Chapter 13
Do you know what I like about humans? I like their ambition. Their short lives demand immediate action. To me, in the blink of an eye, they can accomplish their goals and leave their mortal coil satisfied. Then, the cycle repeats, the cause is fought for again. Perhaps that's why I detested the first Satans. So short-sighted yet so long-lived. Perhaps that's also why I detest devils. Even if they have ambition, I can stare and stare and stare and never see them move an inch toward fulfilling themselves. Eventually, I grow tired of staring.
-Quote attributed to Zekram Bael
Percy stared down at Sun Wukong. He was short for a god, barely taller than Riptide was long, and he was mostly covered in golden fur. He'd hidden his eyes behind a pair of aviator sunglasses, the only thing he wore besides some cotton pants.
Despite his size, Percy figured this Sun Wukong guy was someone special, if only because he'd introduced himself with that particular "I'm sure you've heard of me" type of attitude.
Well, Percy had no clue who this guy—monkey guy?—was supposed to be.
Honestly, though, what did it matter? It was just one more thing to wrap his head around. How many did this bring it up to? Beyond Ingvild, the general problems with New York, Euclid and the grand undead, now there was this…
Didn't he have enough to worry about?
Worse, he couldn't do much about any of those things. Ingvild was in someone else's hands, New York's problem was tied to supernatural stuff beyond anybody's control, and Euclid was off biding his time in some unknown corner of the world.
All said, the only thing he apparently had control of was whether or not he'd let this guy "guide" him, whatever that was supposed to mean.
Was Percy flattered that Gabriel seemingly thought of him enough for the both of them? Yeah, sure, sure. Was he also a bit insulted that she'd gone through with this without talking to him about it first? Again, that'd be a yes.
It was unfair to think like that, though, wasn't it? She was an angel. Watching over people like him was her job. He couldn't really begrudge her for wanting to help. At the very least, experience told him to be more mindful of others and their actions.
And, in the end, maybe having someone like Sun Wukong around would make people think twice before doing stupid stuff. Even better, the god might have some ideas about dealing with supposedly unkillable things. If Sun Wukong was willing to use some magic to seal away that imperishable… Euclid would probably be worse off than before, losing one of his puppets so unceremoniously.
Oh yeah, it's all coming together.
Now, if only he knew exactly what Sun Wukong's deal was. Gods were, well, bizarre. They didn't think like normal people. Immortality and immense power would do that to just about anybody. Most gods that he'd met had been more than a little selfish, conceited, and detached from just about everything that didn't directly involve them.
Not all, but most.
The Olympians had talked a big game about how Kronos' victory would mean the destruction of Western civilization, but they hadn't really done anything about the Titan Lord until their own safety had come under threat. They'd waited and waited and waited until Kronos made his move in conjunction with Typhon's full awakening. By that point, it had been too late to stop the storm from bearing down on them.
Percy wasn't sure how to feel about all that. He knew they had been hoping the prophecy would resolve itself in the best possible way, preferably without requiring them to lift a finger, and so they'd let Kronos gather strength and allies for the sake of satisfying whatever fate awaited them.
Actually, he knew exactly how he felt about that. The gods made a bad gamble. A stupid gamble.
Maybe something good had come from it. Percy doubted it, but maybe his tiny mortal brain couldn't comprehend the 5-D chess the gods had been playing.
What kind of chess was Sun Wukong playing, then? And what about Euclid, Gabriel, Ajuka, and Tiamat? All of them were at least centuries—if not millennia—older than he was. They had their own agendas he couldn't fathom.
At least, not yet.
With all that in mind, and plenty more, Percy chose his response carefully.
"What kind of guidance are we talking about?" He figured Wukong wasn't talking about some kind of career counseling.
Sun Wukong rubbed the tip of his nose and said, "Would you mind if I speak bluntly for a moment?"
Percy glanced at the darkened clouds above them. The waters of the Long Island Sound lapped at his legs. He didn't control the water, allowing himself to get wet, giving himself a measure of relief. It touched upon something in him that ran deep. He felt good. Better than he had in a long time. But that was only physically speaking.
"I think I'd actually prefer that."
"Very well," Sun Wukong nodded. "While you may not know about this thing I call the Tao, the Tao knows about you. Now I know, I know, that sounds like a riddle, but hear me out. For simplicity's sake, think of the Tao as the road. Not just any road, the road. Every other road is a distraction. Now, everybody is traveling, and therefore they must walk a road, yes? Whether or not they know it, they walk a road. This is their immanent Tao. Are you following me so far?"
Percy nodded, and Sun Wukong continued.
"As the name implies, the immanent Tao is restricted to each person, separate from any other person's immanent Tao, only ever interacting with the universal Tao from which it branched. The Taoist's goal is to synchronize their immanent Tao with the universal Tao." He paused again to let Percy process that.
