Alex jolted awake, ignoring his pounding headache as best he could. The dazed confusion of post insight depletion was thankfully no longer an issue, though for an awful second he thought he heard the entire caravan break out in desperate panicked shouts and screams of alarm. He took a deep shuddering breath, only now recalling with a painful wince the words he had said aloud, causing Ya Ling to blush so fiercely, and glare so intently at him. Before lowering her head at elder Qing Wu’s too knowing chuckle, which had made it so much worse. Now he found himself sharing the impressive-sized bed once more with a snoring Qing Wu to his left, with a clever divider separating the other half of the divider which had both Reny and the girl who Alex was now morbidly certain would be giving him death glares for the rest of the trip.
He shook his head with a rueful sigh and lay his head back down on the surprisingly comfortable silk-covered pillow, ready to drift off back to sleep.
Before jolting fully awake with an urgent sense of alarm.
Because something was wrong.
He wasn’t quite sure what. The caravan had stopped for the night, and from what he vaguely recalled that they had already left the trade road in the hopes of making it to the oasis rift in the next couple of days.
He cracked a yawn and shook his head, still feeling exhausted and eager for nothing more than a good night’s rest after a long day of…
Sleeping?
He hissed a soft curse. Because with Rank 2 Bronze Vitality and after having slept for a good eight hours already, there was no way in hell he should be so tired.
And his sense of those screams.
Silent sounds that should have been echoing through the air.
But weren’t.
“Spirit Qi” he whispered to himself before gently nudging the man snoring a bit too loudly beside him.
“Elder Wu? Qing Wu!”
But the man was out cold.
“Reny? Ya Ling?”
Alex forced himself to pull away the divider, his heart lurching just a bit at seeing Ya Ling’s graceful form covered with nothing more than a half undone silk kimono.
He frowned, having mixed feelings about what he was going to do, but hesitated only a second before putting his finger across the girls full lips.
Biochemical Mastery successfully generates: Basic Stimulant.
Ya Ling cried out, before her voice was muffled by Alex’s hand. “Shh! I think we’re in trouble!” Alex hissed, only then lifting his hand.
Ya Ling glared, before her cheeks blushed shyly and she looked away, tightening her silken night kimono before jerking a nod, and gazing between Alex and the other two cultivators.
Alex shook his head. “I already tried to wake them up. A drop of Basic Stimulant is about the only potion my former master taught me, and if it didn’t jolt them awake… I’d be a fool risking their health, experimenting.”
Ya Ling nodded her understanding. “Alright. So you think maybe we got hit with another poison in the communal meal?” she said, even as she gracefully rolled free of the sleeping mat, tightened her kimono sash, wrapped up her hair in a pair of silver pins and redonned her jian sheath in the time it took her to say those words.
Alex couldn’t help but admire how quick and efficient she was, showcasing how Bronze tier Finesse allowed one to do so much and far more gracefully than a mortal in the time it would have taken them to stumble out of bed.
“Doubtful, since it isn’t effecting me, and my sense of things was that Reny was using her arts to make sure we never had to worry about tainted food again. Hopefully.”
Ya Ling’s brow furrowed. “So, we should get out there and do something.”
Alex nodded. “As discretely as possible.”
The girl before him flashed a confident smile, waving a graceful hand at the floorboards of all things. “Then it’s a good thing Reny has a floor hatch and that we are now truly surrounded by the desert’s boon.”
Alex nodded, happy to follow her lead when she darted past Reny’s alchemy station and a miniature jungle’s worth of carefully cultivated plants that did keep the wagon smelling of roses and woodlands, for all that they were in deep desert, before flipping over a rug to reveal a bolted hatch she pulled open without a sound. She paused to look his way. “Okay, you’re point man. If you see any trouble you think you can take on, I’ll help you flank them. If you retreat, so will I.”
Alex frowned, but before he could say anything further, a smiling Ya Ling flowed through the hatch.
Alex rugged his eyes, not quite certain if his friend had just moved that gracefully that she seemed to disappear… or if she had actually turned to sand.
“No point wasting time her,” he muttered to himself, making sure his own dao was secure before following in her wake, and closing the hatch behind him.
Stealth check made.
