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kethsposy · 25 days ago

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I have about 10k of fic that's about as far from SVSSS as I've ever written, taking greater inspiration from fics I've written before, which I've been using as writing warm-up. It's a pre-canon third transmigrator AU from the outsider's perspective of Linguang-Jun. (Linguang-Jun having a great reputation as a hunter is something that I originally came up with for the Stardust AU.)

Like SVSSS Mobei-Jun, Linguang-Jun is fun to write because he sucks pretty bad; it's a LOT of fun to try and write a setup for him that's going to explode eventually (not yet, but eventually, inevitably) and in a specific way. How many parallels can I draw? I think it's amusing to think about how the cringefail ballad of Moshang and all the rest of SVSSS is taking place in the crater where Linguang-Jun's dreams used to be. (That happened to my buddy Tianlang-Jun, too, now that I'm thinking about it, and he decided to make that everyone else's problem.) Such is the life of a mere background character!

I don't know when I'll be posting this to AO3. I don't like to post WIP there unless I can fully focus on them. If I don't continue this story, I'll post it eventually to AO3 as an open-ended one-shot or something. But for now... Enjoy!

Warning for minor character death and graphic violence (and vomiting) in the first part, and also unpleasant demonic attitudes to things. Everyone but Linguang-Jun is an OC.

Chapter One: A God's Spear

There is no greater feeling in the world than the long thrill of the hunt.

Chasing their prey, they become the laughing winds rushing across the yellow steppes, howling at the heels of the thundering herds, even felling centuries-old pines that have bent for every natural storm but never broken before. They send corpse after corpse of scavengers squawking and flailing for their lives.

Mobei Yang cannot wait to sink his teeth into the monster wrecking its way across the northern kingdoms. They are chasing a Giant Sea Heron... or rather: the creature that used to be one before it met a hole in the world. Did it breathe the poisonous gases too deeply? Did it feed on the vent's escapees too hungrily? Did it become mesmerized by the shimmering chaotic energy and allow itself to dream where reality itself is torn apart?

Who knows? Who cares? Mobei Yang's lordly brother doubtlessly hadn't cared to ask the babbling messenger either, before waving the lesser demon on to younger men who can truly appreciate the unique challenges of what an unstable Abyssal gateway can create.

Already two times the height of a large man, the creature has swelled in size to become twice as large as that. Its brown neck has thickened, its dark head has grown a sharp and lopsided crest, and its unnaturally elongated beak is now the same size as the rest of its body, perhaps, a god's spear capable of swallowing grown demons whole. The giant creature needs its folded, white wings to walk along the ground now, almost like a large monkey or a small bat, but it struts slowly along not unlike a long-necked antelope.

All the Giant Sea Heron does now is eat: struggling to grow, struggling to sustain its growth, struggling to fill the endless hole that's crawled inside of its core. It has left a bloody, dissatisfied trail behind it. Which the breathless messenger claimed had started with its own former mate and eggs, the messy remains found abandoned in a nest on a high sea cliff.

The giant creature looks so heavy, lumbering awkwardly around the corpse of a Black-Moon Rhinoceros - the crescent of the horn is unmistakable - to jab its long spear back into the dark guts and yank it apart. Ah, it's picking one of those parasitic snake demons out of the body.

Its eyes have become enormous, bulbous; they have a sickly pale color and are rimmed with mucus. Abyss-touched creatures are often sick, like Abyssal creatures themselves are often blinded by sunlight. The giant creature doesn't seem to notice anything as a brown fox darts out of the tall grass and steals a piece of the kill that had been tossed aside, nor does it care anything for the circling black vultures that aren't yet nearly so brave.

Just looking at it, one wouldn't think that the elephantine creature is still hollow-boned enough to fly! Yet when their hunting party ambushes it, the giant creature somehow vaults itself into the sky, folding hideously in on itself and then launching upwards in an ascension even more unnatural than a human's.

Mobei Yang watches its heavy wingbeats take it high up into the heavenly clouds, beyond the easy reach of most demons. All of their hunting prowess, all of the joy they have spilled on their skill, leaves them with nothing today. But this is nothing! When his faithful followers look anxiously towards him for direction, Mobei Yang is the first to laugh at their failure, at the renewed challenge, and they soon echo him.

"Any excuse to extend a hunt is a cause for celebration!" Mobei Yang shouts, receiving a gleeful roar in response. "If you want a meal that doesn't fight back, then go back to the Ice Palace, cowards!"

They don't find it again that day, but the mood is still good when they make camp, freed from the dullness of the courts. At home, Mobei Yang is a prince, sought after and respected, but also one among many formidable clan members working to keep his elder brother's favor. On the hunt like this, he might as well be the Lord of the Northern Desert already.

The wind picks up as the sun sinks. The clouds darken and writhe against a beautiful, burning sky. Shuang Tao, his right-hand, a frost wind demon, loudly and laughingly recalls some of their best kills, their most daring and reckless feats, over the years. A blur of memories now.

Mobei Yang knows a great deal about the habits of hunted creatures, but this one is new, even before it became the only thing in the world like it. Weak-minded creatures and demons touched by the Endless Abyss tend to go uselessly mad: short memories and shorter tempers and a thin grasp on reality if any. He's hunted Emperors of the Abyss before, those malformed masses of demonic energy that die with every step they take out of their pits, and White Sea Whales, their clever and vindictive cousins that never took man-shaped forms.

"I'm preparing myself for disappointment, really," Mobei Yang drawls, accepting a new cup of wine. "But ahhh, that skull will look beautiful in the West Wind Palace... hanging over the hall, I think."

As they were watching the ruined creature, it must have seen them. It must have been watching them as well. In one moment, Shuang Tao is toasting the evening and tomorrow and every hunt after. In the next moment, the setting sun vanishes all at once, as the Giant Sea Heron falls on them like the wrath of the heavens.

Its enormous beak spears through a demon before it lands with a heavy thump, before any of them know it's there, and a second demon rolls away from the continuing jab. Not fast enough to escape the sharp drawing of blood.

The Giant Sea Heron's massive wings crash through the camp as it lands. Mobei Yang is knocked head over heels into the grass and dust. His wine spills everywhere.

Mobei Yang rolls with the blow and recovers quickly, unharmed, of course. And he is the first to summon his weapon and strike back, hastily followed by his hunters, but the creature is well-fed, unflinching, faster than something of its size should be, lunging like a snake.

Its spiritual energy is unleashed with its battering wings: it's foul, rotting, almost overwhelming. Ice spears and arrows don't seem to pierce its feathers at all. Hastily formed spells break easily against the burn of its spiritual strength.

Shuang Tao throws an ordinary spear, whistling with the wind behind it, and manages to draw blood from its featherless leg. But the wound is glancing, a shallow cut in surprisingly thick skin.

