This Venerable Demon is Grossly Unqualified

The women surrounding the gate were as still as statues. From a distance, they might have looked poised. Disciplined. Up close, one could practically see the tension in their frames, as they stood frozen, like rabbits before the wolf.

Appropriate, if this complex really was a temple to some strange variation of Chang’e. I wasn’t sure what to make of the gods of this strange new world. It was commonly accepted that they existed. Not a single person I’d met, from the peasant Zhao Yue to the venerable Elder Shi, had ever implied otherwise. It was simply common knowledge that they were real, that they heard prayers, and sometimes answered them. And that taking their name in vain, especially the names of the more prideful ones, was a recipe for grave misfortune.

Which made it all the stranger, that half of them seemed to mirror earthly deities.

They weren’t the same. But many of them rhymed, so to speak. Shennong seemed the closest to his Chinese legend, sharing ox horns, his name, and his associations with agriculture and medicine with his earthly counterpart. But even he was subtly different, I’d never once heard anyone associate him with the ‘burning wind’ portion of his earthly legend.

Others made less sense. Every story I’d heard about Tian made him sound more like Zeus than the Jade Emperor. Proud, vengeful, and concerningly horny. And Nur of the Abyss didn’t even have a chinese name, let alone any legend I could recall.

The White Goddess was in the middle of that scale. I’d never heard the name Chang’e associated with her, but she seemed to share an awful lot with that legend. Lived on the moon. Didn’t intervene in mortal affairs. Sometimes a prisoner. Associated with rabbits.

And apparently, the sect master thought it overwhelmingly likely that this was one of her temples, abandoned before the formation of the modern Qin Empire.

“We thank the Pathless Night for their interest in our ancestor’s legacy.” One of the Glass Flowers stepped forward. I felt cold radiating from her. Mid-late foundation establishment. “However, we are fully capable of reclaiming this holy ground on our own. We would welcome the daoists of the Pathless Night to witness the glory of our ancestors, once we’ve fully restored the complex. As it is now, the site’s defenses make it dangerous to foreign cultivators.”

“Is that the final word of the sect’s elders?” Meng Daiyu continued to speak for us. “It would be a great shame, if such a historic find were marred by misfortune. We would hate to leave you without the strength needed to protect it, in these chaotic times.”

The inner disciple paused, unsure how to respond to the unsubtle threat. How galling it must be for her. She was likely one of the strongest disciples in her entire sect, and she would struggle to stand against the weakest of our greeting party.

Then Elder Cai just started walking forwards, shadow trailing in her wake.

A dozen throats made various noises of protest, which she completely ignored. One disciple pulled out a fan and brandished it like it was a reasonable object to use as a weapon. Elder Cai ignored that too.

Glass Flowers shuffled backwards, making a variety of undignified noises as they retreated from the tongues of lightning that struck out blindly around her.

Elder Su and I exchanged a look, then turned to follow. I still wasn’t sure if Elder Cai was mildly autistic, or just impatient and very fond of direct solutions. But we were already off script, and that wasn’t good. Cai would be the wildcard here, I just needed to keep her from killing anyone.

“Excuse me, sisters. It seems our seniors will decide the matter. The disposition of the site is, of course, not for mere foundation establishment cultivators to decide.” Meng Daiyu punctuated her parting shot by flexing her own core formation cultivation. The senior Glass Flower looked like she wanted to murder Meng Daiyu and wear her skin, unable to decide if she was hungry, or furious.

We didn’t really know where we were going. But people were fleeing before us, and it was easy enough to just follow the largest crowd.

“Get the elders!” One girl shouted.

“Elder Xue is in the long hall, it’ll take hours to reach her!”

A crowd began to form around us, as disciples came to ogle at the commotion. Half the guards at the gate followed us at a distance, unsure what to do, but smart enough not to attack a force that could wipe out their entire sect.

“Quiet! Stop panicking, you are daoists, not clucking chickens!” The eldest disciple hissed. Ice Princess, I mentally dubbed her. “Disciples Fan and Zhang, get back to your posts. The rest of you, return to your duties. Disciple Li and I will escort our honored guests to the elders.”

The Ice Princess and disciple Li fell into step ahead of us, walking just far enough ahead of Elder Cai to avoid getting their robin egg blue robes singed. None of us acknowledged them, but Elder Cai did follow when they started leading us deeper into the complex.

