Fate Unraveled

CHAPTER

11

HAZE OF RED

JIEYUAN

—∞—

Jieyuan got about twelve steps in before the wolf reacted. From absolute stillness it snapped into a crouch, four legs bending, body tilting forward, and then it leaped—pushing off against gleamstone, launching itself forward, paws barely touching the ground as it sped towards him.

Jieyuan just barely managed to throw himself to the side. The wolf barreled past him, sinking its claws into the ground as it did, and then skid to a short halt as it crashed into a tree. Even as the trunk shook, letting loose a shower of blade-like leaves, the beast was already twisting its body back to face him, and then bounding after him again.

Again Jieyuan could only react, throwing himself out of the way. He tried to stab at it with his spear but the blade only brushed past hard gleamstone before being thrown off, and if it weren’t for aura-lashing he’d have lost his balance, arms aching.

This time the beast managed to recover much more quickly, grinding to an almost immediate halt the moment it overshot him. And then it was spinning its body, its tail—a long, thick crystal-coated length that had all the worsts of quality of whip and bludgeon—was little more than a gray outline as it flew towards him.

It was pure instinct that saved him. He stopped aura-lashing himself and had his arms halfway up, forearms facing forward and bunched in front of him, as the tail struck. And then he was in the air, the impact having lifted him off the ground, forearm screaming, mind blank.

Even before his feet hit the ground again the wolf was upon him. It jumped after him, swiping up with its front legs, claws flashing. Jieyuan brought his spear down from overhead—his arms having flown back over his head—and the blade somehow found the gap on the beast’s shoulder, digging into hard flesh.

Howling, the beast dropped to the ground, then backed away in retreat. Jieyuan landed the next moment, and as he did he was already jumping back in the opposite direction.

Taking a defensive stance, spear angled slightly forward, shaft across his body, he eyed the beast as it eyed him back. The wolf was no longer a wild, murderous blur of death and crystals but a prowling, cautious thing, its black-rimmed burning orange eyes intent and assessing as it stared at Jieyuan. Its shard-fur rose and then started vibrating, rattling.

To the side, Jieyuan caught the sharp, ringing tinkling of crystal meeting crystal, though it sounded flat, the noises drawn out. At the very edge of his vision, he saw the gleamstone leaves that had fallen from the tree the wolf had rammed into finally reaching the ground.

For his part, Jieyuan squeezed the reprieve for all it was worth. He eyed the bleeding wound on the beast’s shoulder and could scarcely believe it. Could scarcely believe all that had just happened, his mind still trying to process it all. It was the Heavens’ own luck that had landed that attack, because when he made that midair swing there had been not a hint of conscious thought in his head. Even now there wasn’t much of it, the flames running wild inside him leaving little space for reasoning.

He absently noted how the arms of his robes were in tatters past the elbows, where he’d received the tail strike earlier. More holes in it than cloth. If that strike had met his body head-on, that’d have been the end of it, no doubt about that. If he hadn’t been wearing third-sign Redsoul fullgauntlets it’d have likely torn through the steel—or at least crushed it—and ruined his arms. That midair attack was another aborted death sentence. In under a second in plain-space, he’d come within kissing distance of death twice.

He clenched his teeth. His arms hurt something fierce, but nothing he couldn’t manage. They were functional, and that was all that mattered. The beast, meanwhile, was bleeding. The blade of his spear was smeared dark red on one side, and as he glanced at it and then back at the beast’s bleeding shoulder—the spear had bitten deep, the front of the beast’s leg was coated in blood and already there was a little pool of it taking shape around it, on the crystal ground—he felt a surge of savage satisfaction. It fed the flames, and all his aches vanished with it.

He would do this. Could do this. The thought—the belief—came suddenly, and it came with the surety of stone and steel. A fact written in stone, wrought with steel. Seared in with fire.

As the wolf grew silent again, Jieyuan didn’t wait for it to make its next move. Far as he was concerned, even a moment spent on the defensive—spent reacting—was a moment too long. This time it was him surging forward.

And this time the beast was the one forced to react.

He crossed the distance in three sweeping strides and then stabbed out with his spear, the blade aligned perfectly with the beast’s large, dark eye.

But then the beast growled at him, its fur lighting up with a gray glow.

Head whipping to the side, Jieyuan aura-lashed himself to an immediate halt and jumped away. And as he was turning around to face the beast again he saw that it was now standing where he’d been just a moment ago, and it was spinning again, its tail flying like a bludgeon.

