Chapter 148
Shackles of Eternity Undone
Shen Tao dreamt of the forgotten paradise--the floating island humming above the Flower Pavilion, the vast-stretching colors of the Blood Garden, the Four Peaks piercing the heavens, the Blood Pagoda forever the source of the Red River... his home for over twenty years, a place that he was raised in... what was its current state? Ashes, he presumed, or destitute at the very least.
Before his heart could bleed much further, his eyes snapped open as he staggered to his feet quickly, fearful; looking around, he saw thin and thick trees intertwine to make a canopy above, knee-tall grass swaying in the gentle wind.
It was silent, eerily so, yet peaceful at the same time. The rays of sun just barely fluttered past the few openings and carved their way to the surface, giving him a scant few motes of light to work with. Pushing Qi into his eyes, he examined his surroundings further--he was alone.
Trying to remember what happened... appeared futile. Any time he tried to recall, he'd experience a splitting headache and not much else--the last thing he remembered was Mei ushering them toward the center of the Hidden Realm, the forest. It seemed as though they'd gotten here, though as to how... he was lost.
Recognizing not much would change with him standing in place, he picked a direction and started walking. For all he knew, he'd already died, and this place was his passage to Nirvana. In that case, the direction would not matter; just as the dead would board the oar and be left at the mercy of its destination, he would not be in control of where he'd end up here, either. Any direction he chose, ultimately, would lead him to the same end.
He walked past the tall and short trees, and he walked past the shrubberies and patches of flowers, and he walked past the scant few patches of gravel and dirt, and onward through the thickening darkness.
It felt as though he'd walked for days, yet the scenery never changed: tall trees tangling and untangling like lovers, beams of light just barely scattering through the gaps between the branches, the thick, hardened soil housing sturdy and overgrown greenery... it was all the same, like a looping maze inked upon the unchanging canvas. And he was merely a dot drawn along the predetermined path.
Yet, he could not stop.
Shorn of all else, he had his instincts--and they were telling him that he could not stop. That, if he stopped, he would never start up again, and that he'd spend the remainder of his life--or possibly eternity itself--in this hellish purgatory. Thus, he walked. He walked until his muscles began to hurt, until he got shin splints, until his feet were covered with blisters, until his calves were cramping, until his toes were deformed and bleeding, and the soles of his boots were worn until they were wafer-thin.
It was hell... but then he saw light.
"SHEN TAO!!" He snapped his eyes open and gasped for breath, sitting up; there was a pair of shaking hands helping him, though the world remained a blur for a moment before shapes came together.
Mei's familiar face was the first one to come into focus, and she seemed tired and teary-eyed; the skin under her eyes was dark and loose, her lips were chafed and cracked, and blood and dirt made up the painting on the canvas that was her face.
"You're finally awake...!" she exclaimed, dragging him into a tight embrace. Warmth surged through him, though only for a moment before pain broke out.
"Ugh!" he yelped out, feeling every bone in his body creak.
"Ah, sorry!" she loosened, though that brought about another bout of pain, too. Taking a quick look internally, he noted that all but two of his ribs were broken, his left collarbone was shattered, his left leg was cracked in six spots, one of his lungs had collapsed, and all the fingers of his left hand were leaning rather unnaturally. It was beyond a miracle that he was alive, though as to how... he didn't know.
"W-what... happened?" he asked, finally sitting up.
They were by the lake, the distantly familiar one; the waters were still and calm, the golden hue washing over their surface. There were no dark clouds as he recalled, but a perfectly azure skyline.
"I... I'm not sure, either," Mei said. "When I opened my eyes... I was here. I--I thought you... I thought..." she wept, openly and freely, but Shen Tao knew... it was not merely for him. His eyes veered to the side and saw it--a body covered with a thin, silken blanket, and a young girl by its side, a shadow of who she was.
"... S-Song...?" He mumbled but got no reply. However, it was as direct of an answer as he could have gotten.
The youthful face of a blue-eyed boy flashed in his mind: cheery, curious, and perfectly childish. Death... was normal. It was akin to breathing for cultivators. Rather, perhaps it was even closer than life itself. Shen Tao could not recall a moment in his life when he was not aware of its troves. How many a soul he knew had been guided by the ferryman down the river of death? His very first mission, only his Shadow Guard and he returned alive. Forty-six, in total, perished.
