“Come on, stop playing around and hit me!”
Sweat poured from Kenji’s brow as he struggled to maintain his fighting stance. Olja stood opposite him, the giant, golden-haired Xjian woman grinning. She stood three heads taller than him, her massive body clad in her jade dress and gleaming chest armor. Her ice blue eyes twinkled with mischief as she held her hands casually by her sides, sans her normal Fist Master gauntlets. She glanced to Shinoto who sat in the boughs of a willow tree dangling over the river’s edge. His bride-to-be grinned mischievously as well, as if the two women were sharing a secret joke between them.
Curse this fate, he thought. I definitely can’t lose now.
Kenji struggled to control his breathing by tapping into his Qi, willing the sacred energy from within his doma to travel through several of his meridians. The power of it flowed and was like taking a second breath of air, his endurance returning.
“That’s the third time already!” Shinoto shouted with accusation from within the tree. Her elegant features glowed with delight as she laughed. Kenji admired her for a moment; a true beauty to rival any empress or queen and seventeen years old again, thank the heavens. Her long dark hair, now tied loosely behind her head in a horse’s tail, bobbed up and down as she laughed and contrasted against her bright white robes, still trimmed with the Off-White that had once determined her station with their clan.
Kenji’s own robes did the same. But their robes defined them no more. They were all that was left of the Han clan now and the future of it would be entirely up to him. The sacred Han arts, able to control time itself, were now his to further master and refine, and his alone to carry into the future.
Kenji focused on the task at hand and could feel the surge of power from his ascended doma, which even now causes a bit of discomfort in his stomach.
“Use the second wind technique two more times without hitting her and you lose, Kenji!” Shinoto mocked him.
“Yes, I know the rules, my love,” he said with a grin.
Kenji grimaced with determination, focusing on recalling his martial forms.
“Ready?” Olja asked, lowering into a fighting stance.
Kenji placed a palm over his fist and gave a short bow as his strength fully returned. “Ready.”
“Go!”
With a yell, Kenji lunged at Olja with a flying kick, followed by a series of jabs. Olja weaved through the strikes barely moving. He went through each of the martial forms she had taught him, striking with focused punches and sweeps. He tried desperately to hit the woman nearly twice his size, but she moved with a celerity that defied her massive girth. It was like trying to hit a bear that possessed the grace of a bee. He didn’t give up, however even when his arms began to tire.
“Don’t get sloppy,” Olja warned him. “Maintain your form. Never sacrifice it for speed. Only amateurs do that crap.”
“Yes, master!”
“And stop calling me master. Damn. So formal you southerners are.”
“Sorry,” he breathed, still desperate to hit her with only one punch.
He flexed his doma, enduring a sting of pain as he accessed his Qi again, topping himself up with another burst of energy from the second wind technique.
“That’s four!” Shinoto said. “One more and you forfeit!”
“It’s your turn next, little one,” Olja chided her, leaning back as Kenji’s sweeping kick missed her head by a mile. “So get ready.”
Kenji felt his strength diminishing. He was tempted to break technique and swing wildly in order to hit her, but that was all he knew how to do in the past. A rank amateur like she’d said. But now that Olja had taught him several striking techniques of the Fist Master arts, those were all he was limited to perform—at least while training. The battle raged on, sand flying into the air as they sparred up and down the riverbank.
Kenji’s mind raced as he struggled to find a way to pass this challenge. His speed could certainly not match Olja’s own, but perhaps his cunning could. Kenji measured the last of his endurance, trying to think two and three steps ahead of her. She was reacting to his attacks, and that gave him some way to influence the fight.
Examining her defensive technique for another minute, he went all out with a flurry of strikes. He never expected to hit her. Instead he aimed for an open space of air he expected her to be in when he performed his last sweeping kick.
“LIGHTNING ARC SCYTHE!”
He executed the technique with a burst of Qi, channeling it through his meridians. He lacked the inner strength to perform the technique in full, performing merely a spinning kick, instead of a streaming arc of lightning from his heel as Olja would. Still, as predicted, Olja ducked below the kick, shifting to the right. Kenji immediately followed through with a punch to the open air behind him.
With amazement his knuckles met flesh…but in the form of Olja’s open palm.
She grinned at him as she blocked his final strike. “Nice one, but I saw it coming a mile away.”
