A sharp kick to the ribs woke Lu Chang. The pouring rain beat down upon him and a low groan escaped him as he slowly regained his faculties. He noticed immediately manacles made of some unknown black metal shackled his hands together. A collar of the same metal adorned his neck, and both the shackles and collar were linked to someone in front and behind him by lengths of chain.
The man in front of him had apparently been the one to kick him. He loomed over Lu Chang with a sympathetic expression, holding out his shackled hands to help Lu Chang up.
“It’s about time you woke up, lad. I don’t think I could have carried you any longer.”
Lu Chang looked around, still confused.
“Carried? Where are we?”
The man motioned vaguely around them. Lu Chang looked around and saw that they were in a long column of similarly shackled people. On either side and ahead of them was the group of cultivators who’d invaded Hundred Fragrance City. In the light of morning, Lu Chang could get a better look at them, though the rain made it more difficult.
They all wore similar garb, red tunics and pants covered with gold decorations. Most likely a uniform of some sort. The sense of familiarity filled Lu Chang once again, but he still could not remember where he’d seen them. He turned and asked the man in front of him who they were. The man spat in disgust.
“Slavers, from the Asura Empire. That’s where we’re headed now, to be sold like chattel.”
Realization dawned on Lu Chang. That was where he’d recognized the uniforms from: the Asura Empire bordered their Sacred Empire to the west, and had always been a bit of a bogeyman story for the young children of their city.
The Asura Empire was an empire built on the backs of slave labor. The custom spread to every facet of their culture. Slave gladiators fought in arenas for their entertainment. Slaves built their cities, and worked their fields. To be caught by Asuran slavers was a fate worse than death in some cases. One thing didn’t quite make sense to Lu Chang, though.
“But we aren’t at war with the Asurans, how could they invade us like this? Won’t there be repercussions?”
The other man laughed grimly at him.
“Ha! You think the empire will kick up a ruckus over our small border city? Don’t hold your breath. Given the choice of going to war with the Asurans or brushing this under the rug, they’ll choose the latter every time. The current emperor is a pushover, nothing like his father. We lose territory to the Asurans and the Boreals up north every year.”
Before they could speak any further, the crack of a whip was heard, and the column of enslaved cultivators started to trudge forward.
The slavers were a cruel bunch, free with their punishment toward anything they felt unsightly. Looking anywhere but at the ground or the back of the person in front of you would likely earn a lashing. The same went for talking, or the circulation of any spiritual energy.
The slavers couldn’t actually sense the circulation of the captives’ energy. All of the enslaved cultivators from Hundred Fragrance City were at the meridian opening realm, and the emanations from such a person cycling their energy were nearly undetectable. The slavers didn’t seem to care, though, using it as an excuse to beat anyone they wanted to.
The only ones who could reign in the slavers were the two leaders, the ones they called ‘Legate.’ The Legates wore blood-red armor, only differentiated by the gold helmet that one of them wore, and inspired fear in both slave and slaver alike. They stalked up and down the line of slaves like bloody phantoms, overseeing the process.
The slavers compelled them to walk deep into the evening, only stopping hours after the sun had waned.The rain had never let up, and they were all soaked to the bone. They were allowed to rest where they sat, and were given small bits of water and bread. Lu Chang ate what little they were given ravenously, starved from the long march through the rain.
It was at this time that the events of the last day really sunk in for Lu Chang. He wept for his mother. He wept for Old Man Zhao and his butler, for Sage Liu, for Wei Bolin, and for Li Feng, who he could not find in the long column of slaves. The other slaves around him pretended not to hear his weeping.
After he’d cried all he could, Lu Chang felt more like himself. The numbness that had set in since the fighting last night faded away, leaving him with a multitude of feelings. Foremost among them was hatred for the slavers, then worry for Li Feng and sadness for the dead.
Lu Chang started to meditate to calm his mind, immersing himself in the feeling of the rain on his skin and the wind swirling around them. He keenly felt the weight of the Wind-Chasing Steps scroll secreted away in his robes. The slavers must have been lax in their search of each captive. The scroll was an anchor for Lu Chang to hold on to a piece of his past, and he was thankful to have it.
