Chapter 458: Paths Too Easy to Walk

Due to their overwhelming victory, the enemy wouldn't bother Zae Zin Nim for some time. Due to her precision glaring, her obnoxious allies wouldn't bother her either. Instead she spent all of her time in the empty vault, trying to break through.

In a way, this had been her real blockage from the very beginning. Oh, there had been her deep meridians and countless other barriers, but it had been the Blackblood Physique that had first stopped her path to cultivation. She thought she had finally overcome it in Rosemount... only for it to rear its head time and time again.

Except that wasn't quite right. Zae Zin Nim massaged the veins on her arm, knowing that the blood within was pitch black even if it wasn't visible through her jade skin. As soon as she overcame the first stage, the Blackblood Physique had always been there for her. It had kept her alive and strengthened her at times when her cultivation had stalled or other arts frustrated her. And yet, in some way she couldn't fully identify, the power within her very veins remained beyond her.

Just as if she was trying to advance in her cultivation, she had placed all her tools in front of her. Qi pills, pure chakra, and a mana potion, obviously. Medicinal pills, just in case, and some of the immortality elixir despite what Omilaena had said. But the most important items were the Physique-enhancing pills from the vaults and purification creams from the Pureflower sect, which combined should have been everything she needed.

Zae Zin Nim took a deep breath and swallowed one of the Physique enhancers. Immediately she felt the power within her body surge, as if it was on the verge of something truly impressive... and then it began to deviate. She could feel the darkness spreading, turning into an infection, distorting her pure flesh just like the others had always threatened.

She pulled back, suddenly gasping for breath. The sensation faded and dissolved, avoiding both a terrible deviation and any breakthrough. These false attempts would have been prohibitively expensive, if they hadn't seized an entire vault worth of materials. But even with infinite chances, she felt as though she was still stuck here.

It was like there was a fundamental clash in the ways the Blackblood Physique might develop. Unlike many advancements, which fought her, these seemed almost too easy, and that was the problem. What Xir Xan Khan had said about the blood polluting her if mishandled appeared to be terribly true.

The attempt to strengthen herself had pushed both her dantian and the Pure Yin Shroud to their limits, trying to drive them to a higher state. As a result she was slightly strengthened, but all out of balance. So she reverted to meditation and cultivation to restore herself for another attempt. At least the Coldfire Corona burned peacefully within her, as faithful as always.

"Excuse me."

She almost snarled at the interruption and looked up to see the young cultivator who followed Kai around like a lost puppy. He wasn't the worst of them - at least he stared at her face instead of her chest. On the other hand, he didn't pay the same respect to Omilaena, and Zae Zin Nim had seriously considered punishing him for ogling her wife. But he seemed to mean well, and Kai would dislike it if she killed random people on their side.

"What is it?" Zae Zin Nim asked. She thought her voice sounded calm.

"I was hoping to talk to Kai. I... wanted to ask more advice." He shuffled nervously, not looking at her at all, which was preferable.

"He isn't here anymore. You will likely find him cultivating on top of the broken tower."

"Oh, got it. Thank you." The young man made his way out with several more bows.

When they seized the Verdant River vault, they had of course acquired a huge number of resources. There were more poisons and metals for Omilaena, and as usual there wasn't much appropriate for Kai. But they did have a wide variety of qi, including some savage types that were appropriate for him. It was good to see him cultivating again, since he needed to advance on that journey early enough for it to be relevant.

Another presence entered the vault, but this one was just her wife. Despite the most recent failure, Zae Zin Nim looked up to smile at her.

"I tried again," she said. "It felt stronger than before, but the blood still nearly turned against me."

"I don't know what to tell you." Omilaena shrugged as she approached. "You have blown past every requirement there should be for this, so there must be something else holding you back."

"Do you... think that I would have more success if I made my body immortal first? The problem is that the blood seems like it will damage my Physique, but if I had an immortal body..." She trailed off as Omilaena shook her head.

"I'm sorry, Zin Nim, but I'm even more convinced than I was before. I've been monitoring Hul Ping-"

"Who?"

"The boy, he just walked out." Omilaena jerked a thumb over her shoulder. "I don't like his growth, and I think it's the elixir. This isn't the sort of immortality you want."

Zae Zin Nim went silent, still struggling to accept this grim result. She had pinned so many of her hopes on the immortality elixir, it was discouraging to hear over and over that it wasn't as good as it should have been. Seeing her stew, Omilaena sat down beside her and patted her leg.

"Obviously you can decide for yourself," the other woman said, "and I know I don't have a lot of proof right now. By objective means, the elixir grants our opponents substantial power, and it seems to grant eternal youth too. By not using it, we're giving them a major advantage over us."

"I trust your judgment," Zae Zin Nim said carefully. "I just wish I understood."

"Well, it's not something I can prove, just a gut feeling with some evidence. To me, it seems like the elixir burns out an enormous portion of the soul. Entire capacities void, and all kinds of synergies consumed. It grants some power, yes, but at the cost of future growth. Based on what I've seen with the boy, it really is inhibiting his cultivation already. Even if it does keep you young forever, I think it's a cheap trick that leads to a dead end. If just killing a bunch of people could make you immortal with no strings attached, Cloudspire would have figured that out ages ago."

