Chapter Text
The Sanctus Medicus had just attacked Cloudford not so long ago, so naturally everyone there is a bit more on edge. The two Cloud Knights on guard were on full alert, which is how they found the disturbance behind the crates so quickly—a wolf-like marabeast, whose leg appeared to be broken as it snarls and struggles. One of the Cloud Knights marvels at the sight, thinking of course! There will always be fish who manage to slip out of the net. He glances at his fellow Knight, who nods in understanding before stepping forward. One strike would have done it, but at the last moment, the beast manages to sidestep the spear and stumble away down the alley. The two Cloud Knights, unwilling to let it go, give chase immediately. They follow the beast through the maze of winding roads until at last, they arrive at a dead end.
The wolf-beast whines as it tumbles into the dead end. When the Cloud Knights follow, they are surprised to see a man standing before the mountains of crates and boxes. They watch with some shock as the beast limps to the man’s side, only to have a sudden about-face, spinning around on nimble feet to snarl at them both. The wolf-beast’s eyes are bright with malice, all the despair it had displayed earlier having simply vanished.
Before the two Cloud Knights can even react, the man speaks up, leaning down to pet the wolf-beast’s head as he does so. “Hey hey, easy there, little one. These are the guests you just went to so much effort to invite here, let’s not be rude now.” He has a clear, even voice, reminiscent of tales of wandering heroes with their swift blades, yet this strange man was an intruder, so his carefree demeanor only added to the strangeness of it all. He turns around to face them, and only then do the two Cloud Knights see exactly what he looks like. He’s fully armored, the whole set elaborate and beautiful in style hailing from a more ancient Xianzhou. His hair is dark and fluffy and ruffled-looking. A singular braid sticks out amidst the mess, tied with red string. Only his right eye shows, twinkling with amusement but devoid of empathy. Even with his tear-drop mole to soften his sharp gaze, his expression lacks any warmth.
The two Cloud Knights did not doubt that he was of Xianzhou birth, since he looks the part from his clothes down to his boots, and yet his appearance is still alien and strange, so they point their weapons at him anyways. The man sighs at this, and then he surprises the two Cloud Knights further by dropping to the ground, cross-legged. The wolf-beast, which had been snarling and growling all this time, see this and mimics the man, dropping to the ground and curling up by his knee. It rumbles low in its chest and rests its head by the man’s boot, just like a domesticated pet. The man starts to comb through the wolf-beast’s fur with long, lulling strokes of his hand, petting the wolf-beast like a dog. He spares the two Cloud Knights an almost lazy look. “There’s no need to fear, you two. I didn’t go to all this effort just to ask for a fight. It’s been a long time since I’ve been back, and I invited you both here to ask if you would take a message to your dear general for me.”
“…I’m afraid we do not really carry messages, sir,” one Cloud Knight responds, albeit haltingly. The device he always carried with him had instantly activated upon the man showing his face, and the truth of the facial recognition results was more than enough to make the Cloud Knight gulp. He opens his mouth, tries to keep his voice steady even as his hands tremble on his spear. “So tell me, what is the Stellaron Hunter Jing Yuan doing back here on the Luofu? After you’ve decimated this place with Yinyue and escaped from the Shackling Prison seven hundred years ago, now you want us to believe that you’ve come home for a stroll?”
Seven hundred years was a long time even for the long-lived Xianzhou natives. It was long enough that even though everyone has heard the legend of the high cloud quintet, few people can still put a face to the legend—that is, aside from the face of the seemingly eternal Nova Architect, who still stands sentinel over the Luofu even now.
Those legends of old and a fame that once transcended the heavens and rang through the clouds had all been torn down in one irredeemable rebellion. The Cloud Knight’s grandmother had once been a guard send to reinforce the Scalegorge Waterscape during the Sedition, and until the day the Ten Lords Commission took her away, she would still tell him tales of the scenes from that day—the dragon beast covering up the sky, the ghosts littering the ground, the mortal world in between filled with grief and terror.
