For all that the man tried for a friendly smile, Alex got the definite vibe that if the Silver Giant had encountered a pair of low class servants in the way of his obvious noble ward, he wouldn’t have hesitated to throw them both right into the basin.
Alex cleared his throat. “Forgiveness...” He took a deep breath, the following words coming out in a rush. “But we just survived the very delve your thinking of taking on only by the skin of our teeth. It’s relief just to be alive, not… impropriety that guides us.”
This earned a snort from the giant, a cold glare from the pair of cultivators that were obviously wujen, and a curious look from the young mistress among them.
The giant was about to speak, far more forcefully than before, Alex sensed, yet a casual wave of lacquered fingernails instantly stilled him.
“Is that so?” The girl offered an exquisite smile, inviting confidence, and Alex pretended Linnea hadn’t just stomped his foot.
Alex bowed his head. “I’m afraid it is.”
The noblewoman frowned thoughtfully. “And here were were informed by our hosts that this was indeed the safest delve of the entire caldera.”
“Oh it is, my lady, I assure you!” Said the fourth member of her entourage, now glaring daggers at Alex and Linnea. “Regrettably I don’t know what’s gotten into our Ruidian guest’s heads… certainly they know better than to dare a delve without proper support, including strong body cultivators and at least one wujen to round out the party. No doubt foolish young flights of fancy and youth’s passion got the best of them and only now do they realize the folly of seeking to escape notice in a rift, of all places.”
The man’s smirk was condescending, if not actually cruel, yet the Silver giant and the female wujen were all but sneering in satisfaction at that answer.
Even the young mistress was wearing the half-smile of someone who had already solved a puzzle only to find an intriguing mystery had the most tawdry and base origins, as head been suspected all along.
Alex couldn’t quite hold back a sigh, not caring about the handful of glares this earned him, thoughtthankfully not from the girl who clearly led this ill-thought expedition, whose life he was now dead-set on saving.
“If this one were to reveal a secret… may I trust that it will be kept in confidence?”
He chose his words carefully. Respectfully. Not daring to tie a noble to any sort of Cultivator’s Oath, that being something that clearly was just not done here. Still, he was relieved to see her nod unreservedly, no matter the glares this earned him from the others.
“That this silly fool of a boy would even dare to presume…!”
The girl didn’t bother waving her hand, her furrowed brow was enough to instantly muffle her attentive guardians, clearly exquisitely attuned to her every mood and gesture.
Alex had to admit it, he was more than a little bit impressed.
Yet her displeased frown immediately softened into a professional dip of her head for Alex’s benefit. “You have my word that your secret will be kept in confidence, so long as such does not threaten the welfare of the school, valley, or our party, of course. So please, share what tidbits or advice you have for the Sunlay clan and earn our gratitude for your trouble.”
Alex took a steadying breath, forcing himself to reveal what he had done his best to keep hidden, lest unseen jackals appear out of the woodwork to claim his treasures for themselves, under artifice, pretext, attempted intimidation… or outright murder.
It was grim thoughts of such, including the glares of the four Silvers before him, that stilled his hand for long moments… but it was worry for the young heiress of the Sunlay clan before him that finally coaxed him to reveal his prize. A massive Shadow Puma’s skull, locked in a furious eternal snarl, that he pulled free from the slimmest of belt pouches.
The Silver Giant cursed in alarm. “That thing’s as big as a desert tiger!”
“He pulled it from his belt pouch,” hissed the nearest wujen, glaring at Alex as if he had committed some crime. “Did you see? That Ruidian boy possesses a cultivator’s belt pouch!” She glared as if the offense upon Alex’s person was far more significant than the massive skull he held.
Fortunately the girl and the second wujen were not so short-sighted.
The girls’ eyes widened as the male wujen blanched.
“That’s a Shadow Puma, my lady. They’re among the most deadly of ambush predators to be found in any Rift! Very few have ever been caught or… dealt with, but the features are unmistakable.”
“As is the Shadow Qi radiating from the head,” the girl said with some asperity, before turning to the other scowling wujen. “And yes, the boy is wearing a cultivator’s storage vessel, which should tell you all that you need to know.”
