Today has, officially, gone to absolute shit. Not an hour has passed since Yorin’s return and already their plans have set sail for the seven hells. The bar that has so generously provided accommodations in their time of need is currently on fire. Surrounded by a rabble of peasantry trying vainly to grab at Synthia as Tantra and Yorin wave around their weapons, trying to clear a path without killing anyone.
Tantra didn’t know it was possible to be this loud without Qi, but the concert of cursing shouts and hollered insults breaks through her eardrums like a symphony of rage, each their own personal grievance to air at the noblewoman. Tantra’s almost certain this display barely has anything to do with the bounty, which tells her a lot about how little attention she paid the peasantry.
“Move aside!” Tantra bellows, infusing her lungs with enough Qi to overpower the clamour, “we don’t want to hurt you, but we will if you make us.”
“Fuck you kin-killer!”
The crowd cheers at that proclamation and Tantra growls, reverberating through everyone’s ears as she forgets she was boosting her lungs. That seems to have more of an effect than reasonable conversation, peasants taking a step back with fear in their eyes.
Not the most flattering of reactions, but she’ll take it, so long as it gets them to move. They’re making too much of a commotion, at this rate a cultivator will notice and then they’ll be well and truly fucked.
Tantra shoves the enraged aside with her club, every step forward taking too long. Yorin’s guarding their rear, while Etra and Kisrin provide a weak barrier to the remaining two. Kisrin needs Ericks shoulder to walk, and Etra only has one functional arm, despite the other limb being reattached.
It’s altogether a horrible start to their escape, and Tantra’s certain it’s Yorin’s fault, because she can hear his name occasionally from the crowds.
What the fuck did he do?
Not important, at least not right now, she’ll have plenty of time to berate the fool once they’ve reached somewhere safe. She just has to hope the crowd doesn’t turn to outright violent, Tantra doesn’t want the blood of peasants on her hands. She’s killed a few times by this point, more than she’d like if she were honest. But each was either self defence or obligation. Whether these people are here for the bounty or just taking the opportunity to air their grievances Tantra doesn’ know, but it wouldn’t justify what would happen if she used her kanabō for its assigned purpose.
There are children here for heaven's sake.
Then screaming breaks through the noise and Tantra pales, what was once a frenzy of rage morphs into a frenzy of terror. Peasants scrambling away from something that Tantra’s almost certain are cultivators.
Lo and behold, Tantra spots six individuals clad in pink, carrying an assortment of jians, spears, and one even carrying an oxtail sabre. All of them are stained with blood on their blades surrounded by corpses.
The Dreaming Lotus.
Fuck.
“What luck has graced us honourable brothers and sisters!” Says a jian wielder with a cleft chin, “When the master gave us this task I had thought it would take ages to find some nobody cultivator from some nobody sect, yet here they stand! Alongside quite the bounty indeed.”
“Indeed,” oxtail says, “we’ll have to celebrate before the day is out.”
“Of course, of course, Ronan.” Says a woman with a set of gold rings on her fingers, “but first we have to kill them.”
The man named Ronan shrugs, “shouldn’t be too difficult, look at them, only two are truly capable of fighting. Against us that will mean nothing.”
“I think you’ll find us more than a little difficult to kill,” Tantra bluffs, because that’s all she can really do isn’t it? “Go on your way and we’ll go on ours, no one needs to die.”
“Of course no one needs to die,” a man with jade earrings says, “no one ever needs to die. But that’s not how the world works girl, that’s never how it works.”
“It doesn’t really matter,” cleft chin waves off, “we’re here to kill the boy with the guandao either way, might as well kill a few more and earn ourselves some well deserved platinum, eh ‘kin-killer’?”
“This is a mistake,”
“We’ll be the judges of that,” Ronan says.
Tantra is overwhelmed by the scent of mint as all of them charge, Tantra barely has the time to boost her heart and block a pair of jians from jade and gold, Yorin suffering the onslaught of four cultivators.
Tantra recognizes the strategy, they’re keeping her busy while they swarm Yorin, and she can’t help. To disengage is to risk those behind her.
So the only thing she can do is kill these two before Yorin falls.
Tantra, in all her wisdom, recognizes a losing battle when she sees one, deciding that if there was ever a time to experiment with her new soul Qi, it would be now. A thread is pushed into her heart, and the world stops. That’s not how enhanced senses works, but that’s what happens. Tantra blinks, she can see their Qi, can feel it too, and hear it, like an annoying buzz.
She can even taste it.
But her other regular sensory information…It’s like she can choose to increase it or not, as though her Qi understands her greatest bottleneck for this technique.
