Chapter Text
Luo Binghe stumbles and falls hard as his foot snags on another sharp rocky outcropping, too clumsy with pain and exhaustion to catch himself anymore. Both hands and forearms are already heavily scraped from past efforts, and this time they barely twitch when he tries to brace.
It’s far from the first fall he’s taken today, but this one is especially bad, and as he careens on a spit of loose gravel towards the edge of a drop-off, he has time to think, Oh, this is how I die.
If the fall doesn’t kill him, he’ll starve to death waiting to heal from his injuries at the bottom. Not even his unholy regeneration can save him from that.
This is no more than he expected when he fled into the Endless Abyss, desperate to escape the vengeful paladins of the Cang Qiong Federation, but he can’t help but be bitter about it anyway. He’s too tired to indulge in rage, but a steadily growing black pearl of hate sits hot and dense in his belly.
By the time he reaches the bottom of the sharp incline, his dominant arm is broken, as are his left leg and right ankle. He’s covered in abrasions, and there’s a deep cut down his back and side where he fell against a sharp rock like the one he tripped on.
The earth is littered with such rocks here, hard and black, with deadly sharp edges where they shatter. They protrude in clusters from cliffs or from beds of brittler stone in the dry, barren earth. For a while he had carried a long chip broken off of one as a makeshift knife, but it was too fragile to use as a weapon, full of weaknesses and cracks. He couldn’t take the time before now to make a better one, and it doesn’t seem likely he’ll have the chance going forward.
Something is tickling his face where he’s fallen against the ground, and it’s with a sense of wretched irony that he realizes he’s found a pocket of life in this barren place-- just in time to die of either blood loss or starvation. He exhales a choked and furious laugh. Is this the justice of the gods? If so, my only mistake was failing to leave their service sooner.
His unbroken arm manages to brush the irritating strands of grass away while he takes in his surroundings.
The valley he’s fallen into is cloaked in vegetation, all in shades of rich qing, mostly the darker tones, never the brighter green of sun-loving plants.
He supposes that makes sense; even at its brightest, the Endless Abyss is rarely ever brighter than “overcast.” Vents in the earth belch noxious fumes that rise to hover above the land here, permanently veiling the sky.
There are a surprising number of flowers (albeit all in strange hues and shapes, some quite alarming-looking) and shrubs, but no trees, and there are still no larger animals even here.
The Endless Abyss has been all but lifeless since he entered it, nothing but interminable winding cliffs and chasms that rise and fall in jagged waves without rhyme or reason. He’s encountered mosses and lichens, insects, some small lizards, and nothing more. It’s no wonder the civilized nations shun this place as cursed.
Nearby, something clinks like heavy chain.
Luo Binghe makes the effort to turn his head, if only to see if something is about to kill him faster. Hurry it up, please, he sneers mentally, despite the claws he’s already extending.
And then he sees where the noise came from, and every bitter joke about death flees his mind, swept away all at once in a panic like a flock of crying birds.
His chest hitches hard, breath leaving him in a sob of shocked fear.
Mother, this unfilial son is sorry. He should never have been so careless with his precious life.
He feels as if his entire range of vision is filled with darkness-- as if he’s being pulled down into the depths of a black lake, heart beating like a fleeing rabbit’s in the moment before the hawk strikes. His breath comes in heaving gasps that force more low whining sobs from him, mindless and animal.
Luo Binghe has no idea how long he struggles like that in the dark, retching with pain and fear, before the maelstrom of unnatural terror hits an abrupt precipice and then recedes so fast it leaves him dizzy.
Nearby, almost buried in vegetation, is an enormous and weather-worn ‘throne’ of rough-hewn stone, the carvings that once adorned it all but erased by time.
A being of pure darkness gazes back at him from it, their eyes nothing more than slits of burning light.
I didn’t sense it at all, he thinks with an edge of hysteria.
Failing to sense that until laying eyes on it could only be likened to… to something like turning one’s head to see an inferno raging just inches away and only then feeling the immense heat threatening to cook you alive.
