Fan Yiyao woke up with a start, his breathing laboured and heavy and his clothes drenched in sweat. He tried to steady his shivering hands, straining to do even this much. His attempts at slowing his breathing were proving difficult. It was the first time he had had a nightmare since he had been in this world. And he knew what was in that nightmare. He was beginning to understand the workings behind this power of his.
Taking a deep breath, he laid down again and recalled what had happened the previous morning.
One of the strange things he didn't count yesterday, perhaps the strangest, most peculiar of them all, was the visions after having tuned in. He watched on as a giant turtle, a size so magnificent in magnitude that his tiny brain had trouble comprehending, moved with an elegance that made it seem effortless and betrayed its size. He had never felt this small. He felt like curling into a ball, his head to his knees, covered by his arms. But he froze. His mind went blank, and he stood there frozen. The turtle hadn't noticed him; if it did, it showed no such indication. He watched as the turtle swam without displacing any water, even with its sheer size. Could a turtle swim through the air, through the skies? Because this one was doing so. And it was mesmerising. The contrast between his own insignificance and the turtle had a desire in him kindling. A desire to move like the turtle did, be free like a floating cloud, not at the mercy of the winds or any other force, to become freedom itself.
The vision shifted to a melancholic one. Fan Yiyao was now underground, standing between the gigantic bones resembling a turtle. This was a graveyard, a graveyard of monumental scales. He could feel a kind of sadness he had not felt before. And even more fear. Because what could take a turtle that immense out like that and leave nothing but bones.
All of a sudden, as quickly as he had found himself in that other place, he found himself back at the pond's shore. Looking at the sun, it was at the same place as before he had left. He felt like he hadn't really gone anywhere, at least not in the physical sense. Whatever he saw was mayhaps something that happened in his mind and the passing of time, well there was none; time was flowing as usual as far as he could understand. But he could be sure more time had passed there even if he couldn't see any such effect here. It was like watching a movie, not from outside the screen, but as a spectator immersed in the screen.
He needed time to process everything, and sweeping would help him calm down. Nothing like doing a mundane chore and losing yourself in thinking while at it.
The one big question from many others was what it took to leave that turtle in the state he saw. Turning back to glimpse the pond, he again noted its size. The pond was huge. He chalked the reason to cultivators and their shenanigans before, and while a valid reason, maybe there was a different explanation for this one.
He walked back to the pond and observed it as if his gaze could pierce through the surface to reveal what was at the bottom of the water. After a few seconds of uneventful, unfruitful staring, he went back to continue sweeping away.
This was where the strange ended. If there was more, then Fan Yiyao failed to recall, and any more 'strange' escaping him at the moment was not his concern. He had no desire to get up from the cot to begin a chase in the night. He had received more than enough shocks for the day.
Only one thing was occurring to him concerning the cause of death of that turtle. The Era of Carnage.
It was said, long ago, before the current Era of Desolation, when the world was booming, cultivators were aplenty, spiritual qi was rich, and everything was growing; news of the spread of a plague made its way to the ears of cultivators from a small sect. The cultivators scoffed it off. Such epidemics ensued on the regular. They kept watch of the mortals under them, taking care of beasts and other troubles the mortals faced but only if they deemed it worthy. After all, they couldn't go at the mortals' every beck and call now, could they? And mortals conceived posthaste. To the cultivators, the numbers of lives and deaths pertaining to mortals were only statistics. As long as the overall number remains healthy, it wasn't a significant cause for concern.
Plus, the plague was developing at a slow pace, and not many mortals were affected, which only made them feel their judgement and decision were right.
Oh, how naive they had been. If only. But regret was no medicine and would not save anyone.
What had been a 'slow-to-spread and develop' plague turned into a monstrous evil overnight. They had been lax, but they hadn't done anything different to be thought of as lax. They had only behaved as they always did. But it was, without doubt, a grave error on the cultivators' part, something cultivators had trouble acknowledging. They had been negligent in their handling of the plague, having not taken it seriously before, which was again a behaviour no different than usual. But this time, the plague was not the same. And it came, it came after them.
