I stormed into the bar. This time the bouncer just let me through. There were only so many curly haired men in the capitol. Safe to say, I stood out.

I could tell that he wanted to say something.

He raised a hand but then he realized that I was looking mad so probably it was not the best time. He might be an idiot but he was not dumb.

There were still dumb demonic cultivators somewhere. I just hadn't found them all yet. It reminded me of Voldemorts rant to Harry about how inbred the wizard community was- all sycophants and nepo babies.

Once I got to the smart ones, then the real work would start.

Lee was still talking to the enforcers and now I decided to see if I could butt into their dance.

"So that is why we prefer to train unarmed at the end of a training session," the darker of the two men said as I arrived.

He gave me a cursory glance.

"Who are you?" He said.

"Joe Pidge," I said. "I'm friends with-"

"Moon Lee," she butted it. "They were just telling me about their cultivation style and how they work themselves to exhaustion with weapons, then do hand to hand to simulate being disarmed."

I nodded. The bartender who had completely clocked me returning gave me the sign for another and I nodded. I almost gave him a thumbs up but I wasn't interested in his flavor. I just wanted to calm my nerves.

"What Mei and I were saying, is that we think that this will provide a good idea for newcomers to get a sense of how we work," the darker one said.

"No one cares what you can do fresh, right?" I said.

"Write that down," Mei, the lighter one said.

Was it bad that I couldn't really tell them apart? Otherwise? They are both men both with long luscious locks of black hair. They were both talking to Lee at the bar. I got a feeling that they were close enough to be related, but also far enough apart to be on a different tanning schedule. Maybe one of them did their training at night?

Mei laughed.

"This one would be an excellent addition to to group," he said, carefully not saying the word that I thought he would say.

"I'll spar you right now if you're interested," I said.

Honestly the whole thing had me going. Here. They were acting like they were big shots in a place where you needed to be strong to survive. And then there were doing the most unspeakable thing to all these people.

It was gross.

I wanted to punch them through a wall. Scratch that. I wanted to punch them through a mountain. After seeing what I saw last time? Nothing will be enough for them. Their only value at this point in time was that they knew things that I needed to know and that I could only get while they were alive.

I wouldn't give for the ability to speak to the dead and have them tell me only the truth. That would make my goddamn day. If I could just get the questions answered the way that I wanted them to be answered without all the subterfuge? Then it would be great. But I knew that I couldn't wait. I needed to identify as many cells I could. The emperor himself would want to know this was in his city, right underneath his courts nose.

That was probably where the brass was. Doing some court appointed function. I couldn't find them because they were working for the state. I was thinking that they had the version of the CIA plans for how to corrupt an organization and take it over. All those steps to make them less effective.

If that was so? Well played.

I expected nothing less from an enemy like this. If I was one of them? I would try to inventory the government too. I would fake my cultivation. What I wouldn't do is what these two idiots did and challenge an unknown cultivator to a match.

"That has a sound of a challenge. We like challenges here," the other one said.

Mei raised a hand lifting three fingers up starting from his pinky. In short, order a older bald monk in an orange and green robe came by.

"Does the young Master wish to challenge one of these two men?" He said.

I couldn't get a read on his power level. Baldness here usually meant that they had made a specific choice to be bald. That or they had some criminality in their past. This man looked like he was over all my bullshit already.

This was my kind of guy.

It was very doubtful that he had a membership in the sect unless he was a very high-level cultivator and adept at hiding his abilities.

"To be frank," I said. "I don't think that either of these men pose me a challenge, but if it's a formal duel then are we allowed to bid on the outcome?"

"Oh, you're one of those," Mei said. "In that case, I'll need a second referee."

A second monk appeared shortly after and apparently this was a common thing place bets on matches. There was even a small court where people could duel that they cleared out in the center. Honestly, given the type of sect that ran this place, I was surprised that it wasn't more of a fighting pit or Arena. Maybe this drew more of a crowd? And there was more deniability if people didn't show up the next time because of all the reasons I thought of before.

In short order, I had an ironclad contract of a fight to surrender or unconsciousness with Mei. Apparently my request to fight both of them once was summarily denied. That was when things got interesting.

The monks together were at most second realm, however, they had an ability that let them block off areas around the arena.

One of the monks made a showing of letting people know that there would be a little tussle. The second one began taking bets. As I was an untested, The odds were terrible on my side. But I wasn't here for that.

I was trying to get a spectacle going. I was the distraction.

In the back of the club, Egiya was working her magic. I hadn't even noticed her come in and she was betting on me and taking bets and apparently I was about to come into a lot of money if I was able to beat this guy fair and square.

That make me happy.

Was it fucked up that one of my people was betting on me? Against someone's whose hours were numbered?

I tried not to think about the implication of that and instead stretched. I was warm from all the moving around. As I got into the ring, I discarded the notion that I would immediately defeat the poor guy. I would have to make it appear like a fair fight.