Though it’s obviously reigned in the force of its presence (why?), looking directly at it still overwhelms, both compelling and terrible.
Even sitting, it looks taller than the average man, an austere figure of blackness so deep it swallows all light. The whole being is but one uniform silhouette to his eyes, but when it moves to lean forward, an inky curtain of ‘hair’ flows with the motion to fall loose around its face. It isn’t wearing robes, as far as he can tell-- rather, it seems to be clothed more like the demons of the Silken Desert, in fabric draped over the body. The being’s arms are covered with the excess in a facsimile of a noble’s trailing sleeves.
(‘A toga?’ Shen Yuan had asked the System about two hours ago, full of disdain. ‘Isn’t this a primarily Chinese setting?’)
Our world’s greatest evils are imprisoned within the Endless Abyss, sealed away by the heavens for their crimes, he recalls being told as a temple disciple to Shen Qingqiu, one of the twelve Great Gods of Cang Qiong. For this reason and others, the paladins of our Cang Qiong Federation guard the border in concert with the Huan Hua Empire. And when necessary, the Gods themselves step in to keep evil locked away. As vile as demons are, you must never mistake a being from the Abyss for a mere demon, for anything found within can only be something far worse.
Like Tianlang-Jun, struck down nearly two decades ago, this must be one of the Calamities of the Abyss.
It shifts again, leaning further forward with its hands folded primly in its lap, and the force of its attention makes him quail helplessly.
‘Are you hurt?’ Its head cocks gently, and Luo Binghe shudders.
Should he answer? Would it make any difference? It must have seen the whole thing, after all.
In his experience, obvious questions never have any ‘right’ answer.
His ‘Great God,’ in particular, liked to play spiteful games with his smallest and most useless supplicant, asking questions with no solution and then punishing him no matter what his answer was.
If the priests and senior disciples weren’t starving and beating him, his God was finding other ways to shame and torment him. In hindsight, he can understand now that many of the ‘trials’ Shen Qingqiu set for him were merely attempts to get him killed.
Suddenly, he doesn’t care what the ‘right answer’ is. If he can’t live long enough to achieve anything else, he at least won’t die voiceless.
“Why ask when you obviously already know the answer? Are you going to do something about it?” he rasps defiantly.
The figure regards him silently for several long moments, and then lifts one hand. The clinking noise tells him even before he actually sees the manacle: the figure is chained to the throne.
It turns its hand over, palm-up, and the plants around Luo Binghe begin to writhe and surge. His lips curl away from his teeth, scowling his hatred at the evil being about to kill him, his unbroken arm raised to sell his life as dearly as he can--
And the plants do nothing at all to him.
The huge, segmented stalks of a purple plant like bamboo push up from the earth around him and grow to the height of a man within moments before their growth slows to a crawl. They’re covered in thorns the size of a palm, broad and flat, with an upward curve as if to fend off animals massive enough to try eating them whole.
From the ground around them, vines uncurl in a riot of mottled color and crawl their way up the ‘bamboo’ stalks, leafing out and then beginning to fruit.
It takes him a while to realize what he’s looking at, when several of the vines sway closer to offer their fruits to him: tender little snake gourds, just young enough to avoid the worst bitterness while offering the best health benefits.
(“That’s my Basic Food Blessing? It’s because they’re also called cucumbers, isn’t it, System? You think you’re really funny, don’t you? System! Get back here…!”)
His trembling hand almost plucks one before he comes to his senses and jerks back. It seems… this is what it’s doing about it. “And what do you expect in return for this?”
It’s true that food would give him the energy to heal himself, but he’s under no illusions: this is an evil being, a Calamity imprisoned for centuries and overflowing with terrible power. If the ‘righteous’ gods and their followers are little better than tyrants, creatures like this can only be worse.
Just as he resolves to keep his guard up, a little bird-- the first he’s seen since leaving civilized lands-- flutters to the being’s still-uplifted hand and perches there. The figure jerks just the tiniest bit, as if it’s just as startled by its appearance as Binghe, and then its eyes curve into pleased crescents.
