Chapter Text
First part – Blade:
Lines from a dialogue in 1.2 :
Humans tend to believe that the mara struck condition is related to memories. Unsurprisingly, long-life species have long lifespans, but there is a limit to the brain’s capacity. After centuries and millennia, a long-life species’ emotional threshold becomes higher and higher. Simultaneously, their memories fade and become dull under the erosion of time, leaving behind only the most extreme and vivid recollections, which are almost guaranteed to be memories full of anguish and regret…
Do you understand? The fate of all long-life species is to no longer feel joy and happiness, left with only hate and regret etched into the heart. Under such extreme conditions, a person’s ego starts to crumble…and that is the beginning of the mara struck condition.
Short life species don’t need to worry about this.
No, you still don’t understand. The condition isn’t caused by memories, but by the emotional threshold having been…Never mind, you can regard it as a memory issue.
- Fu Xuan
‘And so, it is done. From now on, you - Dan Heng, will no longer walk in anyone’s shadow aboard the Luofu.’
Cool air rushes into his lungs, carrying with it the soothing scent of oncoming rain, tinged with the illusion of sea salt from the Scalegorge Waterscape.
‘Will you be coming back, Dan Heng?’
He looks up at the setting sun, squinting his eyes against its fading light, blazing one last time in violet-red hues over the gently rolling, viridian waves.
“Dan Heng! We’re waiting for you!” March 7’s voice calls out to him, snapping him out of his daze.
“Please go ahead, I’ll be there shortly.”
“The last time we split up, you disappeared, and then this happened!” She puffs her cheeks at him, waving her hand at his horns, but concedes in the end. “Alright, but just don’t be secretly undergoing another magical transformation when we’re not around to witness it.”
He looks down at his long hair, expecting to feel unaccustomed to it but strangely isn’t. “That won’t happen again.”
“Do you still have something to settle with your past? If you can’t finish it now, you can always come back later.”
He gazes over the endlessly turning twilight waves, each peak rising and falling in a never-ending cycle, slowly wearing away at ancient monuments which once held dominion over all ocean life, its resplendence now dulled to distant echoes of a memory no longer his to recall, belonging to an empty shell no longer his to call home.
No matter how much affinity one has with something from their past, in the end, it still resides in the past.
“I know.” But I wish not to have reason to return if I could.
His fingers shift on Cloud Piercer, its tip stained a deep red-gold in the dying light of the sun.
“I will be going now. There is still someone who wants to meet me.”
Perhaps it is the darkness obscuring the horns and face. Or the fog of pain and light-headedness from a slow bleed to death. Or the weight of events coming finally to a close after years of being on the run. But there, in the shadows, with Dan Heng’s spear deeply embedded in Blade’s still bleeding chest, it becomes easier for them to speak to each other civilly, like two passing strangers in the night, for the very first time.
Their fight had started from its usual chaos, riding out violent sea waves until they tire and break, then finally ceasing to a stalemate in dead lake waters.
The dark shadow above Blade loosens his grip on the spear but does not remove his hand from it. Through countless fights, he has become familiar with Blade’s dying state. However potent his healing powers may be, he still has to die completely before coming back to life. His wounds still have to close under bandages before fully recovering.
“For how long have you been chasing after me? It must be over one hundred years.”
Blade stares vacantly up at the shadow hovering above him and does not speak.
Seven hundred.
“Tell me. Do you seriously intend to continue this futile cycle for all of eternity?”
No answer.
“Are you not tired of it all? You have never won once and you will never be able to kill me.”
Silence, then, a laugh rises out of him. Weak and echoing like old gravel from the buried remains of a tomb. Blade’s fingers twitch as he struggles to raise his hand, ignoring the shaking and blood dripping from it.
“But I did…manage to…unseal your true…form…Lord…Yin…Yue…”
His smile grows wider, but exhaustion has taken over the mad glint in his eyes, leaving behind a bitter darkness, like looking into the depths of an empty abyss.
“Next time…I will…kill you.”
It comes out more like a promise than a threat, and the shadow remains unfazed.
Heaving a sigh, the shadow continues, his voice hardening in cold resolve. “If ever the day comes where you do manage to kill me, I will tell you the same thing. I am not Dan Feng, and the man you will have killed is Dan Heng.
You will never hear what you want from me. And what you seek from me, I will never be able to give.
I do not know what went on between Dan Feng and you that caused you this much hate. But the person who you seek is no longer here. It is time for you to forget him as well.”
The laugh dies out in Blade’s throat, draining away at him as if siphoning the centuries of his life force instead of reeling him back to life.
Looking up at the dull outlines of horns in the darkness, even with everything shrouded from sight, he still sees him.
