Chapter Twenty-Nine - Kai Wen's Very Not Good Afternoon

His name was Kai Wen, and he had never felt the way he felt now.

No, that wasn't quite true. Once. He had felt this way once.

It was during the start of his tenure as a member of the Sect of the Jade Throne. Not to be confused with the emperor's own sect, or the Jade Throne Sect, or the Guardians of the Jade Throne Sect. The Sect of the Jade Throne worshipped the emperor. They were his second greatest fans--a title that rankled and irritated the sect elders.

As a newly inducted Outer Disciple of the sect, he'd made the mistake of asking why they were only the second greatest admirers of the emperor and not the first.

The question had been overheard. Not by an Inner Disciple. No, then he'd just have earned himself a few pointers. The question was overheard by one of the sect's elders.

The Elders of the Sect of the Jade Throne were notoriously busy. They were not the sorts to lock themselves away for closed-door cultivation for a decade or more, but were rather more active with their self-improvement and education. They were also notorious busy-bodies and gossips, which he later learned was why they might only be the second greatest in regards to their closeness to the Jade Throne itself.

The elder had seen a small runt of a man. Kai Wen had always been thin, but in those days before he'd truly begun his journey of cultivation, he'd been sickly thin and underfed. Worse, he'd grown into a gangly sort of teen.

The elder was unimpressed by the sight of him, and more unimpressed with his words. He had taken the time to teach Kai Wen the error of his ways. It had been an education like none other.

Kai Wen had spent six months in the sect's infirmary, given a small cot in the back and occasionally tended to by apprentice healers while he willed himself to rebuild his core and spark his cultivation once more.

He'd succeeded, and two decades later, as a rising inner disciple, he'd killed that very same elder.

Right now, however, he was brought back to that moment, the one where the elder was looking down upon him as though he were someone who had yet to even grasp the capacity to understand.

Ahead of him, standing casually as though unbothered by the chaos all around, was Harold.

Kai Wen had read the Jade Throne's proclamations about this particular undead. It was a flowery warning. This singular being, skeletal in appearance, was a font of power, ancient magics, cursed artefacts, and heretical teachings.

Reading between the lines, Kai Wen understood that even the Jade Sect was worried about this creature. He'd been sent to replace the last cultivator to play chamberlain for the Mantis Queen, and to observe the goddess's attempts to ferret out the undead and destroy him once and for all.

When Kai Wen had been given the assignment, he'd been both excited and wary. The Mantis Queen was a true Goddess, and yet she had a mortal form. She'd killed sixty-two of the last seventy chamberlains sent her way--the others having fled or having died by the scythes of her offspring... one died of indigestion.

He was stronger than all of those, however. He trusted in his skills, and in his ability to smile and play nice, to placate and soften and undermine.

That was how he'd grown to be the man he was today.

When he'd seen the Mantis Queen, he'd been impressed by her power, and disgusted by how poorly she used it. So much potential left to waste.

So much potential he could use in a much grander way... for the glory of the Jade Throne, of course.

Alas, the Mantis Queen had her own base sort of cunning, and the moment never came.

Today, he regretted not making the attempt, because before him was Harold, and Harold was schooling the Mantis Queen the same way that he'd once been taught by that sect elder all those years ago.

"Let's summon up a different perspective on godhood, shall we?" Harold asked.

The skeleton's face was set in the smile all beings carried into death, and yet Kai Wen had the impression that there was a depth of maliciousness behind those missing eyes that even the emperor--blessed be his throne--would baulk at.

A rift tore itself open in the centre of the room and a being of light covered in fractal wings folded itself out of the rift. A divine being, there was no mistaking it. The sort of monster that one would have to defeat while defying the heavens themselves.

It unfolded its many wings and its manyfold eyes took in the room. All the plants that lich had summoned previously flowered and grew.

Kai Wen's cultivator companions screamed as the tiny thorns holding onto them and making this battle far more difficult already grew to be as long as the curved swords of the Imperial Guard.

Kai Wen scanned the room. Those who had come with the heretical undead were rallying at the far end of the room. Two mantises, spawn of the Queen, no doubt, were locked in a battle with some of the Queen's other spawn. They were coming out ahead, but that was likely due to the plants grasping at the other mantises and the assistance of small implings and infernal beings.

A cultivator in the garb of that bumpkin sect, the Ashen Forest, was spewing poisonous gas at the cadre of cultivators who made this lesser throne their home. She was quick, and he'd admit that she had the talent and skill to be a member of the inner sect of a few of the greater sects, though only just.

Again, she was assisted by the heretic, his plants whipping out to pull good and proper cultivators back and holding them in place for her to apply her vile venoms.

The lich's maid was all over. Darting to one fight to the other, but always moving with the careful grace of a royal courtesan. Somehow, the maid left the area behind them cleaner than any battlefield ought to be.

And then there was himself and the Mantis Queen. This entire time Kai Wen had been throwing simple but powerful attacks towards the lich. None made it, but they did a good job of keeping the area clear of his grasping roots and evil plants.

The Mantis Queen was throwing powerful attacks forwards, slicing the air, firing blasts of chi that would shatter the core of great elders, and forcing her will upon reality.

Enough that were she to let loose in the hall of the Jade Throne, she might even succeed in ruffling some of the great banners and injuring some of the lesser guards of the emperor. A truly astounding amount of power.

And it was all for naught.

The angelic being opened a ring of mouths and screamed.

Kai Wen folded his chi into a shield and pulled himself in close to the Mantis Queen's side, closer than he'd ever want to be. But his instinct proved correct when the attack scoured the floor and the stone clean but failed to penetrate the Mantis Queen's hastily erected shield.

The celestial's outcry dwindled into a haunting echo, the battlefield held its breath in its absence.

Kai Wen noticed that some of the nearest cultivators were pulped. Others were drooling on the ground, unable to process the divine sight unshielded.

Harold tugged his coat. He hadn't moved a step from the start of the fight, and it didn't seem as if the magics he'd wrought had cost him anything. "I think it's time to call our lesson to an end... ho hohoh! Get it? Because conjuration is a call! It's actually a very complex bit of magic, you know? Rather efficient if you know what you're doing, but the basic principle involves burrowing a hole into another plane, then making a call. After that, you must merely open the way, which is the most magic-intensive part of the process, though surprisingly the least complex!"

Kai Wen grit his teeth. The elder he'd once been beaten by had carefully explained his techniques as well, not that he could appreciate it then, and he didn't appreciate it any more now.

"My Queen, we must destroy this being!" he hissed.

"Yes," the Mantis Queen said. Her mandibles moved, then she turned to eye him. "I need more power," she said.

"From one of your artefacts?" he asked.

She had several that would empower a cultivator to great heights.

She continued to look at him, and there was a hunger in her eyes. He remembered how most of the other chamberlains had died.

"F-from one of your artefacts... right, my Queen?" he asked.

It was the last thing he ever asked. As his head was chewed upon, he reflected that maybe he had never been all that good about learning lessons.

***