<h4>Threads 49-Perspectives</h4>


    Li Suyin allowed herself a small smile of satisfaction as she ced thest of the seeds into the jar of preservative and tapped the lip, activating the sealing formation on the container. Humming to herself, she collected the discarded rind of the fruit and brushed it into the bin beside her work table where they would be stored until they could be ground up and converted to feed for higher quality livestock back at the Sect proper.


    With that, she was done for the moment. With little medical work to do, she, like the other crafting students in the supply train, had been set to processing reagents collected by the army’s foragers. It was simple, tedious work, but Li Suyin knew it had to be done, and she was happy to do it. Li Suyin nced out of the back of the wagon at the passingndscape and took a moment to admire the misty valley that spread out below.


    Idly, she drummed her fingers on the rough work table, the chitin ws that tipped the fingers of her new glove clicking lightly on the wood. It was strange. Here, working for the betterment of the Sect, she was more idle than she had been since her expedition with Ling Qi. She had been studying, dissecting, building, and crafting almost nonstop for weeks, pausing only to finally make her breakthrough into the third realm.


    The time had been fruitful though. The supply bags Ling Qi had taken were full of interesting things, and her glove was one of those innovations. It had been crafted from spider silk and the chitin of that third realm beast which had nearly copsed the ceiling and treated with certain substances taken from that bag. Between the absorbing and consumptive properties imbued into the silk, Li Suyin was rather proud of the custom-built venom injectors in the ws, which greatly improved the efficacy of the arts she had received from Zhenli’s broodmother.


    “All finished then, Li Suyin?” asked a voice from behind her.


    Li Suyin turned to look at her work partner, seated at the bench affixed to the opposite wall of the wagon. Du Feng was a tall boy, although shorter than her friend Ling Qi. With handsome aristocratic features and dark blue, almost ck, hair worn in a top knot, he was not the sort to stand out among their more colorful peers. The borate cut of his dark blue robes did give him a certain refined air though, Li Suyin supposed.


    “I am. You are as well then?” Li Suyin asked pleasantly.


    “Yes,” Du Feng said, idly cracking his knuckles as he nced out the back of the wagon as well. “Are you stillfortable in your gown?”


    Li Suyin was d that there was no one else here or she might have been embarrassed. However, the normally inappropriate question was only fair since the gown had been a joint project between her and Du Feng. She nced down at the flowing silk of her new gown, pale lc with highlights of darker pink and purple. The glimmering hints of silvery fments were barely visible in the gown’s resting state. She pulsed her qi, and they twitched, sending a shimmering, hypnotic ripple through the silk.


    “Very much so. The wire has not chafed at all. It is truly lovely, Du Feng. I cannot wait until I can use its full functionality.”


    “A gown can only be as lovely as the girl wearing it,” he said lightly, looking at her over the narrow lenses of his spectacles. “And it could not have been half as well constructed without your help.”


    Li Suyin felt her cheeks color and nced away. She was aware that Du Feng perhaps fancied her, just a little. However, she was never entirely sure how to react in the face of that. She was hardly a beauty, and her disfigurement had not helped matters. She did not want him to make a mistake when he could do so much better than a petty, stubborn, and mediocre girl like her.


    “You are too kind,” she replied evasively. “Really, it is only your work that allowed the whole project toe together.”


    “I suppose we will just have to take equal credit then,” heughed. She thought that he had a rather niceugh. “What do you make of this expedition so far?” he asked.


    “I am sure they have a reason to bring so many auxiliaries,” Li Suyin demurred. Even if it meant that they were left with little to do, having the workload split so many ways.


    “Very much so. It would not do for artists such as us to have to risk ourselves. I am d that the Sect is so cautious,” Du Feng said with a smile.


    Li Suyin nodded, maintaining her smile. That... was the other rub. It was unfair of her, but she had grown up with tales of chivalrous warrior poets and brave and clever hero schrs. Though she had been disabused of the notion that the real world allowed for such pure images to exist, some part of her was still the little girl who had sighed over such stories and wanted a hero of her own. It was one reason why she had kept hertest project a secret. It was just too embarrassing...


    Before the conversation could continue, Li Suyin heard a noise, and the wagon ground to a halt. “Disciple Li!” called the voice of their driver. “We have an injury ahead. Proceed to the front.”