"Okay, I think I get it. Where do you and I come into the equation?"
Sun Wukong peered over the rim of his sunglasses at Percy. His eyes emanated an otherworldly glow, whorled with dim motes reminiscent of bright hope. "I am no longer harmonized with the universal Tao. I am in harmony with yours. Better to say that you became my universal Tao."
"I'll take that as a compliment."
Sun Wukong pushed his sunglasses back up his nose, smiling. "By all means, do. Either way, the guidance I spoke of is a matter of the Tao, though not exclusively. Here's where I become blunt. You'll attract all sorts to you, from dark creatures to symbols of light. The closer they get, the more likely it is that their Path will be altered by yours."
Weird. He remembered Tiamat saying something similar a while ago. Not about the Path or whatever, but about garnering the curiosity of the gods. Now he knew it probably extended beyond just gods.
Percy asked the question begging to be asked: "Why can I alter their Path?"
"Now that is the million-dollar question."
"That's why you want to guide me. You want to find the answer."
"How rude! You make it sound like I'm only doing this for myself."
"Uh, you aren't?" Percy lifted an eyebrow.
"Not entirely, no. I seek the Tao. If the Tao is found through you, then so be it. Think of it like… eh… quid pro quo. I'm offering you the deal of a lifetime. Few practice the arcane precepts of Taoism the way I do. These are the precepts that allowed me to make a mockery of the Jade Emperor and his armies. After that episode, I converted to Buddhism, which I later combined with my Taoist knowledge after earning buddhahood. Impressive, eh? I'm offering you my hard-earned wisdom."
Percy did think it sounded impressive, even if he had no idea what buddhahood entailed. Then again, maybe that was just a roundabout way of patting himself on the back for a lost battle.
No time for that now, he thought. "You want to teach me Taoism and Buddhism?"
"I want to… give you a crash course in my brand of Taoism and Buddhism. I don't expect you to convert, but if you manage to align your Tao to the universal Tao, by proxy, I'll be back on the universal Tao too! That's a win-win scenario."
Giving Sun Wukong another measured look, Percy mulled over the proposal. In his timeline, no god had ever offered him something like this. He'd done all his training at Camp Half-Blood without their input. Demigods just sort of relied on instinct until they survived enough battles and gained experience.
Since Percy had been so critical of the Olympians' lack of initiative, it felt hypocritical to turn down an offer like this. At least this way, he also didn't have to worry about taking advantage of Sun Wukong. The buddha had said the quiet part aloud: this would benefit both of them in some way.
Squid pro quo, huh?
"I can see you're still struggling with this, so I'll throw in some more incentives," the buddha said.
"Do tell."
"I may have heard from a little bird that you were attacked by a secondborn recently."
Apparently Gabriel had filled him in on that tidbit of info.
A little annoying, for sure, to have his personal issues discussed behind his back, but Percy couldn't really do anything to stop people from talking.
"I was. What's it to you?"
"As a sign of goodwill, I'll inscribe a seal strong enough to hold a secondborn into the bones of a monk for you to use. Once upon a time, I immobilized the Queen Mother of the Jade Pool's immortal servants, and I spent the better part of five centuries studying Guatma Buddha's Seal of the Five Phases after he used it to restrain me."
"You'd do that for me?" Percy asked suspiciously.
"The secondborn are nasty creatures. Better off sealed, if you ask me. Technically, I'd be doing the world a favor."
Okay, that sounded reasonable. "What else?"
"A guarantee. If you give me a few hours out of your day for seven days, I guarantee you'll find something worthwhile in my teachings. If, after those seven days, you feel like I've only wasted your time, I'll leave and never bother you again."
Percy raised his eyebrow. Wukong must have been pretty confident if he was going to give himself a hard deadline like that. It was weird, for sure, but in a good way. Percy knew he wasn't great at reading people, but he wasn't hopeless either.
Besides, Wukong was here in part because of Gabriel. That had to count for something.
Eventually, he nodded. What did he really have to lose? "All right, let's do it. But, uh, that thing about the monk's bones… Uh, yeah, please don't give me bones."
"Too bad, you're getting bones. Oh, don't look at me like that. I'm not killing the monk, just using his remains. What say we meet in Central Park some… oh… five days from now? At noon. It'll take me a mite to make that seal for you. Think you can make it five days without dying?"
Five days? It sounded trivial without context, but it potentially meant surviving another encounter with a literally immortal monster that could eat gods if Euclid let it off its leash.
Percy shrugged. "I'll be fine."
Wukong slapped his arm with a good-natured laugh. "That's exactly what I wanted to hear!"
