Against the Gods

Chapter 1985 - Beichen’s Past

Partially Edited Chapter - Rubble

“... You?” Mo Cangying raised an eyebrow.

Helian Lingzhu was surprised as well. Yun Che ignored their reaction and slowly made his way to Qi Chuan’s side.

“Your wounds…” Helian Lingzhu subconsciously reached out.

“Don’t worry,” Yun Che assured her with a smile, “They looked serious, but it is mostly external injuries. Thanks to the medicinal qi in this place, I have recovered much with just a few hours of rest.”

Before Helian Lingzhu could ask further questions, he placed a hand on the youngster’s right arm and injected a very weak stream of profound qi into it. “Please allow me to check the state of your arm, Qi Chuan.”

After his profound qi had spread throughout the youngster’s arm, he quietly perceived how far the erosion had extended.

Technically, abyssal dust wasn’t a poison and definitely not a living thing. In essence, it was a higher power that was beyond the control of all entities who were beneath it, which was to say, everyone. That was why the so-called “erosion” was really much, much worse than it sounded. It was also far deadlier than any poison that the Abyss was aware of.

It took only a moment for Yun Che to determine Qi Chuan’s condition. While this was going on, Mo Cangying’s expression had turned into thinly veiled scorn. “What do you think you’re doing? You’re not going to tell us that you have a way to remove his erosion, are you?”

“Of course not. No one has the ability to remove erosion,” Yun Che replied indifferently and removed his hand from Qi Chuan’s arm. “However, I do believe it would be a shame to remove his arm completely as it isn’t as badly eroded as it looks. My suggestion is to remove only the eroded flesh, blood, bone, and meridians. After that, he should make a full recovery.”

This time, Mo Cangying made no attempts to hide his scorn. “Do you even know what you’re saying?”

Yun Che didn’t rise to the provocation. “We will see. Worst case scenario, he would lose the arm, which is the same if I had allowed you to cut him.”

Before Mo Cangying could respond, he looked at Qi Chuan and asked, “Are you afraid of pain?”

The youngster shook his head in confusion. “No?”

“Good. You will need that strength.”

The next second, he grabbed Qi Chuan’s arm again and unleashed his profound qi. It spread out into a million tiny, invisible streams and—

Pssh bang pssh pssh bang bang bang!

Countless holes abruptly exploded in the young man’s arm, scattering bits of blood, flesh and bones in every direction. In just the blink of an eye, Qi Chuan’s arm looked like it had been skewered a million times over.

Qi Chuan was completely stunned and pale as a sheet, of course. He wanted to scream, but the pain was so bad that he literally couldn’t.

“You bastard!!”

Mo Cangying roared and stepped forward, but Helian Lingzhu held him back before he could attack Yun Che. “Wait! Maybe… maybe he could…”

Mo Cangying couldn’t understand her reaction. For some reason, the First Princess was trusting him almost blindly and without reason. “Are you serious, Junior Sister!? He’s obviously—”

Before he could finish, Qi Chuan’s arm exploded one last time before Yun Che withdrew his hand. The sweat-drenched youngster immediately collapsed to the ground and spasmed like he was experiencing epilepsy. He finally found it in himself to scream as well.

“It’s done,” Yun Che said indifferently.

“Qi Chuan!” Helian Lingzhu rushed over to the youngster’s side immediately. His prepubescent arm was covered in almost a hundred big and small holes. It was horrifying to look at to say the least.

The First Princess immediately released her profound qi to seal the wounds, but her worry immediately turned to astonishment, then from astonishment to speechless shock.

“Yun Che!” Mo Cangying glared coldly and angrily at Yun Che. “He’s just a kid, and his fate is pitiful enough! We did you a kindness, and you would torture—”

“Ninth Senior Brother,” Helian Lingzhu interrupted him with barely restrained excitement, “he wasn’t damaging Qi Chuan’s arm carelessly. All of the eroded parts in the arm are gone, and… his arm is still usable.”

“... What!?” Mo Cangying spun toward her in shock and disbelief. He immediately went over and grabbed the youngster’s tattered arm. When he sensed what she had, his shock was several times greater than even Helian Lingzhu’s.

She was right. The erosion was completely gone. His wounds, while absolutely horrifying to look at, were really precise incisions that severed only as much as was necessary. Flesh and blood aside, Qi Chuan’s arm bones were still intact, and his most important meridians were intact as well. The small portion that was eroded was cleanly removed, and the undamaged parts were almost perfectly intact.

