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Fighting monsters, Luo Binghe finds, is something that he is really good at. It’s not as if he didn’t go on many hunts under his shizun’s supervision before the abyss. He showed off his skill at every opportunity and truly earned his place at the Immortal Alliance Conference. Luo Binghe has been confident in his skill for a long time now, and for good reason.
But facing what his shizun had deemed him ready to face on missions mandated by the sect, where he receives praise and rest after a job well done, is literally a much different beast than the constant trials of the abyss. This untamed nexus of demonic energy has no care for what he is prepared to face. Rather, he has to fight whatever is thrown at him and never stop. Rest means death, and for whatever reason - he knows the reason - Luo Binghe is not yet ready to die.
Instead he will face beasts that his shizun would never have allowed to to confront alone. If he cannot overpower them, he will use his inborn cunning that had been honed by a childhood spent poor and on the streets. And then he will become powerful enough so that next time he faces such a monster it will bow to his power.
And for month upon month upon month, this is how Binghe lives. Never truly resting. Mind clouded by the constant buzzing chant of “survive, survive, survive.”
If he could take a moment to think about it, he may have considered this a blessing. So long as he must battle and scrape and nearly starve in order to live, there is no room in his heart or mind to think of the betrayal that has pushed him to these depths in the first place.
This changes when he finds Xin Mo. Tearing mindlessly through the abyss has eventually consolidated into a single goal, one that will allow him to reclaim a real life, outside of the shadow of these demonic cliffs. No matter the risk that the sword poses, he can’t bear to be in this hell any longer. No one is coming for him, so he must save himself.
Just before he reaches the legendary blade, he takes a moment to simply be. He pulls in a breath of the dry abyssal air. He takes in the dim light, tainted by the mists and the black and red veined cliffs that keep him penned and trapped. In the crevices and cracks, he can see the skittering shadows of the smaller demonic beasts that may have challenged him in his first weeks, but he can now crush beneath his heel without difficulty or remorse.
Each lonely distance had been much the same as the last. The terrain never seeming to change much at all. Often he felt as if he was in the very same spot at which he had first landed. The only markers of change are different grotesque beasts and the occasional fluctuations from boiling hot to frozen cold temperatures. Nothing is constant, yet it is always the same.
His eyes harden, dispelling any lingering hesitation. He will leave here or he will die. In any case, he will escape this place.
Luo Binghe turns and faces his destiny.
His battle with Xin Mo is the culmination of his trials in the abyss. His hand on the blade’s hilt, he enters into a battle for control over his soul. Hooks of scorching energy attempt to find purchase, and he fends them off and reaches back.
The will of the heavenly demon Luo Binghe is that of iron, of silk. The bulwark of his mind will not be penetrated, and his counterattack is winding and elegent, but no less powerful than his defense.
He has learned well at the feet of every master he has ever been given, no matter how cruel and unyielding. The warm hand of the kindly washerwoman who let him call her mother and taught him what it is to be loved. The teachings of the streets, where he had to be cunning and sly to survive. The harsh hand of his shizun before the qi deviation who showed him that no matter how close to the heavens a cultivator may be, there is cruelty to be found everywhere. The shizun after his deviation, who taught him that Luo Binghe could someday become heavenly himself. The shizun that taught him that those he loved could betray him… but he still does not know why.
If he never leaves this accursed place, he will never know.
Shen Qingqiu’s immortal visage flashes behind his eyelids.
He must know why he was betrayed. Shizun, shizun… Did he really mean it? Is Binghe that repulsive? That disgusting? Is he truly unloveable, even by the man who had nurtured him, mentored him, told him that he would be great?
Sensing his moment of weakness, Xin Mo redoubles its efforts, seeping into the chinks in his mental armor.
Feeling the intrusion, Luo Binghe’s black eyes full of nebulas flash open wide before narrowing into a bone-chilling glare.
No, no. He refuses. He will not let his goals be distorted. He will win this battle and every battle after. He will prove Shen Qingqiu right in his predictions of Luo Binghe’s potential, and then, coming to him as an equal, Luo Binghe will discover what Shizun holds in his heart for him.
With one final exertion, Luo Binghe mercilessly crushes the sword’s resistance. Its energies pulse one last time in desperation, before subsiding at long last.
Luo Binghe hefts the sword and holds it before his eyes, and sees two black pits looking back at him. His brief moment of euphoria is immediately crushed by a tide of apathy.
He has done it. He has conquered the abyss. Now his true journey will begin.
In one sharp motion, his tattered disciple’s robes patched with the furs and skins of beasts flutter behind him as he rends open the very air and steps through the tear in the world.