Kenji slumped, exhausted and defeated as both Olja and Shinoto broke into a laugh.
“And still the reigning no touch champion, Olja!” Shinoto cheered for her and Olja performed a surprisingly graceful bow.
“Not bad though,” Olja said, clapping Kenji on the shoulder. “That investment in quick thinking for cultivation focus must be paying off. You have a knack for coming up with the unpredictable on the fly.”
“Thanks,” Kenji said and rested his hands on his knees as he caught his breath, the small measure of praise filling him with pride. But he dare not let it go to his head. “But it seems, I’ll need to focus on my body cultivation to become much faster to hit you. What level of body celerity do you possess?”
“Five ranks passively,” she said. “Triple that if I engage the Lightning Spirit technique.”
Kenji’s insides melted in awe. Just to hear the possibilities that came with advancement had him eager to cultivate right away. “When will I be able to do all that?”
Olja laughed in her deep voice. “In time. You learn quick though. You seem to have mastered those forms already, but cultivation is a different matter. That will only come with what materia you can get your hands on and how fast you can channel it. You’ll get there. Or get back there, I should say. You’re still only first Dan, remember.”
Kenji grinned inwardly as she said it. Not so long ago a statement like that would have seemed ludicrous; like someone claiming the emperor’s head chef was only a beginner cook. 1st Dan was always an impossible goal he could never achieve, a gulf he could never cross. But now, since travelling to the celestial realm, seeing the powerful beings that resided there and discovering the glowing symbols that could forge his cultivation in whatever direction he desired, 1st Dan did indeed seems like the rank of a pure beginner.
But still he was happy to finally be one.
A true practitioner of the mystic arts at last.
Shinoto hopped down from the tree and landed gracefully even without using her Qinggong. “My turn, slow poke. Go take a rest.”
Kenji laughed and did so gladly, collapsing onto the cold sand of the riverbank.
It had been nearly a week now since he’d defeated General Amikazu and the Bloody Duke and ascended to 1st Dan. And it was perhaps one of the best weeks of his life, if he were honest. Sailing upon the river and channeling by day, they made camp on the riverbank to study techniques and train by night. As his new master—even though she hated him calling her that— Olja took her vows to prepare him to be the Holy Templar of the 8th Realm quite seriously and had started both he and Shinoto along the path of the mystic arts.
Although in truth he still had very little idea what becoming this Holy Templar actually meant. They had scant talked about it or even about Olja’s own mysterious past and her homeland of Xjian where they were all bound to travel to one day.
Instead Olja focused on teaching him her own mystic art forms, a combination of the Iron Body and Thunder Fist techniques. And considering he would one day be facing the Bloody Duke and the unknown forces of the dark realms he had unwittingly summoned, not satisfying his own curiosity for the sake of mystic arts training was just fine with him.
It was still only the basics he’d been taught so far, but he had learned a wealth of knowledge already. Martial forms, attack patterns and even a few Qi infused techniques like the Lightning Arc kick he had performed; even if it did come without the power of actual lightning. All of it was knowledge he was eager to incorporate into his own mystic art style one day; utilizing the Sacred Han techniques to create the Way of the Sundered Soul.
But that could be years away.
Right now he’d be happy to learn enough to just land a single punch on Olja. But after that, he’d then have to learn to do the same with her actually fighting back. And that was still only the basics—or so Olja had warned. It was all at once daunting and exhilarating. Challenge upon challenge to grow stronger.
The life of a practitioner.
He was beginning to understand what that truly meant now. It was a drive unlike anything he had experienced before. A life unlike that of the artisan he was trained to be, whose focus was on perfection rather than progression. And it was altogether nothing like the simple laborer’s life he had been relegated to living before; content to tend orchards for the rest of his days.
He was truly on a path leading to greatness now.
Towards a destiny both known and unknown.
He looked up at the morning sun now beaming hot in the sky, enjoying the warmth on his face. They’d been up since dawn as had become their routine, starting with morning channeling before consuming a quick breakfast and then commencing with forms and techniques before heading onto the river in their small boat.
As he looked to Shinoto, now engaging in her own basic training, an uneasiness filled him. She still hadn’t been able to sense her doma and cultivate yet. It had been nearly a week now with no results at all.
The thought caused his stomach to sour.