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Looking back on the past month, Percy wondered what kind of fever dream he'd found himself trapped in. It was one thing after another, with his "downtime" hardly being any relief, in no small part thanks to his utter inability to entirely shake away his lingering anxieties about… well… everything.
It wasn't as if he'd ever expected to end up in a new timeline—reality, universe, dimension, whatever—but maybe some small part of him had been glad about it.
This should have been a new start. He could have done anything, especially considering the support he'd been given by Michael.
Why hadn't he taken advantage of that support when he'd had the chance? Now he was beyond help. He'd gotten caught up in the same kind of stuff that practically damned his life in the first place.
And, again, it hadn't even been his fault. Things just happened to him without his input. Then, when he reacted to those things, more things happened, and so on and so forth. Apparently, every universe hated him.
Kronos should have just killed him and been done with it.
"Anyways, that's my story. What about yours?" Percy glanced to his side.
The horse he'd been talking to whinnied and shook its head. Jeez, kid, that sounds rough. As for me, well, I was born and raised for this cart-pulling business. It's not a bad life or nothin', but I'd rather die standing than live kneeling. So could ya, like, cut me loose now?
Percy pulled Riptide out. "Don't cause trouble, all right?"
Don't worry 'bout me. I'm not lookin' to end up in some glue factory. I'll lay low till night comes, then I'm makin' a break for it, the horse replied.
With a few quick moves, the harness tying the horse to the carriage fell away. "Good luck out there," Percy said, patting the horse's side.
You're the best, boss! I'll name my first kid after ya.
And just like that, the horse cantered away, much to the confusion of just about everybody around. The carriage driver would probably be less than happy when he returned from the bathroom, so Percy chose to make himself scarce.
Since Wukong had never said where exactly they would meet in Central Park, Percy roamed further inside. He supposed the buddha would find him regardless of where he went. It would be strange if he couldn't, considering most gods seemed to have the uncanny ability to find whoever they wanted at just about any time. Must have been one of their perks for joining the "I'm kind of a big deal" club.
What would the membership costs be for that kind of club? Percy's first thought drifted to some sort of believer-based system, but that didn't make sense these days. Tiamat and Nyx had both complained about losing their cults. Christianity was all the rage now.
Well, he wasn't going to complain.
His stomach, on the other hand, started complaining loudly. Percy glanced at his watch. Five past noon. Where was Wukong?
Maybe I'm moving around too much.
If that was the case, he saw a way to kill two birds with one stone from the corner of his eye, taking the form of a food cart. He bought a hot dog and some water, then planted himself on the nearest vacant bench.
This'll do.
It was a nice day. March had finally rolled around, meaning spring was just around the corner. The last five days had been free of weird inclement weather, and the long-lingering feeling of dread had disappeared. Things were looking up.
Of course, that meant something was bound to happen.
He wondered what Euclid was up to. Percy had been roaming over to the Long Island Sound every day, hoping to lure Euclid and the secondborn out of hiding. At least he would have a better fighting chance in the sound than in the city proper.
Was it tone-deaf and stupid to fight something that couldn't die? Absolutely. But Percy couldn't really understand how this monster could be more immortal than even the gods themselves. If it was alive, it could die. That was his motto. There had to be a way to kill it that didn't involve blowing up the planet.
Unfortunately, Euclid hadn't taken the bait. Percy figured he didn't want to lose the secondborn so soon after freeing it. If Gabriel was correct, then Euclid had only recently gained such a powerful pawn, meaning he had a strong card in his hand. Who knew what else he could do with it.
This is why you've gotta deal with these things early on, Percy thought. It wasn't rocket science.
An ounce of prevention was worth a pound of cure. Since the gods of his timeline couldn't get sick, they hadn't learned that lesson until it was too late. Then again, Kronos had tried prevention, and look how well that turned out for him.
And, no, he was not sympathizing with the megalomaniac who ate his own kids just to stay in a position of power. Percy would only ever be glad that Kronos was dead and gone. Suppose he ever heard that this timeline's Kronos was stirring up trouble. In that case, he'd move Heaven and Hell to make sure the Titan King stayed in Tartarus, where he belonged.
For some reason, just thinking that was enough to make him feel a little bit better.
He put his thoughts to bed and ate his food, watching an owl perch on a nearby tree.
People passed him by sedately, walking along the path that wound through Central Park. A pocket of sunshine warmed his neck.
This… was fine. Percy finished eating and closed his eyes.
His city was safe.
Sleep nearly caught him. The sun's warmth took him back in time and a world away.
They were lying down in Central Park. The Olympians expected Kronos to make a move soon, as Typhon had unexpectedly been freed from his prison. It was a cold January day. They were both bundled in layers of warm clothing, but ice still coated Percy's heart.
"Are you scared?" Annabeth asked, turning her head to look at him.
