Chapter 126: The Mountain That Breathes
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Wudang Mountains. They looked smaller in the Jackie Chan movies. The air here felt strange, and I didn't mean it in the normal mountain sense. Like you could chew on it.
The Omnitrix on my wrist kept its hum, but the cell was dead. I noticed that my phone was a brick. No signals and satellites. Just... vibes.
And I loved the vibes.
We'd landed at a dirt airstrip that looked like it hadn't seen a plane since the Korean War. The pilot, one of Emma's people, looked nervous. Couldn't blame him.
The mountains loomed over us like sleeping giants that were shrouded in mist despite the afternoon sun. There was something wrong with this place. Something ancient that made the hair on the back of your neck stand up. If this were some xianxia novel, some Sect would have hidden in one of those peaks.
"This is as far as I go," the pilot said, not meeting my eyes. "Ms. Frost's orders. I'll wait twelve hours. If you're not back by then…"
"We're on our own," I finished for him. "Yeah. Standard protocol. I don't think we'll be back by then though. Good luck with your stay."
Kwannon stepped off the jet first in a fluid motion. The Dragon's Breath Pill had indeed changed her. Not visibly – she still looked like a supermodel who could kill a man with a chopstick – but in how she carried herself. Like a sword that had just been given the perfect edge, humming with a power it was still getting used to.
"The Chi here is... a little overwhelming," she said quietly, her eyes scanning the mist-wreathed peaks. "It's everywhere."
"Really?" I asked as I jumped off behind her.
"Yeah. If you look for a spot that doesn't have overflowing chi, it'll be trying to find a single drop of water in the ocean."
Damn. And then there was Charmcaster who was busy yawning. If Kwannon was a still, deep lake, Hope was a wildfire. She was the last one off the plane, and the moment her feet touched the ground, she took one deep breath and smiled. It was a predatory thing that showed too many teeth.
"Oh, I like it here," she said in a purring voice. "The magic is old. Pure and untouched!"
I watched them. One was a surgeon's scalpel, the other was a stick of dynamite. Both of them were useful here. Both dangerous if you held them wrong. Thankfully we were all on the same side.
I turned to Charmcaster. "Alright, magic girl. You're up. Find us a ghost."
She shot me a smirk. "Finally admitting you need me, Benny boy? Fair enough, I'd get tired too if I were the one taking care of everything."
"Don't get a big head," I said. Unfortunately, the Omnitrix couldn't scan magic for shit, and Hope was our best bet in finding where we should be heading after this. I guess if I become XLR8 and roam the entire valley for a few minutes something will come up, but that's too much work.
She laughed, and it was a sound bright and clear against the heavy air.
From her bag, she produced a small silver bowl and a vial of mercury, and I realized this was a different kind of magic than I was used to seeing from her. Something older, more primal than the flashy pyrotechnics she usually favored.
"What does that do?"
"Hmm, well. You see, traditional scrying won't work this time," she explained, pouring the quicksilver into the bowl. "Too much interference. We need something more... direct." She pricked her finger with a small silver needle, letting a single drop of her blood fall into the mercury. It did not mix. It floated on the surface, a perfect crimson sphere.
Kwannon watched the ritual with a clinical, detached curiosity. "Your methods are... primitive."
"Primitive methods get the job done, that's why even primates thought of them and survived. If you think about it, we stand here because of primitive ways. That is how we evolved." After that needless lecture at philosophy, Hope shot back without looking up. "Not all of us had twenty years of Chi shoved into us overnight."
The barb hung in the air, but Kwannon merely inclined her head in a slight, almost imperceptible nod of acknowledgment.
The drop of blood began to move, drawing a slow, deliberate pattern across the liquid metal. Charmcaster's eyes narrowed in concentration. "What does it say?" I asked.
"We've got a lead," she said finally. "There's a path. Faint, but it's there."
The blood had formed a thin red line pointing deep into the forest. As we watched, it began to glow with a soft purple light. Charmcaster stood, tucking the bowl away.
"Follow me," she commanded. "And stay close. This mountain doesn't like visitors."
I didn't ask how a mountain could like or dislike anything. In a place that was full of energy, was it impossible for rocks to acquire consciousness? I was past questioning that kind of shit. When a sorceress who has stared down cosmic gods tells you a mountain has opinions, you just nod and follow her lead.