He prayed that it was perhaps too early to tell if there was any permanent damage or not. Her use of the Han rope technique that Kenji had constructed for her, had decompressed ten years’ worth of cultivated Qi in a single Palm technique, literally vaporizing the two 10th Dan sellblades who were about to kill them, and clearing half a forest in the process.
But the stress of it had nearly killed her as well, and now he feared that her doma was permanently crippled as a result. He prayed it wasn’t the case and that her Doma would eventually heal. But as for right now, Olja was limited to teaching her martial forms only with no use of Qi.
It was the same way he had struggled his entire life.
A Doma-less dullard.
But at least nothing more was expected of him back then.
But for Shinoto, as a Soul Master—one able to wield the forces of the elements themselves through the force of their Doma—her inner strength was the heart of her power. Kenji frowned and hoped he had not robber her of that too.
“Your aim is improving,” Olja commented with a smile as she studied Shinoto from afar, who now wielded pebbles instead of the jewel-encrusted bangles of the Soul Master arts. Shinoto faced the three makeshift targets at the far end of the riverbank, trunks of bamboo shoved into the sand.
With a yell she threw all three stones with a flash of her hand and managed to hit two out of the three in a single strike.
“Good,” Olja said. “Again. But try it from further back this time.”
Kenji had to admit that even without her Qi, Shinoto’s martial form was impressive, as was her aim. He supposed focusing on that was still quite important, considering Soul Master fought from a distance and therefore aim was critical. And perhaps they could find help for her in Kurogane, the same as he now sought for his own doma.
But like everything else, only time would tell.
Shinoto’s training continued as Kenji slipped into meditation, channeling and restoring the Qi within his own Doma. In his mind’s eye he envisioned it, the center of his core and the dwelling place of his Qi. For him it was different than many others. His Doma was sealed within a soul stone, one that was thankfully now cracked, allowing him access to cultivate to an extent, but it was tearing his Doma apart as well.
And slowly killing him.
For as much Qi as he could now circulate through his meridians, the same was seeping into his body and slowly poisoning him to death. Or so Master Mei Ling back in Amatsu Village had told him. He pondered upon her a moment, picturing the elegant doctor on her high-heeled sandals and prayed she was alright. And that Shinoto’s brother, Chet-Fai, was alright as well. He remembered his vow to Mei Ling also. Amatsu Village deserved to be ruled by her, not the bloated bureaucrat who now stood as their chief.
But righting such injustices were far from his reach. Only those with strength could wield power…and he was still yet weak. That thought caused him to concentrate further on his channeling, willing more Qi into his doma. As the pressure built, an all too familiar pain radiated through his gut. Blood filled his mouth and his head grew light.
He slumped to one side and Shinoto turned about from her practice. “Kenji?”
She trotted to him with concern in her eyes at first, but then they shifted to annoyance as she let out an exasperated sigh. “Will you please stop trying to do that? You’ll only injure yourself more.”
“Yes, I know…” he said, sitting back up and enduring the pain. “It’s just frustrating being like this.”
She blew out a laugh. “Yeah, tell me about it.”
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He realized what he had said and immediately blushed. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be so insensitive.”
“And will you quit being so sensitive?” she said rolling her eyes. “I’ll be fine. You suffered like this for much longer than I have. But if you keep pushing it, you’ll be worse than a cripple. You’ll be dead. So quit it.”
Kenji sighed. What she said was absolutely right. With his doma still sealed, further ascension was impossible—or at least, not without killing him, it seemed. Kenji adjusted the length of golden rope tied about his waist, his second source of power. Although using it was perhaps just as deadly as taxing his Doma, but through a different set of means.
“You’d better listen to her, tough guy,” Olja said with a deep chuckle. She folded her arms across her massive chest. “Don’t push it. Kurogane is close now. We’ll fix that seal or whatever the heck is wrong inside of you. Then you can start cultivating for real. I’m actually looking forward to seeing your potential. From what my mother used to tell us about Li Wan Fu, he was a prodigy like none she had ever seen.”
“So I’ve been told,” Kenji said as he spat out blood. Li Wan Fu, his true name. He knew nothing of his former life, but he’d once been an immortal warrior; one that now haunted Kenji as a spirit in his visions and promised to kill him one day to reacquire his body.
