Immortal Paladin 199 A Year’s Wait

199 A Year’s Wait

199 A Year's Wait

I felt faint. The air was thick and heavy with incense and the sll of sweat. My limbs ached like rusted joints trying to move after decades of stillness. Healing that many people had cost dearly. But what weighed on most wasn’t just the strain on my body. It was the gnawing realization that I had willingly given up fragnts of my lifespan, seconds and minutes that would never return.

Yet still, I told myself, “It’s worth it.”

I sat against a wooden pillar when I felt a tug on my sleeve. I looked down. Yuen Fu, now cleared of all signs of sickness, knelt beside , his face pale and drawn, but his eyes sharp with urgency.

“There is sothing you must hear,” he whispered, his voice no longer hoarse but shaken. “The existence who took the Empire… he… he is not human.” His hands trembled as he clutched tighter. “He gave an ultimatum. He said he will have your head by the end of the year. There’s a bounty in your na now, and it's not a small one. Why is this thing targeting you so specifically?”

My gaze drifted past him to the makeshift ward filled with the recently healed, now resting. Beyond them, Wen Yuhan leaned casually against a rickety wall, arms folded, pretending not to listen. But I knew better. Her golden eyes were calculating sothing, and I had a sinking feeling she already had an idea who—or what—this entity might be.

“We will work it out,” I told Yuen Fu, offering a weak smile. “For now, focus on your healing.”

“But I am healed,” he said, almost helplessly. “We all are.”

I didn’t respond. The looks they gave , those eyes filled with gratitude, reverence, and sothing dangerously close to worship. It made my skin itch. This wasn’t what I wanted. I never wanted to be seen as so savior. But I had no choice. The sickness had to be stopped before it spread further. The least I could do was carry the burden of being the cure.

“You are going to kill yourself,” ca a whisper in my head, cold and familiar. Jue Bu. Of course, he would choose now to chi in, as cryptic as ever.

“I can’t hear you.”

“You know what I an,” added Jue Bu, “There is no need to pretend otherwise, but if it offers you comfort being the fool. Then fine.”

I ignored him.

That day beca known as the Day of Healing.

It didn’t take long for word to spread. At first, it was a trickle, desperate villagers from nearby hamlets, carrying the sick in rickety wagons, pleading for the saint’s touch. Then ca the wounded, the broken, the old, and the dying. Rumors did what even magic could not. They reached ears I would rather have stayed deaf.

The Willow Village, once a sleepy backwater hidden in the cradle of quiet hills, began to swell with people. Hunters beca guards. Farrs beca builders. The wooden palisades were torn down and replaced with stone and mortar. Roads ford from countless footfalls. Tents and wagons beca hos. A council was ford, led not by any lord, but by elders, healers, warriors… and , despite how much I resisted it.

They called it a sanctuary. They called it a miracle. I tried not to listen.

By the end of the year, Willow Village was no longer a village. It was a burgeoning town of over four thousand souls, a patchwork society sewn together from the fragnts of fallen provinces. They nad it New Willow.

But even now, I couldn’t forget what Yuen Fu had told .

So being, so inhuman existence had taken the Empire, set a bounty on my head, and declared a deadline.

The end of the year.

I stared at the cold winter sky, the stars hidden behind a sheet of pale clouds, their light smothered into silence. The wind bit through my cloak and whistled past the walls of New Willow. Snow fell in lazy spirals, dusting the earth in soft white silence. I didn’t know if I would make it to the next snowfall. So days, the weight on my chest felt too heavy to bear, as if each breath I took cost sothing more precious than air.

“Oh, you will do just fine,” said Wen Yuhan beside . She stood unnaturally still, clad in light clothing as if the cold were rely a suggestion rather than a fact. Her arms were folded loosely, her expression unreadable.

I scoffed, tightening the collar of my fur-lined cloak. “What are you now? A mind reader?”

Her only reply was a thin smile, more knowing than amused.

