It was just before dawn when I smelled the smoke. Iron. Blood. Fire. Men laughing. I was instantly fully awake, and dressed before I could think about it. Kaoru was a little slower, but that ended when she realized the monastery was under attack.
Li broke open the door just as we’d gotten ready.
“I… no… I never meant for this…”
I held him steady, and tried to get the boy to speak coherently.
“My brother. Expert Gin. He… he told the Tortoise King about you. This is his army.”
I nodded, and signalled Kaoru to follow me as quietly as possible. Even if we weren’t so close to term, I doubt it would have been a good idea to do anything but try and run. I could sense experts everywhere, even a few masters.
And one presence, gloating and malevolent, that dwarfed all of them like a black hole.
We did encounter a few Adepts here and there, but Kaoru and I handled them easily. There was little reason to hold back… and no reason to leave them alive. Mistress Song’s words on killing were still in my mind, but this was so far removed from simple cultivation lessons… why would people be so senseless in their actions?
We’d managed to get out of the monastery’s main building before it collapsed, but only just. The heat and force knocked me to the ground, and Kaoru was sent flying. I didn’t have any time to check on her though before I felt that overwhelming presence again. Right above me.
The Tortoise King floated in the air. Clearly, this was the only way he could possibly move, as ridiculously fat as he was. He was completely bald, his eyes dark and his smile cruel and vicious. His black robes draped over him like a silken tent, but did nothing to flatter his appearance or hide his grotesquerie.
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Instantly, I could see him for what he was. An overfed child with too much power and too little discipline. And I was powerless before him, even as I saw something horrible in his hand.
Mistress Song’s head, fully detached from her body. A look of defiance still on it, but all life gone.
“Well, slut. This is your own fault for teaching beasts the ways of men. But I knew you’d slip eventually. A pity you didn’t live long enough to see your precious animals die.”
His eyes met mine, and he landed on my belly with impossible force. I was dead instantly.
Or at least, I would have been, had Kaoru not managed a minor miracle. Her talent for seeming was exceptional, and this evil child was predisposed to only seeing what he wanted to see. So he saw me die, most horribly and messily, several feet away from where I’d actually been. He’d seen Kaoru’s corpse, battered and broken where she’d been flung clear of the monastery’s ruins, a half-burnt timber impaled obscenely through her middle. He didn’t see Li at all, for all the boy wasn’t in our illusions.
All my poor student could do was stare in shock, utterly dumbfounded. Everything he’d previously known about his world perverted by the realities of those who’d fabricated those “truths.”
The Tortoise King laughed, reveling in the horrors and slaughter as he ordered his men to sow salt on the monastery grounds. As they did so, he settled himself into an ornate and massive throne, clearly designed so that he could travel comfortably on the backs of others.
I almost wondered if he was always so decadent and spoiled, but ultimately decided it didn’t matter. What mattered was circulating my qi into the ground beneath me, keeping the actual amount in my body so low as to be ignored.
I almost didn’t have to bother. The Tortoise King saw what he wanted to see, did what he wanted to do, gloated a few more times to the corpses of our friends and fellow cultivators, and left with his army, Expert Gin sneering and spitting on my Mistress one last time as we were abandoned for carrion.