Chapter 10 #3
The young cultivator sighed, a hand nervously pulling her braided chestnut curls. “I think… I think we’re it? At least for now? The men… they were discussing transporting us. One was joking that it would soon be time for the next phase. But I don’t really know for sure.”
Her words elicited fresh sobs in some of the other girls.
“Wait, please, have any of you seen a girl named Jinni? I can’t find her!” an increasingly distressed Lini said aloud, after half a dozen girls she had whispered to shook their heads regretfully. “Jinni? Are you here? It’s me, Lini! I’m here to rescue you! Are you hiding?”
The handful of girls who had shown themselves brave enough to speak exchanged looks before calling out to those still too fearful to say a word. “Does anyone recall any girl named Jinni?”
Only silence answered their query.
Thoughts racing, Alex quickly planned his strategy.
It wasn’t perfect, but he knew what would happen if enemy soldiers spotted almost seventy previously captured girls flooding the streets, eager to report their mass kidnapping.
It would generate alarm. Alarm that might be sufficient to cause anxious diplomats and agents to think that diplomacy was now a lost cause and unleash their Silver-tier killers to force a royal vacancy and put their own pawns in place.
Either that, or give the signal to start the invasion that would cost the lives of thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, of citizens, not to mention all but ensure the deaths of his friends.
But there was no way in hell that he was leaving these girls to their fate.
He gritted his teeth, already knowing what he had to do.
“All right, wait here. And that means you too, Lini,” he said with a pointed look at the flushing kitsune. “I’ll be right back.”
“Alex!”
“Yes?”
“Please keep an eye out for my friend, Jinni. She’s…
” Lini’s anxious gaze peered beseechingly into Alex’s own.
“She’s part Ruidian, but she doesn’t have any jewel on her brow or anything like that.
Yet I’m afraid that won’t even matter. She’s exotic looking and pretty.
And these animals…” She bit her lip, squeezing back tears as one of the closest girls squeezed her hand sympathetically as she choked back a sob, wiping away the tears streaming down her cheeks.
Alex bowed his head. “I will.”
He then dashed down the cistern and into the main tunnel just beyond, ignoring the panicked cries behind him. Because even if he wouldn’t be leaving immediately, he had to make sure no flesh-hungry soldiers were heading to the girls from the opposite exit as the one Alex had entered.
And much to his unexpected relief… there was nothing but a sturdy-looking door before him, clearly barred from the other side.
He flashed a smile on utterly silent feet, Qi Perception picking up the impression of a long corridor beyond, devoid of any presence. No one was moving toward the door. Which meant that the girls were effectively hemmed in… but no one was immediately coming back this way.
Good.
If things went according to the hot, fiery plan forming in his head, he’d be coming back soon enough.
He then made a quick alteration before racing back the way he had come, muffling his feet to effortless silence, using hardly any energy at all.
Congratulations, you have successfully evolved your Water Walking and Wind Walking skills!
You may now effortlessly walk on the ground without generating a trace of sound or vibration. Your feet weigh so lightly upon whatever surface you tread that you could effortlessly walk across bamboo paper, water, or a leaf!
Wind Walking has been enhanced by Silent Steps Technique. No gusts will alert your foes to your hovering right above their heads.
Water Walking has been enhanced by Lightness Technique. No ripples will form in your wake.
Wind Walking is now Rank 8.
Water Walking is now Rank 8.
Walking upon any surface is now effortless and as silent as you wish it to be! (Save for the River of Souls, which still takes some effort.)
Surprisingly to Alex, something in his gaze awoke something in the freckled young cultivator now gazing at him so raptly.
“You’ve had a breakthrough. I can tell!”
Lini gave Alex a look, eyes widening. “You have. You’ve embraced silence! Even though you’re not…” She stole a quick look around her, adjusting her makeshift bonnet. “Anyway, you’re not making any sound at all, now.”
Alex gazed at the pair of young cultivators for long moments. “If worse comes to worst, can either of you fight?”
