[A.B.P.P.E.] Bk 2 - Chapter 52 - Dust Clouds in the Sky

Shit! Shit! Shit! I broke it? How? What the hell did I do?

Yin Hu had done nothing but walk up the visible barrier that had surrounded the gateway. It showed itself as he walked closer to it, shimmering in a fluorescent blue light that followed his gaze. Vanishing once he was not directly looking at it. 

He stood before it for a few seconds, considering his options. 

Wondering how he would get in and explore the building and all the towers. 

Test number one had been to do nothing but touch it, except the whole thing had come down like a shattered window. Raining down on them harmless motes of Qi and energy powered for innumerable years by a source that never once faltered ever since it had been placed. Even to the detriment of its creators.

Yin Hu kept his head forward as chaos ensued within the camp. 

Shui and Jun shouting. 

Rong and Zhong Da erupted with Qi surging out of them in waves to protect the two girls. Wu Xui jumped out of their pavilion, sword unsheathed, though not an ounce of Qi called. And then they all froze as their gazes scanned their shifting surroundings. The illusion array had been broken and everything Yin Hu had been witnessing announced itself in full glory.

Yin Hu peeked back and watched their faces change from shock and fury to outright awe; wide eyes, slacked jaw, and everything else that would show them staring at a literal palace appearing out of thin air. 

He immediately returned to his ancient being persona, falling back into a well practiced routine. He clasped his hands behind his back and tilted his chin up and spoke in the most dismissive voice he could utter. As though this was nothing to him. “Huh… I didn’t expect it to shatter so easily.” Which was still the truth. In no world was something like this supposed to fall apart at a single touch.

The only explanation he could think up was two-fold. 

It was already weakened from the endless weathering and usage of Qi already, needing nothing more than his touch to lose its connection with the power source. That was the primary. Secondary to that was also simple. The barrier wasn’t one to prevent things from the outside if they could see past the illusion. It had been maintained and programmed by the Void Qi blob to keep things from breaking out.

I need to turn the situation to my favor and deflect.

“Rong, Da Ruis, everyone. To me, now,” he said without looking back. 

It took a second as he heard them shuffle about and get in line before dead silence consumed the air between them. They all waited with bated breath. Yin Hu could feel the tension prickling at his skin and begging for any release at all.

“Every single one of you could have died had there been a threat,” he paused for a second. “Had I not been here… I couldn’t imagine what massacre would have occurred. I am sorely disappointed. In all of you. I expected better, even tested your senses multiple times, alas, you all failed.”

No one responded, nor was he expecting them to. 

Yin Hu let out a long sigh. “This will be dealt with appropriately. Training will be twice as hard, development three times, and I expect everyone to be too sore to think by the end of every day. To think I’ve failed all of your developments so much.”

“A-Ancestor–” Jun tried to speak up.

He raised his hand and walked toward the gateway. Silently he pushed slightly and the massive thing creaked open on nearly silent hinges speaking to the makers’ experience and quality. A rush of dust and fog flooded the clearing from inside. Covering them all within seconds and creating a giant dust storm. It took Rong a few attempts just to clear their surroundings and the insides of the palace for them to see.

Yin Hu, Jun, and Shui had robes and clothing from the Vagrant’s Rice Bag. Qi cleaned them up within seconds and kept them untouched from the majority of the dirt and eons old dust. The same could not be said about the rest of the party. 

Da Ruis was fine since everything went through him.

Rong, Zhong Da, and Wu Xui were not. They coughed and hacked, covered head to toe in pale, ash gray dust. The couple had it the worst, rubbing their eyes and trying to get their Qi to do their bidding, yet, something was slowing them down. Rong was saved from that level due to his ability to change form so quickly. 

“And new clothing,” Yin Hu said once everyone looked up and noticed him and his girls. “Let’s not waste any more time.”

Shit… We could have used this illusion array as the perfect little base out here. A secret training hall. Not anymore, everyone and their moms would see the palace from a thousand miles away. Now I need to figure out how to activate the crystal and what they used to power it.

Yin Hu wondered whether it would be an issue of battery type or if any old Qi Stone would be enough. 

There was one thing he did not lack, other than rice of course. There were entire mountains of every single level of Qi Stones and other types of energies in his bag. 

As long as he could find the correct version that would power this ultimate illusion array and barrier, then he would have more resources than even the bunny cultivators had in their treasuries and personal cores combined. 

Yin Hu stepped into the palace, mentally thanking Rong for clearing it up so efficiently. 

There were still clouds of dust that covered the forest around their clearing without any indication how far it went or how high. Yet, there wasn’t a single speck within the white halls they stepped into. 

It didn’t mean they weren’t surprised by what they found. 

“How many bodies?” Zhong Da said in a whisper that echoed in the palace entrance hall. 

Da Ruis joined him a second later. “Thousands all piled up into mounds. What catastrophe did they suffer?”

“Ancestor,” Shui said as she ran up to his side. Clearly looking to curry favor with him after his little speech. “I-I don’t like this place.”

Yin Hu agreed with her. The palace’s main entrance hall was cavernous and clearly not to the size of what they had seen. It was at least tenfold bigger and higher. 

“This reeks of Spacial Qi. A powerful kind that I have rarely ever had a whiff of even in my travels,” Da Ruis floated by Yin Hu and up to a pile of bodies. “It has the same tint as the dead. How the hell do they still have remnant Qi within them? How strong were they? If even they died, what chance do we have? Rong? You have any idea of what this place is?”

Rong shook his head. “This predates me and has no Qi that connects it to any of the Primordials that fought in this area.”

“Why do they look so strange?” Jun said as she followed Da Ruis and pinched a flappy ear at the top of their head. “Kinda like… rabbits? Bunnies ears?”

Yin Hu couldn’t believe his eyes. All the bodies looked skeletal and dehydrated, but still had skin, some meat, even if a little, and color to their cheeks. As though they had died just a few moments ago and not at a time when nothing else existed on the planet. The clothes were all fine and cleaned of dust, thanks to Rong’s work. Even the jewelry they wore had not lost its luster and shine. 

Da Ruis took a necklace off a lady and held it up. “By God. This thing still vibrates with waves of Qi. An heirloom… except there are thousands of them. Nearly every single body has a trinket. Some with many!”

“There must be a ton of weapons hidden somewhere!” Shui’s eyes brightened like stars and a massive smile spread across her face. She made to move, but Yin Hu held her shoulder. 

He didn’t need any of this and having his girls looting corpses one by one was not something he wanted them to ever attempt doing. 

Graverobbers were a tier worse than loot goblins on his scale. 

Yin Hu waved his hand and felt his rice bag react and a second later, all of the bodies disappeared into it. Including the one Da Ruis had been holding in his hands. The system should automatically separate them. If only it had a process that would help him organize everything into piles instead of one mass of objects just floating in the emptiness of space.

“We honor the dead. We do not strip them of their belongings so brazenly. Rong, prepare a mass burial site outside. They deserve to be laid to rest for the horrors they endured within their own homes. For the sacrifices they had made just to save their kith and kin.”

Yin Hu meant every word he said. The amount of respect he had for this race could not be estimated. They had willingly made the ultimate sacrifices just for a chance for their family and friends to live another day. Consistently. No one questioned why they must be the ones to make their cores nuke themselves, they just did it and accepted that it was for a greater good. 

That type of selflessness deserved to be remembered and honored. 

I wonder what they called this place. What they called themselves. The least I could do is create a headstone for them.