Alex proceeded forward with deadly caution. It chilled him to think that his enemy might already setting up enemy bases within the city to facilitate a bloody coup. And Alex couldn’t think of a better target than this JiangHu base, which was clearly far more extensive than any single manor. No doubt it was connected to multiple fortified establishments, and could serve as a choice base of operations for who knew how many enemy soldiers.
He couldn’t deny the anxious prickle in his gut, facing an unknown threat without Gold tier Strength or access to his extremely useful gates. And he would have to do it while watching out for a teenage kitsune who couldn’t have been more than sixteen.
He pushed aside his worries before exchanging a nod with Lini, knowing that it was too late for second guessing himself. His friend was in danger, and there was no way he was letting this child go hunting for her mother alone, nor would he coldly hold her back and deal with the horrific fallout, should Nili perish for his cowardice.
Really there was only one path they could take, and that was forward. So they did, quickly darting for the main corridor in tandem. It was bare of all ornamentation, with only shadows from sporadically placed oil lamps to give any shelter from prying eyes that thankfully weren’t around at that moment. Though the tension he felt only mounted with how well he could sense and hear so many soldiers around him. The entire base thrummed with the low bustle of a military camp echoing through the corridors, even if most of the reinforced doors they passed were closed.
Alex didn’t know about Lini, but all sorts of alarms were ringing in his head. There was no way he’d think this a simple purple pavilion operation or the like, with all these safeguards and fall-backs. Whatever its original purpose, it had clearly been co-opted by what he was increasingly sure was at least a splinter of Dongfang Hong’s former forces. So the last thing Alex wanted to do was risk alarming an entire hive of hotblooded soldiers. He reaffirmed to himself that this mission was one of stealth and reconnaissance. He certainly didn’t want to risk getting overwhelmed with no exit point, or a fumble at his end putting Lini or her mother in unnecessary peril. If Nili was in friendly negotiations with a corrupt Chaoxiang, the last thing he wanted to do was blow her cover and risk an entire hidden regimen trying to cut Alex and an unprepared Nili down.
At least he had had the forethought to make full use of both his odd storage space and Water Qi affinities to remove all traces of his earlier kills, which should hold up to at least a cursory inspection before he, Nili, and her daughter fled for their lives.
Alex frowned as the corridor forked off just ahead, keeping ever aware of the rooms he was passing, most especially those that contained warm bodies or supplies, his Qi Perception and Wind affinities revealing so many secrets. It was then that the faint trod of leather boots seemed to echo like thunder to his hypersensitive ears as a pair of men made their way down the central corridor.
Alex wasted no time, grabbing a startled Lini’s hand and darting into the nearest storage room he had sensed. He was relieved that she hadn’t argued his call, or taken offense that he wanted to be out of their sight, no matter how stealthy she thought she was.
Fortunately, Wind-enhanced hearing and quick reflexes had let them both slip out of sight before the pair of soldiers rounded the corner.
“Ready for some fresh meat, Fan?” Joked one to the other, eliciting a bark of laughter as the pair continued down the corridor while Alex and his companion remained perfectly still within a room filled with dry rations, spears, suits of lamellar armor, and crossbows. The latter especially was a troubling sight. And the look Lini gave him… she knew exactly what such a cache meant, and the chilling implications it had for her home.
Alex’s heart was pounding. He was now most definitely in his enemy’s camp, and with Nili still unaccounted for… he had to be careful. And discrete. He made sure the pair of men were well past his location before slipping into the corner once more. Lini, ears pressed anxiously back into her thick mane of curls, was clenching his wriste like a lifeline. Alex gently patted her hand while scowling at the distant pair of guards before breaking completely free of the doorway they could dart back into… finding it odd that the pair hadn’t turned to take the route back to the main brothel, but instead walked deeper along the tunnel before slipping through a door at the far end.
That was when the far corridor door abruptly opened, the wind whispering secrets that changed absolutely everything.
“Fresh conscripts acquired, captain. We’ve now met our quota.”
“Good. Ready them for transport. They all leave tonight.”
