Blossoming Path-282. The Advent of the Eclipse

"Bishop,” the Envoy rasped, dropping to one knee. “The unbelievers have been sighted above the surface. Scouts in numbers. They press close.” His voice carried urgency, the clipped edge of someone who knew how fast situations turned above ground.

The figure across the chamber did not move.

The Bishop sat cross-legged before the circle, robes pooled like oil around a body too still to be natural. His face remained fixed, empty of expression, eyes locked not on the Envoy but on the glowing bowl before him.

The silence stretched, filling the chamber until the sound of dripping blood was a roar.

The Envoy did not dare speak again.

When the voice finally came, it was so slow, so quiet, that the Envoy nearly thought it a hallucination.

“Stop them.”

The word coiled through the chamber like smoke.

The Envoy pressed his head lower, the blood-slick stone grinding against his brow. His chest heaved, but he dared not breathe too loudly.

The Bishop’s voice came again, slower this time.

“The ritual is nearly ready. Two hours… no—one. One hour at most. Put everything on the line. Block them. If they reach this place before the eclipse… then our centuries of suffering will have been for nothing.”

The Envoy’s body quivered under the weight of the words. He dared a whisper, hoarse with fervor. “The Bishop’s will shall be fulfilled. Praise be to the Heavenly Demon.”

He scraped his forehead once more against the floor, leaving a fresh smear of red across the already stained stone. Then he rose and turned sharply, robes whispering, retreating from the chamber without once lifting his gaze.

His footsteps faded into the dark.

The Bishop did not stir. Not a blink, not the faintest twitch. His gaze remained fixed on the floor before him.

On the bowl.

The Phoenix Tears blazed, liquid fire melding into the blood-etched lines of the ritual circle. Extreme yang, molten and radiant, consumed by the yin patterns that crept closer with each pulsing beat of the formation. The two forces twisted, devoured, eclipsed one another in endless cycles of tension that made the air hum like a taut string.

The chamber stank of iron and heat.

Lines trickled from the Bishop’s eyes; bloody tears, weeping freely down a face otherwise devoid of expression. They slid along his cheeks, over the sharp ridges of his jaw, breaking at his chin before the drops could fall.

“It has been such a long wait,” the Bishop whispered, his voice almost tender.

The blood-slick lines beneath him pulsed.

“Heavenly Demon. Please…” His voice cracked, splintering on the edge of despair and rapture. “Please accept the wish of this insignificant supplicant. Return to this earth… and punish these sinful ones.”

The Phoenix Tears pulsed brighter. The blood circle shuddered.

And the Bishop sat unmoving, his streaming tears the only proof that he had not become stone himself.

SCENE BREAK

The lake exploded.

Columns of water erupted skyward, shards of spray glittering in the fractured sunlight before crashing back down with bone-rattling force. A dozen figures burst free in the first surge, their eyes burning with corruption, their movements too sharp, too fast. More followed in erratic bursts; one clawing its way up the shoreline, another bursting from the center, three more breaking the surface at different points.

Tian Zhan moved before thought could catch him. He was a blur of motion, twisting into a storming arc as his palm struck out like a hammer. Bone crumpled beneath the blow; the cultist lunging toward one of the scouts collapsed mid-stride, its chest caved in with a sickening crack.

“Withdraw!” Tian Zhan’s voice cracked like thunder, cutting through the chaos. “Fall back from the shoreline!”

The scouts scrambled uphill, boots slipping on wet stone as they abandoned positions too close to the water’s edge.

Jingyu Lian hurled a vial skyward. It detonated in midair with a crack like splitting bamboo, scattering into a plume of burning green smoke that bled across the sky. A signal no one could mistake: contact with cultists confirmed.

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The vanguard pulled together in ragged formation along the rocks. Defensive lines, not an offensive push. Their weapons were the Association’s stopgaps; flame-pellets bursting into brief walls of fire, talisman nets that crackled with binding sigils, thunderclap vials that split the air with concussive force. Each bought seconds, nothing more.

The cultists adapted too quickly. Half of them dove back beneath the surface before the weapons could strike, reemerging elsewhere in sprays of foam. The lake became a predator’s maw; for every ripple that faded harmlessly, another hid a strike waiting to drag them under.