He cultivated his modified Piercing Gale Incantation and could feel the bottleneck obstructing him from opening his seventh meridian loosening. Within a week he would be able to open it. He was drawn from his meditation when a loud conversation started between one of the slavers and the gold-helmed legate.
“Legate, sir. We’ve done the accounting, and we’ve captured 1346 meridian opening cultivators.”
The reporting slaver seemed both excited and nervous to Lu Chang, as if he were awaiting either punishment or reward. The legate stared balefully at the slaver, then spoke with a refined voice that contrasted his fearsome appearance.
“Our contract is only for 1200. You all know that. I suppose you’re wanting to indulge yourselves again?”
The slaver hesitantly nodded.
“Yes sir, if you don’t mind, sir.”
The legate waved him off.
“Do what you will, but we’d better still have 1200 slaves when we arrive, or you’ll be making up the difference personally.”
The man excitedly bowed to the legate.
“Of course, sir! Don’t worry. We won’t go overboard again.”
The excited slavers buzzed around the resting slaves like an overturned anthill, picking a few people that caught their fancy for whatever purpose they intended. Eventually one walked by where Lu Chang sat resting, a sigh of relief escaping him as the slaver passed him with no trouble. Suddenly the man stopped and turned around to stare straight at Lu Chang.
Lu Chang could recognize that particular face anywhere. It was the one-eyed man who’d killed his mother. Clearly the man recognized him as well; his good eye widened and a vicious grin grew on his face. Lu Chang clenched his fists and grit his teeth in hatred as he glared at the man stalking towards him.
“Oho? Found you, kid. Y’know, I thought you might be good sport for our little game when we caught you, and now here you are. It’s like the heavens agree with me, don’t you think?”
Lu Chang said nothing in response, continuing to glare at the man. The one eyed slaver sighed, as if he was about to scold a misbehaving child.
“Now don’t be that way. You weren’t going to amount to anything in that tiny city anyway. You’re much better off toiling for the Asura Empire you know?”
Lu Chang spat at the man just as a breeze blew from behind, carrying the spit straight into the man’s good eye.
“Aargh!”
The man staggered backwards, hands on his eye as he yelped in pain. After a moment he stomped back over and Lu Chang could see that the eye was now red and inflamed, leaking blood. Lu Chang smiled mirthlessly, infuriating the slaver who viciously backhanded him in retaliation.
Before Lu Chang could recover, the man unchained him and drug him by the hair through the mud toward where his fellows were gathering the few slaves they’d picked out.
Lu Chang was unceremoniously thrown on the ground next to a pile of similarly treated slaves. He caught his breath and stood up. The dozen or so of them had been dragged a distance away from the long marching column. Some of the company of slavers had started to surround them, though keeping back a certain distance. He could see several other such circles forming up and down the column, each with a group of slaves in the middle.
Lu Chang ignored the taunting grins and coarse jeering coming from the crowd of slavers as he frowned. What could they want with the dozen or so slaves? Were they to be killed as extras? He noticed one of the men going around collecting coin; were they betting on something? An unsettling thought hung heavily on him, and Lu Chang hoped he was mistaken.
Just as the other enslaved cultivators in his circle started to panic, the one-eyed slaver stepped forward with a small bundle of weapons in hand. Lu Chang stared at him hatefully, but the man merely leered tauntingly at him, then turned and addressed the group of slaves.
“Congratulations, scum!”
He said with a truly demented grin, confusing the enslaved cultivators.
“You’ve graduated from being basic, slave scum to being slave scum that have the honor, no, the privilege of entertaining us with a bit of gladiator combat.”
The crowd of slavers roared in approval at his words. As the cheers died down, the one-eyed man threw the bundle of weapons at them: a couple rusty daggers, a sword broken nearly in half, and a small saber so chipped and pitted it resembled a saw more than a weapon.
A few of them caught the weapons and they all looked at each other questioningly, unwilling to fight. Lu Chang paid them little heed, still glaring at the one-eyed man.
“Come on now. Either you fight now, or we kill you all. Simple, really. The winner gets to go back with the rest and live out the rest of his smelly slave life.”
