Alex didn’t dare hesitate for even a second, immediately reforging his gestalt with the trio of companions who had also been floored by the wujen’s killing aura. The instant his psyche was linked to their own, it was all he could do to resist the crushing weight of dread, pinning them where they lie. Much like poor Te Chang, who was desperately struggling to put the massive golden core in the pedestal so clearly designed for it, assuring the city’s survival, even if they were all doomed to fall.
All for naught, as Te Change collapsed with a cry when the cold bitter laughter of an ancient seer washed over them all.
“What a fine prize you have gathered for me, Senior Cultivator Te Chang.” It’s lilting mockery turned to a hate-filled snarl. “Now to your knees, dog, with my prize held high! My hounds will gladly take it from you, before snapping chains of binding that will assure that you and your companions know the eternal price of daring to cross the ultimate master of these desert sands!”
Whatever else the wujen was going to say was cut off in a blinding flash of flame, followed by a howling whirlwind of Ice and bitter cold.
You have successfully forged Greater Ice Ward!
You have successfully forged Greater Fire Ward!
You have successfully tapped into the desert’s heat to fuel your wards.
Congratulations! You have achieved Rank 1 of basic Mana Mastery! - Note! You have no mana pool! This skill is extraneous to all cultivation paradigms! This skill cannot be used outside of Mindlink!
Alex ignored the blinding headache he suddenly felt as he pulled free of communion, trusting Linnea and the others to maintain the wards he had compelled them to summon, summoned as an extension of himself as he howled in the wind, all his attention on the shimmering matrix of power serving as a gate between Liushi and her would-be conquerors, so unlike the portal doors he had once used to brilliant effect when connected to his worldseed. And thankfully, nothing like the twisted mix of malice, brilliance, and madness that had been Shalu’s own.
In comparison to those wonders, the portal he approached was crude beyond belief.
Yet it was utterly beyond his ability to rupture with storms of Wind, Water, or even lightning, manipulating secondary concepts of space and elements he had no access to at all. For how many times had Fate pulled him in directions that had promised nothing but endless bitterness and struggle?
So he couldn’t understand why the Gold-tier wujen’s eyes widened with something surprisingly close to alarm as dozens of intricately laid crimson runes and exotic jeweled artifacts blazed to pulsating life upon his form. As if he was prepared for the unthinkable.
“You! Impossible!”
Those words almost froze Alex, which would have been instant death, as the air cracked with an explosion of boulders shot with such force that they exploded against the cliff face like cannonballs… for all that not a single Silver sigil was marred.
And Alex realized to his horror that even the Shield of Wind, Steel, and Dark Qi that he was in the process of summoning forth would do almost nothing against that level of kinetic force.
Find Weakness skill check: Success!
Yet not even the snarling wujen’s roars would force Alex to retreat.
Not when he finally understood just how utterly impervious that gate would be to anyone under Gold Rank, immune to pretty much any attack imaginable.
Save for one.
Because Alex didn’t have to overpower a Gold-tier monster’s defenses or destroy the pristine artifacts that allowed the monster to bend reality itself.
All he had to do was strike the vulnerable points in between.
The gaps in his foes’ armor.
The chinks in his defenses that would spell doom every time.
The sneering wujen’s eyes widened when Alex drew his dao. Near three feet of razor sharp steel that had gone as dead and cold as a sliver of the void that, if one listened closely, was really just the whine of countless Steel fragments whirling about a matrix of Wind, each and every steel piece saturated with the essence of darkness itself.
Alex grinned fiercely when the wujen blanched, before mocking Alex with cold laughter as his form glowed with a rainbow of overlapping wards shivering with energy unlike anything Alex had ever seen before.
The gaunt man pinned Alex with bloodshot eyes, revealing iron grey teeth emblazoned with sigils when he smiled.
Quickness Check made!