"What makes you think that?" he asked.
"Your hands are shaking."
"… Yeah… I'm scared." Admitting it was easier than he thought.
She sighed. "Me too. But we don't really have a choice. For everybody we lost to that monster—Beckendorf, Silena, Lee... and the Luke I once knew—we have to win."
"Failure isn't an option?"
Annabeth rolled over and ended up on top of him. She lowered her face to stare right into his eyes. "I think you know the answer to that, Seaweed Brain."
Percy held her close. "Down with Kronos?"
She playfully bumped the tip of her nose against his, smirking. Her hand trembled as she cupped his face. "All the way down."
Something landed in his lap, startling him back to reality. Blinking, he fumbled with the object; it was a small curved hunk of bone about the size of his thumb. Tiny symbols had been carved onto the front and back. The thing seemed to glow gold.
Percy looked up from his lap. Sun Wukong tipped his sunglasses in greeting. "As promised, one seal powerful enough to lock away a secondborn. It's not exclusive to them, though, so be careful with who you point that thing at. Oh, and you only get one shot. If you ever need to use it, make sure you don't miss."
Huh. So he'd actually gone ahead and done it. Percy hadn't really expected that. "Uh, yeah, noted. Thanks."
The buddha smirked. "You sound surprised. Did you think I was bluffing?"
"Yeah, actually, kind of. I still wish you could have used something other than a human bone, but beggars can't be choosers." He held up the seal. "Thanks again. Did it really take you five days to make? I would think you might want to keep a few of these things on hand for emergencies."
"Believe it or not, those require a truly staggering amount of preparation to create. They aren't fire extinguishers that I can buy at the nearest supply store. I spent over one hundred hours crafting that single seal for you these past five days. Good thing I don't need to sleep very often, eh? It'll take me a few years to recover from how much yang energy I put into that. Don't break it, either, unless you want all that energy to come out at once."
"Wh-What the hell did you give me? A nuke?!" Percy felt distinctly uncomfortable holding the chunk of bone. "I didn't ask you to start the Manhattan Project for me."
"You have no idea how seals of this caliber work, do you?" Sun Wukong asked, raising an eyebrow. "It must be supplied by energy at a constant rate. Some seals draw power from the sealed, while others take it from different sources. A seal this potent naturally demands much power, both upon its initial activation and for its continued use. Besides, I was only giving you a friendly warning. Physically speaking, the seal is quite durable. It'd take a lot of force to break it."
"Right…" Percy noted that Wukong didn't actually deny the seal being a nuke.
"Yes, well, anyways," Wukong rubbed his hands together, "I hope you came ready to learn. Are you as excited as I am? No, stupid question, of course you are. Let's find a better spot though, shall we? The phases don't favor this bench."
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They settled in a small clearing not too far from the lake. Percy followed Wukong's example and sat cross-legged on the grass. The buddha smiled placidly.
"Let's begin."
Percy nodded.
"I believe I have already given you an idea of how to… erm… perceive the Tao, correct?"
"You told me to think of it as a road. You called it the Path," Percy said. He had obviously done his own research on the Tao in the days leading up to their meeting. Taoism was still something he didn't understand all too well, but the basic principle was that people should live in harmony with the universe's metaphoric guiding hand.
"Exactly so. The Tao is the Path. And like any path we may walk, there may be obstacles preventing us from moving forward, yes?"
"Sure."
"So what do we do then? If there's something in the way, how can we move forward? What would you do?"
That felt like a trick question. Percy scratched his head and mulled over his answers.
Sun Wukong quickly put a stop to that by clapping loudly. "First thing that comes to mind. Don't think. Spring is only three months out of the year, you know? We're burning precious daylight here."
Frowning, Percy said, "Guess it depends on how big the obstacle is. I'll move it if I can or go around it if I can't."
He felt pretty satisfied with that answer, actually.
"Clever. You're on the right track, but why complicate yourself? I have two words for you: effortless action. Wu-wei. This, along with śūnyatā, is at the core of my philosophy, which is what I'd like to share with you today. And, if you find it interesting, we can continue further once that foundation has been set."
Percy thinned his mouth. While Wukong seemed gung-ho, he held his reservations.
That said, if it ended up being more interesting than he expected, then he would probably keep going with it. What else did he have to do these days?
Maybe he ought to get a job. Or go back to school. Or both.
"Now, naturally, since we're starting with wu-wei, you're wondering what exactly that entails. Effortless action. Action through inaction. Paradoxical at first glance, isn't it? But practicing wu-wei doesn't mean we can only sit around like lumps on a log. Rather, we should take an example from water and yield to the container surrounding us." Wukong tapped his chest. "Understanding advanced wu-wei is often a byproduct of cultivating ki, the vital energy we receive from the universe. Proper circulation of ki will strengthen our mind and spirit—a necessity for truly practicing wu-wei."