The path was barely visible, a game trail at best.
The trees grew denser as we climbed, ancient growth that had never seen an axe. The silence was the worst part. It was absolute, unnatural. There were no birds nor insects around us. Just the sound of our own breathing and the crunch of leaves underfoot.
Occasionally, I caught glimpses of movement at the edge of my vision. Flickering shapes of armored warriors or snarling temple dogs that vanished the moment I tried to focus on them. Illusions, Charmcaster called them. A filter meant to disorient and drive off the unworthy.
"They're getting stronger," Kwannon noted, her hand resting lightly on the hilt of a knife I hadn't seen her carrying before.
"It's a filter, like I said," Charmcaster said, her eyes fixed on the path ahead. "The closer we get, the more it'll push back." She glanced at me, a challenge in her eyes. "Feeling scared yet, hero?"
"Terrified," I deadpanned. "Might need you to hold my hand."
She rolled her eyes, but I saw the corner of her mouth twitch as she interlocked her hands with me. Kwannon didn't say anything, pretending we weren't playing love birds in this situation.
After an hour of climbing that felt like three, the path ended abruptly at a sheer rock face.
A massive waterfall cascaded down the cliff, feeding a small, crystal-clear pool at its base. The roar was deafening. "Dead end?" Kwannon asked, her voice raised over the sound of the water.
Charmcaster shook her head, stepping to the edge of the pool. She held out her hand, and a faint purple glow emanated from her fingertips. "It's here," she shouted. "The entrance isn't a door, it's a knot in reality. Woven into the mountain's Chi. We can't break it."
My first instinct, a crude and simple one, was to hit it. Hard. Four Arms could probably turn this cliff face into a gravel pit. But a glance at Charmcaster's face, a mask of pure concentration, told me such a brutish solution would be a mistake. This was a lock, not a wall.
"So how do we open it?" I yelled.
"It's a harmonic lock!" she explained. "It needs to be vibrated at a precise resonant frequency to shatter the concealment ward! It's not about a pretty tune though, it's about hitting it with the right kind of force!"
She turned to Kwannon. "I need you to channel Chi into the rock face! Steady, consistent flow! It'll stabilize the mountain, prevent a landslide when the ward breaks!"
Water cascades like thunderclaps, but we managed a conversation by yelling at each other. Kwannon nodded, placing her hands against the wet stone. A faint pink glow, different from Charmcaster's magic, spread from her fingers into the rock.
Charmcaster turned to me, a wild look in her eyes. "I don't think that's enough, so I need a sound! A specific frequency! Powerful enough to shake a mountain!"
"You want me to howl for you?" I grinned. "Just say the word, Hope. I aim to please."
"Just make the mountain shake, Tennyson!" she yelled back, a laugh mixed with the words. "Save the pickup lines for when we're not trying to open the Cave of Wonders!"
"It's a waterfall, not a cave."
A specific frequency. A sound powerful enough to shake a mountain. I had just the dog for the job.
I rolled the Omnitrix dial and then clicked it down. The familiar green flash washed over me, and I felt my body reshape itself, bones elongating, face stretching into a muzzle, fur sprouting across my skin. When the transformation completed, I stood taller, covered in gray fur, my muzzle split four ways to reveal the specialized vocal cords that made Blitzwolfer unique.
Charmcaster placed her hand on my arm, her eyes closed in concentration. "Start low," she said. "Gradually increase the pitch until I tell you to stop."
I took a deep breath and began to growl.
It was a sound that emanated from deep within my chest, a subsonic rumble that caused the water in the pool to tremble. Slowly, carefully, I increased the pitch, my quadruple-hinged jaw allowing me to modulate the sound with perfect precision.
The entire cliff face began to groan, small pebbles raining down into the pool. Kwannon's arms strained as she channeled more Chi into the rock, her expression a mask of focus.
"Higher," Charmcaster's instructions came. "Almost there."
I pushed the sound higher, until it was a piercing howl that tore at the air itself. The waterfall began to waver, the water splitting around an invisible barrier.
"Now!"
I poured everything I had into the howl. The air cracked like glass, a sound like a million windows shattering at once.
