A Tale of Forgotten Gods

Chapter 36: Back to Misfortune

Jian Yue’s voice cut through the silence. "Be prepared, Zhuo!" His feet slid back on the damp earth, and blade came free out of its sheath, a song of steel.

Zhuo’s eyes traced the crawler’s movement as he slowly stepped back. His eyes flared with a faint blue glow. Motion became streaks of light blue, tracing the movement of every muscle. "It’s going to attack!"

The blue lines of motion lurched. The lines crossed the distance. Without a second thought, his hand caught Jian Yue’s shoulder and yanked. Just in that exact moment, the crawler appeared. They fell sideways, rolling into the thick, cold mud, clinging to their fabric.

Above them, its long nails, filled with wet sand, passed through the air where Jian’s throat could have been. The wind of the hit kissed Jian Yue’s neck as they rolled away.

Zhuo inhaled, and Jian Yue’s eyes narrowed, processing what had happened. One second the crawler was ten paces away and then another in front of them. Did it teleport, or was it just that fast?

"It’s teleporting!" Zhuo confirmed Jian Yue’s suspicion. "Keep your ey–" The lines closed the distance again, almost instantly. Zhuo’s hand found his blade. Raised it on instinct. The spirit appeared, right there.

Clang.

Zhuo’s blade clattered; the crawler’s claws met the echoing steel. The sparks lit the darkness, showing the crimson grass. His hand trembled. The shock reached up to his shoulder through his wrist, rattling his teeth. His other hand caught the hilt for a better grip.

The crawler’s mouth widened. Inside, a few roaches and worms ate the gums. "You react fast," it breathed, a ragged breath as if choking on it. "If I kill you. The Mistress of Misfortune will be pleased by that. Hmm."

Zhuo’s arms shook. His Authority burned through him, each second a small death. He jumped back, though he knew it was useless against a ’teleporter.’ "Jian Yue." Zhuo gritted his teeth. "I can’t track it forever."

Jian Yue’s eyes observed the surroundings. "It’s a spirit." Jian Yue threw his blade, the one made of Yan Gu’s bone. "Use this. I can’t see movement. I’ll prepare an escape."

Zhuo’s hand shot out and caught the blade. He exchanged weapons with Jian Yue, and nodded, gaze finding the crawler.

The thing vanished. Zhuo’s eyes saw the movement before it moved. He spun and looked behind; the lines were everywhere, too many of them. They crossed and recrossed like an untieable knot.

His blade swept backward, claws collided again, and clattered in the silence. That time Zhuo was prepared. He quickly slid back and swung the blade horizontally, aiming at the mouth, cutting through the air like paper.

The crawler couldn’t react fast enough. Zhuo’s blade slashed through its mouth. No scream followed, and the crawler disappeared. Zhuo’s eyes shut.

"Argh," Yet Zhuo stopped whimpering and opened his eyes. The motion lines were everywhere now. "Damn it, my vision." The spirit’s teleportation left false trails. Those ghost lines tangled with the real one. Zhuo could not tell what was real or fake because of the cost.

"Zhuo!!" Jian Yue shouted. "Above!" Zhuo quickly looked above; the crawler lunged at him, already too late to dodge.

"Silence!" Jian Yue’s command sliced through the air. Jian Yue moved his hand upward. The crawler froze in motion, its limbs locked together. Its teleportation stalled, trapped in its stillness. Jian Yue clenched his chest and coughed slightly. "Zhuo. Hurry."

Zhuo’s eyes flared with understanding. He ran toward the tree and jumped at the crawler, frozen in mid-air. He drove the blade down, palm pressed against the hilt’s pommel. He stabbed through the crawler, then kicked its body to the ground.

But that wasn’t the enough. Zhuo knew it. As he landed, he smashed the back of the thing. The bone blade moved fast, severing the crawler’s head from its spine.

Jian Yue quickly grabbed Zhuo’s hand and broke into a sprint without looking at the miserable state of the spirit. "Do not look back now." They both sprinted. But the forest seemed to change with them. A tree swapped places with another that was a few meters away.

A never-ending nightmare. "We are in the outer district." Jian Yue noted. Zhuo’s leg tripped over a root half buried in the mud. Zhuo stumbled but caught himself and kept his pace.

"The first city of the first country?" Zhuo asked, and Jian Yue confirmed with a slight nod.

They ran for the next ten minutes. A church loomed ahead. They stumbled through the pathway, and stopped near the mansion’s doorway.

Jian Yue’s hand pressed against the stone wall; his breathing came out ragged. "Let’s... have a moment." His authority always left him hollow. Like something had been scraped out of his chest. Jian Yue coughed again; his hand went to his mouth.