Alex desperately averted his gaze as the ancient monster roared with laughter. “You think a novice’s basic mastery of Waste Qi will make any difference, fool? Your paltry grasp for power will do nothing save shatter against my wards!” The wujen waved his hand in mocking invitation and an inviolable barrier now stood wide open before Alex. “Come, worm. I dare you to strike with all your hate! When your blow is snuffed out with the least of my wards, it will be my eternal pleasure to collar you to my will for all time!”
Alex smirked at the invitation, for all that the sight of the cold-forged iron collar filled him with visceral dread. A collar rippling with enchantments that he sensed were far beyond the comparatively crude collars used by the slavers that had once gotten the best of him when he had been slumped over in exhaustion after having fought against the currents of the river between worlds.
“I have no doubt that you would like to do just that!” Alex taunted as he closed the rest of the distance before flooding as much potency as he possibly could in his blade. So much that he felt it, even with a Rank 5 Silver Qi Pool. So much that even the faceted dark jewel in the palm of his blade was at risk of rupturing, which all but promised fantastically fatal results.
“Yet I note that you’ve made not one move, haven’t shifted a single foot out of your torture chamber to wrap things up in the desert yourself!” Alex taunted as he did his best to focus not on the wujen, but on the disturbance of the portal itself.
The wujen’s mocking taunt became a furious snarl. “As if I had time or inclination to deal with the likes of you!” He snorted in laughter. “No, worm. It is you who will be coming to bow at my feet… one way or another.”
Alex smiled as his interface blinked frantically, Linnea’s infravision combined with his Qi Perception and Desert Sense, along with Shadow Qi affinity, making it damn clear exactly what approached him.
Alex’s heart began hammering, sensing Linnea’s growing fatigue, knowing that Fire and Ice were on a rapidly ticking off timer, and if he were going to act, going to do anything…
Artificer skill check made!
He would do it now.
The wujen laughed when Alex swung his dao.
“Fool! Do you fear my might so much? You clearly missed...”
The wujen’s words cut off with a surprised his, sensing at the last possible second that the dao wasn’t just three feet of steel, but an additional six feet of darkness.
The wujen’s wards flared to life.
Momentary panic turned to mocking laughter when Alex’s dao failed to stop even of the wujen’s defensive wards.
But Alex’s target wasn’t the wujen covered in enchantments so thick that Alex suspected that even Gold titans would be pounding it in supreme frustration… that it might survive even a Jade’s fearsome blows. At least one of them. Certainly no attack below Soul Cleave had a hope of cleaving through the man in a single blow. And Alex’s novice melding of Steel and Dark Qi? Laughably impotent against the sneering monster before him.
Somehow, Alex knew that without a shadow of a doubt.
Which was why his target wasn’t the wujen at all.
It was the golden portal he had formed all around him, Alex charging not for the entrance but for the sides, which had the added benefit that there was no way the wujen could respond in the heartbeat of time he had, without leaving the gate himself. An act that the man was clearly reluctant to do. Though to be fair, the wujen’s mocking smear was replaced by a look of outraged terror and wild desperation only at the last moment, as if Alex having the ability to sense, let alone effect, arts used to generate folds in space was unthinkable. Even if Dark Qi was absolutely perfect for cleaving those impossibly fragile stands… so long as someone could cover all elements involved, and knew exactly where to strike.
The snarling wujen pinned Alex with a killing glare so intense that it would have instantly stopped the heart of any mortal.
Then, in a flash of brilliant golden light and the frustrated howl of a thwarted monster, he was gone.
But Alex was already spinning around, daring to press his madly vibrating sword pommel and rapidly draining Qi Pool for just a few more seconds, once again summoning forth six additional feet of Dark Qi beyond the length of his dao.
The costs for his daring, outside of a Dark Qi rich rift or the underworld itself, was absolutely absurd.
As were the results.
That was the moment that the would-be assassins, unable to penetrate the massive triple ward surrounding Alex’s companions in a whirlwind of ice and flame, instead bee-lined right for Alex who could now sense them perfectly as Linnea’s mana-based infravision effortlessly pierced shadowy arts dependent on spiritual energy alone.
