The woman’s face impacted the lightly-frosted ground as she tumbled. The hit was hard, easily enough to knock teeth loose, but a shimmering skin-tight film of energy protected her severe features from the hard earth.
The earth itself fared less well; as she reoriented herself in the air and managed to skid to a stop with her feet under her, she left both a head-sized crater and two shallow trenches cutting into the ground. These scars joined countless others across the entire field, and at this point it resembled a badly plowed farm plot more than the sparce area of mountain grass it had started as.
Jiendao spat red-tinged saliva to the side as she brought her fists back up to a proper blocking stance, but as the last vestiges of winter’s first frost disappeared under the widening destruction of their battle, Bull’s middling smile did not change.
“Not bad, junior sister,” he said. “But I was expecting a bit more from a fellow inner disciple. I feel a bit bad, almost like a bully, for sparring with you.”
She failed to rise to his provocation, merely edging forward in her defensive stance. Boring. Lu is much more fun; even if their realm is the same, he knows to pull a shrewd trick or two when outmatched. Or at least throw a tantrum, which was amusing.
She suddenly rocketed forward, her leather dress turning into a red blur that rushed right at him. Bull didn’t even consider blocking; he simply extended one hand and enveloped her fist with his smaller one. The impact of her knuckles on his palm produced no pain, and his hand failed to move a single millimetre.
Then her own face lit up with a grin savage enough to overpower his own, and with a sharp snap a tine of lightning snaked across their joined limbs to his chest, then down his torso and into the earth.
He raised a brow, then spun and threw the woman like he was a slinger and her a stone. Once again she bounced, her shield taking the bulk of the force, and once again she landed on her feet.
Boring, boring, boring. Had she always fought this sloppily? He would have sworn she exceeded him in technique, on the rare occasions when he had seen her fight before the discovery of Salt.
“Your punches are light, sister.”
Her jaw tensed, just enough for him to notice. “I am three realms below you.”
“Even so. I was an outer disciple myself not too long ago; I know what a punch from the peak of the realm feels like, and yours are too light.” I don’t even need to predict you intentionally, just raw reflex is enough. That’s how textbook your movements are. “Did your little lightning bolt erase even the fundamentals from your brain, junior sister?”
Her face began to show some real malice, and Bull nodded in his head. There we are. Give me something worth my time, or I’ll end things with the next move. This sub-par showing is just depressing. Even the amusement of beating on a former senior had dried up after the second or third hit.
With a rush of qi, Jiendao disappeared. His spiritual sense felt her circle around to his back, but he continued to stand completely still even as her extended leg sliced through the air towards his exposed neck.
The illusion passed through him harmlessly, then he ducked the actual attack a quarter-second later. Her right shin passed over his head, and he struck her braced left leg with his own kick without so much as turning to look.
Her shield failed, as did the bone of her leg with a dull snap. She fell, sending out one last desperate bolt despite her obvious pain.
Much like with the others she had sent his way, Bull did not attempt to dodge the literally lightning-fast attack. The sparks played over his skin as he was struck, doing little more than removing a few hairs from his scarred back.
“Is that really all you can do?”
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“Is that really all you can do?”
Bu Guanyin’s smug words slashed into her heart, sharper than any knife. This was a mistake, she thought, even as she squeezed the strange organ in her midsection nearly dry.
She Breeze Stepped to the side, transitioning smoothly into a more sustained movement art to circle around. As was becoming familiar, the scarred man did not so much as turn his eyes to track her movements.
He’s toying with me. I should bow out gracefully, rather than allow myself to be provoked. The spar had been a way to test her growing abilities, and that goal was achieved ten times over. Continuing was pointless.
But that thought was quiet, drowned out by another: I don’t want to lose. I’ve beaten disciples above my realm before – ones taking me far more seriously than this man. Posturing and verbal barbs had their place, but there was a limit. How could she walk away from open mockery with her pride intact?
She did not weave any illusions this time – in hindsight the attempt had been foolish; she was not a very skilled illusionist – and simply zipped towards her opponent at full speed. Her broken leg trailed behind her; it was useless, but the art didn’t need proper running form to operate. She zigzagged, putting the effort in despite knowing it was futile trying to fool the man’s sixth realm sense, before lunging with all her strength.
It was almost the exact same move that had gotten her leg broken moments ago. But one body length away, at the last possible moment, she attempted something new.
She fed her Salt qi – ki, Lu named it in his instructions – into her body, rather than a spell. Immediately, her muscles spasmed and threatened to send her to the ground-
But a soothing wave of real qi, provided by her still-running Fleetfoot Gazelle art, forced her limbs to keep moving as she willed. Control it. Like you did on the tower-!
For a fraction of a second her body and soul lined up properly, the lightning in her veins going from a half-clogged faucet to a raging river. It only lasted for the first motion of her attack, but that was all she needed; she spun, faster than she could hope to control, and the heel of her right foot hooked around to make glorious connection with Bu Guanyin’s jaw.
