"I wish you never understood it."
To understand his, was to suffer their own.
"Mm. I will need to work on it." She calmly looked past him at the crowd of thousands looking up at the sky, this included the two Law Experts.
Sect Leader Li and the Bow Master of Cloud Faring Sect.
"Ah, were we interrupting?" Sect Leader Li asked as he stood with interested eyes, "So? What have you come here for? We have no grudges against you. The gate is even closed to show our will to leave the world alone."
"Still want to spar?" Shou Xin smiled down at Feng Wuqing who shook her head.
"Don't need it anymore." She then looked over at Sect Leader Li, "You live today because I'm feeling happy."
"You-!"
Fwoosh.
Sect Leader Li stopped the Bow Master with a wave of his sleeve.
It was a terrible insult to the face of the Cloud Faring Sect, but it was also not one he could not bear, after all, he knew of the undercurrents going on in the world right now, and he did not want to get involved as he was almost certain their sect would not survive if they stepped into this waters.
Instead, he bore the insult whilst keeping the anger restrained within.
"I won't invite you in for tea. You may leave." He waved his sleeve and turned his back, showing that he trusted they would not break their words.
Feng Wuqing harrumphed and landed back onto the ground with Shou Xin, the two beginning to leave.
However.
Shou Xin took out a few little treasures from his spacial ring and left it with the youth Li Yi, just some blood stones as recompense for scaring him like that.
Like this, he cut off any karma with that boy, or the sect.
—
Intertwined with nature, receiving the blessing of the dao and covetting the sky, the enormous building of pillars and high roof tops signified grace and strength within all of Fang State.
Clouds were sparse and the day a shining example of a perfect morning to awaken to, birds chirping and the smells of the town on the breeze tickling the nose.
This place was where many powerhouses gathered.
Center of the State of Fang, the headquarters of the Feng Clan.
"General." Beauty incarnate.
"Hallmaster." Old age incarnate.
"Great, Hallmaster." That dazzling beauty said without hesitation, correcting him.
"Heh." Old age chuckled at the child in his eyes trying to act up.
Though cultivators could stop the aging process the moment they became cultivators, some chose to wait for a better age, after all, not everyone wants to be in a six year olds body for their whole lives which can become hundreds or thousands of years.
Yet, he was old, whilst she was a youth in looks, perhaps early twenties whilst he was at least a hundred years old judging by the beard.
"I can't believe you." She grimaced as she sat down, a cup of tea appearing before her, "How far back did you plan, General?"
"Ho… enough acting, little Sisi." The old man took a breath, assuaging his tea to a cooler temperature, "I don't know what you speak."
"Hmph." That beauty looked at him scornfully, "Since when have I told you to stop calling me that uncle!"
"Ridiculous." His old eyes were like a foxes, "I am not that much older than you."
"If I am little, then you are uncle-, wait." She scowled, "Stop trying to change the subject. I am here on official business. You are being implicated in a plot to try and gobble up a bunch of artifact mines and destroying a clan."
"It's true." He took a sip of tea.
Her eyes widened, and she sighed.
"...perfect," She did not seem shocked but rather, relaxed knowing it, "Why be so roundabout, though? If you wanted the achievement, it would as simple as waving your hand? Are you trying to catapult those two into the sun?"
His old gaze moved slowly off from his tea.
"They'll burn as they are, you know?" She looked positively miffed about the idea of those two being thrown up at the sun. It was murder with extra steps.
"The August Demon Realm and the Hidden Dragon Court." These two names made her freeze, knowing well of the meaning behind them, "Soon, the turbulent times will emerge, and no one will be able to escape. Not the Exiled Court, nor the Outer, nor the Inner, even the Hidden Dragon will be forced to rear it's head and fight."
"Are you certain?" She seemed nervous now, such talk was above them by heavens of difference.
"Have you not seen the great increase in gates opening to the various realms? It is clear," The old man put down that cooled and finished cup of tea his aged eyes landing on her, "The Great Path is stretching it's roots, the Endless Dao trembles and the universe converges. Worlds will rise and fall."
She felt stunned, but quickly regained her footing, a serious look on her face.