Zhuo leaned against the opposite wall, his eyes still flickering with faint blue traces. The motion lines were fading, but phantom trails still danced at the edge of his vision. "Is it dead?"

Jian Yue didn’t answer immediately. He listened. The forest outside was silent. "For now."

"For now?"

"It was a spirit. Spirits don’t perish easily. We lack the spiritual power that only certain individuals in these worlds possess, and some devotion-based ascenders." Jian Yue pushed off the wall and looked at the church interior. "We don’t have them, so we need to find page soon."

Jian Yue’s gaze lay on the clock hung on the top of the church. It said 7:07. Zhuo didn’t care to look at the clock; his eyes fixed on their surroundings to observe.

But Jian Yue. His gaze was not moving from the clock. "A... clock," Jian Yue whispered. Zhuo followed his gaze and looked at the clock. What was unusual about it? He had seen many clocks; what was so odd about it?

"Hm?" Zhuo hummed, squinting his eyes in puzzlement.

Jian Yue remained silent for a long, dreadful moment. "We are 600 years past in China." The words hit Zhuo like a train. His eyes widened from the realization. Zhuo’s eyes darted between the clock and the church. He understood what was unsettling about that.

Zhuo ran a hand through his hair, confused about the things happening.

"Eight hundred years," he whispered. His voice was unusually low. "Then the pages we’re looking for... Are they from this time?"

Jian Yue didn’t answer. His eyes were still fixed on the clock, on the hands that moved deliberately and smoothly.

"Time doesn’t pass here," Jian Yue said; he had found the answer, or perhaps reached close enough. "It accumulates... maybe every moment that ever happened in Misfortune is still happening at some point in time."

He turned to Zhuo, his face pale in the moonlight. Jian Yue’s expression tensed as the ticking of the clock echoed in their mind.

Tick... Tock.

Zhuo looked up at the church, the stained glass windows that showed saints he didn’t recognize, those very saints that may have existed in a point of time. He knew one thing: the more they knew about the world, the worse it would get.

"Stay vigilant, Zhuo. Let’s enter."

They walked into the church. The air screamed behind them as the ticking of the clock continued, and then the clock struck 7:08. It marked the time, but nothing in misfortune should mark time that way.

"I used to think time mattered." Zhuo walked, consumed by his thoughts. "If I survive long enough. I’d go back home at the same time I had come from. Heh." Zhuo shook his head. "But, home isn’t a year, right? It’s not time, it’s people. Even if I don’t return, I’d still have my home."

The church door groaned as Jian Yue pushed it open. Inside, the air was completely still, as if there were no presence. Pews lined the nave, their wood warped by centuries of damp.

Then they saw a figure kneeling at the altar.

Zhuo’s hand went to his blade. The figure didn’t move. Jian Yue’s hand touched Zhuo, calming him down.

"It’s a statue," Jian Yue said.

Zhuo stepped closer. The statue was a woman, her face worn smooth by time. But her hands were raised, palms outward, as if pushing something away. At her feet, words were carved into the stone:

THE KEEPER OF THE FIRST HOUR.

THE FAILED ONE.

"A Keeper," Jian Yue noted. "I’ve read about them. Ascenders who chose to save the light." He shook his head. "None of them succeeded, yet."

Zhuo looked at the statue’s empty eyes as if something had stolen the glint. No warmth, just coldness deeply crafted into their souls. The emptiness and the fight for the light drowned them in the dark.

"What happened to them?"

"I don’t know, but if she is a keeper... Then it’s something a weak heart can’t hear." Jian Yue turned away from the altar. "The pages aren’t in the church?"

They walked past the statue toward a door at the back of the nave. The door was embedded with ancient Mandarin. Zhuo’s hand traced the letters. Smooth and perfectly crafted. They tried reading but couldn’t. Half the letters were hidden by crimson paint, and the other half were ancient enough to not pry into.

Then, the weeping of children filled the air. Beneath their feet, the shadows of objects stretched. And tiny rotten hands emerged. They launched toward them in order to pull them.

Both of their hands found the hilts. Zhuo’s blade swept low, cutting through the reaching hands. They didn’t bleed, nor did they retreat. They scattered like living flesh.

"They’re not real," Jian Yue murmured. A hand launched toward him to pull. Jian Yue’s blade moved, chopping through the tiny hands.

"Then what are they?"

Jian Yue’s eyes were fixed on the Keeper’s raised hands, on the words carved at her feet. He noticed it pointing above. When he looked there, Jian Yue saw a skull hanging there like a decoration.

"Images of the past," Jian Yue said. "Spirits that try to relive."

Zhuo followed Jian Yue’s gaze and looked up. He saw the skull hang there.

"What happened here?"

Then again, voices echoed. That time, the laughing of a kid. Followed by a maternal voice. Then another voice of an old man coughing hard as if on the verge of death.

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