He waits for it to… to do something. To crush it, shake it off, unhinge its jaw and swallow the hapless thing whole.
‘What a handsome little lad,’ the figure croons softly, raising the other hand to scratch gently under the animal’s beak and on top of its head. The tiny animal tolerates this for perhaps two fen before it flutters its wings and ducks out of the evil(?) being’s hands, flying off to forage elsewhere.
‘Ah, things to do. Good luck, then.’ It sounds… rather sad, actually, to see the little bird go so soon, and Luo Binghe realizes he’s been staring all this time.
He sucks in a breath, unsure what he’s going to say, but before he can find the words, it says, ‘Apologies. Luo Binghe asked this one a question… If he would would consider freeing this one, it would be greatly appreciated. But it would be truly vile to hold food hostage from a starving man, for any reason. The food is yours, regardless of your response.’
The shock of it knowing his name is neatly eclipsed by the gut-punch of remembering just how many times Shen Qingqiu had ordered him to ‘fast’ as punishment, then tempted him with food in order to punish him further, forcing him to refuse to eat even as his body shook with dangerous hunger.
He’s tired. He’s so, so tired. The longer this encounter goes on without devolving into violence, the less capable he feels of puzzling his way through the risks-- of staying awake, even.
If it says it’s offering the food for free, fine.
A hand snakes out to grab one of the tender young gourds, and he brings it to his mouth to eat. It’s sweet and mild, with a grassy taste somewhere between cucumber and green bean and a moist pulpy interior that soothes his dry throat as he swallows it down in great chunks.
At first, he’s simply grabbing on instinct, eating swiftly because experience has taught him that he won’t get to eat otherwise-- and he hardly expects this offer to be genuine. When he sees that the being has only leaned forward further to watch him with pleased crescent eyes, a hand coaxing more fruits into being to replace those he eats, he continues glutting himself just for the uncommon pleasure of it, drunk on the feeling of his belly growing tight with fullness.
Only when his hand falls limply aside and the plants begin to shift beneath him again does he realize he’s been tricked.
“You--!” he tries to slur, struggling to sit up even as his vision darkens.
Before everything fades to black, he has the barest impression of a mouth on the figure, a faintly illuminated curve like the delicate arch of a strung bow.
〖 User’s suggested courses of action are not possible. 〗the System tells him at the tail-end of a good fifteen-minute-long rant about his priorities-- starting with healing the ecosystem here and developing a village to house his first units (and himself. He doesn’t want to live outdoors, thanks.)
“In what way?” Shen Yuan demands.
Luo Binghe is sprawled almost in his lap, held up by a gaggle of vines while Shen Yuan carefully applies hollowthorn sap to his minor wounds and qi directly to larger ones.
〖 Character Role:《Shenyuan, God of the Abyss》is Evil by nature. User’s suggested courses of action are Good in alignment. This violates: 『 OOC Lock 』, 『 Alignment Lock 』.〗
“This world can’t be a videogame,” he points out, irritated but measured. The System he’s been saddled with is apparently a bit of a wet blanket, but it’s hardly given him reasons to hate it. “For one thing, we’re already operating outside the script for the campaign. Second, there was no ‘Shenyuan’ anywhere in the lore, so what am I being compared to? Third… Look at him! Look at this face, this hair! And these wounds, ah… Are you trying to tell me this place isn’t real? So, I shouldn’t be strictly bound by such mechanics!”
〖 … 〗
It seems to chew on that for a while, but it finally offers, almost regretfully: 〖 It violates the current character settings. 〗
Ha! “Current?” he asks quickly, and is pleased when the System’s window flickers. “In other words, the settings can be changed. Shenyuan could get character development-- one of the few things that hack didn’t manage to shoehorn in.”
Ah, but… he had already taken a pretty hefty point penalty for his earlier behavior, playing with little woodland animals and feeding sad vagrants… and Luo Binghe has already seen him behave that way, too. It’s a little late to walk it back and try to act ‘evil’ again suddenly… and he really doesn’t want to.
