Volume Three: Deng Wa

Chapter XLVI

Prison of Suffering

I. Antlers and Feathers

December 18, 1210

The Iron Antlers, who meditated in a shrilling cave, muttered drones under his throat, intolerance, and loathsomeness clouding his mind. From outside the cave, chronicled harsh whisper winds, bathing emeralds streaks, and the snow swimming into gales and mists underneath ridges. Around the whole mountain ridge with shapes of duo blades, Jade Warrior aces gliding in a thick, cooly air surveyed their eyes on each terrain, their glassy beaks tittering. Most avians screeched for their reports, constantly reminding Wang and his mentor Deng Wa about their surroundings, including news across China. Most clicked their tongues by saying "All clear" in each perimeter as the badger wizard was acknowledged, keeping himself vigilant for his student at all times.

For the past few weeks, plenty of casualties occurred after Wang and his army of Jade Warriors retreated from Wukong City. With utmost strength to pursue ones who wield strong chi than weaklings, the Iron Antlers captured almost eight thousand soldiers — half of Emperor Huangdi's forces and Master Eagle's avian and infantry guards. Around one-fourth of sentient beings freed by friendlies led their fates: killed by jombies, nearly returned to normal but fragmented to flesh and pieces, and those who became irregular took their easy way out.

A week after Wukong, the Iron Antlers praised his discovery for claiming one's life by plunging Kai's duo swords into the flesh. Deng Wa suggested his student only combat challenging warriors. In the best scenario, to capture any of the best and most steadfast beings using their chi well, Wang could wrap lengthy chains around them and cast his lime bolts, transforming their flesh into stones. They used worthy opponents to collect and use them to their advantage.

Fleeing Emperor Huangdi and General Bear's forces after the second week of Wukong, Wang preserved the scrutiny of his army. Deng Wa issued his former victim's annoyance by seeing every soul's perspectives simultaneously, which had happened to Kai's minor forces combating pandas. The Dragon Warrior's people ambushed them off, had the yak warlord disoriented, flustering to sensing their bodies flinch by affrays aggressing all the statues. Instead of focusing many eyes at all times, Wang only mastered his visions to dodge incoming attacks, changing different views toward another soul. Such a soul became hard to reach and out of bounds from getting close to people. Lesson learned by the mind of a leopardess.

The third week after Wukong, the deer formed his fists into growing large roots, aggressing toward attackers. With tinges from branches pierced out thorns, grayed out by outgrowing sharp edges into spike tusks. Most proficiencies from nature were shared by the Elephant and Master Dog.

The badger behind his conical hat clapped his paws with good taste, whose straw garment fluttered in a gentle air. "Well done, my student," Deng Wa praised his student's performance, stretching his grin. "You have mastered channels throughout each warrior's perspective, the armament from blades of my historical relic, Master Dog's root earth's strength, General Kai's chi withdrawal, and his forbidden lightning abilities."

Wang relieved his posture from gripping his hooves on Kai's knives. Despite his training, so tense and elegant in fighting, he approved his mentor that no teacher like his father could ever support his improvements. "You are far more intelligent than the rest of the remains, those who had borne bigotry and violence," the badger continued, strolling to the deer. "Your final task lies ahead; you must sacrifice what you must give in."

Wang rolled his chains around his wrists, duo blades whirring their sharp edges as those cut thin air on his ears. Sheathing Kai's swords on his belt, the deer stretched his brows with novelty. "What will I sacrifice during my final task, Master Deng Wa?" he asked.

"Your mortal soul," his teacher answered. "Everything that you filled tenderness memories. Blends of affrays, quarrels, charities, aftermaths, and beyond."

"Will I stay the same?" Wang asked.

"You only lead yourself to a new beginning, my dear Wang. You will not be the same."

Everything I know will be gone to waste — Everyone.

Wang channeled hundreds of observations from his army scattered across China. Swimming into the void and dark emerald shrouds, he caught an avian soaring among the great stream of Yellow River, covered in midnight pale scars, and the water blanked with dark crystal blues. "I need to meet someone, Master Deng Wa. One last time," Wang said.

