While the man didn’t speak or leave, just sat there looking annoyed and put upon, Sen hovered on the very cusp of violence. He ached to just draw his jian and put an end to one of his frustrations in the fastest, deadliest way possible. Then, his eyes flicked around the room. He saw the genuine fear on the faces of the other customers. He saw the disapproving gaze of the owner fixed on him and his guest. Then, he saw how it would play out. A fight between him and Cai Yuze wouldn’t necessarily bring the building down, but it would do tremendous damage. Sen also couldn’t guarantee that all of the other customers would walk away unhurt. In fact, he found it far too probable that some of them would get injured by flying pieces of debris that were dislodged and hurled by stray qi techniques. Worse still, Sen didn’t believe for a moment that Cai Yuze cared about that at all. Taking a stranglehold on his anger, Sen let his jian drop back into its scabbard.
“I’m glad you’re finally seeing-,” started Cai Yuze, only to shout at Sen’s back. “Hey, where are you going?”
Looking over his shoulder, Sen said, “Away.”
“We aren’t done talking,” said Cai Yuze, no longer even pretending to be friendly.
“I was done talking before you even sat down,” retorted Sen.
Sen strode up to the owner and held out the key to his room. “I apologize. It seems that I likely will have to fight. I’ll take it elsewhere.”
With a surprised and deeply grateful look, the inn’s owner took the key from his hand. “I’ll refund your money.”
Sen waved it off. “Just remember me if I ever come back.”
“I will,” said the stern woman before she whispered, “Take care, young master. That sect isn’t known for its patience.”
Giving the woman a wan smile, he simply turned and walked out the door. Taking a moment to orient himself, he turned toward the gate where he’d entered the city. He could follow the road south from there. He was not surprised when he heard the door of the inn burst open behind him. Cai Yuze stormed out into the street with his qi flaring. Sen made note of the fact that the man preferred wind qi. That would make things trickier. Still, tricky wasn’t impossible.
“You insignificant little worm!” shouted Cai Yuze. “How dare you ignore your betters?”
Sen didn’t even break his stride when he answered. “My betters? Better at what?”
Then, Sen went with his strong hand. He cycled shadow qi and cast the already murky street into absolute darkness. Then, he started a second pattern, a wind pattern. There had been a time when running two cycling techniques had strained the absolute limits of his concentration, his body, and his qi channels. Now, it was becoming as simple as walking and talking. He sent the wind on a wild chaotic course through the street. He didn’t want it to do anything special. He didn’t need it to. Its only purpose was to prevent Cai Yuze from using his wind affinity to physically locate Sen after he hid. That did strain Sen’s concentration a bit. Working with qi techniques while using that seemingly unique talent felt like straining a muscle in two different directions. Sen could do it for a while, but there was a definite limit.
Sen wasn’t surprised when he felt a little hole open up in the middle of the shadow technique. Cai Yuze was a foundation formation stage cultivator, after all. While he didn’t have the natural affinities to dispel Sen’s shadow techniques, he could exert some control over the environment immediately around him. The fool probably thought it gave him an advantage. All it really did was tell Sen exactly where the man was. It told him even more effectively than the near omniscience that the shadow technique provided of the physical world, at least within the limits of the technique’s range.
“What is this?” demanded Cai Yuze. “Where are you? Who’s with you?”
Sen let out a malicious little laugh and let his wind technique carry it to the sect cultivator from every direction. Of course, the man thought Sen must have someone with him. Cai Yuze had likely never met anyone who took the time to learn how to use multiple types of qi at the same time. If Sen were inclined to betting, he would have bet that the Stormy Ocean sect member was about to… and there it was. Sen felt the man’s spiritual sense wash through the area and pass over him without so much as a moment of hesitation.
“My betters,” he whispered. “You lost track of me in less than five seconds. Yet, you imagine yourself my better.”
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“This is impossible!” raged Cai Yuze. “Who are you? I demand you tell me who you are?”
Sen let the wind carry another mocking laugh over the entire area. “You demand? And who are you to demand things from your betters?”
On the one hand, Sen thought that being this showy and, he admitted it himself, over the top was probably a waste of perfectly good qi. There was a fair chance that he could have simply taken the other man in a regular duel. Although, that approach always carried a certain amount of risk. Master Feng and Uncle Kho had warned him that you never knew when you might run across a sword genius or spear genius. They weren’t common, but they were around. Sen was very sure that he wasn’t one of them. He’d made up for that lack of genius with extensive, borderline ruthless amounts of practice to bring his skills up to levels that Master Feng, Uncle Kho, and Auntie Caihong found acceptable.
