A group of twenty-eight cultivators stood an equal distance apart around a fighting circle. For the most part, their appearances varied widely. Only two looked similar enough to be related in Yu’s eyes, and it was confirmed as the pair looked at each other and communicated something with hand gestures and nods.
While there were ten of these mass-melees going on at once and each was displayed on one side of the massive rotating display. Yu’s eyes had fallen on that particular fighting circle because someone from the Black Dragon Sect was in it. She did not know the disciple personally, but the robes gave them away. Sadly, neither Li nor anyone she knew had a first-round match, so Yu was mainly watching to see what was so exciting about these types of fights. She also found herself getting quite tired, which was odd to her, but her curiosity and interest overrode anything else.
Yu was shocked to hear that no protection was being granted to weapons. Maiming’s and deaths could occur, which the judge, flying on a jade platform above the fighting circle, reminded all the participants. Additionally, everyone was responsible for their own healing.
Nobody backed out of the ring, so the judge looked around at all the other floating judges. They all nodded at each other and then in a single near-simultaneous action, all ten yelled, “Fight!”
Yu hissed in a breath at the utter chaos that ensued. The screams started almost immediately, followed instantly by flashing lights, explosive bursts, objects whipping through the air… it was mayhem.
The fellow sect disciple she had been watching thrust his arms out wide in a sweeping motion. Swaths of fire exploded from them in streams, blanketing the area around him in an inferno. Yu knew that skill and rarely used it for good reason. It was moderately powerful up close, which logic dictated should have made it Aura-based, but for whatever reason, it was not for Warriors, but Mages.
The consequences were that, while it was very flashy and quite hot where the Qi was released, it spread and thus cooled quickly as it got farther away from the wielder. Which meant, unfortunately for the sect disciple, it was easy to bypass. A Mage could simply use a ranged Qi skill which negated or circumvented the insufficiently hot flames. Alternatively, a Warrior covered in water or stone – metal tended to conduct heat – could simply charge through most of the flames to get in range. And that was exactly what happened.
A female warrior wearing a patchwork of various leather armor pieces leaped through the weaker fire while shimmering under a layer of water. As she approached, she slashed down at the sect member’s extended arm with an unusual poleaxe Yu recognized to be a fangtian ji. It was a double-bladed axe with a spear head, but the axe heads were hollow.
Yu watched, wincing as the blade of the axe head sliced down and cleanly through the sect disciple’s extended arm. Blood flew along with the arm and the disciple screamed and fell, grasping at where his missing appendage used to be.
Almost immediately, the attacker jerked forward as a blood-covered single-edged straight blade appeared from out of her chest. Darkness congealed and faded behind the woman and a man materialized, gripping the handle of the sword and grinning manically.
His victory was cut short however, as a massive spike of stone shot from the ground in front of the woman, impaling both her and her erstwhile sneak-attacker before either could act. The bleeding sect disciple, his remaining hand flat against the ground, shakily got to his feet and staggered over to his missing arm.
He fell next to it, grabbed it by the wrist making it waggle around, tossing blood everywhere, and dragged himself to the edge of the circle, falling off. A healer Yu actually recognized from the sect ran over, grabbed the arm from him while using the other to drape over her shoulder, and helped him to the side.
“Woah,” Yu whispered, as her eyes returned to the havoc that were the mass-melees.
“Indeed,” her master agreed.
Blood, viscera, body parts, fire, ice, earth… it was complete pandemonium. Every affinity was being flung, swung, and whipped without restraint, and in a lot of cases, control.
The floating display just turning toward her was currently showing an Ice Mage spinning in a circle with his hands out, simply throwing ice everywhere. He wasn’t aiming, he wasn’t controlling the size or shape, he was just letting all his Qi go in an attempt to dispatch everyone.
It only partially worked. A Wood Warrior’s bark-like shield was smashed apart and punctured numerous times until he fell into a pool of his own blood. On the other hand, a Metal Warrior charged the Ice Mage while covering himself in a layer of what appeared to be glimmering steel that was apparently strong enough to cause the ice to shatter before puncturing.
The Ice Mage panicked and stopped spinning, facing only the charging warrior and sending all of the ice at him. That failed to work either as the warrior powered through and punched the mage in the head, causing it to crumple in on itself and his dead body to slam down into the floor with almost no resistance.
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Apparently, the attacker did not expect that to happen because he staggered, overbalanced from the momentum. He was immediately wrapped up in what was to Yu a familiar green vine, which her eyes followed and found was connected to another Wood Warrior who had another vine in his other hand that was wrapping up a Water Mage.
The Wood Warrior yanked both to himself while his body simultaneously became covered in a plethora of large sharp thorns. The vines withered to nothing on the way and the thorns launched themselves from his body into the two approaching victims. The Water Mage tried to create a liquid shield to protect herself, but uncompressed Water Qi was not good armor, as Yu knew well. The mage’s blood splattered all over as she was punctured more than a dozen times all over his body, including one eye.
