Published: January 19th 2025, 10:40:10 pm
The fox-fire made it harder to see. Orange-crest thought the light would help. It did, while it burned. But the moment the orbs slammed home, they would fade. Fail to catch the centipede's thick skin alight. And then the darkness would return, twice as deep for its momentary absence. Orange-crest's only consolation was that the centipede was even more blind than the monkey. Whether or not the fire burned, it only seemed to hear him when he cried out.
A hundred legs scrambled, producing a patter like the most thunderous of rain. Orange-crest ran, fleeing the space where the noise began, where the centipede was moving. The rain of legs stopped. Orange-crest paused, counting. One, two. A quiet rustle.
The monkey leaped, burning qi to rise higher. Beneath him, the centipede's tail passed. It slammed into the far wall hard enough orange-crest felt the cave should be collapsing around them.
"Fire!" The monkey shouted, charging headlong in the direction he'd felt the wind move beneath his feet. The head was death. The sharp clacking of feet was death. The swing of the tail was death. But he held death in his hand as well, an iron claw. And the tail needed time and space to pick up lethal speed.
Fox-fire bloomed behind orange-crest, momentarily illuminating his target. The monkey scrambled, two half-steps to bleed speed, then leapt, falling upon the centipede's tail like a tiger. Stab! Stab! Stab! The first strike glanced off the thick hide, the knife nearly taking a finger from orange-crest's other hand as it slid along the thick chitin. His free hand slid further, and he felt a raised ridge. A seam in the insect's armor.
The tail shifted beneath him, lifting orange-crest off the ground. He clung to the tail like it was a tree in a storm, shifting with it's motion. The tail stopped for a moment, at the apex of it's arc.
Orange-crest stabbed, driving his knife right into the gap between armored plates. He yanked hard on the knife, trying to widen the wound.
In the next moment, orange-crest nearly fell to the cave floor below. Everything was wet. Blood sprayed like a geyser, coating his fur. It was so cold, like being plunged in icy water! How could the centipede live with blood like ice?
A hundred legs screeched as they pulled across the floor, an unearthly voiceless scream. The centipede slammed it's tail down, and orange-crest bounced.
For a long moment, he flew through the air, blood-sodden and chilled to the bone. The breath had been driven from him by the blow, but the pain was a moment longer in arriving. He spun through the air, feeling weightless, dreamlike, in the velvet darkness.
Then he hit the stone, hard. His bones did not break. He knew what that felt like now.
He saw the centipede shift to face him. A distant part of his mind noted he must have landed loudly. He wouldn't know. His ears were filled with the weight of the sky, a dull soundless pressure. He tried to rise, but his limbs had forgotten how.
Jaws that could shatter trees blocked out the sun. No, there was no sun. Blocked out the fox-fire. Orange-crest wondered if they were venomous. What could a centipede that big possibly need to poison?
"Stupid monkey."
That was rude. He was staring down his death here.
A blur of white slammed into the centipede's head. Its jaws clacked futilely as furious claws gouged at its eyes, and teeth gnawed on its antennae. A hundred legs screamed. Centipede-blood sprayed wildly. In the light of the fox-fire that limned formless-gleam, it glowed a pale blue, like water beneath a clear sky. An antennae fell to the floor, as thick around as a grown monkey's arm.
The centipede reared up,
Orange-crest watched as it's head soared toward the great pillar of stone that hung from the ceiling, fox in tow.
His wits returned.
"No."
His outstretched hand shook and his qi flared, sublimating into nothingness in an instant. Power poured out of orange-crest, leaving his spirit as exhausted as his body.
But the centipede stopped. Colorless light flickered about its body, holding it in place. Even the steady spurting of watery blood stopped for a moment.
Orange-crest staggered to his feet, as he watched formless-gleam gnaw off a second antennae.
"Move you stupid fox!" He shouted.
Their eyes met. The fox's mouth was still full of centipede flesh. The spell wouldn't hold.
Formless-gleam jumped clear, falling gracelessly to the floor. That fox really was not good with heights.
The spell shattered. The centipede slammed its head back into the stalactite, sending another tremor through the cave. Orange-crest half expected the great column of stone to fall, spearing the oversized insect. They were not so lucky.
