To Fling a Light

by Wong Yoong Le

  I flexed my arms in an entirely showy act that practically screamed ‘Look at me!’. It was a bit childish, but I didn’t really mind. My eyes glazed over a bit, and with a burst of effort, I felt the surroundings change. I was immediately aware of everything five metres around me: every gust of air, every movement of the people in the radius, every fragment of spiritual energy. The temperature had dropped by a good few degrees, and a tranquil silence fell upon the room.

  I wiped off a bead of cold sweat. Twisting and tampering with the Spiritual Laws in my surroundings had taken quite the chunk out of me. True, I had a better command of the spiritual as compared to the physical, but subtle stuff was not my speciality. When I exercised my powers, it was more of commanding the laws to do my bidding, rather than this metaphorical political intrigue to make the environment more suitable for training.

  But if I employed my usual approach, everyone here could have gone insane from the overdone heightened sensitivity. After all, I was the closest thing to a dictator these laws had running around on this planet. These little buggers would trample over each other to be the first to please me, to carry on with the metaphor.

  Mr. Meng, who was actually closer to me than Hao Wei, took a step back, distancing himself from me.

  “Exposure training,” I said, pre-empting his question about what the hell I was doing, “it’s a shortcut for a decade’s worth of mediation.”

  I could now fully appreciate the impact Mr. Meng had spiritually with him being in my little domain. Ambient mana and raw spiritual energy were drifting away from him, compelled by some unnatural compulsion, while whatever qi that was present had stuck to him, and he looked like a snowman with some blotches of milk chocolate spilled on him.

  As for Hao Wei, it was as though the three types of spiritual energies present were having fun playing around him. The occasional blips would hit him, and hang around a bit, before attaching itself to him or just bouncing off him. A little halo of raw energy was already surrounding him a few minutes into exposure, causing him to shiver as new sensations assaulted him.

  “Now that I think about it, it does seem unnatural,” I voiced out loud, fishing for a response.

  “Hm?” Mr. Meng turned and looked at me. “What does?”

  “The division between mana and Qi.” I extended a finger, trying to push a blip of mana into colliding with a strand of Qi. “It’s like there’s some weird law forcing them apart. I could try screwing with it, but I’m getting a sharp pain every time I try. I get the feeling that if I were to force them together, I’ll end up crippled or insane.”

  I felt a cold tremor run down my spine as these words left my mouth. Whoever did this was playing in a league that could only be found in legends. For all my power, I could only hope that it was long destroyed by the Third Collapse, or the Second Collapse centuries ago.

  “You should trust your instincts then. Still, your words are surprising.” Mr. Meng shook his head. “I’ve heard of ancient items that killed their owners, or secret legacies that showed no mercy to their would-be inheritors. But to hear of an ancient, unnatural law… it just goes to show how weird the world is.”

  I forced down a lump. It just occurred to me that whatever manner of beings that were assaulting the seal could very well have surpassed the strongest beings still alive, and I began to feel very small. I tore my eyes away from the erratic blip of mana, turning them onto Hao Wei again. The shivering had stopped, and he was unconsciously reaching his hand out to a clump of raw spiritual energy hovering in front of him.

  Talented as usual, I guess. His outstretched hand gingerly touched the clump of energy, and with that light touch, his eyes flicked open, a light of wonder and excitement filling them. At that moment, he looked like a child who had opened a new box of toys; a man who’d found his very own North America to explore.

  With a sweep of my arms, the congregated spiritual particles scattered. Some metallic and salty tasting liquid had spilled into my mouth, and my head began to pound. I waved my hand in a gesture of dismissal towards the concerned Mr. Meng and sat down on the floor.

  Far above me, a few more sparks of light flared into existence as the barrier continued to hold. I shoved the worry within me into some deep, dark corner, and simply relaxed on the spot. What would be, will be.

  “It seems like they’ve grown impatient,” a mellow voice, one all too different from the rasp that typically came from Miles, said.

