Lyfe watched through the smoky screen as the Violet Earth Immortal left this section of the universe.
“He’ll likely tell everyone about me,” Lyfe mumbled, and with a wave of his hand, he dispersed the screen. Suddenly, he coughed out the smoke from his lungs as the gigantic peach tree, Peachy, shuddered behind him.
“Oh, I know. You hate it when he comes. I don’t like it, either.”
Lyfe turned to a space of grass that wilted like a sudden burst of winter sapped its life. Blackening particles seeped from the grass as a pitch-black portal appeared, sending out the cold feeling of death.
“Thanks for waiting. Having the world know the whereabouts of one primordial is enough to send waves. If two appeared together? There’d be an upheaval.” Lyfe spoke towards the portal.
From the depths of the dark portal, a cane escaped, followed by a white-gloved gentleman that stepped through with a smile that could scare children and immortals alike. The smile softened as the gentleman nodded towards Lyfe like the two old men were long-time friends of countless years.
Before the smiling gentleman could speak, Lyfe offered him a peach.
“Take it, and leave.”
“It won’t be that easy to get rid of me. A primordial like me has no reason to take a fabled Peach of Immortality.” The smiling gentleman maintained his smile and simply declined.
Sigh.
“It was worth a try.” Lyfe nodded and stared at the smiling gentleman who refused to move. With a flat smile, Lyfe uttered the words he thought he would never say.
“I’d like to use my favour.”
The smile on the gentleman’s face disappeared for a moment.
“Is the boy really worth it?” The gentleman asked, but Lyfe simply shrugged and pointed to the peach sapling nearby.
“He grew it, no tricks, no deception. Not even using a shred of Qi.”
The smile on the gentleman’s face returned as he nodded. And accepted Lyfe’s transaction of favours.
“Then the debt is officially repaid…” The smiling gentleman knocked his cane twice on the ground, and a blackened, charred book appeared out of nowhere. The book magically flipped pages to a spot that held two circles. One circle held the image of a black scythe, and the other was empty, but not for long.
Lyfe held his finger back as a leaf gliding in the breeze sliced across his fingertip. It released a single, glistening blood droplet alternating between black, red, and white. The blood droplet flew to the empty circle, splattering across it and slowly shifting to take the form of a simple peach tree.
Clap!
As soon as the book closed, it vanished, and the smile on the gentleman’s face did the same.
“You have no more business here, correct?” Lyfe asked, and the gentleman nodded.
“The price in blood has been paid for my inaction here. I only wanted to remind you of something.” The space around the gentleman warped as something distinctly dark and abyssal seeped into Lyfe’s domain. With anger colouring his tone, the gentleman shed all pretenses associated with his job of keeping vows and contracts.
“If anything happens to my origin planet again, I will seek you out, and you won’t be leaving with a simple wound like your battle against The Heavens. There won’t be anywhere you can hide or escape to. Not even the Void Plains will conceal you from me.”
Lyfe waved his wooden pipe as grass sprouts grew from the shells of the wilted, older grass. The dark portal couldn't affect these newer sprouts as they softly swayed in the peaceful breeze.
“I know, I know. Instead of telling me that, why don’t you go and bug the real perpetrator of all this?”
The gentleman nodded his head and reassured his old friend and enemy. He stranded words behind as he stepped back through the portal he arrived in and left without a trace.
“Don’t worry, I always pay my debts.”
*****
Grrr.
I awakened to the sounds of a hungry bramble dog attempting to gnaw away at the armour covering my body. I was protected, of course, as the armour around me shifted to conform to my rising movements.
“That was one hell of a retaliation blow.”
My hand phased through the violet earth armour that shielded me, and I rubbed a tender spot on my chest that the violet mist still hadn’t fully healed.
“Your assumption that the root was defenceless ended with it sending you flying to the bottom of the floating mountain and knocking you unconscious. Then you fell and crashed into the ground. Yeah, you slipped up on that one.” Gou Jing’s endearing voice entered my ears.
“Well, at least someone’s feeling better,” I said aloud, grabbing the Mountain Sealing Sword from nearby. The moment my hand contacted the sword, I felt an inexplicable calmness spread across my mind.
“I am, and it only took ages because someone decided to ruin all my efforts to recover. But now, we can finally work on the real task at hand.”
My brows came together in confusion as I slashed at the growling bramble dog, killing it in one blow.
In a way, it was shocking to see how much I had grown. Just a few, well, I wasn’t sure how long it was, but there was a time when I had to run from a single bramble dog. I was weaker back then, but now I could easily handle multiple bramble dogs.
Wait, was she talking about me? I ruined her...? Oh, the violet pool. Yeah, I did mess up on that one...