The wujen frowned, before her eyes widened. “And you think… my lady, how could it be? He’s clearly a Ruidian male, younger even than the girl before us!”
Linnea pouted at that. “I’m twenty two, and hardly a little girl!”
Alex gently squeezed her hand. “It’s alright...”
She immediately bowed her head. “Sorry, husband.”
Surprisingly, this earned an indulgent smile. “Then you’re a credit to your family, for rarely is anyone gifted with such flawless skin without a cultivator’s personal refinement tempering their body and soul.”
Alex blinked at those words, before abruptly recalling what other secrets had been revealed in the rifts, having momentarily taken for granted Linnea’s pristine flawless beauty that had been revealed when he had claimed every last trace of excess waste from her crystalline matrix. Of course, it didn’t hurt that she had additionally boosted her Vitality to an exceedingly healthy 14.
Yet the young mistress wouldn’t be deterred, even from Alex’s momentary distraction. She merely waited a patient moment until the growing glares of the Silvers present snapped him back into focus.
Lady Sunlay’s gentle smile didn’t waver. Yet her words cut to the quick with absolute precision. “Is it true?”
Alex blushed, for some odd reason finding himself embarrassed as he nodded. “It is.”
Her coterie snorted. “Impossible!” The closer wujen muttered, the others seeming of similar sentiment, yet the young mistress just smiled.
“Are you so sure? His body is unlike that of any Ruidian I’ve seen before now.” She gazed pointedly at the decapitated Shadow Puma head. “Your handiwork?”
He nodded solemnly.
The Silver Giant snorted “Highly unlikely.”
Alex’s smile didn’t waver as two Shadow puma heads became four. Then a full dozen as incredulous stares turned to expressions of shocked disbelief, wonder, and dismay.
Even the young heiress's poise and confident demeanor cracked, revealing genuine awe as she stumbled back.
Her gaze, when Alex raised his head up from his grizzly display, was that of a girl gazing at her executioner.
Alex flashed a sad smile. “And this is why I’m warning you away. It’s not that I don’t think that you and your companions are highly trained and skilled cultivators, well versed in working together. It’s that even a single shadow cat springing upon your back and snapping your spine from the shadows can turn what should have been triumph into tragedy. And as you can see, it wasn’t a solo cat that we had to worry about.
“Yet you killed them. A full dozen shadow cats,” Sunlay said breathlessly.
Alex didn’t bother denying it. “I did. But it was a team effort.”
“How?”
Alex frowned thoughtfully, thinking how best to answer. Then Linnea did it for him.
“We formed a cognitive gestault… a mind-meld!” she happily declared. “I used my infravision to sense their heat signature while he leaped from forest and field to cleave open their skulls a heartbeat before they could cleave open his!” She frowned thoughtfully. “Of course my own whirlwind of killing flame kept them from striking me directly, but that didn’t protect my husband. And didn’t that alpha almost kill you, Alex?”
Alex chuckled self-consciously at the surprised, disbelieving looks this declaration earned him.
“It was certainly a more perilous encounter than I was hoping for,” he admitted.
The Silver giant furrowed his granite-ridge of a brow. “And you single-handedly killed an alpha...”
The man’s voice cut off when Alex sighed and brought out the remains of the largest spirit beast to fall before his blows, hoping for a prime return on the carcass and what he was hoping was a spiritual energy-rich heart, depending on what Reny might say.
“Most remarkable,” Lady Sunlay whispered before Alex immediately popped the body back into storage, not wanting to risk the decay of any precious stat-boosting potions or the like.
Alex dipped his head. “And this is why I’d like to advise you, most strenuously, to avoid this rift in particular. At this point, I have absolutely no idea how safe the other rifts might be. I can only tell you that I’ve encountered ambush predators in two of them, and ironically, this, the easiest rift, is turning out to be the most perilous of all.”
