Chapter Text
We’re s- so very small, in the end.
The first bullet hit me from behind, where my mask offered no coverage, and I slowly toppled. The second hit me before I could fall, before there could be any pain.
By all accounts, I should be dead. My body, cold and lifeless, lay at Contessa’s feet as she holstered her gun and Thinkered up a way to squeeze out all the benefit out of my death.
Instead, I wake up to a ceiling I do not recognize. There is a startled cry that I choose to ignore in favor of having a mild panic attack at the feeling of millions of people- no, bugs- entering my range. Bugs! Not people! The realization hits me like a loaded truck. I'm relieved, happy even, but more so I'm terrified. Contessa could just… do that? Shoot someone in the head just right to edit their powers? Or did the shots only knock me out, and she made Bonesaw and Amy work on my brain?
My attention was brought back to reality when I heard a terrified whimper. My eyes darted to the only other person in the room. A middle aged man with greying hair is cowering in the corner. He has a long, pointy beard and a mustache that reminds me of catfish. He's dressed in a dark blue robe, some eastern style I don't recognize. I hear him speak, but once again, nothing registers in my mind. Like during my time as Khepri.
Then it dawns on me that he isn't speaking English. The words he mutters are unintelligible to me, but I get the gist. He's terrified of me. I get it. I just took control of every parahuman in existence, albeit briefly. I would be terrified too. But something doesn't feel right. Like the bed I'm laying on. It's too hard, uncushioned and with tall borders. Wooden. Like a coffin?
My eyes drift down from the cowering man to my bed. I guessed right. Or half right. As I sit up to better process my condition, I place my hand on the lid of the casket I was lying on. My bugs, and I'm ecstatic to say that line again, are scouring my surroundings to give me a better picture than my eyes ever could.
We're in a small settlement. There are no high rises, the tallest building around, some kind of a pagoda, only being five stories tall. Everything is made out of soft stone or wood, and I am surprised by the total lack of smog or the chemical smell that permeates the big cities. It's something you don't notice until it's gone, so ever present it usually is. And there are no cars in sight.
My current range is eight city blocks around me, and by the looks of it, I am on the settlement's outskirts. There is a twenty foot tall wall separating the town from the wilderness beyond, and after a thousand feet wide clearing, there is a lush forest absolutely teeming with insect life. No cars. No roads. The streets here are too narrow to accommodate any vehicles.
The catfish man says something again, and my eyes snap back at him. He whimpers more, but seems to have regained some measure of courage. He shouts something, and I feel a pair of men that carried themselves with the confidence of someone in power, or rather, law enforcers, turn towards the noise and begin speeding up in their approach.
From my observations, nobody here spoke English. So I held a morsel of hope that I was simply kidnapped by the CUI. Which meant, I had to get out of here. Then, find a way to communicate with the outside world. Or… not. I could decide what to do next, when I was safe.
I sprang up to my feet and stepped over the casket’s frame. The two law enforcers, as I suspected, were Movers, and had enhanced senses. They were one city block away when the catfish man screamed, and they heard it immediately. They were already halfway to our location, so I couldn't even take stock of what I had available, or where my suit was. I ran in the opposite direction from the enforcers.
There were no crowded streets or large congregations of people I could blend into, so my best bet became getting inside a temple not far away from the building I just exited. There were a series of stone archways leading up to it, the paths separating them surrounded by gravestones and statues. The temple itself had the shape of a hollow box, with stone hallways surrounding a roofless courtyard that had a deep well in the middle.
I heard the law enforcers pause in front of the catfish guy, then zip past him in the direction he pointed at. Now that I could properly map them out, my bugs having formed large enough groups to see them clearly, I could see swords gleaming in their hands. There was a faint glow on the soles of their feet that I suspected was the visual indicator of them using the Mover power.
They were coming in my direction. I had a split second to decide where to hide. Would it be the stone sarcophagi in the temple’s hallways? No, opening their lids would make too much noise and alert them. Climbing on the ceiling beams had the same danger, all they needed was to look up. My only option was the dry, deep well. If they discover me regardless, I could always overwhelm them and use the well as a chokepoint to make them come at me one at a time. I could already feel several other capes converging on the temple, so I had no choice. I jumped down.
