Chapter 90: Revelations

Hui stood high up on the mountain, freezing wind buffeting her face and sending her robes and hair alike whipping about as she watched events playing out down below. The sight of enormous Kun-Peng rising up from the water was awe-inspiring. Although she had met Kun-Peng face to face in the Eastern Archipelagos, the creature had been in fish form, which she had only glimpsed in the depths of a murky, subterranean lake.

To see the creature out in the open was breathtaking.

It was little surprise to Hui that the Profound Masters of the Dragon-Phoenix Sect leapt into the fray with the flood dragons. She could well remember the tales she had heard as a girl regarding the Defeat at Heart’s Ridge. During that battle, it hadn’t just been the Profound Masters who joined the fight. Even the weakest members of the sect put their lives on the line to defeat the monsters thrown at them by the Demon Emperor. Although they had destroyed the flood dragons in the end, most of the heroes lost their lives in the process.

But this time, things were playing out very differently. In less than a minute after the initial fighting broke out, Kun-Peng destroyed one of the flood dragons.

Moments later, a brilliant white and blue light filled the battlefield, and Hui’s eyes widened, then narrowed as the light grew uncomfortably bright, even from the great distance at which she observed it.

“What is that?” she murmured. To her shock, the light curved through the air and slashed one of the flood dragons into two before winking out. That light was something that had not been mentioned in any of the stories Hui had heard. “Something new? It seemed to contain the fluctuations of both the Wind Sabre and the Phoenix Crown. Don’t tell me… someone is simultaneously wielding the sabre and the crown at the same time!?”

In the histories Hui knew, it wasn’t until the final confrontation with the Demon Emperor that the secret powers of the sabre and crown were revealed. According to the stories, after Sunan fell in battle, Bao picked up his Wind Sabre and unleashed a devastating attack with it. However, by that point of the fight, even such a powerful attack did little good. The Demon Emperor was wounded, but struck back with a vicious blow that killed Bao. Afterward, the Demon Emperor took control of the Wind Sabre and the Phoenix Crown, which only strengthened his iron grip over Qi Xien, and gave him another tool to expand his conquest throughout the continent.

In any case, Sunan and Bao definitely did not combine the power of the two objects in the Defeat of Heart’s Ridge.

“Things are already changing….”

With a second flood dragon already dead, the fight didn’t continue for much longer. Kun-Peng ripped the third dragon to shreds, and moments later, the Profound Masters finally battered the fourth one into oblivion.

What had once been a crushing, demoralizing, and bloody defeat had become a momentous victory.

Hui worked hard to suppress the smile from breaking out on her face, but failed.

“Time to send you away, Kun-Peng,” she murmured, raising the pipes to her lips.

**

After the final motes of black light that were the remains of the fourth flood dragon faded away, the Profound Masters looked around in both shock and triumph.

A moment later, Kun-Peng let out a piercing cry, then leaped into the air, wings sending a blast of air out in all directions. Perhaps it was because of the frenzy of events, or perhaps because of the sea breeze, almost no one seemed to notice that, in accompaniment with Kun-Peng launching into the air, the faint sound of music could be heard. It was nothing like the triumphant, symphonic blast of noise that had summoned the creature, and in fact, it was only Sun Mai who noticed it.

As Kun-Peng flew high into the sky and then disappeared to the west, Sun Mai looked up toward the top of the mountain, his eyes glittering.

**

Although the Dragon-Phoenix Sect was far away at the bottom of the mountain, Hui was a Profound Master with keen eyesight, and she could just barely make out some of the figures down below.

After defeating the flood dragons and watching Kun-Peng fly away, the Profound Masters converged at the front of the sect, presumably to confer about what action to take next. Feeling more pleased than ever about how everything was playing out, Hui closed her eyes to meditate.

Time passed.

The wind blew.

After a while, just when Hui was about to rise to her feet and gather the few belongings in the cave to leave the mountain, she realized that she wasn’t alone any more. Her eyes slowly opened, and she turned her head to find a man standing several paces to the side.

He was relatively young with long robes and a clean-shaven head, and was no stranger to her.

“Sun Mai,” she said. “Excellent Qinggong. I didn’t sense your approach at all.”

Sun Mai nodded politely. “May I ask your honored surname?”

Hui slowly rose to her feet, then clasped hands and bowed deeply. “Fan Hui of the Dragon-Phoenix Sect.”

Sun Mai’s eyes widened. “Fan...?”

Hui nodded. “Golden Dragon Division.”

Sun Mai looked a bit closer at her. “There’s something about your aura. Those fluctuations….”

“They are the similar to the fluctuations from that chariot you rode into the past.”

“How?”

Hui took a deep breath. “Master Sun, considering that we are now talking to each other face to face, I think that attempting to hide the truth would be pointless. However, I must request that you keep the information I’m about to tell you strictly in confidence. Considering that you have traveled through the streams of time yourself, I’m sure you can understand why I’m… hesitant to disturb their flow.”