“They’re hunting us,” someone muttered, voice raw with strain. “We can’t see them—”

The Dawnsoul Bloom writhed against my arm, its tendrils jerking in every direction at once. I clenched my teeth as its alien hunger roared through me. It wasn’t pointing anymore. It was overwhelmed. Every inch of that black water pulsed with corruption so dense it blurred together into one seething mass.

“Left flank!” I shouted, yanking the Bloom toward the disturbance. Two scouts turned just in time to catch the emerging cultist with overlapping strikes, cutting it down before it could gut them. But the next ripple was already rising on the opposite shore.

Minutes dragged, each one knotted with tension. The cultists did not press in full. They waited, striking at the edges, letting the pressure build like water rising behind a dam. It was as though they were daring us to act first, to commit too soon.

Then the air split.

A rush of qi cracked down the ridgeline, the sheer force of it sending dust spiraling into the air. Figures swept into view; fast, sharp, unrelenting. Not the full coalition, but the spearhead that mattered.

Shaotian Ye landed first, his robes snapping with the momentum of his descent. Yong Jin followed a breath later, gleaming like a sliver of stormlight. Behind them came elders from the Silent Moon, Verdant Lotus, and Whispering Wind, their auras blazing with lethal intent.

No speeches. No hesitation.

Shaotian Ye thrust his palm toward the lake. Ripples of condensed qi fanned outward in perfect rings, the water shuddering as hidden cultists were forced to surface. Yong Jin answered with a sweeping strike that summoned a hurricane, shredding any cultist exposed to the air into torn meat and vaporized blood.

The sight steadied the vanguard’s morale. Scouts who had faltered drew their weapons tighter, their voices steadier as they re-formed ranks. The elders stood their ground. For a moment, the lake boiled with corpses.

But it wasn’t enough.

For every body cut down, another rose from below.

I joined the line, steering clear of the water’s edge but cutting down the ones that reached past it. Flame surged from my strikes, vines erupted where my feet dug into stone, each movement borrowing from Shennong’s Decree to keep the line from breaking.

But the truth was clear: this wasn’t an ambush meant to kill us.

It was to delay us.

The cultists meant to drown the shoreline in bodies, to mire us in endless blood so that no one reached their base before the eclipse fell.

Attacks streaked from the water before the elders could press their advantage; javelins of blackened qi arcing skyward, snapping through the air. Shaotian Ye pivoted, his sleeve flaring as he deflected one, but the barrage forced him and Yong Jin back a step, breaking their rhythm.

Then the water bulged.

Three figures rose slowly, the lake spilling off their shoulders in sheets. Even before they cleared the surface, their presence pressed down on us like a stormfront.

Envoys.

The aura told me all I needed to know: heavy, twisted, suffocating. My stomach turned to stone.

“Envoys!” I shouted, my voice raw. “Stay back!”

But it was already too late.

The lake convulsed, surface churning into a frenzy as if the mountain itself were bleeding qi. The shoreline buckled under the pressure, waves crashing against the rocks where our scouts braced themselves.

The battlefield dissolved into chaos.

I fought to stay upright, teeth clenched against the roar of water and the surge of hostile qi pressing in on every side. Despite all my training, all my resolve, seeing it firsthand; the twisted masses pouring from the depths, the Envoys’ suffocating aura closing around us, it was a true hell.

I hurled concoctions in quick succession, glass vials shattering against the stone or sinking into waves, bursts of alchemical fire boiling water, clouds of caustic smoke blinding those who surfaced. My role sharpened in that moment: weaken them, break their formations, give our fighters the edges they needed to survive another breath.

Tian Zhan was everywhere at once, fists striking with hurricane force. He stepped into Yong Jin’s gale, their strikes converging, and together they drove one Envoy staggering back, water exploding into a froth under the impact.

I scrambled forward through the chaos, shoving recovery pills into bloodied hands, forcing antidote vials down parched throats. A cultist surged at me from the flank, but the Dawnsoul Bloom moved first.