And if they had any inclination to take him alive, that ended the moment the wujen’s gate was ruptured. The shadowy trio’s eyes were filled with dismay and outrage. Alex’s heart hammered, acknowledging at last a shiver of dismay as two moved at speeds damn close to Silver as the third pulled out a crossbow and drew a bead on Alex’s twisting form.
You have successfully summoned Storm shield!
Yet even as he felt the pommel of his blade begin to vibrate and crack, he didn’t dare retract its edge.
Not when shadowy death lunged so fast that he felt cold steel sliding past even his desperately lowered shield, a line of ice and fire ripping through his shin, causing him to stumble.
The one who marked him with such inhuman speed paused to smile and lick the blood off his blade. “Far too slow Ruid...”
Doom Slice!
Alex’s killer blinked with the strangest look on his face, opening his mouth for words that would never come again as his head tumbled free in a geyser of crimson droplets.
You have critically struck Silver-tier assassin. All defensive wards have been ruptured.
You have decapitated your prey!
The pair of killers Alex could now sense so clearly trying to flank him both lurched back in shocked surprise for just a heartbeat. Giving Alex the time he desperately needed to tumble forward. But before he could ascend to the air, the closest killer’s blade tore into his flank so fast that he was already tumbling away before Alex could do anything but flinch and hiss with fiery pain as the desert sands were sprayed with his blood.
The man twisted around, scarred features curling in a cruel smile. “This ends here, Ruidian scum,” he whispered in a guttural voice, using a dialect Alex had never heard before but instantly understood.
Just as Alex understood that the man was just a feint. Or at least, in the lightning-fast calculus of battle, chose to treat him as such, already spinning about and whipping his blade around, ignoring the fresh burst of agony this caused. Agony that Rank 1 Silver Strength and Vitality allowed him to push right through, desperate to tag the third killer no doubt springing for his back at the very moment his ally distracted.
And indeed the assassin was lunging at that very moment… before pulling back with a sneer, well out of range of any dao, no matter how wildly their target flailed.
Yet it was Alex’s would be killer that collapsed with a startled cry, looking down in dazed disbelief at the ropes of slimy blue grey intestines now spurting from between his trembling fingers.
You have critically struck Silver-tier assassin.
You have disemboweled your prey!
“Fu!” cried out his uninjured partner as the dazed man collapsed to the ground, giving Alex the strangest look, his dazed lips twisting in agony.
“But I dodged your blade… how?”
Alex answered in the only way that mattered, twisting about and lashing out with steel for the one survivor, gazing at Alex in wide-eyed surprise that he could sense his final desperate attempts at an ambush, having no idea that three more pairs of eyes and a sense of the battlefield as a whole were now Alex’s own.
Monstrous, Silver-tier quickness saved the man from Alex’s shrieking steel.
But not the six foot extension, near invisible in the dark that cleaved through the air at shocking speed, Dark-Qi infused steel shrapnel rupturing Silver tier wards and chewing through beast-hide lamellar as if it were no thicker than the shadows the man strove to hide himself in with his final desperate moments.
For an eyeblink Alex met furious defiance as the man’s lips curled in a hate-filled snarl… before the man’s eyes rolled up and he collapsed in a bloody heap upon the desert sands, spurting a geyser of blood from the wicked rent in his chest.
Alex spun around to catch the gaze of the final crippled would-be assassin, frozen in horrified disbelief at Alex’s smiling form, trembling hands still desperately trying to keep his intestines from spurting upon the pitiless ocher dune he had collapsed upon.
“And now there is but one,” Alex said, finally having a moment to embrace his own Power Healing, sensing the dizziness he was on the verge of being consumed by, shuddering to think just how much blood he was now leaving on the desert sands from what he was increasingly sure was a perforated kidney.
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He spat blood and focused only on healing and keeping his crippled opponent well in his sights, even as he eased at last his mental grip upon the blade, the massive Qi Drain and strain to his Dark jewel instantly easing as his steel blade alone retained the color of ebony darkness.