"There is no need, my apprentice. For the past quarter, when I found you so unique from the four, you watched someone who is far forgiving in your heart," the badger read his student's eyes with greed and forgiving. Beside Deng Wa's left foot crept the birth of Wang's ancestor's tree, stretching wide and wide its fingers from the heart of its forearm log. "The girl is such spirit, so thriving. No matter how you attempt to visit the daughter from the Yellow River, she may not accept you."

Wang rotated his avian jombie to a u-shape turn, craning the warrior's head as his eyes squinted at the Owl residence closer. Rainbow lanterns wrapped around their two-story house, and pennants stretched toward other cottages across the long road. Owl's tree stretched its claw branches around, whose sticks blooming tangerines were bare. The door opened its gold ray as it stroked rime crystals on the patio and sidewalk bricks; coming out of the light emerged a snow-white owl in an emerald hanfu, whose orange eyes were drenched with tears.

"I wish I could talk to Dong Mei. She is the only friend I have left," Wang crooned in low spirits. "Her father is still an incompetent jerk."

"That makes yours and hers in common," Deng Wa commented.

The deer inspected his ancestor's peach tree that stretched its growth thrice over as his old carriage. The log wrenched upwards with its pulsing throngs as the blooms throbbed light sage, pouring down above his young self sitting beside the big root, one by one. "My parents and I were their neighbors. Father Le met Master Owl in their early days, commonly used to be in councils; they were lucky to see each other after five years. We were friendly with those owls, and Dong Mei became the first to meet me beside the peach tree."

At the edge of the grand bridge was a small avian in a syrup hanfu, the skirt almost touching her dark webbed claws as the figure strode toward Wang. The boy fiddled with his action figures of Tai Lung and Master Ox, matching their blows as he could imagine the two warriors fighting with their tasks: one for justice and the other for vengeance. His thought was inspired by the Yellow River villagers mentioning the bovine master who had the brain inspecting weaknesses, and Wang wished to have his intellect gift.

The moment when his short ears were tipped as the grass brushed from behind, Wang pulsed his warm heart seeking a white owl wonderer, her tangerine eyes that bloomed from the Owl's tree at the left side of her cottage. "That was when I got to know her more, thanks to my dear mother, who introduced us to them."

"If you truly decide to stay the same. . . Go to the girl," Deng Wa pointed his dagger-ax halberd, his croaky voice smoothing with nonchalance. "Know that every sentient being is hunting you for the crimes of murders and commotions you caused. Of which you desire to return to Yellow River Village, her house readies to spring its trap."

The deer's eyes locked on the poor bird, who sat on the stair porch crossing her wings over her beak. Fading cries stirred behind the shroud curtains when Wang strolled closer to the view. Far and far away from Dong Mei, he stroked glass ripples with deep sympathy, wishing to hug her close to him.

"You love her, as I understand how it feels to return with someone closest," Deng Wa sympathized with his student. "If you care for her in your heart. . . not wanting to create chaos around Dong Mei. . . then let her go."

"Wang?"

His head perked up, and he sought Dong Mei. She stared at the eyesight of the avian: his eyes. The bird pressed her wings on her chest, hopelessness flooding inside. "Wang," she croaked in her soft voice, shedding tears. "I know what happened to you. . . Please come to me. I can save you."

How will you help me? I once asked that coward in the cave who robbed my glory. I killed him; I cannot do this to her.

"You are right," he nodded in defeat. "There is nothing for me to give in. The people will torment me if I get snared. The Emperor and his army will rip my flesh apart, and Dong Mei's father can plunge his knife into my throat. That is why I will not lead my fate there."

Wang gave his last, long stare at his old neighbor, who begged him in return. Understanding the consequences ahead of him, the deer never wished to experience what many could do to him; even after hearing about his father's terrible crime, Wang knew all alone. He feared that any prison could do the same to his fate, execution at one point, but how his story would end might be dependable.