We stood atop the north-facing wall, looking out into the quiet wild. What had once been forest and adow was now a scarred expanse of cleared brush and periter stakes. The village… no, the town… had grown teeth. Barricades, lookout towers, and palisades had turned New Willow into a bulwark, and still I felt it wasn’t enough.

A crunch of boots against packed snow interrupted the quiet. Chief Wan Peng approached, his large fra wrapped in a bear pelt and a thin sheen of frost clinging to his beard. Or rather, forr Hunter Chief Wan Peng, now the Head Council of New Willow.

“Little Wei!” he greeted heartily, raising a hand in salute.

I sighed. “Why do I have to say it again and again? I’m not little Wei anymore.”

He raised an eyebrow and feigned a thoughtful nod. “So… Chief Warrior Da, then?”

I groaned and pouted at the sa ti. “Now that’s just too formal.”

“Little Wei it is,” he said with a grin, clearly pleased with himself.

A lot had happened in the past year. After my feat of felling that monstrous demonic boar—three ters tall, two ters wide, a creature of muscle, rage, and pure turbulent qi—I had been formally granted the title Chief Warrior by the Council. I didn’t want it. I argued that Ding Shan was better suited, being the forr captain of the 112th Bronze Unit, but no one listened. I was the one who split the boar’s skull in two. I was the one they looked to when monsters arrived at our gates.

“Is there a problem?” I asked, noting the rare furrow in Wan Peng’s brow.

He exhaled a warm mist into the air. “I don’t know… Before the tumultuous era began, demonic beasts were rare sightings, sothing that occurred once in a blue moon. But after the fall of the Empire and the rise of chaos, their numbers surged. Now, just these past few weeks, we’ve been seeing less and less of them. At first, I thought it was the cold, but the pattern feels… off.”

He scratched his chin thoughtfully. “I might be overthinking it. Maybe they’re just hibernating. We know too little about demonic beasts. All I know is, neither I nor any of the seasoned hunters here have seen this pattern before. That’s why I ca, hoping to seek Strategist Wen Yuhan’s wisdom.”

Wen Yuhan, who had been silently listening, allowed herself a small smile. “It’s just as you say. The beasts are hibernating. They respond to turbulent qi in their surroundings, and during the colder months, qi settles and stagnates. So their madness sleeps, too… for now.”

The term demonic beast had many anings depending on where you stood in the cosmos. In the Hollowed World, it ant a beast that had cultivated the wicked path, often marked by malevolence, ambition, and cunning. But here, in this fractured, qi-deprived False Earth, the term had changed. It referred to creatures that had absorbed too much turbulent qi, twisted energy born of death, suffering, and chaos. That qi poisoned their minds, made them rabid and bloodthirsty, slaves to instinct and hunger. So, if lucky, retained enough of themselves to cultivate. But such cases were rare. In this world, even humans struggled to awaken, let alone monsters.

Wan Peng gave a slow nod. “I see, I see… So there’s no need for to worry too much about it then.”

“Yes, there is no need to worry,” Wen Yuhan affird, her tone calm but decisive.

Wan Peng nodded, though he didn’t look entirely convinced. “Still, winter ca too early this year,” he muttered, rubbing his gloved hands together. “That’s ominous enough in itself. But thankfully, Strategist Wen advised us to stockpile dried food and salt at. The stores will hold, and we should have enough to last through spring thaw, provided the next migration wave doesn’t hit us too hard.” He turned, tightening the straps of his pelt cloak. “I’ll see to my duties now. Take care, Da Wei, Wen Yuhan.”

“Sa goes to you…” I replied softly, watching him walk off into the snowy dusk, his figure fading behind gusts of wind.

Once he was gone, Wen Yuhan leaned against the rampart beside , her breath curling in the cold air. “Tomorrow is the Day of Healing,” she said without looking at . “What are your plans?”

I blinked. “What do you an?”