The great ivory gate had opened onto a courtyard, a seemingly open space near a mile across. That was misleading, according to the sect master’s intelligence, it was fully enclosed in the same protective formations as the rest of the mountain.

It was shrouded in shadow now, as the Black Sun’s storm cloud eclipsed its moniker’s light. Glass Flowers stared up at the spreading darkness, awe and horror warring across their faces. A complicated feeling swelled in my chest. It was glorious in a way, the power the sect commanded. But, if I understood what was going on in the sect correctly, it was built upon a mountain of corpses. In perhaps the most literal sense imaginable.

I stared up at the mountain before us, its slopes shot with beautiful gardens, marble still snow-white after uncounted millenia, half-obscured by plants that hadn’t seen a gardener in millenia history. I wondered how slowly they grew, that so much of the temple was still visible.

There’d been a partial inventory on the jade slip, what the sect master had recognized by sight. Some of those plants were likely worth thousands of spirit stones. Safely procuring them was almost certainly a large part of why Elder Su had joined us. I wasn't sure if she had volunteered, or been volun-told to join the expedition as I had. Princely compensation or no, there had been no doubt in the imprint on the jade slip that I would do as I'd been asked.

I allowed some of my qi to slip it's leash, and leak out into the world. I was beginning to properly get a handle on my spiritual sense now, after some more practice on the ship. With some exceptions, to sense was to be sensed. If I focused, I could make my qi more subtle, or more domineering. But even at my most discrete, only the very weakest of our disciples didn't notice at all when my sense passed over them. The only way to go completely incognito was to blind myself, and keep my qi entirely within my body.

I still tended to keep it tightly leashed by default, but not as fully as when I'd arrived. I worried what the other elders might see, if they inspected me closely. A dense shroud of my Elder Hu’s qi should hopefully blot out any trace of my own thoughts or feelings, drown them out with a song of slaughter and steel.

This time, rather than let it expand all around me, I sent the qi upwards in a questing tendril, reaching towards those distant gardens. It surged quickly at first, then began to grow sluggish as it got farther and farther away. I kept pushing, walking on auto-pilot as I tried to feel out the barrier that kept us from landing the Black Sun.

It was an ineffable thing, strain as I might, I wasn't even sure whether or not I was pressing up against it. The Sect Master called it ‘A higher mystery related to distance’. The foundation of the temple's defenses. If I could cut it, that would open up all sorts of options.

Unfortunately, I rather doubted I could. The Sectmaster’s token hadn’t been certain the old Hu would have been able to.

“Through here, honored elders.” The Ice Princess laced the epithet with enough venom to kill an elephant. I met her eyes, and gave her a pleasant smile. The woman flinched away and turned forward again. I felt like I should probably feel bad about that, but truth be told, I really didn’t.

I retracted my qi in an instant, pulling it back into a dense shroud a few inches from my skin as we passed beneath a second, colossal circular gate into the mountain itself. A single turn off the main entryway led us into a smaller, but still colossal hall.

The two disciples led us to a door sealed with a barrier, a wall of light that resembled Su Li’s lunar qi. With the wave of an arm, the Ice Princess dispersed it.

Well, that was an unwelcome complication. We’d assumed that it was an empty boast, that they could command some of the temple's formations.

A gentle hand poked at my shadow. I turned to meet Meng Daiyu’s eyes. Her customary scowl was gone, replaced by a cold focus. Twice more, she poked at my shadow. I nodded discreetly. Plan two then. Elder Cai would like that.

“Do you intend to give us a tour so circuitous that we become bored enough to head home?” Elder Cai asked, already getting started.

“Elder Cao is just through these doors, honored guests.” Disciple Li said, a tremor in her voice. The Ice Princess shot her a disappointed look.

Elder Cai huffed, then walked past the two disciples. Idly, I wondered how old they were. Thirties? Forties? Older? A foundation establishment cultivator could easily make it to their fifties or sixties without showing their age if they advanced early enough. My eyes clocked the two disciples as young women, but they might well be decades my senior.

A blast of air buffeted all of us, as Elder Cai blew the doors open with a wave of pressure. A spell? Or could cultivation pressure be made physical? Thick liquid darkness billowed before her like a carpet as we advanced into the great hall.

A colossal throne of dull white marble dominated the far end of the space, sized for someone easily twenty feet tall. A mortal man would have needed a running start and a few tries just to clamber up onto the seat of it. If he dared. There was a solemnity to it, a sense that it was not something to be so casually desecrated.

