Master, This Poor Disciple Died Again Today

Again, time accelerated in a blur. They saw moments. The past Hui forged a silver mask and left it in the realm, found the ruins, absorbed the bits and pieces of the realm that the Golden Immortal rejected, and quietly existed. Much of his time he spent as the Elusive Ghost, only emerging as his usual form for brief moments.

“It was hard to maintain my form. Neither Master nor the Golden Immortal could accept a full comprehension of time, so whenever I was inside the world, I spent much of my time in a half-state. For a while, I simply thought that was my future, to exist, and wait… until that day.”

Time flowed forward. He wandered the Immortal Realm, keeping to himself. Lightning flashed, and a familiar form appeared. Li Xiang stumbled through the forest, her robes tattered and burned.

“Not Master or Ying Lin?” white-robed Hui asked.

Blue-robed Hui shook his head. “The Golden Immortal was paying too much attention to them. Back then, I would have lost to him. I couldn’t risk revealing myself.”

“Back then?” the Golden Immortal protested.

The blue-robed Hui looked at him.

The Golden Immortal crossed his arms and said nothing.

In the past, Hui approached Li Xiang. “Elder Sister!”

Li Xiang half turned. She frowned, squinting.

He ran up in front of her, excited. “Li Xiang, you’ve finally ascended! I—”

She drew her sword. “Begone, demon!”

“Eh?” He looked at his hands. Rather than human hands, the Elusive Ghost’s claws appeared in his vision.

The blue-robed Hui shook his head. “Any time I tried to interact with someone I knew, the world rejected me. It was a struggle to appear before them, let alone speak.”

“But that didn’t stop you, did it? You eventually wore a disguise to look like me,” white-robed Hui pointed out.

“But I still couldn’t talk. And the more people who knew me in the Immortal Realm, the less I could interact with others, or even the world,” blue-robed Hui replied. He held out his hand, showing the white-robed Hui a jade tile. “Thank you for finding it. I carved it to attempt to communicate with Master. It didn’t work for me, but for you…”

“Right,” the white-robed Hui said, nodding.

“Then, if you don’t mind…” the blue-robed Hui held his hand out, even as time accelerated again, placing them back in the Immortal Realm with the bloody altar and the shattered cornerstones raining down.

“Why now?” the white-robed Hui asked, holding his hand out as well.

A smile. “It’s hard for me to interact with this world. Something like fully and truly destroying the Immortal Realm by routing the dragon veins and shattering the cornerstones… I couldn’t accomplish that, but you could. And until you did, I wasn’t willing to risk entering the eyes of the Golden Immortal. After all, if he managed to capture or destroy me…”

“Ah, that’s true. Even if you’re infinitely powerful thanks to the power of time, he can counter that with his own power of time. If he knew about you, I’m sure he could have come up with a way to counter you. But… why isn’t he starting a new loop now?”

The blue-robed Hui grinned. He looked at the Golden Immortal. “I’ve been watching him for a long time. He can’t. Not right now.”

“No?” the white-robed Hui asked.

The blue-robed Hui shook his head. “He can only turn back time to the earliest moment of the Immortal Realm—the exact moment he needs to cast the spell to call the Earth here, while there’s still enough primordial energy to draw on to cast such a massive, law-breaking spell. I was waiting to make my move until you did exactly what you just did—destroy the Immortal Realm at the earliest moment of its existence.”

“Oh. Huh.” The white-robed Hui frowned. After a moment, he shook his head at his blue-robed self. “That must’ve been even worse than me watching the clones blunder in the Immortal Realm.”

“It wasn’t that bad. I got used to it.”

Over in the corner, the Golden Immortal crouched, focused on the ground.

The Huis looked at one another. “We should probably handle that.”

“Yeah, let’s go handle that.”

The Golden Immortal whipped around as the two Huis approached. He gritted his teeth, furious. “I won’t allow this to happen. I won’t allow you to destroy everything I’ve built. So what if you destroyed the Immortal Realm? I’ll build a new one. I’ll turn back time, and I’ll bring your world—”

As one, the Huis shook their heads. “No. You won’t.”

The Golden Immortal leaped at the Huis. The two Huis clasped hands.

Shapeless white leapt out from where their hands met. It engulfed both of them.

Unhesitatingly, the Golden Immortal charged into it. He punched the white goo, bursting it to a thousand tiny bits.

Golden threads curled from each of the tiny white bits. Connecting one piece to another, they stitched themselves back together. Hui reappeared, wearing fine blue-and-white robes, a strand of gold in his hair. He shook his head. “That isn’t going to work.”

The Golden Immortal landed and whirled around, slashing at Hui with his sword. Hui stood there, watching it come. The sword cut toward him.

At the last second, Hui vanished. He reappeared behind the Golden Immortal, his hands behind his back. “You can’t hurt me. Outside of your loops, you cannot touch me. Your comprehension of time was limited, wasn’t it?”

“Shut up!” the Golden Immortal snarled. He slashed at Hui again.

Hui reappeared across the Immortal Realm. “You can only freely manipulate time within the loops. Even the loops themselves are you merely turning back the time of the Immortal Realm, rather than turning back the time of our entire world.”

“You don’t know anything!”

“My comprehension of time is greater than yours. Accept it. Your defeat is inevitable.”

“I don’t care!” The Golden Immortal launched himself at Hui again.

Under their feet, the Immortal Realm crumbled away. Without dragon veins or cornerstones, nothing remained to ground the realm. The dirt tumbled into the abyss, converting into primordial energy.

Hui looked at the Golden Immortal. “Your right as the Heavenly Emperor has been rescinded. You no longer even possess an Immortal Realm to call your own. Surrender.”

“No!”

Hui nodded. Well, that’s what I would say. It doesn’t matter, though. At the end of the day, I won’t let him prevent me from ending this. He stopped time and moved behind the Golden Immortal. He extended his hand. Lightning crackled in his palm.

It feels a little cheap, but…

Wait!