“Your mother actually trained him?” Shinoto asked.
“In the beginning, yes,” Olja said. “But he surpassed her quickly. The same that will happen between Kenji and I, one day, I suppose. But I’m to make sure he doesn’t go off the deep end this time.”
She laughed, making it a joke, but the thought that he could only day be more powerful than Olja was mind boggling, but not out of question, not after already meeting the man he used to be. “The Bloody Duke doesn’t seem like someone who even needs a master. His skills and powers are incredible.”
“Everyone needs a master,” Olja said. “Or a mentor at the very least. The Holy Seer said Li Wan Fu lost his path because he grew too arrogant and stopped believing he could learn anything from others. So consider that your first lesson. You listen to me, no matter how foul-reared you get.”
“Foul-reared?” Shinoto said, creasing her brow at her.
Olja waved her hand dismissively. “Never mind. The tones probably don’t translate well in your dialect.”
Shinoto laughed. “I’d say so.”
“Anyway, the point is, you take you cues from now, Li Wan Fu.”
She laughed again and Kenji smirked with mock annoyance at the ribbing.
“You start calling me that and I’ll stop calling you master and start calling you Princess.”
Olja rolled her eyes. “Curse the fates, I wish you’d never overheard that.”
“Hey!” Shinoto said. “Are you really a princess or what? You still haven’t told us what that even means.”
“And I won’t,” Olja said. “So just forget it. Besides it’s just a stupid title we—”
Her words cut off as she looked directly into the treeline of the forest several feet away.
As she did so, Kenji immediately understood why. A cold and sinister presence filled the air about him as a sickness crept into his stomach and not from his own doma this time.
Dark Qi…
He stood just as a huge form broke through the tree line, lunging at him.
Instinct took over and Kenji raised his forearm to block.
It was a mistake.
Whatever it was slammed into him with the force of a waterfall; throwing him to the ground, winding him. A ferocious roar filled the air as Kenji came face to face with the slavering jowls of a creature he’s never seen before. It had the body and shape of a large hairless dog with blackened, purplish skin, but its head more resembled that of a snake or salamander, with rows of needle like teeth and glowing red eyes. Its weight pressed down upon him as he fought to keeps its snapping jaws from his face, wrapping his fingers around its thick neck to do so.
Something struck it in one of its eyes and the beast hissed before hopping off of him. Kenji looked back to see Shinoto still standing in the martial form of her throw some ten feet away.
“Move Kenji!” she cried.
Kenji did so, but not before laying into the beast with a kick using all his might. The dog-salamander-like thing hissed a second time as it tumbled across the beach from the force of his blow. Even though he was slowly being killed by it, the Qi leaking into his body gave him strength like never before. But even that seemed to do little to the monster as it quickly righted itself and came snarling at him again.
Sand sprayed into the air as Olja came crashing down next to him, slamming her heel into the beast’s neck. With a sound of snapping bone, she drove it straight through and the creature writhed on the ground a few moments before finally growing still. Black blood seeped into the sand with the smell of death and slowly the body began to dissolve into black tendrils of Dark Qi.
“What in the heavens was that thing?” Shinoto said, gawking at the creature.
They both looked to Olja but the giant woman merely shrugged. “Why in hells would you expect me to know what this is? I thought it was the stupid skull-demon again. But this thing was way too weak.”
Kenji backed away from the dissolving dog-creature. “The skull demon. I nearly forgot about that. Do you think it’s still out there too?”
“Probably.”
That did nothing to make him feel better about things. More snarls filled the air, coming from the forest. As Kenji looked through the tree line he saw the movement of shadows…dozens of them. “We need to get back to the boat!”
Even as he said it, three more of the creatures burst onto the riverbank and circling behind them. His heart raced with panic, but he knew it wasn’t entirely from his own fear. Tendrils of Dark Qi oozed from the beasts, filling the air with an unnatural terror.
“Backs together!” Olja shouted, lightning ripping across her huge body as she performed the kata of one of her Thunder Fists techniques. She charged at the dogs with a spinning kick, setting two of them alight with a crackle of lightning. The sound of it boomed across the river as they convulsed and fell dead, but the third creature managed to avoid her attack entirely.