Putong Ren did not take pride in being a constable in Yaoti town. It was a demotion of sorts, a quiet termination, even. Nothing happened in Yaoti town. It was more of a checkpoint between the bigger Wuling city, the Splitting Sun Market and whatever laid to its north. Sure it was big enough to station a couple Foundation Establishment Initiates, but it was no cultivation hub. Nothing happened in Yaoti town.
So it was a great surprise when, during his so-far boring patrol, he heard a scream. It came from the coroner’s office, so it must be good. No robberies happened there, no break-ins or fights. A good ghost story to tell, even if it was just an old man getting scared of his own shadow. Putong Ren could always embellish whatever story the coroner would tell him.
He exchanged glances with Di’er Geren, his patrol partner for the day, and they rushed to the scene.
“Constables! Oh, you’ve come at last! I was mere moments away from meeting my end here!” The coroner cried out when they burst into his office. He was a thin man with a long, thin, downward-drooping moustache that extended past his jawline, and he was trembling something fierce.
“What happened here, old man?” Di’er Geren asked impatiently.
“The body! The girl who got executed today by Initiate Yanli! She woke up-”
“A walking corpse?!” Both he and Di’er Geren cried out in excitement. That was even better than a ghost story. That was an actual ghost!
“That’s exactly it!” The coroner cried out. “One moment she was dead as a log, another she's sitting up and fixing me with this cold stare! She- she went that way!” He pointed at last. And the constable pair was already on their way out of his office, rushing towards wherever he pointed – the graveyard. Of course! The walking corpse would obviously be attracted to the yin qi that permeated the graveyard. If it awakened only recently, its energy reserves must be low!
“Tell the others! By the time they reach us, we’ll be right in the middle of slaying that thing!” Putong Ren said excitedly, having long drawn his flying sword.
“I already did. She must be in the temple, let’s get her before she recovers her strength.” Di’er Geren responded, putting a communication talisman back in his pocket.
The pair reached the sole building in the area in seconds, hopping past the paifang arches to stop on the temple’s roof. It was empty, save for the faint scraping sounds coming from the well. Their gazes locked into it immediately, both constables coming to the same conclusion that the walking corpse must be hiding from the sun in the only place that didn’t have protective talismans in this graveyard.
Of course, the stone sarcophagi inside the temple halls were sealed away using buddhist techniques, and the graves had incense burnt atop them on the regular. The only non-holy place here was the well! How clever!
“It might be too dangerous to face it in its natural habitat.” Putong Ren said cautiously, trying to estimate how deep the well in front of them would be.
“It is a freshly awakened walking corpse. She’s at her weakest right now!” Di’er Geren insisted.
“Do you want to go in there first?” That shut his partner up fast. “But it’s true that we’ll miss out on showing off to others.” He sighed after a pause.
“How about this? Let’s go down there-” Putong Ren held up a hand to stop Di’er from speaking up against his suggestion. “Down on the ground! Then, we’ll check the well. If there’s nothing there, we’ll just blame the coroner for lying to us. Deal?”
Di’er gulped audibly, and nodded. The two then jumped off the roof and landed on the sandstone tiled courtyard ground with a faint tap of their feet. Gingerly, they tip-toed towards the well. But when they looked down, they couldn’t see the well’s bottom.
“Why is the water so murky?” Di’er asked, then held his sword up and sent a burst of qi through the blade. The qi lit his blade up in a soft green light which briefly illuminated the interior of the well, and the pair blanched. It wasn’t water filling the well.
The constable pair’s eyes went as wide as saucers at the sight that awaited them at the bottom of the well. Insects, so many of them that they blotted out the bottom of the well. Chittering and crawling over each other.
“Ren.”
“What is it?”
“I think it's best we call Initiate Yanli over.”
“... Yeah.” At this moment, Putong Ren wished nothing actually happened in Yaoti town.
