Chapter Two Hundred and Forty Five - Threefold Order

Myriad forces conspired at the moment of the [Immortal Judgement Sunshine Array’s] lapsing, brief as it would be allowed.

In sequence, in concert, or not.

The eighth chime of Udvah’s [Primordial Law].

The expansion of each Calamities’ domain once more tore the skies apart.

The blink of sky-darkening Warships beneath an infinite spectrum of factions.

Storms of spatial [Profundity], [Array], [Inner Arts] to whisk untold thousands upon thousands away.

A great collapse of [Fouth Under Heaven’s] yawning, golden [Demonic] gate.

Sound, smell, taste, sight, vibration. All that was loosed upon this fledgling realm was enough to shatter lesser minds, and indeed a few greater.

So it was that amidst the full plethora of released madness Fu focused upon but three major sights.

First came the gentle, superceding bliss of Udvah’s bell. Heard louder than thought and clearer than the whisper of one’s own [Spirit].

Its culmination came at the widening of Mangalam’s vast mouth. A toad’s tongue eased open and from it flew a majesty of drifting lotus petals across the ruined land.

Second came a sudden chill to the [Summer’s] afternoon, delivered by more than the lapse of daylight brought by the innumerable factions.

[Dances Upon an Ivory Sea] claimed enormous swathes of the air by [Winter’s] touch, a bladed fan raised in defence. To her side the [Spirit Dugong] wove, scored and lacking the expected perfection of their partner.

Third appeared darkly before Gao Fu, grim, storm-cloud grey eyes barely appearing beneath his douli’s brim. “The sun has tainted you, fool. You dare transgress against Bingbai?”

Yes, many things occurred at once, and now Fu felt that each passing second would contain a wealth of fortune if only they might stretch longer. He and Zhu met eyes with another, elongating these moments until finally meeting Fu Gao’s eye.

The [Heartplume of Clouded Schisms] resonated faintly even when stood before one another.

“Observe,” Gao Fu offered. “Only then you might judge if I have transgressed or not. All of this is of benefit.”

All skies grew closer, as if a heavy net had bound the province and whomsoever held its cord now dragged it earthbound. From each Warship, pagoda and spatial tear flooded further innumerable hosts to land across the broken remnants of city and tournament ground alike.

Banners flew.

[Spirit Beasts] roared.

Gao Hushi gestured to all of this. “Some [Constellation Seeds] are not as great as all [Constellation Seeds].”

“Poisonous words. You seek to mask an act against Master’s great working. Disciple Zhu, that you allow this is a similar mark of betrayal,” iced Fu Gao. “I see now that this blindness is my own. To escape the [Plum Axe’s] manifestation shows you no longer bear that stain of Heavenly Plums. As does junior Udvah’s claim to [Primordial Law]. How long have you conspired beneath my knowledge?”

“Conspired? No. We do this for Bingbai’s love of drama,” answered Zhu.

Fu Gao sneered. “You dare address him improperly?”

The [Primordial Law of Paradise] inspired a breath of distraction, for the petals had reached their intended targets. Amidst the fleeing masses, Mingqin’s citizens stalled as these violet petals fell into reach, bypassing a grand swathe of the weapon-clad factions.

Yet not all.

A concerted susurrus wove into something louder as each proffered petal was touched, prompting the same line recited from each soul in contact. “This impure soul offers abstinence for the passage to enlightenment.”

Then these souls vanished.

In truth the madness of oscillating, flaring, winking, travelling and otherwise living lightworks at play across these surroundings were enough to grant headaches to the Heavens themselves, and yet the sudden diaspora was of such immense scale that it left a void amidst it all.

Udvah and Mangalam’s titanic forms croaked out a singular laugh, and likewise vanished from these skies.

Her citizens are safe within his [Inner Realm]. We can do no more for them until all this dust has settled. Our smiling brother’s absence will be felt in these coming hours, no?

Hushi dipped.

“Observe,” cut Zhu, his order pouncing before Fu Gao might interject. “Before you make a decision you might regret, brother.”

Of a match for a trillion rising stars, Bingbai’s [Immortal Judgement Sunshine Array] sprouted with undiminished force, spreading now such a dome of flames that the great tide of arrived factions in its path were ashed and forgotten before its peak was reached.

Fu Shuidi clacked her pincers, emerging upon her blackened douli’s brim. “What you seek to pass as enrichment for the reaping is mere mortal sentiment, foolish halves. This peerless mistress cannot be fooled.”

