Chapter 14
“Ming, Skunk! Where are you fools?” shouted a scowling man holding a lamp, glaring into darkness. “It’s shift change! The rest of us want our—”
His words were cut off when the light from his lantern flashed off of brilliant steel and the wild-eyed countenance of a creature he had no name for, the whisper of an ancient tale his mother had once rocked him to sleep with flickering across his mind for only a heartbeat before he was struck by blinding pain so horrific that all he saw was a shocking blaze of red.
As if his skull had just been cleaved right open.
And then he fell with a splash into ice-cold waters and felt nothing at all.
Consumed by a storm of retribution flowing through the passage, washing all resistance away.
The air echoed with the furious shouts of disciplined troops that transformed to panicked cries and the dying screams of desperate men fleeing for their lives…
And then nothing at all.
WiFu’s Eternal Disciple emerged inside a massive warehouse that surprisingly wasn’t filled with dozens of soldiers. Just a single Silver-tier cultivator radiating power and confidence, now smirking Alex’s way.
The man was casually leaning against a hardwood post with a pair of daos at his hips sheathed in spirit beast hide, as was the rest of his powerfully built frame.
The air rang with the echo of mocking applause.
“So, the mysterious Ruidian ghost that has disrupted multiple operations in a surprisingly short period of time is more than rumor and excuses to cover for utter lack of discipline and shoddy execution. Excellent!” The man’s mustachioed upper lip curved into a smile.
“It means a few less heads will have to roll as an example to others. Always refreshing when fate arranges things in the ideal direction. Wouldn’t you say? ”
“Did you know?”
The man sneered, eyes glittering cruelly. He was no fool. Of course he knew exactly what Alex meant.
The decrepit wooden warehouse rang with the man’s oddly melodic laughter. As if he were a charming bard with his flawless, perfectly symmetrical Han features, twinkling eyes, and brilliant smile. Not an absolute psychopathic monster.
“Know? Of course I know. Foolish boy. How do you think so many were lured free of their mother’s street stalls?
Their father’s secure compounds? Women newly blossomed, ripe enough to entice an entire regimen, sturdy enough to last more than a few paltry weeks!
” The air filled with his cold laughter.
“It was so easy to charm parents with promises of courtship and marriage. So easy to entice countless newly blossomed flowers who fail to understand the true nature of men. Guards so easily bribed at Wanshi’s pathetic excuses for institutions of cultivation, mathematics, arts, and the drivel that they dare to call higher learning.
Countless girls who will soon be learning the only lessons they need embrace for the rest of their pathetic lives! ”
The predator’s mocking laughter cut off with an angry hiss when Alex roared and charged, fangtian ji whirling with a deadly storm of furious currents, fit to wash any foe to oblivion.
Yet save for a contemptuous smirk, the predatory Silver did naught but weave aside with chilling grace as Alex’s fangtian ji exploded against the wooden slats covering a foundation of brownstone that erupted in a crater, showering them both with stone shrapnel.
The man’s sneer turned into a half-smirk. “Good, good! I welcome a challenge beyond breaking the hearts of so many sweet young fillies before lashing them tight with ropes of despair! The look of desperate panic in their eyes is my inspiration, as is the fury in your own!”
Alex’s fury morphed to jolt of alarm when his impossibly fast opponent seemed to flicker, lancing him with multiple whipping crosscuts after Alex dared to take the offensive, lashing out with a series of windmilling strikes that would have cleaved right through lesser men.
Strikes that his sneering opponent effortlessly weaved past, fire kissing Alex’s forearms, both forearms, when he dared to overextend before he could snap his fangtian ji back in mid guard, hissing when he felt awful burning crawling up his arm.
His interface blinked with alarm that he understood all too well when he began wheezing for breath.
You have been struck with Black Asp Poison!
Your diaphragm has been affected.
Vitality has been lowered.
You have saved versus cardiac arrest!
You have failed to save versus nausea.
You have failed to save versus (mild) disorientation!
Biochemical Mastery engaged.
Power Healing engaged!
The man mocked Alex with his too-bright smile as he momentarily seemed to double and fade in and out of Alex’s struggling perception. “Ah… I see it’s already working. Wonderful! You may call me Mongoose, foolish dreamer doomed to die of the most bitter of brews. And what shall I call you?”
