Chapter 12 #3
“Chaoxiang, who are these people?” Her voice was a squeak, and she was utterly ignored.
Good.
Far better that she be dismissed as less than nothing that obliterated out of hand, just in case she was an additional threat.
“Lion, report at once!” Chaoxiang bellowed.
Yet Lion, whose black-steel armor radiated the stink of infernal enchantments that had been shattered by some inconceivable force, utterly ignored him.
Just as he did the blood trickling from a wound that would have been fatal in any mortal, Nili had no doubt.
“Report,” hissed the woman known as Lady Asp.
“A blond-haired master of the fangtian ji is here! He successfully countered my blood axes like they were less than nothing!” The powerfully built cultivator’s anxious gaze turned into outrage.
“There’s no way any half-blood should be so powerful a cultivator that he could counter my arts.
The arts of a third-circle Silver! He is an abomination, a twisted amalgamation of ancient magics and the wiles of our enemies. There is no other explanation!”
Nili silently cursed, instantly knowing the source of the chaos, debating whether she could slip away with both wujen occupied by Lion’s desperate recounting.
Of course, that was the moment the door that had relatched itself behind the Silver cultivator exploded in a shower of twisted steel, blasted wood, and a flash of lightning so brilliant that the room was filled with startled cries, even Nili momentarily seeing stars, despite Shadow’s caress.
“So, I take it you must be Chaoxiang, and the ugly, infernally scarred pair of assholes next to you are your wujen cohorts?”
Nili’s mind shrieked a desperate warning that of course the towering blond-haired fool with such piercing blue eyes was completely oblivious to, antagonizing not only her former partner who had been so close to letting her slip free of his deadly net, but also the pair of wujen who were Silver-tier monsters and could slaughter them both in the blink of an eye.
“It’s him!” Lion shrieked. “The one we were warned about! He ripped through Master Dung’s wards like they were nothing! Strike him dead now, before he can flee!”
That was when Nili felt it, powerful wards of twisted might thrumming about both wujen, even as that thrice-damned fool flashed his madcap grin.
At least he hadn’t given any sign that he knew her, yet. She would give him credit for that much, and no more. If they actually survived this... and he was smirking. The fool of a boy was actually smirking at them all with such cold contempt!
“Seeing how much you two clearly don’t give a fuck about Chaoxiang blathering orders in your ear, you must be Dongfang Hong’s lackeys, and I’m guessing that the bloated buffoon beside you is just a temporary tool you’ll be disposing of, the moment he’s no longer useful?”
Chaoxiang blanched at Alex’s callous words, yet Alex’s goading earned him nothing but contemptuous glares.
“You’ve interfered for the last time, Ruidian scum,” snarled the scar-faced woman known as Asp, her dead serpentine eyes locking with Alex’s own.
The male wujen flashed a bitter smile, even as his hands flashed sigils that flared with infernal brilliance through the air.
“I do look forward to teaching you the many errors of your ways, filth. When we are done with you, you will be beyond eager to embrace your place at the foot of our master, a broken dog who knows he is filth, embraces his filth, and will willingly disembowel himself for the pleasure of he who commands us all!”
The man gave a cold chuckle so malevolent that it sent shivers down even Nili’s jaded spine.
“Your lesson begins now, you appalling wretch. Prepare for pain that sears not just the flesh, but your very soul!”
Nili felt it then, a foul corrupting taint so awful that all she could do was close her eyes and curl into a ball, for just a heartbeat feeling like a tiny wisp of sentience lost in bitter cold waters, surrounded by endless screams she could do nothing to escape.
And much to her horror, Alex didn’t even dodge the blow.
She sensed it wash right over him, a horrific art so vile that Chaoxiang fainted and even Lion was crumpling to his knees, eyes bulging with dread as he spat blood, clutching the wound in his chest, trembling not with pain but with terror, tears streaming down his cheeks.
Tears no different from Nili’s own. The pair of them shared an odd communion, an awareness and understanding that this horrific feeling, their souls drowning in endless blackness, was a fate they wouldn’t wish on their worst enemy.
In that moment, Nili knew that should she and Lion be forced to face one another, both would let the other flee, both eager just to escape with their lives and souls intact.
Yet what was almost as awful as the wave of soul-crushing despair leaving Nili a screaming wreck in her own mind was laughter.