The town was on high alert. Apparently, my sudden awakening was not something they expected or enjoyed. With their capes being so vigilant, I couldn't simply sneak out into the wilderness. And the way I was dressed, I was pretty sure was only reserved for funerals. As in, for the buried. An off white robe and a simple white tunic underneath. Baggy pants tied around the ankles with a thin rope that also held the thick hempen socks in place, for the lack of any other footwear. Impractical, and extremely noticeable. Nobody wore entirely white attires, even if almost everybody around here wore robes. So the moment I left this place, I would stick out like a sore thumb.
I had crawled to the bottom of the well and called over a swarm of insects to block the entrance. If they braved the descent regardless, I was ready to demonstrate what I did to Alexandria. But they didn't. The law enforcers exchanged a couple words and retreated. I was sure they wouldn't be gone for long. But I've won myself some time.
Time to look around the tiny space I found myself in. The well connected to a series of caves, the water here having receded far enough that the well lost its primary function. The caves led somewhere, and there were enough aquatic insects in it for me to begin scouting. If there was an exit, one that led out of this town, it would be ideal. But if there was one, it would have been discovered long, long ago.
Nobody would leave such a strategic weak point in their town, especially if said town housed capes in high two digits. The bugs eventually found three air pockets, and I was already assembling all the amphibious beetles to explore them.
Meanwhile, I was calling over more and more bugs to the well’s entrance. My hiding spot was discovered anyways, and there was no point in hiding my presence. I had detected a dozen capes standing around on the rooftops of the temple, brandishing swords, chalices and various items that each had that same glow their power expressions had. Maybe they were all supplied by a Tinker?
They just stood there, giving the thick streams of bugs flying into the well a wide berth. Some shot off attacks at the swarms, killing off dozens of bugs at once, but seemed to give up when that didn’t stop the movements of the rest. The original two capes had left in a hurry, their destination – the five story pagoda.
Now that I had time to catch my breath, I took stock of my situation. Everything about this place screamed suspicious. The old fashioned clothes, ancient architecture, the total lack of modernity. There were no cars, no electricity, no plumbing.
The more I observed the law enforcers, the less sure I was of them being members of the Yangban. For starters, Yangban didn't have nearly as many members as there were law enforcers in this town alone. A good sixty capes, all in one place, under one banner. Their Mover power did not feel like the ones they used in the Behemoth attack that I last saw. But they- whoever they were- used the same powers. Enhanced strength, enhanced speed, keen senses.
There were discrepancies. Some rode swords, like they were hoverboards. While others ran, jumped across rooftops. There were four, no, five distinct colors to the glow around their bodies, usually a mix of three or four. Yet despite the vast difference in the bugs’ perceptions, I could feel the glow and tell how different each one was to the other.
Yue Yanli stood outside her residence, eyes fixed on the far east horizon. Today was the last day of her ten year stint as Yaoti town’s overseer. She wasn’t too bitter about her “shift” here ending, as the only benefits she received so far were the contribution points from her sect. There were no important trade routes that ran through the town, nor were there any enterprising business upstarts trying to make names for themselves.
What she was bitter about was the changes that the new arrival would bring. The nearby Splitting Sun Market was bursting at the seams, struggling with its current flow of cultivators. And her junior brother, Guo Jiayi has come to Yaoti town with the express purpose of transforming the town into a trade hub. Right when she was about to leave. She couldn’t stomach the idea that someone else would be here to reap all the benefits she missed out on.
And speak of the devil, or think of him, a faint streak of light appeared on the horizon. Guo Jiayi, a short, five-chi-nothing man with a visible belly, dressed in yellow daoist robes, rode on a cloud of faded yellow Qi over the town walls, and gently landed just two zhang away from her. Giving her a slight bow and cupping his fist, Guo Jiayi spoke.
“Greetings, senior sister Yanli. How have you been?” The plump faced man that looked to be in his early twenties asked, with what seemed to be genuine interest.
“Fine. Come inside, there’s not much to hand over, so let’s get this over with.” She bit out coldly.
“Ayia, senior sister, don’t act so distant.” Guo Jiayi chuckled awkwardly, rubbing the back of his head. But before he could enter the five story pagoda behind Initiate Yanli, a mid-stage Qi Condensation man in constable robes ran into the pair.
“Initiate Yanli, urgent news!” The man bowed low, panting heavily. Then, his eyes widened at the sight of Guo Jiayi, and he bowed once again, cupping his fists. “Seniors!”