After all, who on the Luofu did not know of what happened after the Sedition? It was when that short-life species of a man had ascended to the General’s throne, one of his first orders being the one to force the Imbibitor Lunae’s reincarnation. After the once proud Vidyadhara leader had seen his scales stripped and his proud bones snapped and ground to dust, he was reborn and eventually, exiled to the far regions of the universe. And yet, on the very night that the Imbibitor Lunae had met his punishment, the Luofu’s usual beautiful weather suddenly took a turn for the worse. Heaven’s gates opened; the winds howled and wept. It was as if the skies so faithfully maintained by the Artisans Commission’s craftsmen had also descended into rebellion. And it was on that night that the other condemned criminal—the undying one, the traitor to all who believed in the Hunt—escaped. He should’ve long disappeared into the depths of the Shackling Prison, never to emerge, yet escape he did. He vanished that very night into the swirling storm, with no one the wiser as to where he had gone.
Now it was seven hundred years later, and aside from the jailers and the judges ****of the Shackling Prison back then, no one retained any memory of that infamous fugitive’s face. It was possible that he had already been so twisted by the abundance that none would know him anymore, but now, facing this handsome youth with his smiling face, the Cloud Knight is no longer so sure. His devices had checked the result, and he had just confirmed it out loud, yet even now in his heart he still has his doubts. This youth has a human face just like any other resident. Can such an unsuspecting face really belong to that same Jing Yuan? The one who had betrayed everything and everyone, who had the world recoiling in his wake?
The man instantly sees through the Cloud Knight’s unease, for he starts to laugh like a child who had just set off a successful prank. “There’s no need to make faces at me like that, kind sir. ‘The soul returns to its birthplace when one has traveled furthest from home,’ or so the saying goes. Even the most evil or unsavory characters still have to come home to visit now and then, no?”
“And who do you still have left to see here, after seven hundred years?” The Cloud Knight grits his teeth and replies, tossing desperate looks towards his fellow Knight all the while—what the hell are you waiting for? Contact the reserves already! Hurry!
His companion hastily reaches for his transmitter, only to be cut short by the strange man’s sudden, gleeful smile. “Ah, and what is it that you might be looking for, friend? It couldn’t possibly be this little thing that I have in my hand now?” He opens his hand, revealing a tiny device lying almost innocuously on the man’s palm.
The companion blanches and raises his spear, about to charge in immediately, but the Cloud Knight grabs him in the nick of time. He gestures frantically, trying to convey to his friend just how important it was that they not act rash in that moment. The way he cannot read any of the man’s movements or intentions is enough to unnerve him and make his scalp crawl. He knows that the best chance they’ve got at staying alive is to just keep stalling as long as they can, until they can find some other way to contact their captain, who will hopefully bring more people to come meet them. “Wait, hold on, m-may I ask what kind of message you are asking us to bring to the General? If you’ll tell us what you wish to say, maybe we can still discuss the matter with our captain.”
The Cloud Knight has braced himself already, thinking that the man will surely call his bluff on this, yet the man only blinks once, his golden eyes dimming as if he has lost interest. He tosses the device in his hand back to the companion, and he says, “Nevermind that. Ge has been in the management role for quite a few years by now, and he seems pretty busy everyday. If you all tried to send him a regular message now, he’s still likely not to have time to review it for a while.” He runs his hand through his hair with some agitation, then he looks down, seemingly deep in thought. After a brief silence, he suddenly perks up, eyes bright, and he says to the two, “Well, no need to worry. I’ve thought of just the thing. If you all are willing to do me a small favor and take me there, I’m sure my Ge will come look for me himself.”
The Cloud Knight’s heart sinks, and he’s suddenly flooded by a terrible feeling. “And where should we take you?”
“To the Shackling Prison, of course,” the man replies, matter of fact.
The companion also stares upon the man’s declaration, and he hesitates noticeably before managing a response. “The General is at the Shackling Prison right now?”
“Of course not.” The man eyes them like they’re both idiots. “Keep up, he’s already become a great General of the Xianzhou—how can a great General spend all his time in the Shackling Prison? That’s no matter though, if you just do as I said and take me to the Shackling Prison, all you have to do is notify him once I’m there. He will surely come to find me then.”