Lini flushed, wiping away the last of her tears before stiffening her spine and saluting him, fist to chest. “Yes, Lieutenant. I… I won’t dishonor my mother with fear. I can use a spear, though not as well as my parents can.”
Alex smiled. “One spear coming up,” he said, giving Lini a short, light spear with a narrow head, ideal for piercing the weakest points in any armored foe, his movements buried in shadow as Lini gazed at the ring on his finger. “Nice trick,” she softly said.
The other cultivator gave a solemn nod. “I am a student of the staff.”
“Does that include the bladed staff?”
The girl dipped her head. “Though I use it more as a short spear,” she said with a glance at Lini’s weapon. “I’m still a basic, but my master’s almost certain that one day—”
“He’s right. You have seven intact nodes, so Bronze is most definitely in your future.
Even if the final two are quite filled with compacted waste.
” Alex smiled. “Probably because your last couple of lives were quite a bittersweet brew of vice and virtue.” He winked.
“I get the feeling that this serene cultivator’s life you’ve been embracing up until your capture is the exception, not the rule.
And good for you. It does the soul good, embracing serenity when and where you can.
Hopefully, by this time tomorrow, you’ll be back in your master’s care and can put all this behind you. ”
Only after the observation had left his lips, did he realize what he had said. His tongue had slipped away from him, as he kept forgetting that he wasn’t with companions who understood his nature… friends of a lifetime ago.
Instead he received multiple looks of breathless awe.
“He can see our past lives?”
“He read her soul! Coaxin is right. Just look at the water we’re drinking. Water he made effortlessly! And a Ruidian counseling a true-blooded cultivator? There’s only one person that could possibly be.”
The girl next to her nodded solemnly. Wide brown eyes locked on Alex’s blushing form. “He’s a character right out of the stories. Our city’s lost hero, come to rescue us in our hour of greatest need!”
Lini’s look of wonder turned into a wry smile. “Does Mother even know what you are?”
Alex ignored the heat in his cheeks, his focus on the trembling girl before him. “What’s your name?”
“Li Li.”
He smiled, pulling free a bladed staff from the ring he still wasn’t ready to examine, paying no heed to the fresh looks of disbelief this earned him. “Can you use this?”
The girl blinked, wide-eyed, before nodding. “I… yes?”
“Good. You’re now Lini’s spear-sister. The pair of you will serve as our young friends’ guardians and protectors.
Of course, if trouble does come, your first job is to yell.
Can you do that for me?” His fingers gently brushed both of their throats, earning a surprised blink from Li Li and flushed cheeks from Lini.
He smiled reassuringly. “Don’t worry, I’ll hear your battle cries, if it comes to that. Or just whisper and keep me abreast of whatever’s going on.
“You’re a wujen!”
Alex winked. “Just a student with a strong affinity for Wind.”
His smile faded to something hard and cold. “There’s plenty of water. You girls will wait here until I get back. If trouble comes, don’t risk your lives foolishly. Surrender peacefully so they don’t cut your throat. Just let me know where you are and what’s happening, and I’ll come when I can.”
The pair of girls nodded breathlessly as Alex girded himself for what was to come.
The gentle concern of a dreamer that these fragile souls needed to see and be comforted by as quickly replaced with the hard-eyed focus of a man willing to do whatever the hell he had to, to see his mission through.
“Hero! Wait. What do I call you?”
“His name’s Alex,” Lini said brightly as he gave a final wave before leaving the chamber.
He turned to the door, channeling his anger, letting it build in a surge of steady heat as a lock melted and a door sealed.
One would have to be very serious and following protocol before deciding to break through that door, and both the noise and disruption of his ward would give him all the warning he needed to race back to the girls’ rescue.
Or so he hoped.
If things went according to plan, that sealed door would soon be the last thing on the soldiers’ minds.
His face became a study in grim focus as he approached the first barracks door, placing his hand upon its surface just long enough for the gentle flow of air beyond to whisper its secrets.
Then he yanked it open and got to work.