There was no time to get his arms up in time. Jieyuan barely raised his spear up to meet the attack—

And the tail struck the spear with such force that his arms and hands—having already taken too much of a beating—simply gave up. It was with a cool pit of dread blooming in his gut that Jieyuan felt his grip go slack and the solid, trusty weight of his spear vanish.

His spear flew away and off to the side so quickly that even as it left his grip and entered plain-space it still cut through the air in a spinning zoom. It clashed loudly against a tree some good twenty feet away, then dropped—much more slowly—to the ground with a loud clatter.

Before Jieyuan could think to move toward it, the onyx gleam wolf struck at him with its forelegs, and he was forced to retreat. And with that the wolf moved to the side, placing itself between him and his spear.

Jieyuan wasn’t sure he was only imagining the satisfaction in its squinting orange eyes and curling lips as it stared back at him, letting out a distinctly taunting little growl.

A predator, playing with its prey.

Jieyuan’s distress was immediately swallowed up by a heady surge of rage.

He thought furiously. He had no spear. He only had his gauntlets, and… and— And an idea.

Jumping back, Jieyuan reached into one of the inner pockets of his robe and pulled out one of the four pills he’d placed there before he set out for the hunt. A large, red chunk of a pill. Not something meant to be swallowed. Not unless you enjoyed choking.

The onyx gleam wolf was lunging at him as he threw the pill forward, and the Cultivator’s Agony Beacon exploded right in front of it into a haze of red beacon dust.

Choke on this.

Holding his breath, Jieyuan held his ground as the beast, floundering, crashed down in front of him. It recovered quickly and struck at him with its forelegs, but Jieyuan stepped back even before it moved, letting the claws pass harmlessly past him. The next attack he dodged, same for the one after it. All inside the glowing red cloud of haze left behind by the beacon pill.

One, two, three, four… He counted the seconds as the beast kept swiping and clawing and biting at him, even as it tried another spinning tail strike, but now that he was focused entirely on dodging it couldn’t hit him. Not with its shoulder injured like that, restraining its mobility. On the tenth count, the beast suddenly went very still.

What came next was a thunderous, shaking howl charged with insane, visceral pain.

Charged with Cultivator’s Agony.

The beast howled frantically as it shook itself all over, all of its shard-fur standing on end and vibrating madly, the sound of it all as loud as its howl and near deafening. It had completely forgotten about him, lost in mindless agony.

Jieyuan could’ve used that moment and gotten past it, retrieved his spear. It’d have been the smart thing to do. It was what his idea had been, what he’d planned earlier. But that made him recall how the beast had looked at him after it’d cut him off from his spear. And then the red haze he was seeing wasn’t just from the beacon dust in the air. And if that wasn’t enough to push him off the edge, the wretched chatter of its rattling fur would’ve done the trick just fine on its own.

You wanted to play, didn’t you?

Let’s play.

He advanced on the beast, eyes on its wide, gaping, open jaw. On the glimpses of pink tongue he caught as it howled in agony. And then, without really thinking, he lunged forward and reached inside its mouth with his right arm. Immediately the beast closed its mouth on his arm, biting down hard, but his fullgauntlet held. He could feel the pressure of its many teeth as they dug into his forearm, but as long as they couldn’t puncture him—and they couldn’t, not when his fullgauntlet was the same soulsign as the beast—then it was fine. Just fine. His fullgauntlets were a gift that kept on giving.

The hand he’d stuck inside the beast’s mouth grabbed around, once, twice. Then it closed on something thick and slippery. The thing almost escaped his grasp, but he tightened his hold on it. The wolf’s tongue. The wolf’s efforts grew more frantic as it started throwing its head around, but he was aura-lashing and as immovable an object as it got. Unless the beast could move the entirety of Incandescent Serenity Island, the island he’d anchored his body onto, he wasn’t going anywhere.

But his arm might well be. His shoulder was screaming, ligaments tearing, and it was only a matter of time before the beast tore it right off its socket.

Well, he had to do something about that.

Even as his right hand closed around the beast’s tongue, squeezing it, Jieyuan cocked his left arm back, then let out a punch—right into the beast’s eye. Black, oily, mucous liquid and blood spurted, spattering his face, as his left hand crashed into the beast’s left eye, bursting it. His fist kept going until something hard stopped it. Bone. The beast’s eye socket.

The wolf was howling again, its mouth open, and then it was biting down, howling and biting down, its gleamstone fur spike-like, blurred with vibration, impossibly loud.

Squeezing his right hand harder around the wolf’s tongue, Jieyuan brought his left one back, then punched again into the beast’s left eye socket. And again. And again. He just kept ramming his fist in, driving it in, no real thought in his head as he gave in fully to the rage, high with it.