"Mire it!" Mobei Yang shouts, summoning ice around its feet. The ice is too weak, too slow, cracking open immediately.

He dodges its long beak, its heavy wings, its beak again. It seems fixated on him more than the others - not uncommon when dealing with spiritually starving creatures, it wants the most meal - but it still gets distracted when another hunter tries to rope its wing. It pulls on the wing up sharply, pulls the unready hunter into the air, and then spears the weak demon through with its long beak.

It's much cleverer than Mobei Yang thought that it was. Much stronger. Not clever enough to live, but still annoying, still thrilling, still enough to bare one's teeth.

Mobei Yang dances towards Shuang Tao's fallen spear, flips it up with his foot, catches, and then launches it towards the creature's swirling eye.

His aim is true! Of course! The Giant Sea Heron screeches and thrashes like a dying thing, but the spear clearly doesn't punch deeply enough to hit its brain. The spear falls out in the thrashing. Messily.

The remaining ten hunters have formed a circle around the Giant Sea Heron, ready just out of easy reach, making it more difficult to kill them all quickly. One of the other hunters makes a second spear-throw for the other eye, not nearly so beautifully. The creature ducks blindness easily and screeches. Its raised feathers crackle with resentful energy.

Mobei Yang can see it decide to flee. Maybe they're much stronger and cleverer than the creature thought they were too.

The Giant Sea Heron goes down and tries to launch itself upwards, only to go nowhere, to stumble, to barely keep itself upright. The summoned ice they've been throwing at its feet has easily been cracked and crushed, but the water remains, and it has been skillfully manipulated by the likes of Heng Leyang and Xi Mingzhu.

The water demons have made a mud pit and the Giant Sea Heron's thrashing has only sunk it deeper into the trap. The half-frozen mud is harder to break.

The creature's rotten energy rises, bubbles, and then it screeches again, disorienting in its sheer loudness, its hatred and desperation rippling through the air. Most of the hunters cover their ears and it helps very little. The unnatural sound shakes through one's entire body. The first terrible screech is still rippling through the world when the next begins.

Such venting of power can't be sustainable, but the unnatural screeching makes the battle wretched while it lasts.

Mobei Yang becomes the black wind around the spearing beak, then twists away to attack this ruined creature, repeatedly. But shifting forms burns under the onslaught of spiritual energy. The hatefulness of it even disrupts him once, forcing him to become solid flesh again, and dodge as an ordinary demon might to avoid a raking of freed talons.

It's hard work keeping the creature down, baiting it this way and that, keeping out of its deadly reach. They pick and they peck, but none of them are certain how to put this Giant Sea Heron down. The Endless Abyss has made a remarkable ruin here.

Shuang Tao's young nephew, Shuang Qiang, keeps looking towards Mobei Yang with wide, expectant eyes. This is the young frost wind demon's first hunt with this royal party. Does he expect a retreat to be called here? Does he think that the spoiled, weaker, younger prince will go running back to his lordly brother now, swallowing his pride, begging for help? Mobei Yang has never surrendered in such a way and never will while he lives.

If a creature can bleed, it can die. Through the ruined eye again might do it...

Mobei Yang isn't certain how long it's been when a new hunting party appears, but the dying sun hasn't fully drowned yet. They must be local demons, summoned by the screeching or the spiritual rot.

"They'll get in our way! Keep them back!" Mobei Yang snarls at Shuang Tao, who nods and turns to his nephew.

He doesn't need assistance. Ordinarily, he might appreciate an audience, but this battle is slipping from fascinating to frustrating.

Out of the corner of his eye, Mobei Yang tracks young Shuang Qiang's progress. The leader of the newcomers, a rock demon by the look of him, greets their messenger with an ally's gesture. Rather than charge in recklessly, they keep their distance atop the hill.

Most of them.

While trying to keep the Giant Sea Heron's feet frozen down, Mobei Yang sees a smaller figure break forward from the new hunting party. Shuang Qiang lunges to catch them and... misses? He shouldn't have missed. The figure running forward obviously isn't as fast or as nimble as Shuang Tao's nephew.

One of the Hao brothers notices and also tries to grab the intruder, his hand should easily wrap around their spear, and yet... he also somehow fails. An illusion wind demon is fast and not easily fooled, but the Hao brother stumbles as though his hand didn't touch anything at all.

Shuang Tao lurches to intervene and Mobei Yang whips an ice spear in front of his second's middle. "Wait," he orders, "I want to see this."

The Giant Sea Heron fixes the approaching figure in its one eye and then spears its enormous beak forward. It should split the intruder, crush them. The enormous creature is faster than this fool.

The intruder disappears. Mobei Yang isn't sure what happens. The figure's own shadow seemed to leap up to swallow them, or they fell down into it, and the blood-stained beak spears down on nothing. There was no noticeable burst of new spiritual energy. Nothing that could be sensed above the Giant Sea Heron's rotting wrath, at least.

The Giant Sea Heron tilts its head in obvious confusion. It screeches its unhappiness again, much to everyone else's misery, before... the ruined creature jolts and abruptly cuts itself off.

"How...?" Shuang Tao says. "On its back?"

"What terrible posture," Mobei Yang remarks, too surprised to put the proper dryness into it.

The disappearing intruder has somehow reappeared on the giant creature's back, struggling for balance. Despite their slowness, despite their obvious lack of strength, the shadowy figure somehow manages to drive their spear through the creature's long, feathered neck in a single thrust. Mobei Yang sees the spear tip come out the other side.

The Giant Sea Heron thrashes wildly to dislodge its attacker. When it tries to screech again, the high shriek quickly dies off into a gurgle of dark blood.

At first, the disappearing intruder clings to their spear like a tied rag, but they fall off within seconds and then vanish again.

Where they go, Mobei Yang doesn't care. While the giant creature is distracted, he becomes the black wind again and rushes forward to take their place, to put solid hands on the embedded spear, then to push all of the wrath of a noble ice demon into this critical weak point.

The ruined creature's neck explodes in a shower of ice, spiritual energy, blood, and no small amount of feathers. The severed head hits the ground with a heavy thump before the body finally topples over in an ungainly heap of wings.

Mobei Yang rides the collapse down easily. Then he jumps off the body, still holding half of the broken spear in his hand, and looks the weapon over. The shaft is ordinary wood. As he felt when he pushed his spiritual energy into it, the spearhead at his foot appears to be without spell or even decoration. This spear should not have been able to pierce such a creature's throat with such singular ease.

Some of his hunters are whooping with victory, with relief, but Mobei Yang is distracted away from their celebration of him by a stranger stepping audaciously in front of him. A... teenage boy?