“Such weakness will be purged upon our joining,” bit Fu Gao. “A time that nears. As will this aged tactic. The collapse of [Mystic Realms], only this could be a vulnerability to our Master’s perfect formation. That you dare play so loosely with it! Bah!”

A feral roar came at [Dances Upon an Ivory Sea’s] side. As did a second.

Only the former ghosts placed their notice upon it when such turbulence existed in all corners.

“Collapse? No. One does not need collapse a realm to have its [Paifang] close. It is a technique of Yongwu Long,” said Gao Fu. “The [True Golden Demon] holds some use.”

Hot anger crossed Fu Gao’s gaze.

Zhu took a final berry into his mouth. “Let the reaping begin.”

“Bah. The Descent of Four Clouds have committed a number to our Master. See that Wu Anfang, Fen and that cowardly monk do not bring shame upon us. This much is an adequate task,” demanded Fu Gao. “We begin east, and-”

Unseen [Profundity] froze upon Gao Fu’s chest from the now-embedded chain residing there. Something painful. Something of the [Fourth Pool].

“What have you done?” growled Fu Shuidi.

Absence flowed like a steady tide across the ruins below. A certain, frantic thing for its speed, if not its progress given how [Dances Upon an Ivory Sea] and [Looming Amaranth Tyrant] warred against it.

This hidden swarm.

Gao Fu grinned. “Mortal sentiment,” he stuttered, feeling an immediacy of death encroach upon his [Core]. “We agree on one point. That your blindness is your own. This collapse was not about those we allowed to escape, but those we allowed within.”

[Dao of Four Horizons]. [Dao of Conquest’s Exhalation].

A lesser [Dao Principle] now. Fit, however, to escape the clutch of their second halves and unfold unseen at the center of a faction’s Warship pagoda. From its look and rushing inhabitants, the splendorous vessel seemed to belong to [Eleventh Under Heaven].

[Divine Sense] revealed hundreds of [Constellation Seeds].

How wasteful it would be if [Once-Beggared Ghost]- the hidden, consuming [Primordial Lord of Gluttony] of recent arrival- directed their cataclysmic swarm this way, no?

Hushi pulled the first of many [Divine Qi]-carrying [Splinters] from their [Shrine of Final Skies], hammering it deep into the Warship’s deck.

A bittersweet hum surfaced in Shuidi as they conjured their [Dao] once more, intent on the next.

🀧

Hushi argued a point that Fu Gao and their serpentine-minded simulacrums might yet have entertained their pageantry for longer.

Shuidi argued that it was better to hold them as a definite threat as opposed to one that could strike without warning.

Gao Fu offered a point on sailors and winds.

An unnecessary distraction as their last [Splinter] was unearthed some strides too close to [Once Beggared Ghost]. Here, the [Sovereign Clouded Existences] was at its full depth, having them appear as nothing more than vacant air.

The swarm lurched toward them, only to be met by an unwieldy da dao at the end of [Looming Amaranth Tyrant’s] arm. An immortal grade knife-blade possessing so dull an edge it seemed more a club.

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

“[Lord of Tribulations], you cannot see these insects,” he stated, tearing at unseen foes with such brutality the air cracked at each swing. “Of all prey, they are among the worthiest to hunt.”

“We cannot,” answered Fu, permitting the wind to carry his words.

“A pity. This shames me as much as you,” he grunted, piercing a thumb from his fang-like teeth. A pinprick of blood rose, and [Looming Amaranth Tyrant] smeared it upon Fu’s brow before he could take a single breath. “Become anointed by the Hunt.”

Some shapely stench buzzed before them, birthed of [Primordial Law]. The blood resonated through Fu’s nostrils, painting a moving, vibrating picture of an untold million wingbeats, antenna, six-fold legs and multi-faceted eyes.

What mass described [Once Beggared Ghost] become clear.

“Vile,” hummed Shuidi. “There should be no gratitude for such a sight.”

[Spirit Locusts], [Spirit Spiders], [Spirit Moths], [Spirit Roaches], [Spirit Beetles], [Spirit Centipedes]- all writhing and collapsing over one another, folding, tearing and surging forth with the half-devoured remnants of all things within their collective maw.

They surged for the [Splinter] without thought. As they would the rest.

A meal that could not be denied.

This act hobbles [Thrice-Clouded Boa’s] pursuits at the very least, twisting two of her five allies to our side is also a great gain. As does it distract the Orthodox Cloudy Serpent Sect, though the act of reaping [Constellation Seeds] is not their final stroke

Fu had hoped this would prompt [Thrice Clouded Boa] to act.