You could hear Dong Mei under the ripples behind the mirror, and her last word thundered his name for the sake of their friendship. Wang pulled back his hoof. "Goodbye, Dong Mei," he sealed his tears. "Fall back to me, Tuan."

Deng Wa swept his dagger-ax and dissipated the bird's scene into dust, like the ocean's wave pulling back. The badger's eyes rippled rich green for a moment as they pulsed by the glass tittering. Wang breathed in his muzzle long before he could let out his long sighs, little by little alleviating his steam. "Wang. Let us fly to the northeast with your best avians," he heard his teacher next to him. "There is something you should discover."

Wang sensed rime trickles drizzling from within after unlatching his teacher's eyes. Reaching for the snow ridge, he thundered his whistle to two soldier aces of Eagle and swan, whose glass taps reverberated their commands to their master. Swinging his chains after fastening on two birds, Wang mounted on their backs and zoomed into the mist, breaking sheets apart behind the three.

December 19, 1210

Wang began to glide near the rift below. Green silk aurora danced above heaven, its sheets linking toward the north as it twirled farther. Mountain ridges mirrored the cast by the emerald lights. Mounting close to the neighboring peak, leaning behind the charcoal stone, the deer peeked at the scenery, which he was unheard of, nor sought. Down the northeast, the heart of the mountain emerged with the dragon's head as it crawled out of thin ice. Claws widened beside the behemoth dome, its stone scathe neck broadened underneath the peak, and in the mouth, bounding was the iron gate with three ballista crossbows.

Around the whole, towered pagoda guard houses with catwalks, armed with rhinoceros archers and guards. Farther down the steep, tiny bits of crimson torches pulsed against the breeze. Wang squinted at several black dots that swirled underneath the dancing sky, forming avians in formations. Once recognizing guards' sigils, he sought hundreds of them dressed in dying gold and brown armor, symbols of buffalo and Eagle.

Emperor and Eagle's forces.

Wang grunted softly — as far as he had regarded the rest of those souls across China, many armed their chi. Being persistent in leading himself to go somewhere dangerous to avoid getting captured by masters, these guards and the Resistance army were observing the scenery, inch by inch, arming their lights.

"What am I looking at here, Master Deng Wa?" he asked.

"You see Jiānyù, the prison's highest fatalities than Tibet's Chorh-Gom Prison. This prison is where your father resides there," Deng Wa detailed. "As you despise him more than those wishing you to stay dead, his fate stirs close to the end of this year. What will you do now, my apprentice?"

"He ruptured my soul to pieces," Wang crooned. "No matter how often I defied him for forcing my brothers and me to hurt people. What made this coward live?"

"So far, he remains breathing with other convicts, each of who committed high treason. The rest of the new blood entering beneath the dragon's belly became the first ones to slaughter alive, while only a few survived unimaginable killings. I reckon you cannot imagine how a former Disciple creator did such a thing to survive. Guards do not care about these monsters, but prisoners are picky about choosing someone who is not a murderer, but they are willing to stalk a new blood survivor before the execution day."

Wang rotated his chain and clenched Kai's left sword. "How do you know of this dragon prison?"

"From the mind of Mightiest Warrior, he surveyed his loyal fighter from Gongmen City who knew jail institutions in every land throughout China, including Tibet," Deng Wa elaborated. "Master Thundering Rhino and his two companions trapped three sisters in sarcophaguses and imprisoned them in one facility where your father lives. That would have kept convicts longer before the Emperor of China ordered a rhino warden from Chorh-Gom Prison to ship them to his mountain dungeon."

The deer grunted in approval, his hoof tips casting lime sparks as they slithered on the yak's weapons. "This prison is what my guts tell me to do. I am going to visit my father, Master Deng Wa. The reunion conversation is between him and me; he will feel what I feel."

"Commence your strategy. Assemble our army and storm Jiānyù."

He gesticulated his limb from his six, peeping at tiny emeralds on slopes and the snow. Dots swarmed in the air and cast gyre clouds, bolting in the air. Screeches and howls from the avian aces and wolves intensified, and Wang, in the hawk avian's head, darted toward the eagle soldier. "JOMBIES SPOTTED!" the commander thundered.