Yet what a horrified Alex heard behind the distant curt voices wasn’t the sound of freshly indoctrinated troops fed clever propaganda, now eager to ‘see the world’ as a soldier. No. What he heard were the high pitched sobs of terrified girls.
Alex’s blood ran cold, just as his ears prickled with laughter he recognized all too well from the opposite end of the corridor. Nili’s voice, regaling the supposed master of this operation with a fantastical account of how they had found their imaginary cistern, receiving nothing but warm praise in turn.
Lini’s ears perked up, eyes widening. But before she could say a word, Alex placed his finger upon her upper lip, curtly shaking his head.
His thoughts raced as his priorities instantly shifted, now paying only peripheral attention to his friend’s patter, with no signs that this Chaoxiang had done anything untoward at all. At least not yet. And had Alex not heard the damning words that had washed over him, had he not just rescued Lini from an act of depravity, he might be forced to wonder if his killings had been justified at all.
But he had. And the looks in the eyes of the girls he had encountered had told painful tales all their own. And even if they had been but professional actresses sensing unspoken cues and telling him what they thought he wished to hear after watching him take the lives of their clients, the distant sobs had been the farthest thing from planned.
He quickly spun around, Lini gasping and stepping back as she sensed the intensity behind his gaze, the pressure of his foundation that he so often strove to keep in check.
“Lini, I need you to stay here for now. Will you do this for me? I’ll be back when it’s time to come for your mother, and that’s a promise.”
The young kitsune furrowed her brow. “Alex, I don’t think—” Her words caught off when Alex summoned his fangtian ji from storage, a look of horrified dismay coming over her features. She paled and quickly bowed her head. “It will be as you say, Liutenant. This lowly disciple will wait here for now.”
“Good.” He didn’t both parsing her choice of words, he didn’t have time. Not if he was just seconds away from averting fresh tragedy, yet another unforgivable loss of innocence.
Alex’s heart pounded with both dread and outrage as he made his way once more down the corridor. He gave one final warning glare back from Lini, who quickly darted back inside the storage room.
Alex could only pray that she would do as he had instructed, needing all his focus for what was to come.
It was all he could do to hold back his killing fury. Fingers tightly squeezing the shaft of his near indestructible weapon as he approached the door from which he had heard the faintest of despairing cries and soldiers coldly reporting their fate.
He took a steadying breath as he glared at the door before him.
Before slowly pulling open the door to glimpse whatever secrets his enemies had thought safely hidden away.
“Who the hell is he?”
“He shouldn’t be here! Strike him down!”
The pair of alarmed soldiers turned to glare his way. Yet the killing aura of those half-step Bronze was absolutely nothing compared to the towering fury of a Silver forced to confront a seen straight out of his nightmares.
Dozens of young women muffled and bound, shaking with fear and exhaustion. Clearly innocent, clearly terrified, forced to look on as one of their number had her ropes cut by naked steel and was just seconds away from being forced to endure torments that would scar her for life. Torments that it was damned obvious that every single one of these women would be forced to endure for the rest of what would no doubt be short, horrifically miserable lives.
The pair of glaring men shouted meaningless words that were drowned out by the furious roaring in Alex’s ears. He dare not let loose the towering fury of his killing aura, lest he destroy that which so desperately needed saving.
Instead, he channeled his fury in the only way available to him.
Several girls blinked, the young woman huddling on the ground before him barely had time to flinch, so fast did Alex’s weapon flicker. The girls were spattered by a handful of crimson drops as he darted forward, catching both falling bodies and tumbling heads, making them all disappear so fast that hardly any effluvia struck the girls at all. Almost as if those two monsters had never been there at all.
And then it was done.
The room was now filled only with girls sobbing in fear, or looking his way with dread and, in a surprising handful, hope.
Alex did his best to calm his fury, nose overwhelmed with the stench of sweat, urine, feces and terror as he solemnly bent down to soothe the shaken and still sobbing girl who had come so close to being violated.
“It’s alright. It’s done. They’ll never be able to hurt you again.”
The girl keened and rocked herself, refusing to look him in the eye.