She scoffed. “You know what I an, Da Wei. The people are expecting to see you work your miracles again… especially tomorrow.”

I didn’t answer right away. Jue Bu had been nagging for days now, speaking in riddles and half-warnings, and I didn’t need her piling on.

Wen Yuhan tilted her head, giving that sly expression that ant trouble. “Should I tell your sister you’ve been stalling again?”

“Fucking snitch,” I muttered, more to myself than to her. Then louder, I said, “I have a plan…”

Her scoff this ti was louder. “Let guess. You’re planning to run to the Yama King’s embrace and challenge him to a one-on-one duel? That’s your idea of a solution?”

I smirked. “So I can’t steal his cultivation?”

She closed her eyes and took a long, slow breath. “I gave your intelligence more credit than I realized,” she finally said, her voice dangerously calm. “It’s utter foolishness. You’re going to use a third-rate demonic art—one that even the Bone Cult abandoned centuries ago!—to try and steal the cultivation of a transcendent being?”

I shrugged. “It’s not like I’m diving in blind. I’ve done the research. I know the risks.”

Her eyes sharpened. “You didn’t even last two moves in the simulation,” she snapped. “If you truly intend to contend with the likes of him, you’ll need to manifest an Immortal Art, not play around with outlaw techniques that will burn your lifespan for a fleeting advantage.”

“I’ve been working on it—”

“No, you’ve been obsessing over your tech uplift idea,” she interrupted, throwing her hand toward the distant lights of the village below. “I don’t even know what ‘tech uplift’ ant until you showed ! Building weird machinery, organizing factories, teaching villagers how to build water wheels, and forging parts for weird stuff. You’ve spent the last year indulging in every form of distraction except cultivation.”

I held her gaze. “I have a plan.”

She pressed her lips into a line, then said, “While I can’t pass on my Immortal Art to you—believe , I would if I could!—that old fossil perched in your sea of consciousness can. And he should, especially since you’ve finally fulfilled the requirents.”

Jue Bu groaned inside my head, his voice echoing with dramatic offense. “The lass has a point, but did she really have to call an old fossil? Bet she’s older than !”

Since she couldn’t hear him, I decided to help him out. “The old fossil says you’re an old hag.”

Wen Yuhan didn’t so much as blink. “Tell the fossil he’s too senile to recognize beauty when he sees it.”

I smirked, but the banter faded quickly. My mind returned to the strange Immortal Art that Jue Bu had possessed… the Reversal of Heaven and Earth. A technique that inverted life and death, yin and yang, even gender and self. It was powerful, yes… but disgusting in application. I hadn’t forgotten the story of my life; that was how Jue Bu ended inside .

“The Reversal sounds aweso on paper,” I muttered, “but it’s hard to get excited about a technique that genderbends people as a side effect.”

“You could do worse,” she said dryly.

“Still,” I continued, “I have no regrets about how I used my ti. Even if I haven’t learned an Immortal Art, I’ve helped people. That matters to . More than so mystical fla I’ll never be talented enough to wield. You’ve seen how slow I progress.”

Wen Yuhan’s expression changed. Her posture shifted subtly, like soone seeing a puzzle piece slot into place. “Wait,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. “That’s your plan?”

“You are kind of slow, compared to a certain friend of mine…”

To be fair, Wen Yuhan seed to only be at the Spirit Mystery Realm.

Nongmin would definitely be faster than her in terms of digesting information. His cultivation allows him to process and interpret at speeds Wen Yuhan couldn’t replicate. That’s why there were ‘lags’ in her Eyes whenever she tried to perceive certain outcos. It’s not the technique. Instead, it’s the fundantal limit of the vessel.

She stared at for a long mont, then sighed, rubbing her temples. “I never imagined I’d have to sacrifice my body to you…”

“Don’t make it weird,” I muttered.

Jue Bu groaned again. “Your lifespan is going to suffer. I just knew it. Well, nice knowing you, Da Wei…”

The bell rang.