Qi Perception Check Successful!
Alex froze as he crept around the side of the massive wagon, giving his eyes a moment to adjust to the starry night sky as he strove to just be an extension of his environment. Much to his relief, he sensed no army of bandits or cutthroats lurking in what truly did seem a vast landscape of sand dunes with broken ledges of rock in the distance.
That was when he froze, sensing what he had missed the first time. No the flaring bright presences of Cultivators who had already affirmed their path in Bronze, or the brilliant potential of a Silver. Rather, what he felt was a distinct lack any strong presence at all. Lady Jidihu’s cold lessons of a lifetime ago flared brightly in his memory as he immediately began looking for the absent. Spaces in the spiritual energy rich environment where he felt curious lapses of any strong pressure at all. He frowned, sensing nothing at first. Until his eyes widened as he sensed inky man-shaped outlines, just a few dozen yards away. Fuzzy at first, they quickly snapped into clear focus, thanks to his lesser Shadow Qi affinity, and then he clearly spotted the small handful of men furtively approaching none other than Reny’s wagon as a distant figure plucked a haunting lulluby on his pipa whose siren call Alex had to fight even now to resist.
He glared at the distant figure, before flinching when he sensed the power not of a bard or gifted Bronze, but someone who had successfully ascended to Silver.
Alex felt his heart start to race as he gazed intently at the three would-be assassins readily approaching their wagon in particular.
Even now he could flee, he knew that. Or simply choose not to act. This life was his own, and the choices he made were his own. And whatever choice he made, he would have to live with the consequences for the rest of his life. Daring to grab the lion’s tail yet again, after all the scars he endured over constant lifetimes, was not a path he was looking forward to with any relish.
But the thought of the doe-eyed beauty who had looked so determined, thinking he wouldn’t sense her tremble when she volunteered to have his back and guard his flank… no. There was no way he was going to let a bunch of psychopathic assholes use her as a piece in whatever twisted games they were playing.
He had had enough of that himself to know just how horrific a fate that could be.
Yet he was only a shadow of what he once had been, and a trio of trained Bronze assassins was rapidly approaching, and Alex could smell the poison on their knives from here.
Which meant that he only had one choice as he scrunched up as small as he possibly could as the trio of killers, chuckling softly between themselves, approached the wagon and Alex did his best to ignore the furious pinch that was Ya Ling.
“Alex, what are you doing? They’re climbing the wagon! They’re going to kill...”
Find weakness Skillcheck made! (Not that it isn’t entirely obvious)
Strength Modified cleaving blow has successfully decapitated nearest assassin!
You have plunged your dao into the kidney of second assassin! You have slipped your blade underneath mail link shirt! Strength modified skillcheck pierces body-hardening cultivation technique!
Second Enemy assassin has been critically wounded!
You have lost your sword!
In the blink of an eye the dry desert sands drank in the spurting crimson blood of a headless corpse, crashing silently to the ground as a second man cried out and spasmed against the two and a half feet of steel which had just been rammed completely through his body, chain mail shirt bulging as the weapon was caught between armor and spasming flesh as the man writhed and died so violently that Alex’s dao jerked completely out of his hands, despite his Strength. He intuitively understood that forcing and wrenching it out at that point would have only mangled or snapped blade.
The third would-be assassin instantly turned Alex’s way, his features flashing from surprise to alarm, to furious disdain, hand on the hilt of his own dao before his eyes widened, lips parting in a comic ‘o’ of disbelief as two feet of exquisitely sharp double-edge steel blossomed from his throat as the whirlwind of sand behind him became a hot-eyed Ya Ling running him through with effortless ease. She then yanked her blade free of the collapsing would-be assassin’s throat before a swirl of sand washed off the blood and she resheathed her weapon with a practiced ease.
Only then she stumbled back, eyes widening, as if only in that moment recognizing that she had just doomed a man to a horrible death as their would-be assailant collapsed, feet kicking the ground as his fingers clawed at his own throat, desperately wheezing for air that would never come again.
“There’s one more!” Alex hissed, quickly grasping a stunned Ya Ling’s hand, jutting his finger at the dizi-playing Silver tier wujen, whose notes ended with a discordant twang.
