Chapter 27: The Weeping Pillar
The Weeping Pillar wasn't a crag. It was a corpse.
A spire of porous black rock a thousand feet high, it oozed a constant, slow drizzle of briny water from countless fissures. Legends said it was the petrified tear duct of a fallen earth-god. The air here smelled of salt and old metal. At its base, a makeshift town of scavenged stone, patched tents, and rusted metal had grown like a fungus.
This was the edge of the Shattered Star Alliance.
No walls. No gates. Just a perimeter of sharpened stakes adorned with skulls—beast, human, and things in between. The law here was simple: look strong, or be used.
Feng's group drew stares as they entered the narrow, muddy lanes. Lin's vigilant poise marked her as a fighter. Kaelan's unnaturally solid sand-body drew curious glances. Lian, half-hidden in her own shadow, seemed to flicker at the edge of vision. But it was Feng who held the attention. He walked with the quiet gravity of deep water, his eyes holding a sorrow too old for his face.
They found the central clearing—a marketplace where the only currency was violence, utility, or secrets. People bartered with jagged spirit crystals, vials of mutagenic venom, maps to ruined vaults, and contracts for assassination.
A man with skin like cracked leather and a mechanical arm studied them from a stall selling desiccated monster hearts. "New flaws," he grunted to his neighbor. "One's got the deep-sadness. Rare."
Feng approached a stall run by a woman whose hair was made of live, blue flame. "We seek the Shattered Star Alliance."
She snorted, a small jet of fire escaping her nostril. "Everyone does. You bring tribute? A secret? A kill?"
"We bring a question," Feng said. "Where do the Flawed who wish not to hide, but to be used as weapons, go?"
The fire-haired woman's eyes narrowed. She looked past him, at his strange companions, then back at his sorrow-heavy gaze. "You want the Broken Blade chapter. They're always recruiting. But their audition is a death sentence."
"Where?"
"West. Three days into the Glass Plains. Look for the canyon that screams at noon. If you survive the whispers, you'll find their gate." She leaned forward, her heat washing over him. "But listen, deep-sadness. The Broken Blade doesn't want victims. They want monsters. They'll break you worse before they even consider you."
Feng nodded. A sect that broke the already broken. It sounded like a forge.
They bought what supplies they could with the last of their spirit stones—tough fungus-bread, bitter water-purifying roots, and a rough map scratched on a piece of hide. As they turned to leave, a figure blocked their path.
He was tall, wrapped in stained grey bandages from head to toe, with only a slit for his eyes. They glowed with a soft, amber light. His Qi felt like a sealed tomb.
"You carry a divine echo," the bandaged man said, his voice a dry whisper. "The Tear of the Forgotten. I am a Curator of the Silent Archive. Not an Enforcer. We collect stories, not specimens."
Feng's guard went up. "What do you want?"
"The memory of the Tear's shattering. The sensation. In exchange, I can tell you what the Broken Blade truly seeks."
Lian's shadow deepened. Lin's hand rested on her spear.
"Why would you have that?" Feng asked.
"The Archive listens to the world's wounds," the bandaged man whispered. "We knew the Tear would fall. We observed. We recorded the Enforcer's failure. But the moment of its shattering… was a spiritual blind spot. You were at the center. Your memory holds the truth."
Feng considered. A memory for a truth. He had consumed a thread of the Tear, but the memory of the event was his own. Could he give it away? Would it weaken him?
The god-sorrow within him seemed to ripple. It was a memory of loss. Perhaps sharing it would lighten the load.
"Show me the memory you want," Feng said.
The Curator extended a bandaged hand. A small, crystal lens appeared in his palm. "Touch it. Think of the moment the Tear shattered."
Feng placed a finger on the cold crystal. He closed his eyes, recalling the stone bowl, the silver drop, the stasis command hitting his back, the desperate pull of his hunger, the shocking cascade of silver grief…
The lens glowed, then dimmed. The Curator withdrew his hand, tucking the crystal away. "Accepted. Now, your payment."
He leaned closer, his amber eyes glowing brighter. "The Broken Blade does not seek soldiers. They seek a key. They guard a pit in the deepest part of their canyon—the Maw of the World. It is a wound in reality that spews forth raw, chaotic tribulation. They use it to temper their monsters. But it is growing unstable. It is beginning to whisper of something waking up deep below. They believe only a certain kind of flaw—a consuming flaw, one that can eat chaos itself—can descend into the Maw and… pacify it. Or consume what is waking. They are looking for a sacrifice with teeth."
He stepped back. "You are not a recruit. You are a proposed solution. Go with that knowledge."
The bandaged man turned and melted into the crowded market, leaving them with a chilling truth.
The Broken Blade didn't want to employ Feng. They wanted to feed him to a hole in the world.
Lin's face was grim. "It's a trap."
"Or an opportunity," Feng said, the storm-pride in him rising to meet the challenge. A Maw that spewed tribulation? It sounded like a kitchen. "They see a sacrifice. I see a buffet."
Kaelan's sandy form shifted uneasily. "A wound in reality… my sands remember tales of such things. They are often… mouths."
Lian's shadow trembled. "Hungry mouths."
Feng looked west, towards the Glass Plains. The god-sorrow inside him lay still and cold, but beneath it, his original hunger—sharp, pragmatic, and relentless—stirred.
He had been running from those who wanted to erase him. Now he would walk towards those who wanted to use him. The game was the same. Only the table had changed.
"Three days," he said. "To the canyon that screams."
They left the Weeping Pillar behind, its eternal saline drizzle feeling like the world's quiet weeping for what was to come. Feng carried a new weight now: not just sorrow, but the foreknowledge of a planned betrayal.
He would enter the den of the Broken Blade not as a supplicant, but as a guest who had already seen the menu.
And he was very, very hungry.