The monster's second antennae snapped free, the violent motion too much for the thin strip of flesh remaining. More blood gushed out, but the overgrown worm appeared to have enough to spare to fill a pond.
Suddenly, the centipede rolled onto its side. Head and tail alike flailed wildly, deadly twin bludgeons that filled the cavern.
"Jump!" Orange-crest shouted at the prone fox.
She obeyed, but too slowly, taking a direct hit from the tail. Orange-crest winced as the fox slammed into a wall.
"Fat worm! I'm over here!" The monkey shouted, trying to draw its attention.
There was no reaction, the centipede kept flailing wildly. It was getting close to the far wall, to smashing formless-gleam.
Orange-crest's eyes widened. It was deafened. He took off at a run, heedless of the noise.
Without light or sound to guide it, it could only react to pain. His eyes roamed the insect's body for targets. He'd bitten the heads off centipedes before, with a yearling monkey's cruel curiosity. They'd wriggled still, and this one's head was far from gone. How could they kill it? It used its head and tail as weapons. Those legs were often flying through the air, instead of propelling its bulk. The middle legs. Those alone made it fully mobile.
Orange-crest stabbed one, right where it joined the body, where the shell was thinnest. His dagger bit deep, and then he was running. The centipede rolled over, twisting to crush him. The injured leg bent slowly, then became caught between the stone and the beast's great bulk. It rolled over anyway, and the leg snapped away, leaving a seeping waterfall of thin blood.
"No time for sleeping!" He shouted to the fox, watching her slowly peel herself off the cave wall. "Get the middle legs! It moves on those!"
The bleeding had slowed, from it's earlier wounds. That didn't matter. The damage was done, the centipede had slowed too.
Formless-gleam joined orange-crest, and they hunted the great centipede like a pack of wolves. A storm of fierce bites and precise stabs, one ever advancing as the other retreated. Two legs snapped, then a dozen. Deafened and blinded, the insect's power was worthless.
It died slowly, then all at once. Soon it became too heavy for the limbs of its damaged midsection, and could only swing either it's head or tail, not both at once. Then it could only crawl, hoping futilely to crush one of its hunters underfoot. Then it stilled, readying itself for the prey's last gambit. A sudden rush, to take its killer with it.
"It's dead now. We wait."
"We wait." Orange-crest agreed, watching the centipede slowly bleed out. This didn't feel real. It was a foe even big-butt would have struggled with. The sort of thing the mightiest of orange-crest's pack might have steered clear of, opting to leave it to the Monkey King.
And they'd slain it. With qi and muscle and steel and cunning. Him and the fox.
He wanted to leap, shout his victory to the heavens. But there were no heavens. Only stupid cave-ceilings.
"It's gone." Formless-gleam said.
"How know? It doesn't breath."
"It's qi fell silent."
Orange-crest stared at the shadow-clad corpse. Formless-gleam manifested a small orb of fox-fire, illuminating the cavern once more. This all felt unreal. A life for a different monkey. Stranger by far than leaving behind everything he'd ever known.
No. This was his. This life. This victory.
Orange-crest did what came naturally. He grabbed a leg and chomped down.
It wasn't very good. The skin was hard and dry. Inedible. There was meat, deep within the shell. But it didn't want to come out, it was tough and stringy and tasted strangely of dirt. He had to really gnaw to get at it. Maybe it would be better cooked.
"Why would you eat that?"
Orange-crest looked at the fox. She was visibly favoring one haunch. Not broken, but hurt.
The monkey shrugged sheepishly.
"Seemed like good idea at time. Little ones taste okay."
"Euch. Insects are not real meat."
"We won." Orange-crest said with a smile, proffering the leg he'd bit into. The fox dodged the offered food easily. Probably a good call. It was not tasty. But orange-crest had not survived lean winters by turning up his nose at strange meats.
"Of course we won." She said. "Its was spiritual insect. However large it grew, how could it hope to stand against two enlightened beasts like us?"
"By squishing."
"Shush. You're ruining the moment." A moment later, the fox continued. "If you're gonna make a meal of it, try to find its core. It should be in the head, or upper torso."
"Core?"
"Cores are a being's cultivation given form. Spirit beasts like this one that cultivate instinctively form them almost immediately, and they slowly grow over time. We can eat them, to grow stronger. But it will make us more like the beast we ate. Men covet them as well, for their pills and other foul arts. They don't have cores of their own though. Not until they grow terrifyingly mighty. To feed upon their cultivation, one must use other means."