He glared up at the Silver Giant’s snort. “And I don’t mind sharing with you that I was basically racing away for all I was worth after my final assault, because those monsters just kept coming, which makes absolutely no sense!” He gave a dismayed shake of his head. “And now I’m almost certain that something ugly and monstrous is now stalking the entrance, and the next party that dares this rift will almost certainly find themselves with torn throats and ruptured abdomens before they can blink, let alone orient themselves. Unless, of course, they’re all speed cultivators capable of moving through grass or the sky so fast that the mortal eye can’t even follow. Then and only then would I say that they even had a chance.”
Much to Alex’s dismay, the giant crossed his arms. “And you expect me to believe that you, a Ruidian who certainly is no Silver, whatever else you may be, actually managed to take down over a dozen of these shadow-cloaked ambushing Silver-tier monsters, including this alpha? Preposterous!”
Alex blinked for a long moment, unable to register that the man would rather believe it trickery or some sort of twisted foul play than accept the evidence Alex had put right in front of him. Because sure enough…
The man’s smirk turned to an angry glare, his killing aura radiating from him in waves as he loomed over Alex. “What’s your game, Ruidian?” He snorted his contempt. “There’s no way you two would have been about to embrace beastly acts right when we appear. You are here by design. Admit it! So which clan put you up to this?” The man’s lips curled in an angry snarl as he abruptly slammed his fists together.
Alex’s ears rang with the resultant shockwave. He couldn’t help but wonder just how devastating that monster’s fists would be, slamming into his gut.
The monstrous Silver’s lip curled in a snarl. “Unless you wish to see firsthand what happens to those who think to plot against my mistress, you will reveal everything, and you will do so now! Which faction do you really serve?”
Alex gazed at the man for long, disappointed moments as the strained stillness between them heightened, their frozen tableau broken only by the whisper of wind rustling their locks of hair and the sparse grass about their feet, noting that not even Lady Sunlay was intervening, making it clear that, gentle courteous demeanor aside, this interrogation was all under her unspoken approval.
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
Alex ignored Linnea’s panicked surge of fury, a gentle squeeze of his hand a request, but free of all compulsion. That he would never do again.
“You’re that desperate for me to demonstrate my prowess that you would threaten me, when I do nothing but warn you of peril, with the evidence of the predators you would face right before you?” Alex sighed and shook his head, not hesitating to methodically put away all evidence of his kills, despite the glaring, looming Silver.
But he was no fool. The caldera lip was just feet away, and the roiling air as lively as the surge of his heart. Qi Perception made it clear that the giant was clenching his fists, but his mistress’s subtle headshake made it clear that she would not suffer him striking Alex while he was looking away.
“Very well,” Alex said at last, before pointing to the fork in the path a short distance away. “This rocky trail is flat and wide enough, but I can show you nothing that you wish to see here. If you wish to see why I’m alive and why I fear all of you would perish, then you have but to follow me up to the grassy field adjoining the lip of the caldera, and I’d be happy to explain.”
He locked gazes with a the frowning young mistress. “I’m not here to interfere with your passage and I have no stake in whatever clan or city intrigues you fear. I truly am meeting you by chance, and my only interest right now is in saving your lives. If you wish to meet my concern with contempt, even physical challenge, after I have shown you evidence of the peril you would face… very well. One final demonstration. You may make of it what you will, and should you decline to heed my advice, I will do absolutely nothing to stop you.”
He flashed a bitter smile. “Honestly, my only goal now is to warn Senior Cultivator Te Chang about the threat as well as turn in my cores.”
The Silver Giant’s eyes lit with sudden avarice. “Then tell us, Ruidian, what cores did you claim… or steal?”
Alex blinked. “Seriously? I’m trying to save your hides, and you’re now accusing me of theft?” He flashed a bitter smile. “Will this be used as a pretext to rob me blind? Maybe hurtle my broken body off the escarpment as a final ‘righteous act’ as you tie up all loose ends?” He snorted. “I take it no city leader signed any charter assuring the sanctity or safety of Ruidians where you’re from.”
The Giant’s eyes lit up with sudden fury, and Alex realized he truly was being a fool when the man reached out and snatched his changshan with a massive fist radiating deadly Earth Qi.