“What’s the matter, Constable Ren?” Yue Yanli knitted her brows in annoyance.
“There’s a ghos- walking corpse in the old temple!”
“What grade?” She asked impatiently.
“I- I have no idea, but all the insects in town are going crazy because of it! The- the thing hid inside the well, and it is now full of vermin!” Putong Ren recounted anxiously.
That was bad. Yue Yanli expected there to be ghosts in Yaoti town. After all, the town’s spirit gathering formation was layered on top of a ghost suppressing one. But over the ten years of her stay here, not a single ghost outbreak ever happened.
“That sounds serious.” Guo Jiayi clicked his tongue in wonder. “Does this kind of thing happen often?”
“It never did!” Yue Yanli barked. “I will go take a look.”
She jumped up, a billowing cloud of baby blue Qi forming under her feet as she did so, and she shot off towards the old temple. There, over a dozen constables were gathered on the rooftops, occasionally shooting off attacks with their enchanted tools at the vast swathes of insects pouring into the dilapidated well.
Yue Yanli’s spiritual consciousness peered into the well, and her stomach churned at the sight of millions, if not billions of insects crawling over each other. The wisp of her spiritual consciousness eventually hit the point where it could no longer advance deeper, but she had seen enough.
She didn’t have a fire spirit root, thus she couldn’t fulfill her urge to burn the temple down to ashes. Even if she did, the temple stood at the crucial node of the Major Ghost Suppressing formation. She couldn't afford to start a ghost flood in an attempt to put out a candle.
But she could still ignite her Qi to produce Inner Fire. She did so, the off-white flames bursting into existence at the tips of her fingers. Thousands of insects died at once, their weak bodies unable to withstand the force of an Initiate’s qi ignition. But more insects rushed to fill the gap.
Yue Yanli blanched, igniting more of her Qi, vaporizing more and more insects. Her flames spread deeper into the cave, but the instant she relented, more insects flooded the well, returning it to its previous state. It kept going until she spent half her qi reserves, yet the situation hasn't changed one bit.
“Uhh, senior sister.” The annoying, grating voice of Guo Jiayi muttered from behind her. “I think this is a bit above our cultivation realm.”
Immediately, worried murmurs spread across the constables that still lingered nearby. Yue Yanli bit her tongue lightly, refraining from insulting her junior brother publicly.
“I will set up a Ghost Suppressing formation over the well. Are you confident you can maintain it?” She asked through voice transmission instead.
“Umm- maybe?”
“A maybe won’t cut it. I shall remain here alongside you to keep watch over the formation.” She said severely, eyes boring into Guo Jiayi’s. He couldn’t say no without jeopardizing his own standing, and if he put in a word for her at the sect, they would surely allow her prolonged stay in Yaoti town.
Guo Jiayi bit his plump cheek in thought, then nodded. He wouldn't benefit from having a ghost outbreak on his hands, and the man wasn't famous for his formation skills.
“I will contact the sect. If the formation holds until they arrange for a buddhist cultivator to take a look, that would be for the best.” He finally said. “What should I tell them? What grade is that ghost?”
“Definitely a Ghost General, comparable to a high stage Initiate.” Yue Yanli said gravely. That was, of course, a bald faced lie. But the apparition surely wasn't simple, since it could walk under the sun, no matter how briefly. And the swarm of millions of insects... “We are lucky that it hadn't awakened at night. There is no time to dally, I will begin constructing the formation.”
While the insects in the city were pouring into the well to replenish my dwindling swarm, the insects outside were scouring the land trying to find the cave's exit. It was no use, either this cave spanned far more than eight city blocks, or it simply didn't have other exits.
The diving beetles could breathe inside the pockets, so I felt semi-confident in being able to pass them with my own body. The issue was that cave diving wasn't something I ever attempted, or was interested about.
But what truly caught my attention was a skeleton sitting cross legged in the same cavern my body was in. Or rather, something in its pouch. Whatever it was, my insects died when they touched its hard stone-like surface.
Not all of them died instantly. Some survived long enough that I could feel their tiny vestigial brains melt from information overload. The survivors were the bugs that could see the glow from the capes. Not all bugs could see these glows. And those who could, they felt smarter, more perceptive, healthier. Stronger, even.