“Get to the boat,” Kenji said, pushing Shinoto ahead of him as he turned towards the river. But as Olja fended off the last creature, a half dozen more of the beasts jumped out of the forest. The bulk of them headed towards Olja, joining their solitary pack mate to overwhelm the giantess, but two of them skirted ahead of Kenji and Shinoto, cutting them off from the river.
“Just try to fend them off!” Olja shouted. “I’m coming.”
Even as she said it, more of the beasts came running out of the forest after them. The forest itself began to wither and die as the force of Dark Qi poisoned the land itself. Kenji could feel the sickness in his bones. He pushed Shinoto behind him as he punched and kicked at the snapping beasts, barely keeping them at bay as he pummeled their melon like heads with his fists. He wished he had a proper weapon of some kind. Olja too perhaps wished the same, having to resort to fighting the creature with her bare feet and hands instead of her rune etched gauntlets and boots.
The martial forms he’d just learned became meaningless as resorted to pure instinct to push and punch the creatures away, using his brute strength alone. From behind him, Shinoto vainly threw her pebbles into the mass of a dozen or so beasts as they snapped around them.
“By the gods, this is useless!” she cried. “What I wouldn’t give to use a palm technique right now!”
She was right. They couldn’t keep fending these things off like this. They had to do something to even these odds and quick. He tightened the golden rope about his waist just as Olja let loose with a thunder strike next to him, killing four of the beasts at once.
But as soon as they fell they were quickly replaced by a half dozen more.
“Kenji what are you doing?” Shinoto said, noticing him gripping the rope. “You can’t use that again!”
“There are too many of them! I have to!”
He summed his Qi, channeling into the glyphs upon the golden rope. The beasts were covering the riverbank like a blanket now, at least twenty of them, writhing on top of one another as Olja drew their attention with a burst of lightning that sent two more of the dogs flying. This wasn’t good. She would be overwhelmed soon.
Kenji dashed forward and activated the rope, chanelling his Qi.
With the power of over a hundred Dans raced through his doma, he performed the only technique he knew.
“LIGHTNING ARC SCYTHE!”
Energy burst through his meridians and he channeled it into the heel of his foot. A bolt of lightning as thick as a tree trunk swept outward as he performed the spinning kick. It crashed into the dogs and the tree line with a thunderous boom, flattening the forest in an arc fifty feet wide.
Blood erupted from his mouth as he fell to the ground, seeing stars.
As the back of his head hit the ground, the sky flashed red and a huge formless shadow loomed over him. It took him a moment to realize that the shadow was not close, but the silhouette of something miles away and high in the dark red sky. The shadow then shifted, undulating in a serpentine motion before the world went completely black.
* * *
Kenji awoke with a start to find both Olja and Shinoto leaning over him.
He wasn’t sure how much time had passed but he didn’t hear the dogs or whatever they were any more. Shinoto had a crease of worry on her brow, but Olja was scowling and didn’t look amused in the slightest.
“You shouldn’t have done that,” she said angrily.
Shinoto thankfully seemed to have a more sympathetic tone. “Are you alright?”
Kenji touched his doma and the radiating heat and pain he felt said he had once again taxed it beyond the limit of its constraints. “I think so. I think I saw…”
“That was a dumb move,” Olja chided him. “You could have killed yourself. And who knows what other damaged you’ve gone and caused now too.”
He was about to mention the shadow he’d seen when she cut him off. But now he was thankful she did. Mentioning that would have only reinforced her point. He didn’t need to see it fully to know what it was. He recalled the Bakunawa he’d summoned in the spirit realm. But had he now just seen it in the real world as well?
“That was a hell of a risk you took.”
“Yes,” Kenji said. “I realize that.”
“No, I don’t think you do,” she said testily.
Why was she reacting sharply to this? “Those things were all over us,” he retorted. “And you were in trouble, Olja,”
“They weren’t even that tough. And I was fine.”
“Yes, perhaps. But we weren’t. Neither of us had weapons or techniques.”
“I was getting to you!”
“By when?” he shouted. “The summer festival?”
“Maybe you two need to calm down,” Shinoto said.
“Calm down?” Olja fumed even more. “I’m going to take that belt from you, I swear. You don’t know what you’re doing.”
Kenji met her gaze with defiance. “You just try and take it.”
“What?”
“I said you’re not. Taking. It.”