Ya Ling whimpered at the degree of killing aura the humbly robed wujen was now radiating, as the arrogant cold eyes of a powerful cultivator glared into their own, too handsome features curving into a furious snarl. “You could have come peacefully with a minimum of deaths. You could have simply bowed your head to our master’s wishes, and avoided tragedy altogether! Instead you struck down three good men in cold blood. You will pay for the lives you took with the life of every fool who dared to shelter you, Lady Ya Ling!”
Ya Ling’s lips twisted in fury the equal of her terror. “Fu Lan. Why am I not surprised?”
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The man sneered. “And to think. You’re brother actually thought you’d make Lord Snarri a worthy third wife. It will be a shame when I have to report your tragic death in the desert sands!”
Even as he spoke, the man was pulling out a handful of talismans and Alex instinctively embraced that which he had only discovered the day before, hoping it would be enough even as Ya Ling shouted and cursed, so distracted by the man’s taunts, it was as if she could barely sense the danger.
Not until the wujen’s glare turned to a nasty sneer as he unleashed a trio of papers transforming to comets of ice and fire shrieking through the air right for them, separated only by swirling disk of brilliant Qi.
You have successfully summoned Prismatic Shield in record time!
Advanced Technique: Prismatic Shield has been struck by: Silver Tier Rank 3 Fireball!
Fire counters Wood completely! Fire has been countered by Water. Water is reinforced by full 8 element configuration!
Prismatic Shield has been struck by: Silver Tier Rank 1 Ice Spike!
Ice is Crystalline Half-Step between Metal/Water.
You have no prior experience countering Half-Step techniques!
Prismatic Shield enjoys partial success.
Ice spike lodges in Prismatic Shield!
Your forearm has taken one Light Wound.
Alex cried out as he stumbled back, knocked off balance as he strove to block the bone-jarring force of Silver Tier disciplines in a body that was only partly Bronze, using techniques that were the farthest thing from slipping past Qi.
Yet much to his awe and fierce vindication, his shield had done it! It had actually stopped Silver Tier killing techniques.
Or… partially, at least, he thought, now fighting against the pain of a spike through his wrist as he forced himself to MOVE! And take full advantage of the moment his opponent was gazing at him with wide-eyed disbelief.
“Impossible! You’re a Ruidian! No one who hasn’t ascended to Silver could hope to stand against me! And what technique could possibly allow you to deflect both Fire and Ice? My talismans have been the doom of more than one ascended who dared to think they were my equal!”
“Fool! Did you really think that the Wu’s were the only ones assisting me?” Ya Ling scoffed. “Your talismans are sub-par, bordering on pathetic! If you were actually worth anything as a scholar, you’d be teaching at Red Rock Academy, not serving as my brother’s lapdog!”
Alex, for his part, had begun racing forward the moment he had been struck, taking full advantage of Fu Lan’s momentary bemusement, Ya Ling instinctively acting as his wing-woman once more, doing her part to distract him while Alex’s churning legs took full advantage of Bronze Tier Strength and Vitality to push through the sands and propel himself at surprising speeds forward.
But the man he faced was no fool, and Alex’s brilliant swirling disk of multiple visible rings of spiritual energy was the farthest thing from subtle to the man stumbled back and hurtled yet another talisman Alex’s way even as he screamed curses at Ya Ling.
Alex’s eyes widened, hissing a curse as a massive bush of whipping spiky thorns blossomed into being before him.
Fu Lan’s panicked countenance turned to a mocking sneer as he spotted Alex’s look of dismay as the entire area around him became massive thorny shrubs.
“Fool! Do you truly think any one technique is the match of a talisman wielder? I’m the equivalent of half a dozen-- NO!!”
The man’s words abruptly broke off in wide-eyed stupefaction when Alex’s expression became one of fierce vindication. He didn’t parry the whipping tendrils with his shield, because he didn’t have to.
The forest, after all, knew its own.
Forest Flight skillcheck made!
You have successfully traversed: Miniature Sentient Viny Forest, as you choose to think of it, and as it now thinks of itself! You shall pass!
You have critically struck Enemy Wujen!
