The Laws of Cultivation: Qi = MC^2

Huo Shun had rarely felt this much anger. Fire was a thing of fury, and so he’d spent his entire life learning control, to tame those flames and make them follow his will. He could get angry but it was always a conscious choice. Something he let happen, and not something that governed him in any way whatsoever.

Which is how he found himself surprised as very real anger bubbled forth from inside of him, slipping past the grasp of that control as he stared at the demon in front of him.

The demon was a strange thing, he almost looked like a man, until you saw his eyes. A deep pulse of inhuman power ran within those eyes that not even mortals would mistake for anything but the sign of a demon. The man wore thin clothes that draped all over him, his skin was dark, but not the inhuman black that many demons were.

Huo Shun looked at the demon, at the target of his wrath and then slowly began to control his anger. He pulled it inwards, bundling it up, letting it stoke the flames inside of him, turned it into a weapon. He’d found his place here, at this place, by understanding the nature of fire. It burned and it longed to spread, and it would consume you if you let it reach that far, and so he’d looked into those flames in his heart and then given them something else to feed on, something powerful and destructive, but instead of destroying him, he’d use it to destroy his enemies.

Fire rose around Huo Shun as he looked at the demon and spoke.

“Your kind has chosen wrongly. You have chosen wrongly. And today, the heavens shall witness it as I will let my flames consume the last of demon kind and wipe them from history,” he said, flames manifesting around his arms.

“Your arrogance is why you have fallen this far. And it will be your fall today. There is no need for words, this will simply be the end of you,” the demon said, as the earth under his feet began to dry and crumble, heat rose around the demon’s body as the ground morphed into sand and a vile power spread around him.

Huo Shun concentrated his power, calling upon the most furious of flames and let them manifest into the world.

“Fire Domain: Blazing Inferno.”

The world shuddered as the domains of two divinities collided, and the battle began in earnest.

***

Yue Zian found himself bored as he strode out to face the Divinity in front of him. He’d never quite expected this day to come. Though he loved to disappear into the ocean and battle creatures that dwarfed all sense of power and made him understand just how small he was in the world, fighting a Divinity was an entirely other kind of experience. And he was not brutish enough to take on any of his comrades.

He stared at the demon in front of him, a thin man with extremely pale shin. That was strange, given most demons had complexions that were extremely dark from all the miasma they commanded, but this one was white as snow. He realized a moment later that he was waiting for the demon to start talking. Everyone seemed to talk before things like this. They all loved to tell tales or why they were here to fight or something.

This one did not speak. He supposed that was a mercy in itself.

He grunted, happy to not talk, as he simply put his hands together and called upon his domain. The demon did the same, as the world around them changed, an ocean rising from behind him, meeting a snowy storm from the peaks of mountains.

He felt the roaring tides of the ocean behind him. Felt the burning power of storm clouds carrying cyclones that could raze entire kingdoms. The world was water, it was filled with it. Many people did not realize just how much there was and how much power it possessed, it made the power they all wielded look like a joke. But he knew, he understood, he’d found his divinity in the midst of that vastness, understanding his insignificance in the face of it all. And now, he’d show it to the this demon in front of him.

Yue Zian could not help the grin that rose to his face, the anticipation for the upcoming battle taking over as he drew upon the wrath of the ocean and charged ahead.

***

Shie Zhuihu headed out at last, facing her opponent. The last demonic divinity was a woman, she was draped in clothes that looked as if they were made out of leaves, barely able to cover her fully. She’d appeared out of thin air, manifesting from vines in the middle of the city, somehow breaching through the defences. The forest around the city had turned hostile, taking down people and capturing and killing and poisoning them and she’d been forced to intervene.

“Are these kind of tactics all you know?” she asked, watching the demon glance at her, and then giggle as if she’d something deeply amusing.

“Says the snake,” the demon whispered, licking her lips as she eyed her like she was a delicious morsel.

“Better a snake than a demon,” Zhuihu replied. Qi surged around her, as she took in the demon in front of her.

The battle of divinities were powerful things, potent things. No city would survive if all three of them fought, the entire capital would be gone just from the aftermath of the battle. But it wouldn’t just be the capital. The demon army would be wiped out too. Nothing would be left if things went that way, and so, they fought in their domains instead.

Zhuihu had never lost in her domain, not even once, and she did not think today would be the day that would change either. She’d had spars before with peers, and though she’d lost sometimes in battles, she’d never once lost if she fought in her domain.

And yet, having come this far, she’d also developed a good sense of battles. And she could feel that her opponent was different than most. And similar to her in a way that deeply unsettled her.