Orange-crest paused. There was a great deal of information there, to pick out from betwixt all the new words.
"If I eat, I get centipede legs?" He summarized sarcastically.
"No. The core contains the beast's cultivation, not its ancestry. The centipede's would probably make you grow a little. Certainly that's all this foolish bug seemed to do with its power."
"You don't want?"
"No." Formless-gleam stretched to her full extent, flicking both tails. "This place was what I wanted. I shall enter closed door cultivation, and when I emerge, the mountain will tremble. No longer, will I need to flee before the sect's disciples."
"Closed-door?" Orange-crest did not like the sound of that.
"I will stay here." The fox explained. "Focus exclusively upon my cultivation, until I manifest my third tail, and can follow the method my mother left in earnest."
"Seems lonely."
"Oh? Will you be lonely without me, little monkey? Fear not, I'm no human to require absolute silence, lest I deviate my cultivation. You can come visit me, when the mood strikes you. Bring some more of your master's sausages, perhaps."
Orange-crest sighed. What was it with cultivators and locking themselves in caves? The world was too big and wonderful to sit still for ages. But the fox seemed resolved.
"You know a lot about men." He said instead. For one who hated them, the fox knew more about their ways of cultivation than he did.
"I suppose I do."
"How?"
"I'm not as young as you, my simian friend. Some things my mother told me. Others I learned first-hand."
"But you hide from them."
"I was not always so good at hiding. Enough speech. I have waited long, to find a place I could focus on forming a third tail. Pray do not make me wait longer."
Orange-crest grimaced.
"Fine." The monkey said sullenly. "I'll come back later."
"Don't be like that. Take your share of the treasures. The centipede's core. Some of the spirit stones in the walls should be loose enough to pry free. Men will covet such things greatly, if you don't wish to consume them yourself."
Orange-crest sighed. How like the fox, to saddle him with chores and proclaim it a reward. True, it was a reward. He wanted those treasures. He needed them for his plans.
But it was still rude.
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He found the core between the centipede's middle section. Orange-crest was far from an expert in centipede anatomy, but from the smell he was pretty sure it had been nestled amidst the stupid beast's guts. He was thoroughly soaked in gore now, and more than a little stinky. His brother would insist on a bath. For once, orange-crest would agree.
The core was a rock the size of a monkey's fist, or a giant centipede's eye. Dark in color, glossy smooth but set with facets. It was oddly warm to the touch, emanating a strange qi that even orange-crest could sense.
The monkey set it next to the rest of the pile. He wished he'd brought a bag, these would be tricky to take down the tunnel safely. He'd found three spirit stones. By the rules of counting, that wasn't a good number. He'd had seven before. But these were massive. Each one was the size of the core, and glowed as if a frozen fire were trapped within them. Compared to the tiny blue pebbles he'd taken from the other disciples, they were incomparable. He'd also found one rock, pocked with small craters. He had no idea what it was, but it felt powerful, so he added it to the pile. His brother would know if it was good.
He could already picture men killing each other over his treasures. If they weren't too large to fit in the monkey's mouth, he'd have been tempted to try to eat one then and there. Men couldn't kill over what was in his belly.
But he wasn't sure, about this whole instinctive cultivation thing. Orange-crest stared at the centipede. He struggled to imagine a more pathetic existence. It must have been small, when it wandered in here. The tunnel would have been a climb worthy of legend. Then it'd remained, cultivating, as formless-gleam planned. Until one day it couldn't leave even if it tried. Too big to fit through the tunnel, too weak to make a new one.
Orange-crest shivered. He wouldn't let that be him. No matter where the strange winds of cultivation blew him, he would never let himself be bound like that. Trapped in a cage of his own making.
"I go now." He told formless-gleam.
The qi within the room shivered. Its steady flow toward the fox stopped, as her eyes opened. She must be powerful indeed, to draw in qi so forcefully. Orange-crest had tried to cultivate here, during a break from the gore. He'd barely been able to draw in wisps of qi, amidst the fox's power.
"I see." Formless-gleam said. "Be well."
"I'll come back." Orange-crest assured her. "Let you down if you need out."
