AIR Chapter 184

Chapter 184

Yai Mien did not wake up thinking she would reach immortality. She had asked Mister Bill for help and he had agreed to do so. 

And just three days later, she stood facing her tribulation. 

And the best part was that she had won. She had  defeated the thunder and lightning. She had been tested and stood firm against it all.

Though the three days before had been extranouse and tiresome. Mister Bill had put her through a number of arrays, each forcing her to face parts of her own self. 

She had seen injustice and pain, she had seen suffering and sadness. He had taken her to all of the evils he had ever witnessed and shown her what pursuing justice meant. 

She had known what it meant ofcourse, she wasn’t stupid. But knowing what something meant was not the same as seeing it. You could learn all there was to know about the Hells and they’re cruelty. You could hear myths of demonic cultivators and they’re violence, but seeing them was something else entirely. 

She had seen history and learned of the nature of the Hells and that had been bad enough. 

But she had also seen this man. The Owl, the leader of the group. Mister Bill had trapped them in an illusory array and he had allowed her to watch them as they got near.

She knew them all by name and while Bear disgusted her the most, it was the Owl she hated. 

“A Lady of Justice?” The Owl spoke. 

“A man of Truth,” she replied. 

She had seen him within that circle. She had watched as he allowed that animal to kill, murder, rape, and eat all of those civilians. The other two preferred to not be near it, finding it disgusting in the same way one might find certain foods to be unappealing. 

But this man had just smiled. He had observed Bear with an amused sort of look. 

He had, occasionally, thrown alchemical potions at the residents and recorded their reactions.

This was the Owl. His Dao was Truth and his law was logic. 

She shouldn’t let him speak. His words were as much of a weapon as his hands. He could speak heart demons into cultivators, he could make his own words strike truer than others. 

He was a threat in more ways than one. 

He struck with his saber.

“What is justice?” He mused.

She deflected with her spear.  

“It is justice,” she replied. 

The words were passed through divine senses, and while the strikes were fast, the communication was faster. 

“That’s not an answer,” he said while the saber glided up and towards the handle of her spear. 

“Sure it is,” she replied, twirling her spear with both hands and smacking the flat of the saber’s blade with the spear’s midsection. 

“Lady Justice, I mean to ask your purpose. Why do this? Why fight? The truth of the world is that--”

Yai Mien struck, her spear aiming for the man’s mouth. He moved like water, sliding against her spear and moving closer to her with his saber outstretched. 

She spun her spear again and the saber was smacked away along with his arm. 

The man called Owl stroked his beard and smiled. 

“What makes your justice different from mine? What reason drives it and makes it superior? I live because I want to live. That is the nature of the living.”

A saber came cutting towards Yai Mien’s throat. 

She ignored it and stabbed towards the man holding the balde who backed up and stopped the attack midway in response. 

She could see his mind working at a fast enough pace. He was impressed, or rather shocked at her speed and reflexes. He wasn’t stupid, he knew what he had walked into. 

“That fool,” he whispered. “He doomed us all didn’t he?”

Yai Mien said nothing. 

Instead she struck at the man, who kept dodging, his mind still processing the scenario. 

“How?” He yelled. “I made him tell me everything about the immortal. This should not have been the outcome!”

Yai Mien struck once more.

This man was evil. 

He was the kind of evil that lurked in the corners of life, the type you could find in both the Heavens and the Hells. 

Bear was an animal, a beast really. But this man was intelligent and capable. He had empathy, he just refused to use it. 

She moved with her spear, barraging him in his time of conflict. He defended, having to fully dedicate his mind to the moment to survive. 

He was angry and moving madly with purpose, but his words failed him now. Yai Mien had been ready for a man of truth to come and try to tear her justice apart. 

She wanted to fight somebody who would try and use their words as a weapon and yet here she stood unscathed. 

“Is this justice?” He finally asked. “Is this fair? Where is my judge and jury? Where is my chance at mercy? And is that justice in your spear or anger, lady?”

Yai Mien didn’t falter. 

“Both,” she replied. 

She stuck and he barely dodged it, losing a bit of his robe in the process. 

“But isn’t justice blind? Isn’t it meant to protect the populace?”

“It’s also meant to punish the guilty,” She struck, aiming her spear towards his heart. 

His saber smacked against it and lunged forward in attack. 

“Then is it merely a clean vengeance? Is that your justice? Corralled revenge with a gavel?”

Yai Mien leapt forward in the attack, using the midsection of her spear to push aside the saber and shove the head of the spear into the man’s heart. 

He let out a scream as Yai Mien’s qi invaded his dantiants, rapidly undoing his meridian pathways and waging violence into his body. 

She saw in his hands a jade tablet that was slowly turning to dust. It was an escaping amulet, something meant to teleport him far away from here, but it failed. 

“Justice is judgement. It is both protection and punishment. If I were avenging anyone, I would have taken my time with you and cut you slowly into an excruciating death. I know you cannot be saved, and I know you are not worth saving.”

Then Yai Mien pulled out a scroll. It was signed and stamped and contained the Owl’s name and his three brothers. 

“A jury has met, they have seen your crimes, and by the court of the Oasis Sect and the mortals of Oasis Village, I have carried out an ordered execution.”

The spear broke through the man’s back and blood came out from his back. 

He looked at her and then he smiled, eyes bright with acceptance. He died knowing who he was and what he had done. He died not feeling an ounce of pity

Yai Mien watched the light leave his smiling eyes. 

She knew the man had done that on purpose. He sought to plant a heart demon within her, to see her falter and doubt her dao in his final moment of death.

But her heart was firm and she refused the man that pleasure.