A dagger came, and he stepped to the right. Shadows shifted, and he turned to the left to face them. Four jians appeared out of the night like a cat’s extending claws. Flowery perfume filled his nose, and sparks flew as he defended against the half-invisible strikes.
A dagger hit between his shoulder blades, and a groan escaped his lips.
Sword intent flickered across his blade as he thrust at his attackers.
They were already gone.
He resumed his ready stance, the four-star jian trembling in his white knuckled grip. This was not the death of a warrior, but a torture of a thousand cuts.
Judging from the strength of the strikes, the assassins were in the Qi Condensing Realm, though their stealth techniques prevented a more accurate assessment. His heart pounded heavily in his chest. An attack like the last one could come again at any moment.
He did not have the spare breath to shout a taunt or insult into the trees, and so he waited.
And waited.
A scream shattered the silence. The trees shook as shadows moved unnaturally. Blood arced high into the air like a dark slash across the moon. Something wet and heavy fell to the ground. A legless assassin, her body flickering in and out of visibility as pain shattered her qi control. She clawed her way towards the Dreaming Blade.
“Please…” she gurgled. “Help, me…”
He prepared his jian. This could all be a trick…
A wet rope curled around her neck. Her eyes opened impossibly wide, the whites gleaming under the moon, before she was yanked back into the waiting trees. Unable to scream, only her choked moan escaped the shadows.
Silence fell, a thick blanket that stank of blood.
The Dreaming Blade’s senses strained to see what new predator had emerged from the forest to take advantage of their conflict. He must be prepared.
Something stepped out of the trees, draped in shadow, and dragging a massive weight. It was humanoid, with blood dripping from long claws. It strode toward the cave.
The Dreaming Blade formed a ghostly sword intent with the last of his qi. It wasn’t much, but it would have to be enough. He spoke no words, for he needed to save his energy. When it came close enough, he would strike, and it would need to be perfect.
Moonlight shone on the face of the approaching creature…
The Dreaming Blade dropped his jian as he sagged to his knees.
“Master?”
“Disciple,” his master said calmly. “Are you hurt?”
Dawn touched the furthest corner of the sky, and that pale light was enough to see his master’s calm, noble features. The care in those eyes was genuine, and the Dreaming Blade’s heart ached.
“No, master,” he said. “I’m fine. Chen Ai is inside.”
“Thank you for protecting my junior sister.”
“Of course, master,” the Dreaming Blade said with a bow. “But…”
“Yes?”
“I must apologise.”
“What for?”
“I killed the City Lord.”
His master nodded, but there was no surprise. Of course, how could his wise and knowledgeable master be surprised by anything this foolish disciple did? The Dreaming Blade felt color rising in his cheeks.
“I am sorry, master.”
There was a long silence, and the Dreaming Blade’s weary head hung heavy as he waited for his master’s words.
“Why did you kill the City Lord?”
“His assassins came for me.”
“So, it was self-defence?”
“Yes, master.”
“You didn’t provoke him into pre-emptively defending himself?”
The Dreaming Blade shook his head.
“I don’t understand how that could have happened.”
His master sighed.
“I think that I should deliver my own messages next time.”
An ache spread through the Dreaming Blade’s chest.
“No, master! This disciple will carry any message you have from here to the heavens themselves!”
“I know,” his master said gently as he patted him on the back.
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There was forgiveness in his master's tone; an indicator of his master's magnanimous greatness -- for what else could explain letting the Dreaming Blade live? -- but that was also his master's shortcoming. As a disciple, the Dreaming Blade couldn't directly question his master, but he could suggest…
These thoughts raced through his mind as his master found a still-embedded dagger. It was a testament to the Dreaming Blade's exhaustion that he'd forgotten the weapon remained inside his flesh.
“Master?”
“Yes?”
“You must punish me.”
“Hmm?”
“I caused assassins to come after us. I don't know if you encountered them…”
“I did.”
“Oh?”
“They proved useful.”
How like his master! Using assassins as training tools!
“But they also came after Chen Ai. If they had interrupted her closed-door cultivation, she might have lost all her progress. For that reason alone, I believe I should be punished.”
It was only by getting ahead of his master and confessing that he could avoid the shame of skirting his responsibility.
“I'll consider it,” said his master in a tone that didn't indicate how he felt. “Stay still.”
There was a brief stab of pain as the blade twisted in his muscles. The dagger was a small, simple, and well-balanced blade with a flower engraved on the hilt.
“Keep this,” his master said. “As a reminder.”
The Dreaming Blade almost asked, 'a reminder of what?’, but realized that his question was a lesson in and of itself. His master was allowing him to ponder, and to learn, and -- being the wise master that he was -- he gave it in the form his disciple would understand the most: a blade.
The tears he’d held back freely fell as he bowed once more until his forehead touched the dewy grass.
“Thank you, master.”
###
My disciple slowly cultivated, regaining the qi he lost while fighting the assassins. He looked close to death when I arrived, but color returned to his cheeks as the dawn lit up the mountain sky.
It was the morning we were supposed to rendezvous with the expedition, but Chen Ai remained inside her cave. I was happy to wait for her.