“There is no need to keep talking to a corpse,” she said, gathering her strength as she called upon her power.

The demon shivered, and she did not know what she said, but there was a glint in the thing’s eyes.

Zhuihu reached into her soul and called upon her domain, letting it manifest into the world around her.

***

Huo Shun was dying. It had taken him some time to realize it, and some time more to even accept it. But it had soon become apparent that he was the one who was losing in this battle.

He struck the demon with fires that turned sand to glass, moved with a burning fury within him that only made his flames burn stronger. And yet the demon moved quicker, his sand swirled, threatening to swallow Shun entirely. The world was covered in a sandstorm, the demon’s domain slowly but surely taking over everything around them.

The sun blazed in the sky above them, bright and brilliant and merciless as it burned the world, scorched the earth and drained any life that existed here. This place was death, it was a graveyard. He could feel it in his bones.

He saw the corpses of the creatures around him, saw the death they had suffered. This was a drought, not just any drought, but a drought of life and it was slowly draining him of it too.

The battle continued, the motions he did were practiced, he almost did not have to think, his mind and body were in sync and acted on their own, and so a part of him simply observed, a part of him watched, like it always did. He’d not gotten here by being being a pacifist. Unlike the Tu Patriarch, he believed that the best thing to do was to show those who rose against you the folly of their actions, set an example to make sure no one else got any stupid ideas.

And so he’d fought in his fair share of battles. He’d lost some, won more, but he’d been in this state, and in battle long enough to get sense of things. And right now, he understood that he was going to lose here.

It happened slowly at first, just little missteps, little mistakes as the battle continued to rage, reigning destruction on the domain around him, but eventually those mistakes began to add up, and then the crash happened all at once.

A strike of hardened sand struck him, sending him flying, the demon mood with a swift madness, a tide of sand rising, threatening to swallow him. The earth opened to swallow him, pulling him inside, deep within, threatening to burrow him. He felt the pull of the sand, felt it surging all around him as the technique the demon had layered in his domain fully took hold. He felt the life force sucking technique draining him, and Huo Shun felt the flame in his soul beginning to die, as death loomed overhead.

He hurt, in a way he had not in a long time, in a way that reminded him of his mortality, something he’d thought behind him, a thing of the past. Huo Shun felt the sand surging all around him, settling in a sight of death, there was comfort here, darkness, it was cold inside the sand, cold enough that he felt comfortable.

But as if he’d settle for this meagre thing. As if he’d let himself die without doing anything. He’d sacrificed too much, fought for too long to simply give up, and so Huo Shun reached into his heart, reached into his soul.

There was a technique in the Huo clan. One that burned your very life and soul, a final act of defiance. It was a forbidden technique, and for good reason, but it was one every patriarch knew of. And it was why, few ever dared to strike against their clan.

A moment of grief passed through him, but in truth, he’d known this day would come. Divinity or not, he knew that everything had to come to an end, and his time would come to an end as well.

And so he felt at the flames within him, and let the control he’d so tightly kept all his life slip and consume his soul.

Huo Shun roared, a wordless primal roar of rage as his body erupted in fire, as his soul erupted in fire. The world shuddered all around him, the intensity of the heat distorting reality as he let his flames spread all around him. He roared and continued to roar through the depth of this domain.

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The demon recoiled, it tried to break the domain, it tried to run, but it’s own trap now captured him. And as Huo Shun’s life burned, flooding the domain with flames, burning everything, he felt a sense of calm wash over him.

Gentle tree roots reached out towards him, and grasped his soul as his immortal self was severed from its mortal vessel.

***

Yue Zian was having the best time of his life. He roared with the power of the ocean, pelting rain and crashing waves rising from behind him as he struck at the demon- no not even a demon. This thing was a spirit, a spirit of winter that he’d sometimes heard of. Creatures of death and malice, though at times also of kindness as they’d shelter people lost in snow storms.

Yet this one wasn’t normal. He didn’t know how she had gotten with demons, or reached Divinity, but there was a clear madness in her eyes. The kind of madness that you did not return from, the kind that broke your psyche till there were nothing but pieces left. He’d seen it before, it was a sickness of the mind and spirit, and it had brought many before. The sickness of the body one could cure with medicine, but often the sickness of heart and mind were not so easily cured.

He felt for her, felt for her pain, whatever suffering she must have endured, whatever her story had been. But despite all of that, despite those feelings, the thing he felt the most right now was excitement.

How long had it been, since he’d been able to completely go all out? How long had it been, since he’d been able to completely let loose and be one with himself, be one with his spirit, and with the ocean.