“You’ll pay for your insults and innuendo, Ruidian filth!”
“Quickness and Strength at the Silver tier,” Alex managed to gasp. “Clearly your mistress chose well, taking you on.”
Even as he said the words he reluctantly prepared for the bitter tragedy about to occur, one that would have had Shalu cackling in his own corpulent filth, if he weren’t currently writhing in the extremis of mortal agony in an ancient life-preservation pod. The very thought of which brought a moment of fierce dark joy to Alex’s features as his cheeks filled with the promise of death to fools who would rather kill him than heed his counsel.
“Quing Da. Stop.” The noblewoman said with a negligent wave of her hand. Her earlier sweet, polite, overly warm demeanor had faded to cool reserve with soft brown eyes that seemed to calculate every possibility.
Alex couldn’t help flashing a bitter smile. “Warmest greetings to the real Lady Sunlay as she reveals herself.”
This earned an infinitesimal glare. Qing Da’s lips curled in a snarl, and an amused Alex halfway thought he’d throw him right off the ledge. Truly a time to test his newest skill. But not a good time for Linnea. Push aside this fool’s folly, and think! He scolded himself, sensing Linnea’s growing anxiety.
Fortunately, the young mistress took his sass in stride. “Either you really are a cultivator who would pull the tiger’s tale or perhaps was pushed by fate… or you’re a very clever pawn indeed.” She smirked. “Very well. We will ascend the path, as if you had no trap planned for us at all.” With those words she nodded, and Alex felt the gentle rustle of a breeze that had nothing to do with the wind, even as Linnea’s eyes lit up, and suddenly they were one once more, his exquisite nostrils putting the final clue into place.
“You have a kitsune associate!” Said Linnea, voicing Alex’s thought.
And suddenly the air seemed to grow ten degrees colder, and Alex couldn’t deny the sudden surge of panicked alarm coming from the party before him, nor how close to genuine peril he truly was, as the Silver Giant’s bluster abruptly faded, now looking at him with the cool gaze of the professional killer that he was. As all good sworn servants of the lords of this world almost had to be.
“Mistress?”
“Wait!” Alex forced himself to say, speaking carefully as he held back a gift under his tongue. “Before you do something we’ll all regret, I have nothing but warmest regard for anyone who managed to survive whatever purges made their race but a memory around here. Don’t you think my kind would be? That we have to worry about the same peers? That at any time, saying the wrong thing to the wrong group, even if it’s just to save their lives, could get us all summarily executed?”
He snorted at the unexpected flash of guilt floating across Sunlay’s noble features before they stiffened once more.
“Believe me, we’d love to learn whatever they’ve done to hide from the eye of their would-be executioners without being, well, executed,” Alex assured.
“And now you know we’re telling the truth!” Linnea urged. “Because how can we claim to have spotted over a dozen Silver-tier Shadow Cats if we can’t even spot one lone...” And much to Alex’s surprise and relief, she actually stopped and measured her words. “One lone you-know-what?”
Once again the air was filled with deadly tension as Alex forced himself to do what he was so reluctant to until one of the wujen snorted. “The fools actually make sense. And can you imagine the karmic debt if we were to take care of them and they were just well-intentioned children of a protected race guilty only of trying to save our lives?”
“Over a dozen elite shadow cat skulls in a pouch of holding? Owned by this boy? Far too pat, if you ask me,” Quing Da reiterated. “The whole thing stinks of a multilevel set-up. Make no mistake, Lady Sunlay. Our enemies are doing all they can to strike us here and now, with everything they have.”
Sunlay, however, gave a tiny shake of her head. Her gaze grew haunted as she continued looking Alex’s way with an intensity he most certainly hadn’t expected to see.
“I’m not entirely sure that’s the case,” she whispered, her voice holding a hint of disbelief or wonder, as if she herself couldn’t believe the words leaving her lips.
Intent brown eyes locked upon her own. “You never did say your name, Ruidian.”
Alex’s heart started to pound. Hoping that her gaze didn’t mean what he feared it did. But that also meant… her very words… feeling the weight of oath and obligation.
