Yu Di took a calming breath. He couldn’t do anything about the crazy fight happening a few feet away from him. If he was going to die from a stray strike, then he would meet it head on.

  Kutan appeared in his vision, both hands pressed together with his prayer beads wrapped around them. The shining Qi strikes illuminated him from behind, making him look like a Buddha. His serene smile despite the heavy attacks coming from behind made him look all the more life-saving.

  “It appears you need saving, Yu Di,” Kutan said. Even his voice was calm, as if inviting Yu Di to meditation.

  “Not from you,” Yu Di spat out.

  “Whoever you angered really wants you dead. She hasn’t relented. You must know something very important. All the more reason to take you back.”

  Kutan stooped and grabbed Yu Di by the hand. He dragged him across the sand.

  Yu Di tried to pull away, but had no strength to resist. He let this foolish man scrape his back across the sand, feeling the fine grains getting into every nook and cranny.

  A powerful sword strike the size of an ox sparked Kutan’s barrier. The boom deafened Yu Di.

  For the first time, Kutan furrowed his brow. “Are you sure you can’t get up and walk? All my men are fending off that monster you brought with you.”

  “Let go for a second,” Yu Di said. As much as he would love to watch this puny mortal struggle in dragging him across the sand, he didn’t want to die yet. He closed his eyes and forced Qi to reassert itself over his body. He couldn’t stop the pain tearing through his body, but he could at least get to safety first. In the end, all Yu Di could do was force himself to stand.

  “You’re going to have to support me,” Yu Di said. “I can only move my legs.”

  Yu Di flopped forward, hoping Kutan got the hint.

  With an awkward catch, Kutan kept Yu Di upright.

  “Let’s move.” Kutan half-carried Yu Di, holding him up by the arms. “Can’t you move faster? They’re getting closer and my barrier might fail any second.”

  “Just leave me to die then,” Yu Di said. “It’s difficult to move my body with just my mind alone especially while suffering from excruciating pain.”

  Kutan’s jovial face disappeared, replaced with grim determination. He put more of Yu Di’s weight upon himself and half carried, half dragged the man with him.

  Yu Di focused, one step at a time, hoping not to trip on something and fall. He wasn’t sure whether he could get up again.

  The explosions sounded farther and farther away while the stray strikes upon Kutan’s shield became fewer and fewer. Soon, they were met with a convoy of white robes all riding atop camels.

  “Get us out of here,” Kutan growled.

  The white robes ran toward them. It took four people to lift Yu Di in a litter until they secured him onto the back of a camel.

  Kutan clambered up onto his own camel. Gone was the pristine white robe, mixed in with sand and grime from their run. Sweat stains peeked out from his collar and armpits.

  A large, devastating slash rushed toward them. Two camels got caught before the barrier came up. The slash shattered it, but went no further.

  A white robe already on a camel spat out blood and collapsed on its hump.

  Yu Di tried to remember his face. It was someone from the third realm at least to take that strike and not die. But his own pain made him pass out shortly after on his camel.

  Yu Di woke up inside a prison cell. Despite sleeping on a comfortable bed surrounded by pristine white walls, he could tell a prison cell when he saw it. The door on the opposite side of him was made of metal, probably locked and barred on the other side.

  “You’re finally awake,” Vimala said. She sat huddled with her knees against her chest on a bed opposite from Yu Di.

  “How long have I been out?” Yu Di asked.

  “A day since you got here.”

  That made sense. Yu Di’s entire body was sore, but no longer in pain. He closed his eyes to make a mental picture of his body. If memory served, his body should be a mess of broken tendons and muscles right now because of his technique.

  This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

  Except it wasn’t. Every muscle and tendon was repaired. White Qi ran throughout his body, fixing each bit and part of him. It was the same technique Arzu had used on him.

  “Did you heal me, Vimala?” Yu Di asked. He raised his arm into the air, noticing the gray tunic they had put on him. They even gave him gray pants to match.

  Vimala nodded. “I had to. You were screaming all night when they brought you in.”

  “But I thought you were out of Qi.”

  Vimala waved her hand as if showing off her palace. “This is the Pavilion of the Goddess’ Grace. This is the main center of the Goddess of Miryana.”

  “So your power comes directly from here.” Yu Di remembered trying to break in here several times. All the secrets of the Goddess lived somewhere within these walls. “If you got so much power from the tunnels, you must be overflowing while inside.”

  Vimala nodded, hugging her knees closer to her body. “Except I’m not fixed. The power is overwhelming me like trying to pour a barrel of water into a small, broken cup.”

  “But doesn’t that mean you can wield the power of the Goddess? Free us, free the city, and save everyone within?”

  “I’m a broken cup. How much do you think I can hold?” Vimala shivered.

  Yu Di reached for his Demigod sight and saw the densest Qi crashing into Vimala like a waterfall except the waterfall came from all directions. If this kept up, she would die from Qi exposure.