“System,” Shen Yuan says slowly. “What if… I mean, Shenyuan was here for a long time, right?”
〖 … 〗
“Is there some reason his character growth can’t have already happened? Maybe not all the way!” he hurries to backtrack when the System window gets brighter, clocking that as a windup to a denial. “But… I mean, he doesn’t have a canon backstory yet, right? Other than his alignment, that he’s a fallen god, and that he’s been sealed in the Abyss for centuries.”
〖 ... User may submit a backstory for review. 〗
Yes!
Shen Yuan chews on his lip for a while, staring down at the haggard and half-feral youth in front of him.
(It’s a shame that, to Shen Yuan’s knowledge, there are no official sources depicting Luo Binghe’s youth as a ‘white lotus’ disciple, eager to serve the gods in his late mother’s name and willing to tolerate endless indignity to do so. There’s tons of fanart, but that maniac Airplane Shooting Towards the Sky-- prolific indie developer with incredible output and dogshit taste-- never bothered to include it. Instead, players were only ever treated to whump-filled trauma flashbacks.)
He sighs, running his fingers absently through Luo Binghe’s ragged, unkempt hair to detangle it. “Maybe it’s like this…”
Luo Binghe drifts back up to consciousness as gently as a bubble from the bottom of a spring.
He doesn’t open his eyes right away, though in the back of his mind, the voice of reason howls at him to take stock of where he is now-- no, more importantly, where the… the evil being… must be…
That dim ember of snarling fear gutters down to almost nothing.
If he felt exhausted before, he feels… good, now. So, so good.
His stomach is still satisfyingly full, thirst slaked, and he can feel that his injuries are gone as well. That doesn’t make much sense-- even on a full stomach, it should have taken him a day or two to heal from all that, yet he’s not hungry.
Nearby, he can hear birdsong, and he draws a deep, slow breath. That motion alone makes his spine pop, and he chases the sensation into the most luxurious stretch he thinks he’s ever enjoyed, nearly trembling with the raw delight of no pain as his loose muscles and healed bones all shift back into their proper placement. His movement makes him aware that he’s lying on a dense pile of fresh vegetation, gratifyingly soft and springy where it bears up under him, much like the vines that… grabbed him earlier?
Chains clink nearby, at which point Luo Binghe can no longer pretend to be somewhere else, and he reluctantly opens his eyes.
He’s been moved closer to the stone throne to rest on a tussock of tender green grass. Nearby, the… being… is apparently meditating, seated cross-legged with its head bowed and hands resting palm-up on its lap. Luo Binghe watches it carefully for a while. It doesn’t even seem to breathe.
When he turns his head, he sees what he’s fairly certain is the same songbird from before, now joined by more of the same kind, busily foraging nearby without a care in the world. He supposes it makes sense; the only monsters here apparently don’t eat birds. His lips quirk in a bitter smile.
Slowly, he climbs to his feet, and has to stifle an involuntary sound. He’s not sure he’s ever felt this physically well in his life, and immediately wonders if he’s been drugged, but… As he runs his hands over the locations of his previous injuries and directs his attention inward, towards his meridians, he realizes he must have been given qi. His body is practically thrumming with energy. But why…?
‘Oh,’ his thoughts are interrupted, and Luo Binghe looks up to find the being gazing at him. Though nothing else of its expression can be discerned, the eyes narrow into pleased crescents again. ‘Luo Binghe is awake? How are you feeling? How is the pain?’
“You…” Luo Binghe’s lips tremble as he struggles to form words, or perhaps just find any. “Why… Why this?”
It cocks its head, that neat curtain of black falling again with it, like a waterfall of hair. But it only answers him again after several long moments. ‘Why help you?’ Luo Binghe nods numbly.
(“What kind of miserable fucking question is that?” Shen Yuan asks the System, while his silent body appears to gaze up at the sky pensively. “Why help a starving, dying kid… who the hell wouldn’t?! Don’t answer that, System…!”)