"You think I can cultivate my… ki? I mean, that sounds like it takes a lot of training to pull off. I've never even heard of this stuff before," Percy said.
Wukong nodded. "The concept is more prevalent in the East, with various cultures adopting it in various forms, such as ki, gi, chi, and so on. While it typically takes years of effort to consciously control through normal Taoist methods, I now have a better vehicle for ki circulation. This is where śūnyatā comes in, which is the awareness of what I like to call the Big Empty."
"Big Empty?"
"We'll come back to that. Do you remember when we met?"
"It wasn't that long ago…"
"You were standing knee-deep in water. From the very moment I arrived on that beach, I felt the extent of your jing—your life essence. It told me all I needed to know about your prospects of circulating ki and tapping into śūnyatā." Sun Wukong quietly stroked his beard. "That's another part of why I wanted you as my disciple, even if only for a short while. Reading your jing also led me to the conclusion that you were a decent sort of person."
Gods really love snooping, don't they? Percy pinched the bridge of his nose and breathed. He wasn't angry, he told himself. He wasn't even annoyed.
"Did I overstep my bounds? Sorry about that," Wukong said with a laugh.
"No, that—that one's on me. It's my fault. I should've known better." He realized he'd lost his train of thought.
"Any questions?"
"Plenty, but I figured I'd let you finish your lecture first."
"Well, thank you for that." Wukong took off his sunglasses to clean them. "I do apologize for boring you with theory. My Taoist master was a good man, but he was also… circuitous, logorrheic, and even specious with his teachings. I know you think I'm giving you the run-around with my explanations and likenings, but I'm actually not. My teachings are more straightforward than my master's. Grasp what I teach, and you'll undoubtedly gain power."
Power? Was that what Percy wanted? Well, if that's the way the wind blew, then so be it. Ironically, this was Euclid's fault. Villains were the gifts that kept on giving, it seemed. "I'll keep that in mind."
"Good. Now, shall we begin the practical aspect of ki circulation?"
"I thought you'd never ask."
The buddha chuckled. "Then close your eyes and listen to me speak. Think of nothing except yourself. Look only inward. Do not feel the wind on your skin. Do not smell the grass beneath you. After a while, you won't even hear my voice, nor will you see the darkness behind your eyelids. Something can be found within you. It's a vast thing that seemingly sits in your bones. Maybe you recognize it. Maybe you don't. Either way, it will speak to you. When it does, pay attention. It makes no sound; it has no shape. This is ki. A gift from the universe. Just breathe, Percy. Just… breathe…"
Easier said than done, Percy thought. He was a demigod. His mind and body were practically always on edge, ready in case of a surprise monster attack. He'd already had it rough for years prior to bathing in the River Styx, but taking on the Curse of Achilles had definitely made it worse.
Still, just because it was difficult didn't mean it was impossible. Chiron and Annabeth had both stressed the importance of coping with his ADHD. He'd actually been doing really well with it before the end of the world.
He'd been doing well with just about everything.
Percy took a deep breath and kept listening to Wukong.
"It isn't easy to fall into yourself. Some people don't know how to reach that far. They don't allow themselves to take the final step off that great ledge. It's scary, I know. The chasm is frightening. But fear is healthy. It's natural. Embrace that fear as merely another part of yourself. Rejecting it is unnecessary. You must feel all of yourself."
Percy breathed.
"Imagine, if you will, that you stand defiant in the face of a massive storm. The clouds are dark and cold. The air is rife with that thick tension that sticks to your skin. The first droplets of rain wet your face. The storm bears down on you. But you cannot move. You are a tree, rooted to the ground. You are strong, but the storm is stronger. You bend. You snap."
Percy breathed. His mind began slowing down.
"Now you are water. A small creek. You flow down from a mountain, once ice, now you have freedom of movement. You do not control where you go. The world guides you. You follow the water that has come before you."
Percy came upon the ledge. He was already being pulled down into the black chasm. Part of him panicked as memories of his first quest came to mind. Another part didn't care. He heard water at the bottom.
"Even as obstacles line your path, you are unworried. Water has no need to worry. Even if you do not make it to the ocean this time, you will next time. You flow around rocks and under fallen logs. You reach a small pool. It is not the ocean. You evaporate in the sun. You're going up. Going up. Eventually, you're gone. But you don't worry. You'll be that creek again soon enough. One day, you will reach the ocean."
Percy didn't fall into the chasm; he jumped.
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There was no bottom. There was no top, so there couldn't be a bottom.
Percy thought he'd jumped into the chasm. He was so sure he had. Even as his feet cleared the ledge and he plummeted, there was nothing below him and nothing above.