I was less happy with the Dreaming Blade. Either his age or his cultivation had deceived me, but I now realized that he was far less mature than I expected. That, or he was stupider.
The fixated stare he gave the dagger I presented him was concerning, but he had defended Chen Ai with his life against a full flower of the Plum Blossoms.
If they hadn’t been so focused on him, it would have been much harder for me to ambush them in the dark.
Though, Everytime tried to explain that he'd helped as much as hindered and that the City Lord would have hunted us down anyway, he simply insisted on me punishing him. It was honestly hard to tell which one of us was the master and which the disciple.
Hopefully, Chen Ai could help me think of a good punishment.
###
Chen Ai meditated on the nature of grass as she had ever since she enclosed herself in the cave. Her bloodline provided many opportunities, but it also had many requirements. For every door it opened, two were closed.
She desperately wished to have a Heaven Blessed Foundation Establishment cultivation, and the only way she saw to do that was to build her first pillar out of pure grass qi. It was one of the few qi types that resonated with her Ox Bloodline. The elixirs she received from Alchemist Ran were exceptionally smooth and easy to break down, but they were as dense as the core that formed them, and so it took time. Hours passed with her sweating and sitting in the dark cave as she processed the qi.
What had initially been wood and poison was transmuted by alchemy into grass; however, a hint of poison remained. It wasn’t in the qi, so much as it was in the qi’s memory.
Could poison -- even the thought of poison -- work in her cultivation?
She split her attention and meditated on this question as she processed the elixir, and came to a startling conclusion: grass could be poison.
In fact, grass created her favorite kind of poison.
Though it was easy to think of grass as simply the green carpet of fields and prairies, in truth, the grains that fed the Empire were all variants of grass. When those grains were fermented, they created the poison of liquor.
Was that why she always ached for a drink after a difficult day?
It was something to ponder on, but by mentally fusing grass with poison, she successfully unlocked the qi in the elixir, spreading the heat through her expanded meridians, and advancing gracefully through the stages of the Qi Condensing realm.
Unlike previous breakthroughs, this one was soft and smooth, and she felt as though she’d taken a nap when she finally rolled the boulder aside.
Moving the heavy weight was far easier now that two more stages of qi flowed through her body. She grinned, more powerful than ever.
The Dreaming Blade sat outside the cave in the bright light of morning.
From the immediate smell of blood and the gouges of sword qi in the ground, it was obvious a battle had taken place. She’d been so focused on her meditation that she hadn’t noticed.
“How long have you been here?” she asked the Dreaming Blade.
“Since last night.”
“You fought?”
He nodded.
“Assassins sent by the City Lord.”
“I thought he was an asshole. I can’t believe he sent assassins just because we took his bribe in poor faith.”
“Exactly.”
Chen Ai raised an eyebrow at the Dreaming Blade’s ready agreement, but she let it be, the other man was exhausted, and his attention remained fixated on a small dagger in his hands.
“What’s that?”
“A lesson from my master.”
“Oh?”
“Yes.”
She sighed.
“What does it mean?”
“I don’t know.”
She bit back another sigh. This was a morning that she would celebrate her achievement, not get bogged down in an annoying back-and-forth with the Dreaming Blade.
“Where is senior brother?” she asked.
“He went out into the trees to search the bodies of the assassins.”
Chen Ai’s eyebrows rose.
“That’s surprisingly proactive of him.”
“That was my thought, but he insisted on doing it himself. He said he ‘wanted to pick the bodies clean’.”
“Wonders never cease,” Chen Ai said with a shake of her head. “Let me get my pack and then we can go find him.”
“Oh, pack…”
She rolled her eyes.
“Don’t worry, I have enough provisions for all of us.”
The Dreaming Blade rose and gave her a martial salute.
“Truly, you are prepared. May I call you my martial sister?”
“Hmmm…. No, I don’t think we’re quite there.”
The new, dumbfounded expression on the Dreaming Blade’s face was the perfect reward for her successful breakthrough.
###
“Yes, good, kid. Make sure you thoroughly eat her and slurp up any juices.”
I nodded absently as I shoved handfuls of assassin into my dislocated throat. Cabbagy sat wedged in the fork of a tree, watching me feed. My clothes were hung beside him. There had to be a better way to go about it, but for now, it was the best solution I’d come up with for not staining my clothes in gore.
Some scavengers had come while I sat with the Dreaming Blade and taken three bodies, but two remained, and I took the opportunity to refill my blood pool and qi reservoir.
It also helped calm me down.
This might sound ridiculous, but I hadn’t actually put much thought into the expedition. I was starting to realize that I wasn’t as good at being proactive and thinking ahead as I thought I was. Turns out that living in the moment is all well and good until the moment isn’t so well and good.
Soon, I would be leading a party of cultivators into an Imperial Forbidden Zone. That was something only done by a hero or a fool.
And it was hard to feel heroic while I shoved a woman’s foot into my mouth; bones and all. It was right at that moment, as I choked on her ankle, that I heard the most terrifying sound of all.
“Master?”
“Senior brother, are you close?”
Leaves crunched as Chen Ai and my disciple approached me through the trees.
little.
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