It was improv class all over again.

My opponent was taking off his blouse and of course he was ripped. He had several scars that had to have been from fights to the death.

In less than a minute the fight was on. We got a brief synopsis of the rules. No fighting dirty, all that stuff just went in one ear and out the other.

In fact, when I got into the first first pose of my old Tai chi form, he was doing some kickboxing warmup.

The man was ready. He charged at me, or at least that's how it felt. He just kept stepping forward awkwardly and maybe he was trying to end this in a slow manner because of whatever bet he made. I closed the distance as well. It was exactly when we got to front kick distance that he decided to start drawing a kick or two.

The first was a faint and I could see it coming. Instead of black and I stepped out of the way. He readjusted stands to face me. He was the inside of the circle as I slowly moved around him. Then he tried another kick. This one, once again had no power behind it.

"Is that all you are going to do? Circle around me?" He said.

Stolen story; please report.

"Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee."

His telegraphing needed work. He pushed off from his rear foot to jump into an actual attack. Which vital account could have done, leaving the ground for a second to try and deliver a haymaker. Now in this moment I could have done many things. I could have stepped out of the way. I could have taken it and pretended it actually hurt. I could have countered.

I carefully thought about a response as I fell onto my back, catching him in the chest with my foot and flinging him backwards. He skidded a few times.

"Is that how you got your scars?" I said.

"How did you do that? That had to have been luck."

He spat out a mixture of equal parts, blood spit and beer. I wondered if he had fangs. He definitely didn't glow in the sunlight. He was probably one of those energy vampires that just took the life out of you by telling you boring shit.

This time, he waited for me to close the distance. It was only about five paces. I carefully kept my neutral stance as I moved up one foot at a time.

Both my hands were empty and ready to react. The crowd was going nuts. If I had the aikido throw his ass several times just to make my point, I would. At the same time, those blue coats needed to figure out if our first Target was actually demonic cultivator and then come in and do their fucking job. I'm not playing around with this.

If I had to be the one to kill them all, I would be so pissed. I would fucking do it but I would be pissed as hell. And these mother fuckers would hear about it every goddamn day.

"Make my day."

If I had to kill women to do this shit? So be it.

They wanted the war? I didn't think so. But they were about to get one. They made it inevitable.

He stepped up again and tried a jab. He was awful at telegraphing his moves. This. Let me Dodge easily and cop up to empty palm his midsection. I didn't even put that much force behind it. But he was shaking. I knew at that point that he was trying to determine my cultivation level. And I also knew that I'd shut them down with Bernice in the Soul. So not only did he not know my level, he didn't know how far apart we were. And if he had any sense, he would have realized at that point in time that I was hiding my actual cultivation level because I was so far above him. One second of the realm called The Vader could probably take four or five first level. Cultivators. But on fourth level cultivator right? Like me at that point in time? I could probably take 20 second while cultivators. And this is if they got close enough for me too. Actually do some damage. Chances were they could keep up. And the other thing was that I had a group of people very interested in my survival which meant that they weren't just facing me, they were facing my squad.

He pressed his luck. I batted away several jabs. At this point in time, egiya gave me the signal. I had spent enough time circling around him to realize that she had been in contact with flucoats and it was go time for them. That meant that I could quickly wrap this s*** up. Unfortunately for this guy, his time was definitely up. Rather than meeting him at his level, I began to inexibly move faster on the counter attack. Whenever you would attack I would block and all I want to block. I would block harder than his attack would have been. I pushed through his guard and got into his space and pummeled his chest several times. He was strong enough to withstand some of this but after about 2 minutes not being able to land anything, It appeared that he understood what was about to happen .

Because the counter attacks were so much more fun, I began to make them hurt. I could tell by his face that this was not going the way that he thought it was going to go.

I've played along for a little bit longer as he pumped more of his qi into his muscles. He must have thought that I was doing the same. Honestly? This was nothing compared to what the moon clan put me through time after time.

I was going to have to thank them profusely next time I saw them.

Another haymaker and I found the opening I needed. I could see several blue coats and their normal garb.

I could see several blue coats and their normal garb entering and taking up positions.

It was time.

"I'm sorry to say this, but this is a raid," I said.

"What?" He said, trying to punch you in my face. I tucked away, and before you could break his arm back, I intercon did it to his back. And all the sudden, he was staying on his tippy toes trying to not right arm be broken by me holding it up and...

"I yield!" He said, shrieking as my wrist lock got him.

"Good," I said.

The announcer ended the ring and the impenetrable temporary walls came down. I still held them there in that position, I held up the other hand, as the man tried to twist out of it. But his arms are not strong enough to do so. They were strong enough that I knew that any break would have to really take its time to heal.

As such, I prepared him for the next part of his life.

"I'm not sorry about this."

