~~~

“He really does look like him.”

“Family tends to resemble one another.”

“I never thought that Brother Jin even had a family. If you told me he appeared out of thin air one day, I’d probably believe it.”

“I believe that says more about you than it does about Brother Qing.”

“True. Besides, my Jin is undeniably superior.”

“Enough already! We’re wasting time!”

A single vein throbs dangerously in Qing Guo’s forehead. His face, already red with rage, darkens into purple. The audacity of these people! To talk about him with such irreverence!

Someone pats his shoulder for comfort.

It’s the damn dog.

“Enough already!” He shouts, struggling against his bindings. Qing Guo has been tied up with strings instead of snakes this time. They are the same type one would use for a musical instrument but considerably more durable. “The Prince of the Storm Dragon Empire will not be treated so poorly!”

“We could cover your mouth. You realize that, right?” The beautiful but dangerous woman with red hair asks him. “Your only value to us is as a hostage.”

Qing Guo fumes in silence at the indignity of it. To think he’d been held hostage twice in the same day!

Unthinkable!

He is not weak. He knows that much. All his tutors have praised his growth, and while Qing Guo has often thought they were a bit too eager to please at times, it is not as if being in the Sixth Level of the True Realm is a small achievement. Most people never leave the Nascent Realm. It is different among nobles, obviously, but even then, Qing Guo is superior to all his peers.

Even among these people, not counting the one in the Earth Realm, he is not all that inferior. They should not be able to treat him as a minor annoyance!

So what exactly is this gap between himself and them?

“Good,” the red-haired woman says, pleased with his silence. “You know how to hold your tongue. Now, you will learn how to speak when spoken to.”

“How did you come across that dog?” The oldest of his captors asks, interrupting what would undoubtedly have been a very eloquent threat if the glower the red-haired woman aims at him is any indication.

Qing Guo can relate. It is very annoying when one’s prepared speeches are interrupted.

The strings around his neck tighten. He has stayed silent for too long.

“Wait! I’ll answer! I’ll answer!” he says. “I’ll admit it! I encountered my cousin, but the man from the other side, the Fleshcrafter, he attacked us. That beast has no allegiance to anyone. My cousin helped me escape, but he could not do the same… Most likely, he’s already dead.”

Qing Guo’s body tenses in preparation for their reaction. However, rather than the explosion he expected, the four merely look at each other in doubtful silence.

“He’s obviously lying, right?”

“Of course.”

“Naturally.”

“I’m not lying!” Qing Guo shouts. “How else do you think this cursed creature of his is with me? The Fleshcrafter encountered us but I-Argh!”

He winces as a single slender finger makes contact with his neck. The motion seems tender, but the heat tells the true story.

“There is no possible way my Jin would die before someone like you,” the red-haired woman tells him. “Besides, the dog is alive.”

Qing Guo blinks and looks at the dog.

“Huh?”

“If Brother Qing died, his creation would disappear alongside him,” the small girl says. “It hasn’t, so we can assume he’s alive. However, we cannot discount his story about encountering the Fleshcrafter.”

“Prioritizing the lives of others is the sort of noble thing my lord would do,” says the man in the Earth Realm.

“Unfortunately, I cannot disagree. We need to find him quickly.” The red-haired woman turns to him. “Well? Speak. How is one meant to navigate through this place?”

“How am I supposed to know? This place is random,” Qing Guo says. “Even I don’t know how to traverse it at will.”

“Why would you deploy a spatial realm that makes your forces as lost as ours?” The brash one asks him with confusion.

“Because it was better than having two emperors attacking the palace!” Qing Quo snaps at him. “The only person who can help us travel freely through this space is my ancestor! We need to find the Storm Dragon! He’s the key to everything!”

The Storm Dragon is also very likely what the Fleshcrafter is truly after, but he’s not about to share that detail with these people.

“That sounds sensible. How do we find him?” asks the small girl.

Here, Qing Guo ducks his gaze.

“I… I am still not sure of that part.”

It is not as if he hasn’t tried to contact his ancestor, but Qing Guo’s calls have received no answers, no matter how loudly he yelled. The only way to reach the Storm Dragon, no matter how inconvenient, is to keep trying. Qing Guo tells himself that it is no fault of his. Even an Emperor would be unable to find his way across the Storm Dragon’s spatial realm.

He still feels embarrassed when the four trade equally disappointed looks.

“See? They are not similar at all.”

Qing Guo decides his cousin’s friends are the worst.

The dog pats his shoulder again.

~~~

The Fleshcrafter follows a remarkably simple fighting philosophy.

Overwhelm with mass.