Its tendrils lashed out, coiling the cultist’s throat with savage precision. A scream cut short as its essence drained in a heartbeat, flesh collapsing into withered husk. The Bloom pulsed, its hunger feeding straight into me, my arm thrumming with a strength I hadn’t known it could give.

I couldn't dwell on the thought, continuing forward, calculating trajectories and arcs with the Refinement Simulation Technique.

But even with every trick, every strike, every pill, we were still drowning. Just a dozen moves shy of being overwhelmed. The Envoys pressed, the lake boiled, and more bodies rose in endless waves. The entrance to their base remained hidden beneath black water.

We simply didn’t have enough.

The line shuddered, beginning to give. I braced myself for the collapse—

And then a shadow cut across the sky.

I lifted my head, chest heaving.

"CHARGE!"

The coalition poured in at last. Verdant Lotus disciples advanced in disciplined blocks, their formation banners snapping in the mountain wind. Whispering Wind scouts slid into flanking positions, already probing ridgelines for ambushes. Silent Moon elders and their disciples filled the reserve line, Xu Ziqing barking orders as they advanced toward our position.

For a fleeting breath, morale surged. Numbers steadied faltering hearts. The shoreline bristled with order where chaos had threatened to break it.

Commanders shouted positions, dragging the madness into tiers: frontline martial artists to blunt the charge, midline alchemists for disruption, rear healers anchoring the flow of wounded.

But then the water writhed.

Dozens more cultists surged upward, their emergence so violent it scattered foam like shattered glass. At first they looked the same as the ones before; eyes glazed with corruption, movements stiff with madness. I lunged to meet one, flame surging across my palm—

—and stopped cold.

The man’s blade turned mine aside with practiced precision. His stance was flawed, yes, but recognizably trained; a sharp contrast from the cultists I'd fought all thsi time. Another lurched forward, half-choking on his own scream, words garbled but clear enough.

“Ki—kill… me…”

The world narrowed to a point.

They were converts.

“Those are our own!” a voice screamed from somewhere in the ranks. A Falling Crane disciple, his eyes wide with horror as he recognized the tattered remnants of sect robes.

The coalition faltered. Strikes slowed. Blades wavered inches from killing blows. That hesitation was all it took.

Screams tore the air as Envoys shoved the converts ahead like meat-shields, a wall of half-broken humans forced to absorb the brunt of our attacks. Cruelty refined into strategy. Every breath of reluctance cost lives.

I felt bile burn my throat as the Dawnsoul Bloom pulsed wildly against my arm, twitching toward every flicker of corruption in their qi. It didn’t see victims or enemies. Only food.

'Stop!'

The plant wrapped around my arm froze; but so did the coalition's fighting force.

Blades wavered mid-swing. Stances faltered. The enemy’s faces—ragged, twisted, half-consumed by corruption—still bore scraps of familiar insignias, sect colors too ingrained to mistake.

The Envoys pressed their advantage without hesitation, shoving the broken men and women forward like a shield wall. The line buckled, screams ripping the air as hesitation turned into blood.

“Strike!” I shouted, voice tearing raw against the chaos. “If the ritual completes, none of them—none of us—will be saved! Destroy it first! Hesitate, and the Heavenly Demon rises!”

Faces turned, twisted in pain, but blades steadied. Reluctance did not vanish, but resolve forced itself through the grief. They struck again, each blow burdened by the knowledge of who they cut down.

And then the light shifted.

At first it was subtle; the edge of a cloud, the dimming of sunlight against the ridges. But then the world darkened all at once, as though a veil had been thrown across the heavens.

The temperature dropped. Shadows lengthened unnaturally, stretching like grasping fingers across the blood-slick stones.

Gasps rippled through the coalition ranks. A whisper broke the silence, sharp with terror.

“The eclipse… it’s here—”

Another voice took it up. HIs sword falling limp in his grasp. “...Heaven itself stands against us.”

Morale sagged like a breached wall. Even my own breath caught, my chest hollowed by the sight. The Dawnsoul Bloom writhed against my arm, feeding on corruption, but even its alien hunger faltered under the shadow that swallowed the lake.

For the first time, I wondered if they were right; If fate itself had chosen us as it's enemies.