The Flower Among the Flames

Chapter 4

Zhao Meng felt sick, and this is after she vomited outside of the "cell." Make that two times her guts were heaved out from her stomach. Poor flowers; she thought as sprayed their pretty petals with her bile. Perhaps her nausea was due to the trauma, the near experience of death, or the blood on her hands– or all of the above. She scoffed quietly. How funny did it look for a warrior like her to be afraid at the sight of blood? But the honest truth was that she never liked seeing blood. She rarely had to kill someone up close since the bow was her weapon– the very thought of stabbing someone was enough to make her queasy. She touched the small of her back, wincing at the flashes of memories of suffering and screams. No. She could not be thinking about this right now.

When Zhao Meng finally calmed her bowels, she entered the ruined house and was confronted with the state of its interior. The table was demolished into pieces; however, the tea set was, surprisingly, virtually unharmed. Everything else was either destroyed or partially ruined. Zhao Meng sighed. I'm going to get a lot of flak for this. It wasn't like any of this was theirs to begin with, and she certainly was in no situation to pay for the damage. The consequences could be dire and in the back of her mind, Zhao Meng felt some sadness in seeing the devastated state of the room. She then looked at the prisoner, Kim Seulgi.

He looked more relaxed now. The wound was bandaged tightly, and he was dozing off quietly in the corner of the room with his glaive resting on his shoulder. She had to hand it to him; if it wasn't for his glaive, they would have been killed. So it's the glaive that's magical? The thought of a mystical or an occult weapon was unsettling and even more so in the hands of her prisoner. Zhao Meng shook her head. Regardless of him being the enemy, he saved their lives– her life. But there was something else that continued to bother her.

She looked around warily and then glanced out the window. There was nothing. Nothing. Where did all the spirits go? They all seemed to disappear following the "death" of the one she encountered; assuming a spirit could die in the first place. Zhao Meng drifted her eyes back to Seulgi and then towards the weapon suspiciously. What other secrets was it hiding?

Zhao Meng tiptoed quietly up to him and observed the pole arm at a closer view. She admitted that it was truly an elegant weapon; almost too regal to be in the hands of a mere captain. It was...entrancing; as if something was calling to her. Without realizing it, she was slowly reaching out to the weapon when a voice mumbled, "You are allowed to look but it's rude to touch without permission."

She jumped back, startled. Blinking rapidly, Zhao Meng realized that Seulgi was staring at her with one eye open and one eye closed. His face bore a weary expression, sparkling sweat beading down his forehead. He was obviously recovering from what took place only moments ago, but there was an amused twinkle in his eye. She was taken back by his calm attitude especially since he nearly died moments ago. Zhao Meng shifted her gaze towards the weapon once again, and this time, Seulgi followed her eyes.

"This is the glaive Yù Fēng," he said, answering her silent question. Seulgi lifted the pole-arm off his shoulder and brought it in front of him for her to look at better. The Jade Wind, she thought while inspecting the weapon from pommel to blade.

"This weapon has been passed down my family for generations," Seulgi set the weapon down before him. "My great-great-grandfather was a renowned demon-slayer in our province. He took the lives of many so-called demons with this weapon as well as challenging one of the strongest demons of all."

Zhao Meng raised an eyebrow and gestured for him to continue. He uttered perhaps one of the most bone-chilling names to ever walk the earth, "Belefidas, a doomsayer."

"WHAT?!"

She stood up immediately, but did so too quickly and fell on her back with a loud thud. Belefidas was considered the king of demons in the east and to hear a story where a demon-slayer challenged him is almost too absurd to believe– almost as absurd to hear of demons in the first place. Then again we were fighting a ghost...While Zhao Meng rubbed her backside from her impact on the floor, Seulgi continued, "He described his fight with Belefidas as if he were fighting a maelstrom. Belefidas would taunt him and uses strong winds to try and blow my ancestor away. He failed to do so. This duel and game of wind would extend over weeks without end."