Qiu Yunru had never been the religious type.
His parents hadn't been either. Though they went sometimes to Buddhist temples a few times a year, they weren't devout and didn't pray, only keeping Buddha statues in their house for luck and seeing monks once in a while for blessings of wealth. Seeing this, Qiu Yunru had at developed an annoyance towards religion. Were gods only there to bless those who were already rich, and rain money down on some, but not others? What fickle gods, with heavy favorites!
As he grew older, his feelings changed. He met some people with different attitudes. For example, there was that Zheng Yu. In their senior year of high school, the two of them had spent a surprising amount of time together studying, seeing as they both were aiming to get into the same university. Sometimes, they spoke about gods and heaven.
"Even if there is no god," Zheng Yu had told him with a faint smile, "It brings me some peace to follow Buddhist tenets. In a world that's so confusing, is it so bad to have a path?"
"..." Wang Zhi had been awestruck at the time. "I guess not."
In the end, Wang Zhi decided he didn't believe in a god that had a human form and could hear his prayers. If there was one, they were either a cruel god who ignored him, or they weren't very powerful at all.
However, now that he was about to be burned alive in a volcano, things were different.
"Holy shit!" He hollered. His voice was ripped away by the wind rushing past as he fell. "All the gods in heaven, please fucking save me! Buddha? Laozi? Jesus? Come on!"
What a stupid fucking way to die. He wasn't even going to be able to be buried!
Just as the heat became so unbearable that Qiu Yunru's consciousness began to fade, and just a few seconds before he plunged into the bubbling lava, something happened.
It was as if an invisible string tied around his waist had been yanked on. His fall slowed rapidly to a stop, and then he was yanked up a few meters, swaying in the air like a puppet with its strings cut.
Though his mind was hazy and his eyes felt like they had become rice crackers due to the heat, he was still able to look up. There, hundreds of feet above him at the lip of the volcano, was a tiny figure.
There was no mistaking who it was--it was Liao Li.
There was a faint echoing noise. Liao Li seemed to be shouting something, but it was unintelligible from this distance, and so close to the stewing lava. Qiu Yunru's eyes darted around. How had he managed to stop the fall?
He saw it then: stretched thin between them was a thin line of spiritual qi. Somehow, Liao Li had managed to throw out a talisman that had stuck to Qiu Yunru's robe before the fall. Looking down, he saw that it clung to his shoulder, trembling from the weight of holding him up. At the top of the volcano, Liao Li must be holding the other end.
This was most certainly a simple Suspension Talisman. Liao Li, being an artist with exceptional calligraphy skills, often drew simple talismans and kept them on hand for convenience. This kind of Suspension Talisman was good for lifting heavy objects for a short period of time.
However, being a weak talisman, it most definitely wasn't strong enough to stop a falling objects from hundreds of feet above, and keep it suspended there.
An immense wave of guilt washed over Qiu Yunru's gut.
In that case, Liao Li must be sustaining and strengthening the talisman with an active flow of spiritual qi!
Even though it wasn't too taxing to use one's spiritual qi within a short enough distance, the string connecting them was hundreds of feet long. Sustaining such a length of qi was incredibly painful and difficult, even for seasoned cultivators.
If I don't do something right now, I'm really just a damsel in distress, letting him be in pain while I do nothing!
Quickly, Qiu Yunru fumbled with his alchemy bag, hands drenched in sweat. Bottles slipped through his fingers like sand. Didn't he store some sort of Lightness potion away? If he could just find it...!
YOU DARE DENY ME MY MEAL?
A deafening and sonorous voice boomed in Qiu Yunru's mind, causing his head to ring painfully.
At that moment, the entire volcano shook violently. Rocks crumbled and fell from its rim, and the lava below flared an icy blue.
In the rumbling, the string between Qiu Yunru and Liao Li snapped. Hundreds of feet above, Liao Li fell backwards, looking down at his empty hands.
Below, Qiu Yunru braced himself for death, closing his eyes. However, it never came.
He was...floating?
Despite the fact that he was no longer being held up, it seemed that the laws of physics had suspended themselves. Frozen in the air, Qiu Yunru realized that he was only able to blink, breathe, and sweat, as though time itself had been paused!
IMBECILE, that voice boomed once more in his mind, rattling his skull. YOU DENY ME MY SACRIFICE? PAH! DO YOU POSSESS AN OFFERING MORE ENTICING THAN YOUR SOUL?