“Uh….” The Cloud Knight and his companion share a look before deciding to throw caution to the winds. Great Lan almighty, what better chance did they have anyway? Might as well play it by ear and treat the dead horse as if it’s a living one. So the Cloud Knight spreads his hands at the man and says, “We should be able to take you to the Shackling Prison without too much delay. However, if you truly wish to go there with us, I’m afraid your pets cannot go with you.”
“Oh, them?” The man blinks. He glances at the wolf-beast, still perched quietly beside him on the ground, and his golden eyes take on a tinge of regret. “They truly can’t come with me? If so, then I guess I have no choice but to take them back.”
“‘Take them back?’” The question had barely arisen in the Cloud Knight’s mind, yet before he could ask it out loud, he saw that man stretch out his hand, almost lazily so, and pierce through the wolf-beast’s heart. A horrible tearing sound rends the air. The Cloud Knight shudders where he stands, and he sees the man withdraw his hand, fingertips now curved into wicked claws. He clutches a bloody, heavy mass in his palm and raises it to his face, opening his mouth and swallowing it whole. The wolf-beast’s body thuds to the ground beside him like a sack of rotten potatoes. Blood streams out from the body, forming red rivulets on the green floor tiles like miniature red rivers.
The Cloud Knight’s stomach turns over, and he nearly throws up. His companion has also been stunned by this development, and he sees him withdraw his spear raised halfway in an awkward angle, too awkward to lift or to let fall. The few seconds they both stood there frozen is more than enough time for the man to wave towards the air, summoning a bird-like marabeast that must have been circling the premises long before the two had arrived. He repeats what he had done with the wolf-beast, and blood bursts onto the ground like a bubble, bits and pieces splattering onto the Cloud Knight and his companion’s boots, the sight enough to turn anyone green.
After swallowing both the bird and the wolf’s hearts, the man wipes his mouth with a sleeve and tossing the bodies aside. He smacks his lips, as if he hadn’t had enough of a taste. When he spares a glance to the side, he sees that the two Cloud Knights’ expressions look rather on the queasy end, and so he inquires with some genuine confusion, “What’s wrong with you two? You look rather unwell.”
The Cloud Knight’s mind is utterly blank—until a burst of coppery sweetness hits his senses. Ah, he’d bitten his tongue. His companion looks over towards him at the same time, and he sees the same shock in his eyes, mixed with an overwhelming fear and disgust that come from a far deeper place. It is a feeling embedded in instinct, the instinct for self preservation that warns against approaching those existences far more powerful than oneself. A regular person would find it near-impossible to disguise this feeling of hate and disgust, but the man does not comment even when it is plain on their faces—it does not bother him at all. He only tilts his head and pins them down with those unnerving gold eyes, then he says almost in consolation, “It’s not like killing is a spectacle on the Xianzhou, especially for you Cloud Knights. Shouldn’t you be used to this already? But fear not, I’m a compassionate soul, you see! Once the right time comes, all I have to do is re-summon them and they’ll both come back right as rain.”
The Cloud Knight feels chills rattle his spine. It’s the jolt he had needed to recollect himself from the oppressing silence. He stares into the man’s cold gold eyes, and he finally realizes this is an existence who has lost ties with almost all of society. This man lives an existence so alien that he has lost all his senses and inhibitions. Morality, kindness, loyalty, faith, honor, mercy, death, and life—these all mean no more to him than a pile of chaff. Everything is but a wisp of cloud that he can watch disperse before his eyes, without even taking a breath to blow it apart. The Cloud Knight cannot tell from those eyes what there is left that he still truly cares for—perhaps this Ge, or perhaps nothing and no one at all. No matter what it is though, one thing is clear. He cannot allow a man as dangerous as this to continue running free on the Luofu. To the Shackling Prison he must go, whether that is willingly or not, and he must go quickly. “Right then,” he hears himself say, with surprising calm, “since you so insist, we will contact our captain and arrange for you to be sent to the Shackling Prison, just as you wished.”
His friend seemed to think the same, for just as the Cloud Knight managed to suppress his own fear and disgust, his friend reached for his transmitter and contacted both their captain and the standing guard at the Shackling Prison. As they both waited in quiet urgency for the response, the other Cloud Knight felt as if a thousand needles were stabbing into his back—perhaps not maliciously so, but the truth is that from the moment he made those calls, the man’s bright, almost eager eyes never again shifted away from him. All this time, the man’s chin is still dribbling blood—drip, drip, drip—like the sounds of a timer counting down, not knowing how many seconds are left on the clock.