II. Jailbreak

The dancing sky rained with the living and jade; one bird clashed against the stone. With odds, jade avians ramming on multiple targets could not flinch and disorient after their impact, crushing Master Hawk's first waves in advance. More than twenty aces (including five jade avians), tumbling from mauls and light daggers, collided on the battlefield.

The army of mortals and jade warriors on the gap splashed together, within random numbers of slight gores and shrieking yellow beams commenced counting losses on both sides. Porcupines in saturated green stones flanking structures and ridge corners unleashed their quills, whizzing arrows as they landed into the affray. Mortal infantries were shot down one by one as the whole barrier of forces pushed against the stone army. Wherever their hits pierced, their flesh executed triggers, altering the fresh into a stone, alive while they screamed.

Wang signaled his second wave as he summoned aces from ridge gaps; each one, large soldiers with talons, held a stone with strings. About fifty dived near the battlefield as the deer shouted; they released their rain of heavy objects. "Cover your heads!" Wang heard almost a dozen buffalos and bovines warn their fighters, and several attempted once blanketing their shields above them. Most were unprepared for what the second wave summoned the showers, as a few sought their fighter companions' heads and feet wrecked by hard collisions and their shields banged by even larger-than-small objects.

This first strategy was only a brief chance for Wang to make his run, and by sprinting on the ridge toward the cliff, he bounded higher, swinging his chains as avians provided to sway him above the affray. After about six swings, Wang angled his body downward, forming a ballistic projectile combed by raging bolts of green lightning and stream. Diving in an incredible rush, hearing soldiers' horrors, Wang slammed and burst tides of debris, driving all mortals with remains back. Escaping from the debris mist, the deer studied three ballistic arrows radiating with dawn and yellow chi bolts. On ridge roads, hundreds of archers readied their gold arrows.

"FIRE!"

A volley of yellow rain launched once Wang uttered his half of avians to sweep archers. He stormed his dodges as he caught a round surface, guarding against countless arrows plunging through him. As he advanced through the short valley, one gold arrow whizzed a small cut on his left leg; with a brief grunt, Wang bowled to his right and was covered against a giant bolt blasting its dust bowl. Another launched as it screeched its ray, aiming at him, and the deer shoved his ground shield, shattering the big arrow apart. A surge of avians unleashed talons on archers, and the third ballista propelled in the air.

With quick thinking, Wang heaved his palm against the third bolt, ricocheting upward as he rounded his chains around it. A hard spin hurled back toward the middle ballista, wrecking all three into bits with rhino guards; all nine slammed their rears after hitting on rocky surfaces: three of their heads, five toward the steep and fell with Eagle's casualties, and two plunged their chests on the dragon's teeth, screamed to imminent demise.

"Brace the gate!"

Rhinos and bovines sprinted toward the iron gate and grabbed the behemoth doors, pushing harder. Wang bounded on the edges toward the dragon's mouth once he zoomed there in time with his best jombies, who were following him. Deafening his shout in the air before landing on the empty tongue, the deer hurled his sword in the gate's gap, and chains and the blade rattled. As multiple guards could bolt the gate, the sword rounded on the owl avian's chest and jerked him downward with a snap; growling, Wang tugged his victim, whose screech in pain stormed close. Straight down to a line made a few guards fall to the ground from their owl ally, and those with quick reactions attempted to tackle the bird.

Two rhino and crocodile officers crashed their heads on two doors, and their owl companion went through the gap with intense crushes. Wang jolted his links with a wave, whose smaragd lightening rounded on the bird's surroundings, hauling him hard to the floor before the iron gate shut completely.

"Summon your chi! NOW!"

Wang began to stroll toward the entry after hearing a harsh voice behind it, as Deng Wa found him recognizing the main one in charge of his prison. The gate crept its tribal gold and fastened with ten latches, and the rod behind the door barricaded in sideway.