This demon is a full head shorter than Mobei Yang, which puts them at a taller than average height among most other demons, and their pale face seems young. They're plump like a seal, with large, dark eyes. They have no painted marks or tattoos. Their dark hair is cut shockingly short, close to their head, just long enough to flop over furrowed brows.

Instead of paying the rightful attention and respect to a prince, the boy is frowning at the broken spear, and first crouches down to pick up the spearhead. Like Mobei Yang, the boy is wearing a fair amount of spilled blood. He must have been close.

The boy stands up again and looks up with those big, seal-dark eyes. "Hurt?"

Mobei Yang doesn't understand the word at first, so poorly pronounced, so heavily accented. The boy squints at him, looks him up and down.

"H-help?"

As though Mobei Yang didn't just kill the creature that this boy failed to finish. The boy's eyes are already drifting disrespectfully away to one of the dead hunters, partially crushed in the battle, a gruesome but unsurprising sight. Such is life, as they say, such is death.

One would think so, at least, except that this boy's face turns sickly and he looks hastily away. His body jerks, a hand goes over his mouth, he jerks again, pauses, and then turns away from Mobei Yang completely to vomit on the ground.

It's not often that Mobei Yang finds himself at a loss for words. The overwhelmed awe that he often inspires in lesser demons usually doesn't realize itself so unintelligibly or pathetically as this.

"Please, do contain your excitement," Mobei Yang says.

The boy squints up at him, teary-eyed, only to immediately start gagging again. He holds out a hand, apparently trying to cover up the offending sights.

"How dare you behave so disrespectfully before a prince!" says one of the nearby hunters, Junjun, a mountain wind demon. "Don't you know who this is?!"

The boy flinches away from this looming defense, staring warily up at Junjun without any sign of understanding.

"I don't think he does," Mobei Yang says dryly.

Unfortunately, Junjun takes this as introductions being in order. "This is the greatest hunter in the Demon Realm! A prince of the ancient rulers of the northern kingdoms, the Northern Desert Clan! The only living brother of the great Mobei-Jun! Linguang-Jun!"

"Yes, yes, thank you."

The boy looks between them, turning the spearhead over in his hands again and again, hunching his shoulders. "Sorry," he says, bowing slightly, once to Mobei Yang and twice to Junjun, all equally shallow. "Sorry. Sorry."

And then, further proving his lack of understanding, the boy turns on his heel and runs away. It's so shamelessly cowardly that Mobei Yang laughs.

"Stop him!" Mobei Yang calls out to the hunter ahead. "If you can."

It's one of the Hao brothers, his expression immediately determined. Expecting slippery prey, the hunter should have little trouble; they're all used to disrupting disappearing tricks with their own spiritual energy, all of them practiced at wrestling opponents back into solid forms.

Mobei Yang is surprised again when the flinching boy slips into his own shadow and then appears on the hunter's other side.

The Hao brother is enraged, of course, which is at least amusing. The hunter roars and chases after the slow boy, who stumbles, looking over his shoulder with wide eyes, and then vanishes again. The boy reappears and disappears a few times on his way back up the hill. The Hao brother catches him once, only for the boy to apparently melt away in the hunter's hands, despite an obvious attempt to use spiritual energy to disrupt the escape.

"Enough of that!" Mobei Yang decides, when the comedic pair are too close to the other hunting party. "Stop playing with your prey and come back here!"

The Hao brother stomps back to join the other surviving hunters, gathering behind Mobei Yang. The newcomers whom Shuang Tao is escorting forward hardly seem fearsome, but appearances do matter. Mobei Yang looks best when he looks better than someone else.

The boy skirts wide around Shuang Tao and dives back into the party of newcomers, which... doesn't seem to welcome him back with any enthusiasm. Like larger beasts dutifully making way for some tiny but venomous creature. The boy lurks behind the rock demon leader, peeking out warily, like a plump little seal sticking its snout of the ice.

The rock demon leader is a large fellow, a little taller than Mobei Yang himself, fat and strong. Far more grim than handsome. A stone that ice could crack open without much difficulty, Mobei Yang is sure.

"Greetings and welcome, Linguang-Jun," rumbles the rock demon.

"This is Bocheng, the next clan leader of the Flying Mountain Clan," Shuang Tao offers. "Sworn to the Northern Desert Clan, of course, and at our service."

Bocheng the rock demon appears less than pleased by his required obeisance, but Mobei Yang doesn't care much if some backwater warrior hates the fact that he has a king. So long as all due respect is shown to the future Mobei-Jun.

"And who is that?" Mobei Yang gestures vaguely behind the rock demon.

Shan Bocheng the rock demon's frown deepens. Some of the others step plainly away from their leader and the coward, so unwilling to shelter the boy from their superiors, even though demon children are supposedly all precious creatures. Sighing, the rock demon pulls the boy up beside him. His massive hand spreads across the mulish boy's back and touches those hunched shoulders with no trouble.

"You introduced yourself to my hunting party so audaciously before," Mobei Yang observes. "You truly do have trouble finishing a job, hm?"

The boy looks around miserably. It's like watching some pitiful sea creature try to crawl back inside its shell.

"He wants to know your name," Bocheng says to the boy, with the slowness that one might offer to a particularly stupid baby. "Name. Naaaaame."

Mobei Yang can see the way that the boy's eyes light up, before he bows again, deeper this time, and stays there.

"Beida Wan," he says. "Sorry. I... sorry. Sorry."

"That's a rather long name. So unique. Not very lucky, though," Mobei Yang says. Shuang Tao laughs, while some of the other hunters chuckle.

"Sorry," the boy says again. "I... help."

Bocheng the rock demon sighs again. The mauling of each word suggests another language, but none of these other clan members are stepping forward to offer their translation services.

"Does he not speak Tongyu or Beiyu?" Mobei Yang can also follow the whispered conversation between two of the newly come wind demons, but there's no need to enlighten them of that yet.

"No, we don't know what language he speaks," the rock demon says. "We don't know where he's from."

"He just appeared one day and now he won't leave," complains a young water demon. "Because he saved Bocheng's life somehow, more or less, we can't just-"

"Yubo, shut up," says the rock demon.

"He really didn't know who he was interrupting," the young water demon insists. "Still doesn't. Stupid."

"Let's hear this mysterious mother tongue," Mobei Yang decides. "Perhaps I or one of my faithful followers, worldly warriors that we are, will recognize a few words of it. Say something, boy."

When everyone turns their eyes onto him again, the boy once more tries to shrink into a shell that isn't there. It takes some more prodding from the rock demon to get the confused, then annoyed boy to produce more than one word at a time.

"Whadda fuckayou wan' fro'me?"

Mobei Yang looks at Shuang Tao, who shrugs unhelpfully, and none of his other hunters step forward. There are many isolated languages and wretched dialects across the Demon Realm alone, but Mobei Yang doesn't even recognize the general sound of this one. It's very flat.

