The City's Silent Scars
The cleansing of the Aureate Citadel continued, a meticulous, grinding process that demanded every fiber of Long Hu's being. The central plaza now hummed with the raw, honest grief of its citizens, but beyond that core, the city stretched, district after district, each a unique reservoir of suppressed emotions. Empress Xianxia's strategy was methodical: district by district, quadrant by quadrant, purging the insidious spiritual shunts.
They moved first into the residential sectors, where rows of elegant, uniform homes lined quiet streets. Here, the despair was not explosive, but a heavy, suffocating blanket of apathy. Souls dulled by decades of unwavering control, lives lived by rote, devoid of passion or spontaneous joy. Long Hu positioned himself at the core of the arrays, extending his senses. He felt the vast emptiness within these souls, a quiet futility that made his own spirit ache. He focused, not on fighting, but on gently coaxing, searching for the faint, almost extinguished sparks of individual desire, of forgotten dreams. He pushed his essence, a soft silver light, not to purify forcefully, but to gently awaken.
The process was agonizingly slow. He experienced brief flashes of monotonous routines, of smiles that never reached the eyes, of small, private longings immediately squashed by a pervasive sense of 'it does not matter.' Devourer tendrils, thin and insidious, manifested as whispers of futility, tempting him to give in to the overwhelming apathy, promising him oblivion. Xianxia, a silent sentinel, shattered these probes with cold precision, her gaze fixed on Long Hu's strained face, her hand subtly poised to deliver restorative Qi should he falter.
As the arrays completed their cycle, the district transformed. Citizens who had once moved like automatons now paused, a flicker of something new in their eyes – confusion, weariness, but also a fragile spark of individual thought. Some looked at the carefully cultivated, identical flowers in their gardens with a dawning bewilderment.
Next, they moved to the bustling Grand Market Plaza, a place of vibrant commerce that, to Long Hu's senses, seethed with bitterness. Here, the despair was sharp, cutting, fueled by decades of suppressed competition, envy, and resentment. Merchants, their faces outwardly polite, harbored cold grudges over minor slights, their smiles never reaching their calculating eyes. The spiritual shunts here were not passive; they actively amplified these unspoken grievances.
As Long Hu extended his essence, he felt sharp, piercing pains, echoes of petty jealousies and thwarted ambitions. The Devourer's countermeasures were more aggressive, manifesting as seductive visions of blame, whispering names of perceived rivals, tempting him to focus on external anger rather than internal healing. He struggled, forcing his focus to transmute the raw bitterness into a painful, but ultimately constructive, yearning for fairness and honest aspiration. The effort left his teeth grinding, a coppery taste in his mouth.
Xianxia's presence was a cool, steady anchor against the acrid tide of bitterness. She moved among the market stalls, her imperial aura subtly calming the agitated energies, her gaze often returning to Long Hu. She saw the strain, the way his knuckles whitened, and a deep admiration settled in her heart. He was experiencing the very raw emotions that she, as an Empress, had long learned to distance herself from. His capacity for empathy, for taking on the suffering of others, was truly immense.
Finally, they reached the Scholarly Enclave, a district of towering libraries and quiet academies. Here, the despair was cold, intellectual, a pervasive atmosphere of regret and unfulfilled potential. Scholars who had dedicated their lives to rigid doctrines, artists whose creativity had been stifled by conformity, administrators whose insights had been ignored for rigid protocol. The spiritual shunts here thrived on the quiet desolation of stifled genius.
Long Hu connected with the arrays, and a profound weariness settled upon him. He felt the weight of countless forgotten ideas, of innovative paths untaken, of suppressed insights. The Devourers' probes here were insidious whispers of self-doubt, of the futility of ambition, of the comfort of conformity. It was a subtle, soul-crushing despair. He wrestled with it, transforming regret into a quiet longing for knowledge, unfulfilled potential into a bittersweet hope for future generations.
By the end of the day, as the two artificial moons of the Citadel rose into the sky, three more districts lay purified. The exhaustion was bone-deep, but the change was undeniable. The citizens, though still processing, were no longer slaves to their silent scars. They looked at each other, not with indifference or resentment, but with a dawning curiosity, a tentative empathy.
Xianxia stood beside Long Hu, watching the subtle transformation across the districts. Her hand found his, her touch light but firm. "Each one," she murmured, her voice laced with profound weariness, "a different flavor of the Devourers' feast. You have done well, Apprentice. But there is one final, and perhaps most terrifying, wound. The very core of their initial deception." Her gaze drifted towards the oldest, most central district, shrouded in an unnatural, deeper quiet. "The true heart of the schism awaits. Its scars are not merely silent, but buried."
Long Hu met her gaze, a fresh wave of dread washing over him. He knew the district she spoke of. He could feel it now, a cold, unyielding knot of sorrow, an ancient horror so deeply buried it formed a spiritual permafrost. The true weight of their past awaited.