Wang threw his jade fist, and a voluminous yellow chi barrier sealed the iron gate. Not enough time to batter the front, Wang clenched the injured Owl's plate armor in the air and wrung him with his lightning. The soldier joined the deer's army. "Find another way inside. You are the only one who knows routes," Wang snarled. "Fight them all in pagoda towers and breach inside!"

Half of the jombies in the sky darted onward, screeching their glass shatters as they barged into catwalks and watchtowers. From their perspectives, Wang observed, his groups slaughtered archers as their porcupine archers supported them, unleashing a volley of quills at many mortals, outnumbering before the rest joined in command. Everything had to go as planned when taking different routes to barge in, as the deer hastily observed opening areas above the pike. Only the hawk jombie soared in shortcut tunnels when other jade warriors followed him; Wang controlled the bird's flight within interiors that highlighted dying yellow lanes. As they glided down with fluidity with zigzags, jombies wrecked through the entrance's top corner elevator.

"Defenses have been breached, my Lord!" a brown owl snapped.

"Guards! Jombies are above; counter back!"

Wang counted fifty guards and twenty Huangdi's warriors behind the iron gate, whose hooves, claws, wings, and hands cast their sun rays as they held the gate from him. Jade insects squeezing in gaps from structures swarmed against the rest, stirring above as Wang peeped at the following figure close to the inner throat, whose chi radiated with dawn glitters. In horror, a red vulture gasped in a dark silver monk robe, bearded, ebony wings.

"The warden is with them. Seize the vulture, Wang," Deng Wa commanded.

The deer bolted back toward the dragon's tongue on top, swinging Kai's swords, and threw them toward the closest rocky cliff. Slicing chunks of stones, which snow mist falls flooded, Wang clenched the behemoth surface, the shape of a long halberd. Rotating it after his chains fastened, the deer deafened his roar, and the iron gate burst its fragments.

Bits of dark granites and grinds of metals scattered like flies, debris surging toward the dragon's long throat; guards' screams deadened, and most remained left stiff. Striding into the wreckage, Wang aggressively revolved Kai's weapon on his wrists, rummaging through soulless guards and soldiers while searching for the warden. Behind the inner throat, once chunks of granite debris gorged under, the vulture broadened his beak after gaping.

A vortex of Jade Warrior lights swirled in the entry, and Wang engaged two rhino guards who heaved their ax hammers in the air. One slam missed as the second attempted to plunge, but the deer slit the officer's ribcage, throwing his other blade at the first opponent. A rhino screeching drummed with glass fragments, now allied with the green, and his partner bled on the ice, roaring in agony. The porcupine, shoving his foot against his upper chest, aimed at his neck; the quill pierced in and had the second joined with Wang.

"After the warden!" commanded the deer.

A jade whirl stretching its glide down into the dragon's throat swarmed, radiant lights bellowing as Jade Warriors chased the vulture. Down into the pit, as the warden echoed his scream beside the pulsing ice, they entered a vast cave with colossus ice stalactites hanging above and round platforms in circles, which lay on sides toward the void below.

The dragon belly.

"THE IRON ANTLERS! FIRE AT HIM AND ALL THE JADE WARRIORS!"

The red vulture screeched his guards, who aimed their chi archers at the rounds, ice bridges, and elevator platforms. The emerald comet roaring its light spread stones into fireflies, one by one, tackling aces in the air and mortals fighting on the bases. The warden passing by the round platforms sought sunlight arrows penetrated most green stone aces, those capturing were alive, and others fell with their loud cries.

The warden finally dove farthest while banking to the middle and an ice platform beneath the void emerged, letting him land hard. He sprinted toward the bloodstained gate bar holding two torches, and a cracking sky stormed above him; crossing the bird landed the deer hunkering with emerald knives and antlers. Rhinos, bovines, crocodiles, and wolves were crossing behind the vulture, shouting war cries.

Do you think you are so hard? Let's play a fair battle.

Wang invited his stone warriors, most flying in comet-like crashing ahead of the warden's guards. Wang posed his stance by dropping his knives, and the vulture formed his tai chi. The bird's ebony wings extended wide with water waves tattoo, glittering dawn yellow rays.

