The Creatures That We Are

Chapter 901: Let’s Go to Hell

Meanwhile, Qingyang Bridge.

The cold gray moon shone on the crumbled bridge. Above the Li River, an enormous life monster puppet spread its wings and shrieked skyward. Its cleansing energy rippled outward in waves, reaching two kilometers in every direction, transforming all lifeforms into pure-hearted, defenseless infants.

On the river's levee, Qilin's golden broad sword—transformed from his Black Gold cane—pierced Wang Zikai's chest, blood spraying.

"Aghhh!!"

Wang Zikai's howl unleashed wild red energy that stained the river crimson. His body's defenses activated instinctively, repelling Qilin's attempt to destroy him from within.

The golden blade reverted to its original form.

Wang Zikai slumped, unconscious.

Qilin hadn't missed his mark. A forcefield had deflected his strike at the last moment, forcing him to attempt destruction from within instead. Yet somehow, Wang Zikai had endured.

As Qilin prepared to strike again, an overwhelming force descended from above, pressing down on him. Even the life monster fell silent.

In that split second of distraction, Qilin's control slipped. Statues failed, and a gust of wind swept Wang Zikai away. Waking Insects had rescued him.

Qilin knew better than to give chase. Soon, Waking Insects would rescue the other Twelve Zodiac Signs and Nine Scions too, never coming close enough to risk capture.

The night's toll weighed heavy: one eye was sacrificed, many subordinates lost, and only a handful of lesser enemies were eliminated. Rage and humiliation burned in his chest.

Tamping down his temper, he looked up at the sky. Hovering near the life monster was a little boy.

Qilin extended his six senses to take a better look. The boy looked seven or eight with soft fine silver hair part in the middle. He wore an old-fashioned child’s suit with large ruby-like crimson eyes. There was a faint mole by the corner of his right eye.

He looked meek and adorable, yet his furrowed brows revealed a rueful old soul.

Despite never seeing him before, Qilin knew instantly who he faced: Spring, the first Spectre of the Mist World, patriarch of their family, eternally trapped in a child's form as his spirit aged.

Qilin gripped his cane tighter, flooding the life monster puppet with his will.

The creature broke free of Spring's pressure, its wings generating powerful gusts as it unleashed an even greater cleansing force.

Spring remained unmoved, his clothes and hair whipping in the currents. The monster's psychic assault washed over him harmlessly.

Qilin leaped onto the creature's head, cane ready, his expression glacial. "What's a Spectre doing, interfering in an awakener's battle?"

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"I don't care if you kill each other." Spring's eyes blazed with authority and fury. "But you dare make a puppet out of a life monster? The audacity."

Qilin’s eyes sharpened. Ha, so that’s how it is.

What he did was a great humiliation to the life monster. He had essentially dug up a corpse and defiled it. As a lifeform born from a life monster, Spring would naturally take offense.

And it would explain why Spring and Waking Insects were wholly immune to the life monster’s cleansing power—they were Spectres born from life monsters, possessing the curse power their mothers granted them.

Gao Yang, on the other hand, was the Divine Scion, no longer a Spectre. No complete curse coursed through his body, so he couldn’t resist Zhuang Mei’s cleansing power in her second form.

“I thought you would hate them.” Qilin curled his lips.

"Hate," Spring echoed. His gaze fixed on the giant white bird. "Of course I do. No one hates them more than I do."

Qilin paused. He thought he had heard wrong. If the Spectre hated the life monsters, why would he step in?

Of course Qilin wouldn’t understand. Spring didn’t intend to explain.

Since learning that Spectres were born of life monster and human unions, his hatred for their mothers had grown endless and deep.

Yet every life monster that bore a Spectre died the moment their child entered this world. Spectres and their mothers were like yesterday and today—never to coexist. Their lives intersected for only the briefest moment.

Still, Spring ached to ask their mothers:

Why birth us at the cost of your lives?

Why condemn us to this Mist World?

Do you understand what it means to be abandoned by the world from birth?

Our first breath brings not warmth and love, but cold isolation. Fear. Helplessness. Loss. A cursed nightmare that never ends.

As children, awakeners hunted us. Elite monsters slaughtered us. Curses tortured us.

Do you know how we've survived these endless years?

No one explained why we live. No one taught us how to love.

We seek companions to fight the loneliness, food to fight the hunger. But the deepest hunger in our hearts remains unsated.

We need to know: what are forlorn ghosts?

Why do we exist? What purpose do we serve? Where should we go?

No one ever answered.

Now we know the truth.

We are failed experiments. Countless mistakes made in pursuit of perfection. Defective creations meant for disposal.

Yet you couldn't even properly destroy us.

You let broken things like us enter this world, leaving us to rot and suffer in your refuse. Each of us will die from these terrible curses—like a lame joke no one laughs for, only laughs at.

Spring stared at a “mother”, an agent of fate, and deep, overwhelming hatred washed over him.

Even so, despite his powerful hate, he still heard a familiar song from a long, long time ago in his head.

It was the song Spring had heard when he was in his mother’s belly, a song sung for him. It was his only memory of his mother.

“The spring rain awakes the equinox of spring, clear and bright is the day with grain rain.”

“Summer full of grain as the solstice brings the heat followed by greater heat.”

“Autumn sees a limit of heat with dew heralding the autumn equinox, cold dew accompanied by the descent of frost.”

“Winter arrives with snow, and snow summons the winter soliste. Cold followed, minor then major.”

“Two terms for each month, the cycle ever repeating.”

“One or two days the terms may shift.”

“Before June twenty-first comes the first half of the year.”

“After August twenty-third comes the latter half.”[1]

Spring’s eyes melted like rubies thrown into a furnace, falling off his pale face like molten cinder. Qilin felt a shudder run down his spine. He had never felt such a might; it even pushed back Qilin’s radiating psychic power with the sheer pressure it exuded.

Spring raised his arms toward the giant white bird, empty, bleeding sockets fixed upon it.

“Let’s go to hell together, Mother.”

1. This is a song written to memorize the twenty-four solar terms, the lyrics stringing together all twenty-four of them. As explained when the Spectres’ names were introduced, the Spectres are each named after a solar term. ☜