People on the Luofu have always harbored a soft spot for old things and old stories, such that even the Shackling Prison remained the largely unchanged through the centuries. The deep gloom still weighs overhead like a looming mountain, and the cold still sets in with a strangle hold. Only when the occasional ghost lantern is lit does the light manage to pierce through the veil in an eerie, lifeless way. If one listens carefully beyond the heavy walls and the rumbling stairs, one can almost hear the pulsing of smooth water, lulling and rhythmic, like the sea putting one to sleep.
All along the way, the prisoner escorted by a near contingent of Cloud Knights has not lost his curiosity, poking his head around high and low and even trying to ask his guards a host of questions. He receives no answers, of course, but that does not seem to deter him from having his fun. Only when they enter the depths of the Shackling Prison does he finally fall quiet. His hands are already shackled, and he walks at the head of the Cloud Knight column in an almost meek manner. The massive stairs grind and creak as they rotate, and he moves his head to follow those movements, with a kind of confusion in his golden eyes. He does not look the part of one of the Xianzhou’s most notorious criminals then. Rather, he looks more like a child, lost and directionless in the fog as he stares out into the bleak world, his gaze empty.
He does not make another sound until he has already been shuttered into his cell for the time being, until the door has slammed shut. It’s only now that outside world has now been sealed off that he starts to laugh out loud. Before that, he had been maintaining his strange, empty silence, as if his every step through the Shackling Prison also took him years back, until he had returned to the same damp, grim place from seven hundred years ago. Now that the cell door has shut, he busies himself with exploring his not-so-new surroundings instead, delighting to himself as he paced about the cell.
Aside from himself, this place hosts no wandering ghosts or stray demons. Perhaps this is a form of creative punishment too, locking an undying man away in the part of this immortal ship closest to Death, salvation so tantalizing that he can starve forever for it. At least this time he’s not held in the bottommost floor anymore. With his current set up, the door was made of some transparent material, so he can even see the desolate outside, which is already a massive improvement from since the last time he was here. What a treat! Truly, his Ge truly spoils him!
—I see that you excel in adapting to the times.
The voice rises up right by his ear, achingly familiar, so familiar that he does not need eyes to know who it must be. When he does turn, he sees a demon with white hair and red eyes, wearing a smile like a scythe and a jade hairpin like a crown. A likeness straight from his heart, if he still has one, yet that dear silhouette ripples and shudders every few moments, like a thousand snakes writhing beneath the skin. The man looks briefly before turning his head away, as if bored. “All these years, and you still haven’t come up with any new tricks.”
He barely finishs his sentence before the silhouette before him begins to boil over, twisting into a thousand tortured shapes before blasting apart, the darkness expanding like a wave. The wave swallows the entire cell, the space that had been no more than a few steps’ length suddenly becoming bottomless. A deep, gravelly song rises from the abyss, quietly at first, then building up wave after wave. Stark, blood-colored eyes bloom out of the darkness like trees flowering in the springtime. The voice by his ear no longer sounds familiar—it cracks and splinters into a thousand voices, each one speaking in a different tone. Have you already forgotten what you lived through here before?
But the man at the heart of the legion of voices speaks evenly, his expression unbothered. He does not seem to hear any of the mad hymns or shrieking choirs, and his smile remains calm, even pleasant. “I remember that,” he says brightly, “I remember everything, thanks to you, so of course I remember how we took you down together too.”
The voices burst into laughter, the layers of sound breaking apart, echoing and reverberating against each other without end in the vast dark. Haha, hahahaha! Even though your efforts did indeed bear fruit in your victory against me, you have paid a pyrrhic price! And what of it? My master is full of love and compassion, and so granted me a body that will never die. I have all the time in the world to see you perform your tragedies!