“Do you think I need your permission? You don’t know what you’re dealing with,” Olja said. “Using it to defeat the Bloody Duke is one thing. But using it any chance you get is not a smart move.”
“Not a smart move?” Kenji seethed. “I wouldn’t have used it if I didn’t think it was necessary, Olja. You think I don’t know the risks? I know them more than you do!”
“Do you now?” She pierced him with a stare. “So I guess you’re the one who has spoken personally to the Holy Seer of the 8th realm, am I right?”
Shinoto sighed again, rested her palm against her forehead. “You both sound like eight year olds, you know that?”
“Look,” Olja said, ignoring her. “If I’m going to train you, you need to heed what I tell you. That artifact is going to bring you nothing but trouble. If it doesn’t outright kill you first.”
“They were about to kill us,” Kenji said. “What else was I supposed to do?”
Olja sighed again but didn’t really seem to have an answer.
“What I’m saying is, you need to focus on honing your own skills,” she said eventually. “Your own power. Shortcuts like that will only lead you to bad ends.” And then she added smugly. “Just ask your predecessor.”
Kenji’s smirked. “Nice. That was real low blow, princess.”
“I said don’t call me—!”
“Quiet, you two!” Shinoto said cutting her off. “Something else is coming.”
A new presence filled the air, and all three of them looked towards the now flattened tree line. The corpses of dog creatures were vaporizing into the air and just beyond them a group of figures emerged. They moved quickly with Qinggong and when they got closer, Kenji saw there were half a dozen people dressed in blue robes.
“Let me do the talking,” Olja said, and then she glowering at Kenji she added with a whisper. “And no more ropes, Li Wan Fu.”
Kenji merely shook his head.
The people in blue robes stopped a distance away and seemed to confer with another for a few moments before stepping forward as a group. For some reason, they felt more threatening than the dogs-creatures, as they slowly fanned out around them, circling them while casually displaying their weapons. Three of them appeared to be Sword Masters, wielding double-edged jian. The other three comprised of a Spear Master wielding a large halberd and two soul masters perhaps, as Kenji could see no obvious weapons on them at all.
A woman at the center, a Sword Master with short cut hair and scar across her chin spoke first. “Did one of you do this?”
“Yeah, me,” Olja said casually with a leer. “I sneezed.”
The group didn’t seem to know how to take Olja’s joke, but if anything it put them more on guard and one of the Sword Masters reached for his sword. The scar-faced woman at the center, however, darted him a quick look and the man stayed his hand.
“Who are you outlander?” the woman asked.
“Just a traveler looking for a way home,” Olja said. “As you can tell I’m not from around these parts. I’m hoping to find passage via ship. The port city of Kurogane is close by, is it not?”
Kenji marveled at how quickly Olja used deception to deflect the conversation, avoiding the woman’s direct question with one of her own. He supposed her history as the Iron Queen, the top sellblade in the Iron Company mercenary guild was the cause of that. And perhaps also her ridiculous manner when it came to training and communication in general. He absently wondered if she had actually ever trained anyone before.
“It is close by,” the woman answered. “But you picked a sore time to travel.” She then gestured to the smoldering bodies around her. “I trust I don’t need to explain why.”
“What are these monsters?” Shinoto asked.
The woman looked Shinoto up and down, as if testing for her doma and perhaps she was as she seemed to study her for quite a while. “Corrupted spirits from within the mines,” she said after apparently satisfying herself with the inspection. “Half the commerce within Kuragane has ground to a halt as a result. And half the population has gone with it. You’d be lucky to find a single ship in port right now.”
“Because of these things?” Olja questioned her incredulously, as if she were referring to a bunch of ants instead of the savage beasts that had just attacked them.
“These are only the little ones,” the woman said. “The true corrupted spirits are much stronger. And smarter. Remnants of human souls. Some think even true demons.”
That sent a chill up Kenji’s spine.
“You were lucky to have encountered these during the day,” the Spear Master said. He was a middle aged man with a thick beard and round belly. “At night they become much stronger and bolder.”
“You would do well to travel with us now,” the woman said. “That pack was a relatively small one, but there are others that still roam during the daylight hours.”
“I appreciate the offer,” Olja said. “But we’re travelling by river. So no need.”