Another did in her stead.

“Feh-heh-heh. Such chaos cannot be allowed to stand,” spoke Chutu Deqiang, the [Cherry River Spear]. “Brother, sister! The mandate of the Heavens is clear!”

Thousands were but a drop in [Once Beggared Ghost’s] oceanic swarm. Once one set their eyes skyward to see the [Plum Axe’s] terrifying construct of roots they would fall just as any hateful or covetous soul had done- had continued to do.

Most below had merely blocked him from their sight, and suffered no lethal, negative [Karma] in doing so.

So it was that when this first break of silence from the Thirteen Calamities came, all things slowed.

All ears opened.

[Cherry River Spear] inverted the grip of his walking-qiang, an ancient thing with a head bound in a cherry-hued scroll. It tapped once upon the impossible shell of his [Spirit Tortoise] and a whorl of petals spread forth.

And two more.

Across a diagonal distance his conspirators made similar gestures. For the [Cherry River Sword’s] act he arced both scabbard and jian in a circle no less clean than a [Winter’s] moon, and within its confines there shone a perfect taijutu. Not in white and black, in Yin and Yang, but in the color of his wafting sashes, [Ink] and serene gaze.

A mirror to the [Cherry River Alchemist] whose battery of golden needles rotated in kind, blurring in formation so that the same synonymous symbol of harmony was shown in flowing array at his grease-stained rear.

Fu ensured his [Sovereign Clouded Existences Art] was at its greatest, given how thunderous his heart had become.

“Before the dawn there was the formless chaos from which all was pulled. Gifted then, and molded into the mockery displayed today. Misguided are the views of ascetics and naturalists- that to flow with nature is, in itself, to grasp at its power. Control is to be imposed. The moon-addled mind suggests that time and tide, circumstance and fate are products of chance. Indeed, they are the immoral taint of self-serving [Primordial Lords]. No longer will these Heavens be bound by the whimsy of undeserving idols,!” Deqiang’s voice carried such a weight of [Profundity] within it that the air cracked and Bingbai’s great [Immortal Judgement Sunshine Array] simmered by a touch. When his words continued, they did threefold, uttered by a third of the Cherry River. “Misery lies in the unregulated, the happenstance, the whim of lesser souls. Those that twist the world to their own image, as careless as a child pulling insect’s wings! By the [Boundless Dao], one thing is all things, and all things are one. To prevent madness, here arrives the law to govern all.”

The sky witnessed a birthing of three stars.

Creation, intoned.

“[Primordial Law of Order: Eternal Fortuneless World],” spoke the [Cherry River Spear].

“[Primordial Law of Plausibility: Cauldron of Mundane Expectations],” added the [Cherry River Alchemist].

“[Primordial Law of Transcedence: An Edge Between Infinity],” sentenced the [Cherry River Sword].

Shuidi uttered a thing no young mistress should say.

Once for each peril.

A single tear split the world asunder, and through this schism did a cherry-hued madness touch all things.

🀧

It felt akin to the waking at dawn’s rise.

Fu’s eyes adjusted to this light as if mortal, overworked and possessing of an aged man's constitution.

Perhaps he did, but this did not alleviate the danger of an unresponsive body.

From skies above, the [Plum Axe’s] laugh was a tremulous force. He alone was… unmoved by this threefold calamity, indeed, the decadent immortal was splayed in the hollow of his terrible plum tree as if reclining on any cashmere lounger within any tea parlour across the Jianghu.

Bottle in hand.

All else had changed.

[Cherry River Spear’s] titanic partner descended from his Heavenward perch, and its impossible shell now ranged beneath the entirety of Mingqin’s realm. The flames of the [Immortal Judgement Sunshine Array] were still its boundary, and yet this seemed a trifle against the madness here.

Fu was shoulder to shoulder with some uncountable others - a visible gap - in a standing army so vast… that he held no words save that their combined breath could doom Divine Clouded Mountain with a tempest so strong it would no longer stand.

The shell was beneath his feet.

An armada hung above, casting shade enough that the sun might never be seen again. Warships, pagodas, flying [Spirit Beasts] and their partners soared, whirred and flapped in suspended space there, and to expand their [Senses], Shuidi found they were not alone.

Across the shell, sixteen formations were readied.

In opposition stood sixteen more, though the distance was vast.

“Xiangqi!” thundered [Plum Axe Zhu]. “Oh, there is no need to show our age, Deqiang! Hye-hye-hye, no need at all!”

Xiangqi?

