Heaven's Laws - Lifestone - Chapter 47

Chao wasn’t writing one song. He was experimenting. Why did certain patterns of notes cause emotion? He wondered about it for the thousandth time. This time there was something more. He was putting patterns to individual emotions. He was categorizing them. Sometimes he remembered to make notes. Other times, he got carried away and eventually had to stop himself and go back to record what he remembered.

There was no magic to the process that fixed his every problem. It did allow him to direct even his darkest emotion. He was careful at first. Meticulous. In a very real sense music was more to him than it was to others. He could distinguish his song from the laws theoretically, but what about when he played? It took him effort not to blend the two. To separate them felt… wrong.

The danger in directing emotion while cultivating martial technique or his laws had become obvious when he developed his vortex technique. He had a tendency to become too singularly focused. Things like safety and his surroundings were quickly forgotten. It was Elder Gen’s reaction to his one of the darkest songs composed by Lord Longwei that hinted the man might be right.

Still, he treaded carefully. There was no way Huifen would leave his side after what he’d done with the space laws, and he didn’t want her to. He knew it was coming. It was only a matter of time before he lost himself in his music. Crafting his own song wouldn’t only delay the inevitable. He made use of that and tried to stay aware of his sound’s effect on the surrounding world.

As he labored to write his first song, he realized something before the end of the first hour. He wasn’t a songsmith at all. Perhaps that day would come, but instead of crafting a song he was simply putting music to the thoughts in his head. As time passed, it became easier, even effortless before he’d get stuck and be drawn out of his head.

It was during one of these unintentional breaks that was finally able to rest easy. His Huifen looked up to give him her attention even if she was still mostly focused on her own cultivation. She was fine even though his sound enhancement was slipping into his song more often than not. There was loss, sorrow, and he’d even been dabbling with his past fury.

It wasn’t exactly safe, for his playing exude power. But it didn’t carry the danger of life and death or bodily harm. This was it. His channel of expression. Just as it had always been. He had needed this. To rediscover himself. So much had changed—had been exposed—but much was still the same.

There had never been danger when he was led by curiosity or the joy of tinkering with the laws of the world. In those cases he lost himself, but it wasn’t a blind obsession. It was fury that blinded him. That’s where he had gone wrong. That how he’d almost killed himself and his beloved wife. There was a place for anger, but Elder Gen was right. How he felt wasn’t important. It was the expression of his anger that mattered. The aftermath. To control it he must first experience it. To learn from it. There was much he’d discovered already. There was more to come.

With the fear of unintentionally hurting Huifen and himself gone, nothing was holding him back. What came next wasn’t the manipulation of an old song to project his emotion, or an enhancement of the emotion the song already held. His passion and the song melded together. Mankind and laws touched.

For a time, all that existed was the memory of yesterday’s events and his indignant wrath.

***

Huifen knew it was coming. She was only surprised he’d held back for as many hours as he did before lost all control. She too hoped his music was a way he could contend with his inner demons safely. It seemed to be working. When she noticed the change, she circulated Heart of Ice and watched him closely. It was an angry song. One of which she understood too well. After he played for a few minutes, she started to breathe easier.

She slowed the circulation of Heart of Ice, wanting to experience a fraction of the emotion his enhanced song was producing. It would allow her to feel what he was feeling, but also freshen her own anger. Elder Gen had been right. Experience would numb one to emotion as much as Heart of Ice would. She wasn’t nearly as numb to it as the old King’s Blade had been, but she and her anger were old friends. Sometimes she felt like it was fading like with her hatred of Great Elder Jilpa, Prince Jin, and Emperor Sun. Her loathing didn’t burn as hot as it once had. It felt wrong that it should cool, but that was the way of things.

How often had she heard her husband’s music? How many times had she felt its power? But what besieged her senses as Heart of Ice slow was not the enhanced sound laws of her husband. It left her dumbstruck. The world paled.

She opened her eyes to a waking dream. Prince Jin sat across from her and was lost in his explanation of his plan to link Lifestone with the Divine Realm. Jilpa was behind her. She sensed her there. The numbness of her dantian and surrounding meridians was a beacon of danger to her current self. She could smell the Fire Qi in the room. Conversation of the overlords in the next room behind her.