The now wild-eyed assassin gazed at Alex in stupefaction. “No. We are Silver! There’s no way you could fell two of my brothers with your parlor tricks! There’s no way you should be standing. I tore open your kidney. You should be in at least as much pain as me!” The last was said with a bitter, pain-filled chuckle that ended in a groan that made even Alex wince as the man’s voice faded to a whisper. “You’re just a Ruidian. Nothing more.”
The man’s mocking smile, the look of a would-be hunter knowing he had played the fool as much as anyone else, soon turned to the dazed look of a man getting ready to accept his own death.
And that was a stupor Alex would deny his dying foe, even as he fought the fiery agony of his own forced-healing.
He startled the now groaning man back to full alertness with a furious roar. “Just who the hell are you and what’s your interest in Liushi? Why are you even here?”
The man blinked, opening his mouth only to let out a piteous groan of agony that made even Alex wince with pity. Pity he burned clear of his gaze before the monster that would doom an entire city. Before they were both abruptly washed over by a magnificent wave of pristine golden light flooding the area and Alex felt a glorious rush of accomplishment, knowing that their mission was complete.
Golden healing burst mitigates your injuries!
You have gained positive karma with the entirety of Liushi city!
This alone brought a genuine relieved smile to Alex’s lips that grew to heartfelt relief as the last of his injuries that he knew would take more than a bit of dedicated healing abruptly faded away.
No matter what political travesty might or might not occur this night, at least the city was safe. That was something that he could take comfort in, no matter what political shenanigans went down, even if, despite all their efforts, they were still all forced to leave with their tails behind their legs.
What mattered now, Alex decided, was simply to get as much information from his target as he could.
Or course, that was the moment the bastard, blessed by the same Gold-tier healing burst that Alex had been, threw a smoke bomb so like the ones Alex used to both make and use, before trying to run.
Only to cry out with surprise when the desert sands abruptly formed into the face of a furious young woman who’s jian whipped across both his wrists before pressing against his throat, disarming the man and sending him crashing to the ground before he could blink.
“Where are my grandparents, you murderous little fuck? Tell me, or I swear I’ll rip out your throat!”
But Alex dared not waste a moment looking her way when there were two other killers that would slice their throats out if they had been blessed by that same golden light…
And never had Alex been so relieved to catch the glassy stare of eyes void of all life.
One with a massive rent in his chest that Alex just knew had ripped heart and lungs clean in half… and how troubling was it to see the wound half-closed?
But the glassy stare remained.
Yet not even that was as chilling as the lifeless head that had grown an inch-worth of neck before the healing burst had faded… or the body that had attempted to grow a chin… forcing Alex to wonder just how far Gold-tier healing could take one.
And just in case, miracles aside…
Alex’s blade flashed twice more, spraying the desert sands.
Because Alex wasn’t about taking chances this late in the game, no matter how much he suddenly wanted to heave.
“Tell me!”
Alex then turned his attention to a furious looking Ya Ling and the assassin desperately pleading for his life.
An assassin who’s right wrist wasn’t nearly as wounded as his hunched form would suggest, sending a frisson of alarm racing across Alex’s spine.
“Ya Ling, duck and flow!” Alex shouted for all he was worth, hating the fact that he was too late, that even with the Wind now fueling his desperate flight forward, he would be too slow to intercept the serpentine dagger wet with poison that the now wild-eyed killer was plunging for a startled Ya Ling’s hip.
“Die, bitch!” The man cursed in his guttural tongue.
Before frowning in confusion, when all he struck was sand.
His wild-eyed stare allowed him to register Alex’s furious charging countenance and the swing of Alex’s blade from several yards away even as he collapsed back to the desert stands, wide-eyed with sudden panic, hands reaching out in desperate futile effort to staunch the spray of blood now spurting from his neck.
