The Path to Ascension (7)
Blood surged through my meridians, thick and black as dead coagulum. At the same instant, a tearing agony seized my gut, as though an active volcano had taken up residence in my belly.
The notion that my vessel could hold the dragon's power had been pure delusion. Overflow, qi deviation—call it whatever you liked, a runaway surge of energy had come to collect its due. Control was a meaningless concept here. This was not energy that human will could leash. Before the power of the Ascension Realm, even the Incarnation Realm was nothing more than a mortal's parlor trick.
The only hope left was...
Krrrk.
My lower body began to freeze. A piercing cold crept upward from beneath my navel—the Frigid Meridian's chill was reversing the flow of my qi and blood. I did not let the chance slip by. Restoring my ruptured meridians was impossible, but wrecking them further? That I could manage.
"Hrk."
Blood welled up my throat again. Along the ruined channels, cold and heat began tearing into each other with abandon. The dragon's power sought to melt me from within; the Frigid Meridian's cold fought to freeze me solid. And as they warred, the two energies devoured each other. A sliver of hope flickered into view. The curse that had spent my entire life waiting to freeze me to death was now working as the miracle of the age.
Don't you dare lose to some overgrown lizard, you bastard.
I never thought I'd live to see the day I rooted for the Frigid Meridian. But I had no choice. My whole gambit rested on it canceling out the dragon's power. For a while, the plan seemed to hold. The two forces struck a brief equilibrium. But gradually the Frigid Meridian's strength began to wane, until at last the heat swallowed it without a trace.
The volcano erupted at last. Lava swallowed heaven and earth; black ash blotted out the sky. Before that vast catastrophe, I stood dumbstruck.
So this is how I die, after all.
Still, I'd lived hard. I could close my eyes without any great regret. Thirty-six years counting the life before this one. That was long enough. If I had any regrets, they amounted to... waking my father's eyes. Protecting the people who looked to me and me alone. Finding Uncle Luca a good, sensible bride. Watching Thalia and Vitten finally tie the knot. Seeing a child born who looked just like me, and hearing someone call me a good parent.
Nothing but selfish desires, every one.
No wonder I could never become a true Daoist. The Upper Realm holds only the lofty ones who've transcended mortal fate and fortune. Then an endless darkness wrapped around me. For the first time in fifteen years, I stood again on the border between life and death.
In that darkness, I saw a faintly glowing figure. It took the shape of an old man. He wore hemp-woven clothes, carried a straw basket on his back, and held a bamboo banner inscribed with the characters for Purple Void.
"Master?"
I had not been mistaken. The old man looked exactly like my master in life. Only his back was turned, hiding his face.
"Am I dead?"
I pressed him.
"Am I dead? Is that why I'm meeting you, old man?"
"It has been a long time, Pyeong."
My heart began to pound. An overwhelming longing squeezed it tight.
"It's been a long time, yet you won't even look at your disciple's face?"
"It is not that I will not look. It is that you will not see."
"Chasing clouds and spouting Zen riddles—that's the old man, all right. If I haven't gone mad, then I must be dead."
"Are those truly the only two possibilities?"
The old man asked. I fell into thought for a moment. If I was neither mad nor dead, what else could this be?
"Pyeong."
The old man said with a smile.
"Go now. Walk your own path. This is not a place where you belong."
The old man raised his hand. In an instant, the distance between us began to stretch. Everything before my eyes grew blindingly bright, and my body floated endlessly upward.
"Old man!"
—You did well, Pyeong.
The old man's voice rang in my ears. I opened my eyes into a bottomless sense of loss. The first thing I saw was a girl with short-cropped black hair. Tears brimmed in her eyes as she clutched my hand tight.
I stared blankly at her face. I couldn't grasp what was happening. My past life and present life were jumbled together until my head felt ready to split.
"I thought we'd lost you."
The girl said, sniffling. The energy that had raged like a volcano now lay as still as a mountain lake. That absurd power nestled inside me, docile, as though it had always been mine. The girl, on the other hand, looked utterly spent.
"Lord Iden!"
A white-bearded old man burst through the door. It was Colin. He rushed over, seized my shoulders, and shook me roughly.
"By the rusted saints—is that your blood, Lord Iden? Hold still, I'll mend you this instant!"
Colin's divine magic flashed and glittered. But there was no pain anywhere in my body. Quite the opposite—my body felt light enough to take flight. Never in my life had I felt this weightless. But I didn't bother telling him I was fine. I liked having Colin spend his strength on me.
"Iden!"
A moment later, Uncle Luca appeared. He must have sprinted up from the forge, still in his work clothes with a smith's hammer in hand.
"Are you hurt? Wait—is that your blood?"
After Colin, Luca grabbed my shoulders too. He launched into a hundred-question interrogation to assess my condition. Ruby perched on my shoulder, punctuating every one of Luca's fusses with her own commentary. Then came Lily. She was already crying before she'd even opened the door. Lucian arrived last, but given the distance between Gray Company headquarters and the ducal residence, one had to wonder if he'd flown here.
Somehow, the whole scene made me laugh. More than having reached the Ascension Realm, it felt better to be surrounded by people who worried about me.
Yes... I had reached the Ascension Realm. The very realm said to stand shoulder to shoulder with Lü Dongbin.
