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5.40 - The Sealed Realm
🕑 Added 2025-02-25 23:00:02 +0000 UTCWhen He Yu’s vision returned, he found himself in a realm of crystal. The ground beneath his feet was of packed earth, like a cave floor. If he truly stood within a cave, he couldn’t see the walls, nor the roof. Only the crystals.
Jagged clusters of dull yellow jutted up from the floor like so many trees. The smallest of them came up to his knees, while the largest towered dozens of feet overhead. All of them pulsed with a soft amber light, enough to illuminate the immediate area and little else. The largest and brightest cast their glow for perhaps an arm’s length, at most. When He Yu looked more closely, tiny motes of light floated deep within.
He looked around, taking stock of the rest of the area. The crystals stretched out for as far as he could see, fading into the gloom as their light dimmed with distance. Ample room lay between the clusters regardless of their size, providing space for him to easily walk between them. He found no other way to tell of time or direction. Even immediately behind him, where he thought he might find a door or some other way out, he found only more of the same. Just more crystal poking up from the packed earth and softly casting their amber glow over the dirt and gravel underfoot.
“Hello?” he called. He’d not expected any response, and none came. If the others were here in this strange place, they weren’t anywhere close by.
After examining the nearest cluster and finding nothing of any note, he picked a direction and walked. In the otherwise featureless expanse of crystals, one direction seemed as good as any other. He suspected that if he were to find his friends here, direction would be more or less irrelevant. The challenges Sun Lei had mentioned probably tested more than one’s ability to orient oneself in an unfamiliar place, no matter how strange the landscape.
He Yu walked for what must have been hours. The longer he walked, the harder it became to push aside his growing worry. What had happened to the others? So far, he’d seen no signs of anyone else in this place, nor heard any sound other than his own footfalls. He couldn’t even sense any qi other than his own. How would he know when his time ran short? The black expanse above and in all directions made it impossible to tell how much time had passed. For all he knew, it could already be too late.
As he walked, the crystals slowly changed. Warped. The largest ones at the center grew longer, their light dimmed. At the base, they fused. As he walked, they resembled trees more with each of his steps. Soon, he walked through a forest. A forest that was familiar, despite its strangeness. Before long, he stepped from the woods into the outskirts of Shulin.
Although the sky above was featureless and black and the forest or town still made no sound, this was his home. Replicated with the perfection of a memory, captured in detail that only his mind’s eye could recreate. He Yu continued to walk, his steps carrying him along familiar paths through familiar homes. He found himself before his father’s forge.
Just inside, He Gang hammered away at his work. The man that stood before He Yu was a man he only barely remembered and had never truly known. He was young, perhaps thirty or so. As he moved about the forge, his gait was even and strong. Whatever this realm had chosen to show He Yu, and for whatever purpose, it had chosen a time before his father’s injury.
From outside the forge and around the building’s corner, a young boy came running. He Yu immediately recognized himself, and the stick in his hands. The stick he’d always used when playing by himself, lost in his imagination and the stories of heroes and legends his father had always told him. He watched himself flail around, and he watched his father take a moment from his work and smile.
He watched as Dong Wei approached. A much younger version of the old “master,” to be sure, but no less angry or prideful for it. He Gang’s expression darkened as he stepped forward, motioning for He Yu’s younger self to go inside. When child He Yu didn’t immediately obey, a gesture and what would have accompanied by a sharp word sent him scurrying away.
He Yu frowned as he watched Dong Wei approach his father. He looked to be speaking with that same condescending arrogance he’d always used around people he considered beneath him. What he was doing at He Gang’s forge, though? The two men exchanged words, and although the scene before him was still silent as the grave, He Yu could tell it was growing heated.
Then, Dong Wei attacked. A swift move, a punch aimed at He Gang’s lower dantian—a move He Yu himself had used once. Unlike He Yu’s attack, the strike missed its mark. He Gang responded with practiced ease. He’d once been a disciple at the Shrouded Peaks Sect, after all, if even a poor one. The scuffle that followed was brief, but He Yu could tell how it would end. Dong Wei was clearly the stronger of the two, having advanced to Foundation already.
Dong Wei stood victorious over He Yu’s father. But rather than take his victory, Dong Wei laughed at He Gang. Then he stomped down on He Gang’s leg. The same leg that had never properly healed, that He Yu had always remembered causing his father’s limp. The same leg he’d always thought had been kicked by a horse.
The same sort of anger He Yu felt at Dong Wei calling Xin Lu boiled up within him. He stepped forward and grabbed the older man by the shoulder. Dong Wei spun around, the initial fury across his face turning to shock, then fear. He tried to speak, but still no sound carried through the phantom forest, through the phantom Shulin. He Yu made a fist and shattered Dong Wei’s dantian.
Fire erupted from the nearby forge. Within moments, He Yu’s childhood home burned to cinders before his very eyes. The fire spread, leaping from the forge, his home, to the nearby buildings. From within the smoke emerged a familiar—and unwelcome—figure.
Sha Xiang towered over Shulin, molten stone dripping from her jagged, rock-encased arms. Great gouts of poisonous smoke billowed forth. And lurking just behind her—just past the limits of mortal perception—a hulking monstrosity. The demon core locked eyes with He Yu and grinned. A silent laugh cut into his heart as Sha Xiang laid waste to his childhood home. Their childhood home.
As Shulin burned to ash before his eyes, He Yu tried to move. Some force rooted him to the ground. He tried to cycle his techniques. It was as if his qi was no longer his to control, like he was once again an unawakened child, helpless before the mighty forces of the world. He struggled, but everything he tried was in vain. Eventually, he fell to his knees and simply watched. It was the only thing this vision permitted. That, and to feel the stab of despair.