“That’s all the more reason to join us,” the woman said with a subtle smile. “The waters around Kuragane have also been infected by the corruption. I’d hate to think what you would find further down river.”
Olja didn’t respond right away and looked instead to Kenji. “Seems like we’ve stumbled upon some good fortune after such a grave encounter, no?”
She said it in a strange tone. Overly cheery.
“I suppose,” Kenji said with reluctant agreement.
“And,” the woman added, gesturing to the fallen trees. “If you truly did do this, then we owe you a debt. We were tracking that pack of lizard-hounds since early morning.”
“Is that what you call them?” Kenji asked.
The woman nodded. “That is the name of the animals they spawned from. Much smaller in their natural state and normally confined to the depths. But now they roam free under the influence of the corruption.”
“What is this corruption exactly?” Shinoto asked.
“We don’t really know,” the Spear Master said. “The corrupted lizard-hounds and lesser demons began appearing about a week ago. It’s something down in the mines, but no one’s found out what it is yet.”
Kenji’s insides shuddered. Surely this couldn’t all be because of him. Could it? He gave a glance to Olja, but her ‘I-told-you-so smirk’ said it all.
Curse my fate…
“Apologies,” the woman said as she straightened herself and pressed her fists together in a bow. “My name is Kiara, Vice-leader of the Kurogane Blue-Sapphire sect. It would be my honor to offer you hospitality on our sect’s behalf and a safe escort to the city of course.”
Kenji shared glances with Shinoto and Olja. “Ah…thank you? I suppose.”
“Yes, that would be most welcome,” Olja said again with a strange cheery tone.
“And what are your names, honored visitors?” Kiana asked.
“Xing Li,” Olja said. “These are my students, Wei and Xhu. Brother and sister. Orphans whom are under my care and charge. They will be joining me on my trip home to Xjian.”
“I see,” Kiara said, eyeing Kenji and Shinoto oddly, perhaps noting no familial similarity between them.
“We have different f--mothers,” Kenji offered. He was about to say different fathers, but being so close in age that wouldn’t have made sense.
“Please allow us to collect our belongings from the boat, honorable Vice Leader,” Olja said with a bow in that strange forced tone again. She then ushered them both towards the boat, leaving the group of newcomers behind them.
Once out of earshot of the sect members, Shinoto whispered. “Why are we lying?”
“I’m pretty distinctive if you didn’t notice,” Olja said. “And that general knew my name. I’m not sure what happened after we left Amatsu, but they could have sent word by sparrow by now. The military could be looking for me here.”
“Yes, I realize that,” Shinoto said as she reached into the boat for her pack. “I mean about us being brother and sister.”
“Oh,” she said. “I’ve never been to Kurogane, but I know port cities. Those are rough towns. I don’t want to scare you, Shinoto, but a pretty little thing like you would be better off hanging onto the arm of your brother rather than your fiancée. If you know what I mean.”
“No,” she said. “What do you mean?”
“She means they’ll likely kill me more easily if I’m not your blood,” Kenji said.
“Ah ha…” Olja snapped her fingers at him. “So you do have some smarts. Anyway. Besides that though, sects aren’t normally this accommodating. At least not where I’m from. I’m not sure how you operate down here in the south, but past the wall, sects usually kill non-sect members on sight and then ask questions later.”
“That’s barbaric,” Shinoto said aghast.
Olja shrugged. “So you southerners keep telling us.” She then looked to Kenji and rolled of her eyes. “And I’m going to have to eat my own words and thank you now for using that stupid rope.”
Kenji looked up at her with a furrowed brow. “Huh?”
The giantess then glanced over her shoulder at Kiara and the others again, who appeared to be conferring amongst themselves as well. “They’re all around 18th Dan or so as far as I can sense. They could have easily killed us all. But that damage you caused probably gave them pause.”
Kenji looked at his belt again stupefied.
“Not that I’m giving you permission to use it again,” she said. “But if things go south. Be ready.”
Kenji looked at the group of practitioners with new eyes. Were they indeed not so far removed from the beasts they had just slain? Olja certainly seemed to think so. And she knew the outside world far better than him.
“We’re coming!” Olja called out to them again in her fake, cheery tone. She then looked back to them.
“Just play it lightly until we reach the city,” she whispered. “Avoid conversation as much as you can. And whatever you do…don’t let any of them out of your sight.”