For some reason, the plague was still slow on the mortals or even entirely ineffective on some. Why would a malady affect cultivators more than mortals? As baffling a notion as it might be, it was the truth. And the more qi they used, the swifter the affliction unfurled. Most cultivators had the habit of having their qi covering and layering their entire bodies. The fine control was developed through countless battles and honed through practice, becoming instinct itself. Now they had to consciously work to abandon what was gained through sweat and blood. It was on this day they were reminded how mortal they were.
It felt like the plague was spreading through spiritual energy. That was a revelation that gave them trouble breathing.
On top of that, none of their existing pills worked. Some even exacerbated the flaring. Early symptoms were weakness and lethargy in the body, something cultivators had forgotten about altogether. What followed was the atrophying of the body at alarming rates. All the while, they were afflicted with excruciating agony and pain. But the pain was not what hurt the most. Cultivators could live through pain; however, watching themselves weakening, their powers waning, and their hard-earned bodies withering was a far more aching blow. Most higher-ranked cultivators had left behind nothing but husks and legacies of their glorious past. Even their bones had not been spared. Those extreme few that did survive were nothing but bones encased in skin. Their skin clung to bones harder than cultivators clung to face and power, which was saying something. Essentially, they were nought but a bag of bones. Beholding their lives change course from heaven-bound to earth-bound was pure torment. What travails had they not faced? And yet, here they were, helpless and hopeless.
The plague was the beginning of a domino falling. Cultivators were already a selfish bunch, caring for little else other than their continued survival. With deaths from the plague came fear. A fear spreading faster than the plague itself. Desperation started to seep in. A confrontation with their very own, very frail mortality made the cultivators far more unstable. And one unstable person with power was a danger to all others. But what about uncountable unstable persons with power? That was the beginning of a carnage seen only when more savage times were the way of the world.
Thus began the decline. After many more deaths and much blood, with the smell of death pervading the air, a peace was brokered by the prevailing parties. It was a silence the world had not seen. A devastation more commonplace than the common populace, abandoned dolls children played with lying on the roads, howling echos made by the sound of winds passing through empty homes the only sound for miles, and the sight of bones every few steps.
The world would take time to recuperate from destruction of such scale. Every step people took was laden heavily with exhaustion and sadness. Tears had dried out, and sobs and wails had left throats torn. It was a slow walk to recovery.
Conspiracists were abound with their conspiracies. Two explanations for the plague had the most attention. One, the plague was like any other, a force of nature. Two, it was created by some evil sect. No one knew the truth; if they did, they did not speak of it.
But Fan Yiyao knew. Being a prince had its perks. He had read it in the Royal Repository, and were it to be revealed, he would be hunted down by every cultivator out there. It was of that big a scandalous nature. It had made the prince gasp the first time he read it.
The plague had been birthed by a mortal. A 'pathetic and miserable' mortal. How was that possible? The record in the Royal Repository had painted the mortal in a demonized light. But after Fan Yiyao merged with the memories, he could catch there was more to it. But there were no more records after that. If there were, they were hidden even more discreetly.
What was noted was the place the plague first made its appearance. And some other relevant details.
How the plague was solved, he didn't know. The solution was also kept undisclosed.
The fact that the plague was spread by a mortal was also only attained through divination. Many would suppose seeing the power difference between a cultivator and a mortal that divining more would have been not difficult at all. But fate worked in mysterious ways. And someone who had taken the lives of cultivators uncountable, that someone being a mortal, spoke for a lot. Many had faced tremendous backlashes and lost their lives trying to divine more. Those who stopped after knowing it was a mortal stopped divining more. Not because they wanted to but because they had already faced backlash for their actions and survived by the skin of their teeth. They were prudent and knew when to stop. Even high-rank cultivators were wary of fate.
But the fact that it was a mortal was something that many cultivators in the know were not able to accept. Some had their qi deviating outright, either becoming abominations that had to be put down or bursting on the spot.
To accept being driven to such disastrous states by a mortal was one thing, but to announce the same was something else wholly. This information couldn't be let out and thus sealed it was. The plague was simply stated as a never before seen spirit plague, which was true for the most part. Again, it was not that spirit plagues were uncommon; it was that this was not the same.
What was thought to be a simple mortal plague was a reminder to everyone to this date, and yet, in cultivation and their long lives, cultivators often tend to forget; the lessons of the past and their mournful state; returning to their previous arrogant ways, not respecting yore only to suffer again.
