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Chapter Forty-Six: Iron Widow
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
IRON WIDOW
When my consciousness bursts out of Qin Zheng’s mind realm, it’s like breaking from the depths of a roiling ocean only to meet nothing but toxic, noise-filled air. Anguish and panic bear down on me, so fiercely it’s unnatural.
I never panic like this.
Qin Zheng’s spirit form sits before me in the yin-yang realm, cross-legged on the black yin side, while I’m shaking on the white yang side. His eyes are shut in concentration.
Surprisingly, he makes no effort to hold me back when I scramble higher with my mind, reaching into the Yellow Dragon’s senses. The unnatural emotions grip me harder. My awareness of the outside world wavers so much it takes me several seconds to figure out what’s going on. Qin Zheng has burrowed the Yellow Dragon out of wherever it was buried and made it to the battle. The Dragon has cornered the Water Emperor in the valley, its long, serpentine body lying in a full loop over the scorched mountainsides. No matter how the Water Emperor shifts in shape, it can’t get out. The Dragon drains it of qi at every point of contact, like a clay sculpture soaking up water. The extreme emotions must be coming from the Water Emperor as it loses this hopeless battle.
Fire may be weak to Water, but Water is weak to Earth.
“Stop it…spare us…please…”
I swear the thoughts are coming from the Water Emperor, but that makes no sense. How could a Hundun know our language? I can’t even understand the nomads properly.
Just when I’m close to fleeing back to Qin Zheng’s mind realm to escape this nightmare, the emotions finally cut off, and it’s like I can breathe again. The Water Emperor falls still, now a massive mound of lifeless spirit metal. It could probably be made into another Emperor-class Chrysalis.
Qin Zheng’s features relax ever so slightly, but he doesn’t open his eyes or acknowledge me in any way. His spirit form has manifested with the murkiest under-eye circles I’ve ever seen, though they make his features all the more striking in an icy, unapproachable way, bordering on beautiful. A pattern of ghostly scars laces one side of his face. This must be how he looked before the pox.
As he slithers the Dragon farther through the mountains, smashing Hunduns with its many pairs of claws, I get a better feel for this Chrysalis. The Dragon has decayed quite a bit over the centuries, but Qin Zheng repairs it with an iconic ability no other pilot has achieved since: assimilating other Earth-type spirit metal.
Usually, spirit metal from different Hunduns can’t function together, but the Dragon’s lengthy body picks up Hunduns like magnets as it rampages through the remaining herds. Their startled minds collide with ours upon contact, but their emotions are nowhere near as intense as the Water Emperor’s, and they snuff out quickly. Their spirit metal becomes part of the Dragon, reinforcing and extending it indefinitely. New claws pop out whenever it gains a certain new length.
Swarms of bigger noble Hunduns charge at us like the egui in Qin Zheng’s mind realm, but the Dragon destroys them effortlessly. Nothing can stop us from clearing a path to Mount Zhurong’s volcano opening. After that, the battle will basically be won.
But maybe I shouldn’t wait until then to make a move.
The other Chrysalises scurry behind us through the mountains. They must’ve reacted with screaming elation when the Dragon first appeared, yet they’re eerily silent now. When tiny camera drones buzz ahead of us, I realize the Dragon’s eyes must be shining different colors, a telltale sign of a Balanced Match. And one of them must be Metal white. You’d have to be missing a brain not to suspect that I’m inside.
I can almost hear the strategists in the other pilots’ speakers, telling them to be cautious of the very Chrysalis that’s saving their lives.
Fresh anger blazes through me. I bet they’re planning to “handle” me as soon as the battle ends.
Then I’d better strike first.
Qin Zheng doesn’t object when I take full control with the excuse of “having to do something.” It’s strange; I expected more of a power struggle. I can’t figure him out. Somehow, I didn’t get a single memory from his mind realm. I can only guess that his mind isn’t at its clearest after waking up from a two-century sleep.
As I crush noble Hunduns like eggshells, I look right into a camera drone.