For a split second, the waterfall itself vaporized from the sheer sonic force, leaving the cliff face bare. And there it was. A glowing circular gateway, pulsing with energy, carved directly into the rock.
The waterfall crashed back down, but now it flowed around the gateway, not touching it. A doorway behind a curtain of water.
I wasn't in my human form, and yet I felt my ears ring slightly. I could only assume how bad it must be be for Hope and Kwannon. "That," Charmcaster said, "was loud."
"But look," I pointed ahead.
"It worked," Charmcaster admitted, staring at the portal. "I can't believe it worked."
"You didn't know if it'd work or not?" Kwannon gave her a dry look. "Never mind. What now?" she asked, pulling her hands from the rock.
"Now," Charmcaster said, a grin spreading across her face, "we go through."
The gateway hummed with power, a swirling vortex of energy that made my skin tingle. "Ladies first," I said, gesturing grandly.
Charmcaster rolled her eyes, hitting my massive werewolf chest. "Coward." But she stepped through, vanishing in a flash of light. Kwannon followed a moment later. I took a deep breath and stepped into the vortex.
The world twisted, compressed, then exploded outward.
For a brief, terrifying moment, I was nowhere and everywhere at once. Then, sound. Overwhelming, chaotic sound.
I stumbled forward onto solid ground, blinking spots from my vision. The first thing I registered was the noise. It was a deafening roar like being inside a football stadium during the final play of the Super Bowl. The smell was also a lot. Incense and sweat, mixed with ozone and the coppery tang of blood.
What the hell?
We were on a high stone platform overlooking a colossal arena carved directly into the heart of a mountain. Below, in a circular fighting ring, two warriors clashed in a blur of movement. One wielded a chain of pure lightning while the other fought with a spear that seemed to cut through space itself. Beyond the arena, an impossible city sprawled across the valley.
Pagodas floated in mid-air, connected by bridges of jade and crystal. Waterfalls flowed upward. The entire valley pulsed with energy, all of it focused on this one bloody spectacle.
Okay. So not a quiet ghost hunt. It's a goddamn mystical Thunderdome. And we just crashed the VIP box.
It was as if we'd crossed into a parallel world where Cultivators were real and roamed the skies instead of superheroes. I suddenly had a feeling where we were.
The Omnitrix's translator kicked in, struggling to keep up with the roar of the crowd. Soon, it began to feed me fragments.
"...Champion of Lei-Gong will face…!"
"...Ninth Trial of the Heavenly Cities…!"
"...only the victor is worthy of the Iron Fist…!"
Are they walking about the same Iron Fist we came searching for? Before I could even process that, the air around us shimmered. A phalanx of guards in jade armor materialized, their energy spears leveled at our throats.
Their leader, a stern-faced man with a beard that reached his waist, stepped forward.
"You have trespassed upon the sacred grounds during the Tournament of the Heavenly Cities," he announced, his voice carrying despite the noise. "Surrender your weapons and submit to judgment, monsters!"
"Hey! I'm a sentient being, not a monster," I argued, even as I took a fighting stance. I was already calculating. Was Blitzwolfer a good choice here? Can his howl disorient them all at once? Or should I switch to a different one? How many could Four Arms take before they overwhelmed him? If I went Ghostfreak, could I–
"Err… this might sound crazy but… They're with me."
The voice cut through the tension like a knife. Surprised but familiar, with a thick Russian accent even as she spoke Chinese. I froze. I knew that voice.
I turned. Leaning against a stone pillar, looking completely unimpressed by the entire spectacle, was none other than Illyana Rasputina. The Demon Queen of Limbo.
She wasn't wearing her X-Men uniform. Instead, she was dressed in dark, flowing robes embroidered with silver runes. A massive, soul-forged sword was strapped to her back. She looked less like a guest and more like she belonged here.
She pushed off the pillar and stalked toward us, her boots making no sound on the ancient stone. The jade guards parted before her, their expressions a mixture of fear and reverence.
She stopped in front of me, her ice-blue eyes scanning me, Charmcaster, and Kwannon with cold amusement.
"Tennyson," she said, frowning even as she was smirking. She whispered in English so that the others couldn't understand. "What the hell are you doing at a heavenly tournament?"
I just stared at her, a similar question echoing in my mind.
What is the Queen of Limbo doing in a place supposedly touched by heaven?
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