquity that the long-dead poppies had grown through the holes, then died.

An intense premonition of death hit Hui as he flew toward it. Fierce power emanated from the rotting wood. He tensed. That pavilion is bad news!

He extended his feet and slammed them into the ground, but by that point, his tumbling, backed by the power of Chen Wuya’s fluctuations, had reached incredible speeds. His feet grazed the ground and bounced back off, unable to slow him down a single breath. He grabbed at the earth with his hands as it flew past, but only scored a few finger-rifts in the ground before rolling away once more. Another wave of Chen Wuya’s fluctuations hit him, speeding him along even faster than before. He hurtled toward the pavilion. Barely a finger’s breadth separated him and the rotten, crumbling thing.

Hui opened his mouth to shout and startle Chen Wuya out of his anger, but before he could, he fell into the pavilion. Darkness swallowed him, and the dried-out poppy field faded away.