Poison God's Heritage

Chapter 910: Du Shen’s Madness

Bones cracked. Armor burst. Wings snapped and folded under bodies that no longer had the right to stand. Some of the stronger nobles resisted for a fraction of a second, their auras flaring as they tried to push themselves upright, but the Wisest Sun only twisted his fingers slightly, and they sank deeper into the ground until their ribs caved and their screams became wet.

"Dear me. How have I slept so, I must lend my aid," The Lord of Lords said.

His voice reached me through the chaos, and for a heartbeat, everything else dulled. The fire, the poison, the shrieking sky, the agony in my skull, all of it stepped back just enough for that voice to strike where no weapon could.

He sounded sane. Tired, yes. Ancient, absolutely. But sane. The madness that had gripped him before, the fractured haze that had turned one of the greatest beings I knew into something pitiful and dangerous, was gone.

I wanted to look at him longer. I wanted to confirm it with my own eyes, to make sure that this wasn’t some desperate hallucination born from blood loss and poison overuse.

But there was no room for sentiment. Not here. Not while the Queen’s mangled remains were still rotting under my control and the First Born were descending like divine maggots from the sky.

"Hell no!" The sound was familiar this time; it belonged to someone who was a friend, a companion, and a mentor to me. The Dusking Sun spoke, "Your mere presence is making the broken heavenly Dao agitated. Sit down, old man, and stall this Tribulation. I’ll handle protecting Shen Bao.

The Dusking Sun’s arrival was quieter than the others, but his presence landed like a shield placed between me and the rest of creation.

He looked worn, still carrying the scars of what had been done to him, yet his eyes were clear, and his voice had the same irritable authority I remembered.

If anything, nearly dying had made him even less tolerant of nonsense, which was impressive considering he had never been a particularly patient man to begin with.

"But!" the Old man said, almost wronged.

For one deranged moment, with Solarous collapsing around us and the heavens gathering judgment above our heads, the Lord of Lords sounded like a child denied a toy.

The absurdity of it almost made me laugh, and if my body had any spare energy for laughter, I might have. Instead, blood slid from my nose and into my mouth, copper and poison mixing on my tongue.

"No butts or asses, you’ve caused us all enough headaches with wanting to see your dear Shen Bao. Anyway, just stall the Tribulation, it seems that it wants to test all of us at once..." The Dusking Sun said.

The Lord of Lords’ expression shifted from wronged to solemn in the space of a breath, and that alone was enough to drain what humor the exchange had offered.

The Heavenly Tribulation above us was no ordinary gathering of lightning and judgment. I could feel it now that the Dusking Sun had said it aloud. It wasn’t aimed at one person. It was watching all of us, weighing the presence of the Suns, the corruption of the Queen, the abominations of the First Born, and probably my own little contribution of planet-drowning poison. Wonderful. A cosmic disaster with a sense of inclusivity. The only saving grace that it didn’t befall us was the broken Dao. And probably something the Lord of Lords began doing once he sat down, as it began to struggle to gather its clouds.

"Who the hell are these guys?" Don Ma asked.

He was standing close to my right, his robes torn, both arms slick with Rakshasa blood up to the elbows.

His palms were still shaking from the strain of his own ability, and though he tried to hide it, I could see the faint tremor in his shoulders.

He had already done more than most cultivators could dream of doing, and yet the man still looked at the Suns like he was trying to decide whether they were allies, enemies, or some new kind of problem.

"Support," I replied as I took a pill and calmed my mind a bit. "But, how are we dealing with those bastards..." I said as I noticed the firstborns about to penetrate the atmosphere.

The pill dissolved almost instantly, releasing a cool stream through my throat and into my chest. It did little for the more serious damage, but it steadied the worst of the tremors in my hands and cleared some of the fog pressing against my thoughts.

Above us, the three First Born tore through the upper layers of Solarous’s atmosphere. They were so large that distance failed to make them seem smaller. Their bodies glowed from friction, moon-sized maggot forms wrapped in burning trails, and the clouds around them were being ripped apart by their descent.

The wounded one lagged slightly behind the other two. Its body had rents and blackened wounds from the imprisonment. portions of its pale flesh pulsing unevenly. It was still enormous, still beyond anything sane people should ever fight, but compared to the others, it was the weakest. That meant it was the only one I could gamble on.

"Let me at them," Don Ma said.

"You can’t use your Qi," I said.

"I know, but remember they can be physically harmed."

I glanced at him, then back at the heavens. Physically harmed was a very generous description for what had happened before.

Don Ma’s impact transfer had shocked the Queen and nearly torn the planet apart in the process. Using that sort of ability on something in the atmosphere was insane. Using it on something still in outer space was slightly less insane, which sadly made it one of the better ideas currently available.

"Hmm, well, since they’re still in outer space. Give them a good shock, especially the wounded one. I have an idea," I said as I opened my palms and forced my nails out.

My fingernails lengthened, darkened, and sharpened as poison gathered beneath them. The sight alone was enough for the Dusking Sun to turn his head toward me with the expression of a man who had seen a fool reach for a known bad decision and was already tired of explaining why it was bad.

"Oi, Shen Bao, what the hell are you doing! Not the doping thing again!" The Dusking Sun said.

"Only way, I need a lot of mental effort here," I said as I dug my nails into my neck.

The pain was immediate, but pain had long since stopped being a useful warning system for me. Ten fingernails punched through skin and flesh with wet little sounds that were completely swallowed by the larger war around us.

Ten fingernails pumped poison into my bloodstream, which pushed and shot up to my brain, the hundreds of poisons flared and worked their way into my head, and for a second, the world slowed.

Then came the cost.

The pain came rushing in as my brain felt like it was about to boil from all the poisons in it.

My vision sharpened until it became almost unbearable. Every falling drop of blood, every twitch of Rakshasa muscle, every flicker of law around the Suns, every current in the Soulsteel poison spread through the Queen’s severed limbs became visible in horrific detail. The battlefield expanded in my mind like a diagram drawn by a mad engineer.

I could see where the poison still answered me, where the connection thinned, where the Queen’s dying body resisted, where the planet’s pull began, where the First Born’s mass distorted the path of everything around it.

My skull felt too small for my thoughts.

"I see it!" I howled, "NOW!" I slammed both hands together.