I looked at the three people gathered in my room, doors closed to give us privacy. Yin watched with a curious expression, as did Granny Lang and my master. I’d asked them to et without naming a topic and they had co without pause, leaving benches, cauldrons, and ledgers in the middle of tasks.
“Why have you called us here?” my master was first to ask. “What is it you need to discuss, disciple? Perhaps you’ve discovered sothing about those purification pills? Or is there sothing else you want to make?”
Granny Lang squinted at , then snorted. “I wouldn’t be surprised. Even with the world ending, you’re always invested in finding out more about the path of Alchemy, making sothing new, doing anything at all to sate your curiosity.” She jerked her chin toward Yin. “The girl has been logging trials in triplicate. Your habit spread.”
I chuckled at her words. I knew she was joking, she didn’t truly think whatever I was making right now, such as the purification pills, was purely due to my selfish desire as an Alchemist to learn more. But her casual words made feel as if a rock slid into my throat nonetheless.
Can I really tell them about this? Confess? But I must. I couldn’t leave them hanging. I needed their opinions, their knowledge. But I chose the easy way out first.
I took a deep breath. “Do you think it’s possible the bombs will be enough to kill the Demon God?”
“With the bombs?” my master asked, and Granny Lang’s face tightened in a way that told she had already walked down the sa corridor in her mind.
“I’ve been thinking about what you told us about your eting with Ki, boy,” Granny Lang finally confessed. “And the more I think about it, the fewer ways I see to beat him.” The room was quiet enough that we could hear the noise outside once more, despite all the windows and the door being closed.
She rubbed her forearm, then set her hand flat on the table. “A being with that much power, especially one rooted in ages we no longer understand, doesn’t fall to a tool without spirit, not fully. Bombs can break a body and tear a field. They can’t make a thing end. Not by themselves.” She glanced toward the board where Yin had written last night’s failed spirit-trial result in careful letters: “v0: flat fail on spirits.”
“I don’t think just our bombs will be enough now,” Granny Lang said. “Even if you make them imnse, even in a scenario where you can make one strong enough to wipe out everything—if it’s you, you can probably make a bomb like that—even then, it would cling on the margin. Bombs are things without will. We need a will to end a will. We need a spirit.”
I nodded. “That’s similar to what I was thinking. Yin, would it be possible to give our bombs a specific attribute?”
Yin brightened, shoulders squaring. “Yeah, that should totally be doable. You’re ready to start using the Divine Tree leaves with the bombs to counter the Demon God and his demons?” Her hands already moved in the air, sketching rough assemblies with her Chi as she calculated.
My eyes widened. “How?”
“How do I know? You can’t expect to bring us new ingredients and not try them out all kinds of ways, can you?” She pulled out a notebook. “We tested light-based Chi and the Divine Tree leaves against so of the demons and the miasma. It’s effective. It stabilizes the field and the taint draws back. We didn’t want to waste the few leaves we managed to gather, though, once we realized how essential they are for fertilizer and recovery. If you can gather more Divine Tree leaves, we can push. I prepped housings for leaf-slurry capsules last week.” She walked to the chalkboard and knocked it with a knuckle. “We can run them in new casings we built. We’ll need to check heat tolerance.”
“Yes. If you can, we should be able to load our bombs fully with them.”
“Even our lasers, if we bind a core from the spirits into the emitter path, we can get range without cooking mortal users. Two small cores should be enough for a proof run.” We’d already asked spirits for cores, so it wouldn’t be hard to set up.
I grinned. “Lovely.” The grin stayed on my mouth, but the rest of was tight. The pause stretched.
My expression must have given sothing away, because my master raised an eyebrow. “Are you okay, Lu Jie?”
Granny Lang said slowly, “With a spirit aspect you can fight it, but the Divine Tree’s nature is not one of destruction, and that is the only thing we have strong enough to reach that level. To actually kill it… I don’t see what to do without another form of power entirely. Unless you tried to nullify it instead of destroy it, but that would take…” Her eyes widened and she trailed off. 𝔯ãꞐÔꞖĚS
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My master’s eyes narrowed. He was always quick.
Perhaps it was my expression; perhaps it was sothing they already knew but had not accepted until they looked at . “There is a way,” I confird flatly. “It can be sealed and subsud, its will erased and the cycle freed.”
“But not without an equal sacrifice,” my master whispered. “Ki must have told you this already, so why did you not tell us before now?”