It was then that she spoke up. She’d made her decision to take Chao to the Divine Realm with her. How long would it have take her to acknowledge her developing feeling for her disciple if what Jilpa did next didn’t happen?

The memory of her had finished speaking. Prince Jin responded unlike someone that had just been rejected. Huifen wanted to imagine tearing them both apart, but a memory was not a dream. The younger her spit in the woman’s face. She tried to strike out. The vision went dark in the next moment.

An instant later she was hovering high above the Fire Phoenix Palace. It was more a fortress than princely or majestic. The overlords had sensed her. All seven of them flew out to face her. Prince Jin was with them. She saw their faces. The irritation of Great Elder Jilpa. Prince Jin actually looked ashamed. Sect Master Tengfei pitied her.

How many times had she’d envisioned it? Her qi had already borrowed the whole of the hot springs below. Frigid Falling Star only took seconds to form, but with the help of the hot springs water, it was done in an instant.

Some of them attacked her outright in hopes to stop her. A few placed themselves between the technique and the palace. The rest fled.

Her sharpened glacier of ice flew at the fortress with deadly purpose. It was to large and fast to block or divert off course.

She’d already let it go when her aura exploded outward with almost the same force of Ice Phoenix’s Breath. The few overlords that had tired to attack were easily thwarted. This was the Sky Realm version of herself. If she hadn’t have given herself away when she’d entered her room that day and been found out by Chao. This was one likely outcome. The one she most often dreamed of.

She looked past the overlords to the destruction left from her Frigid Falling Star. It hadn’t just pierced the buildings defensive arrays and advanced realm building materials, but straight into the mountain beneath. It stuck where the palace had once been like the top of a mountain’s peak that had been ripped off by a giant and used as a dart. It wasn’t a question if anyone was left alive, but whether they’d ever find the remains of those inside.

Two overlords had tried to block her attack. One hadn’t been able to get out of the way. Six more overlords to go and one wretched prince.

She didn’t have much qi left. She knew what she’d do with what she had. They attacked all at once. A fearsome grin came to her face. This would be the end. Today an early Sky Realm brat would leave her mark by taking the lives of more Overlord Realm cultivators than any sage could ever boast.

It was in that moment that she stopped herself. The ruins below were the evidence she’d failed. Instead of justice, she’d taken the lives of many innocents. Far more than those that had wronged her. They had harmed one person where she had harmed many.

She remembered her husband. As questionable as his recent actions might be, he had also stood for something she yearned to believe in even if it was at odds with her darkest desires. Justice. Mercy. To do what was right. She still trusted him more than she trusted herself. And where was he? How had she gotten here?

Questioning the vision gave her enough clarity to bring her back to the music. It was then that her vision cleared and she saw him. She executed Heart of Ice with a severity she hadn’t for the longest time. She was then able to come to grips with what had happened. Something with Chao’s laws had changed. The song hadn’t just driven her to feel intense emotion. It’s like she had experiencing anger for the first time.

If that was only what it had done to her. She’d lost control of herself completely. Thankfully, she hadn’t executed any techniques while bewitched or they’d both be dead. She knew what she had to do next. There had been no danger, so she scanned the room and reached out with her perceptions as far as she could. They were still alone.

Before she slowed Heart of Ice again, she prepared herself. It isn’t real. It had certainly felt that way. Every one of her senses had been active. She could smell, taste, touch… She needed to know for sure if it was his sound and not something strange going on in her head.

After she was sure she was ready, she slowed Heart of Ice. With the sound came emotion. The visions came again.

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So I've had to go back and change a few things. I'll let you know by what degree in a few days. It's in regard to how easily a overlord can see through their identities when they wear their sashes. In other words, overlords are capable of seeing through them, but it's not easy, especially if they don't suspect anything. An earlier warning in the book was too absolute. I need to tighten that up and the chapters following it.

There should be a chapter up tomorrow and Saturday.

Cheers