Chapter 43

Godly Muscles(?)

Shen Tao slowly opened his eyes, ignoring the screaming headache and trying to quickly gauge his surroundings.

It was all unfamiliar--tall trees hung overhead, the ground beneath was strangely wet, and he was leaning against a tall boulder. It wasn't long before memories of what happened returned--his Father's sacrifice, death of someone he thought was infallible.

Two Soul Ascendance Cultivators, in conjunction with that boy, attacked them, and his Master fought tooth and nail to protect him. Unable to exercise the breadth of his strength, he slowly fell behind and eventually, in order to protect him, got wounded. Even if the wound was minor, at that level of fighting, even the tiniest scratch can make a difference. Likely knowing the outcome, his Father shuttled him out of the Holy Blade Sect... which was when Shen Tao passed out.

Grinding his teeth, he closed his eyes in frustration. He could only imagine his Master's last moments, causing his anger to bubble like a dormant volcano. It was all pointless, he recognized--his talent, his dreams, his aspirations. He was just a random footnote, it seemed, in the grand spectacle of the story, someone who should have already been vanquished, but by the grace of someone who belonged in that story, he was spared.

But what of it? Now that his Master was dead, the bloodhounds who envied the Bloodmoon Sect would have smelled the blood in the water, and will begin coming like a storm. There was no way that the Sect could weather it--they would be stripped of their Spirit Stone Mines, their quarries, their fields, and he suspected that most of the talent in the auxiliary fields--pill concoction, talisman making, and smithing, namely--would bleed out and try to find homes elsewhere.

That was just the nature of man in the world of selfishness, and though Shen Tao loathed them for it, he couldn't fault them. He, too, would have done the same in their position. The reason why people joined the Bloodmoon Sect to begin with was that it was a local hegemony with the greatest access to the resources used to nurture them. Now that those resources would be taken away, what was the point in staying?

Some, though, would likely remain, if either out of loyalty or because it would still be the best option for them. But Shen Tao... wondered. If he returned, he'd become the lasting light of the place, their last bastion of hope. But he was also only at Core Formation Realm--gone was the protection that his Master's name provided him, which meant that he would be targeted specifically and probably die within a few months.

What else was left, though? He didn't know. For now, all he could do was remain seated with the slowly fading headache, promising that the day would come where he would become strong enough to avenge his Master, and bury all those responsible for his deaths alive in the most cruel way imaginable.

**

Lya slowly opened her eyes, feeling her senses return. She was lost only for a moment, quickly recognizing the dull, brown ceiling that she'd woken up to before. A smile perched itself atop of her lips--they were saved. The Senior had found them and saved them from that vile creature that seemed to spawn from the innocent-looking girl.

She was none the wiser about what happened, or why it happened. All she knew that she felt a sudden outburst of energy that knocked her back into the tree, and with her last, fading glance, she managed to scope a demonic creature rising in the obsidian smoke while Elder Xiaoling stepped forward in front of them.

Sitting up, she glanced to the side where she saw Song and Senior Sister Mei lying down. Complexions of both had taken a massive turn for the better--their cheeks were rosy, their lips were pink, and, by a miracle, Sister Mei's arm was reattached.

There were no curious animals in the hut, and she fully expected there to be an army as soon as she stepped out. She was sort of right--there were quite a few, most perched atop the trees or scattered in the nearby bushes with only a few mingling around the raving campfire. There were two figures seated by the flames--the Senior and the young woman who saved them just outside the forest.

Lya doubted the veracity of her statement, that she was the Senior's Disciple, but it was just envy. She had the ability to kill a Soul Ascendance Realm cultivator at mere Core Formation Stage--it was not through her own means, far from it, but by the Senior's grace.

"Ah, Lya. Just in time. I've prepared dinner," the Senior noticed her first and invited her over with a smile.

She felt shame--it darted into her heart and burrowed there like a worm. She felt shame that she ever doubted, even for a second, the Senior's kindness. In a world rife with people only looking out for themselves, this was now twice that she had been rescued by this kind recluse, favors she wouldn't be able to repay in ten lifetimes. She walked over gingerly and sat down by the flames as the woman--Yue--handed her a bowl of stew.

Ever since leaving the forest for the first time, Yue had strangely dreamed about this stew a few times. It was a certain sort of yearning that was difficult to get rid of and now that she had a chance to eat it again, she could seldom remain quiet.

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"You alright? Have your injuries flared up?" the Senior asked her with concern on his face.

"N-no, no. I'm fine. Thank you, again. You've saved my life twice now. No... three times, really. I don't know how I will ever repay this favor, but I will spend my life trying to."

"I didn't save you for a favor," the Senior shrugged it off with indifference. Of course, why wouldn't he? What could she possibly do that he would need? "Sheesh, why are you kids all like this? Is it really that impossible to just accept someone's kindness and move on?"

"All of us?" Lya queried.

"That blockhead," the Senior said. "As soon as he woke up, he asked how he can repay me. Is he deaf or something? No matter how many times I said it was fine, he still insisted."