There was only one answer Alex cared to give as he charged his sneering foe with a furious barrage of cleaving blows and windmilling strikes, earning nothing but a mocking smile from an enemy far faster than any he had fought in this lifetime, even as his arms burned with snapping rebuttals that left his foe’s blades crimson with his lifeblood.
And he was left wheezing for breath as he was infected by multiple additional poisons for which he had no name.
As had happened over countless battles before.
Over countless lifetimes before.
And as always before, even as his foe laughed and mocked and taunted, calling him a fool, a dreamer doomed to die choking on his own vomit, just one more Ruidian whose head would be put on a pike for daring to act above his station…
Alex felt ancient memories and the crucible of ancient battles reforging him anew, as the storm within his soul grew to unparalleled heights.
As Biochemical Mastery slowly but surely, no matter how he wheezed and struggled for breath, made those poisons his own.
Just one more bucket of potent brew filling the endless seas crashing through his soul.
As it had countless times before.
For Death’s waters would not be denied.
No matter how many times panicked gods clawing at dreams of divinity had abjured him before.
He would rise again.
He would always rise again.
For the River of Souls, that which the gods feared above all else, was now his eternal domain.
Abruptly Mongoose hissed and retreated with an odd look coming over his smug, flawless features with which he had tricked too many hopeful parents and doomed scores of innocent girls.
Yet the tiny corner of Alex’s mind not focused on slaughter thought his opponent’s sudden hesitation strange.
For Mongoose had scored additional blows with his monstrous Quickness, hammering home the merits of speed above all else, which Alex already knew all too painfully well.
His forearms were stinging with yet another crimson splash of blood, pattering across the ancient wooden boards.
Boards that, remarkably, neither of their impossibly fast footsteps, pivots, and stamps were shattering, both of them having clearly learned lightness techniques from one cultivation path or another.
“Your wrists should be stumps! I cleaved right through your flesh. I can cut through steel like water! You should be on your knees, choking out your lungs while dying of blood loss, you appalling monster!” Mongoose hissed, his eyes glaring with actual offense as Alex took advantage of the moment to breathe deep the howling winds and exhale the pain and bitterness welling up from within.
Potency Mastery (still) in effect! You are regenerating 4 Qi per second.
You have saved versus Crippling Blow.
You have saved versus Lethal Venom!
You have achieved 54% immunity to the effects of multiple Qi-based toxins.
You have suffered one additional Medium Wound.
Power healing engaged! Pulmonary swelling reduced to insignificance.
You have successfully healed multiple wounds to wrists and forearms.
Mongoose’s look of furious contempt turned into one of growing alarm and sheer outraged disbelief.
Alex’s continued survival, his refusal to fall, was clearly getting under the man’s skin, no matter how effortlessly the psychopath dodged past Alex’s windmilling strikes that tore through the floorboards with explosions of shattered stone and wooden splinters.
Elemental Mastery skill check made! You have avoided Peripheral Blast. The elements know their master!
Mongoose’s eye flickered to his own impossibly sharp blades of crimson steel. Blades Alex could sense were sharp enough to cut through the highest quality armor, even in a mortal’s hands.
Yet in the hands of this Silver-tier speed cultivator…
“No! You dare to mock the Crimson Path? There can be no redemption for you, only death! It matters not your odd Ruidian resistances to Blackroot Venom if I tear out your throat!” Mongoose roared, flinging himself right for Alex as his blades seemed to blur, flashing for Alex’s eyes before darting low for a wicked disemboweling cut, his arrogant threat but a feint.
A feint Alex had understood before his opponent had even sprung forward. Flowing in a liquid medium that the storm knew so very well.
Yet even knowing he would soon be experiencing bitter sharp PAIN once more, Alex took full advantage of his weapon’s six-foot-long haft and his own two handed grip, ensuring him a reach and leverage that his foe couldn’t break through by might alone.
Yet when Mongoose snarled and threw the element of Water into the mix to force himself past Alex’s guard, roaring and propelling himself forward… it was his eyes that widened with surprise when the shockwave of his blows were leveraged aside by the howling winds of the storm.
Soul Sight Perception check: success!
You have dared to duel a Silver-tier expert for the duration of a dozen lethal exchanges.
You recognize Water’s rhythm in the fluid mastery of your enemy’s tactics.
You have claimed the eternal river as but one element of the storm you seek to master!