“It’s Alex.” He flashed a cool smile, now focusing on her with every iota of his attention. “And I never actually said that I was a Ruidian.”
She was good, he’d give her that. But her flinch was unmistakable.
“My lady!” said a young voice all but trembling with excitement that Alex sensed all too clearly with Linnea’s infravision, not to mention the pressure wave an invisible presence left behind… Qi Perception synergizing with Wind Affinity so acutely that it was like he could now sense the impression she left in the air in the shape of a young kitsune female with perky ears and an excited bounce to her step. Words that Shadow Qi might wish to hide, his newly enhanced senses and Lesser Shadow Affinity effortlessly plucked from the air. “The field above is filled with a dozen new aspirants undergoing remedial training along with an Elder Win. No one and nothing else is up there.”
Alex winced. Shit.
His reaction didn’t go unnoticed. “Is your scheme unraveling already, Ruidian?” Quing Da sneered, still glaring down at Alex.
He groaned, rubbing his face. “More like Elder Win will kill me if I’m late to class again.” He turned to Linnea. “Just how long were we in there?”
She shrugged. “Long enough for us to completely lose track of time while foraging, exploring, and then madly fighting for our lives? Oh, and you and Ya Ling were enjoying that breakthrough. That took a day and a half too. It would have been boring, but it was fun getting a chance to make new friends and enjoy Reny’s delicious cooking and just rest before a magical tree with my uncle being so far away he could never reach me even with a dozen clan elders, so I really didn’t mind!”
Alex groaned. “Two days? Shit. That really isn’t good.”
Quing Da frowned. “You’re declaring yourself no more than a student here?”
Linnea nodded. “A rank beginner one too! We just started a week ago, and we could get kicked out if we so much as look the wrong way, once Elder Win gets ahold of our latest escapade!” she declared just a little too brightly for Alex’s taste.
This earned a smile from the kitsune woman Alex could now see perfectly clearly. “Oh they look so cute together, mistress. Both of them have positive karma, thought the boy’s tastes very recent, and there is an extremely strong bond of Spiritual energy connecting them. They look young, but they’re clearly pair-bound. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if she’s already pregnant. It would explain the Spirit Qi connection being so profound.”
Alex blinked. “You can sense all that?”
The kitsune chuckled merrily, even as the others hissed and glared. “Oh, he’s pierced my veil, and I’m good!” She gave a satisfied nod, seeming to come to some conclusion. “I believe him. Those were genuine Shadow beasts, still radiating spiritual energy laced with the taste of their own brutal demise. If he had been blind to me, there’s no way those two could have survived.”
“That still doesn’t explain how, exactly, they survived,” the Silver Giant glared.
“True.” Lady Sunlay said, before giving Alex an oddly apologetic smile. “My associate vouches for you, and yet I must admit that my curiosity has been genuinely piqued. If you wouldn’t mind showing us how you managed to survive… perhaps it would aid us as well.”
Alex nodded gamely enough. “No problem. Come to think of it, maybe we don’t need to go up there and risk my professor’s wrath, after all.”
With that, he was free of the suddenly blinking Silver Giant, universal lubricant and a sudden gust of wind seeing him slipping free and right upon the grassy lip of the slope, between the scree path and the dropoff, where the relatively shallow slope, protection from the scorching midday sun, and the surprisingly damp ground here, thanks to sporadic bursts of spray carried by the occasional gusts of wind allowed for a surprisingly lush strip of grass, where Alex now stood.
Quing Da, no slouch at Silver 1 Quickness, immediately turned Alex’s way.
“Ruidian trickery? You seek to warn your associates after all!”
Alex pretended bemused sangfroid, for all that his heart quailed with sudden worry for a very alone and frightened looking Linnea. He immediately drew attention back to himself, however, when he seemed to disappear, only to step back on the trail, right behind the rearmost wujen.
“Can you believe that guy?” He said to the startled wujen, who was desperately twisting around with a whirlwind of shrapnel around herself, glaring at a coolly smiling Alex. “I mean, I get that he’s being bombastic as the straight man bodyguard to Sunlay, so she can play the cool and reserved noblewoman while he asks all her questions and takes the heat for it… but he’s really overdoing it just a tad, don’t you think?”