  Guess it was time to save the Goddess again.

  Yu Di got out of his bed and walked over to Vimala. He reached out with his hand.

  Vimala glanced at it. “What?”

  “Give me your hand and I can help you.” Yu Di wiggled his fingers.

  “No, this is what I need to fix myself. This is how we trained to be the Goddess.”

  “Is this what they put you girls through?” Yu Di felt anger in his chest as he pictured someone doing this to Yu Lin. “This is unacceptable. Give me your hand.”

  Vimala shook her head again.

  Fine. Then Yu Di was going to do this the hard way.

  He placed his hand on Vimala’s head, the least awkward place to touch her directly. With a little effort, he broke through whatever mental defenses she put up. Yu Di had a feeling that Vimala allowed him otherwise with this much Goddess Qi coursing through her, she could wipe him from existence with a thought.

  The challenge for Yu Di became finding how Vimala’s body worked. It wasn’t like the usual cultivation he knew from his own training or even from the Celestial Jade Empire. The meridians were the same, but Vimala used them differently. The most important discovery he noticed was that she didn’t have a dantian.

  How did she hold such powerful and dense Qi within her body?

  Horror dawned on Yu Di. They used their very bodies to hold back the tide of Goddess Qi. That would burn up the body and mind almost instantly. Was that why she forced herself to withstand this torrent of Qi?

  If Yu Di ever met the true Goddess of Miryana, he would slap some sense into her. Who does that to little girls?

  Yu Di set up a few mental blocks for Vimala. He showed Vimala a simple technique she could use to activate or deactivate the openings within her body that absorbed the Qi. The entire process of building each mental block for all her meridians was endless. Normally, this was a process one would create while cultivating.

  “That should do it,” Yu Di said.

  Curse unlocked: 1% lifted.

  Vimala stopped shivering. The Goddess Qi was bouncing off most of her body except a small sliver going into her chest. No matter how well constructed these blocks were, they couldn’t stop everything from seeping into her body.

  That was a huge unlock for Yu Di. He wondered if it was because he helped his mortal enemy. Vimala was the one who had a hand in his curse after all.

  “Vimala, all you have to do is practice keeping those mental blocks up so that you don’t overdose on your own Qi,” Yu Di said. “Of course, if you feel like letting in a bunch of Qi to blast us out of here, I wouldn’t be against that.”

  Vimala clenched her eyes shut as she controlled her breathing. “Why didn’t they teach us this technique? It would have saved us so much pain and suffering.”

  “I’m not sure. Maybe your Goddess never passed down the cultivation techniques like the ones we have in the East. Or maybe your Goddess just wants to see you suffer?”

  “No, our Goddess would never do that.” Vimala glared at Yu Di. “She protects us and provides for us.”

  Yu Di shrugged. There was no point in arguing with a fanatic, especially one that embodied the Goddess while on this world.

  Hours passed by. Yu Di took that time to cultivate as much as he could. He felt himself reach the bottleneck of the second realm, just out of his grasp. For whatever reason, the dense Goddess Qi here sped up his cultivation better than his own pocket dimension.

  Vimala also took the time to repair her own cultivation. It took a little prompting from Yu Di, but she could put up more mental blocks of her own, especially one that prevented others like Yu Di from entering. For all her previous power, she had no training and the threat of being obliterated by a Demigod was the only thing that stopped people from affecting her. Here, Yu Di thought it was because she was broken.

  Vimala had been broken before he ever met her.

  The door rattled as the chains and a large metal bar were removed. Yu Di had tried the door earlier and, as he guessed, they had made it almost impossible for them to leave. He had a few sticks of his firecrackers but since the room was so small, it would probably explode inward and kill them.

  Kutan walked into the room. His white robe was perfect once again. He wore a new set of prayer beads around his neck. His face looked perfectly serene as if he had taken some drug.

  The dense Goddess Qi here might as well be a drug for mortals. It pushed itself in, shaped the mortals, and made them act in a certain way. Yu Di had seen this a few times before to different effects. One of them was a demonic sect that enslaved its members.

  “I hope you two have recovered from your ordeal,” Kutan said. “Abbot Lokenatha has been busy the last two days. He has an opening today to see you, though. Most of the time, it takes months before you can see him. Even as his high priest, it would take me a week. You two are truly blessed.”

  Yu Di wasn’t feeling particularly blessed. However, if this meant seeing the man in charge and moving on with his life, then so be it.

  Vimala stood up from the bed, trying to smooth out the wrinkles in her clothes. Unlike Yu Di, she wore the same clothes she had on earlier.

  “Not you, woman,” Kutan said. “Sit down and shut up. Someone else will escort you.”

  Vimala sat.

  Yu Di didn’t know what that was about, but followed behind Kutan. They were off to meet the abbot. Maybe he’ll finally get some answers or at least a reprieve to leave this city.