One girl, perhaps more resourceful than the others, had somehow undone her hand bindings and chose that moment to tear free her gag.
“Eternal Disciple, please save us!”
Alex froze at those words, heart hammering as if fearing even that utterance would bring divine ire his way. Yet he sensed nothing but the desperate hope he now saw in ever more pairs of eyes, pausing only to shut the door before working as fast as his Quickness would allow, doing his best to free each and every one of those trembling captives.
And Lini was right there, staring at him with wide, disbelieving eyes. Because of course she had followed him. Of course she had seen everything. Yet he had no time for the questions on the tip of her tongue. They had things they needed to do and absolutely no time to waste.
“Help me free them,” he curtly said, voice rough with the pain in his heart and the fury still pounding in his blood.
Lini immediately nodded, darting through the crowd and freeing the hostages even faster than he.
So many flinched at his touch. While countless others wrapped him in fierce hugs, crying their gratitude, begging him to take them home. That they would do anything for him, even marry him, if only he would take them home.
It was with a pained smile that he very carefully loosened their desperate mortal grips. “Please. I’ll do my best, I promise. But I have to cut everyone else free, okay?” His words echoed oddly in the vast domed chamber lined with watertight clay bricks that he thought might have once served as an emergency cistern, yet now the barren chamber lit only by a single flickering lamp was being used to imprison nearly seventy young captives who were guilty of nothing more than catching the wrong person’s eye.
The air filled with a growing murmur of relief, gratitude, sobs and hope as Alex freed each and every one.
“Who is he?”
“He must be a royal solder. The prince has come to free us!” whispered one girl wearing a fine hemp qipao.
The girl next to her shook her head. “Doubtful. He’s Ruidian. And look at his hair. I’ve never seen a shade that looked like spun gold.”
“That’s because… well, we all know who he must be. A blond-haired Ruidian boy with ancient clothes and a weapon like that coming to rescue us in our hour of need,” Declared another girl who had slipped free of her gag.
“I seriously doubt that,” snorted the first girl. “Everyone knows that the gods abandoned us, centuries ago. If they ever existed at all. Those legends aren’t anything more than fanciful caravan tales.”
Alex let the anxious, excited commentary wash over him, the part of him not filled with desperate worry and towering outrage grateful that at least some of the girls were doing their best to sooth and comfort the girls who had broken down in terrified sobs. Even Lini was doing her part, the shadows muffling sound that would normally echo in a cistern like this one, almost everyone sensing the desperate need for silence. Stillness. To deny their enemies, so many enemies like rats burrowing through the rafters of an ancient home, any clue as to their sudden shift in fortune.
Alex froze for a moment, shivering before sudden insight.
Ignoring hopeful eyes turning wide with confusion and growing tension, he immediately spun for the door. Refusing to over analyze his sudden perception and understanding of the flow of sound and vibration, patterns that meshed so well with all the spiritual treasures he had studied, countered, and destroyed since first awakening with a collar around his neck and destroying an infernalist who had thought to enslave his entire band.
However many years...or centuries back that had been.
He had ascended divine steps and died at least once or twice since that fateful day.
He quickly shook away a moment of bittersweet melancholy, mind blazing with one desperate question.
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After shattering so many constructs and configurations of spiritual energy channeled in ways that imperiled him, would it really be that hard to form a configuration for a cause that could save so many lives?
He gazed intently at the door, mind whirling with countless overlapping images of complex knots of Qi… shivering with ancient memories that weren’t entirely his own… yet were utterly his own. Such that when he caressed the door with a single touch, Greater Wind Mastery served as a bridge between past brilliance and present desperation.
His eyes widened, genuinely surprised by how easy it was to tie a fresh knot of potential, needing only a tiny trickle of the flood of spiritual energy surrounding them all, enhanced by the raw desperation of so many nearby souls… and the potency of those who had fallen to his killing blows, just minutes ago.
Congratulations! Thanks to Rank 8 Artificer & Greater Wind Affinity, you have had a profound breakthrough!
You have unlocked the secret of generating wards!