I said one of the callers onto his neck with my other hand. Instantly the man shrunk and the hold that I had on his wrist popped his elbow out. I almost felt bad.

I could see Egiya at the bets and generally smiling and having a good time. Lee was standing next to the other enforcer, whose entire demeanor looked like he was about to take revenge on me.

I smiled, trying to give him the idea that I was happy to be here. Which of course I was happy to be done with him. And when the blue coats came in to arrest the man for being part of an illegal fighting ring, he just went with them. That left his friend who's following the blue coats and as he walked out, I went to place to collar on him as well.

He looked shocked.

Honestly, I was just as shocked as he was. As the blue coats LED those two men away, I began to scan them crowd again . The bouncer and his buddy were not exactly within my line of sight. I ran out of those cultivation collars but I was pretty sure that one of them was going to figure out something. Fish was going on. The two enforcers were probably known by the bouncers. If not, they had more problems than I could probably deal with by myself. Jae, all wanted to see as the two men left for the blue coats. The entire crowd was just buzzing. Though they potted to see you what was happening, it was clear that all eyes were on the two. Lee came over to me and began to check me over for any blood or anything. I was happy to say that I was basically unharmed.

That match up had heavily favored me mostly because I had more information than they did. Now, the blue robes here would be able to figure out why they were able to work out in the open. Clearly something was going on. If this was so blatantly what they were doing. And that was when men got back to me. I could sense her distress.

"Min found something," I said.

"Let's go," Lee said.

My two biggest fans followed me from close distance as we went to the back of the club.

There were several doors going either further inwards or further after one side or the other, I could sense. Been trying to get me to open one of them. The door far to the right looked like it was locked.

"Anyone want to open that door?" I said.

That was when the bouncers finally got up to us. The interior bouncer came up and gave me a glare.

"Hey, you can't go back there," He said. "That's for staff only."

"Son, you and I both know what's actually back there. If you weren't so dumb you would be out of this district already. Unfortunately for you, your life is about to be a lot of pain."

"What the hell are you-" he said.

I elbowed him in the stomach, hard. He crumpled to the floor.

"He's one of them?" Lee said.

"And his partner out front," I said.

"I'll take care of this. Let me get one of the guys," Lee said.

Behind me, there was even more commotion as people realized that the bouncer had been knocked unconscious. I didn't much care for the man, but he was getting in the way so he had to go.

Let the emperor kill him himself. I had places to be.

On second luck, the door looked like it didn't actually open without key. This was another time that I was glad that I had all this physical strengths. S. I also had a very good formations person. And she just so happened to be done counting money.

"I'm not going to ask how much we made," I said as Egiya approached, "But can you check if there are any formations on this door?"

I took old girl about a minute to assess the situation and pop the door. Shouldn't you have to do much, as she did some voodoo magic with three of the formation.

And then, I retched.

"Not this all over again," I said, weakly. About three blue robe officers were milling about the downed bouncer.

Egiya grabbed their attention.

"Guys, if there's a hospital or something nearby, we're going to need them right now. We're going to need a lot of help. Safe to say that this is not going to be pretty."

There's a smell that a dead body has. There's a scent that lingers in a room where someone has died and stuck around for a while. That faint smell, with the addition of my nice and soul reached out and touched the interior of this hallway as it slowly sloped downward. I knew what I was going to find. I didn't know if I could handle it. I just knew that I couldn't subject the girls to the skin. But the back of my mind, I had to know. I had safe for myself and I had to save some of them if I could. If I could put some of them into a coma and let them sleep, that might help me feel something. It wouldn't be better. Almost nothing I could do would make me feel better.

Well, almost destroying that bouncer made me feel great. That was for about five seconds and then I felt empty again. In the grand scheme of things I really didn't want to have to do it myself. But there was no one else. It's not like someone trades you to be a professional rescuer of vampire victims. These demonic cultivators were going to eat these people up and use them as living pills or pill furnaces before they killed them for power.

It was only a two or three minute walk before we got to a scene similar to the one that had haunted my nightmares. Humans. Chained humans lined the wall and I was having one of it. I was honestly expecting This to all be a cruel joke. But it wasn't. Just like the last time, they had them down there like human chattel.

Several people at the front were blind or looked ready to be harvested. I could tell that there had to be a lot of demonic cultivators based on the amount of people they kept for them. It didn't make any sense to me. It's not like they were actual vampires. It didn't need to feed on live humans that regularly. They just turned these people into key inside of the bodies so they could fill up there. And then I realized what they were actually doing.

They were turning humans into qi.

They suck the energy out of these people to turn them into the kind of techniques that I saw that man use against me. For a second, I realized that he might have spent someone else's life energy to try to make a point.

That was when the girls led me away.

It was too terrible for me to do anything. I needed to not be there at that moment and they came in clutch.

We left the same way that we came in.