"You must be a very long way from home," Mobei Yang says finally.

The boy doesn't answer. He doesn't seem to understand the statement at all, squinting helplessly before taking shelter again behind the rock demon.

Mobei Yang is distracted then by more conventional affairs. The locals had apparently been watching this destructive creature and had been preparing to kill it themselves, and so now must at least pretend to be grateful that their superiors arrived to defend them. Tradition and respect also demand that these lowly demons make an offer of hospitality.

Some of his hunters are injured, two are dead, so arrangements must be made. Mobei Yang graciously accepts the hospitality outwardly, while inwardly accepting that there will be some trouble from his mother's family for even briefly associating with one of their many rivals, which is exactly what he'd wished to avoid when they set up their now-ruined camp instead of seeking shelter. Perhaps if he does his hosts sufficient damage during his stay, subtly of course, the familial moaning and groaning will be minimal.

While Shuang Tao negotiates with the locals regarding the Giant Sea Heron's curse, Mobei Yang studies the intruder again. The Beida boy is staring at the sky, occasionally swallowing retching. He's been staying close to the rock demon like a little fly. How does someone with such obviously poor cultivation have such remarkable abilities?

In his mysterious language, the boy mumbles to no one: "Didwe jus' killa fuckin' pterosaur...?" Utterly unintelligible.

Beida Wan is cultivated enough that he eventually notices Mobei Yang watching him. He stares back, at first, his brow furrowed, and then shuffles to hide behind their shared host again.

Chapter Two: The Wind Demoness

That night, under the silver moonlight, Mobei Yang has his heart suddenly and ruthlessly stolen from him.

The Flying Mountain Clan's fortress is built on and into a tall hill, the foundational stonework not unimpressive, presumably the work of several generations of rock demons. Of the many villagers still awake to greet them, Mobei Yang takes note of the mixture of rock and wind, with some noticeable brides of ice or water, some less distinguishable types, and some here and there of the animal kinds. It's all very rustic and quaint. Very homely.

Mobei Yang is being led to the crown of the fortress in the hill, where rests the clan leader's home and his temporary accommodations. Most of his other hunters will be scattered around the other better residences in this place.

"Oh, when we heard that monstrous screeching, I didn't dare to dream that your hunting would bring back such a handsome trophy. You are most welcome to our humble home, Linguang-Jun!"

Mobei Yang looks away from a weathered stone carving of rampaging Red River Horses and up to the speaker standing on a stone ledge. His breath abandons him, as though plucked out of his lungs by fine and clever fingers, as though beaten from his chest in a single, mighty blow, and his unguarded heart is carried out along with it. Looking down upon him, veiled in moonlight, is perhaps the most beautiful woman he's ever seen. Peerless.

He is not, let it be said clearly, a stranger to beautiful women. This demoness is tall, broad-shouldered, and her pale skin glows like untouched snow under the moonlight. Her finely beaded dress glitters faintly as she moves and bares most of her stunningly long legs, which have all the hardness and thickness of a powerful runner, the pride of any wind demon. She's wearing long, complicated braids in richly black hair. With a smile of such pretty fangs, she should be wearing pearls and jewels, instead of merely metal bells and ivory. Her pale gray eyes glow nearly as bright as the moon behind her.

"We have not had a noble demon lord grace us with his presence in too long! If only I had been given time to prepare for you, Linguang-Jun... Days! A month! A year! We can only hope to meet some of your princely expectations..."

"All of my expectations when it comes to enjoying my stay have already been effortlessly succeeded," Mobei Yang promises.

This demoness's indulgent laugh is like the sweetest of songs. He desperately wishes that he wasn't covered in both dust and dried blood for such a fortuitous meeting. Fate can be so cruel.

"My only disappointment is that we haven't met before," Mobei Yang continues. "Oh calamity, have you been busy battling the heavens for daring to outshine them?"

"No, for they must be arguing over who among them has to face you in battle, Linguang-Jun, for such a wicked tongue," the laughing demoness answers, her smile wolfish in its wideness. "But the little human gods are welcome to come when they are ready."

"What handsome trophies that hunt would make," Mobei Yang agrees. "Far more worthy of such a wonderful hostess... whose generosity may also, I hope, extend to her name...?"

"Xiang Ningyue, the only child of Clan Leader Xiang Peng."

Before Mobei Yang can remark that her mother must have been the moon itself, that grim-faced rock demon steps forward, pulling that strange, stumbling boy ahead of him again. It's understandable that the local demons wouldn't enjoy seeing their greatest beauty be so appreciated, but the interruption is nevertheless annoying.

"Wife," says Shan Bocheng the rock demon. "Beida Wan needs to be washed. I'll see you it that our honored guests are given baths as well."

Mobei Yang closes his mouth.

Wife? Wife?!

Xiang Ningyue, the most beautiful woman in the world, lets out a soft moan when she sees the boy covered in blood. "Oh, what did you do to yourself now?"

Beida Wan frowns up at her and predictably says nothing, still trying to fold himself away into the protective shell that he doesn't have. When Xiang Ningyue sighs and gestures for him to come closer, he shuffles forward without any apparent appreciation for the privilege.

"You're not coming back into our home looking like this! How am I supposed to-? Oh, fine! Fine!"

Xiang Ningyue apologizes sweetly to them for this, before throwing out an impressive array of orders towards her husband, their servants, her clansmen, and her clansmen's own servants, as confident and as impatient as a whirlwind. Mobei Yang is still mildly stunned and nauseated when she drags the strange boy off.

"...If I had such a wife, I wouldn't dare introduce her to any higher demon," Mobei Yang murmurs to Shuang Tao, who snorts in agreement.

"She seems very willing to be stolen."

"Mmm, clearly this pile of rocks is a little more interesting than previously known."

A cold bath is most refreshing, even if the following meals are hasty and unbefitting of their stations: some lamb and vegetable stew, which is at least well-spiced. The accompanying wine is tolerable.

While eating, Mobei Yang and his attending hunters suffer through a long and dull conversation with the elderly wind demon clan leader, the beautiful Xiang Ningyue's father, and Shan Bocheng, who is apparently the clan leader's most fortunate son-in-law. Mobei Yang wants the Giant Sea Heron's head for himself, that marvelously misshapen skull with its god's spear of a beak will look good mounted somewhere, but he doesn't much care what the locals do with the rest of the monster's awkward corpse.

Xiang Ningyue rejoins them at this point, with the Beida boy slinking in behind her. The Beida boy's new clothes are less plain than before, but still oversized, now obviously borrowed, beaded and embroidered with the vibrant greens, yellows, and blues that this clan seems to favor. Very modest. The short, wet hair ruins any chance of dignity, sticking out at odd angles like an overgrown tuft of grass, partially covering the boy's eyes.