‘Do you worry that I expect something? You need not; as this one said before, it would be truly vile to withhold food from one who is starving. Ah, and the very state of you when you arrived…’ The being trails off, and Luo Binghe grimaces, brow furrowing with ugly emotion as he fills in the blanks: ugly, dirty, stunted, tattered, tainted…
Faster than he can see, a hand is suddenly against his forehead, and Luo Binghe’s heart seems to freeze in terror, lungs locked down tight. It’s right in front of him, peering into his face, touching him. Why did he presume the chains were too short for the being to stand, or walk?
And yet… It only touches him. Its skin is as cold as jade, but as soft as the tender young grass he had been laying on, and he can feel the raw power crackling underneath.
He should be terrified. This creature is an evil deity, some kind of Great Evil or Calamity locked away long ago by the Heavens. It could kill him with little more than a thought.
It brushes its smooth palm across his forehead soothingly, then up to pet across his unkempt hair. The gesture feels almost… motherly, somehow. ‘You are being cruel to yourself,’ it accuses gently, as if that’s a problem, as if that bothers it. ‘Hurt hands covered in callouses, a starved and scarred body not allowed to grow properly, stunted cultivation… Luo Binghe has been poorly cared for, but he’s not old enough for that to be his fault, so why judge yourself? It’s just that seeing you like that…’
Luo Binghe stares at him-- it, not him, this is not a person, this is an evil god!-- as though transfixed.
‘This one… I thought such emotions had long disappeared in me, but looking at you fills this old master with such envy. Ah, Luo Binghe should really take care,’ it warns him teasingly, one hand stroking over his hair again even as the other braces against Luo Binghe’s chest to push itself away. ‘I cannot help but want you for myself. The gods are as profligate as ever; the blessed allow their wine and meat to rot on the table, while the poor starve.’
Unbidden, some twisted emotion unnameable to him flares to life in his chest.
The figure really does force itself to step back then, and its willowy figure suddenly seems exhausted, a slanting stroke of ink against the foreground of a drab and lonely landscape.
“Who--” his numbs lips ask without his permission, “Who are you? How… do you know…”
‘Ah? Was Luo Binghe not in the service of a scholar-god himself? Naturally, this one was once a god of scholarship, too. Even changed and diminished as I am, seeing someone’s name is not yet beyond me.’
‘As the only remaining member of my former pantheon, my name has become one with my fallen homeland. I am Shenyuan, God of the Abyss.’
Luo Binghe’s fists clench as he digests this information, too overwhelmed to tell whether he’s feeling fear or pity or something else entirely. Maybe all of that and more.
This is an evil being, a wicked deity locked away by Heaven’s justice; this same ‘justice’ tortured him as a boy and then cast him out on the cusp of manhood, his former brothers gleefully hunting him like an animal. This is the most powerful malevolent force he’s ever encountered, so great that no number of demons could compare; this is also the creature that happily fed him to bursting and then stroked his hair, demanding no payment at all. Thinking about that prompts him to run his own hands through it, sighing fretfully, and he becomes abruptly aware that it’s been detangled.
Shenyuan… must have sat there after he fell asleep and done that, pulling out all the snarls by hand… The God of the Endless Abyss, so long sealed in this place that the land and the deity had become one… Trapped within his own grave, he realizes with mounting horror, as his eyes flick to the ‘throne.’
It’s not a throne at all. It’s a dilapidated altar platform with a massive memorial stone behind it; what he initially took to be weathered carvings are all faded words chiseled into the surface, worn smooth from centuries.
(Though it was macabre, Shen Yuan had preened over that little touch; the System had approved his backstory, dramatic and bloody as it was, and agreed to slightly alter the throne he woke up on to match. Even better was receiving permission to weave his previous identity in with his new one; poor Shen Yuan, the fallen scholar-god!)