Barrier of Silence has been quantized at Rank 1+6 (Greater Wind Affinity) = Rank 7!
You have taken a crucial step along the Wujen’s Path!
At any other place or time, Alex would have been utterly filled with jubilation and excitement.
Now, all he felt was a terrible sense of tension, knowing that he was running out of time on so many fronts.
Yet at least now he could raise his voice, addressing the girls directly, once the last had been freed.
“Please, hero! Do you have any water?” Asked one timid voice before he could say a word.
“That really is a good question, Alex,” Lini agreed, flashing a sheepish smile. “If I’m feeling parched, imagine how these girls are feeling.”
One of the nearby girls spun around, looking a suddenly flustered Lini right in the eye. “Wait! His name is Alex?”
Alex swallowed the sudden lump in his throat, eagle eyes quickly spotting one of many sub basins in what had once been a massive water cistern, no doubt assuring clean water even in times of shortfall. It said something unfortunate about the administration, in Alex’s opinion, that this cistern had been completely abandoned when the city was currently surviving on a single fading Water core.
Still riding the rush of potency from kills made less than 4 minutes ago, Alex summoned a Water shield and found it effortless to fill that miniature trough that was remarkably clean and dry, if a bit dusty, with gallons upon gallons of fresh water.
“Sure. Please. Drink your fill.”
And the looks of awe and wonder this one act earned him was even more profound than his taking out the pair of guards so ruthlessly in the first place.
“Did you see what he did?”
“Drink it. It’s fresh. Heaven’s mercy, it tastes like pure spring water!”
“No wujen can make water like this, right? Just ice that eventually turns to mist, and only those who advance to Silver can make true ice that melts, and only in limited quantities and no one ever dares demand that they…” The girl of clearly wealthy origins gave a suddenly awkward-feeling Alex an appraising look before turning to the girl who had made such a bold proclamation earlier.
“I think perhaps you’re right, sister. Maybe a hero does walk among us once more.”
Alex flushed at that. “It’s just water.”
This earned a bitter smile from more than one girl now gazing at him so intently.
“There’s no such thing as ‘just water’… hero. Not when our city’s fate is hanging by a thread, sustained by a single fading beast core.”
“Don’t say it. You’ll tempt fate!”
“Stop it. You know it’s true. Our dying lake tells the tale, no matter how diligently the farmers use the water that remains, or how lush or fast-growing all those crops have become, with so many cultivators now tending to our food supply.”
There were so many questions Alex wanted to ask, but now was most definitely not the time. Instead, he forced himself to focus on the immediate matter at hand.
“How were you girls transported here?”
“They kidnapped me!” Sobbed one girl. “After savoring the sweetest of dreams…” Her cheeks abruptly flushed. “I was taken from my home in the dead of night! Now I don’t even know if my parents are alive!”
“I was stupid enough to follow a handsome man who made such promises… how foolish I now feel,” admitted another girl softly.
More than a few girls broke down in tears, or castigated themselves with regret.
“How could I have been so foolish as to trust any man?” One cursed, yanking her hair and smacking her face until Lini grabbed her hand and the girl broke down in tears.
“I just want to go home!” Another sobbed.
One young woman of around twenty, wearing what a surprised Alex swore were cultivator’s robes, solemnly pointed down the length of the cistern. “That way,” She said in a husky voice, standing tall and proud, now that her bindings had been removed. “About five hundred paces. Through a warehouse built when trade was at its peak, since abandoned for warehouses closer to the various gates.”
Several girls looked at the white-robed girl in surprise. “She remembers?”
“She’s a cultivator, of course she remembers. Even if she was tricked as easily as the rest of us!” Hissed another girl.
For some reason those worlds made the young cultivator flush.
“I’m not a very good one. I’m just a student, still clearing my meridians. But my master would never forgive me not doing all I could to facilitate my own rescue,” the suddenly shy girl whispered.
Alex dipped his head in appreciation. “Thank you. That’s exactly what I needed to know. Can you tell me if there are any guards, back the way you came?”
The girl frowned thoughtfully. “I think there were a couple men at the warehouse? They said things… crude things, but with the air of people long used to their roles. I think… I think they have been bringing girls here for some time.”