The Metal Warrior, however, had a stronger defense and the thorns shattered or bounced off his glistening skin. Yu had wondered what the Wood Mage had been thinking when he took that approach. Apparently, he had not seen the Metal Warrior battle the Ice Mage because he panicked when saw the failed results of his attack.
He tried to dive out of the way, but the warrior reached out and grabbed his leg before it was out of reach. The Wood Warrior was then summarily swung overhead and smashed into the floor of the sparring circle. Apparently not satisfied, the Metal Warrior repeated the action four more times, until what was left of the Wood Warrior’s crushed flopping corpse could take no more and his leg/swinging handle tore free in a spout of blood.
Sights like that were being flashed along the ten sides of the floating screen while the announcer was occasionally adding excited commentary at the scenes of chaotic violence.
Yu fell back into her chair, caught somewhere between being amazed and needing to vomit. She wanted to speak, to say something about the shocking event before her, but nothing came out. Her mind could simply not come up with words that would fit.
“Can you now understand why these events are so popular?”
Still dazed, Yu turned her face to him. “I… I don’t know…” her voice faded, showing her struggle to speak. To make it worse, her exhaustion seemed to be returning. Apparently watching this sort of thing was draining to her.
“Think about it. You have participated in a tournament and saw how the audience acted.” He waved his hand at the surrounding throng of screaming spectators. “These people live mundane lives, and I include most cultivators in that, by the way. Comparatively speaking, few cultivators are strong enough to go out into the world and experience violence of this nature.
“So the mortals and weak cultivators gain their excitement from watching others. They live vicariously through the acts of their betters. They tell themselves ‘that could be me,’ imagining themselves powerful one day. Of course, almost none have the strength or courage to do it, so they stay in their safe normal lives, doing safe normal things, and cheer for the violence and death of others, too fearful to face it themselves.”
Yu tiredly listened to his words. Some part of her wanted to deny it. She was well aware that she lived in a violent world. But to her, violence was a necessity. A tool. A part of her life. She did not view it as entertainment, nor did she find joy in watching it. Even as she committed violence herself, she thought of her actions as part of what was required to protect herself and others, and to survive and grow. She did not feel any compunction to cheer when she saw an arm ripped free or a head removed.
So, yes, Yu wanted to refute his statements. The problem was, she could not come up with an argument as she moved her eyes along the swaths of cheering mortals and cultivators, thriving in the death and dismemberment of strangers. They were indeed too scared to take on the risk themselves, so they were glad others did it in their stead.
Sighing, Yu nodded. “I don’t know how to feel about the fact that I agree with you.”
“You should feel good about it,” he stated as if it was obvious. “First, I’m a generational genius and agreeing with a generational genius makes you right.” Yu rolled her eyes. He grinned, but it faded quickly. “Disciple, over the last year, you have become more and more accepting of the world the way it is, rather than the way you wish it to be. Your acceptance of this particular truth is simply another example of that, which I take as a good sign for the likelihood of you surviving the spirit realm and after.”
Yu sighed lethargically. The mission she had been assigned hung in the back of her mind as she watched people slaughter and be slaughtered before her.
I have to kill ten people.
“I see your thoughts churning,” her master added into the silence. “You are ruminating over killing others, are you not?”
It always amazed Yu how this man could read her like an open scroll.
“How do you do that?” she demanded of him.
He smirked. “I have already told you the answer to that question. However, more importantly, you still have reservations. I expected you to and that was the purpose of the mission. The truth is, you have lived a sheltered life, despite your struggles. The last time you visited your home, you should have asked your father how many people he has killed to reach his position, and I do not mean while in the army. Has your mother told you of her mercenary days? How many do you think she has killed? What about your uncle, the Darkness Mage? I can assure you, together your family’s victims number in the many hundreds. And that is just by their own hands. How many do you think they have ordered killed by others? Ten times that amount, I assure you. Do those facts alter your views?”
Yu closed her eyes and laid her head back on the chair, her face to the ceiling.
“I mean, I guess I knew that logically. Like, in my head I knew it, but I guess… I don’t know.”
“You did not want to think about it?”
“Yeah,” she said, defeated and exhausted. “I suppose you’re right.”
“I see your energy waning and it is time for you to go. You need rest and the carriage is waiting for you. However, I will say this before we separate for the day. Just like with the audience below us, it is easier to deny our own truths than to face harsh realities. I hope, for your sake, that in the spirit realm, you are able to accept the realities of this world. Otherwise, you will not be returning, but remaining there, and your corpse will be a permanent reminder of your unwillingness to do what is necessary. That in your refusal to accept the responsibility of killing, and in its certainty that it must become part of you, your cowardice may result in the death of everything and everyone you hold dear.”