His skills are incredibly complex. Of that, there can be no doubt. It is not just a matter of Qi control. The knowledge required to shape flesh the way he does must be unspeakably profound. By even the most conservative estimates, the Fleshcrafter must have honed his craft for years.

As long as he has biological matter at his disposal, the Fleshcrafter can attack in myriad ways, and it is improbable he will ever run out of it. Not only is the Fleshcrafter’s body incredibly dense, but Mud is also reasonably sure he has even more material stored in spatial items hidden inside his body,

Regardless, all his techniques follow the same guiding principle. He needs to make contact with his foes. Once he does, the Fleshcrafter can infect that person and add them to his collective. Dangerous as it sounds, it makes dealing with him incredibly simple.

One merely needs to avoid being touched.

In a closed room like the one they are fighting, the idea might seem impossible. The moment their fight starts, the Fleshcrafter’s flesh rolls towards him like muddy water down a mountain after a heavy rain.

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Mud cannot be touched.

It is, Mud will admit, perhaps not the most entertaining thing to watch. Merely two people standing on different ends of the room, the only remarkable thing being that one half of the room is full of dead flesh and the other isn’t. However, once the novelty wears off, what remains is simply two people not moving. Had this been a tournament, the audience would be booing them fiercely by now.

Mud is fine with that. There was a time in which he aimed to impress, but that time is long gone. It does not matter that he fights in a boring way. What matters is that he can stand on this battlefield.

Unfortunately, the Fleshcrafter does not seem to share that sentiment. With every breath, Mud feels his rising irritation. It is only natural. Even if he already experienced it when they fought in the Dead Plains, prodigies do not take well to stagnation. Progress is the natural state of the gifted. Where others stumble, they soar. The mundane will toil away fruitlessly their entire lives. The gifted need but one day of contemplation.

Not so when Mud’s Dao is in play.

There is no progress.

There is no movement.

There is only futility.

That is what his master shaped him into. He saw the most miserable disciple in the Eternal Flame Clan and turned that misery into a strength, shaping it into a way of life. No matter how brilliant the Fleshcrafter is, none of his attacks will ever reach Mud.

At least, that is how it would usually be.

Mud’s body lightly trembles. A bead of sweat rolls down the back of his neck. If he were in a better condition, he’d be trying to overwhelm the Fleshcrafter with his Dao, placing him completely under its influence. In the state he is in, he can only try to keep the statement going, but for how long?

The Fleshcrafter has yet to call upon his Dao, using only Qi and mass to try to overwhelm him. Most likely, it is a way of looking down on him, and most unfortunately, it will eventually work. Mud’s presence dwindles with every breath, and the influence of his Dao already begins to weaken.

The Fleshcrafter’s Qi retreats first.

Mud allows himself a confused blink. The flesh surrounding the Fleshcrafter deflates and spreads over the floor, still unable to cross the line drawn by Mud’s Dao. The Fleshcrafter does not look tired, nor does he feel particularly exhausted.

“I must confess this is beginning to annoy me,” he says. “First, a doctor speaks to me about death. Now, a monument to inadequacy tries to tell me my efforts are fruitless. You people from the other side are quite brazen.”

The Fleshcrafter’s Qi shimmers palely around him. The room dims as all the lights in the room become drawn towards him. Even the floor and walls seem to fold over. Inanimate they might be, but weight cannot be ignored.

“Hear me now, abomination. Beauty is not a fact. It is an ideal,” the Fleshcrafter says, and his words settle over Mud’s shoulders and weaken his knees. “Unreachable, true. Unreasonable, certainly. Unknowable, perhaps.”

The Fleschrafter’s Qi soars.

“However, striving for it is never futile!” The Fleschrafter says with three hundred voices.

One by one, his creations take shape at his sides and behind him. In a matter of moments, the Fleschrafter has a horde of monsters at his back. Some with three heads. Some with more limbs than can be counted. Some with organs in plain sight. All of them disgusting.

Mud wants to laugh.

Beauty?

Beauty?!

A cultivator’s path takes many shapes, and it expresses itself in as many forms as there are stars in the sky. Even so, Mud cannot stop the incredulous look on his face.

Beauty! Of all things!

“Look upon them!” The Fleshcrafter shouts, his influence slamming into Mud’s like a battering ram. “Each one is a different step! Each one beautiful beyond compare! Can you deny their existence?!”

The creature closest to the Fleshcrafter charges.

The creature closest to the Fleshcrafter charges.

The creature closest to the Fleshcrafter charges.

“I ask again! Can you deny their existence?!”

The second joins in.

The second joins in.

The second joins in.

The third marches on.

The third marches on.

The third marches on.

“I deny it.” Sweat shines on Mud’s brow. He struggles to remain upright. “You speak of beauty. I see ugliness. You boast of your accomplishments. I see none.”

