[A.B.P.P.E.] Bk 2 - Chapter 54 - Ancient Vaults and Peoples

Meng Li laid upon the throne she had made of the old bag of bones two discuses stacked on top of one another. Piled up vertically without ever shaking or showing any sign of breaking apart. Having bits of her Qi in the air helped stabilize it as well, not that she would tell anyone that. Let them think her mere presence caused otherworldly effects around her being. 

It helped create a powerful image that should buy her enough time to figure out what to do next.

Time that she was dwindling the longer she dawdled in this cave, doing nothing but waiting for someone to hurry up and get back after she had ordered them to. 

Something in her had a sneaking suspicion that they would end up not making it. Her womanly intuition screamed at her. Louder than ever before too. Things were changing fast and power was reverberating throughout the vastness of the universe with every moment the Original Calamity flexed its powers and reminded them that it had yet to go anywhere no matter how silent it seemed. 

Why are they taking so long? It would have made its displeasure known already if they had been caught. 

Meng Li frowned as she slowly accepted that she would need to hunt them down. Not unless she gained sufficient information. That was the only path forward where she wouldn’t end up killing them for making her wait for so long. Not even the elders of her clan made her loiter around doing nothing when she called for them. Mostly because she could just busy herself with whatever it was she wanted to do and they would end up finding her in a few seconds after noticing she wasn’t where she said she was. 

“Hey! Bag of bones!” she shouted for her new servant. 

The old man rushed to her with a missing arm. “L-Lady Meng Li, how may I serve your honored being?”

“Better. Much better,” Meng Li smiled. She had to tear his arm off and cause a few injuries as a warning for an attempt to plot against her. The old fool thought he was smart enough to trick her. Just the thought made her nauseous. It was something about old people that drove them to all these ridiculous things. Either you were strong enough to kill your foe or you weren’t. Simple and an effective way to figure out how to stay alive.

Maybe I should heal his arm?

Zi Zhen bowed low but said nothing else. 

Huh… still has an ego I see. Might need to tear a leg next time? Or maybe I should let him have that? The best servants weren’t automatons after all, I don’t need another golem to do everything exactly as I say it without any situational nuance after all. 

“Where are your spies?”

“I don’t…” Zi Zhen flinched as she frowned. “I don’t know. All contact has been cut off ever since we last spoke to them. The Spiritual Communication Device was likely shattered.”

Meng Li’s frown deepened. “I thought you had them caged? Little birdies or whatever ridiculous example you used.”

“The blood tracker was destroyed. They shouldn’t be strong enough to detect the hidden second layer, much less destroy it. Not unless something incredibly powerful reconstitutes their entire bodies from scratch. Even in death we would know their location without variance in exact precision. That shouldn’t be possible.” Zi Zhen said without a single shift in his expression. 

He had been dead stoic ever since she appeared. 

Another situation that confuses me–

“Wait a minute,” She stood up and looked down at him from her perch. “You said the tracker would need their entire physical bodies to be reconstituted to be destroyed?” 

Zi Zhen nodded, his stoic expression cracking just slightly in confusion. 

“And now you can’t locate them at all?”

He nodded again.

The clues all lined up too perfectly for Meng Li. It felt like a secret conspiracy that she was slowly putting together like a puzzle. 

I smelled a high level healing potion a few days ago. Something like that should be able to remake their physical bodies and purify them with the Original Calamity’s powerful Qi fueling it. He fucking knew we were spying on him the entire time?! Fuck! Oh Shit! But…

Why hadn’t It attacked yet then? They had blatantly worked against it. That should have triggered a series of events that would eventually culminate in Meng Li trying to curry favor and not end up dead with a casual backhand, fronthand, or even a flick of the finger if empowered with the vast quantities of Qi It had. Yet, nothing had happened. 

Meng Li rubbed her hurting head. All the worrying, stress, and planning had given her migraines that felt more like sledge hammers to the head than anything else. 

She startled, jumping in her spot and slipping off the discus. Falling face first to the ground. The two seats crashed around her. 

Zi Zhen stepped back with wide fearful eyes. 

Meng Li jumped to her feet and vanished from her spot, reappearing in the air far above the mountain she had been in a second ago. She stared far to the east as eon old Qi shattered before her and exposed something that would send entire worlds to war just to gain access to. 

An Ancient Vault? On this fucking ball of low Qi monkeys?! Oh man… Father is going to fucking kill me if I ever make it out of this alive.

Now she knew exactly where it was and why it had come to this world. 

Yet, it didn’t explain why It had invited her. 

Who in their right mind would be crazy enough to share treasures entire clans and sects were founded upon? Much less a vault full of them. 

Meng Li did not know how long she floated above the mountain lost in thought. A day? Two? Maybe even only a few hours. But when she woke up it was to the smell of incense originating from where the Ancient Vault had been located. 

A sense of sorrow crept into her chest. 

W-What is this feeling? Why do I feel so sad?

She recognized it as it was, a signal of peace for a duration of time. A promise of no danger as long as she did not move or act in any way at all. 

It wasn’t too uncommon amongst the largest clans during times of war, but they were left for exceptional situations. 

Things like… funerals.

“Oh,” Meng Li blinked her blurry eyes and wiped at the trails of hot tears that streaked down her cheeks. “Fuck me I guess. This isn’t an Ancient Vault being located.” 

This was an Ancient finding its long lost kith and kin.

Were her ancestors responsible for their deaths? Was she going to pay for vengeance and revenge to something a distant ancestor a thousand generations back did? Or was this something else entirely. 

Meng Li hiccuped and tried to stop herself from whimpering. She had been through much lately. All the endless thinking and worry had gotten the best of her now that the incense had done its work to instill sadness into her chest. 

It didn’t take long before she was sobbing uncontrollably. 

Come on, Li! You are tens of thousands of years old! You shouldn’t be crying like a baby! You’re strong, fast, smart, and a genius in your clan! Everyone loves you… Everyone except the Ancient. 

None of her usual motivation worked. 

Meng Li kept finding ways to shatter the little confidence she had built up with every attempt to inspire bravery and a lack of unruly sobbing. Her situation was that dire and it kept getting worse. Ancients were not known to take lovely wives and cooks as amazing as her. They only looked for old hags that had to be in the tens of millions of years old, worse yet, they had no taste for sugary treats.

Just the thought made her burst into another fit of bawling her eyes out. 

Thankfully, no one was strong enough to find her up in the air.