“She told , yes. The Fifth Law. The price of true immortality, the cost of ending a cycle. The choice to let the soul join the world and leave the rest behind.” The seal around the Demon God would hold for a year at most. Less if challenged in the wrong way.
Yin just looked confused, glancing between my master, Granny Lang, and then .
I let out a deep sigh. “Yes. To take down the Demon God, it seems likely I’ll have to sacrifice myself.”
“Sacrifice yourself?” Yin gasped.
I looked at her with as gentle a smile as I could muster before turning back to my master and Granny Lang. “If you don’t think it’s possible to take down the Demon God with a bomb, then yes—I’ll have to sacrifice myself.”
“No,” my master began, the refusal tumbling out fast. “No, there must be so way. So thod that doesn’t involve you. A chanism. A transfer. Could we use soone else? Could we—could we build a vessel, anchor it, cycle through the Divine Tree—” His voice shook on the last word. He had been using those leaves in every corner he could reach: fertilizers, tonics, routes to cleanliness, careful refills that did not draw from the Tree itself. He knew their limits as well as their gifts.
“Maybe we should experint more with the leaves,” he pressed on. “You brought stronger leaves. Labby said it. They’re two or three tis stronger than the ones we graded before. If we cut and treat them right, if we bind them into the device shells—”
Granny Lang interrupted him, laying two fingers on his sleeve. The contact pulled him back to the table. Her expression was stunned, but she had already moved past shock, into acceptance. “You know that it’s not possible,” she said. She didn’t raise her voice.
My master’s knees bent, and for a heartbeat I thought he would drop. I moved and caught his elbow. Granny steadied his back. Between the two of us, he did not fall.
“Master,” I murmured.
His mouth worked, then set. “I can’t lose you too,” he said. “I can’t. I cannot lose you too.” He pulled one breath in with force. “If I lose you too—if I lose you after Shen Yuan—then what purpose would there be for to stay alive?”
I didn’t know what to say to that, so I stayed silent. The room waited with .
What I’d said finally sank in for Yin, and she repeated, “You’ll be dying to take down the Demon God?”
I looked at Yin with a grimace. “Yes.”
Yin’s eyes went wet. “That can’t—” Her breath hitched. She wiped at her face with the heel of her hand, annoyed at the wetness rather than embarrassed by it. “You dying? But you just ca back.”
I didn’t know what to say to any of them. I had already said the thing that hurt the most. Silence took over the room for a few seconds, and then Granny Lang looked at .
“Will you be telling the others?”
“I plan to do so now,” I said. “Initially, I wanted to delay it as much as possible, but that would be unfair to all of you who would note it.” Qiao Ying had been right, I now realized. The news would not hurt less if I locked it in a drawer. It would only rot in there and leach into everything else.
Granny Lang nodded. “I’m glad you understand that, boy.”
My master had recovered enough to stand without my hand. He did not let go of the table. Yin still had tears on her cheeks, though her breathing had evened. She looked wrung out. Tired in a way that did not pass with a nap.
“Are you okay, Master? Yin?” I asked.
My master nodded. “I’d realized long ago you were ant for difficult things—and worried that would an you’d be hurt. I didn’t expect my worry to take this form.” He swallowed and lifted his chin. “I am listening. I am here.” It was the best he could do in that breath, and it was not small.
Yin opened her mouth, then closed it again, clearly unsure what to say. She took the chalk and, with hands that shook a little, wrote on the board: “Goal: make Plan A succeed so Plan B is not needed.” She underlined it once. Then she faced . “Is there truly nothing else we can do? Maybe if we research sothing—you know so much, Lu Jie. Surely there must be sothing we can do.”
I shook my head. “Ki was clear. To end it fully, soone pays. She believes that soone is .” I held back the little edge at rembering her words, that it felt unfair to in private and still does. She bought us ti and gave a chance, but any claims that it was a choice were false. It was an ultimatum, a destined decree, not sothing I could in good conscience walk away from even if I wanted to.
I drew a breath to speak and felt a presence outside the door. A knuckle rapped twice and the latch eased.
Qiao Ying stepped in at that mont. He took one look at the room and his own expression dimd further. “So you’ve told them.”
I nodded. “Can you call the others too?” I reached through the connection I had with my spirits and asked them to co to my house. The link carried Sheldon’s quiet assent and Labby’s energetic agreent. “It should only be a minute before my spirits will be here.”
“I’ll go and call Liuxiang, Yan Yun, and Zhang,” Qiao Ying said, bowing.
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