“The army has lied to us all!” I shout through the Dragon’s long snout. I spew out the truth of the pilot system, emphasizing how it’s dragged the war effort down by repressing half of potential pilots. People will care about something only if they realize it affects them in a real way.
“I do have proof, and I’ll show it soon, but you know it makes sense! You know gender has nothing to do with spirit strength, because I exist! Yes, this is Wu Zetian, the Iron Widow!”
I pop open the Dragon’s cockpit, showing all of Huaxia the arrangement inside. Me in the yang seat, subjugating a boy who is clearly Emperor Qin Zheng.
The army and Sages must be freaking out and shutting down livestreams by now, but I’ve said what I needed to. I don’t waste another second. With several bounding leaps, I propel the Dragon into flight. Qi of all types, which Qin Zheng must’ve gleaned from the magma underground and the Hunduns he assimilated, courses through its hollow body, lifting it like a paper lantern. It feels like I’m wielding the life force of the world, not just my own.
Undulating the Dragon, I soar past the pillar peaks to where the last neat, convenient line of radio trucks is. There are more among the mountains, but destroying these will be easier.
I land the Dragon over them, flattening most. The ones I missed I crumple and lacerate with the Dragon’s many claws, ensuring that the pilots are cut off cleanly from the strategists.
After I turn back, seeking out the volcano, the other pilots have clearly finished the job without us. The smoking husks of half-formed Hundun larvae pile along Mount Zhurong’s incline. It’s a total victory. The counterattack has succeeded.
Yet confusion dominates the battlefield. No more zipping camera drones, no more strategists shouting in cockpit speakers.
No one celebrates. The other Chrysalises simply stare up, looking lost, as the Dragon slithers in through the air. Some tap their heads out of some pathetic hope that the strategists might reconnect.
I smash down in front of the Black Tortoise near the top of Mount Zhurong. Dirt showers audibly into the volcano opening. The Tortoise is so much smaller than me again, a puny height that makes me feel like I’m looking down at an actual tortoise.
“How could you?” I howl.
The battlefield hushes.
My fury mellows like a wind-chilled flame, then roars back so brilliantly and violently that it takes me an extra beat to react.
Is this the real reason she urged me to make up with my family? So they could be used to control me?
I can’t believe I’ve done the one thing I’ve raged at everyone else for doing: underestimating a woman.
I lean close to the Tortoise, almost touching it with the Dragon’s extended snout and long, golden whiskers. My words pour a silver-white glaze over its black surface. “Please. You already killed my real family.”
I squash a claw through the Tortoise’s head, tearing it clean off its neck. I crush and grind it. Streams of blood, so thin they’re nearly invisible, trickle down the claw. The thought of Shimin going through the same thing flashes through my head, and I clench even tighter, gritting the Dragon’s teeth.
Cries of shock rise from the other Chrysalises, but none of them budge from their positions among the Hundun husks.
That’s how I know they won’t get in the way of my next move.
Besides, it’ll take them hours to get back to the undefended Sui-Tang frontier, while I can fly there in much less.
In the yin-yang realm, Qin Zheng’s eyes swing open for the first time, regarding me in astonishment.
“You wish to take over your world,” he breathes in his centuries-old dialect. His words are slightly slurred, as if he’s drugged or drowsy.
“Yes.” I choose my words carefully. This boy was an actual ruling Emperor; he won’t cooperate if I make him feel like a mere tool. “There’s something you should know about the role of pilots nowadays: we’re not leaders anymore. If you stop me, you’ll come back as nothing but a celebrity, a spectacle. People will ogle you, but they won’t bow to you. If you want them to do that again, we’ll have to make it happen by force.”
“All right, then.” He shrugs, closing his eyes again. “Let us embark.”
I laugh. The sound is hollow, devoid of joy, and goes on for way too long, to the point of madness.
Redemption story, they said?
There will be no redemption. It is not me who is wrong. It’s everyone else.