(If he’s maybe getting a little too into it, well. This is his life now. It’s selfish, but why not? Why shouldn’t he? He doesn’t exactly feel comfortable claiming a god’s honors, but he is a god now, even if he was just an ordinary guy not too long ago.)
“Why were…” Luo Binghe shakes his head, thinking better of the question. “You asked me to free you. What do you plan to do once you’re free?”
He wouldn’t say no to some vengeance-- in fact, he had fantasized about it many times over the last few years-- but Luo Binghe hasn’t yet forgotten his mother, even if her pendant is gone and her grave now unreachable. Once, he wanted to be a righteous hero serving the gods. Even if he’s essentially abandoned that dream, unleashing destruction upon the whole world, dooming poor mothers with children just like his own… he can’t do that.
“If you’re telling the truth, and you really were a god of scholarship who can still see the truths of the world, then answer me with the Voice of Clarity,” he challenges, suddenly afraid of deception. It would be just like a Great Evil to come up with such a sweet lie, all but designed to target the scars on his heart. Wasn’t listening to it at all quite foolish? It’s not like him to get so caught up in his own feelings.
‘It’s been many centuries… very well. Give me a moment.’ The deity doesn’t appear to take offense over his audacity, which makes him afraid all over again. What if he’s wrong? If this really is a god, a true deity, and Luo Binghe has spoken to him this way…
Shenyuan drifts back over to his ruined altar soundlessly and resumes the position he had when Luo Binghe woke up, bowed over his crossed legs with hands in his lap, and remains there for several minutes without moving.
(“-- telling you, Shenyuan should be at least considered Neutral after this long, and if he’s Neutral, that means he can use the standard array of both Evil and Good abilities available to his tree as long as he doesn’t tip the balance too far. Voice of Clarity is near the bottom of the Good tree! Ultimately, it’s not even a truth spell, it just prevents deliberate falsehoods from being spoken. It barely even counts as Good! In fact, the alignment system is flawed to begin with--”)
Finally, he sits up, and Luo Binghe jolts. Where before Shenyuan’s burning eyes were narrow white slits, now they’ve opened up into huge sharp ovals like the eyes of a great cat. The color fluctuates momentarily before taking on an astonishing golden hue.
Luo Binghe feels his legs go numb.
‘Shenyuan was once Shen Yuan, the weakest member of a family now gone and a home beyond reach, who watched over the world through a veil of liquid crystal. I am not free of resentment, nor do I intend to meekly submit, should the world refuse to leave my lands in peace; but I do desire peace. This place should not remain lifeless and barren forever.’
Every word rings with divine truth, but the effort of tapping into such divinity seems to both exhaust and scald the fallen god; his chains glow with rushing characters, too fast to read, and cracks in his lips and throat form burning white lines. He coughs, spitting up blue-green ichor as the golden light fades.
(“Who’s making things dramatic now?” Shen Yuan accuses the System. It pulses smugly at him, but says nothing.)
Luo Binghe’s unsteady feet have carried him close before he can think better of it, already tearing off the end of his less-ruined sleeve to offer it, only to realize belatedly how disrespectful he’s being and quail. Let alone Shen Qingqiu, who was glad to punish him at any time, any god of his own nation would have him disciplined thrice over for presuming to offer the filthy fabric that’s been touching his own body…
He begins to cringe back out of habit even as his lips draw back to expose anxious fangs, but Shenyuan is faster, and Luo Binghe stares numbly as the fallen god accepts the scrap of cloth. He folds it over delicately to cover a mud stain and uses the cleaner portion to wipe the ichor from his face and hands.
‘Binghe should not have done that,' he scolds with absolutely no venom at all, and Luo Binghe doesn’t even have time to resummon his shame before Shenyuan continues, ‘Now Binghe’s poor clothes are ruined. How can he damage his own dignity that way for me?’
Luo Binghe’s hands feel boneless as the scrap of cloth is pressed back into them gently, and his mouth opens and closes uncertainly as his fingers curl around it. But when he finally looks back up at Shenyuan, none of that uncertainty remains in his gaze.
“How do I break the chains?”