On the other hand, Sen found the increasingly frantic scanning of the other man’s spiritual sense, the panic it showed, to be immensely satisfying. That sect had been nothing but trouble for him all day. It felt good to be able to vent his frustrations on one of its members, especially since the man had been all geared up to feign friendship in a bid to get what he wanted. Sen didn’t really believe that every member of every sect would behave in the ways the people from this sect had. Some sects undoubtedly had elders with more honor or simply adhered to different principles. Beyond that, he had to imagine that there were exceptions in every sect. People who simply held themselves to a higher standard because they found it to be the right thing for them. Still, Sen found himself feeling a lot more sympathetic to Uncle Kho’s kill them all and let reincarnation sort them out approach.
He also understood the risks of enjoying things like Cai Yuze’s panic and fear too much. It was an all too short step from enjoying the well-earned suffering of those who had actively wronged you to simply enjoying the suffering of others. With Cai Yuze, though, he was willing to indulge in that enjoyment just a little. When the sect cultivator began simply hurling wind blades in random directions, though, Sen knew that he had to bring the whole thing to a close. He could hear windows shattering and stone breaking under the strength of those qi attacks. He just hoped that no poor mortal had been struck by the flying glass or stone. Sen drew his jian and truly focused all of his attention. He started a third qi cycling pattern and immediately felt a headache start building. He doubted there would be a headache if he weren’t also hiding, but he was and accepted the headache as the price for his current strategy.
He let the lightning qi cycling pattern build up slowly while he contemplated his next move. He’d had some time to think about that fight he’d had with that strange bear-cat spirit beast. He’d specifically spent his time thinking about the final technique he’d done to end the fight. It had very nearly been a disaster at the time, but he understood better what had gone wrong and what had worked. The problem hadn’t been the idea, merely the execution. He’d crammed way too much power and killing intent into the technique. It had been too much for him to constrain. Sen thought that about half the amount of each would let him direct it, rather than have it simply detonate on contact.
So, he let the lightning qi build up in strength until it was where he wanted it and let it seep into the jian blade. While he couldn’t see in the blanket of shadow, he could feel it, could hear that subtle crackling around the blade. Then, he slowly started fusing his killing intent into the technique. Sen assumed that he’d need about half of his killing intent, enough to balance the lightning. Yet, it took far, far less than that before he felt the technique lock together into something he could control and direct. Up until that moment, he’d largely shared Master Feng’s belief that giving everything a name was absurd. Yet, this felt different, special somehow. Sen had no intention of yelling the name at every opponent he met as though he was a toddler who needed a reminder of what he was doing. But it was something he could call the technique in his own head. Heavens’ Rebuke.
He pointed the jian at the spot where Cai Yuze’s personal bubble of control sat. Then, Sen let the shadow technique drop. Cai Yuze was facing in the opposite direction, his head whipping back and forth to try to find Sen. When Sen used lightning, it usually had a blue-white color or, occasionally, a yellowish cast. The lightning arcing around his blade this time was pitch black. Sen couldn’t be entirely sure, but he thought it gave off a kind of purple tinge around the edges. Cai Yuze finally spun to face Sen. The man’s eyes locked on Sen’s jian, on the technique that crackled around it, and he started to say or scream something. Sen never did learn what. He launched the attack. A beam of darkness shot from the end of Sen’s jian toward the other man. Cai Yuze raised his own jian as though to deflect the strike. He summoned wind to try to shield himself.
It didn’t matter. The beam punctured the wind shield like a hot needle passing through a soap bubble. The beam connected with the man’s jian. It exploded into thousands of sparkling metal fragments that reflected the purple glow that Sen had not been sure existed anywhere but his own mind. Then, the beam sank into Cai Yuze’s chest, and it did what lightning always does. It forked through the man’s entire body, looking for a way to find the ground. Sen wasn’t entirely certain what happened in the next instant or two. Cia Yuze did die. That much was obvious. Yet, there wasn’t really a body left afterward, either. It was as if he’d exploded and all the bits of the man burned away before they could land. Sen let himself stand there for a moment, stunned by the result of Heavens’ Rebuke. Then, because the work was done, he released the wind and lightning qi cycling patterns, sheathed his jian, and walked away. He did not, however, stop hiding as he headed for the city gate. It was time to leave, and Sen didn’t plan on any more distractions.