Mud’s Qi regains strength. His aura swells. That which is motionless becomes more motionless still.

“Ignorant!” The Fleshcrafter’s shout is like a slap on his face. “Who are you to judge what is beautiful? Beauty is what I decide! I say there is beauty in what I have done, so there is. I say it is worthwhile, and so it is. I say I have advanced, and so I do.”

Four, five, and six crawl.

Seven, eight, and nine stampede.

Ten, eleven, and twelve strut.

Mud recoils.

If he were healthier, he’d be able to counter. Even now, the words come easily to him, but his soul is too tired to speak them. His influence shrinks, and the beautiful horde advances.

Mud’s knees hit the floor.

Beauty.

Mud smiles.

How cruel the Heavens are for making him face what he is not.

Beauty falls upon him.

Light strikes.

~~~

Bad ideas are a problem.

Everyone has them, and nearly everyone fails to realize they're bad. No one ever executes a bad idea knowing that it is a bad idea. Bad ideas are put into practice either with all the confidence in the world or with such speed that the person does not even realize what they have done.

Shi Qinxia finds herself trapped in the latter case. Regardless, the way forward is always the same.

Bluster.

"That was dangerous," Shi Qinxia says as she walks up from behind Senior Brother Mud, trying to pretend destroying all those creatures hasn't taken nearly all she has. "You should be more considerate, visitor from the Other Side. There are doors everywhere. There is no telling who will walk through them and be caught in your attacks."

The Fleshcrafter looks at her with no more consideration than one would give a pebble on the side of the road. Her pride chafes at this, but she knows she has no place here. The moment she opened a door and found a duel between Heaven Realm cultivators, she should have closed it instead of walking right in.

"Begone," the Fleshcrafter tells her. A mercy. One she should accept.

She kicks Senior Brother Mud instead. He's in such a sorry state she gets away with it.

"He's done," she says. "Let me kill him."

The Fleshcrafter's look does not change. He merely snaps his fingers.

Ah.

Shi Qingxia grimaces when the Fleshcrafter's stoicism turns to puzzlement.

"You took it out," he says, finally giving her his attention. She wishes he hadn't. The smell is terrible. "Who?"

She doesn't reply. Shi Qinxia already has Senior Brother Mud thrown over her shoulder and is dashing for the nearest door.

Flesh seals it shut.

"It is very odd," the Fleshcrafter says, "to see someone so eager to run to their deaths."

"It is very common to see a self-important asshole prattling about nonsense," she replies. "There are plenty in the Eternal Flame Clan."

It is why she hates the Eternal Flame Clan. Unfortunately, she also loves the Eternal Flame Clan. Else, she wouldn't be doing this. There is no contradiction. Love and hate tend to go hand in hand.

Shi Qinxia lays down Senior Brother Mud and raises her Qi.

It is futile, yes. It is stupid, yes.

She is still doing it.

"If I had found you fighting that brat Feng Zhi, I wouldn't have lifted a finger. I might have even cheered you. However, this one is a rarity. He's worth a damn."

"Then die for that worth."

Flesh advances upon her, and the only defense Shin Qinxia can offer is light. There is no technique, merely power. Everything that she is expressed outward. Pure, fulminating glory.

It lasts but a moment.

The flesh advances. The light dims.

Shadows rise.

“What in the eighteen hells?” Shin Qingxia mutters, untouched even though she shouldn’t be. She looks up and sees shadows holding back the flesh.

Shadows with hands.

Shadows with eyes.

“Is there no end to this absurdity?” The Fleshcrafter hollers. “Must Heaven keep testing me! Have I not endured enough killing the first? Must I keep facing tribulation to kill the second one?”

"Tribulation?" A bald man with a long braid of hair laughs as he walks out of the shadows. Another one follows after him. "You think you have endured the tribulation, Dead One? You who broke the treaty and have become a plague upon this land?"

"Allow us to show you what tribulation really is."

~~~

He walks. She looks at him.

A gift from the Storm Dragon, a viewing pool placed in her room. Obviously, it is a trap of some sort, but curiosity often prevails over caution.

It is not an easy thing to walk after ascending. The Earth is like an overbearing mother. It senses its children about to leave the nest and clings fiercely to them. It is not like a weight placed on one's back. The hold of the Curse of the Earth is everywhere. To be able to interact with the material world without sinking under one's own weight requires control.

He walks.

He'll run soon enough.

That does not make him special. Prodigies are tediously common. Even the nostalgia he evokes in her does not make him worthy of her notice. How could it? His face. His eyes. They mean nothing to her.

However, being able to come back from the dead despite having been in the True Realm?

That is worthy of her notice.

Su Daji leaves the safety of her room.

~~~