Chapter 11

  Chen’en screamed. Long and loud.

  Yin stared at the ruined woman before him, she’d gained the spiky goldsign but for some reason they came out of her forearms. Despite having ascended, her madra was barely more intense than jade to Yin’s copper sight.

  Turning to the few men and women who had joined Yin and his probable uncle he said. ‘’She’s obviously overcome by emotion, we should leave her alone so she may calm-’’ Chen’en spear tackled Yin.

  She let out a long high pitched shriek that could be interpreted as his name if you had some imagination. Letting the woman hold on to him without becoming violent was a difficult task. The phantom sensation of her hands around his neck came back for the first time since he’d left.

  ‘’Is he your son Chen? Truly?’’ Uncle asked, and Chen’en sobbed affirmatively. He looked at Yin with new eyes, his face finally relaxing to something less hard than marble. ‘’Then I apologize, nephew. These are dangerous times, one mustn't trust their eyes when outsiders come calling. I will explain later, please take your time.’’

  They filed out, and Chen’en slowly stopped sobbing as their steps faded. Her quills failed to pierce his flesh and Yin’s pure cloak let him push her off with little trouble.

  Tears streaked her face, amplifying her wrathful glare. ‘’You demon child. You dare-’’

  Yin slapped her.

  They stood in silence again, her head slowly turned back to him.

  ‘’Someone has been killing a lot of people out here, I’m putting a stop to them and then I’m leaving.’’ He told her evenly.

  Chen’en slowly started to chuckle. ‘’You won’t make it. They’ve taken Yeng, no soul in this heaven forsaken world can best him.’’ She sounded wistful, lost in some imagination. She let her legs go limp and grunted as she hit the floor. ‘’They did something to my Yeng…’’

  Stolen a remnant. So most likely not some simple bandits, a warlord was looking more likely. ‘’Doesn’t matter.’’ Yin observed the hollow woman for a few minutes, words he’d wanted to say to her faded. ‘’Pathetic.’’ He left her room, only feelings of disgust remained. Secretary seeped around on his scalp, offering some little comfort.

  Schooling his face Yin met up with his distant family again. ‘’Mother is feeling overwhelmed, she’ll be resting for now.’’ Nailed the concerned son's voice, his relatives already looked all softened up and empathetic.

  ‘’I am sorry you returned to us only to find her like this.’’ One of them said, hand daintily on his cheek.

  More platitudes followed and Yin mostly ignored them, patiently waiting for his turn to speak. ‘’Thank you, aunties and uncles. Again, my name is Yin, may I know yours?’’

  He could have done without the cooing and cheek pinching but learning that the head guards name was Kam’en and that he was Chen’en’s cousin made it worth his time. Soon the other relatives found things they needed to do, leaving Yin and Kam’en alone.

  ‘’Your journey must have been long little Yin, shall we have an early dinner and discuss your objective?’’

  Yin nodded but asked. ‘’Uncle Kam, can my companions come as well?’’

  The man agreed and it didn’t take long for a more distant relative to be sent out to fetch them.

  —

  The Tulaigo complex mirrored their path of Living Stone, everything was made from stone giving the whole place a medieval vibe on the inside. However there was also plenty of flowers, vines and trees that mixed with the architecture in a way that was distinct from the way they did it in Titan’s grove. Basically the Tulaigo design was a bit more brutish, bare roots clutching the stone the plants rested on. In some places they’d forgone mortar to hold the walls together and instead trees had grown through. How they kept the tree from growing wider in the gaps was beyond Yin.

  ‘’We learned of the attacks much too late to stop them. The army of remnants had already grown to the point that carelessly sending troops out would only bolster their numbers and deplete ours.’’

  Yin listened to Kam’en, doing his best to sit pretty, kneeling in front of the low stone and plant tables. But Ti Li was making it very hard. Somehow she had erased her presence, suppressing her madra to the point that it was hard to tell a living being was there. And she used her skill in obscuration to blatantly reach into people's pockets and lift things.

  ‘’It doesn’t make sense that remnants would do something like this. And I can’t imagine even any of the dreadgod cults would do something like this either.’’ Duong ate the vegetables he’d been served with gusto between bouts of speculative muttering.

