Chapter 7: Echoes of the Protectors
Mingye didn't breathe.
He couldn't.
His lungs felt frozen, suspended somewhere between disbelief and terror as four translucent beasts closed in around him.
The tortoise loomed like a mountain, its ancient shell cracked with age yet pulsing with quiet power. The water dragon floated in a lazy coil, every scale shimmering like ripples on a moonlit lake. The enormous frog blinked bulging emerald eyes, its throat swelling with an echoing croak. And the Vermillion Bird—her feathers aflame with soft fire—hovered above him, wings stretching wide enough to cover the ruins.
His mind blanked.
He knew he should run, or scream, or at least swallow, but every instinct in his body had abandoned him.
He knew one of the beasts had spoken, but he had suddenly forgotten which one.
It was Monkey's voice that broke through the haze.
"Are you going to faint again? I'm not sure I can wait patiently for you to wake up if you do," he said calmly.
Mingye snapped his head toward him, eyes still wide and trembling. Monkey simply shook his head and sighed.
Then, raising his voice, Monkey addressed the four beings.
"All right, all right. Can the four of you stop scaring him and use your human forms? Give the boy some space before he wets himself."
The dragon snorted. "If he's scared of us, then he wouldn't survive in this world."
"Use your human forms," Monkey repeated.
The Vermillion Bird gave an elegant flip of her flaming tail, smoke curling behind her.
"Do we have to?" she complained. "I spent years practicing in case a human appeared, and now you want me in a different form?"
The tortoise grumbled something too low to hear, and the frog just croaked resentfully.
But despite their protests, they obeyed.
Their bodies unraveled into ribbons of shimmering energy that contracted until four human shapes stood before Mingye—translucent still, but undeniably people.
The tortoise became a hunched old man dressed in simple, ancient robes, leaning on a cane shaped like a miniature mountain. He stared at Mingye with half-lidded eyes.
The frog became a round-bellied man with drooping cheeks and earlobes so long they brushed his chin.
The Vermillion Bird became a tall, striking woman with long legs, flowing red hair, and delicate features far too beautiful to stare at directly. Flames flickered at her fingertips when she spoke.
And the water dragon…
He became a lean man with long blue hair, eyes sharp like blades, and an aura that felt like standing on the edge of a frozen river—the kind that looked calm on the surface but hid a fierce undertow.
Mingye gawked.
He turned slowly—very slowly—toward Monkey, who now looked oddly proud of himself.
Monkey cleared his throat and stepped forward as if presenting a group of very difficult children.
"All right, Mingye. These are your trainers."
Mingye blinked.
Several times.
Hard.
"Trainers…?"
Monkey nodded solemnly.
"Yes. Trainers. They will be training you."
Mingye stared at the four beasts now in human form, then back at Monkey.
"Why are they…" He hesitated. "…translucent?"
Monkey froze.
His eyes widened. The other four turned sharply toward Mingye, surprise flashing across their faces.
The Vermillion Bird woman arched a slender eyebrow. "You've never seen anything like us?"
Mingye shook his head—almost violently. "No!"
The frog squinted at him. "What kind of rock did you crawl out from…?"
"Stop." Monkey cut him off sharply. "Not everyone is familiar with this, so stop taunting the boy."
"You wanted to know what this mountain was, right?" Monkey asked Mingye.
Mingye swallowed and nodded. He had no idea how that related to why these people were translucent, but he didn't say anything.
Monkey pointed around them—at the broken walkways covered in moss, the ruined archways eaten by time, and the faint remnants of power that lingered in the air like old incense.
"This," Monkey said, "is the Elemental Void Mountain."
He gestured at the four translucent figures behind him.
"And these are the last remnants of its protectors."
Mingye's breath hitched. "What… are they dead?"
Monkey folded his arms. "Yes. Their physical bodies died long ago. What you're seeing is shén niàn."
"Spiritual will," Mingye muttered.
The tortoise tapped the ground with his cane. "Our duty is this mountain. Even if our bodies have turned to dust, we remain."
The Vermillion Bird smoothed her flaming hair.
"It would be rude to abandon our home simply because we died."
The frog snorted.
"I only stayed so you idiots wouldn't break anything."
The dragon said nothing, but his silence carried weight.
Mingye struggled to understand.
"How… how long have you all been here?"
"A very long time," Monkey said simply. "But that's none of your business. You are here to train."
"I never said I was going to train him," the dragon told Monkey.
The Vermillion Bird rolled her eyes. "Did any of us tell Monkey that we were going to train him? He just sprung this on us and I do not like it."
Mingye watched them as they all argued.
He didn't have time to play with beasts.
He didn't have the time to waste with them.
He turned to Monkey.
"Exactly why did you bring me here? They don't even want to train me," he pointed out.
"But they will," Monkey assured him. "They are just behaving this way because they want me to beg."
"And beg you will," the tortoise said, hitting Monkey with his cane.
Monkey scowled at him and jumped onto his back.
Mingye stared at them with a frown.
He didn't come here for a circus show.
If these people could train him, then he would beg them.
He knelt down and lowered his head to the stone floor.
"Please, train me. I'll do anything to get stronger," he said.
Monkey and the tortoise turned to Mingye in surprise. The tortoise tried to pry Monkey from his back, but Monkey scrambled onto his head instead.
"Well… if he's begging like this, we can't say no, right?" the frog asked, rubbing a hand over his belly.
"Stand up, boy," the dragon said to Mingye. "What is your name?"
"My name is Lingxu Mingye."