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Fates Parallel Chapter 224 - Iseul
🕑 Added 2022-05-06 18:24:12 +0000 UTCJa Yun wasn’t cut out for this life. She’d nearly fainted after Eui’s sudden body reconstruction, and then the elementals had shown up and rendered all their efforts entirely moot. Well, not entirely—Han Shin was still dead, and strangely the Ice and Magma elementals had no interest in freeing Sagong So from his bonds. In fact, they had ignored everyone but her—the others had just tagged along. Rika didn’t want to leave Yun to her fate—which made her stomach do all kinds of backflips—while Hayakawa hoped that reuniting An Eui with Lee Jia would snap her out of whatever coma she’d slipped into. Kim Yongsun didn’t say why he was coming along, he just kinda did it.
Hattori stayed behind to keep an eye on the Lee and An families, and after seeing what his shikigami could do, Ja Yun wasn’t about to argue. The rest was a blur. One minute they were silently trudging along, heads hanging in defeat, then suddenly she was in the middle of the palace throne room, surrounded by unfathomably powerful beings. Every eye was on her.
Ja Yun wasn’t stupid. She’d more or less figured out what it was the elementals wanted from her. She’d figured out how to talk to Muddy—even intentionally linked minds together in order to kill Han Shin. It wasn’t something she’d planned—just a heat of the moment thing—but it wasn’t something easily forgotten. She knew how to do it again.
A translator, then. That’s what the elementals wanted. They could speak on their own—form words. But the way that they thought was too alien, and the way they tried to convey information simply didn’t work very well with humans. They needed someone with both perspectives—someone who could communicate with both elementals and humans. In other words, Ja Yun.
“I can’t do this. I can barely make sense of Muddy’s thoughts and she's only a month old.”
The weird, non-voice that made Ja Yun’s head spin responded immediately.
“You will. Begin communication.”
Ja Yun bit her lower lip and looked around the room. She regretted it immediately. Everyone was staring at her. Lee Jia’s intensely curious gaze threatened to burn a hole through her, Seong Eunae’s half-lidded stare was uncomfortably cold and calculating, Hayakawa had an inscrutable frown, and even the elementals stared into her soul with those strange alien eyes. It was Rika’s attention that saved her from a full-blown panic attack—a rakish grin and a nod of encouragement. Yun took a deep breath and tried to steel herself.
“Alright. I’ll try.”
As she had before, Ja Yun reached out with her aura and joined it to Muddy’s. Immediately, she was inundated by confusing alien thoughts and concepts. Muddy was a simple creature in some ways, but unfathomably complex in others. It was almost impossible to reconcile the experiences of a being of pure mana with those of a human. Almost. There were parts that Ja Yun could mostly understand.
Then, her mind was nearly shattered by the overwhelming presence of another. The Void. All consuming, omnipresent, inescapable. All things would return to nothing at the end of existence. The natural order of all reality. It was too much—Ja Yun pulled away.
“Aaagh, no no no! Stop! This isn’t working.”
Ja Yun flushed red at her own outburst, but she thought about Rika’s smile and forced herself to ride the momentum, staring into the headache-inducing Void before her.
“This isn’t as simple as you think it is. You can’t just dump everything on me at once and expect me to figure it out. A little bit at a time! And...and give me a second. I can sense Muddy’s mind, and I’m pretty sure she’s getting a bit of mine but it’s like...it’s sort of...”
“It’s incomplete!”
Lee Jia’s voice cut off Ja Yun’s muttering, causing her to jump.
“M-Miss Lee?”
Those golden eyes felt like they were staring directly into her soul, and everything fell into place for Ja Yun. Muddy had been given to Yoshika. Nobody was more of an expert than they were at mental communication. It was only by some cosmic accident that Ja Yun had ended up here instead of Lee Jia.
“Listen, Yun. You’re only linking minds. Sharing thoughts—information without understanding—is not enough. The elemental—uh, Muddy—is just as confused as you are. She won’t be able to understand you unless you show her how!”
Ja Yun squinted, trying to make sense of Lee Jia’s words. Why was she being so cryptic? Ja Yun wished she’d just tell her what to do. As usual, Lee Jia was a terrible teacher, but after a moment of rumination, Ja Yun thought that maybe she had it.
Closing her eyes in meditation, Ja Yun reached out to Muddy’s mind once more. This time, she focused on a specific idea. She tried to break it down into only the basic facts and raw data. It was easier than she expected—after all, as a mage it was how she was taught to see the world, and it was only until recently that she’d learned differently. It was that exact lesson that she tried to impart onto Muddy. How to unify its cultivation.
Ja Yun wasn’t even sure if it would work. Elementals supposedly didn’t have bodies or souls, and it was only when they reached the xiantian stages that they became able to fabricate replacements out of divine essence and gain some facsimile of human understanding. Yet, Lee Jia had theorized that since the metaphysical aspects of body, mind, and soul were all part of one complete being, even creatures like elementals and beasts would have the capacity to unify their cultivation.
Muddy’s aura searched for those connections, trying to find the bridge to its dormant metaphysical body and soul. What it found instead, was hers. Muddy’s essence began to reach across the connection between Ja Yun’s mind and body, and her first reaction was to resist. This wasn’t the same as Yoshika’s joint cultivation—it would be one-sided. As much as Ja Yun liked Muddy, she wasn’t sure if she was willing to trust her entire being to an alien blob creature.