“Terrible, isn’t it?” Sun Lei asked as he stepped into He Yu’s view. While he was very much the same man He Yu had met outside, the lazy and somewhat casual air was now gone. Now, he carried himself like a true expert. Like a patriarch. He kept his hands clasped within his sleeves and his chin tilted up just enough that he looked down on the world around him.
The cloud-white hair of his beard and eyebrows still seemed to drift on an unseen breeze. He fixed He Yu with a hard, but questioning look. As unnerving as the shift in demeanor was, so too was the lack of any spiritual weight. At least in this strange realm, it seemed far less out of place than it had above.
“Has this happened in truth?” He Yu asked, looking up at the Cloud Dragon Valley Sect’s patriarch.
“If it had, what would you do?” Sun Lei asked, tilting his head slightly as he continued to appraise He Yu. “Would you return south once you escape this place to check? You’ve already crippled Dong Wei, so there’s little left to claim except his life. As meaningless a gesture it would be. If you arrived at Shulin only to find it burned to the ground, would you seek out Sha Xiang? Would doing so fulfill your Dao, I wonder?”
Before He Yu could answer, the scene shifted before his eyes, twisting to one he still remembered well. A burned-out village. Bodies scattered about, unburied and left for the crows.
“What would you have done had you arrived in time, I wonder?” Sun Lei asked.
Again, the scene twisted and changed. The shrouded peaks loomed around him, and once more Elder Cai and Jin Xifeng did battle in the sky.
“What sort of world have we made?” Sun Lei pinned He Yu with his amber slit-pupiled eyes.
Finally, He Yu stood. “A world where the strong rule,” he said. “A world in need of heroes.”
“Or a world in which to forge a legend.”
There was an implication there. “Are they not one and the same?” he asked.
Sun Lei turned away. The two of them stood there, watching the battle play out. Watching Jin Xifeng finally claim her victory over Elder Cai. Once more, the alabaster pillar cracked. Once more, it fell to the valley floor. Once more, the bloody sunset covered the world.
“Despite your former sect’s best efforts, Jin Xifeng was never truly forgotten. Now she sits upon the imperial throne. Does that not qualify as a deed of legend? You’ve spent a long time searching for your answers, He Yu. You know the question. It’s time you answered it.” Sun Lei remained facing where Jin Xifeng now stood triumphant as he spoke. “You have been given a glimpse. Now you must grasp.”
“Isn’t that what I’ve been doing?”
“In a sense.” Sun Lei turned, facing He Yu once more. “I will admit, I do not know all of what’s transpired in the greater world during my time here. You carry with you an ancient art, do you not? Show me.”
After a moment’s hesitation, He Yu produced the jade slip containing the Cloud Emperor’s Heavenly Palace. The art manual still looked like new, still reflected flickers of heaven within its polished surface. When Sun Lei took it, He Yu felt the patriarch’s qi for the first time. It confirmed all his suspicions.
A great dragon curled around the world. Clouds hid the greater part of its unfathomable vastness. Wherever it roamed, rain followed. Its horns were the length of continents. Its scales shimmered with starlight and sent life-giving or flood-bringing rains in turn. Its cloud-white beard flowed in an unseen breeze, and its amber, slit-pupiled eyes held wisdom and power in equal measure.
The cloud dragon spoke. “Show me the fullness of your cultivation. Of your nature, and your Way. Show me your Dao, child of the Fifth Realm.”
Whatever had once fettered He Yu’s qi loosened. He allowed his presence to burst out and call the storm. His own spirit drew black clouds, heavy with rain and flashing with lightning. And deep within, the looping, coiling expanse of a dragon. Azure scales shimmered with heaven’s light. Its beard flowed in the wind, and its horns crackled with heavenly qi. It brought the tempest, the storm, and the rain.
All of existence opened once again. The expanse of the infinite flooded into He Yu’s mind, and he struggled not to lose himself in the overwhelming sensation of all. The doors of heaven slammed shut, leaving the image of the taiji spinning even as it faded. His right hand held the form of a dragon, just as when he’d struck at Wang Xiaobo’s core. At Xin Lu’s core. The same dragon Fang Yingjie had grasped when he reached into the storm.
“What?” He Yu couldn’t form any word beyond that. There was simply too much. The question he most wanted to ask was simply too absurd, too insane to even consider.
Sun Lei smiled a serene and fatherly smile. “Not everything is literal, child. Few things in this realm, of all places. You are not of my kind, although I suspect it would delight you to no end should you learn that you were. No, your cultivation has simply forged a connection to the God of Thunder and the great celestial dragon of the tempest alike. A powerful connection, to be sure.
“The way to Soul Refining is open to you. As it has been for some time. Do you recall our conversation outside? Your path forward is both easier and more difficult than you know. But for this sealed realm, well, you hardly needed my help. You need only to grasp it.
“Take my final lesson. Go assist your companions. You’re far more important to them than I think you realize.” With that, Sun Lei vanished. The image of the Shrouded Peaks vanished with him. So too did the forest of crystals.
A stone door frame stood before He Yu in an otherwise empty expanse of darkness. Within the frame stood a door bound in bronze. Through that door, he would find his friends. What trials they faced, he couldn’t say. But he’d go to them, regardless. He pushed, and the door swung open easily, as though it welcomed his approach. He stepped through.
Comments
Boots
Oops. That should say 5th realm.
Rehoboth Okorie
6th realm? is he in the 6th realm?