All of them were speechless. Even the young mistress was momentarily nonplussed, for all that the kitsune girl squealed and clapped, a goofy grin upon her face. “That’s how he did it! A wild cultivator’s gifts! He’s one with the forest and the western rift is mostly forest! He and his wife sensed the cats, and he must have struck them from behind! That explains it. That explains how he’s alive! He’s not plotting against us. He’s just a dreamer of a boy trying to find his fortune so he can buy a house in the city for his wife and future child. I’ll bet that’s exactly what it is! Isn’t that right, Alex?”
Alex grinned. “That’s a very sweet take on things. Sure, we can pretend that’s what it’s all about.”
The wujen, however, was lurching back. “This one is dangerous, my lady! Look at my ward. It bends around him!”
Alex affected a guileless smile, all of them taking on the whirling maelstrom of metal daggers surrounding the woman, noting how they pressed inward like a bow wave at Alex’s admittedly close proximity.
“Well, yeah. I would hope so. I mean, you wouldn’t want to accidentally cut me, right? Anyway, if you’ll excuse us? We have to report what’s happened to this rift as soon as possible, so that we can save as many lives as possible.”
Alex kept his manner polite, showing absolutely no offense for the earlier interrogation, doing all that he subtly could to defuse any lingering tension. But if Quing Da or any other thought Alex would allow them to intimidate or threaten Linnea...
Sunlay peered at Alex thoughtfully before the subtlest of nods made it clear she had come to a decision.
Alex braced himself, ready for absolutely anything.
“Join us.”
Alex blinked. “I’m sorry?”
“She means you should come with us!” The kitsune enthusiastically explained, eyes twinkling. “You’ve explained the risks, and you and your wife counter them so well that you actually managed to take out a dozen of those things just between the two of you? Imagine how much better we could do if we all worked together! That’s assuming that all instances are affected, of course. Maybe you just hopped into a rare, perilous one? Either way, the data we gather will be valuable, and I know my mistress will pay you handsomely for your trouble!”
Alex blinked, both surprised and oddly pleased by the offer. “I’ll be honest… my gut tells me something strange is going on. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if pretty much every instance will inevitably warp towards Shadow beast ambushes. Or maybe something unexpected happened causing instances to crash into each other and pumas from one forest instance to infect another. Not that I know of any way to know for sure.” He flashed an apologetic smile. “And believe it or not, any other time and I might actually consider taking you up on your offer, after an exchange of oaths assuring mutual safety. But not now. Not after pushing ourselves so damned hard that if I didn’t port out...”
“You would have stumbled and collapsed like the drunken fool you look like even now!” The kitsune nodded animatedly. “Of course, it makes sense, now! That’s how you survived, right?” She turned to her mistress before Alex could ask exactly what she met. “He’s clearly suffering a Fool’s Folly after a Sage’s Revelation. If he doesn’t take a few days to rest and meditate, consolidating his breakthroughs, I fear he’ll be less than worthless.”
Sunlay frowned. “I hate wasting time, Nili.”
The kitsune, Nili, bobbed her head. “Of course, mistress. On the other hand, since we only dare these rifts twice a season, two days is just that. Two days. And with this boy’s haul as a reference point… imagine if even half of these shadow pumas have worthwhile beast cores!”
The nearest wujen snorted, crossing her arms. “There’s no guarantee we’ll earn any such prize.”
“But she does have a point,” Sunlay nodded, before flashing Alex a congenial smile. “You do indeed look like you could use a good night’s rest. Come, allow my party to escort you to your superiors where you may make your report, before we treat you to a feast worthy of your accomplishments, where we may formalize our upcoming venture.”
Alex grimaced, before bowing his head, accepting the inevitable. “Perhaps we will do just that. But right now I have the disapproval of a certain master to face… because even the risk of getting kicked out pales to the weight of lives that will be lost if anyone even more foolish than I dares these rifts.”