Alex glared with cold satisfaction at the man whose hourglass he had just cracked. Because Enhanced Wind Blade at its most basic might not be anywhere near as powerful as Doom Blade, but it could still cut deep enough against even a Silver-tier speed cultivator’s minimally protected throat.
Especially when used by someone who had mastered the art of piercing spell wards and artifacts that shattered like glass before carefully focused bursts of spiritual energy, much like the strike that shredded spirit puma leather and cut half an inch deep into the flesh underneath.
Of course, a paltry half inch was nowhere near enough to decapitate the desperately writhing assassin now spurting his lifeblood upon the desert sands.
But it was still more than enough to assure his demise. Or at least, it would be if the man was mortal. Which this would-be assassin most certainly was not.
Alex huffed as the righteous wrath that had carried him so far had faded, his friend’s whirling wards of fire and ice fading as their mana risked complete depletion and the danger had, after all, passed.
Now it was a handful of dazed cultivators looking at both the alcove and Alex with looks he had no time to decipher.
Now with one final loose end that needed to be tied.
A threat Alex dared show no mercy toward, monstrous speed having made it clear just how vulnerable he was when a single mistake could have cost Ya Ling her life, and his as well, had his foe thought to jab his sword in the back of Alex’s neck, and not his kidney during their first engagement.
Wild eyes gazed desperately up into Alex’s own as the man desperately trying to control the spurting blood from his throat scurried back, feet desperately kicking the sands. “Please, spare me! I’ll tell you everything I...”
And between one heartbeat and the next, Ya Ling was upright once more, walking by Alex’s side, a ward of swirling wind in one hand, her vibrating Jian in the other.
Alex flashed her a relieved smile, but all she had eyes for was the would-be killer, trembling in the sands.
“You’re damn right you will! Now why the hell are wujen working for the Duo Li clan? And tell me where my grandparents are!”
The man blinked in surprise, painful laughter bubbling from his lips, speaking with a thick accent.
“This is what you wish to ask me? This is who you think I am? Foolish child. I know nothing of your kin, nor this Duo Li clan!”
This was enough for both Alex and Ya Ling to halt their steps, sharing a quick look of confusion, though neither was stupid enough to let the man before them out of their sights, for all that he trembled as his blood continued to ooze from his wound.
But nowhere near the gusher it should have been.
Alex’s gaze grew hard and cold, already knowing what he’d have to do as the dark gloom lightened up with the crackling lightning now racing up and down Alex’s dao.
The man’s eyes widened with fresh dismay. “No. An emperor’s art? There is no way one such as you could wield the noblest of elements!”
“Why are you here?”
The most pertinent of questions, asked by none other than Senior Cultivator Te Chang, surrounded by a whirlwind of Ice summoned by none other than his wife. Sulia glared down at the fallen assassin even as she kept tight hold of her husband, and Alex thought it a miracle she hadn’t finished off this threat to her loved one already.
Alex stole a quick glance at his companions, all of them now forming up before the killer, earning a cold chuckle from the monster before them.
“Is it not obvious, fools? The core! The priceless Golden core you would waste on a city’s singular waterfall.” His eyes lit with fanatical outrage as he furiously rubbed his wounded neck, and the air suddenly smelled of orange blossoms and sandalwood.
“You think our seer was blind to your find? That she didn’t instantly sense when a priceless Golden Water core had been revealed? Fools! You know the desert edicts as well as anyone! All sacred treasures are to be gifted at once to the prince of these desert sands. It should have been immediately brought to his eminence in Qianshi, not wasted here!”
Te Chang furrowed his brow, drawing breath to answer the obvious follow-up question before a faint frown of confusion marred his features, and he collapsed to the desert sands.
Biochemical Mastery skill check made!
“Husband!” Sulia cried out in panic before stumbling herself, to the cold satisfaction of the resourceful killer who had just filled the air with poison, sneering even as he darted away, the wound in his neck reduced to an angry red scar… and no worse.