On a whim, I prodded the Frigid Meridian. My lower abdomen was miraculously calm. The cold that had been my constant companion for a lifetime was gone without a trace. The Frigid Meridian was truly gone. Which meant I was allowed to imagine a future past the age of twenty.
"Lily."
"Yes, my lord."
"How long has it been?"
I looked out the window. Darkness had fallen. I couldn't tell how much time had passed. The engagement ceremony was supposed to be the next day, but I suspected that date had come and gone.
"Yes, my lord. It's been three days since you shut yourself in your study. You told us not to let anyone in, so none of us dared check on you. If Lady Uld hadn't forced the door open, it would have been too late."
"I'm sorry, Uld."
I bowed my head to Uld in apology.
"I started something on my own and ruined our ceremony. Neglecting to send word to you was my fault too."
"How strange."
Uld gave a bashful smile.
"What's strange about it?"
"You don't seem like someone who would apologize to another person... I'm sorry, I don't mean it badly. I just honestly couldn't picture it."
"I do apologize."
I said, a little sheepish.
"...And I know how to say thank you. Thank you. You saved my life."
"I only did what anyone should."
From the circumstances, it seemed Uld was the one who'd pulled me through. Her sharing her power as a Grand Master must have been what carried me past the crisis. Such kindness was never something to take for granted. I owed Uld a debt that a lifetime wouldn't cover. If any hierarchy existed between us, it was I who should now be the one bowing.
"It wasn't all me, though."
"Who else was there?"
Uld pointed at my bracelet.
"That bracelet bought me the time I needed to act."
I checked the bracelet's condition. Two of its three vertical lines were cracked. When I'd saved Kalman, only one line had been scored. The bracelet activating meant I had truly stepped on death's threshold.
Two strokes of heaven's fortune, stacked. My master used to say that Ascension was a realm reachable only through karmic bonds forged across countless eons.
"...Rescheduling the engagement ceremony won't be easy, will it."
Every time I set a date, the Interior Department poured budget and manpower into it. The schedule had been irresponsibly postponed several times already; the waste of taxpayer money was no small matter.
"I don't mind if we never hold the ceremony. Before I won the tournament, I didn't even know the word 'engagement' existed."
"Well, now you know."
"Knowing you is enough for me."
Uld said shyly. I cleared my throat to hide my embarrassment. Colin and Uncle Luca were watching us with fond smiles, which made it twice as mortifying.
"Still, I can't just brush off the duchy's major affairs..."
I stopped mid-sentence as a new idea struck me.
"...What if we just hold it between ourselves and announce it publicly after?"
"Yes, I'd like that."
Uld brightened.
"The etiquette lessons were getting rather long for my taste too..."
"Perfect timing. We have guests on hand, and even a priest."
I turned to Colin.
"Would you bless our engagement?"
"Ho ho, of course."
Colin nodded readily. He joined my hand and Uld's together, then recited the blessing of Solitas.
"The most modest engagement in the history of House Esterzy, I'd say."
"Shut it, Lucian. We're doing the wedding properly."
Uld and I exchanged a playful smile. Colin raised our joined hands and declared the engagement sealed.
By custom, the wedding follows two years after the engagement. With my sixteenth birthday approaching, that would put my first marriage at eighteen. That was precisely the age at which nobles typically took their first spouse. One reason I'd rushed the political marriage was my father. When he eventually woke, I didn't want him to feel he'd delayed his own child's wedding. I trusted he would understand why I'd chosen my bride through a tournament. He knew better than anyone the grief of losing a spouse.
After a small reception, I received a backlog of reports from my retainers and guests all at once.
"Prince Mabel is raising an army?"
"That's right. A considerable number of knights and mercenaries are gathering."
Uncle Luca said, his face lined with worry. I sat at the head of the banquet table, chin resting on my hand.
"I thought it would be difficult for him to raise an army."
The last report I'd received was intelligence from Adras, head of my information network. The smear campaign had worked well; Mabel's position had narrowed considerably.
"It's true that ugly rumors about Prince Mabel have spread. But the imperial family's resolve is firm. His Majesty won't abandon Mabel over mere gossip."
Then again, if you're promising to replicate a Grade-2 mana well, what's a little scandal?
"But they know we're no pushover either. So they're focusing their pressure on economic means instead."
Every eye turned to two men: Treasurer Opils and Gray Company chairman Lucian. When it came to money, no one knew the game better than these two.
"The situation is difficult."
Opils said, adjusting his glasses.
"The scenario we feared has come to pass. The royal house is applying direct pressure on the lords, ordering them to sever trade with House Esterzy."
"Mabel must want our territory badly."
"That's not all. Assets in the Imperial Bank have been frozen, and tariffs have been set at absurd levels. The Imperial Trade Bureau has closed its doors, so austerity is unavoidable for the time being. We'll need to reduce our troop numbers and cut the knight order's roster..."
"There's no need for that."
I cut Opils off.
"Because I've already secured a trade partner."
"Pardon?"
Opils looked up in surprise.
"Not on the Empire's scale, but a useful one. Large population, diverse goods. I surveyed it personally, so I can vouch for its reliability."
"Forgive me, my lord, but which nation do you mean?"
"The Zaktar Kingdom. A newly founded nation."