The waves crashed into the spirit, pushing back on her domain. The ocean roared, it rumbled as giant tsunamis crashed and he rode them, surfing those currents, causing and creating whirlpools, the winds and waves danced to his command as he rushed to the spirit, laughing in jubilant joy. He’d never anticipated he’d get to fight a Divinity, but it was more than he’d ever anticipated. He’d fought many beasts, but beasts did not think in the same way, there was a different kind of rush there, but it was not as challenging, he could predict them, understand their intentions and motives and outsmart them. A lot of people assumed just because he did not like thinking too deeply meant that he couldn’t.

But that couldn’t be far from the truth. You had to think a lot in battle, not every moment was going to be calculated, but there was strategy, planning and depth. He did not like the complexity and meaningless of a lot of tasks, but this? This was why he lived. For this moment, out here, finding himself, pursuing his truth and freedom. He wanted to do this eternally, he wanted to keep doing this forever and ever, and it was why he had pursued immortality, and why he’d become a Divinity in the first place. He did not want this to end.

But he knew that was not true. One day it would come to an end. There was no avoiding it, even as an immortal, with his tendencies, he’d end up fighting something he could not really beat. And that’d be it. He went into each battle with that awareness, it kept him sharp.

Zian rushed in, striking the spirit with his fist. He struck her into the ground, breaking her in a way that told him this battle was over. Rushing in his strikes had broken her attacks, her domain now fading as her strength all but died down.

He looked down at the spirit, she lay there, her body unresponsive, simply watching with her eyes wide open.

He breathed heavy. His own body was injured heavily, there was no feeling in one of his arms and if he did not get some warmth soon he may just have to part with that limb and more.

But for now, none of that mattered, nothing else mattered besides his opponent. He looked down at his opponent, at her beaten form and gave her a nod of respect.

“Good fight,” he said, as he plunged his fist into her chest, at the frozen heart that was at her core and grabbed it, crushing it.

The spirit gasped, and then, for a moment, he saw the madness fade from her eyes. She looked at him, and then two tears that froze instantly dripped down her face as she whispered very weakly.

“I’m… sorry…”

And then he realized the trap for what it had been. The frozen heart shattered, the energies inside it exploding outwards as the spirit’s body ripped apart. Yue Zian tried to run but it was too late, as the fury of winter struck him right where he stood. The world plunged into darkness, a deep shivering cold taking him over as all ounce of heat was removed from him.

The domain around him collapsed as he returned to the world, and looked around himself.

“Oh my, you survived,” a voice said, sound extremely playful.

Yue Zian looked. He could not truly move, not with his body frozen solid, but he did not need to, to see who remained there.

The loathesome figure of the demon in front of him wanted him to gather some strength, but he knew when he’d lost, and this time, he’d truly lost.

He grunted to himself, as the last of his strength faded, and then he fell, his body shattered into dozens of different chunks.

“I guess not for long,” Yang Shen, looking down at the dead Divinity.

***

Shie Zhuihu had not thought of death many times before. It was a distant thing for her, a concept that did not enter her life all that often. She knew mortals died. Quite a few of them did in the time she had been alive, including some that she’d known and liked as well. But it was not something that had to be considered for her. Even before becoming a Divinity, before touching upon that nebulous threshold of power and the mantle that weighed upon her shoulders, she’d found herself above death.

Perhaps that had been arrogance, but she’d always known it in some way inside of herself that death was not going to be a hindrance to her, not in the way it was to many others.

And yet now, she no longer felt that certainty. She moved through the the battlefield, eyes taking in the expanse all around her.

Zhuihu moved through the terrible forest around her that resisted her will, rising all around her to pull her into itself. Thorny vines laced with potent poison tried to reach for her. She almost wanted to laugh. Trying to poison her was like trying to drown a fish. She was poison incarnate, her metal Qi affinity let her turn her inner body immune to poison, unable to be touched by it. Or so she’d thought. Turns out she’d gotten a little complacent. She should’ve known better after the emperor had died of being poisoned. He was immune as well, he should’ve been, even more so than her.

Her opponent shriked in the background, the demoness moving through shadows, jumping and flowing in and out as she pleased. This was clearly a game to her, and that was what bothered her the most.

Gathering Qi, serpents of mist rose from around her, tearing down entire sections of this terrible forest as she tried to locate her enemy, the snakes jaws snapped, crushing entire trees with them as Zhuihu’s eyes scanned the terrible shadowy forest.

She was the one who used these tactics, she understood how they worked. Their domains had been oddly compatible, their natures too, and that had left her feeling bitter because it had been obvious that her opponent was simply better. She cursed under her breath, burning with fury.