Beida Wan is sat in the corner of the room with a bowl of stew, which he eats silently and slowly. Mobei Yang has relatives who have been poisoned who regard their meals with less disgruntled suspicion, and he says as much to the beautiful Xiang Ningyue, who laughs in her delightful manner once more.

Xiang Ningyue's rock demon husband's glaring misery is quite delightful too, while his guests strive to make his beautiful wife cackle and preen, and so Mobei Yang doesn't call for the strange boy to be brought over to sit with them. He forgets Beida Wan almost entirely, until the boy becomes relevant in his retelling of their Giant Sea Heron hunt.

"Trying to steal a kill from Linguang-Jun!" Xiang Ningyue laughs. "If I didn't already know that our dear guest Beida Wan is stupid, that would make it clear! How insulting! To think that you would need any help from someone like them..."

"I can generously forgive our glorious battle being cut short if it brought me to such wonderful company all the sooner," Mobei Yang promises.

When he looks over one or Xiang Ningyue's fine, broad shoulders, he sees that the strange demon in question is watching everyone very intently. Perhaps Beida Wan heard his name, obviously listening, head tilted shamelessly.

"Perhaps a little more strength behind that killing blow next time, hm?!" Mobei Yang calls across the room.

Beside him, Shuang Tao cackles drunkenly, and his other present hunters laugh and toast the stupidity and audacity of youth. The present locals join in. Except for Bocheng the rock demon, of course, though he doesn't move to defend the little fly that was clinging to him earlier.

Beida Wan looks around at all of them, black-faced, even though there is an embarassing red flush crawling up his face. When he finally comes back to meet Mobei Yang's gaze, he bobs his head, neither quite a nod or a bow, and then stares determinedly at the floor, picking clawlessly at the beads of his trousers.

Xiang Ningyue sighs dramatically. "We've been trying to teach Beida to speak some Tongyu these past few weeks, but it's hard work! The only thing that's flatter and more useless than this demon's ears is their tongue..."

"Does anyone in your clan have a map that this stranger can at least point at?" Shuang Tao leans forward to ask. "Or does he not know his homeland's geography?"

Xiang Ningyue sighs even more dramatically. "He just stares at it for far, far too long and says, 'No.' Sometimes, he even shrugs!"

"Does he perhaps... not want to go home, do you think?" Mobei Yang asks. "A remarkably slow runaway? A rather unfortunate fortune-seeker?"

"Can he read Tongyu?" Shuang Tao asks.

"I don't know why Beida would have run away from home, because this demon was clearly spoiled!" Xiang Ningyue complains. "No, they can't read any Tongyu either. They just scribble ugly nonsense characters into the dirt. They claim to be twenty-five years old, if you can believe it! But they're even more useless than a child when it comes to most things!"

"Claims to be twenty-five?" Shuang Tao presses. "Does he know numbers or is he just counting tallies in the dirt?"

"Beida can count up to ten using real numbers now," Xiang Ningyue explains, with a nod towards the latter option. "But laundry? Spinning, weaving, building, carving, braiding, cooking... They're such a picky eater, you wouldn't believe it! All useless! So useless! "

Mobei Yang doesn't do many of those things either, but he can at least feed himself. "You're as generous as you are lovely to have taken such a useless demon into your household," he promises.

"I know!"

"Truly magnanimous."

"At least they're an obedient learner," Xiang Ningyue says, finishing her second cup of wine. "Beida can count on their fingers and make stupid gestures in a way that's almost clever... but it's hard to believe that they're supposed to be older than I am! This demon really should be dead!"

"Wife," her husband says reproachfully.

"Where did you find him?" Shuang Tao asks, ignoring the rock demon.

Xiang Ningyue either can't keep a secret or there isn't one to be kept. "We think that they fell out of the Endless Abyss."

"Beida can't explain anything yet," says Shan Bocheng the rock demon, as if trying to remind his loose-lipped wife of something. "We don't know anything."

"The Endless Abyss," Mobei Yang repeats, rubbing his chin. "Well, he's not like any Emperor of the Abyss that I've ever seen spawned in those depths before. He's much too small."

Xiang Ningyue cackles again, as does Shuang Tao, and Mobei Yang smiles and studies the stranger again.

A powerful warrior might go into the Endless Abyss to test their own strength, to prove themselves, but Beida Wan is much too cowardly to be an adventurer.

Weaker demons will seek out the more stable gates into that hellish realm, the openings the least likely to tear them apart, and seek treasure or rare ingredients. One does have to be clever and slippery to survive such expeditions.

Abyssal openings, natural or summoned, often take victims who stray too close. Some are taken when the hole in the world reacts somehow to the spiritual energy of a living creature. Others get snagged and dragged through by lurking creatures, which often can't live long outside of the Endless Abyss, but are eager for easy prey. The Giant Sea Heron killed today is the least of what the Endless Abyss can do to the things that it swallows.

Some who are taken by the Endless Abyss manage to break free again. But most weaker demons don't survive such places physically or mentally whole. Especially not picky eaters.

Even Mobei Yang doesn't hunt often in the Endless Abyss. His expeditions there last no longer than a few days, typically, and only through the most stable guards, better armed and armored than he is now. The lack of sunlight may be reminiscent of northern winters, but the sheer heat of some areas can be atrocious.

"I think that Beida used to be-"

"Wife," the rock demon says again.

"I think," Xiang Ningyue repeats louder than before, "that little Beida used to be human."

"Human!" shouts Shuang Qiang, the nephew of Shuang Tao, now looking at Beida Wan as though the demon might be diseased. "That's a human?!"

"Well, not anymore, clearly," Shuang Tao says dryly. His nephew looks alarmed by the prospect of transformation.

"Calm down, it's not catching," Mobei Yang reminds the other demons. "I hope." He sets his drink down, as the flavor seems to have gone off. "...That thing isn't one of those dream demon puppets is it? One of those artificial demons?"

"Wife," the rock demon groans.

"Dream demons tend to sign their work," Shuang Tao muses.

"Well, yes, they're all narcissistic, everyone knows that," Mobei Yang agrees. "The boy is covering quite a lot of skin..."

"But what would be the point of pretending not to speak Tongyu? Any grandmother knows how to check for possession! At least most types of possession..."

"Beida is not possessed," says the rock demon. "We checked. We don't know that Beida was ever human."

"I do," Xiang Ningyue says loftily. "You just don't like that a human saved your life! She saved my husband, so I spend more time with Beida than anyone, and I'm telling you: no killing instinct! None!"

"That seems against their efforts to interrupt our hunt," Mobei Yang says mildly.

"Oh, Beida will kill if you make them, just like they'll help with the butchering, but they're not any good at it," Xiang Ningyue says, nodding. "They'll run in to help, but they don't fight."

