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He reforms, and even shattered, he knows himself. He could forget everything except Dianxia and remain. He'll serve Dianxia again, but the best way to do that right now, is to gather power. He will never again just watch, powerless to help when Dianxia is hurt.
Sense is fractured, snapping in and out of place, sick swoop of gaining balance, skin numb to touch. Sight, always, blurred and stinging with dust, with blood, with ashes.
Dianxia chose, even in the ashes of his dreams, Dianxia chose kindness. He saw it. He can't stop watching though Dianxia's only presence is through his memory. His acts the closest thing to Dianxia's actions. He has shaped himself to be Dianxia's hands, Dianxia's blade. He stands before a handful of mortals, before the mob of ghosts every face a snarl. He chooses.
The smell, bile, death, fear.
His flowers have only grown, but not enough. He chokes on breath, but says the words. He will protect these people, fallen to this nest of ghosts. In God's name he will protect them. He lacks the breath or need for more. The last word Hua Cheng ever says aloud is "Dianxia".
Ichor, slick between his fingers, lingers.
Every kill is consumption, destroying the remains of a thing that used to be a person. He holds himself apart, becomes violence without becoming an object, a process, hot and impersonal. A thing cannot worship, so he must be himself.
Heels leave the ground with every panting breath, weightless.
He is full, packed near the brim. The air a strain to pull inside him, so shallow it barely stirs the air. Petals fall from every gasp. His lungs are for his god, he has filled them with the evidence of his devotion, nearly. He is becoming what he has chosen to be. The mortals stand behind him, safe.
Can't smell the gore past the offering grown of him.
His purpose is already refined and clear. His own impurities not flaws but burned out, the carbon that makes his steel. His curse a blade. The prince always loved swords. His devotion a dedication. His prince so much more than a god. His disobedience a service to hope. Xie Lian is hope, found when all is lost.
The earth spins, disappears under his feet.
The light pulls him, dislocation, wrong, not where he wants or intends. Folded through space in a shape he does not choose. Wrong. This radiance is not the power he seeks, fools gold echo of real divinity. The only true god is not here. This is wrong. He doesn't deign to breathe this air. Cacophony in his chest, fed by the light his highness does not now walk in.
Sandy stream of some dispersed ghost's ashes falls from where it caught in his hair.
His choice is not this place. His purpose lies below. Still the light shines through and shows the poor imitation, his shadow barely the figure he intended. He is not his god, not Dianxia, not Xie Lian. More, he was never asked to be. He has another choice to make, self to shape. Counterpart, support, and hope. He has no need to imitate. The bare tool he has forged of his self should ring with joy.
Jumping necessitates a fall, the air screams past his ears, lungs full to bursting.
Among the ghosts and blood, the maw of the mountain draws them in. Heat rising with every blow. Each kill skims dross from the molten violence. It is too easy. He already shaped himself to his purpose. Each blow working to refine what he already perfected. Nameless service. The volcano is not a forge but the kiln. He soaks in the heat as he sculpts, as he relaxes to his new strength and shape, and after each first or tenth or hundredth statue is complete, he has softened enough work himself once more.
Stone dust, powder soft, between his hand and E'ming's hilt.
There is no sharper to get. He was never the sword, but the hand to wield whatever tool best suits his purpose. His purpose which is his god, not his god's purpose. No one can be his dianxia but for Dianxia.
No sound left, no howls, no metal clashing, no footsteps except for his.
He was never the sword, never the chisel, never the brush. He was alloy, muddy and unrefined, until called to purpose. Ornament, floral offering. His self, worked to shape. Silver was he, clarion bright, action flowing from existence, inseparable from his reason.
Mute heat and burned metal, tasted not smelled.
Anneal, lax with focus, exactly as he is, soaked in all the power he needs, all that's left is the act. The action of chisel, stone plastic to his will. The kiln walls are thin, gallery to devotion, thin screen parting the place of worship from profane world.
No space left in him for breath.
Dust of long work settles, he sits safe in his god's hand once more. More than his true work, one last, least, piece remains. Remnants of mortal dust refined, compressed, left with no choice of form but clear and pure as purpose.
Found when he loses himself.
The ghost emerges from the forge without an ounce of air in his lungs. He is a city of flowers. Hua Cheng.