But, then again, how could she expect Muddy to find its own body and soul if it didn’t know what to look for? Maybe all it needed was a little context? Besides, it could be kinda nice to surrender her body and soul for a bit—though Ja Yun had to admit that the prospect was a lot more intimidating now that she was actually being faced with it.
Ja Yun’s wavering mind was made up by what she sensed from Muddy’s thoughts. There was no malice, and she remembered Muddy helping her fight. Muddy was an elemental, created by the same elementals that had invaded Ja Yun’s homeland, yet it wasn’t really aligned with them. It was time for a leap of faith. Ja Yun squinted her eyes shut and swallowed nervously as she stopped resisting and let Muddy’s essence take over.
“Please just don’t eat me...”
—-
It was annoying that Jia wasn’t able to sense what was going on with her domain from behind her barrier. Even more annoying was that she couldn’t make sure that Eui was okay—she was still unconscious. Jia wasn’t entirely sure why she’d given Ja Yun advice on how to joint-cultivate with the elemental—Muddy—but her only hope for getting out of this situation was communication, and it seemed like the elementals were willing to talk. They just needed the right intermediate.
The change that overcame Ja Yun was incredible to see. She stood up straighter, the look in her eyes changed, her grip on the blob in her arms loosened—was that what it looked like to people when she became Yoshika? Then, Ja Yun started screaming.
“AAAAAAAaaaaaaaa...okay. I’m okay. Just a second...I need to calibrate.”
Ja Yun rattled off some nonsense, then curled up into a ball and started screaming again. The elemental in her arms melted into a vibrating puddle, then slowly streamed its way up her arms and draped itself around her body like a cloak. After a few minutes of screaming, Ja Yun suddenly stopped and shot to her feet. The look on her face was...completely unreadable. Some strange combination between a smile and a grimace.
“Right! Okay, this is weird. I think I understand. I have so many emotions.”
As if on cue, she started crying—the tears streaming freely down her face even though her expression didn’t change.
“Ancestors—wait, why is that a swear?—how do people live like this? So many sensations and emotions, and they’re making it hard to think!”
Everyone stared at her in stunned silence—well, the humans did. The elementals just waited patiently. Lee Jia tentatively broke the silence.
“Uh...Ja Yun, or...Muddy?”
Ja Yun’s head whirled around to meet Jia’s gaze, wide-eyed and manic.
“Yes! That’s me! Us? No, me. Sorry! I think I made a mistake. Also...I don’t like the name Muddy? I think that’s what this emotion is.”
Jia sighed. Of course it couldn’t be easy.
“Alright, should I call you Ja Yun, then? Or something else? And what do you mean you made a mistake?”
“Not Ja Yun! That’s taken. Name...name...how about Iseul? It’s kind of like what she named me but more...namey. According to her memories, anyway. She anthropomorphized me, but I don’t think she ever really thought of me as a person. I think I’m sad about that!”
“Okay...Iseul it is, that’s a pretty name. I don’t think Ja Yun meant to offend you. You were just not very...person-like before.”
Iseul nodded energetically, moving far too much of her head in the process.
“No, that’s true! Not very persony at all! Very rational to think of me that way. I don’t know why it hurts, emotions make no sense! This is so weird. I think I’m going to scream some more, just a second.”
True to her word, Iseul crouched down, clutched her head and screamed. It sounded awful, like she was in pain or distress, but then she just stood back up and went back to her strange, manic grin. Jia frowned.
“Uh...are you okay?”
Iseul shook her entire body instead of just her head.
“No! This is awful! And the worst part is that I know that I’m going to miss it when I go back, but I have to go back because Yun asked me not to eat her. Though I think she’d actually really like it if I did.”
Well that was a lot more than Jia was willing to unpack right now.
“Okay...you were going to ask questions?”
“Oh right!”
Iseul turned back toward the mass of nothingness where the throne was supposed to be.
“Hey grandpa, you can ask questions now.”
She just stared up at the void elemental for an awkwardly long time, occasionally nodding. Once again, Jia lamented that she couldn’t see the interplay happening between their auras. After a few moments, Iseul turned back to Jia.
“They want to know where the map is. Uh, map in this context refers to the way to find the Sovereign’s Tomb. They think you have a way.”
Jia crossed her arms. She wasn’t sure she did, aside from the vague hope that Jianmo would come back at some point. Where was that damned demon anyway?
“Why? And what reason would we have to cooperate knowing what will happen if they get their hands on the tear?”
Iseul turned back to Void and had another silent conversation before responding.
“Oh, they don’t want the tear at all. Grandpa doesn’t care who gets it, or how. They just want the tomb opened.”
That gave Jia pause. Once again, the elementals’ motivations failed to make any sense.
“Why? What do they have to gain from that?”
Iseul made a weird frowny face, scrunching up her nose without changing her wide-eyed glare.
“Oh ancestors—no wonder it’s been so difficult! That’s not really the way they think. They’re not interested in the power of the tear, or the peaceful balance of the divine realm, or anything like that. Grandpa is Void! He’s nothingness! If given enough time he’ll have everything in the end.”
That didn’t explain a damn thing.
“And? What do they want then?”
Iseul grinned far too widely, the mantle of slime vibrating in...laughter? It was hard to tell.
“That’s easy! They want this world returned to the natural order. Whether that means being brought back into the fold of the divine realm, or just destroyed and consigned to the void. They’re not picky about it.”