"What does that mean?" young Shuang Qiang asks.

"Won't scratch at anyone!" Xiang Ningyue says, listing offenses off on her claws. "Won't even snarl! Won't hit! Won't even willingly take a hit! Not for fun, not for position, not for pride. Beida will run away from any fight, every time, and it makes all the boys and girls so badly behaved."

"I've never known any demon youth to be able to resist a soft target," Mobei Yang agrees. "Our storytelling hostess, do indulge us, how exactly did your clan find this strange demon?"

Xiang Ningyue lights up. The story isn't complicated, but it is enthusiastically told by the wind demoness: their hunting party was attacked by an Abyss-touched Sword-Toothed Tiger and her husband was injured in the ambush. Their hunting party had been, for nearly a full day by that point, followed by a stranger who had eluded all attempts to catch them, Beida Wan. Shan Bocheng insists that this distraction was the only reason that the Sword-Toothed Tiger managed to surprise him.

To everyone's surprise, the cowardly stranger had rushed in at the last moment to assist Shan Bocheng. "Beida somehow put a stick up through the creature's jaw and into its brain," Xiang Ningyue says with an illustrative jab.

"Without injury?" Mobei Yang asks. Sword-Toothed Tigers generally didn't simply let one approach.

"Without injury! Owing such a debt, we of course had to take in this poor thing in, especially because Beida followed us home anyway." Xiang Ningyue sighs and says begrudgingly, "Beida does try. A real servant's heart, this demon has."

As the wind demoness describes nursing her husband back to full strength, her vivaciousness does... falter. Briefly. Her lip wobbles as she mentions how worried she was. She and the rock demon are, according to her, childhood sweethearts, born in the same month only twenty years ago, and there may be genuine fondness between the young couple.

How annoying. Sunk in a comfortably pool of drunkenness, Mobei Yang falls asleep that night wondering how one might lure such a beautiful demoness away from her marriage and her clan.

One cannot simply kidnap a woman on a whim. One has to plan these things.

He's more powerful than some backwater rock demon, of course, far more handsome, and far richer. His lordly brother even gifted him the Northern Desert's magnificent West Wind Palace as soon as he came of age! He can cover Xiang Ningyue in as many real jewels and rare bones as she likes! And when his childless, elderly brother finally passes, Mobei Yang will inevitably inherit all of his ancestral strength and become Mobei-Jun himself, and his lucky wife will have all of the Northern Desert at her whims.

He certainly wouldn't make his peerless queen share her home with some strange, lost creature who can't speak and won't even fight for themself, neither a servant nor a second spouse... Though, what else does one do when a life debt is owed to such a wretched demon? Too publically to honorably ignore? Mobei Yang falls asleep still wondering.

Chapter Three: A Clever Trick

The land upon which the Flying Mountain Clan lives belongs to the Northern Desert Clan by conquest, so upon them, Mobei Yang and his hunters cannot impose. Mobei Yang takes advantage of this obligatory hospitality by declaring that they will linger in this fortress for several days, until all injuries are mended and all corpses are tended to.

"We'll have a real feast tonight!" Xiang Ningyue declares, swirling in excitement, looking out over her little queendom. "With singing and playing for the great hunters! And dancing! There are no more beautiful dancers in all the world than wind demons!"

"Oh? You know, I've seen many wind demon dances before," Mobei Yang replies.

The blood of the Northern Desert Clan dominates, but his mother was from the Black Wind Clan and they play on that connecting string often, trying to get Mobei Yang to dance for them where they can.

"It seems like every dancer of skill has been summoned to the Ice Palace over the years," Mobei Yang continues. His elder brother is very, very fond of dancers. "I think I've seen everything by now."

Xiang Ningyue smiles with all of her teeth. "You haven't yet seen me," she promises shamelessly.

Mobei Yang laughs. "I haven't seen anyone like you before," he agrees. "You're a calamity."

Before he can decide whether or not to get closer, to risk being scratched, a familiar figure plants itself beside them.

"Mistress Ningyue," Beida Wan says.

Mobei Yang sighs. "I thought you said that this demon didn't enjoy tasks such as butchering prey? He makes such a mess of your lovely name."

Xiang Ningyue cackles, her initial annoyance melting away. "I did say that Beida was bad at everything!"

Beida Wan looks back and forth between them warily. Away from their hosts, Shuang Tao has suggested that the strange boy may be some kind of ridiculous spy, but even Mobei Yang's second can't seem to believe his own suggestion.

With great effort, the boy says, "Cook... say... help. Mistress Ningyue help?"

Mobei Yang wonders if the rock demon sent the boy as interference, given that the boy clearly doesn't know better than to get between his betters and their prey.

"That nasty old cook did not say, 'Help,'" Xiang Ningyue says, but she seems amused.

"Help," Beida Wan repeats firmly. "Help! Help!" The boy waves his hands back and forth slightly, a mockery of flailing panic. "Help, Mistress Ningyue, help!"

Xiang Ningyue laughs again and Beida Wan understandably looks pleased with himself for provoking it. Mobei Yang feels surprised that the strange boy is capable of humor despite his handful of Tongyu words. His smile reveals slightly crooked front teeth and small canines.

The smile fades as Beida Wan looks at Mobei Yang again. "Ahhh..."

"Ah, something to say to me as well?"

"Master Bocheng say..."

"Even repeating things is apparently too difficult," Xiang Ningyue complains. "So useless! A parrot would be a better messenger. And prettier."

"Tr-trainer-ing," Beida Wan slurs out eventually. "Training. Lingu-Linguang-Jun."

Mobei Yang bemusedly watches as the strange boy raises his fists, circling them slightly, in a poor fighting stance. It's vaguely reminiscent of a small child play-acting. Then Beida Wan shrugs, with those round cheeks flushed red again, and points down the hill.

Mobei Yang follows the gesture to see a wide, dirt ring, where some of the local warriors are enthusiastically doing drills and eagerly beckoning some of his watching hunters forward. Such challenges to visitors are extremely common. And likely the only entertainment that Mobei Yang will be offered here until the promised feasting begins later.

"Oh, we would be honored!" Xiang Ningyue exclaims, more elegantly. "Nothing interesting ever happens here! Some of our youths could stand to be made a little more worldly, Linguang-Jun, if your men would be willing to show us their strength."

"I am your most gracious guest."

If nothing else, Mobei Yang can show off for this peerless wind demoness, and perhaps even directly against her inadequate young husband.

His hostess must excuse herself to the feast preparations, so Mobei Yang is escorted to the training ring by Beida Wan. Or so he assumes that is the strange demon's intention, as the boy steps back and makes a presumptuous beckoning gesture, repeating it often along the stairs and sloping roads downwards.