Wang threw in first once the warden deflected with his arms. Breaking enough defenses while hammering his fists, the deer broke through the vulture's liver side and uppercutted his chest, making him stagger. Ignoring his flared and bruised muscles underneath crimson feathers, the warden leaped and twirled his wings, flashing yellow dust waves on Wang. The deer rolled twice while advancing closer, and he sprang, but the third wave reeled him back, slightly disoriented in grunts.

"Surrender, Jade Antlers!" the warden sprinted toward him with his gold wings. Heating his hooves with his green energy, Wang stormed and thrashed combos on his belly and upper shoulders. Once studying the warden's fast encounters, he blocked his arms against the vulture's chi wings. After reeling from him, Wang clenched his throat and silver robe, the lightning quivering the vulture as he screeched out; the deer hurled him a few feet away and rammed with his emerald antlers, shoving the vulture toward the bloody gate.

A sharp whiz from his left side zoomed close, and a chi bolt punctured Wang's upper left shoulder. Grimacing in annoyance and pain, the deer rushed on the wolf archer, who unsheathed his dawn dagger; the lupine rounding his weapon stormed his stance forward when Wang reeled his feet backward. Before the dog's fourth attempt, the deer's fists pummeled his jaws thrice. The third time made him whirl in confusion, and Wang jerked the chi arrow (his wound coughed out little splotches), stabbing the wolf where he had last. Whining with distorted cries, the wolf threw his weak fist at Wang's muzzle, making the deer boom his roar and throw him at the bull guard behind him.

Nearly not focused on the vulture, positioning to a ram pose, Wang sprinted and thrust his antlers, heaving the warden toward the gate once more. Right about his tumble, Wang shoved his foot against the warden's chest, pinning him against the door.

"My father. . . Where is he?" he gritted his teeth.

Grunting, the vulture clenched his beak. "Dead with all the remains."

The deer heaved and shoved him down, injuring the warden's back. Chuckling with doubt after shaking his head, Wang aimed the side of the sword under his throat. "If my father is deceased, why are the rest of your puppets living behind those walls and tunnels?!"

The warden knew he had kept securing prisoners within the dragon's belly, and he lied to Wang. The deer scrutinized countless throbs of dying gold orbs all over the stomach, the round belly in tunnels echoing shouts and deafening battles in the distance. "How many prisoners do you have here, especially the ones leading to their execution dates?"

They could hear guards whine and shout with injuries as the affrays registered sword clangs elsewhere, rays of chi catapulting with harsh whizzes. "Two hundred convicts in their cells, and all eighty-one will face death rows by the end of this year," the vulture answered, swallowing.

"So us souls of China keep paying yuan taxes to feed those criminals behind bars. They pretend to be on good manners by releasing early, and after going freedom with scot-free, they can murder people again and again," Wang said. "Now. One of the eighty-first prisoners is on death row, and I will ask you one last time, vulture. Where is my father?"

The vulture shrunk his eye pupils. "I will not tell you where he is, Jade Antlers."

Wang grunted in disapproval. "That's fair," he plunged his hoof on the vulture's head, his fingertips piercing his dome.

In the dragon's cold heart,

Twist and throbs drum the ebony cells.

Metal bars wring soul cries.

The warden pays his last visit in the wrenching metals room that throbs with ice and rime breeze. Thirty ebony cells hold eighty prisoners of every kind, and only one is undoubtedly entering his cell. The vulture forces the new blood prisoner, who trips on the icy, saturated cobblestone. The deer in ripped dark emerald tops and inky black trousers leans his bruised back against the spike wall, massaging his wounded fists that drip fading gores once wheezing his shattered breaths.

The cell door fastens its lock with a metal tap. "This cell is where you have your new company here, Le. Predators like you will enjoy your looks and be your cellmates before you face execution."

The vulture reaching to the heart's entry was last seen within the dragon's long throat entry, halfway deep with the iron spikes gate.

Wang retreated his hoof and slit the warden's throat. Gagged for breathing, wobbling on his knees, the vulture fell, and Wang's eyes lid up in hatred. "You should have invited me in there first."