Alex dipped his head. “How frequently do they…”
“Bring new girls?” She asked with a bitter smile.
“Well… yes.”
The young cultivator sighed, a hand nervously pulling her braided chestnut curls. “I think… I think we’re it? At least for now? The men… they were discussing transporting us. One was joking that it would soon be time for the next phase. But I don’t really know for sure.”
Her words elicited fresh sobs in some of the other girls.
“Wait, please, have any of you seen a girl named Jinni? I can’t find her!” An increasingly distressed Lini said aloud, after half a dozen girls she had whispered to shook their heads regretfully. “Jinni? Are you here? It’s me, Lini! I’m here to rescue you! Are you hiding?”
The handful of girls who had shown themselves brave enough to speak exchanged looks before calling out to those still too fearful to say a word. “Does anyone recall any girl named Jinni?”
Only silence answered her desperate cry.
Thoughts racing, Alex quickly planned his strategy. It wasn’t perfect, but he knew what would happen if the enemy soldiers spotted almost seventy previously captured girls flooding the streets, eager to report their mass kidnapping. It would generate alarm. Alarm that might be sufficient to cause anxious diplomats and agents to think that diplomacy was now a lost cause and unleash their Silver-tier killers to force a royal vacancy and put their own pawns in place. Either that, or give the signal to start the invasion that would cost the lives of thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of citizens, not to mention all but assure the deaths of his friends.
But there was no way in hell that he was leaving these girls to their fate.
He grit his teeth, already knowing what he had to do.
“Alright, wait here. And that means you too, Lini,” he said with a pointed look at the flushing kitsune. “I’ll be right back.”
“Alex!”
“Yes?”
“Please keep an eye out for my friend, Jinni. She’s…” Lini’s anxious gaze peered beseechingly into Alex’s own. “She’s part Ruidian, but she doesn’t have any jewel on her brow or anything like that. Yet I’m afraid that won’t even matter. She’s exotic looking and pretty. And these animals…” She bit her lip, squeezing back tears as one of the closest girls squeezed her hand sympathetically as she choked back a sob, wiping away the tears streaming down her cheeks.
Alex bowed his head. “I will.”
He then dashed down the cistern and into the main tunnel just beyond, ignoring the panicked cries behind him. Because even if he wouldn’t be leaving immediately, he had to make sure no flesh-hungry soldiers were heading to the girls from the opposite exit as the one Alex had entered.
And much to his unexpected relief… there was nothing but a sturdy looking door before him, clearly barred from the other side.
He flashed a smile on utterly silent feet, Qi Perception picking up the impression of a long corridor beyond, devoid of any presence. No one was moving toward the door. Which meant that the girls were effectively hemmed in… but no one was immediately coming back this way.
Good.
If things went according to the hot fiery plan forming in his head… he’d be coming back soon enough.
He then made a quick alteration before racing back the way he had come, muffling his feet to effortless silence, using hardly any energy at all.
Congratulations! You have evolved your Water Walking and Wind Walking Skills!
You may now effortlessly walk on the ground without generating a trace of sound, or vibration! Your feet weigh so lightly upon whatever surface you tread that you could effortlessly walk across bamboo paper, water, or a leaf!
Wind Walking has been enhanced by Lightness Technique! No ripples will form in your wake!
Water Walking has been enhanced by Lightness technique!
Wind Walking has been enhanced by Silent Steps Technique! No gusts will alert your foes to your hovering right above their heads!
Wind Walking is now Rank 8!
Water Walking is now Rank 8!
Walking upon any surface is now effortless and as silent as you wish it to be! (save for the River of Souls, which still takes some effort!)
Surprisingly to Alex, something in his gaze awoke something in the young freckled cultivator now gazing at him so raptly.
“You’ve had a breakthrough. I can tell!”
Lini gave Alex a look, eyes widening. “You have. You’ve embraced silence! Even though you’re not…” She stole a quick look around her, adjusting her makeshift bonnet. “Anyway, you’re not making any sound at all now!”