In some extreme cases, the margin of error was so narrow it was almost non-existent. If Yun Che had cut a millimeter shallower, the erosion would not be removed. And if he had cut a millimeter deeper, then the meridian would be destroyed. It was such a careful and precise measurement that it was terrifying.

Mo Cangying turned to look at the gore on the floor. Every single piece of flesh, blood and bone was grayish dark with abyssal dust. Not even a speck of it was alive. Finally, he looked back at Yun Che and stared at him incredulously.

“How… how did you do it?” Helian Lingzhu blurted. Even now, she couldn’t quite believe what she was seeing—feeling with her own profound qi as she healed Qi Chuan’s wounds—was real.

Yun Che smiled as warmly as ever. “I have a very complete set of medical knowledge, theory, and practices in my head. I was probably a doctor in the past.”

“A doctor?” Helian Lingzhu shook her head in disbelief. “I know a lot of doctors, but none of them possessed your level of familiarity with the human body or control over profound qi. What you just did… is absolutely beyond even the ability of our chief doctor.”

“...” This time, Mo Cangying didn’t refute her.

Meanwhile, Qi Chuan had temporarily forgotten his pain and raised his painful, but still usable right arm and asked in disbelief, “My… my arm is okay now? It doesn’t need to be cut off anymore?”

“It’s not okay, you still need a month or two to heal it completely. But yes. It will be like your arm had never been eroded,” Yun Che said smilingly before nodding in Helian Lingzhu’s direction. “You flatter me, First Princess. It’s the least I can do to repay the two of you for saving my life.”

He then straightened himself and continued, “Now that I’m… good enough, this is where we say goodbye. If we meet again, I’ll be sure to repay you to the best of my abilities.”

“What?” The sudden goodbye caught Helian Lingzhu completely off guard. “You’re leaving already? But you’re still amnesiac, am I right? And your wounds…”

Yun Che replied, “My wounds aren’t healed yet, but I’ve recovered enough to move around. My memory hasn’t returned yet, but remember what I said about being hunted? If I stay here for too long, my enemies might track me to this place. I wouldn’t know what to do if either one of you was hurt because of me.”

“So, goodbye. May we meet again someday.”

He gave them a bow and turned around. Then, he weakly but firmly made his way toward the exit. His determination and sincerity stunned even Mo Cangying.

“Wait!” Helian Lingzhu hurriedly blocked Yun Che’s path. “You might be good enough to move, but it’ll be a miracle if you make it to the exit without falling over. And if you do make it to the sandstorm, you’re almost certainly going to die!”

“You… You wanted to repay us for saving your life, right?” Helian Lingzhu racked her brains and found the perfect excuse to keep Yun Che around. “Well, you won’t have to wait until our next meeting.”

“My father was… wounded a long time ago, and since the foreign energy invaded his heart, he can only heal very, very slowly. For years he was tormented by the foreign energy, but he didn’t even dare to channel his profound energy to alleviate some of his pain.”

“But with your medical skills, you might just be able to help him,” she said fervently, “If you can save my father, if you can alleviate even just some of his pain, the entire Helian Empire would be in your debt. You would’ve more than repaid what you owe.”

Yun Che didn’t hesitate for too long. He slowly nodded and said, “Very well… I shall do my best.”

“Wonderful!” Helian Lingzhu was so happy with his change of mind that she broke into a beatific smile. “In that case, Ninth Senior Brother and I will be staying in the Helian Heavenly Palace for another two days. Two days from now, I will bring you to see my father. Until then, you should rest and recuperate.”

Mo Cangying frowned, but he didn’t object to Helian Lingzhu’s decision this time.

……

Two days later, Yun Che flew Helian Lingzhu and Mo Cangying toward the imperial palace. Yun Che continued to feign weakness, but he made it look as if his external injuries had mostly healed. In particular, his face looked as unblemished as it was before he entered the Abyss.

The effects were obvious. Helian Lingzhu had been captivated by his face for a very, very long time before she finally found the strength to look away.“If you don’t mind me asking, First Princess, may I know exactly what type of energy is afflicting your father?” Yun Che asked casually, “Since he is the emperor of an entire realm, I can’t imagine that he would be injured easily. Was it the act of a foreign power?”

Awkwardness flickered across Helian Lingzhu’s face when she heard the question. A few seconds later, she sighed. “It’s… not really a secret, so I suppose I can tell you about it. In fact, nearly everyone in the Qilin Abyss Realm has heard the story. The man who hurt my father is called Mo Beichen.”