"I don't need out. Or food, though it would be pleasant. I've searched for a place like this for almost two years. How could I let this opportunity slip through my claws?"
"There are other sites."
The fox snorted.
"There are others, for you. They would kill and skin me, turn my core into a pill, if I wandered into them. Be careful. You're no fox, but how do you know your master won't do the same to you?"
"Same way I know you wouldn't let the centipede kill me. Is not in his nature."
"I haven't forgotten, you know." The fox said, changing the subject. "That I promised to teach you. Seek me out in a few weeks, when I've recovered and grown strong. I'll show you how to conceal yourself from eye and ear."
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Orange-crest arrived home late in the evening. The walk was not terribly long, but he'd been forced to make the climb twice, to avoid dropping a stone. He resolved to keep the bag his brother had given him at his side from now on. Maybe he could trade one of the stones for a good sash to hold it, until he claimed Yang Wei's.
The walk back had been faster, but more fraught. The monkey had found himself flinching at every sound, creeping carefully to avoid detection. The last thing he wanted was to be caught by a pack of disciples, forced to drop his new treasures in the pursuit.
Gently, he pushed the door to Daoist Scouring Medicine's house open. His brother slept a great deal now. There was no need to wake him.
"You smell like a slaughterhouse."
Orange-crest jumped. His brother had moved a chair out to the entry hall, and camped out in it.
"And why are you blue? Or, green?"
The monkey stepped inside, closing the door behind him. Safety, at last.
"Not one step further!" His brother commanded. "I'll bring the tub to you."
Orange-crest waited patiently. He longed to sit down, but knew his brother would yell at him, for getting the centipede blood everywhere. What was the point of such cleanliness, if it made it harder to be comfortable?
Daoist Scouring Medicine returned a moment later, with a tub already filled with water. He'd set it out earlier in the day.
"It's not hot, but it'll serve. Fire manipulation has lost its appeal to me, for the moment. What in the ten thousand hells have you been up to?"
Orange-crest lifted his arms, allowing the five stones he'd been holding so close to drop to the floor.
Orange-crest watched his oh-so-mighty brother's eyes widen.
"Are those... Spirit stones? They're colossal! Easily mid-grade. These are worth a small fortune! Where on earth did you find them. And a beast core? It's weak, but massive! How big was the creature this came from?"
Orange-crest stepped into the water. It was cold. But compared to trudging through the late autumn air soaked in centipede blood, or the cultivation cave, mere cold felt downright balmy in comparison. He eased in, watching the blood slowly flake away from his fur. Huh, his brother was right. It was shockingly blue, merging into an ugly green when painted upon his brilliant orange fur. Centipedes were strange.
"And what's this one? A spiritual treasure of earth? No, it's too reflective for stone. But these cracks suggest it's not so malleable as metal. This aura... It's no simple thing. Could I use it as a cornerstone?"
Orange-crest smiled up at his brother.
His brother stared at the monkey with new eyes. Orange-crest reveled in the feeling. He felt like his brother was seeing him properly, for the first time since that day he'd shown off his brewing knowledge.
"What have you been up to all day?" His brother finally asked breathlessly. "Your luck defies heaven."
"Your man-ways are good." Orange-crest said. "But my monkey-ways are good too. Today is secret day. Can't say many things."
Formless-gleam had earned that much. The fox had never asked outright that he conceal her existence from his brother. But he knew she feared and hated him and all his kind. She would never show her face before him again, if she thought he'd exposed her to the humans. One day, he hoped to introduce the two of them to each other. But he would slap anyone who tried to introduce him to a tiger, and the fox considered men fully as bad. To force the matter would only sow hatred.
"I see." His brothers voice was not happy. But it was not angry either. "I suppose I'll have to trust you."
Orange-crest leaned back, settling into the cool bathwater. This had been a good day. But now it was time for rest. He would figure out cultivation tomorrow. How hard could it be?
"You have a plan." He reminded his brother. "I still say is silly. But I make it work. You say I must be stronger than all the other disciples, win tournament, shame sect."
Orange-crest stretched languidly. The cold bath really felt quite nice, once you got used to it.
"You opened this monkey's eyes." Orange-crest said with a yawn. "But he'll show you how clear he can see. How far he can go."
Orange-crest fell asleep.