Alex gazed at the pair young cultivators for long moments. “If worst comes to worst, can either of you fight?”
Lini flushed, wiping away the last of her tears before stiffening her spine and saluting him, fist to chest. “Yes, Liutenant. I… I won’t dishonor my mother with fear. I can use a spear, though not as good as my parents.”
Alex smiled. “One spear coming up,” he said, giving Lini a short, light spear with a narrow head, ideal for piercing the weakest points in any armored foe, his movements buried in Shadow as Lini gazed for long moments at the ring on his finger. “Nice trick,” she softly said.
The other cultivator gave a solemn nod. “I am a student of the staff.”
“Does that include the bladed staff?”
The girl dipped her head. “Though I use it more as a short spear,” she said with a glance at Lini’s weapon. “I’m still a basic, but my master’s almost certain that one day…”
“He’s right. You have seven intact nodes. Even if the final two are quite filled with compacted waste.” Alex flashed a bemused smile. “Probably because your last couple of lives were quite a bittersweet brew of vice and virtue.” He winked. “I get the feeling that this serene cultivator’s life you’ve been embracing up until your capture is the exception, not the rule. And good for you. It does the soul good, embracing serenity when and where you can. Hopefully, by this time tomorrow, you’ll be back in your master’s care, and can put all this all behind you.”
It was only after the observation had left his lips that he realized what he had said. His tongue slipping way from him, forgetting that he wasn’t with companions who understood his nature… friends of a lifetime ago.
Instead he received multiple looks of breathless awe.
“He can see our past lives?”
“He read her soul! Coaxin is right. Just look at the water we’re drinking. Water he made effortlessly! And a Ruidian counseling a true-blooded cultivator? There’s only one person that could possibly be.”
The girl next to her nodded solemnly. Wide brown eyes locked on Alex’s blushing form. “He’s a character right out of the stories. Our city’s lost hero, come to rescue us in our hour of greatest need!”
Lini’s look of wonder turned to a wry smile. “Does Mother even know what you are?”
Alex ignored the heat in his cheeks, his focus on the trembling girl before him.
“What’s your name?”
“Li Li.”
Alex smiled, pulling free a bladed staff from the ring he was still wasn’t ready to examine, paying no heed to the fresh looks of disbelief this earned him. “Can you use this?”
The girl blinked, wide eyed, before jerking a nod. “I… yes?”
“Good. You’re now Lini’s spear-sister. The pair of you will serve as our young friends’ guardians and protectors. Of course if trouble does come, your first job is to yell. Can you do that for me?” His fingers gently brushed both of their throats, earning a surprised blink from Li Li, and flushed cheeks from Lini.
He smiled reassuringly. “Don’t worry, I’ll hear your battle cries, if it comes to that. Or just whisper, and keep me abreast of whatever’s going on.
“You’re a wujen!”
Alex winked. “Just a student with a strong affinity for Wind.”
His smile faded to something hard and cold. “There’s plenty of water. You girls will wait here until I get back. If trouble comes… don’t risk your lives foolishly. Surrender peacefully, so they don’t cut your throat. Just let me know where you are and what’s happening, and I’ll come when I can.”
The pair of girls nodded breathlessly as Alex girded himself for what was to come, allowing the gentle concern of a dreamer that these fragile souls needed to see and be comforted by to be replaced by the hard-eyed focus of a man willing to do whatever the hell he had to, to see his mission through.
“Hero! Wait. What do I call you?”
“His name’s Alex,” Lini said brightly as Alex gave a final wave before leaving the chamber.
Alex turned to the door, channeling his anger, letting it build in a surge of steady heat as a lock melted and a door sealed. One would have to be very serious and following protocol before deciding to break through that door, and both the noise and disruption of his ward would give him all the warning he needed to race back to the girls’ rescue, if that happened.
Or so he hoped.
But if things went according to plan, the sealed door would soon be the last thing on the soldiers’ minds.
His face became a study in grim focus as he approached the first barracks door, placed his hand upon its surface just long enough for the gentle flow of air beyond to whisper its secrets, then he yanked open the door and got to work.