“I can say the same for you. I’ve got myself a body that will never die too, so I can even save you the time it’d take to explain that.” The man, still smiling, drops his chin onto his hand. “To think that I’d see the great emanator of the Abundance, the Plagues Author’s right hand, reduced to clinging on for dear life in this roach of a body, all while I inherit the entirety of your powers and even your old position! From my perspective, doesn’t that seem like a pretty good deal?”
A good deal? The voices pause, before the entire space of the once-cell begins to fold and twist, countless eyes wriggling like maggots before they all start to spiral to the pace of mad laughter, like flowers in a tempest. Do you truly believe even now that you have made a good deal?
“Of course!” The man bursts out laughing. “Of course I’ve made a good deal, now that I’ve won this roach-like power of yours, that grants me the honor of crawling forever on this earth, eating dust like the worms and ants!” He cackles wildly, the sound sinking into the darkness, like fertile soil swallowing a seed. As he laughs and laughs, his voice slowly recedes until all is quiet again save for his quiet breaths, a continuous reminder that he is alive. He heaves a long sigh and buries all his pain and the worst of the insanity, so that when he raises his head again, all that’s left is a smile. “Ah, no matter though. So what if I am a roach? A worm? Or even an ant? This body that will never die makes us even—we are all just wretched creatures, forever drowning in this starry sea but unable to die! It’s just so that even after the skies turn barren and the earth turns cold, I’m fortunate and have something left to cling to.”
Heh. The person you speaks of is a mere speck of flame. He is as insignificant as a beat of a firefly’s wings. How can you know that he will surely come to see you?
The thousand eyes fall upon him all at once, a ghastly sight for any human, yet the man remains unbothered. His voice is light and easy, as if he is talking about something that did not matter at all. “It’s only instinct, though mine tends to be correct. If one day I’m lucky enough to truly die, maybe even die permanently enough to get cremated, I’m sure he will come see me even then.”
He will not, the thousand eyes suddenly said, the legion of voices fusing back into one slightly pitying voice. He will not come see you again.
The man rebuffs that immediately. “He will, just wait and see.”
The eyes only stare back in silence. They no longer respond. After no certain amount of time, all the eyes suddenly began to close in sequence, peeling away in layers like autumn leaves. Soon, even the very last eye is gone, leaving behind the dark annd the silence and the silhouette of another man at its heart. The silhouette is an exact match of the man as he is now. When it opens its mouth, the man hears his own voice emerge, though it speaks quietly. “He will never be here for you.”
“He will be!” The man’s eyes suddenly bulge out as he screams, “You’re wrong! He will be here! He will!”
“He will not.” His other self responds evenly as he sits down before him. He has his same wild dark hair and golden eyes, but his expression is calm and his eyes convey a sort of pity. “He will never be here for you, and you still remember that. It had been so long last time, and yet he still did not arrive.”
A horrible tearing noise ripples through the darkness. The man stares when he sees his double’s back and shoulders suddenly split open, as if cut up by invisible blades. Blood spurts forth and soaks through what remains of his double’s clothes, yet his double’s expression does not change. Rather, it continues to look at the man calmly, using the man’s same face.
The man looks at his own bloody self, and his prior madness seems to recede as well. He copies his double and sits down cross-legged, meets its eyes and says with fervor, “But you must remember too, he came back for us in the end. We waited so long in the forest of swords, and the bleeding never let up. Even Death had abandoned us then. But he had not, because he came back for us, because he always will. He has always been the more nostalgic one compared to us.”
His other self’s eyes grow wide, a hint of something indecipherable in the depths. “You trust him so?”
The man’s smile is almost gleeful. “He can’t bear to see me suffer.”
“…Haha.” His other self lowers its gaze. It raises one bloody hand and runs it through blood-soaked hair. “Come on now. Even when you are talking with just yourself, you still can’t be honest? You’re terrified. You’re terrified that he will not come back for you.”
The man jumps to his feet as if stung. “Nonsense! You lie! You lie you lie you lie! How could he not come back for me? How could he no longer care for me?! That’s nonsense! Impossible! Nonsense!” His breaths are ragged and brisk, and his handsome face folds and warps and twists, like a startled cobra curling into itself before rising up from the ground, flashing wicked fangs.
