Chapter 13 #2
“Oh no. I didn’t kill anyone. He asked me to wait with the other girls.
We met when he cut off the head of the guard who captured me sneaking in.
I don’t even know how he saw me! Anyway, the former guard was trying to ravish me when I most definitely did not want to be ravished, and I wasn’t even really sneaking in; it was more like investigating.
So please don’t give me that look, Mother.
It was important! I was looking for Jinni, my best friend who you made baklava for once, who was most definitely kidnapped.
Only we didn’t find her. But we did find seventy other girls. ”
“Is that so?” her mother said in an increasingly cold, angry voice as Chaoxiang audibly tried to scurry away. Before stopping with a yelp.
“It’s okay. All he did was tear my leathers.
I mean… your leathers? But Alex took care of him anyway.
And there were also the guards trying to ravish the girls in the holding chamber, forcing all the other girls to watch, probably to break their spirit and will and force compliance, but Alex bisected them all quite neatly as well!
But since I like hiding far more than I do, um, sticking my spear into people screaming at me to stop, no matter how well you and Father trained me, I kind of didn’t do any killing?
Mostly, I’ve been hiding in Alex’s shadow and watching.
And learning. He’s really very good at chopping things up, isn’t he? And he hasn’t even noticed!”
“Good,” her mother said with audible relief.
“But now we really have to get moving or the invading sons-of-goats will be killing all my new friends.”
“Agreed. Allow me to take care of one tiny issue here first.”
“Of course, Mother.”
Chaoxing whimpered, trying to scurry back. “No, no, no! Nili. You don’t have to do this! Please! I had no choice but to serve them. I had no choice!”
“Did you know, you thirteenth-generation horse’s ass? Did you know about the captured girls? Did you know they had captured my daughter?”
“Nili, please! See reason! If our enterprise was to get off the ground, concessions had to be made! Seventy is just a tiny, tiny fraction of the population. The soldiers would have been happy, we would all have been safe, and our opium enterprise would have flourished. Before long, we would have dominated all the desert cities with the Red Prince himself acting as our logistics partner! Don’t you understand, Nili?
It would have been an economic conquest every bit as significant as the prince’s own military coup! ”
His voice turned into a desperate plea, but Alex paid it no heed. For the clever knot of wind he had placed around Li Li’s neck was now ringing in his ear with the girl’s terrified scream.
A scream that turned into a choked-off gurgle and the distant sound of soldiers chortling coldly as Alex sprinted down the corridor and smashed the cistern door right off its hinges with a heel kick, instantly catching sight of dozens of terrified girls and the cold-eyed glares of half a dozen soldiers lifting blades from a handful of fallen girls while glaring Alex’s way.
His heart clenched with horrified dismay when he caught Li Li’s doomed gaze as she desperately held back entrails spurting from her belly wound.
The howl of outraged fury in his soul was far louder than Chaoxiang’s dying shriek he somehow heard so clearly as Nili forced her former underling to pay the ultimate price for selling out their city, and for imperiling her daughter.
A roaring Alex was eager to hear the same scream echo through the throats of all the hard-eyed men charging him even now, as he embraced the storm once more.
You have successfully weaved past gladius thrust.
Bronze-tier Strength and basic martial techniques FAIL to counter multiple Silver ranks of Strength, Quickness, Finesse, and your growing mastery over the storm.
You have successfully decapitated your foe!
Multiple Bronze-tier soldiers charge you in unison.
Combined Barrage FAILS to mitigate Silver-tier martial art!
You have successfully countered all blows.
Steel lamellar tiles FAIL to counter your wrath!
You have successfully cleaved through 3 soldiers in a single swing!
You have successfully bisected one additional foe.
Final foe attempts to flee!
Alex let the interface messages wash over him as he became one with the howling storm of grief, regret, and wrath now roaring through him as he effortlessly weaved and dodged past the blades of bloodthirsty monsters moving so slowly, stumbling like buffoons, earning nothing but Alex’s wild fury as his fangtian ji channeled his shrieks into the howling storm, embracing winds that could punch straw through oak trees.
Or let indestructible steel cleave right through lamellar, flesh, and bone.
The cistern floors were soon covered in fresh spatters of crimson rain, a final shrieking foe right about to trample the very girls who had fallen to their blows, which a furious Alex would NOT allow, roaring and punching the fool’s back with such force that Dongfang Hong’s pawn was lifted right over a dying Li Li’s gasping form to crash a dozens yards away in a crumpled, broken heap.
Alex ignored the stares of awe and fear being sent his way, having eyes only for the young woman gazing at him with such an awful smile, eyes already glimpsing Death’s waters now watching his own.
“So the rumors are true. The gods haven’t all faded into the desert sands. You really are the Eternal Disciple.”