Backlash Part 1

Chapter 141: The Pain of Resentment

The Yin Hufu had not graced the battlefield yet. It wasn't ready. Even with Wei Wuxian already knowing exactly what he needed to do to complete it. Every spare moment Wei Wuxian had was devoted to refining the Yin Hufu. It had been so much more powerful than he expected, before.  He's hoping he can find a way to make it weaker, or easier to destroy.  If nothing else maybe he could find a way to make it actually bond with him.  Something so that Wei Wuxian wouldn't have to worry about anyone picking it up and being able to use it to unleash hell.

Really Wei Wuxian wishes he could simply not use it.  With the right circumstances the Yin Hufu could overwhelm the mind of the user.  Driving them into a temporary insanity to allow the Yin Hufu to do what it wanted to do.  The Yin Hufu is a tool that wants to be used, and it doesn't care who uses it.  Wei Wuxian regretted creating it, but at the same time he can't escape it.  He will have to make it again.  He will have to use it again.  As is Wei Wuxian's abilities are not enough.   Wei Wuxian was pushing his limits with every battle. Trying to mobilize just a few more spirits, animate one more corpse.

Every resentful spirit and fierce corpse he commanded was one more barrier to protect their allies. At least, Wei Wuxian liked to think so. His fierce corpses were used as a shield. Always the front line against the strongest forces. Wei Wuxian didn't disagree with this, but the fights were growing more intense.

With each battle the expectations of what Wei Wuxian's corpses could do seemed to increase. Hours of playing Chenqing left his fingers stiff from the force he used to hold the flute in place as he had to move and dodge enemies on a battlefield. The effort of playing Chenqing for hours without break was already enough to make his arms feel heavy. That was without the burden of using resentful energy.

The resentful energy was painful. Sharp pain, like tiny blades under Wei Wuxian's skin, radiated through his body. It would start as a small twitch of pain, a dull ache behind his eyes. The ache would grow more pronounced before it began to spread through his shoulders, then down through his arms. The ache would begin to change to the sharp painful sensation of razor blades under his skin.

It would start in Wei Wuxian's extremities; his hands, arms, legs. After a while Wei Wuxian would begin to feel a burning sensation in his hands. It was like he stuck his hands in a snowbank and left them there. A cold burning sensation that began to travel through his body. It would become harder to focus past the pain. His muscles would stiffen making it harder to move.

Using small amounts of resentful energy was no problem for Wei Wuxian. He had long since perfected his methods enough to make using small or even moderate amounts easy. Honestly Wei Wuxian could probably have dealt with large amounts without much difficulty if he only needed to do it for a short period of time. The problem was that the amount of resentful energy he was using went far beyond the typical classification for a large amount. Wei Wuxian was at his absolute limit for the amount of resentful energy he could control and he was sustaining it for hours upon hours.

Wei Wuxian felt a sharpening of pain in his body, crossing the line from 'this hurts' to 'this hurts and is going to do damage'. Considering Wei Wuxian's threshold for how bad the pain can be in the first description, he knows he really has pushed it too far if he is hitting the second one. Wei Wuxian immediately pulled back.

Somewhere on the battlefield a few corpses were dropping to inactivity as a result. This was a good thing, since Wei Wuxian was making sure the resentful energy dissipated to inactivity as opposed to just releasing the corpses to go wild. The fighting continues for hours. The bright light of the afternoon sun becomes the last dredges of sunset before Wei Wuxian can finally put down his flute.