"Then, the reason you seek to throw them at the sun is because to keep them grounded is to have the world vanish beneath their feet," Her tone was solemn, "The other courts will abandon us."
He shrugged.
"That is a problem for the youth to solve. I am old and weary and most of all, retired." The general-, nay, the old man let off a hearty laugh that seemed to reverberate everywhere yet was untraceable.
A true expert.
She grimaced.
—
"I sense a demonic presence." Shou Xin glanced off into the distance.
Feng Wuqing glanced over as well, her nose twitching slightly.
"Blood."
"Let's go."
Flying throug the tree's like ghosts in the eaves, unseen and hardly felt, the two moved in silence among the winds.
Clouds gathered around the tall mountain's peak.
"A breakthrough?" Her violet pupils shrank, "Someone is being attacked by Spirit Beasts!"
Silver hair like drops of moonlight appeared like a specter running through the forest to the sky above, a silent cry ringing out.
An woman who looked to be in her twenties, though clearly a cultivator making her true age an ambiguous mess, one thing was certain.
She was as beautiful as an untouched forest, though she displayed the ferocity of the beasts which may live within her.
Lighting is no master, destruction dares not call my name, flatten them, Kougetsu.
The earth ruptured as a scroll arose and opened up revealing a terrifying artistic conception which dragged even Shou Xin into it for a brief moment!
"Now!" She screamed at the top of her lungs, and while he was stunned, Feng Wuqing arrived.
Destruction be my hand, nourishment the call of all, Devouring Fist.
Countless fist marks filled the sky like imprints and then came together into a single, all destroying force that gobbled up the surrounding Qi voraciously adding to it's own power!
Spirit Beasts of the Law Realm which had had been stunned stood not chance agains the unprotected attack from their side.
In an instant, those three Spirit Beasts, kings of the forest in their own right, were crushed into paste leaving nothing behind but Beast Cores.
Pf, PFFT!
The women nearly sprayed blood, entering into a coughing fit instantly.
Her internal organs had been shocked by the breakthrough and fighting the Law Spirit Beasts which sought to take her down off the mountain.
Her eyes turned vicious and cruel, a glint running through them.
If you will not bow, then beg, Kougetsu Sei.
The ghosts, spirit or perhaps if one will, the soul of those beasts were ripped from the pathway into reincarnation.
They wailed enough to chill the blood and scare the tree's into wilting as they were sucked into the Spirit Scroll, Kougetsu, becoming apart of the artistic conception within, before being devoured by the Flood Dragon which was partially drawn into the landscape art.
Her gaze then turned to Feng Wuqing.
"Why did you help?" The undulations of her power rippled outwards.
"We-" Shou Xin walked forward, only to frown.
"Was I speaking to you?" Having cut him off, her eyes were frigid and turned on him.
Pf-!
Feng Wuqing who stood at the side, seeing the dumb look on his face, couldn't help letting out a bit of laugh. She'd never seen him stumble or stutter.
Even he had a side like this, she thought as she shook her head.
"Senior, we are just wandering cultivators seeking to meet with family in the Fang State." She smiled intoxicatingly, "Congratulations on your breakthrough, Senior. Right, hubby?"
A bitter taste filled his mouth even though he knew he was being teased as he saw the womans gaze turn onto him, he knew he'd have to respond.
"...Yes, a joyous occasion."
"This is why they are so beneath," She smirked coldly, "In my Jiyue Sect, disrespectful things like this toy would be sent out and exiled."
"A blessed fate," His eyes were like an abyss, "I would welcome exile."
"Jiyue Sect has the greatest martial arts in all of the Exiled Court!" She countered with a pitying look as though looking at a country bumpkin, "To simply get in, one needs immense talent, something you lack."
"Yes, Senior," Emphasing the words 'Senior', combined with a roaming look a vein popped on her neck, "I am certain it takes an immense talent this one simply doesn't understand."
"Yes. Of course. I will let your tone slid, as we are taught to be generous to our lessers." Her face was sub-zero, not an emotion to be found.
Yet, if one wished to talk of emotions being missing, one could not speak of anyone but Shou Xin.