I hadn’t yet met a cultivator that large. Even Elder Shi’s pet death cultivator was barely half that height. It certainly lent some credence to the idea we were standing in the abandoned house of a goddess.

The throne was empty, but two women stood at its feet. They were a study in contrasts, opposites in almost every respect.

They were of a height, both perhaps five nine. But one wore robes spun silver, her white hair flowing behind her like a frozen waterfall. Where she was slim and ethereal, her compatriot was curvy enough to fill out her ink-black robes. The second elder wore tattooed poems like jewelry, thin black lines of characters criss-crossing her exposed skin. One originated at the base of her right eye, descending downwards beneath her collar like an inky tear.

The contrast between the two made for a striking sight.

“It is an honor that the Pathless Night thinks our sect’s discovery merits the attention of four elders.” The black-clad elder said. Elder Cao, I knew from the slip. A poet and illusionist who dabbled in sealing and formations. Allegedly operated as a sort of control mage in battle, locking down enemies and wearing them down for her allies to finish off.

Elder Cai frowned, then smirked.

“Three elders. We are not so desperate to fill out our ranks that merely entering core formation is sufficient to earn the title.”

The Glass Flowers showed no surprise at being corrected, but no amount of composure could erase the mis-step.

“This small one is Meng Daiyu.” Our sect’s young mistress added. “She strives to live up to the legacy of her honored father, the Saint of Empty Night, Patriarch and Sectmaster of the Pathless Night Sect.”

“Three elders, then. Who do we have the honor of speaking to?”

Introductions were made. The woman in white was Elder Fan, lunar cultivator, and nominal head of the Glass Flower expedition. She was the strongest cultivator they’d brought, standing near the peak of core formation, and a decorated war hero to boot. When the Qin Empire had called the great sects to arms against the Shan, she’d volunteered to serve for several consecutive tours, to spare the sect’s younger generation the obligation.

Her archery and mastery of defensive and escape techniques were well known. Her ranged attacks were dangerous enough to force even nascent soul cultivators to dodge or block them, and her speed and illusions prevented any of her peers from pinning her down and forcing a fair fight.

Powerful tools. Probably a lot less effective when outnumbered and confined to a small area.

She stared at us like the unwelcome guests we were, but even I could sense the fear beneath her impeccable composure. There was no level of acting that could conceal a truth everyone in the room knew.

“Why have you come? There is nothing for you here.” Elder Fan finally said.

“We are here for the same reason as you, to loot the ruins of our ancestors.” Elder Cai replied.

“I had hoped that elders of the venerable Pathless Night would be better informed. As my disciple has shown you, the holy land of our ancestors has recognized our lineage.”

“Bold, for a sect that barely merits the name to try to claim descent from divinity, however pathetic the deity. You can dress it up however you like, you are children squatting in the halls of the dead.”

“You dare!”

Elder Cai tilted her head, as if genuinely confused.

“Of course I dare. Why do weaklings always ask that? Is your honored ancestor going to strike me down? The Pathless Night has had a branch in these lands since before they bore the name of Qin. We both know your sect has no history worth the word.”

“We are a pillar of the Qin Empire!”

With exaggerated slowness, Elder Cai turned to cast her eyes up and down the hall.

“How queer that none of their officials are present. It must be a great oversight, that their army is camped outside, rather than garrisoning this temple. Perhaps you should invite them in, I'm sure they would agree that your claim takes precedence over theirs.”

Holy shit, Elder Cai was born for this role. I wasn't even sure she was acting at this point.

“The Imperial Army has seen the wisdom of respecting our expertise.” Elder Fan shot back. “The defenses of the complex are many and without mercy. Even with the acknowledgement of the White Goddess, delving deeper into the temple’s mystery has not been without risk. The trials of our honored ancestors are fully capable of killing even a nascent soul cultivator who does not treat them with the respect they are due.”

Elder Cai snorted.

“I am certain that’s what they’re telling the other two great sects. Certainly not that they’re waiting for you to either bleed yourselves out against its defenses, or discover something worth getting their wounded emperor out of bed to confiscate.”

“We do not answer to Qin Longwei.” Elder Fan ground out through gritted teeth.

“You know, our sect says the same thing. The difference is that when we say it, it’s actually true. You cower beneath the shield of his name, he is your lord in every way that matters.”