There was a moment of shocked silence, then Lu Chang felt a murderous wind behind him. He spun around and saw one of the men with a dagger had stabbed it right through another’s neck. The crowd of slavers cheered at the spray of blood.
Lu Chang gaped at him. He knew this man, a blacksmith that lived near his parents. The man looked a shell of his former self, bloodshot eyes wide with fear. The one he’d stabbed was his partner. The rest of the slaves began to fight in earnest as the man stared at the dagger in his hand as if seeing it for the first time, then looked up at Lu Chang numbly.
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“Sorry, boy, but you heard them. It’s kill or be killed. And I’m not dying here!”
The numbness wore off, the man becoming more and more crazed as he spoke. He leapt at Lu Chang in his fury, rusty dagger outstretched. Lu Chang kept away as best he could, loath to hurt someone he knew.
The enslaved cultivators fought frenziedly in the circle of mud and blood churned up by the combat. These men, who’d battled side by side only a day before, savaged each other for the chance to live given by their captors. It was a gruesome sight. One that Lu Chang could hardly bear witnessing.
Lu Chang had been trying to evade the crazed blacksmith, but his unwillingness to hurt the man meant he’d suffered a few injuries. A wide swing from the man made Lu Chang dodge backwards desperately. Only, his footing was not stable, and Lu Chang slipped on the mire of bloody mud, falling on his back.
The berserk man loomed over Lu Chang with his dagger held up high to finish him off, his face twisted into a rictus of self-loathing. In that moment Lu Chang felt his hand touch something sharp, the broken-off tip of a sword, only a few inches long. He instinctively grabbed it and thrust it upward.
It pierced the man’s chest before he could swing the dagger. Both he and Lu Chang looked at the small sword tip in surprise. The rusty dagger dropped to the muck from nerveless hands. The blacksmith fell to his knees and looked at Lu Chang, lucid again.
“I just wanted to live.”
Lu Chang watched him, almost transfixed, as the blacksmith crawled towards the man he’d stabbed right at the beginning. He expired before he could make it, however, his arm outstretched to reach for him.
Lu Chang stood up slowly, gathering the dagger that had fallen into the mud and firming his will to fight. He had no desire to kill his countrymen, but he didn’t want to die before finding Li Feng and avenging his mother. It was a selfish desire, but Lu Chang had never professed to be selfless.
He gripped the dagger tightly, facing the wild melee of the other enslaved cultivators. There were only about half of the original dozen left, and the fighting was savage. Lu Chang picked off the most wounded of them cautiously, one by one.
The storm seemed to help him as the heavy wind allowed Lu Chang to utilize his Wind-Chasing Steps to their fullest potential. He was a ghost in the storm, riding the wind around the battle and striking when it was least expected.
Eventually there were no more to kill; Lu Chang stood amidst the bodies of his countrymen, spattered with blood. The crowd of slavers cheered fiercely at the bloodsport. The one-eyed man stepped forward again.
“Well done! I knew you’d be a natural at this when we found you.”
He congratulated Lu Chang, who felt a strong urge to spit in his eye again. After his jovial declaration the man’s good eye narrowed at Lu Chang.
“Now, drop the dagger so I can chain you back up.”
Lu Chang hesitated. Realistically he knew he’d never be able to escape right now. The exhaustion of the battle and the long march earlier left him nowhere near fresh, and escaping hundreds of slavers with no more than a rusty dagger was ludicrous. He was loath to give in regardless, though. With a great sigh he did drop the dagger and held out his hands.
“Atta boy. We’ll make a proper slave of you yet.”
This time Lu Chang did not hold back his impulse and spit in the man’s eye again. The pain of the punishment was well worth the trade.
The rechained Lu Chang was led back to his spot in the slave column. His neighbors now gave him wary looks, though. It was understandable to Lu Chang, but it still hurt. Lu Chang slept as much as he was able, meditating when he could not.