His other self remains a cold wall of indifference. When it raises its hand to point at him, half dried blood flakes off from its arm in bits and pieces, like newspaper peeling from a wall. It says to him, still in the same pitying tone, “You are terrified he will not come back for you anymore, because of what you promised him back then.”
The man‘s vision floods red. By the time he refocuses, his other self has already blown apart, the pieces scattering all over the ground, the walls, the man’s face, before slowly sliding down, becoming one again with the surrounding darkness. In the dead silence, the man hears his own thundering pulse, sees his own hand stretched out at where his double used to be. He sees branches—hundreds upon hundreds of them sprouting from his shoulders, his arms, his back, with their delicate green leaves and claw-tipped ends, seemingly still dripping blood. The darkness presses in like water, and the mad hymns from before are setting in once more, along with the thousand voices, all raised in laughter. They are all waiting—waiting for the moment he finally succumbs to the madness. Then, they will tear him apart and rebuild him from within, until even he no longer recognizes himself.
The man covers his face with a clammy hand. The expression that escapes from behind his palm grows pained, and the branches that grow out of him tremble before the tender shoots begin to yellow and wither, until they finally start to retract. When the man absorbs the last branch back into his body, his face is white, the speck of gold left in his eyes struggling to surface amidst a sea of red until it finally breaks through. He bows his head, sees the arm he still had propped on the ground to support himself, and his heart races. No, he can’t let this happen. He has to get it under control. Ge will come see me soon, I can’t let him see me like this. I have to look my best when I meet him.
He forces himself upright, clambers half upright before turning to look back at the pulsating darkness that surrounds him, muttering to himself all the while.
He will come back see me, he will, just you wait and see, wait and see!
I will never lose to the likes of you.
He will come back for me.
I’ll be waiting.
The Seat of the Nova Architect is minimally furnished, or in the words the Master Diviner, barely fit for human residence. Aside from the carvings on the ceiling, there are no personal effects or other decorative items, only the table where the General does his day to day work, a chair, and the piles of paperwork that pile up all around said table and chair like miniature mountains. Only one other table sits in front of the ceiling height window. It is in samples and models of upcoming products from the Artisan Commission.
In the midst of this emptiness, a man with a long white ponytail and full armor stands in front of the ceiling height window, gazing out towards the encroaching night. The Master Diviner stands at the other side of the work table, her expression grim even as her height is dwarfed by the man. They each hold their silence, one cold, one seething.
“General, Master Diviner,” the messenger guard acknowledges them both when he comes into the hall, wincing slightly when they both turn. He bears both their burning gazes and bows. “The Ten Lords Commission sends their regards to you, General. This is an urgent matter, but to preserve secrecy, the Judge sent me to deliver this message rather than using the jade abacus, for fear of interference.”
Much to his relief, the General’s eyes soften just enough to calm his nerves. “Chiyan, what news do you bring that calls for such a rush?”
Chiyan breathes a sigh of relief. Then he stands at attention and reports, “General, Master Diviner, I bring news that the Cloud Knights patrolling Cloudford have captured a stranger on their shift. He is being held in the Shackling Prison’s near maximum security layer right now to expedite questioning. Judge Xueyi has taken on the questioning herself, but the man said without any equivocation that he’s here to see you, General. I have a recording of the proceedings here for your examination.”
“I understand. Thank you for bringing the message.” The General’s eyes are cold and red like the last of the winter’s plum flowers. A flash of some emotion glimmers through, too fast to be read before it disappears with the next blink. He turns his head, beckons with his fingertips, and a small finch that has been perched on his shoulder this whole time flutters its wings and rises into the air, flying towards Chiyan. Chiyan has been the messenger guard at the Seat of the Nova Architect for many years now, so he has long grown used to this. He opens his palm, revealing a data module no larger than a grain of rice. The finch lands on his fingertips and swallows the grain whole before taking to the air again. It opens its mouth, and a column of light shoots out, splitting into thousands of threads upon hitting the ground. The threads writhe and twist as they weave themselves together, forming a web of three-dimensional physical images.
The threads of light weave together into a man with his hands locked in tempered elemental cuffs. He was escorted onto the screen by a whole host of jailers, who busied themselves with securing the man to the chair in the center. The man slides into the chair without any urging, even shifts his hands helpfully so that the Cloud Knights in charge can tie him down. He waited without complaint until the jailer had finished the job before shrugging his shoulders to loosen them, his smile revealing stark, white teeth.
