New Eden: Live to Play, Play to Live

*Clang! Clang! Clang!*

Alexander looked exhausted, sweat dripping from every pore.

He’d been swinging his sword at the tree branch that fit Yeoja’s requirements for more than ten minutes, to no avail. He had barely left a scratch on the bark.

David was looking at him with a mocking expression, and the others who were still watching were looking at him with pity.

"I think you’ve wailed on that tree enough," Kary said, trying to get him to give up this fruitless endeavour.

"Goddamn it!" Alex screamed, swinging his sword one last time.

*Clang!*

No change.

"I’m sorry, Yeoja," Alex said, jumping down from his perch.

She looked distraught; her perfect weapon just out of reach.

"It’s okay... There’s nothing we can do about it. It’s just too hard..." she replied, her head drooping and shoulders slumping.

In the meantime, Kujaku’s men had already set up camp with the help of Corey, Violette, and Rì-Chū. A set of shelters had been hastily thrown together with wood from beyond the clearing, as well as leaves and moss, trying to make them as waterproof as they could.

Haruto had looked at weather satellites, and the chances of rain in the area had reached seventy percent for the night. They wouldn’t want to wake up in the middle of the night, drenched.

Kujaku also warned that she doubted the barrier above their heads would block out the rain, given the ground was still very much filled with grass and weeds. Rain most likely fell right through the protective shield.

Once Rì-Chū was done helping with setting up camp, he had watched Alex slash away at the branch for a couple of minutes before deciding to inspect another tree by himself.

He had a feeling swinging a blade at them would go against their very purpose, making it an exercise in futility.

Setting his hand on the trunk, he felt the mana pulse inside him, echoing the pulse of the tree.

’I’m a friend, not a foe,’ he said in his head, trying to push the words into the tree with his mana.

It was an afterthought, at most, as he didn’t expect the tree to respond to him.

It caught him by surprise when the tree suddenly pulsed twice with mana; the mana pushing into him and rising directly to his mind.

’Friend? We have no friends. They have long perished,’

The words formed inside his mind, creaking and crackling, like a tree bending to the wind.

Rì-Chū stood there, mouth agape for a moment, wondering what was going on.

’Am I going insane?’ he wondered.

But there was no voice to respond to his silent question this time.

He focused on his mana again, pushing his thoughts into the tree.

’Are you... alive?’

The tree pulsed once more, mana flowing into his mind, and words forming without his doing.

’Alive is a concept that no longer applies to us. Life and death have long since lost their grip on us. We exist outside the wheel of time,’ the creaking voice replied.

Rì-Chū had to take a moment to understand what this voice was trying to tell him.

’So you are immortal. But what are you?’ he asked, trying to get a grasp of what was talking to him.

The response came soon enough.

’We are what these trees are keeping hidden. We are the sunset of the world. We are the hand that reaches for the heavens. We are Luò Rì Gōng.’

Rì-Chū’s heart skipped a beat at the reply.

A smile rapidly formed on his lips.

He had to rein in his enthusiasm quickly before replying, lest the artifact feel his emotions through the mana transmission.

’Where are you hidden, and how can I help you be free?’

Not many people still read the ancient stories of China’s mythology, but he was not one of those mainstream people.

Rì-Chū had always loved myths and legends, and he had read many of them from all around the world. But this had started with the tale ’Journey to the West’ with the legendary Sun Wukong.

This tale, as old as time, had birthed within him the longing for his own adventures, but also the thirst for knowledge of every country’s myths and legends.

So he was no stranger to the tale of the sunset bow, Luò Rì Gōng, or its wielder Hou Yi.

The story went that, to save China, in the days of old, back when there were still ten suns, Hou Yi had taken his bow, and shot down nine of the suns, leaving the last one alive to heat the world and keep it alive.

This bow was a legend, as was its user; he knew that much.

Low and behold, however, a voice coming from within a tree, claiming to be the legendary artifact.

He was uncertain it was really what it claimed to be, but his curiosity was already getting the better of him.

A pulse of mana rushed to his mind again, this time a little more forcefully.

’Free me, you say? You would help me breathe the world’s air once more, after millennia locked away?’

Rì-Chū nodded his head rapidly.

Even if he couldn’t wield the artifact himself, just the possibility of seeing it for himself, up close, was more than enough to rouse his enthusiasm.

’I would gladly help you. A friend of mine would love a new bow with such power as your own, too. I see no downsides to this,’ he claimed, half-lying.

Of course, there were downsides, but the pros far outweighed the cons in his mind.

His girlfriend would have the weapon she desired; he would get to see a legendary item he had only ever read about, and would gain the favour of an otherworldly being. Or item? He wasn’t sure yet.

Another pulse of mana forced its way into his head, this time much stronger than the others, almost knocking him on his ass from the force.

He was pushed off the tree by the rushing energy, and his head suddenly started buzzing from the inside.

But he held his mind together until the mana settled down and formed images in his head.

A grin appeared on his lips, and he walked to the center of the grove.

’Here goes nothing.’

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