And before the shocked-looking wujen could howl another word in protest, Alex tore out his throat.
And he most definitely did not use any sealed off technique. He just understood the weakest link in a too thin latticeowrk of spiritual energy that looked near exactly like the one once used by the alchemist Lai Leng, who had been a lot more powerful than this fool, when Alex had been a lot weaker.
So it was nothing for Alex to use Water Qi to slip his hand past the weak latticework of spiritual energy, with stiffened, slightly cupped fingers, in a spearhand strike very like the one Jiang Li had first demonstrated for him, what now felt like a lifetime ago.
Congratulations! You have successfully unlocked the skill Forest Flight!
Forest Flight has been unlocked at Rank 5.
The Forest cares little for the games of gods and men and claims its own!
You have successfully evolved Enhanced Water Strike!
A successful skill-check will allow you to pierce defensive wards of Silver tier or below.
Enhanced Water Strike is now Rank 6!
Enhanced Water Strike is now infused with Metal Salts.
This is a natural extension of Water Strike and your own recollection of Jiang Li’s original ward-piercing techniques.
This is most definitely NOT an offshoot evolution of Black Swan striking technique.
Bronze Tier Strength means you have completely crushed your enemy’s throat and punctured it as well!
Imperfect mastery means you have strained several fingers.
Alex gazed down in chilled disbelief as he rubbed his now strained fingers. What he did… it had been instinct. Sheer instinct. He hadn’t meant to tread along forbidden ground. At least his Dantian hadn’t shifted. Not from that Water Strike at least, infused with salt water or no. He Flinched at the thought of straining the veil both sequestering his most powerful skills yet simultaneously protecting him utterly and absolutely from the howling, furious gods so desperately eager for his death.
It was a veil he was in no hurry to breach. Not under any circumstances. Not when he had been able to savor the sweet joy of having finally slipped free of their baleful gazed and endless vindictive manipulations for at least a few wonderful days.
Not when it meant that he could finally feel, perhaps for the first time, truly free.
He flinched when Yi Lang’s soft hand gently gripped his own, only now sensing the tremble in her form as they both gazed at the wild-eyed wujen, desperately clawing at his own ruined jugular as he writhed in extremis upon the desert stands before them.
Eyes filled with desperate pleading met their own.
And there was nothing they could do. Even if they had wanted to.
“If you fools hadn’t tried to ruin us, if poor Reny wasn’t staring at a crumbling foundation base, maybe we could have saved you!” Ya Ling criedout, before hiding her sobbing features against Alex’s chest, as Alex forced himself to stand silent witness to the dying man’s final moments, accept all his bitter sorrow and regrets, before his eyes grew glassy and he was still at last.
“Be at peace,” Alex whispered to the horrified ghostly child he sensed looking his way, as if at death itself, before darting for a river Alex most definitely neither sensed nor saw.
Because that former life was over.
Karma was his once more, and only now, free of desperation and a desperate unquenchable rage could he feel what an awful, awful burden it had been, to have so many souls, so many lives on his conscience.
He was free of all of that madness. Free of the eyes of gods, free of any terrible destiny that made his doom just a matter of time.
Later he would blame it on his desperate need to prove himself whole and intact when Ya Ling’s tearful eyes looked up into his own.
“Thank you, Alex. Just...”
No more words were said then, just a kiss. Sweet, hot, and passionate, with absolutely no strain to his Dantian at all.
Just a sudden surge of awful guilt when a beautiful dancer’s face became his world and he abruptly broke it off… but a sadly smiling Ya Ling had already stepped back.
“It’s okay, I understand,” she whispered, though the tears in her eyes made it clear that she didn’t, but before Alex could even formulate a word… she had already faded into the desert sands.
“Fuck!” Alex cursed softly to himself, before sighing and shaking his head at the former wujen. “Spoils of war, and all that,” he muttered to himself, doing what had arguably been his right since the first band of cutthroats had tried to kill them. He claimed what treasures there were, and there were more than a few, before solemnly wrapping the man up in his cloak and honoring the remains with a fiery sendoff, before burying the ash in the desert sands.