“The streams of time? So, my speculations were not too far from the truth. You come from a different stream of time?”

Hui looked down at the Dragon-Phoenix Sect at the bottom of the mountain. “To be honest, I’m not completely sure. I believe that I come from this same stream, further down the flow.”

Sun Mai’s eyes flickered. “From the future.”

“Yes.”

“And you came… to change the past?”

“To change the past, and thus, change the future. In the future that I come from, the final assault on Yao Gong Palace was a complete failure. The Demon Emperor slaughtered… all of you. The Dragon-Phoenix Sect barely survived, and the Demon Emperor ruled the lands with an iron fist for a thousand years.

“The religion you created, Qi Zhao, died with you.

“The Dragon-Phoenix Sect operated in secret in the centuries that followed the defeat, resisting the Demon Emperor where possible, and attempting to help the common people. Eventually, an ancient artifact was recovered, a ruined chariot, the axle of which contained shocking power.”

Sun Mai wasn’t sure whether to chuckle or shake his head. “Du Qian’s chariot?”

“Exactly. The chariot was in complete disrepair, but the main source of its power, the wooden axle, contained the power of Time, and was reforged by an expert swordsmith into what came to known as the Sword of Time. Of course, there are many other factors that led to the axle of the chariot becoming the Sword of Time, but they aren’t important.

“I was born around the time that the chariot was discovered, and became the apprentice of the hero who had been chosen to use that sword to go back and fix the mistakes of the past. Sadly, in the very moment before the ritual was complete, my Master was killed, and I took his place.”

“You’ve been guiding us all along, haven’t you?” Sun Mai said, his expression unreadable. “That was you back in Daolu, wasn’t it, in the Temple of Supreme Judge Yu?”

“Yes, that was me. I was careless that night.”

“I even saw you years before that, didn’t I?”

Hui smiled. “I was especially careless in the early years. You see, most experts from my era believed that the stream of time should only be altered indirectly. They were convinced if someone interfered too directly, it could lead to catastrophic results.”

Sun Mai nodded. “That much is true. I’ve seen it with my own eyes.”

“That is why I always used the most indirect means at my disposal to try to influence the outcome of the fight with the Demon Emperor. Today was the first time in which I ever interceded with such a heavy hand.”

“Without Kun-Peng,” Sun Mai said, “the battle would have been a devastating loss. A massacre even.”

“Close to that,” Hui replied. “It became a legend called the Defeat at Heart’s Ridge, and prompted Sunan and Bao to lead a foolhardy assault on Yao Gong Palace. Interfering with the events at Heart’s Ridge was never part of the plan. However….” She looked off toward the distant horizon, the wind playing with her hair. “Perhaps it was a weakness on my part, but I just couldn’t bear to see so many heroes die.”

A thousand questions burned in Sun Mai’s head, but at the same time, his heart was beginning to pound in anxiety. Having traveled the streams of time, he knew that Hui was right to worry about how her interference could lead to disaster. In fact, the more he thought about the implications of what she was telling him, the more he wished to be out of her presence.

“I should leave,” he said. “But before I do, I have two final questions. First. Could it be that another reason you are so hesitant to personally interfere is because of the blood which runs through your veins? That and your surname, Fan?”

Hui continued to look out at the sky for a long moment. “Yes.”

Sun Mai nodded. “Second question. Sunan’s dreams and Bao’s poetry. They came from you, correct?”

“Yes. The culmination of generations of rituals performed and enlightenment sought by the Profound Masters of the Dragon-Phoenix Sect in my era.”

“Over the years, we have discussed and analyzed the dreams and poetry at great length, but are still not completely sure of the implications of every detail. Now that we have already met and talked with each other, perhaps you could spare a moment to clarify a few points.”

“Of course.”

Sun Mai and Hui were accompanied only by the cold winds as they quickly discussed a few aspects of the dreams and poetry. Finally, Sun Mai clasped hands respectfully.

“Heroine Fan, it was truly a pleasure to meet you. I fear I can hardly comprehend the sacrifices you have made in your quest, and will forever hold you in the highest esteem. Unless you object, I would like to record some of your story in my thirteenth scripture, a scripture that I will only allow the most qualified of Profound Masters to study.”

Hui thought for a short moment. “Very well, Master Sun. And now, you really should take your leave. Farewell.”

Sun Mai turned to head back down the mountain. In the last moment before he disappeared, Hui’s voice reached his ears.

“One more thing. Hidden in vault #456 in the Heart’s Ridge Prison is a magical door. Someone like you should have no problem understanding how it operates….”

Even as Sun Mai’s eyes widened in shock, a whistling sound could be heard as an iron key flew toward him. Without looking back, he reached up and grabbed the key, then began to speed down the mountainside toward the beach, his robes rippling in the wind.