The water had been a lie. The chasm had been a lie. He was a lie.
Everything was just…
Nothing.
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Percy snapped back to awareness an eternity later, and only when his head hit the ground. He gasped for air as his senses all started working again. His muscles tingled with electricity.
Opening his eyes, Percy quickly pushed himself back into a sitting position. He was still breathing heavily.
Wukong watched him with obvious intrigue. "Amazing. You reached it... didn't you?"
It. Why was he being so vague? They both knew what it was. Not ki. Something deeper than ki. "I did."
"You weren't supposed to go that far yet," Wukong said, handing him a fresh bottle of water. "The Big Empty isn't something we should experience without proper preparation."
Percy wiped away the sweat around his face. He snatched the bottle. "Thanks for the heads-up. Would've been nice to know fifteen minutes ago."
Wukong shrugged. "I'm as surprised as you are disgruntled. Even with my help, you weren't meant to reach the Big Empty."
"Your help?" Percy sipped from the water, then poured the rest over his head. His mind sharpened.
"I prepared some magic to bring you to a more relaxed state. That was my mistake. I hadn't thought you would be able to properly meditate your first time. Apparently, though, you're able to do so just fine, so my magic sent you deeper than I intended. The Big Empty, as you may have noticed, is the final frontier."
"Yeah… I noticed…"
"You must have questions."
Percy shivered. "What is the Big Empty?"
"The end of the Tao. If you ever wondered what secrets the universe held, well, you just learned the truth. That's all the Big Empty is. It's truth. It's fact. It's… nothing. And it's inside you. Inside me. Inside everybody and everything. At the very root of existence is nonexistence. Perceived or not, there lies your answer."
Nothing.
When Percy thought about what he'd jumped into, that seemed to make the most sense. It really had been a great big nothing. The River Styx was sensory overload. The Big Empty was practically the exact opposite. He'd almost forgotten that he needed to breathe. It had been impossible to tell where the line between him and the nothing could be drawn. But if it was inside of him all along then that wouldn't be a surprise.
A soft breeze chilled him. His hands were trembling, but he wasn't scared. Now that he was properly back in his body, things felt all too real. He had to consciously tell his muscles to flex and extend. The sun felt a little too hot, the wind a little too cold.
Despite his body's reaction, the Big Empty wasn't all that bad. He honestly preferred it to the River Styx. There was something almost… calming about the emptiness. A little scary, to be sure, but that was only in hindsight.
There was nothing to worry about in the Big Empty. He hadn't been able to think. He wasn't even sure he remembered it correctly.
How do you even describe experiencing literal nothingness? Percy wished he could put it into words. It would have been like trying to explain how it felt to die, which he knew was hard to do from personal experience. In fact, if he was being honest, the jumping into the Big Empty was a little bit like dying... Every time Kronos brought him back...
"To truly understand the Tao, one must also understand śūnyatā. That being said, since this is really just a crash course, I didn't intend for you to actually reach the Big Empty." Wukong hmm'ed and haa'ed to himself as he mulled the situation. "So does that mean…? No, that can't be right."
"Is this gonna put a wrench in things?" Percy asked.
"Not necessarily. It's certainly odd, but it opens new possibilities for you." The buddha scratched his chin. "How did it feel?"
How did it feel? What kind of question was that? Sun Wukong must have known exactly how it felt since he was teaching Percy all about it. Then again, maybe the experience varied by person. Percy didn't know.
"I couldn't really feel anything."
"What about now, though? What do you think about the Big Empty?"
Percy slicked his hair away from his eyes. "I don't know… It was weird but… Not bad, I guess."
"Would you be averse to going back to the Big Empty?"
"No," Percy admitted. "I wouldn't mind."
Wukong smiled. "That's encouraging to hear. Let's focus on one thing at a time, though. We will touch upon the Big Empty again later. For now, it's prudent that you become more aware of your own ki and that you at least interact with it on an explicit level. No matter who you are, that's always the first step to proper ki circulation."
"I'll take your word for it, Kong."
"Then we'll continue. This time, maybe without my magic."
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Orange lightning flashed in the skies above Crag. Tiamat squinted as a ghastly wind from the shattered deadlands carried into her eyes. She continued to stare, on the lookout for any of Crag's native monstrosities born from the unseeable eldritch soup that gravitated to the deadlands.
Twisted and leaning spires of obsidian dotted her view, buttes and hills and canyons without so much as scrub or a blade of grass, all hiding the foulest things to ever grace the Underworld.
Some of the foulest, she corrected. Maybe even most.
Long ago, well before Tiamat had chosen to settle in the Underworld, a great upheaval had taken place here. Crag had likely been an extension of the Southern Woodland. Some kind of catastrophe had replaced thick and verdant forest with nothing but glass and dirt and salt. Judging by the residual eldritch power that clung to Crag like a wet blanket, she assumed the catastrophe must have been ridiculously massive. The Southern Woodland was about the size of Africa on Earth, and Crag was half the size of the Southern Woodland.