There is one that is new though, she can feel the vasculature of everyone in the area, each heartbeat a concert of its own, pumping as peasants flee and cultivators fight, it’s so…so beautiful.
Tantra could almost cry.
Jade swings and she just sidesteps, continuing her reverie as gold tries to bisect her. Tantra catches the blade between her fingers, surprising both herself and the woman who tries to pull the blade away, but finds her grip like steel.
Is this what it means to have a dao?
Soma had a dao, she could smell it, he was not this strong.
Perhaps it’s the combination of technique and dao then. Tantra would muse on this, but she doesn’t have the time, so instead she brings down her kanabō on gold’s head, crushing her upper skull entirely.
Jade yells something at her but she pays him no mind, and he has little under a second before he’s lost his head as well.
Then she turns to the remaining four and-
Her technique breaks, not enough Qi remaining to continue supplying it and Tantra staggers at the sudden shift in strength, blinking multiple times as she stares at the four cultivators who were fighting Yorin.
Three now, good job Yorin, and they’re all staring at her.
Tantra smiles wide and malicious, “Still want to fight?”
-
It was just a moment.
But in that moment Tantra was so much more, stronger than even some of the anchored she fought just the day before, by a lot. She’d spent hours forcing her heart to beat at a speed that put her on the border of unconsciousness, all for just that moment, but it made her so strong. How much stronger would she be if she didn’t have to worry about Qi production? It’s a useless thought, without her crippled connection she likely would have never learned the control techniques, and without the control techniques nothing that she has accomplished would be possible.
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She really needs to get something nice for the librarian at some point, too bad they’re not on a shopping trip, she imagines there’d be tremendous discounts for cultivators right now. Which honestly takes all the fun out of haggling so maybe it’s for the better, still, it would be an opportunity to give him a sorely needed lesson in fashion.
The rags he got them were literal rags! Something only the desperate would even consider wearing, the shopkeep must have been very surprised that a cultivator of all things wanted to purchase them. Apparently Yorin got them for free, which honestly doesn’t surprise Tantra at all. This shit’s so rough, scratching at her skin in the most annoying ways, it’s dirty brown colouration does little for flattery, and it shows off way too much of Tantra’s thighs.
At least Synthia can suffer with her, the nobles abashed demeanor has honestly been quite hilarious, blunting her desire to club Yorin over the head just a little. But…well, she has to admit, it is effective. The crowds part for them because of the cultivators in their midst, and only a few seem to take interest in them, except to gawk at Tantra’s exposed arm.
As well as gawk at other things, but Tantra pretends those people don’t exist.
She’s a cultivator, she doesn’t need to feel vulnerable under the gaze of mortals.
Honestly, she’s going to give Yorin a lesson so thorough he’ll never get something so…embarrassing ever again..
So, just as their plan started rolling down the hill of perfection, despite the bumpy start, something had to go wrong. This time it didn’t even start with screaming this time, no, it started with an explosion. Two roiling masses of Qi colliding in a grand display of apocalyptic destruction, sending Tantra and her friends, along with so many others are sent flying through the streets and into buildings.
Tantra coughs, as she kneels and her sinuses are assaulted with their power.
One is deep in a forest of roiling vines, dotted with thorns of venom, whispering a sweet promise of unfulfilled potential.
The other is a melting blade that burns sacred fire, each regenerating as molten steel dribbles onto a floor of carved amethyst.
“Don Hua!” a voice radiating plasma shouts, “what a glorious time to be alive! I thought I’d never get to see the day your head rolled down these streets, yet here we are finally able to revel in each other's suffering!”
“Always the optimist I see,” Says the howl of the night and the crunching of branches, “come and see where the attempt will take you Ghondra, I have need of more eyes for my collection.”
As Tantra’s group get their bearings, and peasants start to flee in terror, another explosion shakes as third presence of crystalline edges of perfect geometry descends from the heavens. It is weaker this time, but it still shakes the earth and causes peasants to stumble.
“Honestly,” something of perfect edges and twinkling jade says, “here I was waiting for a challenge and you both start without me? For shame, truly you disrespect this Mia Ton.”
“Join us then!” Ghondra laughs a joyous tune of searing plasma, “and let us revel in the glorious violence the Sentinel has so generously given us!”
Tantra recognizes those names, and curses the gods for their misfortune. Each and every one is an immortal, leaders of their respective sects. Fables names of storied battles, and beings she distinctly does not want to be in the vicinity of.
Tantra tugs on Yorins elbow.
“We have to go, now.”