It is the closest Mobei Yang has been to this stranger since the bloody death of that ruined creature. He cannot quite resist the urge to reach out and grab an arm.

Beida Wan startles wildly, but as weakly as a child, before the boy then slips out between the fingers easily. Even with Mobei Yang making a mild spiritual effort to hold onto his prey. The boy simply dissolved like an illusion, with a faint shimmer in the air, before reforming a few skittering steps away.

There is spiritual energy being used here, Mobei Yang confirms now that he can focus upon it. It's... slippery. Subtle. An insect landing in water: one would perhaps only notice it in a small, still pool.

Beida Wan is looking at him with wide eyes and no teeth. "No," he says, flatly.

Then the boy turns and runs ahead to the training ring, as though a wind demoness's son couldn't easily, immediately, close the short distance between them, if he so chose. Where does this Beida Wan come from that that wouldn't be taken as an invitation to chase?

Mobei Yang follows sedately, ignoring the whispers and curious looks from the local villagers, and also from Shuang Tao, who has come to greet him. His hosts have set up a modestly comfortable and shaded lounging area for him and his hunters to observe the training and challenges, waited upon with drinks and cool cloths by some of the clan leader's servants again.

Shan Bocheng the rock demon is acting as their master of ceremonies for this impromptu tournament, with Beida Wan lurking behind the young future clan leader again like a little fly that doesn't even bite.

Predictably, there are several scowling warriors who evidently won't believe in their own inferiority without a demonstration. Just as predictably, there are several eager youths, at least half of whom are likely hoping that they might impress enough to be taken away from this place.

"I do have some empty space in my hunting party at the moment," Mobei Yang remarks casually to Shuang Tao, just to fan the flames.

The locals are determined to mark their territory. Some of the older warriors, canny and cultivated, even manage to put Mobei Yang's hunters on their backs several times, albeit inconsistently. Many of the villagers gather eagerly to watch. A group of younger children are squealing and shouting from a rooftop.

Shan Bocheng is highly skilled for his young age, but not significantly powerful, and he intelligently doesn't dare to challenge Mobei Yang directly. While Mobei Yang is contemplating proposing a "friendly spar" between them, he is challenged directly by a young water demon, with more awe than arrogance, an appetite sharper than his cute teeth.

"Yubo!" Shan Bocheng snaps.

"Can't I have ambitions?" complains young Xiang Yubo, a cousin of Xiang Ningyue apparently, only seventeen years old. "Is it so bad to dream of losing a battle to the great Linguang-Jun?"

Mobei Yang laughs. "I'll consider it," he tells the water demon.

"I want to fight the boy who tried to take the killing blow from us!" declare one of the Hao brothers. "From the great hunter, Linguang-Jun!"

Sitting behind Shan Bocheng, Beida Wan is drawing in the dirt with a stick. Unsurprisingly, he seems to be completely unaware that he's been challenged.

"No," Shan Bocheng says. "Beida can't fight."

At his name, the boy looks up and then around, squinting for some understanding. He scoots back, a little more behind the rock demon, like a small child.

"He nearly killed an Abyss-touched Giant Sea Heron," says Xi Mingzhu, another of Mobei Yang's hunters.

"That's... different."

"How so?" Mobei Yang calls.

The rock demon looks amusingly disgruntled, struggling to explain it. "Beida doesn't know how to fight like this."

"Beida can stab things badly with a spear until they're dead and that's it," says young Xiang Yubo, the water demon. "And that's only if running away doesn't work!"

"Yubo!"

"What? It's true!"

"Just for that... come fight Beida for us."

"In front of-?! I'm not doing that!"

Shan Bocheng the rock drmon ignores the whining and looks down at Beida Wan, who is still squinting at everyone. The rock demon picks the boy up by the back of his clothes and puts him on his feet.

"Go train with Xiang Yubo," Bocheng orders. "Practice fight."

Beida Wan's face twists up. "No," he says. He looks around at her waiting audience, then back at Shan Bocheng. "No."

"Yes," Shan Bocheng insists.

"No."

"Yes."

"No! No, no, no!"

The rock demon has to physically push Beida Wan into the training ring and hand the boy a... staff? It nearly gets dropped. Shan Bocheng throws another staff at Xiang Yubo, who catches it easily and executes a skillful series of twirls, familiarizing himself with the weapon.

"No... hurt?" Beida Wan says.

"No hurt," the rock demon confirms. "No kill. Training. Practice. Go."

Even before the young water demon can lunge forward, Beida vanishes. There one moment, gone the next, in a flicker of shadow and twisting air. He reappears on the other side of the ring without any attempt at counterattack.

It's clearly frustrating for the young water demon, but it gives Mobei Yang the opportunity to study such remarkable abilities. Most elemental creatures can still be caught, can be followed, can be disrupted, can be forced between forms, unfortunately including Mobei Yang himself. It happened often when he used to spar against his lordly brother and all the overwhelming power of their ancestors.

Beida Wan is... unrecognizable. Even when watching closely, there's often no clear thread of spiritual energy to follow from one point to the next. A broken trail.

Shuang Tao is snickering at Beida Wan's clumsy form, the childish slowness, the obvious uncertainty, the unwillingness to strike back. It's distracting. It's understandable. Such remarkable abilities from such pathetic overall cultivation!

But Mobei Yang wants to know how the boy is slipping away from a superior opponent, another warrior who is clearly experienced in fighting elemental creatures. He focuses on those subtle twists of demonic energy.

And he finds himself thinking of... the iridescent shimmer in the air above a hungry Abyssal vent.

Of the twisting flash of an otherworldly spiritual weapon being summoned to a waiting hand.

Of the whisper when opening a small pouch hiding a deep stomach.

Of a dream demon's illusions, spun by a creature hidden in another realm entirely.

Of a monstrous creature disguised as something small, suddenly unfolding itself, ripping a giant's body out of a spiritual web to reveal its spider's trap.

Of the way the air shakes when a Black Moon Rhinoceros Python screams.

"...Ah," Mobei Yang says.

Shuang Tao and the Hao brothers look at him with interest, but Mobei Yang ignores them to lean farther forward. If they can't figure it out, he's not telling them.

The fight ends when the young water demon manages to trip Beida Wan, not for the first time, and Beida Wan is too dazed to get up before Xiang Yubo swings the tip of the staff up against his throat. The water demon taps for emphasis.

Mobei Yang can see the boy's nervous swallow, but also the way that Beida Wan is watching the crowd more than his opponent. It's the boy's choice to release his weapon and indicate surrender. The only thing preventing his escape here should be spiritual exhaustion.

"Well done," Mobei Yang calls out to the young water demon, who was persistent, if ineffective.

Xiang Yubo pulls the staff back and demonstrates relieved gratitude, after such a frustrating duel. It must have been like trying to pin down a ghostly butterfly.