He felt the beast’s tongue finally collapse under his grip, crushed, barely a moment before something finally gave as he delivered what must’ve been his tenth punch into the beast’s eye socket. There was a low, cracking sound, and he felt his fist reach further than it had all the times before, push through bone into something softer.

And then the beast was pulling back, stumbling. So was he, blinking, half-lost, almost tripping as he struggled to stay standing.

The beast retreated in a shaky, swaying backward plod. Lit up by the glare of the beacon dust, Jieyuan could see its face, its mouth drenched with blood that poured out of its gaping maw. Half its face ruined, a gory mess of white bone and crimson blood where its left eye used to be, caved in. Just a mangled, gaping cavity, just as much blood gushing down from it as from its mouth. It was howling weakly now, almost whimpering.

The wolf then slumped and crumpled, legs folding as it tipped over onto its side. It crashed into the ground with a noise that’d have been loud if it wasn’t for the fact that the beast’s fur had stopped vibrating and that awful, cursed rattling stopped. As it was, the noise of its crash was blissfully soft and welcome. The beast’s chest heaved as it lay there, whimpering.

Jieyuan walked over to it in slow, heavy steps. Standing over it, he watched as the onyx gleam wolf gave a keeling whine, its fur rattling out one last, piercing, crazed rattle that had him taking an uneasy step back. But then its fur fell flat against its body, and its chest stopped heaving. Slowly its movements—all the shaking, all the trembling—got slower, weaker.

Jieyuan couldn’t look away as the beast grew more and more still, until it finally stopped moving altogether. In each and every way. Completely still. Dead still.

He stared down at the beast. A large pool of deep, shimmering crimson blood was blooming under it, staining the crystal floor a vibrant red.

He felt the urge to breathe, to just draw in large mouthfuls of air, but a part of him was aware enough to know that doing so here, surrounded by the poisonous beacon dust, wasn’t the brightest idea. He gave a kick to the beast’s side, then another. It remained completely motionless. The fire inside him was still going strong, but he felt distant from it now. Numb.

With a shrug, Jieyuan turned around and trudged out of the beacon dust. Some slow, lumbering steps later, and he’d found his way back to his spear. His whole body hurt like it’d never before, at least not physically. Worst of all was his right arm, which felt like someone had played a game of tug with it—which, granted, wasn’t too far from the truth.

Wincing, he crouched low, grabbed his spear, turned around. His fight with the wolf had him moving around quite a bit, but he could see the others. Hear them, even, though his ears were ringing.

Meiyao… He saw her, the view only partially blocked by some trees. She was… He blinked. She was glowing—very softly, but it was there, her body radiating green light—and there was some very faint red haze around there. Not a glowing haze—not beacon dust. The only thing glowing there was Meiyao herself. And the haze was too faint and too small to be beacon dust, anyway. It was only around her and the wolf she was… leaping on top of?

Jieyuan stepped to the side, leaning, so that the trees weren’t in the way anymore.

Just in time to see Meiyao land on the wolf’s back and then drive her saber into the base of its neck. Her blade sunk out of sight. The wolf immediately collapsed. Meiyao remained standing on top of it, her hair a wild, tangled mess of brown, her ruby robes drenched, sticking against—

Jieyuan turned his head away. And his eyes fell on Daojue.

Daojue, standing over the corpse of an onyx gleam wolf, hands holding onto the shaft of his spear, the blade buried in the middle of the wolf’s forehead.

Daojue who’d thrown all semblance of caution to the wind and rushed headfirst into suicide by beast and forced him and Meiyao into a battle that could’ve easily cost them their lives—that should have cost them their lives—because the alternative was leaving their teammate to his death.

Daojue. Who was just standing there, staring down at the wolf he’d killed.

Daojue.

The fire returned with a vengeance.

Before Jieyuan knew it, he was marching, shouting, “DAOJUE!”

Daojue turned around, and the man had the sheer gall to level him with that steely, impassive stare of his. The look you’d use on some stupid, pathetic insect. Jieyuan wasn’t having it. He’d show him pathetic. He was getting his pound of blood. He’d wipe that look right out of Daojue’s face. Wipe it with the man’s own blood if he needed to.

He was almost at Daojue now, spear by his side, fire roaring murder inside him, pouring out of his mouth as boiling venom. “What is wrong with you, you—”

And then he was being shoved out of the way as a red and brown shape ran past him.

And then Meiyao—no longer glowing—was there, right in front of him, in front of Daojue.

Slamming her fullgauntleted fist straight into Daojue’s face.