“There there now, are you people afraid of even muzzled dogs?” He leaned forward in his chair, keeping his tone light and easy. “Have I not already proven my sincerity to you all? I come before you with no plans and no weapons, even willingly surrendered myself to be here, all for the honor of meeting your General just one time. The Judge who presided over my proceedings last time isn’t still here? If it wasn’t for how Xianzhou people cannot die even if they beg for it, I would’ve thought he’d gone and gotten himself reincarnated by now, haha!”
The recording only captured the man on the chair, so the viewer cannot see what the Judge who was responsible for this proceeding looked like. The man was laughing and having a grand old time entertaining himself, but the voice that replies to him is a cold and level one. “No matter how sincere or passionate, you are but chaff and pebbles in the dirt, not fit to be viewed under the sun. You will never be seen in the same frame as the General.”
“No matter at all!” The man laughs even harder, his eyes narrowing to slits like a lion that has finally encountered some interesting prey. “The jailers here are all so dull and drab, so I’m glad to see that the Judge at least has some spirit! I have time to kill until he comes to see me anyway, so ask away. I’ll even answer since I’m in good mood.”
The judge’s voice did not waiver, as if she did not hear his taunts. “You have spent much to make it aboard the Luofu this time. State your purpose.”
The man shrugs. “I’m just a Stellaron Hunter, doing what Stellaron Hunters do. The boss gave me a script, so I clock in like he tells me to. You’re salaried too, aren’t you judge? Surely you understand.”
“Your script, will it endanger the Xianzhou?”
“Eh, I’m sure there was some mention of doom and gloom in there, but it’s not from us. Haven’t you all caught Kafka already? You should already know all this from her.” The man tips his head to the side, the confusion on his face sincere.
“Will your script endanger the Xianzhou?” The judge, undeterred, only repeated her question.
“Alright alright, so there might be some disaster that threatens to destroy this whole place if you don’t take care of it the right way. But if you want my honest opinion, the so-called scripts are just like notices that the boss hands you before you go do the job. It’s just that his notices usually happen to more helpful than most.” The man smiled almost lazily.
“What does this disaster refer to?”
“Well that I’m not too sure about. I can’t die anyways, so whatever notices the boss hands out doesn’t really affect me.”
“…You want me to believe that you do not read your scripts at all, even when they affect the likelihood of your missions’ success?”
“Oh, I’ll read them when I have to, but I can’t really be bothered otherwise. That’s just how I deal with things. My boss is well aware of that.” The man’s eyebrows curved into crescents, and his smile ran easy and smug. “But I will say, there were quite a few things worth reading in there this time around.”
The judge’s voice was cold. “What did you see on the script?”
But she could do nothing about the man’s gleeful smirk. “I won’t tell you.”
“If you will not tell me, then then Xianzhou has no further need for individuals like you. We will escort you directly to the lowest level of this prison, so that even if the Xianzhou is destroyed, you will be imprisoned forever within its fragments.”
“Aiya, if the Madam Judge really wants to know what it is that I’m thinking, no need to waste your breath! Why not just drag me to the Matrix of Prescience Ultima? You’d have no need for any of this banter then, and didn’t it work quite splendidly with Kafka? If it worked so well on her, why not try it again on me?”
“…You have already fallen into the Mara’s clutches, so you have lost your humanity. How can you enter the Matrix if you are no longer human?”
“Haha! Hahaha!” The man finally could not resist anymore and burst into laughter. He laughed until his whole body shook, until even the chair he was bound to began to creak and rattle, like dry bones in a graveyard. “The Matrix of Prescience Ultima was designed specifically to interrogate Sanctus Medicus officials—it was made for the ones who have forsaken their humanity, just like me! Dear Judge, the Xianzhou’s circumstance must be dire indeed, since you have not carted me off to the Divination Commission right away! You don’t have time to have the Commission put me through the Matrix and sort through my seven hundred years of memories!”