Yet clever as the would-be killer was, now smart enough race away while keeping his distance from Alex, it did little to protect him from the swirling corkscrew of liquid flame tearing open his back and sending him flying in a burning, screaming heap, his screams cut off when his body was perforated by a dozen massive ice spears cast by Hanz and Lieberman. Their matching hard expressions truly did make them look like father and son, Alex thought with a smirk, even if Lieberman now looked more like an older brother, thanks to investing so heavily in himself with his last two level-ups.
Pausing only to make sure that their foe was truly dead, Alex quickly raced over to his fallen companion’s side.
“Te Chang!”
“It will be okay,” Alex soothed, gently shifting the only momentarily outraged-looking Sulia before risking her wrath, daring to spit in her husbands mouth before rubbing his throat.
“How dare you!” She snarled, and Alex was suddenly dead certain that if he wasn’t hovering over her husband she might already have run him through with ice, no matter that she herself was so dizzy she could hardly keep her feet.
Yet her outraged glare turned to a relieved cry when Te Chang took a wheezing gasp, eyes springing wide with the strangest look for Alex before solemnly bowing his head and accepting his wife’s fierce hug.
Alex then proceeded to spit in his water flask before passing it to each of his reluctant-looking companions. “Shut up, don’t argue or say anything. Just take a good swig and we never talk about this again. Agreed?”
And it said something, Alex thought, that not one man or woman said a word as they passed around the flask. Everyone grimaced, most especially the soldiers under their captain, but none protested, even though Alex felt the weight of far too many stares as he turned to examine the alcove, cracking a smile at the sight of bass relief figures bowing before the carving of a brilliant sun that hadn’t been there before. Nor dark clouds blessing crops with rain.
Alex gave a satisfied nod, somehow certain that no force below Jade would be pulling that sun free anytime soon.
He then turned around, smiling brightly into too many staring faces. “It’s certainly been an exciting night, hasn’t it? We’ve successfully restored the waterfalls. Let’s hope it’s enough.”
Sulia gave Alex a pointed look. “Do you mind telling me why we all drank from that flask, disciple?”
Alex shrugged. “I was an apothecary, remember, and my old employer might or might not have had, ahem, JiangHu ties. So when I recognized the scent of a particular poison, I knew what had to be done. Simple as that.”
She quirked a bemused eyebrow. “Your spittle cures poison?”
Alex forced a chuckle. “Perhaps. Or perhaps it was a distraction that worked so well that over a dozen of my boon companions failed to see what else I added to that flask.” He grinned. “Come now. What alchemist is going to reveal his or her secrets to anyone? But I sure as heck wasn’t going to let my friends die to something I could treat so… yeah. Call it a compromise.”
Much to his relief, for all that a few of the captain’s soldiers were gazing at him with suspicion or outright disgust, more wore thoughtful expressions on their features, a handful even going so far as to bow their heads in gratitude, and his friends didn’t hesitate at all.
“Always where your needed, boy. You have the fool’s own luck, and glad I am for it,” Dui Zhong declared with a chuckle and clap on his back, earning a wince from Alex for words that hit a bit too close to home.
Instructor Rah seconded that sentiment. “Yet only a fool would deny what a boon companion our young Ruidian friend has proven himself to be. A just cultivator that I would be happy to have adventuring or fighting by my side at any time.”
Alex felt his cheeks flush when Te Chang and even Sulia seconded that sentiment, Alex’s Ruidian friends grinning as well, clearly feeling fierce pride for the acknowledgment that one of their own had received.
It was enough that they all managed to ignore the sneer of disgust one pair of soldiers quietly shared.
“I can’t believe I had to sip from that fool’s flask! If I never see him again after this night, I’ll count myself a lucky man.”
“Our work here is done, my friends,” Te Chang quietly said to his companions once Dui Zhong had calmly and thoroughly looted the bodies, Ya Ling then burying them in the desert sands. “I think it’s time we headed back.”
Alex saw more than one nod of heartfelt agreement, for all that their haunted eyes made it clear that none of them were quite sure what to expect. Had a coup successfully taken place? Were their lives in jeopardy if they even approached? Was the prince still in power?