I can’t forget.
“Then let go.”
I can’t.
“Is it that you can’t, or you do not want to.” He can sense the corners of the mouth turn down in the shadow, displeased by his answer and vexed at trying to reason with a stubborn corpse.
The man with Dan Feng’s face huffs a short, bitter laugh. “You actually know it in your heart, don’t you?”
“That Dan Feng is dead.”
“You should move on.”
Move on?
I…can’t.
“Why can’t you?”
You don’t understand.
In the gloomy darkness, the shadow stares at him, its gaze like that of someone looking at a mad person, a stubborn person, unable to be reasoned with.
Someone who has tried to kill numerous times, and failed each time, only to result in his own death. Someone who has been chasing after the shadow of a dead person, the wrong person.
A fool on a stage where all the players have left. A ghost called upon for a send-off, only to realise the fog of its grudge is too deep. Darkened to a state where even the rivers of hell are unable to wash away its murkiness.
Dan Heng says the only thing he knows to the ghost.
“I don’t understand you.”
The ghost simply smiles in jest.
Blade opens his mouth, then closes it. No words can describe this feeling. No one can understand the depth of his resentment. Seven hundred years, an eternity to him once, but a mere blink of an eye to the long-lived. And now, an endlessly descending hell for himself.
Given a choice, who would want to torment themselves in this kind of hell?
But given a choice, he would not want to see him in that scene again. He would not want his most vivid memory to be that scene, and the bitter feelings that follow like bile rising in his throat. He would not want to be able to open his eyes, and feel his heart pound, relentlessly, uncaringly.
Every time he casts his eyes upon that face, there is only one person he sees.
Every time he wakes up from death, there is only one memory that greets him first. And proceeds to haunt him.
Even ghosts have things that haunt them.
He says nothing to the man in front of him.
Dan Heng stares back at him in silence. His gaze turns almost pitying in the trick of the shadows.
Reaching out a steady hand, he grasps firmly onto Cloud Piercer. And pulls.
Blood instantly spurts out and begins a slow flood towards his feet.
He steps away from the spreading blood and turns around, his back casting a shadow blending in with the red.
“Don’t appear in front of me ever again.”
He walks forward into the light.
I am Dan Heng. Whether Dan Feng is a saviour or a sinner, that has nothing to do with me...I have already taken on his punishment...I have nothing to do with him...
Nothing to do with him.
Nothing-
Blade wakes with a jolt, chest heaving as he gasps for air from the brink of death.
Kafka stands over him, her eyes calm and assessing. Dim lights flicker overhead. Boxes and crates litter the area. He's lying on a makeshift bed of sandbags, back in their emergency hideout.
"We found you lying dead in a back alley in Scalegorge Waterscape. I reckon your meeting did not go as planned?" ‘Again’ is left unsaid.
He thinks back to the past events - The attack. The white-haired woman. Her disciple, no, Jing Yuan's disciple. The destruction of the Ambrosial Arbor.
His sword driving straight into his back. His meeting with him.
He laughs. It starts out slow, then builds into a hysterical storm, gradually rising till he's bent over in half trembling on the bed, fists clenching the coarse fibres till they're almost rubbed raw.
You actually know it in your heart, don’t you?
That Dan Feng is dead.
You should move on.
…Move on?
He wants to laugh and continue laughing till the end of time and his bones have finally crumbled to unrevivable dust.
Pray tell, how does a dead person move on?
Even ghosts wish to know.
"Has he eaten at all? What's it been, five days already?"
"I've tried leaving food for him but...he still needs time to recover."
"…Does he know? About Elio's offer?"
Silence. And then, someone sighs outside his door.
He does not hear anything.
Some days, he acts on his impulsive rage. He heads out several times on a manhunt, trying to kill the person he’s been chasing for several hundred years.
He ends up almost being caught and imprisoned back in Xianzhou’s underground prisons. He ends up running into monsters and killing everything in his path till his body is bloodied and full of holes.
He ends up dragged back to their ship, wakes up to Kafka’s quiet, unsettling stare; it’s as if she’s bored and killing time, watching an old movie on playback – of someone running in circles, running themselves ragged to pieces before collapsing, then clumsily crawling back up, and stubbornly starting all over again. Nothing changes. It is all the same.
Some nights, he dreams of his death, his sword carving an end into the other’s body but he simply yanks him closer and spits the cold words in his ears – I am Dan Heng. I am not Dan Feng. Those nights, he wakes up retching.
I am Dan Heng. I am not Dan Feng.
Shut up. He does not care. They can both die and be dragged to hell with him for all he cares.
He laughs. He is sick of the sound of his own laughter, the sound varying in every tone of madness, ranging in every pitch of black, until it fades into grey, and then into nothingness.