It was a wasteland as far as the eye could see, stretching for thousands of miles, not that most found Crag interesting enough to stare at. Tiamat usually wouldn't bother with it, but many of Crag's bestial denizens had been crawling out from beneath the spires recently, venturing away from the wastes and intruding upon the Southern Woodland.
Unfortunately, Tiamat's chosen home was a quaint little stretch of land known to chthonic residents as the Forest of Familiars, not very far from the deadland boundaries.
Alas, this misfortune was both her's and the Crag-creeps'.
And so, the task of ridding the forest of Crag's rogue creatures fell to her, the most capable inhabitant of said forest.
For a long while, she'd questioned herself. The forest was her home, true, but the inhabitants were little more than pests. Their intelligence was typically limited, and the smart ones tended to keep their distance, knowing her disposition toward them full well. Why, she'd long asked herself, would she bother saving those who could not save themselves?
Life was naught but struggle. Every day was a fight for survival. The very act of waking up after a good rest was tantamount to fulfilling one's greatest purpose. Every beat of Tiamat's heart was a holy hymn, a mantra, a whisper of adoration to the religion of life.
Accepting death could not be anything less than the ultimate sacrilege. Dying itself was not evil, and it was natural for the weak to die, but when the strong allowed death to take them, they perverted nature.
But, as Tiamat had learned, the natural was not set in stone. Maybe the time for that kind of thinking had come to an end.
Maybe the weak didn't have to die.
Maybe they didn't deserve to.
Honestly, she didn't know. Logic told her to pack her belongings and move away from Crag. If the forest's inhabitants couldn't save themselves, she had no business putting herself in such a demeaning position.
Sentiment said otherwise. So, she remained in the Forest of Familiars, watching over the weak for the sake of…
For the sake of what?
No, no. She palmed the side of her head and winced. There was no point in waxing philosophical about something she had already found the answer to.
Except there was a point. Why shouldn't she be able to revise her old opinions, for better or for worse? Wasn't that a boon of not only being alive but also of being strong? She had this right. Her reason for reasoning was just and—more importantly—encouraged. Those who would deny her were the ones in the wrong.
She protected the Forest of Familiars because it was her home. Usually, the job was an easy one, and since she'd grown fond of the area, why not put some effort into keeping it nice? She would move on from the forest once the whimsy passed.
More hot air blew in from Crag. Tiamat waved a hand in front of her face to dispel the fetid stench.
A glimmer in the distance caught her attention.
She snorted and erected a simple ward.
A salvo of silver missiles exploded against her barrier, destroying the tree she'd been atop. With a puff of air, she dispersed the smoke and glared in the direction of her attacker, using her wings to keep aloft.
Energy gathered in the palm of her hand. She couldn't pinpoint her attacker's exact location, but that hardly mattered. Whipping her arm around, she flung a smattering of burning missiles into the wasteland.
Explosions ripped through the massive plateau in front of her. The shockwave shattered dozens of spires. The rising heat made the clouds above Crag billow and expand, setting off a lattice of lightning across the sky.
Crag was a perpetually awful place, so she didn't feel guilty about detracting from its aesthetic.
Still, this was concerning. Something had riled the monsters, driving them away from the deadlands, closer to her.
What was driving them, she didn't know. It couldn't be good though. If left to their own devices, she doubted her home would remain pleasant for long. The creatures crawling from that horrid place were machines with one command: kill.
A buzz from her coat pocket interrupted her thoughts. Tiamat flipped open her phone and accepted the call.
"Oh, I got through this time. Good." Ajuka's voice hissed through the speaker, coarse and grainy. "I've been trying to get a hold of you. Is everything all right?"
"I suppose that depends on your definition," Tiamat said. "I'm at the threshold of Crag, so 'all right' isn't the term I'd use."
"Ah, that does explain it. How are things looking there on the south side? Serafall's peerage reported trouble to the north, by the Fingers of Malphas."
"Trouble abound, then. The Crag-creeps are restless. I kill scores, they keep coming, that's how it goes." Tiamat spat, but the wind nearly sent it back into her face. She clicked her tongue. "No matter. Why did you call me? I know it wasn't to ask how I was doing."
"I have good news, actually. About Ingvild Leviathan."
"Go on, then," she prompted.
"I have an idea of how to wake her. It involves her Sacred Gear, Nereid Kyrie, and a bit of sympathetic magic. Rather simple, actually. Of course, everything is much more simple in hindsight."