  It had been barely fifteen minutes since my rest, but Miles had finally appeared. I had presumed that he would show up earlier; ever since I created that irregular domain, but he had disappointed me in that regard.

  My eyes flicked skyward. The ripples that had been rather sporadic were now far too numerous to count. Silver lights flared, presumably in response to attacks, but the lights were more resplendent than I last remembered them.

  “That’s true,” Hao Wei answered him.

  His eyes were too directed at the heavens, and a trace of worry had revealed itself on his face. “It’s weird, though. I get the feeling that this is like a probing attack: something like a precursor.”

  I narrowed my recently opened eyes. “That’s just setting up a flag at this point, but it’s better than saying that’s the best the enemy could do. Now, that’s a real death flag.”

  “Beggars and choosers, huh?” Miles shrugged. “Hao Wei here has the right mindset, though. We can’t afford to underestimate them.”

  A flare of light, far larger than any of its predecessors, seared itself into our retinas. It looked something close to a tree branch that had fallen on the barrier, just infinitely larger.

  “Somehow, I feel that my plans might be a tad inadequate after all.” Crow had awakened from his squatting spree to join this merry band of talkers. “Boss, I think you should prepare your car now.”

  “Boss?”

  “Car? Are we shifting to our escape plan already?”

  Crow nodded, ignoring my question. “Unless you can do something like that light show, I don’t recommend we fight.”

  Mr. Meng nodded. “I’ll prep the vehicle.”

  “Make it snappy.” Crow cast another gaze at his departing figure, before turning to regard the rest of us. “As for you guys, throw up all your defenses, and follow the directions I specified in my plan. The thicker, the better; make it seem like we want to fight.”

  I extended my hand, murmuring the usual words.

  The ground blazed in a golden brilliance, and the usual circle expanded from me as its core, only stopping at a radius of fifty metres. It was smaller than usual, but I had exercised a fair bit of control to decrease my fatigue. With the circle fully constructed, a screen of similarly-coloured light rose from the circumference, enclosing everyone present in a tower of light. A flame, enclosed in a crystal, appeared in front of my outstretched hand.

  I tapped on it lightly, and a complex pattern of hexagrams appeared on the crystal. Likewise, similar patterns appeared on the tower. It was a matter of perception for me, but there was little doubt that these patterns had strengthened the integrity of the barrier.

  “Nicely done, kid.” Miles appraised the screen of light, poking at it with a finger like a child. “My turn, then.”

  He walked over to me and placed five red cards with a black triangle facing inwards around the crystal, where they started floating around it.

  “Magic,” he said, “has an extensive focus on manifesting our will into the physical world. To that extent, we rely on symbols as a mental shortcut, a conduit for our mana to flow into the world and take shape.”

  As he spoke, lines of black light connected the cards, forming a pentagon. “It’s true that we can do magic without relying on anything, but that’s just being masochistic.”

  He sprinkled some salt on the entire set up, whereupon an entire pentagon of black light enclosed the tower.

  “Hey! Now this whole defense structure just looks like its owners have some personality disorder!” I jested.

/>   “Shouldn’t that be the last of your complaints?” Crow shook his head disapprovingly. “So long as it works, that’s good enough.”

  “I agree.” Mr. Meng had returned, looking at the tower from outside. “But it does look like a multiple disorder thing to me. Is this visible to mortals?”

  “… That’s the second last thing we should be concerned about.” Crow rolled his eyes, looking particularly scary in the odd lighting. “Just back the car into the tower, before it gets blown up by collateral damage.”

  After the car entered the circle. Crow walked over to the boot and started pulling some poles and pieces of plastic out of it. Ignoring everyone else, he started setting up a tent… that was just big enough to fit a car.

  “I could set up some invisibility spells here…” Miles looked at the sight of Crow assembling the tents.

  “Or I could cause light to not pass through around the car.” I suppressed a smile.

  In an upcoming battle, where supernatural abilities were used, a young, hooded assassin stands alone, setting up a tent to hide a car. There was something off about this scene.