"Ah, Senior Brother Xiang," Lya quickly recognized. Senior Brother Xiang was many things--tall, handsome, strong, handsome, but he was a man of few words... and was better off for it, as far as Lya could tell.

"Yeah. So, I sent him to bring back some logs. I'm actually a bit worried--he's been gone nearly six hours."

"He'll be fine, Master," the woman said. "Blackie went with him."

"Yeah, I suppose. Still, I'll go and check it out. Maybe he was still too hurt to carry logs and was pretending? Haah. Give others a bowl when they wake up too, Yue."

"Yes, Master." the Senior stood up and headed out, leaving the confines of the camp rather quickly.

Lya lowered her head and stayed silent, unsure as to what to say. The woman sitting opposite of her was quite pretty, and was the Senior's Disciple. In terms of seniority, she didn't even want to compute how many gaps between the generations there were, so she simply remained silent, hoping somebody else would wake up soon. But they did not.

"If you don't mind me asking," Yue broke the silence suddenly. "How did you guys end up that way?"

"Ah!" Lya exclaimed, finally remembering their current circumstances. "Our, our Sect was attacked, and we were forced to run."

"... somebody dared attack Holy Blade Sect?" she exclaimed in shock. Lya understood--even now, she was having trouble reconciling that fact.

"Hm," she nodded. "Elder Xiaoling was tasked with escorting us. They were after that girl, the one who... you know."

"Yes."

"I didn't know where else to go," she added. "So, I led them to the Nameless Forest. I'd hoped, selfishly, that the Senior would help me again."

"He helped you before?"

"Yes, a couple of weeks back," Lya's lips stretched out into an involuntary smile. "Song--the bald one--and I were being chased by some people from the Bloodmoon Sect and ended up wounded in the forest. Senior found us, took us in, healed our wounds, and even graced us with heavenly elixirs. He only asked that we do not reveal him... and yet, I failed to do even that little."

"At least," Yue said. "You did it for the good reasons. Master will understand."

"Hm." the two fell back into silence, though it wasn't nearly as awkward as before. There was a strange understanding between the two of them, a silent resonance built between those who lived a similar story and experienced similar endings.

**

Leo sighed.

About two miles away from the camp, he stumbled over what he thought was a protruding root from the earth, only to look down and see a tall, muscular body of a young boy who headed out to bring back some of the remaining logs that were left uncollected. Blackie was nowhere to be found, either having gone to the camp to fetch him, or playing about the forest while waiting for the boy to wake up.

There was a singular log by the boy's side, and judging by the indentations in the dirt, he wasn't carrying it, but rather dragging it along. As Leo feared, the boy was still too weak and wounded that even carrying a log was too difficult. Furthermore, they weren't ordinary logs either--as even he, as a cultivator, struggled to carry them.

Sighing in resignation, he bent over and picked up both--log under the arm, and the boy slugged over his shoulder, heading back toward the camp.

**

Liang felt the earth shake and tumble, his mind calling him to wake up.

Slowly opening his eyes, he saw that he was levitating well above the ground, briefly becoming scared until he recognized that he wasn't levitating, but rather being carried. Looking to the side, he saw the profile of the man who'd rescued them, and a bit further to the right, he saw the log hanging under the man's arm, being carried casually as though it were a stalk of grass.

He gasped inwardly in shock and awe--it took all he had, every last bit of Qi, to just barely drag that ungodly thing on the ground. For hours, he struggled, eventually going completely dry and passing out. Those weren't logs, even he could tell, but likely weapons that gods used to fight each other when they were bored.

And yet, the random, bearded figure from the woods was carrying one of those with such laxness that Liang suspected he was still asleep.

"Hm? Oh, you're awake. Sheesh, this is why I told you to stay put. What if you got eaten up by some predator, huh? I would never forgive myself, you know! To think you were so hurt that you struggled to drag a single log of wood... haah, I'll have to feed you some nice stuff when we get back."

Liang didn't really pick up on many things from the little speech as he was too preoccupied by the singular thought--he'd finally found his Master. Nobody in the Sect was fit to teach him, as none were experts in the straightforward art of punching someone to death. He, who loved exercising his body more than anything else in the world, finally found someone who made him believe that cultivating one's body over one's Qi was also a reasonable path. After all, the hermit was just at Foundation Establishment Realm, but using his godly, chiseled, amazing body he was logging about logs of wood with such ease!

"Put me down, Master," Liang said, suddenly.

"... say what? Master what? Who now?"

"I want to make my body a weapon," Liang said, putting himself down. He was actually a bit taller than his Master, prompting him to bend his knees so that he seemed shorter. "Your body is a weapon. An amazing weapon. So, make mine a weapon too."

"... no, seriously, say what now? Did you conk yourself on your head when you fell down?"

"I build my muscle all the time," Liang said, slowly disrobing.

"Hey, why the hell are you taking your clothes off?!!"

"See?" Liang displayed his chest and abdomen proudly, flexing. "But when I tried to pick up that log, I couldn't! Your muscles must be godly, then, and I want godly muscles too! Master, make my muscles godly!"