    She shot an apologetic smile to Du Feng. “It seems that duty still calls,” she said.


    “Of course,” he agreed. “Do not let me hold you up. Stay safe, Li Suyin.”


    ***


    The crackle of mes mingled with the popping sound of bursting insects was a delightful backdrop, Gu Xin decided, observing her work with satisfaction. Before her, the whole of the tainted grove with its twisted and bloated trees, unwholesome growths, and miasmas of sickness and vermin burned. Roaring mes consumed twisted bark, and trees crumbled, bleeding blood-like sap as the jets of me pouring from her outstretched hands roared forth. Wispy blue with cores of bright white, the purifying mes consumed it all, muddy earth sh boiling and stagnant streams exploding into steam as she poured heat and destruction from her hands.


    The disease spirits in the air, taking the form of vermin and sickly miasma, billowed out, threatening to engulf her, only to wilt and die at the sheer shimmering heat of her aura, and strong buffeting winds blew the rest back into the inferno.


    She was not the only source of me; several other disciples surrounded the grove, casting their mes as well. But even if her blood was diluted, <i>she</i> was a daughter of the Purifying Sun, and no other’s mes could cleanse such filth more efficiently.


    A groaning tree, its bark licked by mes, uprooted itself, a subsonic groan emerging from its burning leaves and a facsimile of a face twisted in hatred forming on its trunk. As it began to bend its boughs toward her, stones erupted from the ground, impaling scrabbling roots, and heat ckened earth softened, dragging the tree back into the earth. Gu Xin smirked, sparing a smile for the grim faced Shen Hu, who stood beside her. The thing howled and thrashed as she let the lightning in her veins free. The pale scars on her face crackled, and a searing bolt of lightning cut through the smoke to strike the thrashing tree, followed by another and another.


    Each strike brought a scream and a scattering of sparks as wood split and sap boiled. Above Gu Xin, Linhuoughed, fluttering out on electric wings to circle the smoke. Linhuo’s newborn siblings, sparks birthed by the striking lightning, were called to her in a cloud of cruel feyughter, and they spread the ze further.


    Most importantly, Gu Xin could feel the gazes of the sect soldiers on her back. It was good to be reminded that for all that she was often overshadowed, she was nheless a noble, whose power overawed her lessers. Were it not for her, these men and women would be forced to painstakingly cleanse thisnd with their much weaker techniques. They would fight a bitter battle every step of the way and be hurt and infected by the spirits of disease.


    How fortunate for them, then, that she would bend her powers to such a task. Their awe and adtion allowed her to ignore the unending throb of pain from her burned arm for a while longer.


    “Thank you for your efforts, Junior Sister. But that is enough.”


    Gu Xin nced to the side where hermanding officer stood. Diao Gen was a handsome man and a scion of the second most powerful family in the Emerald Seas.


    “I am not exhausted yet, Senior Brother,” Gu Xin said, smiling warmly as the mes continued to pour from her hands.


    “Of course not,” he chuckled, gazing appreciatively into the mes. “But it is time for phase two. If Junior Sister would join Disciple Shen, you may begin putting down the malevolent spirits in detail while I and the soldiers began reiming the soil.”


    ***


    Shen Hu watched the burning grove with an unhappy frown. This was ugly work, and he didn’t much care for it. But the screams of diseased beasts, the popping and cracking of boiling sap weren’t unfamiliar to him. The Shen family wasn’t so fancy that they got to avoid ugly work. Let disease spirits fester, mess around with half measures andziness, and then, they end up with a gue on their hands.


    And these were no meek little spirits of rot sickness borne from meat left out to spoil. His grip on his elbows tightened, fingers growing white as he felt something unwholesome, swollen, and tumorous in the earth try to rip free as the mes scorched its moist hide. He saw a slick, sickly yellow tendril rip free, thrashing until it was consumed by white hot me.


    He listened with half an ear as theirmander gave them new orders. He already knew where the first stop was.


    “Understood,” he said aloud, acknowledging the order. Lanhua bubbled within his dantian, unhappy with the heat, but her mud began to puddle around his feet anyway, rising up to armor his limbs.