Just how long had she been fighting by now? Weeks? Months? Time had lost all meaning in this dark place and she was falling prey to the things that she’d use to make her enemies dance, to confuse them, to fill them with fear before striking.

This was a battle of attrition. She had been able to stop the poison, but not entirely. The Gu tainted poison tore through her body and spirit, damaging her cultivation directly. She had not even thought that to be possible, not after she’d already become a divinity, but the impossible had been happening often enough around her.

Now, she felt what it was like to be on the other side from her, to have a noose slowly tightened around your neck as the inevitable march of death came towards you steadily. She hated it, she hated how she was in this moment, and she could not help if this was some sort of punishment from the heavens.

She could think of a dozen different things that she could be being punished for. She had not gotten this far by being kind, or nice for that matter. She’d sought power and obtained it through cunning and viciousness.

Power flooded Zhuihu as she tore through the forest around her, a giant serpent manifested around her, crushing the trees and tearing through the landscape. More laughter echoed, the forest continued to move and dance, shifting constantly, vines sought to bind her and the foliage to bury her within itself.

She moved and continued to move, but she did not have time anymore. The poison was wracking her body. It was a slow buildup, but it was reaching that critical threshold beyond which she knew she would not be able to recover.

Panic stirred in her heart, her actions growing more and more frantic, and yet there seemed to be no recourse. Nothing that would lead the way out. She was trapped prey, and this place intended to make a mockery of her.

Would she truly die here? Like this? Made into prey, into a pathetic display?

No, no she would not. She would not flounder like a mindless rat. She was more than that.

Shie Zhuihu forced her beating heart to calm down, forced her panic to settle down, and simply stopped moving. The vines came, the forest threatened to swallow her but she did not resist this time. Let it take her, she was not so easily broken that she’d give up. Her fingernails sliced through anything that got too close, cutting the vines into pieces and she took a deep breath out.

It was only now that she finally realized what the poison was truly doing. It was sowing fear in her heart. She had heard of poison like this, but almost none could even touch someone of her strength. She knew of poison that made one so deathly afraid, poison that brought a sense of doom so strong, people took their own lives, but she’d never something quite this potent before. Something that would affect her and also slip her notice.

But now she understood, and since she understood, she mercilessly cut off the part of herself that felt that fear, felt any of that emotion and watched it wither and die a slow, agonizing death.

Good. It had taken her a long time, but she had finally beat that one poison, and that allowed her to look deeper. She inspected herself, and she knew she could not fix this poison. It was made out of miasma, but not any simple kind. Miasma, she understood, but life born out of death was strange, and this kind of poison was entirely foreign to her, she found a wry smile upon her face, remember her training as a young girl. She’d had to deal with so many different kinds of poisons, so many different things that she had not known. To her self back then, this would’ve been just another part of training. Just another thing to take care of.

She’d lost that somewhere, lost her ability to think like she was on the backfoot. But no more. If she’d forgotten, then she’d relearn.

And so she stood, and simply thought. What would she do if she had set a trap like this. Where would she position herself? Her domain was powerful but it was being overshadowed by the other one. The other domain was… tricky, it snuck into her own domain, took control from underneath, like a parasite invading her.

A parasite… a parasite had to be within the body of the object it invaded. And the closer it was to the target, the more effect it would take.

She did not move, did not many any indication of what she was going to do next. She simply turned, took a single step, and then struck, grasping for an invisible shadow in front of her.

The demon gasped, appearing out of thin air as Zhuihu grabbed her throat. She did not relent, letting a thousand poisons drain into the demon, letting all her Qi soak into the body till it withered and died.

The demon coughed blood, her face twisting in agony as Zhuihu’s Qi tore her from the inside, and then, she gave her a haunting smile.

“Always… so confident…” the demon gasped, and then her body unravelled into leaves and vines as they wrapped around Zhuihu. She tore them apart, but found her too late, as the thorns dug into her skin and as something invaded her body. Something vile and utterly disgusting, and as the domain collapsed around her, Zhuihu finally realized what was happening.

She collapsed, finding the vile substance coursing through her insides, breaking apart all that she was.

“No…” she whispered, but strength was already fading.

The world faded back into focus. She watched a demon walk past her.

Yang Shen looked down at her, at her broken hollow form, and then, without saying the word, and the demon simply walked further into the city.

Zhuihu collapsed, feeling as if death would’ve simply been the better alternative, as the demon’s last act burned her cultivation to the ground, leaving her a dying husk. But one she knew, bitterly knew, would live on as a mortal.

It was a death of the worst kind. The death of herself as a Divinity.

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