His face bellied absolutely nothing, such that if not for the movement of his eyes, she would be able to discern nothing.
"Naturally, Senior. I am certain they are grateful for your generosity." He smiled slightly, seemingly natural to all but Feng Wuqing, who naturally understood him best.
"Are you saying you are not my lesser?" She frowned deeply.
"Am I?" He tilted his head curiously, perfectly imitating emotions he could not feel in their entirety anymore.
She appeared before him with a little distance apart, "Are you?"
His eyes turned to crescents like a wolf having caught prey, he stepped in, "Am I?"
They now stood so close, that another step and they would be bumping noses, their eyes gazed into one another and if one didn't know better, they would think it was a romance.
"Enough!" Seeing them so close to out-right conflict, Feng Wuqing couldn't stand aside any longer and got in the middle, "Shou Xin, stop playing with her! And Senior, are you truly planning on attacking a Junior?"
Hearing his full name out of her lips instead of hubby felt so strange, it snapped him back to reality and he felt a dull embarrassment as he took a step back for his rash actions, taking too much pleasure in messing with her.
At the same time, the Senior from Jiyue Sect felt a great rise of embarrassment at being admonished by a Junior which would have turned to rage if not for the fact that they did save her, in the end of the day.
"Sorry love," Hovering around her he searched for her face but she turned away everytime, "Oh? Then I won't show you my face either."
He immediately turned away, a smile spreading across his face.
She peeked at him and frowned, a hand landing on his shoulder.
"Are you trying to leave?" A haunting voice sent a crippled chill down his back.
"Haha, of course not." He turned around with a gentle smile, "Never, never."
Cold sweat fell down his back as he was intimately reminded of the bloodline that could explode at quite literally, any moment.
Her was more volatile than his, but his was far more cunning than hers.
"A fox and a vixen." The Senior of Jiyue sect grunted as she took out a token, "If you are truly heading back to the capital of Fang State, I can give you a lift. My teleportation talisman has room for a few more."
Feng Wuqing shook her head, "We're on vacation."
"Oh? Now it's a vacation, I see. Should we hit the beach?" Shou Xin spun his head around, "I have read of a peculiar beach along the coast where people go missing every year, when I was mortal I always wanted to know the secret behind it."
"Hm?" The Senior tilted her head, thinking for a moment before her mouth opened lightly, "Amar Cliff, the beach at the bottom is filled to the gills with miasma. A rift into a separate dimension is hidden among the rocks, though nothing can come through so the security is quite lax. That is probably why."
Instantly, he turned to her with a deadly glare.
"Senior is no longer in tune with the world, meddling in the fun of their Juniors."
She returned the glare.
Prodding at each other, the ticking time bomb in the midst of them was secretly enjoying the bickering whilst pretending to be angry, after all, if she didn't mediate they might actually fight.
"Junior this and that. Will you come visit the sect of which you claim to be junior to?" That beautiful Senior said coldly.
She played her words nicely, as one could refer to an elder as senior without an issue no matter what sect, but to call one a senior they could either be an elder or someone of older age of the same sect.
If he denied, then he would be admitting she was old as a turtle demon, if he agreed, he would have to visit her sect so naturally…
"...I will-"
"Accept. We would be honored to visit your sect." Feng Wuqing glared at him and he shrugged in response with an, 'What did you want me to say?', face.
Senior smiled gently at her, her eyes creasing.
"Naturally, this Senior will teach her Juniors well. I have heard his name, however, what might your name be?" She paused for a moment as though a lightbulb going on in her head, "I am Lan Suzu."
"Senior Lan, I am called Feng Wuqing, I hail from the capital of Fang." She cupped her fists and glanced at Shou Xin, who seemed to be focused on the scroll at her side and the dragon within.
Sensing her gaze he turned to Senior Lan with the utmost respect and said, "Shou Xin. Born in the destroyed Sea Spring. Twenty something years old."
Such a lax introduction, though Senior Lan had expected it, she did not expect him to be so unruly after the scolding!
A hole was almost burned through his body by Feng Wuqing's stare.
