Law of Origin

Chapter 82

Law of Origin

The night came again, and with it the weeping. 

Leo stepped out of the longhouse and gazed into the darkness between the trees, trying to count how many sources there were. But... it was impossible. They overlapped, stopping and starting at uneven intervals, forming and disbanding choirs intermittently. All he knew was that each and every one of them was like a knife through his heart.

This time around, however, he wasn't alone--Gray braved the wails and, whimpering and shaking, stepped beyond the camp with him. 

Leo didn't have to drift for too long before encountering the first ghost. To his dismay, it was that of a young boy, it seemed. He was sitting atop a misshapen boulder, dressed in rather ornate clothing with asymmetrical swirls as the main motif. Twisting his head slightly to the side, the empty eyes met Leo's; they seemed bereft of everything, unlike the woman's from last night. It was then that Leo realized that the boy wasn't weeping like the rest. He was inordinately quiet, dispassionate about everything... but he was still here, all the same. 

While Gray hid behind a tree, growling lowly at the visible apparition, Leo approached slowly and quietly until he was by the boulder. The boy continued to stare at him, eyes purely white without irises. 

Bracing himself for what was to come the best he could, Leo's lips parted, and he began to chant, syllable by syllable. His body, once again, began to glow in iridescent golden, and motes of light converged toward the boy who seemed rather curious about them, lifting his arms and touching them. Leo reached out and gently pressed his hand against the boy's head, feeling cold burst between the webbing of his fingers. 

He held a breath, and darkness swallowed.

When he opened his eyes, he was in a small, but rather luxurious room. The ceiling seemed enchanted, resembling a glittering night sky, with constellations twinkling and occasionally shifting into shapes of mystical creatures. Floating chandeliers cast a soft glow, while silken curtains embroidered with tiny dragons framed tall, arched windows. 

Atop a circular, soft-seeming bed draped in blankets that shimmered with silver threads was a boy, sitting in silence and looking at the closed curtains, as though trying to peer at the world beyond them. The room was silent only for a moment before the doors were burst through, and several figures stormed in, all clad in high-grade armor. 

The boy shifted his eyes over toward them, still bereft of any emotion, and stood up from the bed. 

He approached them while they seemed to be discussing something between themselves, though as for what... Leo could not understand. The boy stopped in front of them and raised his arm, pointing his tiny little finger at them, finally uttering something. His voice was melodic and soft, but whatever he said seemed to have enraged the group which immediately drew out their blades and stabbed forth. 

Six, in total, wounds appeared and the boy fell, limp and fading. 

The world blurred for a moment as Leo found himself back in the forest, staring at the fading figure of the boy. Even as the last of him disappeared, his expression and the look in his eyes never changed. 

He burst into shimmering motes of light that disappeared before even touching the ground, leaving in his wake only silence and the knowledge long since forgotten. 

Leo looked at the boulder for a moment and sat on top of it; the wails, just like last night, disappeared. It seemed as though somebody or something allowed him only one purification per night. He was silently grateful, as he didn't think he'd be able to handle much more than that. 

Gray walked up and jumped onto his lap, curling up. 

Nights to come would be long, Leo realized as he petted the furball silently. But they'd be worth it, too, he felt. 

**

Qiu Mei paused, holding her breath. 

She wasn't alone, either; Song, Lya, and Shen Tao came to an abrupt halt as well. As soon as the mist fogging the horizon parted and revealed the sight, they felt a sense of awe arise within them as well as almost this innate need to kneel toward it.

Mountaintops arose like spikes of a spine, tearing through the sky itself. Almost wholly barren, they sported strangely red-like hue, breaking every so often into even stranger, cascading terraces. 

Jagged ridges spiraled into the clouds, their sheer enormity whispered to the supposed petrified remnants of an ancient dragon, frozen in eternal slumber. The mountains further curved inwards like the folds of a serpent, their slopes shimmering faintly under the setting sun as if their weathered stone still bore the sheen of scales. 

A narrow cleft stood as an unassuming gateway where the range broke, framed by cliffs that rose like the ridged crest of some long-forgotten beast. Folded arches like bones of a spine curved over the entrance, forming a strange, bewitching tunnel that seemed to whisper their names. 

Eerily, it looked less like a naturally-formed entrance and more like a wound where a sword pierced the beast's hide, leaving its body to coil eternally around the valley it seemed to be guarding. 