“We have to seal The Matron Seed once more.”
My brows crowded further together as I questioned Gou Jing.
“Seal? Not kill? And that seed is The Matron?”
“Yes, seal. The Matron Seed’s shell would repel most attacks, even with a Gateway Foundation Cultivator unleashing their power. But thanks to me, you have the tools to seal it. As for the seed, it's only an old spiritual weapon of a long-past battle. If the real leader of the Bloodthorne Sects was here, we wouldn’t stand a chance of even getting near her.”
“Lovely,” I huffed a bit.
“Wait, does that mean I’ve been attacking the root for nothing this entire time? And there’s more Bloodthorne Sects?”
“Not for nothing, but it also didn’t do much to solve the source of the problem. And yes, this is just a lowly branch of the sects; they barely started a few months ago.”
“Great,” I sighed. There were more of sacrificial crazies trying to empower their leader elsewhere on this planet.
“We’ll have to start the sealing process from here; my twisted brothers likely arrived at the platform already to protect and recover The Matron Seed’s connection to the outside world.”
“Alright, tell me what to—Wait, they’re your brothers? I mean, you do have the same first name. How did I not notice that before? Its—”
“We have more important things to do than discuss the past. Just follow along with what I tell you to do.”
I hesitated, but only for a second or two. Gou Jing may be pushy, but at least she seemed like she had a confident plan, and she was knowledgeable enough to help me. Most importantly, she was mostly dead, with a hint of a grudge against her own brothers, which meant her motives aligned with mine. There weren’t any secondary objectives for her unless some ulterior motive was involved.
Ultimately, I trusted her for the help she had already shown me.
“Alright, Lil’ Ms. Gou, tell me what to do!”
Gou Jing’s voice retched a little.
“Never call me that again. Ever, or else I’ll haunt you from the afterlife when I die.”
“You got it, skeleton lady!” I shouted with enthusiasm, and Gou Jing all but ignored me. She started narrating the steps I had to do for a so-called Violet Earth Purification Technique.
“The Mountain Sealing Sword controls the mountain formation, land, and violet mist around us. Originally, it was sealed inside The Matron Seed, but my brothers and I unintentionally unsealed it by activating the cobblestone formations. Now you’ve activated it with my help and your own brutish will. Stab the sword into the ground.”
I held onto my sarcastic reply and did as Gou Jing requested, feeling connected to the ground around me as the Mountain Sealing Sword entered the earth.
“We’ll have to start converting the area The Matron Seed has been making her domain; that’ll weaken its hold on the area and allow us to seal it easier.”
“How was The Matron Seed converting the area?”
“Remember the little red particles that gobbled up violet mist? Those particles erode the earth and spread The Matron’s influence. The higher-ranking bramble beasts can convert areas by themselves, which The Matron Seed usually produces at its peak strength.”
I looked down at the reddened, mars-like earth below me.
“I think I’m starting to understand. So, I need to force out The Matron Seed’s influence on the area?”
“Exactly, and you have the tools to do that now that the Mountain Sealing Sword has activated. Using your vibrations will help with that.”
“Oh, like a dirt compacter?”
“I don’t know what that is, but if it helps you imagine what I mean, yes.”
I closed my eyes and laid both hands on the Mountain Sealing Sword hilt. A deep breath later, I felt the Earthen Heart Vibration flow from my body and into the sword. From there, the vibrations travelled into the ground. They expanded outwards, lightly tremoring below my feet as the vibrations shook deep into the ground and knocked against a faint resistance hidden within the soil.
I smashed the resistance to pieces.
“That’s it! Keep going!” Gou Jing’s excited voice sounded in my mind.
The lack of resistance meant the vibrations were free to travel, and like a deep breath, the earth took them in and used them to resonate with the ambient violet mist.
“Go!” Thinking ahead, I led the violet mist toward the ground and watched with amazement as a splendour passed before my eyes.
A chameleon must’ve died in the soil long ago because the ground firmed and travelled to other soil sections in clay texture and flourishing violet colours. I breathed in and felt a connection form between me and the earth as the vibrations rocketing into the soil bounced back, adding to the power and feeding back into me like an elastic band.
In my connected daze, I barely noticed Gou Jing’s amazed voice.
“Yes! Yes. Just like that. You’re a natural-born violet earth warrior, after all.”
This time, I couldn’t let the opportunity pass.
“Aww, thanks, Ms. Gou. You know, you’re not so bad—”
Abruptly, the sword I thought was firmly lodged in my hand suddenly shifted down, headed straight for a place sacred to all men. A place that either led to the greatest pleasure in the world or sent men into the painful depths of the abyss.
I was the latter.
Howl!