"...It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Senior Lan. Truly, a meeting blessed by the heaven's above, overseen by the gods as a miracle upon us all, the Wild States wil surely rejoice upon knowing of our joining."
Cleaning up his act, his tone mellowing into a far more enticing one and his aura slightly seeping out as though a regal figure, he gave a deep noble bow.
"I hope that Senior Lan will take good care of us, truly."
As he unbent his back, he saw the absolute shock on Senior Lan's face and smiled lightly, his eyes soft around the edges as he took the moment to take her hand and plant a kiss upon it's back.
"I am delighted."
Seeing him cleaning up his act, she had to look at him again, her eyes searching his for deceptions yet it was like staring into an abyss with nothing reflecting back.
He showed no emotion keeping them deeply hidden, or he was a monster with no emotions.
She could not tell, but when Feng Wuqing coughed loudly, she snapped out of her search realizing how rude she had been in staring at another's partner so openly and apologized.
As she turned around searching her scroll dimension for something, Shou Xin's face seemed to relax into a less than regal look taking on more of a tyrannical king's feel.
Glancing at Feng Wuqing who was burning holes into him, he smiled truthfully, his eyes full of honey and heart despite the abyss.
She would always have a place in the dark so long as he lived he would make room.
Knowing this, her flaming jealousy at the treatment he gave Senior Lan which she never got, despite knowing it was a farce, was completely snuffed out.
A thousand words, a million scriptures and countless worlds could not hold the depth with which he gazed unto her, nor could it rival the lengths he would go.
Her face flushed.
He wriggled his brows with a smile.
She rolled her eyes.
His smile got larger, from ear to ear like the first comings of spring.
In truth, he was not ugly, not exactly what one might call a heaven obliterating beauty, but rather, an average handsome man.
Yet, the sight of his genuine smile got her heart to race as though it were the heaven's falling atop her-, nay, even the heaven's could not rival the man in her eyes right now!
Cough!
"Ah!" She turned to Senior Lan, who had prepared a long distance teleportation array, her face red all the way to her ears.
Appearing behind her like a specter, Shou Xin wrapped his arms around her waist making her freeze for a moment before suddenly shooting forward through the array.
He was intoxicated by her blushing face, and would not stop teasing her now, no chance.
—
"Mother! They're advancing fast towards Baylen's Rest!" A serious Maqi flew down from the crows nest of the Mythic Mountain's Capital Ship of which only three were in existence.
"I can see that." Slowly opening her eyes, Lady Mu careened her gaze past the bow and over into the miasmatic abyss below.
Baylen's Rest.
"Do you know why it is they call it, Baylen's Rest, daughter?" She slowly began to float, and one could see hundreds of smaller ships following the Capital Ship on all sides.
"Why?" Thinking for a moment, she realized she didn't know at all.
Lady Mu smiled.
"Long ago, a conflict raged like no other here on the plains."
"Plains?" She looked overboard, and saw nothing but a long winding canyon.
"When the Realm War was happening, Baylen, the God of the Bull Demons, fought tooth and nail to keep his people alive, he was regarded as a hero of epic proportions, yet, he fell in the battle that created this canyon."
Maqi's pupils shrank.
Baylen's Rest was a canyon so supermassive, it could not be seen completely from the sky since it reached past the horizon.
Simply trying to imagine the immense amount of power it would take to do such a thing, and the being who needed to do such to kill Baylen.
There were many questions, but she could not ask them as the hundreds of thousands of demons in that miasmatic abyss had begun to march forward.
—
"Our liege is easily the most arbitrary man under heaven. We cross realms to attain new techniques by ruthlessly slaughtering sects, but end up saving people. We say we will fight for ourselves, and then fight for others sake," A familiar guard stood his post before the Treasure Hall, "It is vexing because I seek new techniques to grow stronger for the lord, but he is more interested in philanthropy by an means necessary."
"Hm?"
Looking at the sky, he squinted slightly during his torn lament, his body shaking.
Hell rained down from the heavens.
"Invaders!"
Sirens rose through the entirety of the city surrounding the core of the area, the Shou Residence!