Beida Wan rolls himself up and limps back to hide behind Bocheng again, sitting against the wall in a tired heap.

"Strike back more," the rock demon says to his little fly.

Beida Wan raises his hand sharply, an inward fist with the middle finger pointed upwards, though he drops it quickly.

Mobei Yang wonders what that's supposed to mean. A salute? An agreement? An apology? Hard to say when Beida Wan's sweaty, red face is between his knees.

He understands better now why this young water demon said that Beida Wan only knows how to run and kill. The boy doesn't have the strength or the speed to strike back ordinarily, to wrestle an opponent to the ground, to spar in a skillful way. All Beida Wan can do is sneak close and put a spear through an opponent's critical weak points, using an apparently natural ability to warp space itself around him.

No wind demon, no matter how quick or powerful, can reach something that has slipped away into another realm entirely.

Mobei Yang fights the young water demon, because it makes him look generous more than out of any personal interest. He wants to show Shan Bocheng the difference between them, especially with the beautiful Xiang Ningyue now watching from an overlook with some other local wind demonesses, their colorful scarves and skirts flowing like flags in the breeze.

And he wants to see Beida Wan's face seeing a true demon warrior demonstrate some of his strength. The boy alternates freely between very wide eyes and a frowning squint, apparently.

Mobei Yang indulges a few challengers after that, out of boredom more than curiosity, and likely embarrasses some of them more than originally intended. The Ice Palace attracts countless challengers, fighting for countless reasons, and his lordly brother has become less and less willing to indulge any of them as the years go by; it's a responsibility on top of the countless cousins whose ambitions need to be treated like summer greenery: killed off before they become overgrown.

The cheering and compliments are appreciated. The naked envy even moreso. "I did apparently have to prove to this clan that I have no need of help during any of my hunts," Mobei Yang says dryly, provoking laughter again.

The rush of battle, however inglorious, makes impulses more difficult to resist. While lesser demons debate who has to follow such a performance, Mobei Yang looks towards the elusive little fly.

"Beida Wan!" he calls.

The boy's head snaps up. Several strings of surrounding conversation are cut off, but Mobei Yang isn't afraid of an audience. He echoes that condescending little beckoning gesture. By the way that Beida Wan's reddened nose wrinkles, Mobei Yang's demand is immediately understood.

Shan Bocheng hauls the boy up by his collar again and Beida Wan begrudgingly slinks over to stand in front of Mobei Yang. His expression is wary. He remembers to bow in greeting quite belatedly.

Mobei Yang doesn't give any warning before grabbing the boy's arm again. Again, Beida Wan is too slow to dodge, startling without dignity.

"Whadda fuck?!"

It would have been trivial to break this limb, to do far worse, but Mobei Yang waits patiently. He can feel the shift of the boy's elusive spiritual energy even better this way; he can shift his own weighty spiritual energy to counter the forces hastily moving to work here.

He owes thanks to the depths his ancestors have given him. Perhaps also to the clan priestess who first taught him how to fortify himself against unstable Abyssal gates, so that his body and mind wouldn't be torn to pieces. And to those others who passed down onto him the ancestral knowledge of stabilizing such gates... of destroying them. Though Mobei Yang doesn't think one can discount his own impressive experience, learning how to disrupt summoned weapons and untie folded spaces and all those annoying tricks with just... a little... push.

Beida Wan grunts, flinches, as the shadows twist and writhe and fail to whisk him away into whatever halfway realm he's been using. He pulls uselessly. He keeps trying, again and again, a panicking animal with a paw stuck fast.

Mobei Yang keeps denying the boy an escape. It takes continuous effort, a fair amount of spiritual energy, and really, the boy should be grateful that Mobei Yang hasn't accidentally broken this arm.

"No," Mobei Yang says dryly.

Beida Wan stops struggling and stares up at him. Really, it reminds Mobei Yang so much of snagging a surfacing seal as a bored youth, all big eyes and flopping rage.

Whatever this boy was before, human or not, he's just a weak demon now with a single clever trick. Remarkable abilities left raw and uncultivated. Mobei Yang laughs as he releases his unique prey, at yet another successful hunt, however short and simple it turned out to be.

"You caught Beida," the young water demon, Xiang Yubo, says. "And he actually stayed caught!"

"Oh, you just have to find the trick of it," Mobei Yang says airily. "Shan Bocheng, tell your clan leader that I've found some new demons for my hunting party!"

It's like kicking over a wasp nest, with the buzzing that goes through the watching crowd. The rock demon remains grim.

"Who?" Shan Bocheng says.

"Such an honor!" Xiang Ningyue calls from her makeshift pavilion of ladies, far more civilized, all of her beauty on display as she leans forward. "The Flying Mountain Clan is honored to run with Linguang-Jun! But which of us are you stealing?"

"Your young cousin, generous hostess," Mobei Yang falls back. "Xiang Yubo may have the potential to impress!"

More importantly, the young water demon will give an excuse to return to the Flying Mountain Clan and speak with his relatives. Mobei Yang will simply have to tell his late mother's family, the Black Wind Clan, that he has a complicated plot to destabilize the leadership of their rival clan.

"It's- Thank you! Thank you, Linguang-Jun! I won't disappoint you- I won't- I'll prove myself worthy-" Xiang Yubo stammers.

Mobei Yang nods vaguely at the appropriate gratitude. "And I'll have this thing," he adds, pointing. "If you can bear to let this guest leave your hands."

Xiang Ningyue cackles, as does Shuang Tao. The other laughter around them is more nervous. Beida Wan looks at Mobei Yang's finger like he doesn't know why it's pointing at him; presumably, he doesn't. He shuffles backwards... into the rock demon.

"I... owe Beida," Shan Bocheng says.

"And what better reward could you give than a placement with a superior clan?" Mobei Yang says, even though he really doesn't need to ask anyone's permission here. "If there's anything worthwhile to be learned from Beida Wan, the Northern Desert Clan will uncover it."

"Yes, take them!" Xiang Ningyue calls. "If anyone can make a hunter of Beida, it's you, Linguang-Jun!"

It's more likely that such a useless warrior will die sooner than later, but Mobei Yang doubts that the Flying Mountain Clan will truly cry over the loss. Perhaps something will be made of these remarkable abilities before that, but perhaps not.

Shan Bocheng's shoulders sag slightly. The rock demon won't fight over this.

Mobei Yang smiles down at Beida Wan, who remains wary and confused at first, and then hesitantly smiles back. Weakly. Not threateningly. Obviously false. Quite odd. The humanness is hard to unsee after Xiang Ningyue suggested it.

"What an opportunity to bring our two clans closer together," Mobei Yang remarks, almost entirely to see Shan Bocheng struggle to remain polite again. "Let's look forward to the new future, hm?"

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