  Mr. Meng smiled wryly, before pulling out some little pieces of paper. He walked up to me and Miles, where the crystal, cards and some bits of salt were floating about.

  “Are these paper talismans?” Hao Wei walked up, eyes on the small pieces of paper.

  “Correct. I’m a cultivator, after all. Talismans and wooden swords are fundamental treasures, remember?” Mr. Meng started examining the crystal, before pasting some talismans on a few select vertices of the crystal; satisfied, he kept the rest of the talismans back. “Aurora’s resting in the car, so now we’re all prepped to make a break for it.”

  Thunder rumbled all around us, and everyone looked up. A black void had appeared, looking very much like a ragged tear on a shirt.

  “Just in time too.” Crow smiled grimly. “It looks like they’re coming.”

  Chapter 17

  A hideous black rip slowly formed far above us, tearing a hole in the silvery night sky. The heavens themselves shook, as though in anger, and the edges of the rip trembled as the barrier reformed: the blackness of the tear powerless against it. The wind had picked up, and lightning was flashing all around the rip, occasionally smashing into the void beyond. At the rate that the barrier was repairing itself, it seemed that the breach would soon be closed.

  But really, life likes to teach people about not counting chickens before they’ve hatched.

  I wasn’t that sure about Miles or Mr. Meng, but a little twist of the laws governing the air in front of me had created something akin to a telescope. With my enhanced vision, I watched as a single, human-like shadowy figure stepped out of the darkness, into our world.

  And suddenly, the frantic, resisting movements of the world ceased. A horrible, chilling stillness spread out from his single, unassuming step into our world; but with that step, the lightning ceased, and the encroaching silvery screen quivered to a halt. There was an absolute presence that caused the very will of the world to acquiesce to him. He shoved his hands outward, and the world felt much, much colder.

  “Core… Core formation.”

  “A Magi?”

  Like I had suspected, Mr. Meng and Miles were able to see as far as I could. But the color had drained from their faces, and they were shivering: not from this unnatural chill, but from sheer fright. The brave façade that everyone had put on earlier had utterly vanished.

  I flicked off some ice that had formed on my sweat-ridden face. A white film had fallen all around us, coating the grass with specks of ice. I could vaguely feel that this freeze wasn’t intentional, but rather, something that naturally occurred within a certain distance of that monstrosity. This world of frost didn’t need a reason to exist—it simply existed.

  Hao Wei and Crow had stopped moving entirely, as though any single movement would draw that… thing’s eyes to them, thereby spelling their doom. That creature embodied death, and they knew it. I knew it.

  With a jerk of effort, I forced myself into a conduit for Spiritual Laws, severing everyone around me from the oppressive presence of that thing, leaving me with a throbbing pain in my heart. Its mere presence had twisted the laws of this world around itself, turning it into a measure of authority. Going against it now carried reprisals.

  Coughing a bit more, I started talking, attempting to draw everyone’s attention away from that hideous presence.

  “Miles, Mr. Meng, are you sure of your evaluations?”

  As a duo, they nodded. Once in affirmation, and the other in thanks.

  “I’ve felt this presence before.” Mr. Meng shivered, his face pale. “It was from a sect-protecting treasure, created by a Core Formation cultivator some four hundred years ago. ago. I saw it used ten years ago, which flattened the ground a good fifty kilometers around it: turning the topmost layer to glass.”

  I gulped. That kind of power… no one here right now would or could stand a chance against it. I felt a tremble as that aberration above me moved. Our barrier, despite the impressive visuals, would be swept away like a sandcastle against the surging tide.

  Far above us, that thing examined itself, before nodding in satisfaction. With the breach now stable, he walked over to the tower of light that enclosed us all, every step bringing him a few hundred metres closer. He stopped when he met the exterior, where he started observing it.

  He raised his right hand, and everyone flinched. Clenching it into a fist, he brought it towards the glimmering wall, and knocked.

  Very politely. After knocking three times, he stepped back, looking at us.

  “I think… he just knocked.” Miles looked at him, and then to me.