The march began anew at dawn. The slaver’s impatience to get them moving saw their small breakfast of bread and water consumed on the move. The trek was grueling again, but Lu Chang quickly figured out how to do a sort of walking meditation. The Piercing Gale Incantation made no mention of stillness in its requirements, which made sense to Lu Chang, as the wind was never stagnant.
That evening, Lu Chang was taken again to participate in the slavers’ bloodsport, though there were only a few circles this time. Instead of a group battle, Lu Chang and another man were pitted against each other.
He knew this man too, a mercenary that often worked with his father.
Lu Chang killed this man too, to the wild cheers of the slavers.
This pattern continued for many days, grueling marches during the day and cruel pit-fighting in the evening. Each night killing his own people took its toll on Lu Chang. He felt the pangs of guilt and self-loathing less and less each time. His neighbors in the column looked at him like a savage beast, and Lu Chang could not refute them.
Even the slavers seemed uncomfortable in his presence, as if he were a wild animal that could turn on them at any moment. The one-eyed man was always enthused to see Lu Chang fight, though, treating him almost like his own personal gladiator.
The daily meditation and the nightly battle had tempered Lu Chang. He’d opened his seventh meridian a few days ago during their march. His martial arts had become even more refined as well. As a ‘reward’ for earning them so much money on bets, one of the slavers had given Lu Chang a scroll for a neutral element battle skill.
It was nothing impressive, the kind of thing that was easily found even in Hundred Fragrance City. Lu Chang didn’t turn it down, though. Anything that could improve his chances of living was worth it.
The battle skill itself was unnamed, colloquially called Explosive Step. It allowed the user to explosively release spiritual energy from their feet and use the recoil to spring forward. It was quite wasteful on spiritual energy and hard on the body if used too much, but useful nonetheless. Lu Chang had learned it easily and incorporated it into his martial arts.
A few days later, word spread through the column that they would reach their destination in another day, a city in the Asura Empire. Supposedly they were to be sold there. The information didn’t mean much to Lu Chang. Any chance at escape would have to come after he’d been sold.
That evening Lu Chang was retrieved for the pit-fighting as usual. With their destination so close, though, the slavers had apparently decided to condense the rest of the fights into one night. Lu Chang was pit against the other successful pit fighters one after another, barely any rest in between battles.
After his seventh battle, Lu Chang was given a moment of respite as the one-eyed man addressed the crowd of slavers. The disparate fighting circles had slowly condensed into each other as they ran out of slave-fighters, this being the last one remaining.
“Well brothers, we’ve had our fun yet again. Tomorrow we’ll reach the Painted City and get our pay.”
Cheers rang out at that statement.
“We do have one last fight before the night is over, though. Only two of our new gladiators are left. It’d be a shame if they didn’t get to fight. Throw them in!”
At the end of his speech the one-eyed man turned a knowing gaze on Lu Chang, one that he didn’t understand. Lu Chang was given a dagger and pushed into the makeshift arena by the clamoring slavers. He looked across at his opponent and froze at the sight.
Li Feng stood on the other side of the circle. Lu Chang drank in the sight of him; he was covered in wounds, some barely healed, and a large scar went through his left eye. Lu Chang’s hatred of the slavers reached new heights as his eyes traced every wound present on Li Feng.
The crowd of jeering slavers melted away as the two of them stared at each other, Li Feng seemingly as surprised to see him as Lu Chang was. A soft laugh spilled from Li Feng as he smiled grimly at Lu Chang.
“It’s good to see you.”
Lu Chang returned the smile.
“You too. You look like shit.”
Li Feng coughed violently, and spat out a bloody mess of sputum.
“Don’t I know it. Not all of us can prance around everything you know?”
They both laughed at the jab. The crowd started to boo at this point, eager for blood to be spilled. Lu Chang looked disdainfully around at the slavers before turning back to Li Feng.
“I won’t fight you. They can’t make me. But perhaps if we make a good show of it they’ll let us both live.”
What little cheer there was at their reunion fled Li Feng’s face, settling into a somber look.
“No, no they won’t. You know as well as I do.”
They’d approached the center of the circle at this point, only a few feet away from each other, and Lu Chang longed to reach out and embrace his friend, and then to shake some sense into him.