    “Understood,” said the girl beside him sweetly, letting the jets of me erupting from her palms sputter out.


    Diao Gen gave them both a cheerful nod, striding off to givemands to the rest of their unit, while they stepped into the mes. The inferno parted around their feet, licking heatlessly at their legs as it closed behind them, leaving the soldiers to begin shrinking the perimeter.


    “There was no need to call on your spirit,” Gu Xin teased. “I’d have not let the mes touch you regardless.”


    “Why have one line of defense when you can have two?” Shen Hu saidzily. “First target is about three meters to the right past the big stone.”


    Gu Xin sniffed haughtily, stepping daintily over the charred corpse of something four-legged and furry; he couldn’t say what it might have been before. “I suppose. Convenient, then, that I have you,” she said with a dazzling smile.


    Shen Hu grunted with acknowledgement. He still didn’t know what to make of her. This wasn’t exactly the ce for flirting, and Lanhua burbled an irritated agreement in his ears. It hadn’t taken him that long to figure out what she was doing. He just had no idea what to do about it.


    She was <i>probably</i> just ying around to get a rise out of him. That’s what he chose to believe, anyway. He’d have no idea what to do otherwise. If he just acted oblivious, she’d eventually get tired of it and stalk off. “It’s here. Some kind of gue boil. I’ve got it trapped.”


    Carefully, he parted the boiling mud between two crumbling trees, revealing the pooled sickness beneath the surface. The smell that billowed out was a mix of long spoiled meat and sickroom stench. Beside him, Gu Xin’s face twisted in disgust. “Ugh. Hold it a moment longer. I shall need a few seconds to charge something <i>suitable.”</i>


    Shen Hu shied away at the sheer size of the orb of me that bloomed between her hands, moreyers of mud pouring out to shield him from the heat that threatened to ash everything within a good two meters.


    Well, at least Gu Xin was distracted. Maybe ugly work wasn’t so bad after all.


    ***


    They boiled from the earth like ck me. Eyes and mouths that were like crimson tears in ck fabric let out echoing wails fit to freeze the soul as flickering hands reached for her throat, their spiritual being made material by the raw resentment and envy which the wraiths felt for those who still had the temerity to draw breath.


    The first copsed in twain, split in half by a whispering hiss of metal and a sh of white. The second and third burned, spectral flesh boiling away into oily smoke where her radiance fell.


    <i>Thwip. Hiss.</i>


    <i>Thwip. Hiss.</i>


    Where Cifeng passed, the unquiet dead were cloven in twain, and when her stride brought them into her light, even the pieces were no more. It was necessary to take these foes in this inefficient manner. Should she unleash her primary skills, the ruin and the shrine it contained would be damaged, and that would only make the problem worse.


    Their wails were unpleasant, scratching at her ears, trying to pull despair to the surface. Where her de cut them, they tried to show her blood and flesh instead of smoke and dust.


    But the dead were the dead. They were echoes and remnants, nothing more. These people had been in long ago,id low by arrow and trampling hooves, before her mother had even been born and before her grandfather had even begun to cultivate. It was a sad thing, but at least this blood was not on her hands. The tendrils of lingering malevolence crawling across her thoughts could not change that.


    She raised her hand, preparing to signal herpatriots to follow. Diamond formation, the priest they were escorting at the center with herself at the front point—


    Cai Renxiang did not allow herself a frown as she lowered her hand, instead moving into position, dispelling another three wraiths which rose to challenge her. Core Disciple Jia Song was a somewhat difficultmander. She did not resent being ordered ahead. These foes were no threat, but they already knew theyout.


    If she were uncharitable, when ced alongside simr orders, she mighte to the conclusion that the youngdy was taking some petty pleasure in being able tomand her. However, there was no call to assume such. More likely, there must have been some facet of the situation which she was blind to.


    Liming’s cloth rippled, a low growl of leashed bloodlust echoing more loudly in her thoughts than any phantom wails. The reputation of her mother’s work made any truly untoward motive vanishingly unlikely.


    Yes, something missed or a touch of petty pride and no more. In either case, she would perform her duty to specification.


    Cai Renxiang strode into the cloud of malevolence which rose from the ruined fort, and it parted like the sea before the bow of a ship.