Its echo was deep, harsh, tallic. That bell was welded from salvaged bronze and steel. It was our early warning system, and it hadn’t tolled in months. The people of New Willow stirred. Lanterns were doused, children gathered, weapons ard, and the tension that had been building quietly through the winter finally exploded into action.

I didn’t move right away. Instead, I stood there beside Wen Yuhan, watching the snowy fog stir on the horizon.

“So,” I asked, my voice low but steady, “what’s the truth then? Back when Wan Peng asked you about demonic beasts, you lied, right?”

She didn’t deny it. She simply nodded, her eyes not leaving the horizon. “Yes… Your senses are sharp as ever.”

They were. My Divine Sense had grown sharper in the past year, honed not through ditation or cultivation techniques, but through constant pressure from fighting sickness, famine, and the crushing weight of expectation.

She continued, voice calm in the face of what we both knew was coming. “I lied. But there was no point in worrying him. What good would panic do the village?”

I sighed, not out of disappointnt, but out of familiarity. “Let guess. They ended up in the Yama King’s army?”

She didn’t respond. She didn’t have to.

The answer ca for her. From the snow-masked horizon, the silhouettes erged, first as shadows, then forms, then unmistakable monstrosities. Bears taller than siege towers, wolves with bone-white hides, serpents slithering with ribs exposed, and boars with empty sockets that burned with violet fire. There were even big cats, lithe and silent, walking like phantoms through the flurry.

This level of reanimation… It was beyond crude necromancy. It wasn’t like the wild Jiangshi of the Hollowed World. No, this was controlled and directed. Almost respectful in how perfectly preserved the beasts were despite their death.

Wen Yuhan voiced what I had already suspected. “The Yama King is known for his mastery over death. His Jiangshi don’t stumble like mindless corpses. They retain fragnts of will, their martial arts, even parts of their forr selves. He doesn't reanimate. He recruits.”

She stepped forward and folded her arms. “Even beasts, once touched by his power, can be bound. Demonic beasts included. It doesn't matter how much turbulent qi they’ve absorbed. If he wills it, they will kneel. And his touch… one graze from him can decay the soul.”

Her voice softened. “Da Wei, you have no chance of beating him. I told you this before. You will suffer your first loss here… and then you will co with .”

I smiled.

“Do you know,” I said, turning my gaze back to the fog where more of the army erged with each breath, “I have a habit of proving seers and prophets wrong?”

She chuckled, soft and sharp like snow crunching underfoot. “We’ll see. That’s what makes the future so exciting, isn’t it? The uncertainty. The thrill.”

I shook my head. “What are you talking about? There’s nothing thrilling or uncertain about the future, except that it will co. Always. I’m not excited. I don’t celebrate the inevitable.”

A pause.

“What’s there to be excited about in facing death? That’s what scares . That’s what always scared . But it’s only one possibility among many.”

Wen Yuhan’s expression ward, and her voice followed. “So fearless.”

I shook my head again, slower this ti. “Not fearless. Just done being scared.”

Then I raised my voice, not through shouting, but through technique. Lion’s Roar thundered from my lungs, empowered by my qi, reaching every corner of the wall, every watchtower, every soul within New Willow.

“To your battle stations!”

The effect was imdiate. Riflen lined up on the battlents with their bolt-actions, each weapon carefully refurbished or replicated from scavenged designs I recovered in the back of my head. They ca from a combination of Nongmin’s research and a little recollection I have of Earth. Below, the cannoneers prepared, lighting the powder and checking the barrels. The walls that were once wooden were now reinforced with steel plating and dense stone. It shuddered as emplacents were secured.

The people didn’t hesitate. They trusted .

I turned to Wen Yuhan, lowering my voice to a murmur. “Let show you why they called the God of War in the Hollowed World.”

She smiled, not mockingly, but with a flicker of sothing like respect. “Then show .”

And so I did.