Gong Lan didn’t waste time on propriety. Rather than scale the steps, she took a single well-calculated one. It tore through space-time, and she arrived in the chamber where she’d once met the Violet Wind Master. Unsurprisingly, the room was a mess of blood and charred flesh. The corpses of dozens of monks littered the floor. They were strewed about the cross-legged body of a single man in violet robes. She didn’t need to check his pulse to know he wasn’t meditating. He was dead.
“I predicted this, you know,” a voice whispered in her ear.
Startled, Gong Lan turned around and lashed out with her exorcist staff. It halted just millimeters away from the weakest ghost she’d ever seen. Its presence was faded and barely discernable. She only sensed a hint of resentment on the minimalistic specter that she now recognized as that of the Violet Wind Master, who had died in meditation.
“You shouldn’t be here,” Gong Lan said, stowing her staff. As powerful as he was in his past life, the ghost could do nothing to her. “You should have either transcended karma or entered the cycle of reincarnation. Those who linger are inevitably corrupted.”
The fuzzy ghost smiled. “You’re right, of course. I stayed to my own detriment. But isn’t self-sacrifice often required for the salvation of many? That is the path of a Bodhisattva: staying behind, swearing to leave only once the last of us have escaped the wretched cycle of reincarnation.”
“What happened?” Gong Lan asked. She wasn’t sure how long the ghost could continue to linger. Ghosts were antithetical to the Buddhist way, and just the fact that he’d managed to maintain this astral shape was impressive to say the least. The karma he’d incurred to do so was likely substantial.
“The Violet Wind Monastery has only ever served one purpose,” Master Zi said. “The seer-like powers of every master were just cover. The true purpose of the monastery was to obscure the location of the World Tree Monastery and prevent others from scrying on it. We’d always believed our enemies were clueless about this. We were clearly mistaken.”
Gong Lan’s eyes narrowed. “Then the fiendish demon attacks, the presence of devil cultivators…?”
“All because the Violet Wind Monastery fell,” Master Zi said. “They’d only known the World Tree’s approximate whereabouts before. Now they know the exact location. It’s only a matter of time before they launch their assault. The tides are shifting, and not in our favor.”
We can still fight, Gong Lan thought, grasping the 10,080 beads in her right hand. She flicked through the beads as she prayed for inspiration from her predecessors. They’d recruited many monks over the past years, and the Church of Justice was cooperating. But against the full forces of the South, it wasn’t enough. Not nearly enough. The Song Kingdom couldn’t repel an all-out invasion from half the continent.
“Fortunately, destroying the Violet Wind Monastery came at a great cost to the enemy,” Master Zi continued. “They lost several transcendents during the invasion, while many others were wounded. Due to our remote location, however, they had little choice but to make this sacrifice. They won’t launch an all-out offense until their members have fully recovered.”
“How long do we have?” Gong Lan asked.
“Who knows? Years?” Master Zi said. “Divination is difficult enough, even more so when transcendents are involved. Especially when you’re dead. But that’s not what I wanted to talk to you about. They’re the least of our problems.” The ghost flickered for a moment before recovering its stability. “I don’t have much time left. We can always retake the plane if the devils take over, but there’s nothing we can do if the plane no longer exists.”
“No longer exists?” the bodhi seed cried. “Destroying a plane is difficult enough for transcendents to achieve. They could damage it, yes, but destroy it? Hardly. Moreover, no one would have the motivation. The price for destroying a mortal plane is astronomical. Even devil emperors wouldn’t try it.”
“That’s true for most beings,” Master Zi’s ghost admitted. “But what about this one?” The ghost strained, and a picture of the starry sky appeared. It wasn’t the sky they usually saw, but an unimaginably vast expanse. Several planes were present, thriving like they should. Millions of years passed by in the blink of an eye.
Suddenly, a black spot appeared inside one of the planes. It grew a bit with each passing year, unnoticed by its inhabitants. One year, however, the spot changed. Its growth rate skyrocketed, and the plane that housed it began to fall apart. At first, it was only a piece here and there, but eventually large segments were devoured. Its growth matched the destruction of the plane until finally, the plane realized what was happening. It resisted with all it had. It mobilized all the energy it could, but by then, it was too late.
The devouring continued, and the plane fell. Several neighboring planes followed in its footsteps before angels and devils filled the starry skies. They didn’t fight each other as they usually did but cooperated in fighting the monstrosity. Even the Jade Emperor, hosts of demons, and the Curse Sovereign joined hands in eradicating the black spot.
In the end, the spot was purged. But the damage it had done to those planes remained. Aeons later, other celestial bodies migrated to fill the emptiness, but nothing could change the fact that the universe was just a little smaller than it used to be, just a little lighter.
“Guard against the growing darkness,” Master Zi said, his form fading fast. “Protect the plane. Do your duty. The creature has a name, but it is hidden. Good and evil, natural and artificial, attached and unfettered, all caught up in the cycle of reincarnation. What lies between these subtle intentions? There is only one truth, so find the eyes that see.