Every once in a while, the four would see flames spray out from the jutting pits in the mountains, dripping it in red-hued volcanic ash. 

"Uh, you know, maybe taking our chances with that pavilion prick isn't such a bad idea?" Song was the one to break the silence, voicing what Mei herself thought. At the very least, the Disciples of the Heavenly Pavilion fell within the realm of the 'known'. Just merely standing over two hundred yards from the maw of the entrance filled her with such dread that she seldom experienced. 

"I... I want to enter," Lya suddenly said. Mei spun and faced the young girl; though they hadn't spent much time together, she felt that the young girl was the most level-headed of them all. Quaint, withdrawn, yet forcible when needed. In small ways, she admired her. "I don't know to describe it," she quickly added, knowing that her words had lit up suspicion within others. "It's as though there's an invisible thread pulling me toward the entrance and beyond. As if turning back and leaving now would leave a lasting wound that would never heal." 

"It's probably resonance," Shen Tao said, stepping up in front of the other tree and facing them. "Something you know, be it your cultivation method, your martial arts, or even your Spiritual Roots, resonates with something that exists beyond those mountains." 

"Are you confident?" Mei turned toward Shen Tao and asked, seemingly surprising him. He held her gaze for a moment before replying. 

"No. But that doesn't mean we have to turn back," he said. 

"Hah, easy for you to say, with all those treasures you have," Song scoffed. "Did you all forget that the Elder said the inner portions of the realm contain Spirit Creation beasts?!" 

"And the outer ring has Disciples of the Heavenly Pavilion," Shen Tao responded. "There's no place to go where we will be safe. But only one of the choices leads to a potential treasure trove."

"We'll go," Mei said, taking a deep breath. With Long Hao dead, she was now the most Senior Disciple present. "Here," she took out the two life-saving treasures she had and tossed it over to Song and Lya who caught them haphazardly. 

"Senior Sister, this--"

"--is my prerogative," she interrupted. "Should anything untoward happen, you two need to run back out and survive, no matter what."

"Them two?" Shen Tao arched his brow. "What about me?"

"Afford me the courtesy of accompanying me in death," she said with a faintly mocking tone. "That should be your prerogative." 

**

There exist certain inalienable laws of nature that even the most exquisite of cultivators cannot disobey. The Law of Energy--every vessel, ordinary or otherwise, is finite. Limited by the nature's benevolent designs. The Law of Causality--the world only ever changes when acted upon, and every act elicits an equal reaction. The Law of Duality--everything, real or conceptual, has its opposite. Life and death. Love and hate. Suffering and jubilance. Darkness and light.

Thousands more there swirl in the ancient machinations of creation, woven into the tapestry that wasn't, isn't, and would never be understood. Few among the chosen had the opportunity to glimpse past the membrane, and what they saw... changed them. Changed in ways that were not compatible with the world around them.

Yet, even among the thousands of laws, there is a hierarchy. Those that came first, those that govern the most, those that can never even be grasped. 

Motes of silent Qi fluttered visibly above the ashen ruins of everafter. Figures frozen in time stood at the precipice, their forms distorted in a deluge of cracked, webbing lines. It was a world of silence, a world petrified in a singular moment ripped from the histories. 

The motes were white to begin, dancing like shimmering stars in the nightly sky, like tiny little fae overcome with joy of life. In the visage of purity, however, a dimming stain appeared; dark like obsidian, it grew like a rapidly-blooming flower, corrupting all around it. 

The world and all those within it--whether old or young--forgot. For there was time before time, history before words, where everything was shorn of decay and rot of time. Where Qi was not thin and sought after, but where it permeated every visible inch of existence. It was so thick that it would suffocate the uninitiated, and in a breath could turn an ordinary beast into an immortal one. 

The tiny motes decayed in reverse, as though time itself was clocking backwards; they grew and expanded, their edges fluttering violently, tearing in and out of reality, all until they turned onyx, mirages of machinations visible therein. 

Law of Origin, one of the oldest and one of the formative laws of nature, one which helped shape its image and cause, had awakened. 

All things, however beautiful, however horrid, originate from one source. 

The frozen figures shook, their petrified eyes flinching in a moment of clarity. The old, forgotten, and forsaken were awakening, spurned by the invisible threads pulled on one too many times.