Jin Xi was tired. Her bones ached with a weariness that was entirely new to her. The journey from Star Luo City had been... an experience. The "spirit-powered carriage" was a marvel, a rattling, shaking metal box that moved faster than any forest beast she'd ever seen. But it was also loud, cramped, and smelled faintly of oil and other, less pleasant human scents. Still, it had turned a journey of months into one of mere weeks.
The carriage groaned to a halt in a station that made the one in Star Luo City look like a quiet village square. The noise, the sheer volume of humans, was a physical blow.
"End of the line, miss!" the driver shouted over the din, opening the door. "This is it! Heaven Dou City! Heart of the Empire!"
Jin Xi stepped out onto the cobblestones, her legs wobbly from the long journey. She stretched, her long, elegant limbs uncoiling like a waking cat, a movement of such innate grace that it caused a dozen nearby conversations to stop mid-sentence. The city was massive. The walls of Star Luo had been impressive; these were like a mountain range. The air felt different, charged with a new kind of energy, less aggressive, perhaps, but just as vibrant.
She turned to the carriage, the "little box-beast" that had carried her so far. She gave its metal side a gentle pat. "Thank you, little box-beast," she said, her voice a clear, musical chime. "You run very fast."
The driver, a burly man with a thick beard, just stared at her. "Uh... you're welcome, miss?" He shook his head as she walked away, a look of pure bewilderment on his face. "These pretty ones... they're all strange. Talking to the carriage now."
Jin Xi found a quiet corner, away from the pushing, shouting crowds. She leaned against a stone wall, took a deep breath, and closed her crimson eyes. She reached inward, past the noise, past the smells, to the silent, guiding power within her soul. The power of Destiny.
'Where is he?' she thought. 'Where is the man from my vision?'
The world dissolved. She was no longer in a noisy station. She was in a sea of golden threads, a vast, cosmic tapestry of fate. And there, in the north, the direction she had been traveling, a single thread burned with the light of a star. It was bright, powerful, and it was close. It was no longer a distant beacon; it was a roaring bonfire, just waiting for her.
She opened her eyes, a jolt of pure, childish excitement making her heart pound. 'He's here! He's in this city! I've found him!'
She took a step, ready to run, to follow that thread to its end. And then, she froze.
A new sensation, cold and sharp, like a needle of ice pressed against her soul, prickled at the edge of her awareness. It was a familiar, ancient, and deeply unpleasant presence.
'No...'
She focused, her senses spreading out. She felt it. The cold, calculating, and thousand-eyed presence of the Myriad Demon King, Yao Ling. And another. The hot, bloodthirsty, and stupidly aggressive aura of Chi Wang. And a third, the cold, sinuous, and slithering presence of Zi Ji.
"They're here!" she whispered, her blood running cold. Her excitement was instantly extinguished, replaced by a wave of pure, adrenalized fear.
'They're here! In this city!' Her mind raced. 'Are they hunting him? Did they follow me? No... no, I've been careful. I've been hiding my aura. They can't have discovered me.'
A new, more terrifying thought took its place. 'They're here to hunt him. The human from my vision. The one Yao Ling was so angry with.'
A surge of protective, almost primal, fury washed over her. 'Hmph! I can't let them hurt him! He's… he's important! He's my fated person!'
She didn't panic. Her instincts, honed by five thousand years of survival in a forest filled with creatures that would have loved to eat a "lucky" little lion, took over. She was a wielder of fate, and that power was not just for seeing; it was for hiding.
She unleashed her power, not as an attack, but as a shield. A faint, golden light, invisible to any normal eye, wrapped around her. It was a cloak of pure destiny. It didn't just hide her presence, her aura. It erased her from the tapestry. To any being trying to sense her, even one as powerful as Yao Ling, she would simply… not exist.
'I must be careful,' she thought, her crimson eyes scanning the bustling street, which now seemed full of hidden dangers. 'And I cannot let them find him before I do.'
Her mission had just changed. She was no longer just a girl seeking a fated meeting. She was a guardian.
She cautiously extended her own senses, her perception a thing of three-dimensional clarity. She tried to find them, to see what they were doing. She felt their auras, three pinpricks of immense, ancient power in the sea of weak, human lights.
But they weren't... hunting.
She could feel Chi Wang's aura. It was... hot. And it was rhythmic. CLANG. CLANG. CLANG. He was in a place of fire and metal. 'Is he... hitting something?' she wondered, confused.
She felt Zi Ji's aura. It was moving, flitting from place to place in a crowded, colorful area. She felt… delight? Excitement? 'She's not hunting. She's… playing?'
And Yao Ling... his aura was still, calm, and spread thin, as if he were… watching. Just watching the entire city.
'They're not attacking,' she realized, a wave of relief washing over her. 'They're... just... here. How strange. I thought they hated human dens.' A part of her was almost disappointed. She had been ready for a fight.
'Well, if they're busy playing, then I can go find him.'
Miles away, in a quiet, sun-drenched garden, Ah Yin's head snapped up. She had been watching over Jin Xi for weeks, a silent, invisible guardian angel woven from grass and shadow. She had felt the girl's arrival in the city, a bright, golden spark in her domain.
And then, in the blink of an eye, the spark had just… vanished. Snuffed out.
Ah Yin's heart stopped.
'She's gone! But how? I had locked onto her spiritual signature with my mental force! She... she just disappeared!'
A wave of cold, unfamiliar fear washed over her. Had she been captured? Killed? Had she walked into a trap? The city was dangerous.