While all he had encountered of the [Cherry River Spear] had his voice as dry as withered papyrus, what emotion might have existed there was gone. “The template,” he delivered. “See here not the chaos of interruption and chance. Soon the Jianghu will exist in so elegant a pattern. A realm of unobjectionable rules. Of logic. Of order.”

Heads and bodies were a mortal constraint of sight.

High in distant Heavens, all that had now steadied themselves could see plain the six there, and the five directly above their own heads.

Arrayed equidistant were [Cherry RIver Spear], [Cherry River Sword], [Cherry River Alchemist], [Cherry River Pilgrim], [Cherry River Monk] and Grandmother Hau. All were painted in deep, cherry-hues, and were not restrained by the same suspension as all those upon the ground.

Above Fu were the twin serpents, [Cherry River Doctor], [Cherry River Fist], and Shengcang Bulu, the [Cherry River Fool].

Apparently the conspirators dared not constrain [Fourth Under Heaven], for he sat freely in open skies.

Brother, sister, what insanity is this? The convergence of three [Primordial Lords] has created this-

“Xiangqi. A fell move indeed,” warned the Old Master. “The forefather of Go. A game of strategy has enveloped us. Outstanding. To possess such power, the [Cherry River Inheritors] are truly unrivalled beneath these Heavens!”

[Dao of Four Horizons].

Blood filled Fu’s nostrils in violent backlash.

[Dao of Four Horizons].

Their [Inner Qi] panged as if embedded with a barbed qiang, and with [Looming Amaranth Tyrant’s] blessing, the stench of some thousand, thousand burst noses, ears and mouths washed to them across this game board.

Doubtless, all had tried to escape.

Doubtless, all had failed to escape.

Fu grinned an unmoving grin. If this old [Third Pool] friend could not muster the strength, the culmination of his current insight would perhaps serve better.

[Dao of Eternity Spa-]

[Ink] unfurled before him, carrying an omen against attempting such foolishness again.

Those of the impossible [True King Grade] did not act rashly, thus their words came not in tirade or ceaseless barrage, but with care.

“Advisor,” shook [Gleeful Viper]. “How little care you take, Cherry River Loyalists.” A great black character hummed above her head, stating this spoken role, as did a scholar’s regal cap.

Twinned as ever, [Thrice Clouded Boa] held the same. All that ought to know, knew then, that their [Primordial Law] was not diminished, for welts of panic-drawn sweat soaked a thousand, thousand hanfu as her voice made light. “An accusation birthed this transgression,” she whispered, and yet all there heard plainly. “That we of deserving talent, that we that stand highest, twist. To dare speak of this is hypocrisy itself, Chutu Deqiang. I am [Lord] because I claimed it, speak no further on what I do with my dominion.”

Stifled declarations broke, in places, from those upon the ground.

What price or what power do these cultivators possess to even utter words?

The very notion of opening his mouth plagued Fu’s [Core] with pain.

“This eighth-rate seeker…” spluttered one that could only be [Eighth Under Heaven].

“This eleventh-rate,” and “this thirteenth-rate,” and “this twentieth-rate…” repeated for each variation until thirty, naming all not occupied by the ascension ceremonies of their [Heavenly Talent].

“A contest!” roared [Looming Amaranth Tyrant].

A buzz. A susurrus. An outrage.

These ebbed and flowed in pockets about both sides of this dreaded board as useless as paper kettles, for they were drowned as easily with the loudest cry of all.

Some bold fool’s remark that came with lightning’s clarity.

“[Fourth Under Heaven]! Faguan, you indecisive old fool!” cried Yongwu Long. “Don’t you think this unfair? That six stand against five? My, have the millenia rendered you unable to count? Put in your eyes.”

None endured the struggle to exclaim their surprise.

Shengcang Bulu laughed, though for a moment she seemed to stand aside the [Plum Axe] before returning to her spot.

Bottle laden.

“What would you have me do?” answered [Fouth Under Heaven].

The [Cherry River Sword] lifted a finger, unsheathing and resheathing a simple dagger from his sashes.

As with [Gleeful Viper], indeed, as with the [Cherry River Alchemist] and each of these role-playing calamities, those upon the ground held their own spectral manifestations. Those that read not as Advisor, General, Qirin or Dragon, but as Chariot, Ballista or Soldier.

This knife severed three of the latter.

Slashed.

Simply.

The character and symbol of Soldier, that which bore some resemblance to a feathered cavalry helmet, faded.

As did the thousands upon thousands, upon thousands, that occupied that role below.