She felt the impact with her entire body, pain going up her leg as the bones of her foot broke with the force, the rest of her limbs whipping around like a bird catching a clothesline with its neck.
But he moved. As Jiendao met the ground with two broken legs, Bu Guanyin took a single staggered step to the side, blood flowing from a split lip.
For a moment it was like all the world was holding its breath. Neither of them moved, nor did the wind blow or any movement of the earth or sky break the illusion. Then the man’s spiritual sense went sharp, and she hurriedly pulled her own into her body to avoid its wide scything edges.
He turned, put a thumb to his lip, and wiped a fraction of the blood away. “Hm.” He looked like a ghoul, the blood running across his scarred face combining with an unsettling and violent expression to mimic something from a children’s puppet show.
Despite having fought the most ravenous of beasts for her entire life, Jiendao’s blood still chilled when she saw the raw malice in the man’s eyes. Her qi dropped to nearly nothing as the bones of her lower limbs sealed back together, and a thought repeated itself in her head.
This was a mistake.
Slowly, Bu Guanyin cracked his neck one way, then the other. “Apologies, junior sister. I didn’t take you seriously.”
“I yield.”
Her words passed over the man like rain over a sturdy rock, and he continued as if he hadn’t heard her. “That was rude. I should make amends.”
The last thought Jiendao had before the man broke her nose was this: All the rumours are true. This man is a monster.
The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
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Jiendao was, at least, able to limp back to her rooms. Both of her spiritual foundations were bone-dry, and she felt more like a wrung-out washcloth than a human being.
Why did I go to Bu Guanyin? Just because he’s my instructor’s friend? What a foolish reason. The knob on her door seemed unreasonably heavy, and after a moment’s fumbling with one hand she raised her other and managed to open the thing with the strength of her whole body.
As always, the image of her quarters in the inner sect seemed foreign for a moment as she stepped in. In her exhausted state it lasted longer; she stood still for a lingering second, her head full of fog, before she shook it off and made her way to the bath. Ugh. I’m one giant bruise, including my brain.
Removing her dress as the tub filled was the exact opposite of fun, the same with her undergarments, but slipping into the nearly-steaming water made her forget the pain. Thank Heaven for modern plumbing. It would take me ten minutes to scrape together enough qi to heat it myself, and I just don’t have the energy. That initial pure bliss soured slightly as the various scrapes and bruises across her body reasserted themselves, but as she soaked her mood actually began to improve.
I might have gotten beat to shit, but at least I proved that Lu’s methods are working. True, the lightning she had produced hadn’t been even as strong as a first realm spell, let alone one of her current realm… but it was a start. It’s more than I could do two days ago.
She clenched her fist, and with an exertion of mental effort a single spark arced over the skin of her knuckles. Still just at the starting line. But that’s fine – at least I’m ahead of the other three.
She washed herself and dressed, but just as she was settling in for a session of meditation there was a knock on her door.
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Ban Do’s mind was a clutter of half-memories, even after months of effort sorting them into their appropriate mental shelves. It was rather embarrassing, all told; sometimes he could go for days without touching the raw scars of his soul, but always there was a hidden knife hovering over his head.
Sometimes the knife struck when he was alone; an idle thought like I wonder how long it took to reach the second realm the first time leading to how old am I leading to what are my parent’s names, what did they look like, surely they must be dead by now?
Sometimes it struck while he was out of doors; a strange object carried by a trader demanding his attention, and the puzzlement on the man’s face as he told him that’s an apple, young lord. Are you well? Then the shock down his spine as disparate memories folded together and he knew, of course he had known, how could he forget something so simple?
Sometimes, perhaps most often, it struck him when he was with his martial brother Kai Hiien. When he looked into a face that was just a little wrong, familiar but not the right familiar.
And sometimes he took the knife from out of the shadows and used it on himself. Today was one of those times.
The book on the shelf was a heavy, crude thing. Even with a glance he could see the thickness of the pages, the way they had been yellowed by time, the cracks in the leather binding.
‘The Complete Accounts of the Myriad Cloning Arts of the Hesk Peoples’ was the title, though not in those words. He did not recall the name of the language this book was written in, nor where or when he had learned it, but he knew it all the same. His hand was raised, as it had been for thirty seconds at least, but he could not make himself touch it. Nor could he lower his hand and move on. He was completely stuck, as though the old book was a trap laid for him by Hell’s Monkey himself.
Is this not what you came here for? You went to all that trouble to get permission to access information on cloning arts, are you really going to walk away? Hm?
The voice in his head was both his and not his. He thought, perhaps, it was the way he was meant to be. The way he would be if he were not a mere clone.
A mere clone, is that what you think? There’s nothing mere about you. You are Ban Do, and you do not balk. Take the book.
A soft chime sounded out, some distant bell in the outer sect marking the hour, and he was jarred from his indecision. Ban Do took the book from the shelf – it was as heavy as it looked, but not as heavy as he had expected – and turned back to the stairs.
Not here. Not where people can see me… The thought felt bad, incongruous, but he continued down the stairs. In my room.