His second mission? Thirty-two.
Eleven.
Fifteen.
One hundred and eighty-four.
They'd already lost someone, too. And yet, the boy's face would not go. It was seared like a burnt-in mark upon skin.
"Petulant children," Shen Tao shook, his eyes veering back over to the lake where he saw the fisherman. Once more, he found his body and soul frozen under the abominable cold. "You should have left. Yet, you return in the wake of the forsaken hour. Now, oh human blood, now you cannot go; beyond the thorns of these wilds, there is darkness. Cruel and cold."
"--can you not talk NORMALLY JUST ONCE?!!" Mei suddenly screamed, startling Shen Tao. She stood up, her robe whipping behind her as she faced toward the fisherman, her fingers clenched into fists. She was shaking, partly with fear no doubt, yet her eyes brimmed with resolute determination. "YOU COULD HAVE SAVED HIM!! WHY... WHY didn't you...?"
"... arrest a soul from dead? Ah, child," the fisherman cackled strangely. "There are seldom few who could, but none who would. Death, human child, is an ode that cannot be interrupted; it was merely that child's time. To you undue, perhaps, but the world, at a perfect time. You should have left when I warned--"
"--we couldn't," she interrupted, her voice suddenly weak and tired. "We couldn't just... leave! You, you know that! What should we have done? Stayed there and let ourselves be consumed? Just... if you're going to kill us, then do it already! Stop tiring us out with riddles and puzzles!"
"How long, thus, has it been?" The fisherman sighed, his voice suddenly... oddly human. "That the children of man had forgotten to carve the bodice of space? Ye futile little things, thy struggle eternal... and shallow. Perhaps... is it fate? No. Fate is unwise and unraveling, like a knot pulled apart violently. They are calling--do you hear them?"
"Hear what?"
"... blind, mute, and deaf," the fisherman's voice dropped as he stood up suddenly and began walking over. "Pathetic. Cowardly. Insulting."
"W-what...?" Mei fell back down, and Shen Tao found it harder and harder to breathe. Invisible pressure descended like an ocean's wave, and they were not even targets.
"You have thieved the keys to all the chains and locks of the world," the fisherman continued. "You have taken the crown upon yourself... but this is all that has come of it? Petulant children whimpering and whining and denying death? Ah, my shame--my shame stirs once more, children," the figure stopped right in front of them.
Terror.
That was the only way to describe it. No... no, there was a better way, Shen Tao realized--not terror, not fear... rather, worship. He felt it in his heart and soul, a desire, an innate need to bow and kneel toward the silhouette. The fisherman towered over ten feet, and as the wind blew back, his face was revealed.
He was... divine. Beautiful. Ethereal. So bewitching that it could not be put into words. White hair unfurled behind as the moon-silver eyes opened fully from slits. The design of cosmos seemed to be etched within them, concepts so foreign that the mere glimpse was enough to confuse and bewilder.
It was no human, certainly; it could not be--no human could ever be that perfect. So fully shorn of flaws, more so than the most carefully made sculpture of the finest marble. And yet, within such beauty, there was despair, there was anger, rage, and unbridled loathing that could not be hidden. The way the fisherman looked at them... was akin to how humans stared at the unknowing beasts.
"Yet, you dare come to my tomb and pass demands? You have failed this realm--haah, it seems, even after eons, I... cannot forget. Mere children have angered me. Is this a design of Yours?" He looked up toward the distant skies, away from them, as the pressure lessened. "That even after everything they have taken... we must offer more? Why? Why have You chosen them? We were Yours..." Silence fell for a long while before the fisherman suddenly sighed and looked back down at them, anger within his gaze gone.
"'till the Primordial Shackles come undone," he spoke. "You cannot leave. Are you angry, children of man? Do you feel helpless? Are you enraged at your own pathetic inability? Desperate to become stronger? If you are, you may yet come out of these woods alive. If not... these fields here will become your tomb as they are mine. For the next year, I shall teach you as I have taught my children; if you cannot survive... then it simply was not meant to be. If you can... you may yet stand the chance at surviving the End of Time."