The Weight of the World

The dust from the explosion is still settling, particles of stone and debris drifting like ash through the shattered town square. Through this haze, a figure emerges.

She walks through the dust storm.

No armour. No divine weapons.

Just her—thin arms, herb-stained sleeves, hair still neatly tied in two simple braids.

But the Yaoguais don’t slow. From the cloud, several Black Husk Soldiers frantically rush toward Peach and the girl.

“Watch out!” Peach warns, and readies her gauntlet again—barely functional, its power flickering like a dying ember.

The girl startles. She backs away, flailing her arm—the instinctive motion of someone fending off a swarm of insects. Her arm goes straight through their carapace, sending the shadowy troops into the air. The Husks that charged at her splatter into hundreds of pieces like broken pottery smashing on the ground. They evaporate into the air.

Peach blinks. What just happened? Her gauntlet, barely functional and now completely unnecessary.

Then, the Rock Guai’s howl blows through the dust cloud. It sees the girl and Peach, and charges forward impatiently on all its limbs like a raging ape. Each stomp sends tremors through the town, each movement forward gaining more speed and brute force.

“Get out of its way!” Peach’s voice cuts through the chaos.

But the girl doesn’t have time to react. She turns to look at the mountainous beast crashing toward her. Standing stunned, she crosses her arms to cover her face.

The Rock Guai charges right before her and sweeps its heavy palm—

BOOM! CRACK! CRACK! CRACK!

Its arm crumbles like shattering rocks.

She doesn’t move. Not an inch.

The Rock Guai crashes into her—like an ox cart hitting an immovable alloy pole—and its giant body impossibly hurls and splinters, flinging into the air like a flying mountain soaring over the girl and Peach.

Peach’s bewildered stare follows the Rock Guai. The giant eventually crash lands and tumbles into the scattered remains of its fallen crony—the one that had swallowed the farm girls before its belly burst open—its arm completely shattered.

“Um… okay?” Peach stares, mouth agape.

The Rock Guai remains tenacious. With its remaining arm, it reaches into the fallen crony’s lifeless rocky pile and rips out a pulsing violet runestone. It roars. Crushes the runestone within its fist. Begins to drink the glowing ooze.

Violet motifs flow down the Rock Guai’s body like veins. The rocks from the fallen crony start to magically rearrange and attach. It regains its arm. Within moments, gains two more.

“This one’s managed to refine itself…” Peach gasps.

With regained vigour, the Rock Guai—bright, molten fissures and steaming joints, power burning through its four arms—stomps toward the farm girl. Its steps grow steadier, each one intensifying with killing instinct.

The farm girl turns, takes a deep breath, and walks slowly to meet the smoldering giant.

“Wait… what are you doing–” Peach reaches out to the farm girl.

Within the Rock Guai’s reach, it roars and launches all of its four fists to crush the girl.

CRASH! CRASH!

Two of the giant fists crack on impact.

She reaches her hands forward, drives her fingers into its two fists.

Stone explodes outward in a thunderclap of bursting shards and dust.

Peach instinctively leaps in front of the other unconscious girl to shield her from the raining debris.

The Rock Guai’s torso starts to buckle. Its runes flicker wildly.

The farm girl doesn’t hesitate this time. She pushes forward, the Rock Guai’s legs go limp, it lets out a moan of panic as its giant pile gets pushed further and further away from the town square. She keeps pushing faster, and faster, until they burst through the town gates.

The girl then starts to tear into the Rock Guai. Her hands dig through the boulders like a child playing in sand, spreading the rocks open with ease. The molten rocks and hot steam appear to have no effect on her—a golden glow, like a veil all over her body, shields her as she digs into the burning hot boulders.

She eventually finds the violet runestone in the centre. She grabs onto the heavy glowing stone that’s as tall as her, and crushes it with her two bare hands pushing together. The runestone cracks, crumbles, violet ooze bursts and melts the ground, and then quickly hisses as it loses its final glow. The Rock Guai, that was pulsing with burning power, now completely lifeless like an ordinary pile of boulders.

The farm girl lifts up the runestone, now an empty shell of rocks, and throws it away from the town.

It flies.

Not fell—flies.

Over the rice paddies.

Over the hills.

It keeps flying.

And vanishes into the distant hills with a fading crash.

She gently exhales once. Just once.

Then turns back to Peach.

Her face is flushed, but not from effort—more like embarrassment. She brushes some dust off her sleeve.

“I…I am terribly sorry,” the farm girl finally speaks, softly. “I, umm, I should get home. My parents will be worried. Could I trouble you to look after Ailin for me, please?”

And she walks off.

Just like that.

Peach is still kneeling in the dirt, Ailin unconscious in her arms, mouth halfway open.

There are no words.

Not in any language Peach knows.

The silence after she leaves feels louder to Peach than the battle.

No more roars. No more thunderous footsteps.

Just smoke, broken wood, and the soft weeping of wind through a shattered town.

Peach shakes her head and blinks down at Ailin, her face smudged with ash, a streak of dried blood across her temple.

She carries her—gently, carefully—back toward what was left of the herb shed.

Another girl has been hiding behind the cracked stone oven with two children.

Peach passes the unconscious Ailin into their arms. They whisper back to Peach with tearful thanks.

Dazed from the battle and how it strangely ended, Peach does the only thing she instinctively still knows to do.

And runs after the farm girl.