He just nods, seemingly recognizing the urgency in her voice. Tantra picks up Synthia, causing her to yelp in surprise, and Yorin picks up Kisrin, and with her eyes she communicates to Erick and Etra that they need to leave.
They need little convincing, as soon explosions shatter windows, causing debris to fly and strike Tantra in the back along with so many fleeing. The only thing that can be heard above the explosions is Ghondra’s manic laughter. Tantra smells something like melting metal, and turns to find a sword of flame towering over buildings as it descends, cutting through precious architecture, cobbled streets, and desperate bodies. Tantra boosts her legs as hard as she can as-
A body soars above her, crashing a dozen meters ahead. A smiling woman emerges, or at the very least a caricature of a woman, her waist too thin to possibly hold entrails. Her arms and legs as long as spears, her skin sparkles as crystalline eyes stare them down.
She’s carrying two chakrams whose blades are made from what looks like purified Qi crystals, but that cannot be, Qi crystals don’t exist.
“Oh?” the tinkling of bells smiles as she regards them above the chaos of peasants, “you really shouldn’t be here little cultivators, the big boys and girls are playing.”
As if to emphasise the point, vines the size of bears emerge from the cobble, covered in sharp needles leaking venom. They go to hug the crystalline woman, who just laughs as she twirls and cuts them in half. Tantra and the others, being flanked, change their trajectory for an alley, as two chakrams cut through the air. They weren’t the only ones with that idea as a crowd of frenzied peasants push and trample to get away.
Tantra smells something just behind her.
She gets a premonition and her eyes widen.
“Duck!” She screams with Qi infused lungs, her friends do as she says, and so do a few others, just before they are bisected. So much burnt meat fills the air as a blade of holy fire cauterizes so many bodies. The air is filled with screaming and pleading and crying and beg-
A crash, in one of the buildings just above them groan, cut in two just the same as the people. Debris falls and Tantra shields Synthia as-
Vines shoot for the buildings and pulls. The groaning of broken wood overtakes her ears and Tantra’s eyes widen, and fills her legs with Qi jumping out of the alley and back unto the street as two massive structures collapse, burying so many screams
A melting man bursts from the destruction, laughing out flames as two blazing orbs look upon the destruction with delight. He has no hair, and bears wide teeth of pure steel and-
He disappears, and an explosion sends Tantra and Synthia flying.
Tantra hugs Synthia tight as they crash into cobble, Tantra taking the brunt of the fall, grunting as scabbed wounds reopen. Tantra gets to her feet, getting her bearings-
She throws Synthia as hard as she can as a blade of flame kisses her back, burning through her rags, melting skin and steaming blood. Tantra screams at the pain, so suddenly does it come and falls to her knees.
In that moment, huddled to the floor and crying from the pain, she hears the twang of a bowstring. Such a simple thing, such a mundane thing, somehow overpowering all the chaos.
Tantra looks to the sky to find an arrow.
Then one becomes nine becomes eighty becomes a thousand-
The sky darkens as it continues to multiply, and Tantra rushes to cover Synthia with her body.
So many things of tempered steel pierce through her molten back and limbs. She covers her head with her hands, feeling them become mangled as the arrows pierce them. She hears so many screams cut short, entire blocks covered by the rain of arrows.
Where are the others? She thinks desperately, trying to find some anchor in all the chaos. She looks down the street.
Hundreds of peasants are just…watching, standing resolutely behind the archer as though he would provide some measure of protection, Tantra’s brain can’t make sense of the sight and clearly she doesn’t have time to as the archer pulls back another arrow. Infusing it with so much Qi Tantra smell the writhing prey as arrows litter-
He releases, and what flies to the fighting immortals cannot be an arrow. It is the judgement of the gods, the call of the hunt, and-
A field of Qi surrounds the arrow, so dense and large that it tears through the cobblestone, shaking the very foundations of every building it passes, the beam of concentrated Qi strikes Ghondra and-
Does nothing, the man of melting skin smiling and extends his blade further, going for another horizontal slash, Tantra hits the ground, making sure Synthia does the same-
A searing flame cuts through buildings and peasants alike, the screams of those hiding in the infrastructure added to the chorus as groaning wood-
There is a building falling on top of them.
Tantra grabs Synthia, boosting her legs with as much Qi as they can handle and dashes forward into the crowd of peasants, some are corpses, most are still alive, looking at her with either confusion or-
Oh, her rags, they burned off, she’s standing naked right now.
Welp! She can die of embarrassment later, right now she has to avoid actually dying, she puts Synthia down and forces her legs to move despite the fatigue, and they run.