“Only a demon can see the mutual honor of our long friendship and reduce it to a simple hierarchy. We are the experts his majesty has chosen for this purpose.”

“Expert implies understanding. Whatever trinket you have found that grants you a lesser authority over the complex does not constitute it.” Elder Cai said.

“Our command of the temple’s formations is nothing so trite as a trinket from our treasury. It is bold of you to claim expertise when you do not understand even the most basic functionality of the temple’s formations.”

“I have forgotten more about formations than your entire sect has ever known.” Elder Cai said with the tone of a long suffering parent explaining to a toddler why bees are not edible. “Given sufficient time, any formation will yield its secrets to me.”

Even the calmer Elder Cao was frowning now, at that blatant insult to her expertise. I supposed that was about my cue.

I sighed.

It was a whopper of a sigh. Obnoxiously loud, finishing with that raggedy little rumble that came when one fully exhaled all the air of their chest, to make it abundantly clear it was intentional.

I marshaled my features, arranging them into the look I’d half an hour practicing in a hand mirror. I called it ‘Disinterested Tyrant Lays Down the Law’.

I drew my qi in like a deep breath, then exhaled out a single wave of pressure. No suppressing weight, but a single sharp slap.

“This squabbling is beneath us, fellow daoists.” I said calmly. “You are not fools, and can see the truth of the matter as clearly as we can. The sky is vast and the emperor is far. Unless that changes, there was only ever one outcome the moment the Black Sun arrived overhead.”

“Our sect’s honor demands that-”

“Your honor is irrelevant before our might.” I said firmly, speaking over Elder Fan.

“-we protect the integrity of this-”

“You can yield with grace and allow our disciples free access to the complex, to explore at their own risk on the same terms as your own do.” I kept talking, and Elder Fan fell silent as I ignored her. “In exchange, we will uphold the primacy of your claim against the other two great sects, and share with you what we learn from our own explorations.”

“We’re one of the three great sects of the Qin Empire!” Elder Cao hissed. “You can’t just dictate terms to us!”

“I believe I just did. We do not need your permission. If the mistress of your sect was here, we would not need her permission either. You do not wish Qin Longwei to intervene here any more than we do. He will favor his army and sect over you. You will share the complex. Or you may choose to waste your blood, and my time, and our disciples will have access to the temple all the same.”

Silence fell, as my unsubtle threat made clear exactly where we stood. My heart was in my throat. We would win any battle. The disparity in power was colossal. Meng Daiyu would suppress Elder Cao for a moment. Our three elders would kill Elder Fan in an instant. I would kill Elder Fan.

They would yield. They had to yield. There was no other choice.

In my mind's eye, I saw Elder Fan’s white robes stained crimson. I didn’t even know the woman. Could I kill her over this? Would I live out the month if I didn’t? Despite my cultivation, my palms felt sticky.

Tension built as Elder Fan remained silent. The air began to ionize as Elder Cai gathered power, eager to begin.

“Why should we share with a bunch of charlatans-” I held up my hand, as Elder Cai began her objection. She fell silent. Truth be told, neither of us had really seen the need for such subterfuge. But Meng Daiyu had liked the idea of pretending at internal disunity, and neither of us had really cared enough to disabuse her of it.

“I suppose you’re not giving us much of a choice.” Elder Fan finally said.

“We all have a choice, Elder Fan.” I said softly, allowing a crack in my stern mask. “Make the right one.”

“Very well. Don’t come crying to us, when the White Goddess’s legacy devours you whole.”

I nodded.

“Finally!” Elder Cai barked brightly. “I thought this was going to take all afternoon. Disciple Fang, with me. I’m going to take a look at the central seal. No time like the present to show the provincials how it’s done.”

“I shall accompany you, I think.” I said. This was already far more involved than I’d hoped to be. “Young Mistress Meng, would you be so kind as to hammer out the finer details of logistics with Elder Fan?”

Elder Fan’s face tightened at the insult of being handed off to a disciple. I didn’t care. Meng Daiyu and Fang Xiao had handled most of the mundane organization of this trip anyway. If being forced to treat a girl a fourth of her age as an equal irritated Elder Fan, hopefully it would keep her from getting any unfortunate ideas.

I felt a strange nostalgia as I followed Elder Cai out into the temple proper. Staring at a complex system I didn’t understand with a couple of equally clueless colleagues, why, it would almost be like being back at my old job.