  Mr. Meng, who was still out of it, somehow managed to nod. A hole appeared in the golden tower, followed by the dark pentagon. The aberration saw the door, and moved towards it, nodding slightly towards me, in a human-esque gesture. Like he was thanking me. I shivered.

  “Hello there. I’m one of the overseers for this round. As for a name… Hazred will do,” He said, in perfectly normal and fluent English.

  As these words left his mouth, I felt a spike of iron stab through my ears. I dropped onto the floor silently, gasping for breath. Something sticky and wet had started leaking out of them, and I winced as I pushed myself to a sitting position. Forcing myself to look around, I saw the fallen forms of everyone else.

  This was ridiculous. His words alone could floor everyone here.

  Forcing myself to sit upright, I saw that monstrosity who claimed to be an overseer pulling something out to cover his mouth in alarm. It resembled something like Crow’s favorite facial accessory. He looked around at us interestedly as the rest of us rose to something resembling a sitting posture.

  “My apologies.” Hazred bowed his head neatly, after the last of us had recovered. “Now, like I said, this round has a few changes.”

  He looked at me, Hao Wei, and Miles. “According to my clan’s notes for this realm’s trial, there should only be three peak Qi Condensation cultivators and a hooded mortal protecting the Key. A Meng Wang San, Cai Li Jun, and Cai Li Xin.” He frowned, peering at us for a while. “But currently present: we have one wizard, and two people whom I can’t identify, but are clearly registering as spiritually sensitive. How strange.”

  Trial? I didn’t know Mr. Meng’s full name, but this thing did. Interesting. Before I could ponder on this matter further, Mr. Meng had hastily interrupted.

  “How did you know the names of the brothers I had planned on hiring?” His words were shocked, disbelieving. It seemed that this surprise had entirely overcome whatever fear he had for this being. “I didn’t tell anyone at all!”

  Hazred, still cloaked in shadows despite the overwhelmingly bright surroundings, paused for thought. He looked like he was trying to remember something, and while he did so, he looked very much like a human.

  Hazred rubbed his nose in a humanlike manner, which created ripples that bounced off the screen of
light. “The people who came here 232 years ago took the effort to capture and interrogate the four of you. Occasionally, there’d be different people, but the four of you were mainstays.”

  He looked around, some sort of fear evident, if I didn’t see it wrongly. “This realm is a really weird place. Even the people inside can diverge from established actions. Or was my information wrong?”

  “232 years ago? But—!”

  It was Miles’ turn. He had gotten really agitated, and the man looked at him.

  He smirked. “I suppose I can stroke my ego a bit while waiting for the trial-takers to arrive. This place, for us, is a realm that fully opens every eight years for a full-blown invasion. Strictly speaking, it is a doomed world under the Dawn Protector; who apparently repeats the years leading up to its destruction.”

  He paused and looked around. “This world has been destroyed and recreated twenty-three times so far. As for why, we have a few suspicions, but I’m not highly placed enough to know the specifics. This place has been designated as a trial for prospective commanders: where they train to infiltrate a hostile world, assault its defenses and extract important people, which in this case, is the Key.”

  At the mention of the Key, Mr. Meng trembled again. Hazred just said a couple of disturbing things… but his presence was making it really hard to process them. Or to breathe, for that matter.

  “Don’t worry.” Hazred looked at the sky briefly, before his gaze fell onto his hands. “I cannot act, nor will I do so. I do not have the desire to die horribly as an overseer in a trial for prospective commanders, after all.”

  He turned abruptly to scrutinize the breach he’d created when he crossed over to Earth. “It seems like the trial takers have come. If you all won’t mind, please report your names to me. Treat it as a payment for the information I gave you.”

  The three of us reported our names without much thought of resistance.

  “Thank you.” The man smiled, before continuing, “if you want to survive, you just need to get through the next two nights. The trial ends in around thirty hours, to use your terms of reference. Also, we cannot appear under the sun, when the Dawn Protector’s residue power is at its zenith. Alas, even someone like I cannot go against these restrictions.”.”