Chapter 54: Ashes to ashes, memories to treasure
“[Echoing Frost]? What a strange name for an art. Wonder what it does…,” Zhen Yue pondered as she carefully scrutinized over the arts scroll case.
“Who cares,” Zhen Hai said dismissively, “All I know is that it has an ice expression, meaning the patriarch, and subsequently us, are going to benefit greatly from this.”
“True. We should make sure to stow it away safely before we get moving again.”
“Right…”
Zhen Hai and Zhen Yue stared at the scroll for a bit, hesitant to put it away.
The Zhen Clan heirs were tempted to just crack open the scroll and see what knowledge it contained, but held off from doing so until later…for at least one minute.
“Well…maybe just a peek.”
They were still in the middle of a competition and inside of a ruins, hardly a good place to start studying, but the temptation of a World class aether art was too much to bear.
As Zhen Hai and Zhen Yue opened up the art scroll case to take a look inside, the voice in Zhen Liu’s head, which at this point he had attributed to his ring, suddenly made two announcements.
One was expected, the other was surprising.
Zhen Liu initially thought that he would have to argue over ownership of the club with his cousins, but soon realized that this fear was unwarranted when he saw that his cousins were focused on the scroll. Although, it didn’t hurt for him to ask.
“Hey, can I just take that wonky looking club?”
Zhen Hai and Zhen Yue just did the universal going away gesture with their hands in response as they looked over the art scroll.
“Cool…,” Zhen Liu said as he gingerly took away the bone club. The moment the club was in his hand, the ring’s voice piped up again.
‘Okay, cool…huh? What’s Sullivan doing?’
Out of the corner of his eye, Zhen Liu saw Sullivan looking over the corpse pieces that the Spinal Puppet Worms were inhabiting just seconds before. From a distance, Zhen Liu could see a troubled expression on Sullivan’s face.
‘Oh…well then.’
[Nepherage, stop sizing up my cousins and come over here for a second.]
[But they’re so full of openings right now!]
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Laying before Sullivan was the disheveled pieces of the corpses that the Spinal Puppet Worms were using as hosts just moments before. Initially, he was too caught up in the battle to care about who these bodies originally belonged to, but now that he had time to carefully look at them, he noticed some things that felt…wrong.
‘No…it can’t be…’
Sullivan reached down and turned over the respective right arms of each of the corpses. While the skin was a bit dried out and the flesh a tad damaged, Sullivan could make out the symbol for the Diggers Union tattooed on the arms. Right beneath the symbols were a matching pair of numbers written in old Bison script.
The sight of these tattoos caused Sullivan to gasp in alarm.
‘Oh no…Ichi…Nichi…no…’
It’s one thing to believe someone you care about is dead, it’s another thing altogether seeing proof that they’re dead.
Sullivan was all set to breakdown and cry right there and then, but he was interrupted by Zhen Liu and his puppet coming over.
“Uh…hey, Sullivan? What you doing?”
“Huh?! Oh! Uh…nothing. Just…not used to dealing with moving corpses, you know? I’m a little shaken,” Sullivan lied with a shaky looking smile.
Zhen Liu squinted at Sullivan in a measuring manner. “Hmmm. Okay…wanna help me burn these bodies?”
“What?!,” Sullivan asked in a shocked and confused tone, “why would you desecrate the dead like this?”
On the Stampeding Bison continent, the dead were traditionally buried in stonework coffins with as many of their earthly possessions that can fit. In that regard, it was considered taboo to leave any remnants of the deceased unburied. It was only right to return all that earth gave, or so those of Stampeding Bison believe.
“Back on Roaring Tide, we’d throw the bodies into the sea so that the wind and tide would do with our corpses as they saw fit,” Zhen Liu began to explain,” But, on the Dozing Salamander continent, they burn their dead as a sign of respect and as a means of freeing the soul from their mortal bonds, or so they say. We don’t got time for a proper burial nor do we got any bodies of water to give them back to, so we can at least do as the Salamanders do and ‘free their souls’ at least.”
Sullivan looked mollified after Zhen Liu’s explanation of why he wanted to burn the bodies, but he still looked a bit hesitant.
“If it helps, we can try and gather up the ashes into an urn or something so yo…we, can bury it later. Won’t be a full send-off, but I think it’ll do.”
“I…yes. That…sounds good.”
“Aight.”
Zhen Liu was about to gather up all the corpse pieces and put them all into two neat piles, but paused before letting his puppet do so in his place.
Once the piles were prepared, the aether puppet proceeded to use Ignati aether to ignite them. Zhen Liu himself proceeded to clasp his hands together in a prayer pose, much like the priests at the local temple would do for ceremonies.
Unsure of what to do next, Sullivan just followed suit. He was just about to stand there awkwardly, but Zhen Liu interjected once more.
“You don’t have to pray to a specific god you know. It’s enough to just…say goodbye.”
Sullivan looked a bit surprised at Zhen Liu’s words, but he couldn’t make anything from the solemn expression on the latter’s face. He did keep the Fourth Young Master’s words in mind though.
‘Enough to say goodbye huh? Okay…Ichi, Nichi, I’m sorry I couldn’t save you, but I promise I can at least get back what we are owed and then some. Save a a seat for me on the other side, alright?’
As Sullivan finished his prayers, the bodies had fully turned to ash at this point. He wasn’t sure if their souls were truly “free”, but his heart now felt a little lighter.
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‘Wait…that can happen?!’