  ‘’This sounds like Tiger.’’ Zeurel said with surety, having already cleaned her plate and sat cross armed waiting for more. ‘’Sorry. I mean the Silent King.’’ She added at Kam’en’s questioning gaze.

  ‘’Nothing is impossible but that sounds impossible to me.’’ Yin said and realized he’d slipped up and gone back into his normal speech pattern. ‘’The Benevolent Monarch keeps a thousand eyes on the cage at all times, She would not have missed something of that magnitude.’’

  Kam’en eyed Yin for a moment, completely missing Ti Li rifling through the front of his robes. ‘’True, that is certainly true nephew, however I cannot imagine what else could be behind this. Would a Lord use their might for evil?’’

  The reincarnators could all tell him exactly which lords would, but they held their tongues. ‘’Uncle, perhaps the villain in this case is simply a surprisingly powerful dream artist? In Titan’s grove remnants are used widely for labor, all are essentially puppeteered- What’s the matter Ti Li? Do you need the bathroom?’’ Yin caught the child when she made a run for his own pockets.

  Kam snapped his fingers and a teenager hustled in. ‘’Please show our young guest to the washrooms.’’ When Ti Li was safely brought away to do more stealing on her own he continued. ‘’Admittedly we know little of matters in Her own seat of power. So I can only assume you and yours know more on this matter than someone like I. But I must question, what will you do?’’

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  Yin looked over his group. Montai, most notably, had fallen asleep. Zeurel and Duong were in a soft eating competition. And Ten seemed to be cycling. ‘’I guess our first step will be to get confirmation, we hunt some of these remnants and then Duong can examine them.’’

  ‘’I question the wisdom of this course of action nephew.’’ Kam’en seemed grim as he spoke now. ‘’You have not seen them, the attack yesterday was unlike even attacks by packs of dreadbeasts. They moved with singular purpose, had they cooperated more effectively they would have taken the city before an hour was up.’’

  ‘’But they retreated when you and your men put up a good defense. What I think is that they follow some orders with failsafes, retreat when they take too many casualties. So, me and Montai can go out and find them, snag one or two and come back really quickly.’’

  Kam’en looked like he had something to say about that suggestion, probably thinking about Yin’s split soul or the fact he was still Jade. But he eventually agreed.

  ‘’So!’’ Yin clapped, waking up Montai and finally getting Ten to stop cycling. ‘’Me and Montai are going out to hunt some of these remnants. Zeurel, wanna go around and heal some people?’’ She nodded enthusiastically. ‘’Duong, you can do whatever you feel like.’’

  Debating on whether to give Ten a task, Yin decided against it because all he knew about her was that she’d gotten ‘crazy with the knives’ in the years since he’d seen her.

  —

  Yin had become very proficient in using his cloaks during the time he’d spent training. His greatest achievement was learning how to brake with his Falling Star cloak.

  One strong step followed another, and Yin burst through the air between massive trees at breakneck speeds. Very literally, if he messed up at any point a simple broken neck would be the least of his problems.

  But the destination he’d decided on came up and he cycled for another burst of madra. The split second before his feet touched the massive branch he activated the cloak, but instead of accelerating him further it sapped all the momentum he’d gained. Yin casually walked across the tree branch, more than thirty meters up in the air, and looked down to the forest floor.

  ‘’They move pretty fast.’’ He noted, seeing more trails of destruction and sometimes wild new growth in patches.

  Montai swooped out of a shadow above him and landed, shaking the tree limb. ‘’They’ve made more distance but I saw the back of the army. Yin there must be hundreds of them, I’m not sure how we’re gonna do this safely.’’

  Yin considered it as they made their way closer to the remnant army. ‘’Secretary, can you show us a containment script?’’ The spirit created the characters, then shuffled them around into different configurations.

  ‘’That one! No, go back to the last one, yes. That’s perfect, I can forge the script right onto the remnant and it’ll be dragged with me and stopped from using any bindings.’’ Yin burned the script into his mind as he switched to the pure cloak and bounced between some denser branches.

  ‘’There they are.’’ Montai noted, flying inexplicably through a space that should have been too small for him, body half washed out into shadow. Yin saw the rainbow colored army and soon the sounds they made drifted up to them. Thunder, rain, rivers flowing, rocks falling, men, women and children speaking and screaming.