The judge held her silence. Suddenly, a hand appeared on the holographic, pushing a thin sheaf of bound papers toward the bound man. “Perhaps that is so. And yet, you care for this place far more than you have just said. The Xianzhou Luofu has waged countless campaigns over these past hundreds of years, and these are the images we have curated from all of them. After the Ten Lords Commission reviewed them, we found that you were seen by eyewitnesses at more than half these battlefields. If you truly care so little for the Luofu to the point where your heart has gone cold, then why would you return so frequently, just to see her battles with your own eyes?”
“I was unaware that such rumors were worthy of the Ten Lords Commission’s time,” the man kept his smile light, but something flashed deep in his eyes. “Let’s put it this way. Even if it I admitted that I still missed the Luofu, still thought of it as my home and the land of my birth out of some fool’s naivety, all that proves is that I am a truly moronic specimen—that I have some damnable misplaced nostalgia that even the worst torment could not beat out of me. Madam judge, what could you possibly have that is worth enough for me to treat the Xianzhou’s mutts with sincerity?
“Ah, that’s right, you have nothing to offer me,” he continued, his voice smooth, “but that is fine too. I have traveled over a thousand light years to come here, so I have my own wants as well. And you know what that is?” His voice was still addressing the judge, but his eyes had long since shifted to the recording device itself, his golden eyes piercing through the hologram to reach the viewers on the other side. As he looked upon his unseen audience, he laughed, not even bothering to hide the fire in his gaze. “You know, what I want is very simple. Let me see your General. Let me see him, and I’ll tell him everything.”
The judge’s voice replies, “As I have said, the dirt from one’s shoes is not meant to reach the clouds. You cannot see him.”
The man ignored her. His golden eyes, bright as flame, did not break contact with the recorder for even a moment. “Then let him tell me himself that he will not see me! If he will come see me, then I will tell him everything, and if he will not, then I will just have to let this Xianzhou fall into pieces, until I outlive even those pieces, until the universe grinds them to dust!”
The recording cuts short. “There is nothing much after this worth seeing,” Chiyan explains, “Judge Xueyi tried to continue the interrogation, but this abomination refused to say more, only kept insisting that the General must go see him. Judge Xueyi was forced to cut the proceedings short, and she asked for you to please consider carefully and put your own wellbeing first, General.”
“Yingxing! You can’t go see him!” The Master Diviner suddenly bursts out, unable to contain herself any longer after seeing the whole clip. “If you insist on doing this yourself, and if even the slightest calculation went awry, have you not considered what might happen to the Luofu without you?!”
During the entire course of the viewing, the Luofu General had been standing mutely to the side. Even now, he does not respond quickly. After the recording has stopped, the little finch that had been projecting the hologram chirps once before it returns to the General’s shoulder. It pecks gently at his cheek in greeting, and the General whose name holds weight through the sea of stars only indulges its actions, even letting it hide itself right behind his stray silver locks. When he finally replies to the Master Diviner, his voice is low and heavy, but without hesitation. “Of course I must go.”
The Master Diviner’s gaze sharpens, and she nearly cries out, “Why?! Even though we already have the results from Kafka’s Matrix of Prescience scan, that can still only prove that Kafka herself has no ill will towards the Xianzhou—it has no bearing at all on what this new anomaly will bring! I would be going against all my senses and responsibilities if I did not warn you to act with utmost caution!”
“Ah, Fuqing, you and I have worked together for over a hundred years now. I understand your concern and thank you for it. But as you know, I do have my own standards when it comes to doing things. It is true that an anomaly is the unknown, but it can also be a chance to turn the tables.” The General closes his eyes and sighs, though not much changes on his cold, even face otherwise. He turns to Chiyan and says, “I still have some matters to discuss with the Master Diviner, so you are dismissed for now. Please do me a favor and not let others into this building for now, save for Yanqing. If he comes by, please let him in.”
“Yes General,” Chiyan hurries to obey. He bows once to both the General and the Master Diviner before he turns to go. When he opens the door, the skies beyond the Seat of the Nova Architect have already grown dark, the night clouds rolling in. The General’s lone shadow stretches out from the window all the way out through the door, dragged out by the fading light, only to be torn up, swallowed, and dissolved into the darkness beyond.