The laughter and madcap grin of a wildcard who was utterly without fear.
Yet his eyes… his eyes hinted at witnessing firsthand horrors that would send them all shrieking into oblivion. Twisted states of torment that made the vile wujen’s arts seem no more fearsome than a drunken mother’s lullaby. Off-key, but utterly harmless. That was what Alex’s smile conveyed.
“Seriously? That’s the best you can do? That’s NOTHING like the River of Souls!”
Then, to Nili’s horrified amazement, Alex was suddenly right IN FRONT of the startled Gru. Moving at such shocking speeds it was utterly beyond Nili’s ken.
“Would you like to see it?” Alex queried as if it were the most natural thing in the world, while slapping away the wujen’s limbs with a fangtian ji covered in darkness so thick that not even ghostly hands could pierce the haft.
“What trickery is this?” Gru roared, eyes incensed with fresh outrage. “No one can counter Spirit Hands! You buy yourself but a handful of seconds, fool! Even now, retribution for all your crimes is at—”
The man lurched when Alex suddenly wasn’t there, just in time to catch a face full of infernal fire from his partner, Asp, who had been positioning herself to attack from behind.
Yet all she managed to do was burn through her partner’s wards and sear his face.
Of course, with wards as strong as theirs, only the lightest of burns were suffered. Yet it was enough to make the man roar.
“This fool dares to mock us! He will pay for that! Asp, grab the kitsune. That fool has a soft spot for them in all the tales. We’ll use her to—”
“You’ll use her to do nothing.” The words were cold as ice, all mocking warmth turned into a bitter cold storm of howling hail, which Nili had seen only once in her life. A freakish experience that had been beyond rare.
Almost as rare as the flash of lightning followed by a crack and boom that made Nili collapse, too stunned to think or speak as her ears rang, the gentle patter of warm rain washing down upon her from the neck stump that had been a Silver-tier wujen, just a second ago.
Asp screamed. It wasn’t the roar of a warrior desperate to avenge her fallen comrade; it was the scream of a woman who had just lost her beloved.
Yet before Nili could even process the irony and horror of it all, she found herself pinned by a killing aura so intense that she knew her demise was a foregone conclusion as the woman jabbed Death’s finger in her direction, piercing her Shadow cloak as if it weren’t even there.
“Die, vermin!” Asp screamed, a heartbeat before she was sent stumbling back, gazing at the stump of her wrist spraying blood, then turning to stare at the wild blood-spattered countenance of the Ruidian butcher among them.
How odd it was to hear words of confused disbelief. Sounding so… normal. So human. Free of the deadly resonance of a Silver-tier monster secure in her power.
“How? My wards are beyond anyone below Gold.”
Alex paused to stare at the woman. “Really? You think that? I mean, clearly that’s not the case.
Just look at your own spurting wrist. And ooh…
that smile! I know what you’re up to.” Alex chortled and winked, and how odd it was that the woman was giving Alex a hard smile in turn as if, despite the devastation of their battle, she still had one final card in play.
And then she didn’t.
Alex snapped his head around so fast that Nili was momentarily speechless. “Get out of here, Nili. NOW! Our friend’s about to port out. I don’t dare risk holding back. Get on your feet and MOVE!”
But Nili could only gaze numbly on, sharing a confused look with Chaoxiang, who seemed as stunned by the lightning-fast turn of events as Nili herself was.
Lady Asp’s remaining hand twisted in eye-watering knots as Lion, confidence puffed up by Alex’s seeming distraction, roared and charged Alex.
“You’re an abomination!” Asp hissed. “When my master hears about your foul, twisted arts, he will countenance the systematic genocide of every Ruidian clan that thinks to hide itself in desert sands, and I will happily lead the purge! And you will have only yourself to—”
“Come on, Mother. We have to go! Now!”
Nili gasped when she felt an unexpected hand grab her arm and drag her back, a furious response transformed into instant agonized guilt and dismay, along with twisted relief and awful worry, when she caught the scent of the girl pulling her out of that deadly chamber a heartbeat before it flashed with lightning so black that Nili was blinded.
She cried out in dismay as hideous power seared through her flesh like the coldest waters of oblivion as she stumbled to the ground.
“Mother!”