Tiamat rolled her eyes. She could hear the smile in his voice, no doubt his self-congratulatory nature slipping through. A bad habit of his. "I'm no expert on Sacred Gears. What kind is Nereid Kyrie?"
"One that affects dragons and vast quantities of water. I had to bring in an outside source to verify, as Nereid Kyrie is one of the more obscure Sacred Gears. Even its Balance Breaker is unknown."
Well, that wasn't too uncommon. A Balance Breaker was the ultimate vehicle by which a Sacred Gear functioned. According to some people, Yahweh had not intended the Balance Breaker to exist, hence the name.
Most people could not evolve their Sacred Gear into a Balance Breaker state due to the sheer strength of will it required.
"It's not a Longinus."
The Thirteen Longinus were the most powerful Sacred Gears. Many of them were vessels for the soul of a great being. Case in point, the Boosted Gear and Divine Dividing held the souls of Ddraig and Albion, the two Heavenly Dragons.
Well, there was nothing "heavenly" about those two now. They were about as far from the heavens as one could get.
"No, it's not a Longinus, but there was only one Nereid Kyrie created by God."
"Knowing Yahweh, he created this Sacred Gear to not only bolster humanity but also to remind my kind of their place."
"Perhaps."
Ajuka's half-hearted response wasn't surprising. He had never met Yahweh.
Tiamat rubbed at a knotted muscle in her neck. A Sacred Gear that affected dragons and large quantities of water? Strange combination. What luck that it had ended up in Ingvild Leviathan. The Leviathan family's unique talent, Sea Serpent of the End, was formidable water manipulation in its own right. Add Nereid Kyrie to the mix and what was the result?
The part about affecting dragons, though, made Tiamat wary. Was making this girl her pupil wise? What were the Sacred Gear's limits? What did "affecting" mean in this context? Did it weaken them? Did it strengthen them? Could it control them?
Whatever the case, one thing was for certain. Ingvild Leviathan could become a grave danger.
Still, she did think this was good news. For Percy, if nobody else. It had been nearly three weeks since they'd left the Leviathan girl with Ajuka. She was sure Percy had long since become frustrated by the Devil King's silence, especially since Ajuka had agreed to contact them after a week at most.
Not that Tiamat necessarily thought Ajuka was responsible for the delay. She understood his time was valuable and that he had an almost overwhelming number of duties to attend every day.
Regardless, he should have at least had the forethought to pass a message along to Percy about the delay. Common sense, that. But Ajuka had always been a little scatterbrained about those things. Add his other responsibilities and it was no wonder he hadn't reached out sooner.
And, to be fair, she'd also forgotten to contact Percy over the past two weeks. It was easy to lose track of time at her age. Weeks felt like hours sometimes. She could wander into a memory from ten thousand years ago and not find her way out for days.
"So what's your plan here?" she asked, continuing her watch over the deadlands.
"Bring your friend and we can talk about the options. I'm sure he would appreciate it."
"Just a warning: he might have some choice words for you." And for me too. "Percy is supercilious and impertinent, even if he denies being bad-mannered. He certainly has contempt for select groups of people."
"An interesting one, that boy. The sorcery he's integrated with his body is oddly familiar, yet it wasn't dispelled by my boundary, right?"
"You're still puzzling over this?" Tiamat asked, exasperated. This had been one of the things Ajuka had been excited to discuss with her after he'd met Percy.
"I think I know why," he continued breathlessly. "Not only do I think the sorcery is more powerful than I had originally envisioned, but I also think it's some kind of curse or blessing. It's more deeply rooted than manifest sorcery, see? Similar to your Simple Error or my Kankara Formula or Sirzechs' Personified Aura of Destruction. Less magic, more affliction. Rather, a characteristic."
Tiamat parsed his words and drew her own conclusions. "You mean it's something intrinsic to him and that it wasn't always? How in the world did you come up with all of this? You two were in the same room for a couple of hours at most."
"You know me."
"Yes, I do. Forget I asked." She shielded her eyes as another lattice of crawling orange lightning lit up the sky over Crag. "Did you need anything else?"
"No. Can I trust you'll bring him today? I made time in my schedule."
"I'll bring him. Just be ready for his attitude."
With that, she flipped the phone closed and put it away.
A magic circle flared beneath her feet as she prepared to jump back to Earth.
Instinct stopped her from activating the sorcery. Tiamat frowned.
She couldn't connect her translocation spell to Percy's home.
Had Percy put up a ward?
Impossible. If he knew that kind of magic, he would have put one around his home first thing after arriving in New York. That she'd been the one to erect some sort of sorcery around his home was telling. Percy lacked that level of magical knowledge.
Someone else had placed this ward. Who, though? And why?
There was only one way to find out.
Tiamat rubbed the side of her head. What trouble had found him this time?
Author Note: Thanks for reading.