Scions of Heaven - Calamity

Chapter 8

(Author Note: I return! if you have read this story before I strongly suggest you re-read from the start, significant changes have been made in re-editing. Next chapter will be out in a week!)

Dong Hua wasn't a compassionate or holy being, that fact had never changed. – Pillow Book

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Words: 4,700

High Goddess Ru Zhong was a footnote at best in the grand pages of history, and that was exactly how she preferred it. Despite being one of the legendary seventy two generals that had helped pacify the chaos of the past, there were few books that mentioned her. In those that did mention her, it was primarily as an organiser of supply lines and other mundane tasks. In only one book was anything else mentioned, and even then it was incorrect, suggesting her role was something of an assistant to her fellow general Tu Jian. Even her name was relatively unknown, despite being a High Goddess. Her near complete lack of any historical or political presence was exactly what she needed it to be.

After all, no one had ever thought it odd that she would be summoned first before the other generals when her lord went to war. Organising and planning supply routes was a critical aspect of any prolonged engagement, of course such things would need to be addressed first. In truth it was Tu Jian that managed such things, freeing Ru Zhong to act in the shadows. None outside of her fellow generals knew the truth behind the façade.

Infiltration, assassination, political manipulations and other less savoury methods of information gathering, this was where she and her people provided use to her lord. Lord Shaoyang had seen worth in her all those years ago. She, a half-starved waif from a tribe that had betrayed the Shaoyang Sovereign's armies of heaven at a crucial moment. He had spared her, and she had worshipped the deity ever since. Her quick mind and willingness to do anything to survive, and later provide some use to her saviour proved valuable. She would happily carve out her heart in offering if he asked it of her, he or his children, they were parts of him after all, living aspects of his divinity.

Which brought her thoughts back to the unhappy realisation that Bai Fengjiu was dead. Someone or something had killed the person her god had loved above all beings. She would gladly offer herself and all her people to death if it would bring back her lord's beloved. But she could not, and such thoughts of whimsy were not becoming of her.

She had never failed any task her lord had set her or her people, this would be no different. But she would not lie and say this did not feel somewhat personal. Still, she was a professional and so she tucked away any feelings she had about the matter and focused on completing her task.

Ru Zhong's true form was that of a turtle, but the waves of the sea and the winds of heaven held no love for her, nor she for them. But the land loved and listened, and so she asked the earth to share its memory.

Normally it was impossible to see residual energy, spells or souls so clearly, but the eyes of Ru Zhong and this specific section of her people were special. The eyes of all of them had been replaced with those she had personally crafted. The sight she and her servants possessed was completely normal. The only difference was the fact that they could activate what she liked to call soul-sight, to be able to see the more intangible side of existence.

Her lord's wife had a rather beautiful soul colour, a red-white mix that resulted in a soft pink colour. Ru Zhong could see her lord's little daughter glowing softly within. The child soul was the same colour as the spirit nourishing and sustaining it, a pale pink. Once the child was born their soul and magic would naturally gain its own unique colouration. Perhaps when the little one grew up it would become the same shade of purple that her lord possessed. She hoped so; she'd always thought her lord's soul was the most beautiful in all creation.