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What exactly is a clone? Is it unorthodox? Why is it unorthodox?
Ban Do asked himself a thousand questions as he turned dusty page after dusty page, and as he read each one was answered.
Some of them he already knew, but not consciously. A clone is the personality of one soul copied to another. Others he did not. It was declared unorthodox by the fourth Heavenly Emperor during the Century of Rain, as it was deemed too close to necromancy to suffer. Nothing may halt the turning of the Wheel.
And it especially answered one he had been too cowardly to ask.
He finished the book, then skimmed it again. Though he was only first realm, it was like Heaven had opened up and poured ice-cold enlightenment into his head. As he reached the last page for a second time there was only a single thought in his head.
Relief poured out of each of his pores, his body too small to contain the sheer amount of emotion. I’m not. I’m not a clone!
Complete Accounts was not exactly a step-by-step guide to identifying a clone, but the librarian had been right to recommend this volume over the others in the archive. Its long digressions and musings might have been annoying if he was only interested in the titled topic, but they were supremely helpful for one who was starting from scratch.
A clone was a perfect copy of the original. A clone remembered everything the original did up to the moment of its creation. A clone did not contain any of the overwritten person’s memories or identity, even if performed improperly or stopped half-way through the process.
I’m not a clone. I’m just brain damaged. The thought was too sardonic to contain, and it burst out in the form of a manic giggle. Moisture gathered on his lashes but failed to fall as the high, out-of-breath noises echoed back at him off his bedroom walls.
“I’m not a clone,” he said aloud. “I’m not. I’m Ban Do.” Obviously there was still something deeply wrong with his soul, but that was a problem for later.
For now, he simply put his forehead to the wooden surface of his desk and rode the wave of emotion to the end. His giggles tapered off, his tears dried, and in the end he was left with little more than a small headache for his hours of frantic reading.
With one last laboured breath of catharsis, Ban Do raised his head. In the flickering light of a dying candle the room seemed completely different than it had a few minutes ago – it was his room. Well, that's that. Really, I don't know why I was afraid; so what if I had been a clone? Suddenly the haughty voice seemed much closer, much less like a towering shadow he had to fit himself inside. Whether I am or not doesn't change anything about my current situation, so… honestly, this was a waste of time! The edges of his lips curved subtly upwards. I should have been working on that lesson plan from the outer disciple, not reading about arts I'll never use. In fact, because of this, Kai has probably pulled even further ahead. Shameful!
By now his lips had curved enough to be called a smile. I need to get to work. I'm in third place, which is unacceptable.
But before he could stand up from his desk and look at the scroll he had been ignoring, a quick thunk thunk thunk sounded out from his front door.
He turned, more curious than startled, and cast out with his sense. A servant? There was something strange about them, but he couldn’t put his finger on it.
A second round of knocks came, and he discarded his curiosity in favour of simply opening the door. Standing outside his rooms was a ma- a wo- a person in simple servant’s robes.
“Disciple Ban Do. You’ve been summoned with great urgency to the administrative wing; please brace for teleport.”
He was only able to get out a “Pardon?” before the surrounds blurred. The servant’s iron grip on his shoulder – when did they grab him? – pulled him through space, and with a terribly nausea-inducing lurch Ban Do was suddenly somewhere else.
The room was not small, but it was crowded. Immediately he recognised several Elders, Lu, and his fellow consumption cultivators. Also present was that large Salt creature, Stinger-Tail, nearly folded into the corner but still quite conspicuous.
But equally conspicuous were the three figures in heavy golden robes. His eyes widened in fear, then narrowed in self-admonishment of said fear. Priests. What are they doing here? No, it isn’t even a question; the Heavens have decided to destroy Salt completely, regardless of the patriarch’s wishes. That is the only reasonable explanation.
But a seed of doubt germinated even before he completed the thought, and his resolve wavered. Or maybe it has to do with the demon Sir Giro slew?
…I suppose I won’t find out what’s happening by standing here. At some point the servant had released his shoulder, so Ban Do took advantage of his freedom to subtly slide through the crowd towards his teacher.
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“Sir Lu.”
The unexpected voice behind his back sent Lu’s already-overworked nerves shooting through the roof, and only his strenuous adherence to decorum allowed him to avoid jumping into the air to follow them.
“Ban Do,” he replied, “I was wondering where you were.” It was incredibly strange to see Kai Hiien without you, like seeing a man walking with no shadow under his feet.
“Apologies for the lateness.” Lu didn’t detect any sarcasm in the man’s voice, though he put it down to his own flustered state rather than actual sincerity. “But what exactly is happening? Are we being smote..?”
His face scrunched up. “That is… complicated.” How do I explain this? “I suppose it’s best to start at the beginning-” A wave of social energy moved through the gathering as Patriarch Steadfast Heart himself appeared in the very centre of the room. “-Ah, though it seems there isn’t much time. The short version, then.”
Lu cleared his throat, then began speak of what had happened the day before.