She frantically probed the area with her own senses, pushing her Blood Silver Grass network to its absolute limits. The blades of grass in the station, in the surrounding streets… they felt nothing. The golden-haired girl had disappeared as if she had never been.
'I've failed him,' she thought, a knot of pure panic in her chest. 'He trusted me to protect her. He said she was… special.'
She immediately sent a frantic, mental message to Zhang Tian, her voice a shriek in his mind.
'My Emperor! She is here! In the city! But… I've lost her! Her aura… it's gone! She just… vanished!'
Zhang Tian received the message in his study. He was reviewing a series of complex, failed blueprints for his artificial spirit ring project, a slight, frustrated frown on his face. When he felt Ah Yin's panic, his frown was replaced by a slow, knowing smile.
"She's hiding."
His mental voice was a calm, reassuring sound that instantly soothed her frayed nerves. 'She is not gone, my love. She has hidden herself. She must have sensed them.'
'Sensed who? I felt nothing! Who is in the city?!' Ah Yin's panic was replaced by a new, more dangerous, curiosity.
'The ones from the forest,' Zhang Tian explained patiently. 'The Fierce Beasts. The Myriad Demon King and his companions. They are in the city as well. I have been tracking their movements for a week.'
'They're HERE?! And you didn't tell me?!' Ah Yin was outraged. 'My love, they are dangerous! We must leave! Or… or call for father-in-law!'
'And what would we tell him? That a group of monsters we can't prove exist are in the city? Relax, my Empress. They can hide themselves from my mental force and my Blood Silver Grass. Their own power is ancient, and that tree monster is a master of concealment.'
'Then how do you know they are here?!'
Zhang Tian just chuckled. 'Because, my love, these Fierce Beasts may be powerful, but they are also… simple. They underestimate the true intelligence network of us humans. They are not hiding very well.'
He thought of the reports that had been crossing his desk for the past week. Strange, unbelievable reports from his Seven Treasure Glaze Tile Sect agents.
One report spoke of a new, prodigal blacksmith who had appeared at a small, independent forge. A man of impossible, almost monstrous, strength, who could lift a 300-pound hammer with one hand and who seemed to have an insatiable, almost religious, love for smashing hot metal. A man who matched the description of the brutish warrior who had been seen with two others near the city gates.
Another report spoke of a woman. A woman of such breathtaking, otherworldly beauty that she was causing riots in the city's high-end shopping district. A woman who seemed to have an endless supply of ancient, priceless spirit herbs that she was casually trading for… silk dresses. A woman who had been seen entering a playhouse and loudly, and very confusingly, asking why the hero didn't just eat the villain.
And a third report spoke of a scholarly old man who spent his days in the city's Great Library, poring over maps and histories, his mental force so strong that any Spirit Master who got too close would suffer from a sudden, splitting headache.
'They are hiding in plain sight,' Zhang Tian projected, a note of deep amusement in his voice. 'They are… on holiday.'
'So, all the pieces are on the board,' he thought to himself, a slow, excited smile on his face. 'The hunt has begun.'
'Do not worry, my Empress,' he projected, cutting off her next, no doubt frantic, question. 'She is not lost. She is coming to me. Her destiny, her very soul, is bound to mine. And she is now cloaked by her own power, a power that even Yao Ling cannot see. She is safer than she has ever been.'
He stood up, brushing off his robes. He walked from his study, through the long, elegant hallways of his estate, and stood at his main entrance gate, looking out at the bustling street as if he were expecting an ordinary guest.
Jin Xi moved through the city, her golden cloak of destiny wrapped tightly around her. She was a ghost, invisible to the ancient, powerful senses that she could feel sweeping the city like a slow, searching spotlight. She followed the golden thread of fate, her heart a hammering drum against her ribs.
The thread led her through bustling markets, down quiet, residential streets, to a large, elegant estate on the eastern edge of the city. The gates were tall, carved from a dark, rich wood.
She stopped. This was the place.
A faint, almost imperceptible scent wafted from the garden within. A scent that was not of this world. It was crimson. It was powerful. It was his.
She stood at the gate for a long, silent moment. She was here. After all this time. After all this way. What did she say? What did she do?
'He is in there. The man from my vision. The one who will become a god.'
A wave of shyness, of fear, of a strange, fluttering excitement, washed over her. She, a 5000-year-old spirit beast, the Emperor Auspicious Beast, was nervous. Like a human girl.
"Are you just going to stand there?"
The voice.
It was calm. It was amused. And it was impossibly, wonderfully familiar. It was the same voice she had heard in her mental battle with Yao Ling. It was his voice.
The large, wooden gates swung open, seemingly of their own accord, revealing a beautiful, sun-drenched courtyard.
And he was standing there. Waiting for her.
He was exactly as he was in her vision. Handsome, his two-toned hair a strange, beautiful contrast of light and shadow. His blue eyes were even more piercing in person, and they were fixed on her, a slow, warm, and knowing smile on his face.
As she took a single, hesitant step into the courtyard, another figure appeared, materializing from a nearby patch of crimson grass as if she were a ghost. It was the woman from the alleyway. The one who had protected her. Yin.
The woman stood beside him, a warm, welcoming smile on her own face.
Jin Xi looked from the woman, to the man. Her heart was a trapped bird in her chest.
"Jin Xi," Zhang Tian said, his voice a low, warm sound that made her tremble. He knew her name. But how? Ah, of course. The crimson-haired woman must have told him.
"I've been expecting you."
~~
A/N: Check out 20 Chapters Ahead for this fanfic on my P.atreon.
Patreon link: https://www.patreon.com/c/evildragon04