Even though Zae Zin Nim didn't want it to be true, the deepest part of herself believed it. There were more paths to false immortality than true, whether they made a person shrivel up or cut off growth entirely. When the Verdant River sect lost the Loam of the Gods, it was less likely that they found a genius new path everyone had missed and far more likely they chose a desperate option.

"The boy... do you think we should get rid of him?" Zae Zin Nim asked.

"What, because we used him as an experiment?" Omilaena shrugged. "If anything, we may have limited his future growth."

"As if he would have accomplished much more on his own. Why are you sympathetic to him?"

"Oh, I'm not. I hate how he's always giving a percentage certainty on things - there's no mathematical calculation, so it's meaningless, just giving undue precision to a vague feeling. But he's Kai's newest pet, so it'd be shitty of us to kill him just because it would be convenient."

At least that idea made Zae Zin Nim smile a little. They didn't need to worry about their husband taking concubines or having affairs... just adopting people he felt sorry for, or taking up lost causes, or trying to help strangers for no reason. It was still foolish, but now she found it charming.

"Do you suppose I could use more chakra?" Zae Zin Nim asked, returning to the question of Physique. "My Pure Yin Shroud is heavily tied to my body, after all, so it might be-"

"Sorry to repeat myself, but it's already balanced." Omilaena touched her shoulder with a sad smile. "The Blackblood Physique is a highly refined art, and your soul is overall stabilized. If anything, you should be getting a better result than anyone else who has tried it."

"Actually, I think I could complete the purification process. It's just that it also felt like it would harm me."

Omilaena's gaze immediately fixated on her, less warm than intensely interested. Somehow that had become charming too. "What's that?" her wife asked. "You never mentioned this."

"It's recent. I could purify all of the dark blood, without too much difficulty thanks to these enhancements, but it would definitely drain away some of my strength." Zae Zin Nim reached down, feeling the pulse in her wrist again. "But embracing it feels like it would destroy my health, so maybe that way is impossible. Maybe the purification is the only way."

"Don't presume that too soon. You've been saying that every option we consider would be harmful, but they're not all harmful in the same way, right? The exact details could be very relevant."

"Every method leads to some sort of problem. If we made the blood more spiritual, as you suggested, my cultivation would be stronger but I'd be physically weaker. The purification method would balance both, but at the loss of the unique strength. And absorbing it would lead to terrible reactions, so that's out of the question."

"That wasn't very specific. What kinds of reactions?"

"Well... I..." Zae Zin Nim frowned as she considered it more carefully. "I have always tried to maintain a pure body, one that is in balance. That is why it is easy for me to exert strength beyond my size. If I absorbed the blood, I would lose that purity."

"Losing purity can be fun." Omilaena snaked an arm around her waist and, despite her mild protests, pulled her into a kiss. "I can't help you take this last step, Zin Nim, but be critical. Your instincts are good, but they aren't all perfect. There could be a path that you're dismissing solely because it would be inappropriate for the cultivator you used to be, not the woman you are."

Since the advice was given sincerely, Zae Zin Nim suppressed the urge to snort. She very much doubted that she would find advancement through thinking about things from a different perspective or anything so simple. Given how she was failing to break through on her own, however, she would try to consider the advice earnestly.

Before the two of them could say any more, they were interrupted by several of the Redtree locals. They looked rather panicked, more nervous than she had seen any of them since they won their main victory.

"The Verdant River sect is attacking!" one of them cried. "They have Purple River reinforcements with them... half of our guard is already down, lethally poisoned."

"Alright, fine." Omilaena groaned and let go of Zae Zin Nim, as if their lives were just marginally worth it. "I'll go take a look."

"We can't stop them." Another cultivator bowed low to Zae Zin Nim. "Kai has already gone to attack the main army, but the rest will overrun us. Please, can't you help?"

"Very well." She rose to her feet and followed the cultivator out of the vault.

The camp around them was in chaos, but there didn't seem to be any attackers yet. Zae Zin Nim looked around for any of the lead cultivators wearing medallions and found none, hopefully because they were fighting the enemy instead of because they were being cowards. In any case, she should be more than enough on her own, so she followed one of them on a flying sword away from camp.

Others joined them, shouting about the enemy, yet there was no enemy in sight. As they continued out of sight of the camp, Zae Zin Nim began to grow suspicious. These cultivators had been at war for months, so they shouldn't be so nervous. Or at least their emotions should have been focused forward instead of toward her.

Abruptly all the cultivators turned on her, attacking at once.

She struck even faster, a flurry of palms striking them down.

All but one of the cultivators around her died immediately, falling off their flying swords. Zae Zin Nim leapt at the woman she had spared, grabbing the front of her robes and driving her to the earth. Now the panic was fully grown and the woman weakly struggled to escape her grip.

"What is this?" Zae Zin Nim demanded.

"I don't know! Th-they ordered us to... to separate you. They... I don't know..."

So betrayal had finally come for them. Zae Zin Nim had eliminated the strike on her, but it hadn't involved any of the Redtree rebels' strongest cultivators or their enemies. She realized that both her spouses had also been isolated, taken in separate directions. Was it already too late?