After the Lunar Valley cultivators had come to take Gyuvin back to Sunshower City, life at the Peak had returned to normalcy. Hyunjae had ordered for the Moonrise Palace cultivators to assist in restoring the wards around the Peak the night Gyuvin left, and from the next day onwards Ricky was told his new partner for the rest of the duration of the camp would be Matthew.
The pairing was strange. Matthew, trained under Dewspring Estate, was not an offensive fighter, and neither was Ricky. Dewspring Estate’s specialty was endurance, to have a strong enough spiritual core to outlast their opponent in a fight, to have the stamina to play their opponent till they were completely exhausted. Ricky’s own fighting style was primarily defensive, too, and they spent an oddly significant amount of their sparring time waiting for the other to strike first. Plus, he was afraid to hit Matthew’s spirit fox Kumi, which always stuck close to him during training. But they got along fine; they were relatively evenly matched because neither of them had a holy weapon, and he saw Matthew often after hours because he came over every now and then to drink with Jiwoong.
Jiwoong started inviting him along for meals and drinks and games and trips down the Peak, now that Gyuvin was gone. Ricky had always habitually declined most invitations unless Zhanghao was going and bothered to knock on his door to pester him about coming along too, but those were rare as of late. He hadn’t seen much of Zhanghao in the recent weeks at all. He supposed Zhanghao was dealing with his grief over Hanbin’s death in his own way, and Ricky had never been the best with other people’s emotions, so he steered clear and gave Zhanghao all the space he needed to work through everything at his own pace.
Besides, Jiwoong had a holy weapon and used it frequently. There was no reason to put himself through any additional suffering.
He didn’t fully understand every facet of his illness, but the symptoms that presented themselves the most frequently, and the most damagingly, were those that flared up in the presence of holy weapons. He’d asked Yookyung about it long ago, why he felt like his chest was constricting every time he was in the proximity of someone wielding a holy weapon. It was a much rarer occurrence back at Moonrise Palace where holy weapons were uncommon, but at the Peak there were significantly more people who had them, significantly more people he had to steer clear of. It was why he’d reacted so strongly to Gyuvin’s polearm the first time, and why he’d been wary every time after; Gyuvin had an unusually strong spiritual core, and when he summoned his weapon, the heavenly aura that radiated off him was no better than shoving poison straight down Ricky’s throat. It hurt him even after training, because a holy weapon’s aura lingered on its master even after it was dismissed and the longer it was used, the stronger the aura would be, like a fog hanging around Gyuvin that threatened to suffocate him from the inside out.
He knew Yookyung had tried to get him paired with someone who didn’t have a holy weapon, so that he wouldn’t have to spend most of the day in pain, but even he didn’t have the final word. As such, the best Ricky could do was to take more of the panacea, grit his teeth and endure it, and leave Gyuvin’s vicinity the second training ended, so as not to prolong his own suffering. He’d gotten somewhat accustomed to Zhanghao and Yujin’s holy weapon auras because of the amount of time they’d spent together back home, and he wasn’t close enough to Jiwoong that his aura could have much detrimental effect. It was just bad luck that he’d ended up paired with what seemed to be the one person who made his condition worse.
That day, on the day of the siege when he awoke to the sound of demons engulfing the Peak grounds, he’d known his own spiritual power wasn’t suppressed. He’d asked Yookyung about it afterwards, when he awoke in the infirmary. Yookyung hadn’t had a comprehensive answer. Something to do with your condition, he’d said, stop talking and rest. When the suppression array had lifted and everyone regained the use of their spiritual powers, the combined effect of so many holy weapons summoned and used to their full capacity at the same time had almost killed him. He was so lightheaded he felt like he was floating, but even as he was using up the last of his breaths he could only think of checking on Gyuvin, because he knew channeling too much spiritual power could kill, and Gyuvin had never used so much at once in his life.
Ricky had collapsed very soon after. He’d never been exposed to such a high degree that he’d bled from anywhere other than his nose before, and as he felt blood begin to bubble up in his throat, spilling out of his eyes so his field of vision turned crimson, he’d been terrified that he was going to die. But Yookyung had come for him just in time, scooped him up and carried him to the infirmary, and force fed him so much of his nasty medicinal concoction that he’d pulled through. Ricky was grateful, of course, but he’d always secretly wondered if Yookyung made his medicines taste so terrible on purpose. Couldn’t he put some sugar into it, or some honey at least?
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