Remember the feeling of death, and bring it to them.
Remember the feeling of death, and bring it to…who?
Who is he chasing again? The person is no longer there.
Who is he again? He is a blade with nothing to cut.
Shut up, he tiredly tells the voice. He just wants to close his eyes and forget.
To leave behind all this meaningless misery…like him.
Most days, he just wants to die.
He recalls Elio’s words.
The Xianzhou chapter has come to a close. All the players on the stage have left. What do you wish to do next? I foresee two paths. To continue, or accept your end of the deal we made.
If I continue?
You will be trapped in an endless cycle, till the day he dies, and it may not be at your hand.
If ever the day comes where you do manage to kill me, I will tell you the same thing. I am not Dan Feng, and the man you will have killed is Dan Heng.
You will never hear what you want from me. And what you seek from me, I will never be able to give.
And if I were to accept?
Then all things will come to an end, and the final outcome will be left to fate.
Is that so…
If he is unable to forget. If he is unable to let go. If the only thing capable of moving him is fate, as long as it leads to an ending…
Then so be it.
“You’ve finally returned.” Kafka says. She stands at the door, looking as if she’s expected it all along.
Today, he drips less blood when he walks across the tiled flooring. They had changed it from plush carpeting to cold stone tiles ever since he joined their group.
She appears the same as ever. Long velvet coat casually hanging over her shoulders, not a speck of dust, dried blood or slightly torn edge in sight. He’s never seen her in anything that isn’t immaculate. She sheds her tainted coats like shedding old scales, coolly detaching them one by one, discarding them neatly in a pile, then sweeps them out of sight.
They look at each other in silence. A slow smile starts on her face. As if she’s finally seen the epilogue after sitting through countless endings of the same old movie, is now satisfied, and switches off the show with a click.
When she speaks, her voice is gentle, but knowing. “Have you made up your mind, Bladie?”
Yes. Tell Elio I accept.
The ending that he promised – to bring a finale to all the things I resent…half of it is already done.
This time, when he wakes up one final time, he will put an end to it all.
He tastes salt running down his cheek. It is not of blood.
He smells heavy iron in the air. It is not of blood. Not of dead things, but molten, burning metal, waiting to be given life.
He feels sparks fly and land on his arms, the heat of it stings even past his gloves. He ignores it, focused on hammering the object held in steady hands.
"Ying Xing!" The door flings open to his makeshift forge, letting cool air in from outside the cabin.
"You metal-for-brains idiot, why are you still hammering away alone in here? We're reaching! Quick, come and see or you'll miss it! It's gorgeous!"
He stops and sets down his hammer, wipes the sweat from his face, and follows his friend up the stairs to the ship's deck.
Everyone's standing in a crowd at the side of the ship, clamouring with phones ready to snap a picture. He shields his eyes from the blazing light, unaccustomed to the piercing sunrise flooding the horizon in every shade of red and gold above softly rolling lilac clouds, its colours reflecting brightly in his eyes as he stares out at the nearing shores.
His eyes are not set on the sunrise as he walks to the front of the ship in a daze, captivated by the sight before him.
Gates, taller than any structure he's ever seen, float high in the sky, forming a perfect row with Xianzhou's brilliant blue emblem in the middle - the symbol for longevity. From his far left to his right, he sees buildings of different heights in Xianzhou's famous cinnabar-red and jade-green, carved with traditional motifs that tell over thousands of years of stories about the nation's culture and history.
Starskiffs zoom past his little ship, like sleek fish in a coursing river, flying about freely in tiny flashes of colour.
This is the famed Xianzhou Luofu. The place he's made up his mind to seek. Excitement rushes in his veins as he breathes in the fresh air atop the deck. He feels more alive than ever, in this place of hopes and dreams, where everyone is itching to set foot on land to seek immortality.
All he feels is his hands twitch. He cannot wait to see the possibilities - what he can learn, how much further he can push himself, what new object he can create next.
This is his beginning.
He opens his eyes.
"Bladie, it is done. Are you awake now? Answer me if you are. Do you remember now?"
No...That isn't his name.
That's not my name, he says. He repeats it. To himself, to the voice asking.
Do you remember now?
Yes. I remember. I remember everything.
Bladie...?
Something hot runs down his cheek. It tastes of salt. It is not blood. It is not sweat.
It turns cool and oddly soothing. Like a drop of pure water falling into a raging ocean that has not seen rain in the longest while, calming the relentless, tired waves to a still, and gently bringing light to what felt like centuries of aimless walking in an eternal night.
Bladie?
Ying Xing. That is my name.
My name is Ying Xing.