  Yin and Montai slowed, letting them get some more distance and observing their prey. ‘’That dream remnant.’’ Yin decided, pointing it out, close to the back of the roving masses. ‘’Let’s take out the ones closest, I should only need a few seconds.’’

  ‘’Yeah, a few seconds in hell bro, look at that, most of the things are at least gold.’’ Montai materialized nearby.

  ‘’Actually I changed my mind, let’s go for at least three. See the pale one? I think that’s a light remnant, if I can bring it back to Titan’s grove someone could probably make it into an amalgam for my path.’’

  ‘’Aaaughh, yeeeeaah man, let's up the difficulty, why don’t we? That fiery one looks fun, grab that one too!’’

  ‘’You know how to forge scripts, don’t you Montai?’’ Yin looked at his friend who suddenly refused to meet his gaze. ‘’What did gramps teach you out there?’’

  ‘’Literally nothing but fighting and retreating.’’ Montai admitted, which made sense with how good his movement techniques were.

  ‘’Good! See, I could tell that, and that’s why I picked you for this! Keep me alive for about half a minute and I’ll have those three locked down and ready for transport.’’ Yin declared with completely false confidence.

  ‘’I can give you maybe eight seconds and then we’re gonna drown in attacks.’’

  Yin cracked his neck and prepared his Falling Star madra. ‘’Three.. Two.. One.’’ Two steps and a third burst brought him to a stop next to the dream remnant and Yin swept its legs and slammed a palm on its back. Scripts crept out and forged into reality around the thrashing remnant.

  A dozen attacks began to build around Yin, but as quickly as they started they ended. One black wave of sharp wind crashed into the closest ones. Then another slammed into the ranks further up, scattering them, some literally torn to pieces. Montai banked around at impossible speed and sent a third wave down into the enemies.

  The script around the first one was done, and Yin stood to move where the light remnant was. A burst of pure light blinded him, but he instinctively switched to copper sight while his eyes were out of commission. A lance of flame nearly took him in the chest, searing a line across his left bicep as he threw himself out of the way.

  ‘’Montai!’’ Yin yelled and pointed his still functioning hand at the fire remnant and then used his Godspeed Cloak to close the distance to the light remnant. Transitioning into a move from Dan Kugo in midair Yin slammed his heel into its head, its body of pure energy searing his foot.

  He started to forge the scripts around it, feeling the dream remnant still fighting against his bindings.

  ‘’It’s fucked bro we gotta go!’’ Montai yelled as Yin was half finished with his second script. His copper sight showed him the veritable ocean of different powers that were beginning to gather in the ranks. Yin swore and forced his damaged arm to grip the light remnant and then skipped back to the dream one, grabbing it as well.

  ‘’Ready!’’ He yelled for Montai’s sake and then whispered to himself to get into the right headspace. ‘’Godspeed.’’ His Falling Star madra soaked into his body and he took off, first step took him up to a low branch. The second took him past several trees and the third sent him careening above the canopy.

  For long, weightless moments, Yin felt nothing but fear. His eyes were still bleary from the light and his coppersight told him nothing other than that he was above the trees vital energies. Then the feathered back of Montai appeared under him and he switched his focus back to properly containing the light remnant.

  The little scripts he’d made needed to be reforged as the remnant had managed to destabilize them.

  But they’d made it, and only slightly worse for wear. The burn on his arm stung quite badly, and the madra siphoned there by his iron body wasn’t doing much to heal the seared flesh.

  ‘’How are you holding up?’’ He asked Montai when he was finally done forging scripts.

  The bird took a moment to answer, worrying Yin greatly. ‘’That was kinda easy bro. Like, we could've stayed longer, I wigged out a bit when they rallied like that but I was actually doing pretty well there.’’

  Lying through his teeth Yin agreed. ‘’Yeah, that was totally less bad than I thought it was going to be. Not that I thought we’d die or anything, just, I expected us both to get banged up a bit.’’

  Montai swiveled his head back. ‘’Oh, yeah you’ll need a change of clothes man.’’

  Yin laughed through the pain, only looking forward to getting back and receiving some much needed healing from Zeurel.