There weren't many of them, comparatively. I had separated them from the rest of the swarm, and only one in a thousand could see the glow, and one in ten of those had a glow of their own.
I found it odd that these insects had, supposedly, similar powers to the people above. But what if all of them were granted powers by some Trump? And it just so happened that the Trump’s power manifested as a Shaker power, and these bugs were simply caught in its area of effect.
Whatever they were, the glowing insects survived contact with the stone long enough to give me the briefest of the glimpses into what its function could be. An information repository that regurgitated its contents into anyone who touched it. With direct translations and definitions of each word, exactly how the one imparting the information understood them. Insane! Utterly and incomprehensibly ridiculous!
My bugs could only glimpse the first sentence of what I now knew as a jade tablet. It contained detailed information about a technique called Sunyata Empty Sky Contemplation. A buddhist cultivation technique that used various sutras to empty one's mind. In this empty, meditative state, one could become closer to nature and thus absorb the ambient Qi much more efficiently, as the steps needed to convert it to usable Qi shortened, or rather became second nature for the user. They didn't need to consciously guide the qi along recommended pathways across their bodies, as their state of emptiness let them do so automatically.
These terms were previously unfamiliar to me, but with my bug's touch came the contextual, innate knowledge of what each word meant. It was like suddenly knowing a language, or at least a fraction of its vocabulary and grammar, with all the knowledge of each separate word compressed into a single character. Much like Shardspeak. Once I realized that, I was no longer confused as to why a single bug failed to handle so much information simply passing through it.
The Sunyata Empty Sky Contemplation technique wasn't anything impressive. And even the jade tablet itself said so. It was mainly used by cultivators entering seclusion for one reason or another. The further one progressed in their cultivation, the longer they needed to focus on accumulating Qi. And human nature simply didn't allow for someone to consciously, manually guide qi on repeat for hours, days, or even years.
One had to practice with the technique rigorously, manually following its set of circulation while chanting its sutras. Then, to learn to activate qi circulation simply by chanting the sutras. Then, to make chanting the sutras a second nature. When one achieved a state where they could chant the sutras in their sleep, that would mean they achieved great perfection in Sunyata Empty Skies Contemplation.
All that… and it was only the first couple sentences of the jade tablet. To learn the rest, I had to bring the jade tablet up and touch it to my forehead, where my third eye was, supposedly. I did so, and instantly regretted it.
Pain flared in my mind as I was introduced to too much knowledge for my comfort. The technique was not beginner friendly, and the author assumed that whoever learned it would be familiar with many terms. That didn't stop them from cramming every definition of every obscure word into the jade tablet, and just assume that the cultivator who inherited it would gloss over them.
Cultivators. This world’s version of parahumans weren't born with inactive Corona Polletinas and attained superpowers through crippling mental trauma. Instead, they were born with spirit roots that let them feel the energies of heaven and earth. Sorry, Heaven and Earth. Capital H and E, as Heaven and Earth here possessed a will of its own.
By drawing these energies, or Qi, into their body, cultivators gained the ability to strengthen their body and emit the Qi to affect the world around them. There were five main, big types of Qi: wood, fire, earth, metal and water. There were rarer “extras”, but those were glossed over by the author due to their rarity, and the spirit roots being immaterial to Sunyata Empty Sky Contemplation. Anyone could cultivate it regardless of their spirit roots, as it was the mental state that was the main benchmark that decided the cultivator’s success in the technique.
I wondered if I had spirit roots. From what I could tell, now that I had the necessary context to my situation, everyone in this town was a cultivator. All of the people here had qi signatures, the same glow my bugs detected before. And now that I mention them, my glowing bugs were cultivators too! Or rather, they had the capacity to cultivate. All my bugs that could feel qi had spirit roots, and those that already had qi… well. They happened to have absorbed it by accident.
It wasn't even something unusual. Any beast with spirit roots could inhale qi and naturally gain cultivation, albeit slowly. The same applied to ghosts and demons…
Now, I would take any information I received in foreign land with a hefty grain of salt. But I was beginning to strongly suspect that I wasn't in Kansas anymore.