Yun Che exclaimed in surprise, “Wait, I’m pretty sure I’ve heard that name before. Isn't he the Abyssal Knight Qi Chuan spoke of? Isn’t he a native? Why on earth would he hurt your father?”

Mo Cangying frowned, and Helian Lingzhu let out a bitter chuckle. “He was a native, and he was a once-in-ten-thousand year genius of the Qilin Abyss Realm despite his rather humble birth.”

“Mo Beichen was as talented as he was fearless. Once, he ventured into the Endless Fog in search for the opportunity to break into the next realm. His ambition, however, is even loftier than his talent: he dreams of going to the Pure Land where the Abyssal Monarch resides together with his wife and his daughters. He wasn’t all talk and no action either. He had followed the Abyssal Knight who offered him the opportunity into the Pure Land and participated in the cruel trials to become an Abyssal Knight.”

“For several years, we heard nothing from him. Then, we heard that the man had died in the trials.”

Helian Lingzhu let out a long, suffering sigh before continuing, “His daughters were meagerly talented, and they would’ve been discarded a long time ago if not for Mo Beichen’s extraordinary strength and status. Naturally, his clan made an exception for him. Before he traveled to the Pure Land, the imperial family and the clan also swore a million vows to do everything in their power to protect his wife and his daughters.”

“But since it was announced he was dead…” Helian Lingzhu took a moment to gather herself before continuing in an unusually raspy voice, “His daughters lost their protection.”

In other words, both the imperial family and his clan had mercilessly abandoned Mo Beichen’s family as soon as they heard that Mo Beichen had died. It wasn’t out of cruelty, however. Resources were scarce, and the laws of survival in the Abyss were harsh. It had made perfect sense for the two families to give up on his two daughters.

“Without the barriers to protect them from the Abyss, both his daughters eventually died to the abyssal dust.”

“His wife committed suicide after losing her husband and her daughters as well.”

So far, everything he heard was more or less the same as what Chi Wuyao had told him.

“Less than a month after his wife passed away, Mo Beichen returned as an Abyssal Knight wearing the armor bestowed by a High Priest of the Pure Land himself.”

What happened next needed not be said. It was probably why Beichen had named himself Beichen (Sorrowful Dust), and why he had chosen to become a pioneer. He wanted to die. It was as simple as that.

“So, Mo Beichen took his anger out on your father?” Yun Che asked.

Helian Lingzhu nodded, but quickly shook her head a second later. “Mo Beichen was a… righteous man. He could’ve killed my father if he wanted to, and no one in the entire empire would be able to say he was wrong. But he didn’t.”

The tragedy had been set in stone a long time ago, but it still pained Helian Lingzhu deeply to mention it today.

An Abyssal Knight was someone the Helian Dynasty never even dreamed of having. It was supposed to be a light of God that would change the fate of their dynasty forever. Instead, they had ripped that opportunity apart and turned it into a curse of damnation by their own two hands.

Yun Che glanced at the silent Mo Cangying and asked, “Big Brother Mo, I can’t help but notice that you share the same surname as Mo Beichen. Are you actually related, or…?”

“We came from the same clan,” Mo Cangying replied emotionlessly. “But my clan disappeared a long time ago. Just treat me like any other person.”

Yun Che smiled. “But you dream of becoming a Cangying (Blue Hawk), do you not? I’m sure you wouldn’t be satisfied with just staying in your nest. If the Mo Clan can produce one Mo Beichen, who can say it won’t produce another?”

Surprised, Mo Cangying shot Yun Che a long look. Somehow, Yun Che had guessed exactly what he was thinking when he called himself Cangying. He might even have figured out that his ambition lay with the Pure Land.

The conversation dispelled Helian Lingzhu’s gloominess immediately. She broke into a wide grin and said, “Well said, Yun Che! Ninth Senior Brother is going to think of you as his soulmate now!”

“Hmph!” Mo Cangying snorted.

“I too believe that Ninth Senior Brother will become another Mo Beichen… no, he will be even greater than Mo Beichen.”

……

The imperial palace of the Helian Empire wasn’t shrouded in sandstorm, but it was grayish dark like all other places. Every inch of space in this land was filled with abyssal dust and actual dust.

The palace was mainly forged from granite. Its brownish yellow color symbolized the empire’s dignity, but that dignity seemed pretty frail right now.