And Alex clearly wasn’t the only one worried about their reception when they got back, exquisitely sensitive hearing allowing him to catch quietly whispered words that the desert breeze whipped free of the ears of most.
“And if the currents are perilous, husband?”
“Then we slip inside via the western gate, where no one has reason to expect us, retrieve our children, and blend in with the morning caravans heading to Zhongshi City.”
Sulia sighed, squeezing her husbands hand. “We should do that regardless. And if we encounter opposition?”
Te Chang’s normally gentle gaze hardened. “We take no chances. We assume hostile capture will result in our family’s elimination, so we strike them dead before they can blink.”
Sulia flashed a mirthless smile. “No different than when we had to flee Qianshi, all those years ago.”
Te Chang snorted. “The desert is a cruel mistress. Nothing is promised, and the sweetest sanctuaries will turn foul with corruption faster than most.”
Sulia sighed, dipping her head in agreement.
Linnea bit her lip, skirting through the sands to Alex’s side. “What happens if it wasn’t enough?”
Alex flashed a gentle smile. “We did everything we could for Liushi’s sake, to make sure the water would continue to flow. That was the most important part. If it also secures the reign of a ruler sympathetic to our cause? Then all the better.”
Ya Ling nodded her agreement. “We’re heroes, either way. But if the prince loses his throne, we’re all as good as dead.”
Linnea paled. “Then we’d better pray that saving the falls is enough to save the prince… and our hides.”
Dui Zhong chuckled and nodded. “We’re playing high stakes go this night, dearie! And if our side wins, our enemies might actually be given a chance to surrender! After all, the just and honorable prince hasn’t tried to gut his enemies in the streets for over a decade.”
Sulia snorted. “As opposed to whatever puppet the Duo Yi’s are putting up, who tried to take us out twice in a single night.”
“Assuming there aren’t other players as well,” Instructor Rah solemnly reminded them, the Gold tier presence of that wujen and the lightning-fast assassins he had sent through his portal, assassins prevented from absolutely tearing through their party thanks onlyh to their Ruidian friends’ wards, would not soon be forgotten.
Alex chuckled awkwardly only once when jokes were made about Ruidians who got a head’s up on their foes and what he must be compensating for, the gallows humor soon turning genuinely mirthful as jokes were traded between soldiers and academy cultivators, and in very short order everyone had the demeanor of men and women out for a midnight stroll or enjoying the easiest of patrols.
Alex smirked at the banter along with everyone else, knowing they were just trying to keep each other’s spirits up and laugh off the growing anxiety welling in their guts as they approached the gate.
Their banter died down as they made their way to the still open portcullis, the air alive with the sounds of shouts and accusations as Captain Goizing slowed down and signaled everyone to gather.
“That the gate’s still open. That’s a good sign. The yelling is not. Let me take the lead and assure us safe passage. As far as anyone else is concerned, we were on a mission of mercy for the benefit of the entire city, and it went off without a hitch… or any unexpected disturbance of any sort.”
Linnea nodded animatedly. “So we don’t tell anyone about the living dead or all the baddies that Alex killed.”
Alex winced, then nodded. “Exactly. Best we leave the talking to our elders and not say a word at all.”
He exchanged a meaning-filled glance with a worried looking Ya Ling who immediately nodded her understanding. She gently clasped Linnea’s hand and began whispering into her ear, making Linnea blush and squeal, the pair sharing animated gossip as they approached, with Ya Ling’s hand ready to put over the young elementalist’s mouth should worst come to worst. Because one thing Alex was not going to do was abruptly wrest control of his dear friend’s mind. Not when she had given him so much trust, and helped him find a beauty in shared communion that was so far from domination that it was like comparing the sweet joy of making love to one’s soulmate with… Alex winced, refusing even to make the comparison. Instead, he kept his focus firmly on the moment, sensing the tension heightening amongst the entire party.