City on the Cusp of Collapse
“Hahaha, spare us the theatrics,” mocked Tian Ziming. “The people have found common ground. Everyone is waiting for you to sacrifice yourself for the city; nobody wants to die for no reason.”
“No, I believe we ought to fight,” declared a middle-aged man attired in blue.
“I agree,” voiced a young man.
“And me,” declared an elder.
“Me, too,” announced a maiden
“I refuse to bow my head to them,” opined a young man.
“You twenty also have death wishes? Suit yourselves!” fumed Tian Ziming, once the twenty cultivators chose to stand alongside Mu Yu.
The man in blue verbalised, “They won’t spare us. Surrender is the height of idiocy.”
“You’re the idiots!” shouted Gao Yixing.
Mu Yu scared Gao Yixing with a stare. “Anyone else?”
“I want to fight with you!” hollered a young boy not even in his teens, showing his fists.
“Fan, don’t be silly!” scolded the boy’s father.
“Father, in the stories you always told me, elemental demons are an evil race out to kill us. You told me I had to grow up into an immortal master to fight them, didn’t you? Why are all of the immortal masters afraid of the elemental demons and shying away from battle?” the boy queried.
The cultivators heard the boy loud and clear.
The boy’s father, who was but a waiter (read: slave of cultivators) at an eatery in the city, had no clue how to respond. Fearing for his son’s life, he pulled his son in close.
“Father, was it all a lie? Are the immortal masters in the stories just mythical beings? These are not brave heroes who can slay elemental demons; they are cowering before the elemental demons. I do not want to become one of them. I want to defeat the elemental demons!”
Instead of stepping forward, a Primordial Infant Realm cultivator aggressed, “Shut up!”
The father held his son against his thigh as firmly as he clenched his jaws. As such, the boy’s mother yelled, “My… My family will fight back. Dear, we have a duty to lead by example for our son. I do not believe the elemental demons will just spare us. If giving up means dying, why not bet on the odds and fight back with everything we have?”
“… Yeah, our family will fight back!” declared the father, fighting the urge to change his mind.
“Ignorant humans, how will you fight without cultivation?” pontificated a female cultivator.
Scared, the family of three huddled up, reminding Mu Yu of his childhood and the stories Village Chief Bu shared with him.
“We’re not ignorant. Everything I said is true!” fired back the boy.
“Non-cultivators have too much to say. Honest people live short lives!”
Mu Yu was going to stop the cultivator who tried to plunge his sword through the family. Howbeit, Lie Shang cut in and reversed the trajectory of the thrust, plunging it into the cultivator’s dantian instead.
“Argh!” grunted the man, flopping to the ground.
“What was it you said about non-cultivators, Non-cultivator?” Lie Shang startled everyone with a surge of qi and then swept the family of three over to Mu Yu.
“What’s your name?” Xiaoshuai asked the kid.
“My name is Qing Fan. Are you also going to fight the elemental demons?”
Xiaoshuai pinched his chin and looked back at Mu Yu. “Yeah.”
“Are you also fighting?” the boy asked Lie Shang.
Lie Shang averted his gaze from the boy’s pure eyes.
The kid then turned to Mu Yu and, in a loud voice, stated, “I also want to fight. I don’t want you to be sacrificed.”
Mu Yu saw his own reflection in the young boy’s innocent smile. He went over to kneel before his shifu’s statue.
Shifu, you wanted the five of us to protect humankind and end this war. I always held onto the belief that cultivators could be saved, lying to myself that it was purely because Third Heaven Palace’s fabricated stores. That was why I was willing to do as you wished. All I have seen, though, is coward after coward. I have tried to be hopeful as you did. I have discovered I was wrong, alas.
I do not know what you sacrificed yourself for. Was it for these selfish, self-righteous cultivators? Is there any hope for them? They have enjoyed over a century of peace thanks to you; that same peace has made them soft. They are happy to get by, happy to have people die in their stead, happy to yield to elemental demons and hope for the best.
I opined Brother Xiang Nan’s approach was wrong as it went against your teachings. In the same vain, I put those he put under his control a lesson when they started bullying others. Looking back on it, he was not wrong; I was wrong.
I genuinely want to protect mankind; however, none of them want to fight. How can I help someone who does not want to help themselves? I did not ask them to be grateful for my intervention. I still thought saving them was the right thing to do even though they wanted to raise a white flag.
Afraid my decisions would be wrong due to the bloodlust energy, I used Mr. Xuan’s family as a measure to evaluate people and asked Lord He to decide for me whether or not to rescue the inhabitants. In the end, these cowards slaughtered all of those people with noble hearts. I am sorry, but I cannot forgive them or pull wool over my eyes and save them.
I cannot watch the just die and the cowards live. I cannot accept it. I am only going to save twenty-three people. Shifu, it is tiring playing the gallantry knight in this world. I want to join the dark side. Lie Shang is fed up. I am fed up. Sorry, Shifu.
Mu Yu shed tears as he woefully kowtowed to his shifu’s statue three times. Rising to his feet to commence a new journey, Mu Yu turned Shadow Splitter Sword into a black and white sword. Releasing his shackles on his bloodlust energy, the energy resembled an explosive detonation.
“You twenty-three can leave the city.”
Mu Yu triggered the formation carved in the Greater Heaven Stage formation foundation in his hand, shrouding the twenty-three in a teleportation formation and then transporting them out of the city.
“That was a teleportation formation! Did they leave the city?”
“Why didn’t you use the formation earlier? Are you trying to get us killed?”
“So you are their conspirator!”
“As for the remainder of you, you can all die.” Mu Yu’s teardrop on his shifu’s statue transformed into bloodlust, tearing the statue down to pieces!
The demolition of the statue rocked the city to its foundation as the airborne formation lines drizzled down, subsequently removing the transparent barrier.
“If you are the representations of justice, I shall be the darkness.”
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