Only when he paid a moment’s respect for the life past did he pause to look over his spoils of battle. And how his eyes widened when he spotted a prize that would make life so much more convenient. A spiritual storage treasure at his beck and call once more. He hadn’t even needed Qi Perception or his Artificer skill to spot it. The contrast between the unusually plain-looking pouch and everything else worn by the man who had kitted himself in only the most well-tailored and high-end gear imaginable had been a dead giveaway.
Even if it was a storage pouch and not a ring. What he really cared about was that it had absolutely no identifying markers upon it, which he made certain of just as he checked the remaining prizes for any spiritual trackers, traps, or infernal links, and his admittedly impressive Artificer skill made it clear there were no such issues at all. At least, none that he could spot. And the jubilation Alex felt as he stored all his newly claimed prizes, including a complete set of talismans and a skill manual devoted to their construction, allowed him to distract himself from the grizzly duties he knew he had to claim as his own, while the wagon train continued to be lost in slumber.
Alex exchanged a look with Ya Ling after stripping the remaining assassins of their gear and consigning them all to the flame. Before his partner formed a massive pit in the sand as easily as Alex could grasp a handful of dirt. The sands under their bodies then shimmered and slid the corpses into the pit, before being completely covered, just seconds later. Far more convenient than the efforts he had expended on the murderous Silver, but he didn’t blame Ya Ling a bit for retreating after the most vital deed had been done.
“Gone as if they never were.” Ya Ling swallowed, forcing a haughty glare. “Good riddance.” Her gaze then turned solemn. “Thank you, Alex, for taking care of… you know. I just… I would have helped sooner, but I needed a moment to collect myself.”
He shook his head at her concerns. “Don’t worry about it. Are you okay?” Alex asked quietly.
Ya Ling glared at him. “I killed someone today, Alex. I trained for years. Embracing the sword like it was art. A living dance through which I could enhance my cultivation, Steel synergizing so perfectly with Sand, in ways a wooden spear shaft just can’t. At least not for me.” She swallowed and shook her head. “And today, I was reminded for the first time what it’s really for. What it’s really all about. What it’s always been about.”
“It was them or us, Ya Ling.”
“I know,” she whispered. “Just as I know I should feel no shame at having fought and survived, using whatever tools I have at my disposal. But still...”
Alex solemnly nodded. “I know.”
She peered thoughtfully at him, kohl-lined eyes gazing at him in a new light. “This isn’t the first time you’ve had to kill, is it?”
He smirked at that.
She flushed. “I mean, before you even came to our rescue, saving us from those bandits… who, I guess, were really just pawns of my brother.”
Alex gazed up at the stars for long, thoughtful moments.
“No, Ya Ling. This isn’t the first time I've been forced to fight for my life,” he said at last.
She stared thoughtfully at him. “How many?”
He flashed a sad smile. “I couldn’t tell you, even if I wanted to.”
She blinked. “That many?”
He shrugged. “Maybe. Or maybe I’m just a Ruidian who went too far in a family dispute, killed an uncle who had always despised me, and I can now never look back. Never go back. Not that I’d even want to. But by taking that one life, well, who knows how many lives might be lost as a direct result of that singular act, down the line?” He smirked. “Or maybe I’m a monster responsible for countless millions of deaths. Either way, there’s absolutely nothing I can do to change my past. Whether I reveled in it, or regret it with every fiber of my being. All I can do now is move forward, and hope for a future happier than my past.”
Ya Ling nodded. “That’s all any of us can do,” she said, before taking his hand and flashing him a warm smile. “Come on. If my ears aren’t mistaken, people are actually starting to wake up. And maybe this is one little adventure we’d be best off keeping to ourselves.”
Alex smirked at that. “I think you’re right,” he said, pretending there wasn’t any spark forming between them when they made their way back to their wagon, her arts and his own divine attire and biochemical mastery making sure they had no undue stain or scent by the time they had quietly settled back into their expected roles. Alex’s thoughts were racing as he processed all that had happened, the boons and discoveries he had made, and the prizes in his storage pouch that he would have to give a thorough going over sometime in the very near future. Such that when Qing Wu nudged him awake later that morning, handing him a fresh hunk of bread covered in cheese and olives, Alex was surprised to have found that he had actually drifted off to sleep at all.