With help from the jade avians, Wang hurled his chains and had his soldiers catapult him at a greater distance, intervening in the avian battle of stones and mortals with incredible velocity height by the time Wang hollered in the dragon's throat. Arriving toward the platform, Wang caught the elevator's rope wheel and flew upward with his acrobatic spins, deafening his roar before landing hard on the rocky platform. His foot cracked stone with the remains of his glassy emerald light splinters. Hissing streaks of smaragd slithered into the cave, where crimson lanterns lay ahead, emerging metal bars; prisoners' outcries and cheers deafened the cavern's thumps.

Wang revolved rattle chains around his knives, gripping his blades. "This story is where I will confront my father for the last time."

"Wait."

Wang stopped moving his foot an inch, allowing his master to continue reporting. "Your jade bird titters. Show us her vision."

Wang's green eyes rayed into rapid pulses after turning away from the spike gate. "What is it, now, Huong?"

Wang's vision dipped into thousands of consciousness clouds, and many Jade Warriors observed their perspectives throughout the lands of China. One shadow glittered into dazzles as he scrutinized the owl bird's point of view. For a moment, the avian covering herself with snow perched on a hidden forest beyond the ridge, her lime eyes squinting at the clearing snow meadow with a great river layered with dark and thick sapphire ice. The village had seven river wheels, rimed by icy stalactites, trapped by glaze water halfway underneath. Over thirty house residences dotted rainbow lanterns laid across main roads and around cottages, thus a two-story wooden factory. Wang scanned over a hundred citizens of Tanhuang, whose chi throbbed yellow-like stars swimming underwater.

The deer squinted at the closest scenery around the main road, and a familiar figure with inky cobalt and silver fur strolled with the other kind: two wolves and one who had a patch. One beside the one-eyed lupine was in a sky-blue sleeve coat and dark trousers, carrying a pink flower on her midnight ear, chirping with a great smile.

"Lotus? What is she doing there?"

"There is something that the girl fills such spirit, rather than the loss of someone she adores," Deng Wa droned his voice with determination. "Who is breathing?"

No. . . I killed Xing and Kai. That's not possible!

Wang attempted to give the Owl a hard squint, browsing for any light activity around Lotus. With his patience becoming thin, lingering for aggression, Wang detected a slight yellow pulsing with light gray and silver, dimming and radiating simultaneously. Outside the two-story cottage, appearing the gorilla with cobra and the bunny in front of the patio —

Farthest down to the garden, the yak with the inky brown mane and his voluminous emerald cape performed his Tai Chi stance with his mighty arms in steady motions, mirroring the tiger, whose claws cast silver-dawn chi reaching for the dying tree. Three other yaks with braids, including the bunny on the elder's shoulder, did the same as they shone their chi, and the maple tree with ruby-purple foliages bloomed to its stand.

Chen Xing patted Kai's forelimbs.

Wang gasped with horror. "Kai and Xing are alive?!"

The Iron Antlers clenched his fists before he screamed at the dungeon, hurling one blade as chains whirled. The weapon sliced the front center of stalactites, large amounts of rocky debris pouring toward rhinoceros guards. "Damn you all!"

"I am surprised."

"I should have kept dicing the whole terrain into bits and drowned them all under the Earth!" Wang clenched his teeth, gripping his hooves.

"You are one step closer to visiting inside cells, Wang. The choice is up to you," Deng Wa soothed him. "Do you wish to confront your father first? Or assemble the rest of the captives and invade China?"

A/N:

— The next chapter will have a warning sign, filling with intense angst and dark drama, showing the son antagonizing his father. Regarding what you will fear in the following context, knowing my character Wang has PTSD from domestic violence, Chapter 47 will display a family problem, trigging your emotions. If you wish not to read the 47th, showing a family with bad apples, skip to Chapter 48 (Don't worry, two chapters will be published next week or a few days before the Winter Solstice).

— Here is my suggestion. Chapter 48 will lead you to a better scene than hearing about a family problem between the father and son. Later, future chapters during the big event will fill the Chapter 47 plothole.