Amidst the roars, he hears the child in arms cry in pain and surprise from being crushed, but he can do nothing as the force from his back goes from pressing him to the ground to sucking him back to the village. He puts his weight below him and sticks to the ground as best as he can. He turns his head to the side, where, from the corner of his eyes and from the leaves of grass and dust flying around them, he sees the old couple’s family doing the same, their mouths moving in silent prayer to all the gods they know and ask for mercy. Or he thinks that was what they were doing, as he couldn't hear anything from the winds lashing about around them.  

He curls his body to look behind him and see, where the village was, a gigantic wall of wind circling furiously. He sees tiny figures in the wind, roofs, posts, trees and some human-shaped figures being tossed high into the sky and fall far,far away. No living thing will be surviving that, either after being carried by the howling winds to receive a thousand slashes by debris or from the fall.

Some distance behind them, he notices the people who halfheartedly follow them being ripped away from the ground and into the maelstrom. The winds drag at their feet and their mouths are opened wide in a soundless scream while their fingers dug into the dirt, leaving trails behind them. To no avail. Their whole body rises and flies into the windwall where they disappear. He screws his eyes shut;  he can do nothing for them; it takes a lot of strength to keep his own body down. He joins the family in calling the names of the gods, terrified that the great wind will come for him. He calls the gods’ names over and over again, in times uncountable, until his throat feels hoarse. Then the force pressing on his body finally lessens. He pokes his head out and sees the wind moving farther away from them. He keeps praying and clinging to the ground, until the great wind looks tiny in the horizon before he sits up. 

He looks around him.

He can not recognize their location. There’s no familiar sights to him; everything looks like hell on earth. There were no trees standing that he can see  for miles; no houses where there had been. Debris is planted all over the land. No sign is left that a village was there at all.

He hears sobbing behind him so he turns to look.  The people who followed him are crying out loud for each other and for their neighbors; no one is exempt. Their clothes and hair are disheveled; bits of grass and stones are sticking in their hair and their faces were dusty. The tears falling from their eyes makes mud trails on their faces, joining the snot that drips out their noses. 

Yijun feels pain on his chest and he hears whimpering below him. He pries the child’s fingers off his chest but the child's grip hardens further. Yijun tugs at the child’s hand to relieve the soreness on his chest, but this only makes the child on his arms cry louder. He gives up; the child’s grip is less important.

“We need to move. Leave the area,” Yijun croaks at the family. “It may not be over yet.” He stands up with difficulty; his legs were so weak he trembles like a newborn horse.

Their bleary eyes stare at him in despair then they get up on unsteady feet. Yijun leads them higher up and they shuffle after him like a zombie horde.

They reach the top of the hill then Yijun snaps awake when he realizes where he has led them.

The dragon looks down at them blankly as Yijun curses himself internally. Of all places they could go, he just has to lead them to the god who tried to kill them earlier?

He hears gasps behind them as the people see the dragon too.

“An immortal!” they gasp and he hears shuffling. They must be kneeling right now behind his back. “O Lord Venerable, hear our plea. Please help us-”

“That’s the flood dragon,” Yijun interrupts.

The villagers immediately goes silent. He feels their stares on him like knives digging on his back,asking silently why he has led them here back into danger. Then the pleas turns into begging for mercy. Cold sweat rolls down Yijun’s back. He has just called the dragon a flood dragon to his face. Such disrespect! Flood dragons aren’t really dragons; they’re fake dragons. They look similar to dragons, but they only have two front legs and no hind legs. They’re a type of Enlightened Water Snakes that causes floods, not comparable at all to dragons who are known to be mostly benevolent and far more powerful. Enlightened Beasts are particular about being addressed properly and to mistake them for another is a sure path to being ripped into shreds.

It’s just that he had no time to explain to the villagers and he wasn’t really sure how to explain it to them as he also doesn’t fully understand the dragon’s motives. Humans have the idea that dragons favor them but he just learned recently that dragons do not care at all for them. All their prayers and offerings are useless; their relationship isn’t remotely comparable to patron deities. And there’s the fact that this dragon is extremely not benevolent to humans not at all accurate to the humans’ image of dragons.

Yijun’s throat goes dry and his eyes remain unblinking as he waits for the dragon’s judgement. The dragon allowed him the chance to save some of the people he wanted to kill but Yijun just had the nerve to show him the failure of his spell. It feels like an torturous eternity looking at the dragon’s face for his reaction.

Yet for all his worrying, the dragon only continue to look emotionless at the people kowtowing in front of him. He watches silently as they bang their heads repeatedly on the ground and after a moment, turns away. 

He apparently does not care about their pleas or what Yijun has done and said.

Yijun takes a moment to gather his wits about him. The dragon is truly dangerous; his whole body is screaming to get out from his vicinity. Yet he knows the dragon might attack another village and those people will have no one to warn them. Every bone of his body trembles at the dangerous aura the dragon emits but the anger of having no one warn his own village and family burns hotter in his chest. He is extremely terrified, but he steels his spine to do the right thing. He hands the child on his arms off to someone and starts walking to follow the dragon.

“Wait, you’re with him?”

He turns to see a man who is not a member of Old Wu’s family. His face is red from rage and his eyes swollen from grief; he must have followed the Wu family but because they were dawdling behind, he lost some of his relatives when the storm hit.

Yijun can only gawk at him. He is not exactly a follower of the dragon as the man accuses him to be, but he did beg to follow the dragon.

Before he can explain, the man shoots forward and grabs his shirt. “You two caused all this? My parents died because of you! How can you make up for that, Huh?!”

Yijun allows him to beat him and shake him, understanding his pain. Filial piety is the most important duty of a child; the man must be feeling shame as well as grief for not prioritizing their survival. If their roles are reversed, he will be shaking him too.

Before Yijun can comfort him, warm blood splashes on his face. The man’s eyes widens in shock, mirroring his expression. Blood gushes in spurts out his exploded torso. He stares at Yijun with a shocked expression as his final emotion then slides off him to the ground.

Yijun looks behind him and sees the dragon looking back at them with a thin lip and crumpled brows.

Behind him, a woman shrieks and runs toward the fallen body. She must be the man’s sister or wife; and her shrieks go shriller and louder when she sees the caved in torso. Her eyes grows wide staring at the body on the ground and She can not stop screaming even though she has her hands raised to cover her mouth. She could not control her panic; her only thought was the horror in front of her.

Then her head goes flying and her shrieks stop.

Mrs. Wu starts to scream at the bloody sight but she puts her fist in her mouth as her knees buckled, so her scream comes out strangled. The rest also falls on their knees and kowtows repeatedly, begging for mercy, while blood spurts like fountain from the woman’s neck, rapidly making a red pool around it.

The dragon gave them a sweeping glance and turns away to continue walking. Yijun feels coldness penetrate deep his bones, a cold that fire will not burn away. Sweat rolls down his face and his mouth feels dry as he stares at the dragon’s retreating back. He forces his head to turn and look at the people behind him.

They look the same as him, pale and shivering. Their gaze is on the dragon with a begging expression.  But when they see him looking back at him, they give him an accusing stare.

Yijun shivers from their stare and with halting steps, forces his quivering legs forward. He tries to ignore the stifled cries of the people behind him as he follows the dragon. He has no choice but to follow the ruthless god though he fears him just as much as the villagers. If he stayed, the villagers might use him to vent their anger and fear.

The dragon perhaps does not mind him saving some of his targets, but he do mind when they are being noisy about it.