“What else can we do?! I’ll not hurt you!”
Lu Chang yelled at the larger boy. Li Feng was calm, though, just grinning at Lu Chang.
“I really am glad to see you Lu Chang. You’ve been my best friend as long as I can remember.”
Li Feng dropped the small club the slavers had provided him and walked closer to Lu Chang.
“Live, Lu Chang, but don’t forget me.”
“What are you talking about Li Feng?”
Quicker than he could react in his confusion, Li Feng grabbed Lu Chang’s hand holding the dagger and stabbed it into his own chest. Blood splashed out onto Lu Chang who was frozen in denial. A shout of despair tore its way from him.
“No! Li Feng! Why? We could have done something else..”
Li Feng slumped against him and reached out a hand to Lu Chang’s face.
“I know you, Lu Chang. You would have us fight. We might even make it partway out, but in the end we would die. It would be a worthy death, but death all the same, and I cannot bear that.”
Li Feng coughed up another mouthful of blood.
“Forgive me my selfishness this time.”
Lu Chang laid him on the ground, doing everything he could to prolong Li Feng’s life, but there was nothing he could do. The dagger had pierced through his heart, tearing it into pieces.
“There’s nothing to forgive, Li Feng.”
Li Feng smiled then, rivulets of blood dripping from the corner of his mouth.
“I’m glad. Lu Chang, I-”
He would never know what Li Feng was going to say, as at that moment a small spike of earth flew from the crowd and buried itself in Li Feng’s throat, cutting off his last words. An enraged Lu Chang stood up and whirled around to see whose technique it was, leaking more bloodlust than he ever had. He saw the one-eyed man with a few more of the spikes hovering on his palm, and a sadistic smile on his face.
“Sorry, but I never was a fan of those tragic plays they put on in the city. I can’t help but want to cut them short, you know?”
Lu Chang screamed then, a dark thing, full of hatred and despair. Clenching the dagger still stained with the lifeblood of Li Feng, he charged at the crowd. The only thought he had was to kill the one-eyed man in the most painful way possible.
Slavers stepped up from all sides to stop him from reaching the man. Lu Chang sliced his way through them, leaving more than a few dead or maimed in his wake. His berserker-like charge left him open to wounds in return, though, and they started to pile up.
The sight of the leering one-eyed man spurred him on, but eventually he could not make it any closer. There were too many of the slavers to hold him back. He was brought, kneeling, to the feet of the one-eyed man. The man looked at him curiously, as one might look at a particularly interesting insect.
“Tsk tsk. All those days of being a good, docile slave and you decide to act up now, when we can’t kill you? Shameful.”
Lu Chang was so beaten and bruised he couldn’t even summon the energy to glare at the man, as much as he wanted to. The man leaned down and cradled Lu Chang’s face almost gently.
“Spit in my face again, slave. What else do you have to lose at this point?”
He whispered in Lu Chang’s ear, then turned to walk away, cackling all the while.
Lu Chang sat there, numb to the world. The surrounding slavers, incensed by Lu Chang’s earlier actions, started to beat him. The last thought he had as consciousness fled was a burning hatred, stoked to an inferno, for the one-eyed man.
Lu Chang woke that morning after Li Feng’s death, bruised and wounded all over. The sky was grey, a light misty rain falling upon the group. The marching started as soon as day broke. Usually Lu Chang would meditate during this time, but now his thoughts were in disarray.
He let the barest touch of the wind guide him forward as he brooded. He cursed Li Feng’s foolishness, but in the end had to admit that he was right. There had never been an option where they both survived. He wished he’d had Li Feng’s foresight, and could have swapped places.
Li Feng would have been much more suited for this situation. His endless well of motivation and observant nature would have seen him escape easily later on. Lu Chang felt he himself had already died along with his mother and Li Feng.
He did have one purpose, though. Lu Chang looked forward where he could see the barest hints of the one-eyed man’s back. He would have his revenge on the man, even if it took the rest of his life. For Li Feng, for his mother, and for himself.
Renewed determination filled him with vigor, and he dove into meditation with a fervor unknown to him before, thoughts filled with vengeance.