by Dante King
How exactly did Anna think Hazel was looking at me?
Chapter 9
The next morning, we got dressed without much fuss and put out the fire. Hazel didn’t say a word the entire time—after the events of last night, she’d apparently decided to put some distance between herself and us. That was fine with me. I still felt a little out of sorts from the wild night I’d had with Anna, as if the two of us had knocked each other a little out of step with reality.
The two of us laughed and giggled as we headed back out into the jungle, sharing secret jokes. Our relationship was new, and both of us felt loose and free after the crazy, intimate night of sex we’d had. I felt like I understood Anna in a whole new way, and I knew she felt the same thing about me. We were more than just lovers, or even boyfriend and girlfriend. Anna was both my woman and my weapon, and I’d just begun to learn how intimately a cultivator could be with her in both contexts.
The day warmed rapidly as we made our way down the trail. Sunlight broke through the trees, highlighting the vine-strewn forest below. Picking our way through was sometimes treacherous, but mostly just mundane. Despite a few jibes from Anna, Hazel remained steadfastly silent during our march.
I was wondering if she’d made a personal vow not to say another word until she presented us to Guildmaster Ji when she stopped suddenly, reaching for her sword. “Ready yourselves,” the warrior woman hissed. “There are monsters approaching!”
I knew what that meant. “Anna,” I said, looking over at her. “Would you…?”
“On it!” Anna said.
In a flash, she began to transform. This time she even did a little move as the fantastic light rolled over her body, posing like Sailor Moon as she went from gorgeous woman to dangerous, bladed weapon.
I plucked the scythe out of the air and twirled it in a two-handed grip, ready for action.
“Bring it on,” I growled, gritting my teeth and watching the trees.
“Hell yeah!” A voice in my head giggled.
I nearly dropped the scythe. “Anna?” I asked out loud, looking at the weapon. “Babe, is that you?”
The scythe laughed. Except it did so only inside of my head, the giggle echoing in my skull.
“Yeah, it’s me,” she purred, in the same voice Anna used when she was about to throw me down and mount me. “I’m so ready to tear some monsters apart! It’s weird—I have the craziest urge to cause carnage when I’m the scythe.”
“Maybe you’ll get pleasure from killing monsters?” I thought at her.
“Fuck, I hope so!” The thought came into my skull fringed with pleasure. “Promise me you’ll let me get the killing blow on whatever this fucker is, instead of that prude Hazel. Got it?”
“I’ll do the best I can,” I whispered to the scythe. “And you should really get off her case. We don’t know what people are like here. Hazel might be less prudish than most.”
I felt the scythe shudder. “Perish the thought,” Anna said. “I have a hard time believing a culture that invented sex magic could be so squeamish.”
Just then, a half-dozen creatures entered the clearing. A group of those creepy, demonic squirrels, their claws extended and their beady red eyes glowing with malice.
Monsters Detected!
Nippers
The Nippers sized the two of us up—me with my scythe and Hazel with her curved sword—and moved as one toward the latter, converging on the blonde warrior in a flurry of fur.
“Shit!” I roared, charging. “Hazel, look out!”
Hazel swung at the first Nipper, cleaving it neatly in two in mid-air. As its carcass hit the ground, five more were on her, biting and clawing like manic toddlers. Hazel tried to take a step back, but she tripped over a vine and went down on her ass in a heap. The curved sword slipped from her fingers, landing in a pile of leaves as the squirrels continued the attack.
Two of the squirrels turned as I approached, their red eyes glowing with rage. One swing from the scythe and their tiny heads separated from their bodies, flying through the air in different directions.
“Fuck yes!” Anna groaned, sounding like she was on the verge of an orgasm. “Oh fuck FUCK, that felt so good, Eric! Use me more!”
So she does get off on combat, I thought, snickering. Well, if Anna wanted more blood, then that’s just what I’d give her.
As I approached, Hazel sat up and tossed one of the squirrels across the clearing with an angry scream. Its flailing body headed straight for me, and when I saw the curved sword on the ground, I saw an opportunity.
My fingers clenched the hilt, lifting Hazel’s weapon from the ground. “Hazel, catch—”
I trailed off. The moment my hand gripped the curved sword, a flood of information coursed through my brain. The squirrel sailed past me like a strike in baseball, completely forgotten.
Suddenly I knew everything there was to know about Hazel’s weapon. I realized that what Anna and I had merely called a ‘curved sword’ was really an elegant weapon called a dao, the same as the Eternal Dao Eliezer kept yammering on about. As I lifted the sword, testing its weight, I realized I knew a dozen different fighting stances and techniques I could use with it. The pointed tip made it perfect for thrusting, while the single-bladed edge gave the wielder almost unparalleled control of parries against blunt weapons like hammers and maces…
It’s not just the scythe, I realized, stunned. I get one of these info-dumps whenever I pick up a weapon.
Holy shit. I was like Neo in The Matrix: every new weapon downloaded itself into my brain on fast-forward.
If I could learn this skill with multiple weapons—did that mean I could turn Anna into multiple weapons? No, something about that felt wrong. Anna would remain a scythe, no matter what I did. It matched her nature perfectly. Then, could I turn a different woman into another kind of weapon?
“I think so,” Anna’s voice purred inside my brain. I hadn’t realized I’d been thinking out loud.
“That’s crazy,” I said, staring down at Hazel as she fought off the last two squirrels. My body hadn’t quite caught up with my brain just yet. “What if I can make a whole armory, Anna? A dozen different weapons I know how to use better than anyone else, molding themselves to fit me?”
“You mean like me?” I could feel Anna pursing non-existent lips inside my skull. “You know your weapons level up through sex, right? So what you’re really asking me is: should I make a harem of babes?”
The thought stunned me. I nearly dropped both weapons—then Anna giggled.
“Honestly, I’m kinda into it,” she whimpered. “But maybe that’s ‘cause I’m just superhorny in scythe form. Speaking of which, you should probably kill those pests and give Hazel her sword back!”
I snapped back to reality. Tossing the curved blade back to Hazel, I swung the scythe. I’d promised Anna carnage, and splitting the remaining two squirrels in half with a single blow certainly fit the bill. Blood stained the leaves as the creatures kicked weakly, dying within moments.
Once the carnage was over, I helped Hazel to her feet. She stood up, dusting herself off with an irritated expression. For a moment I thought she was mad at me—until I realized her rage focused inward.
“Thank you,” she said, her voice filled with shame as she took the curved sword from my hand. “I owe you my life twice over, it seems. The Cores from this battle will go to you, by right.”
Next to me, the scythe shimmered and transformed back into Anna. She wore her tight little tunic, horns sticking from her forehead. The more I saw her in that transformed getup, the more I liked it. I kind of wished she could stay that way all the time.
“That was great,” Anna purred, rolling her neck. “I kinda feel like I need a cigarette after that battle…”
As Hazel bent over each squirrel corpse, harvesting the Cores, I pulled Anna aside. “What you said back there, when you were a scythe. Did you mean that?”
A smile played at the corner of Anna’s lips. “What, about you forming a har
em?”
I swallowed hard. “About me using multiple weapons,” I corrected.
“Which you power up by having sex,” she said with a chuckle. “Now you and Hazel are using euphemisms for everything.” Then she relaxed. “Look, it probably won’t even happen, but if we did happen to run into some cutie who turns into a mean-ass halberd or some sweet nunchucks… I wouldn’t be totally opposed!”
My heart skipped a beat. “You’re serious,” I said, stunned. “You’d really be cool with that?”
She nuzzled my neck, then kissed me. “As long as I could join in,” she purred, giving the growing bulge between my legs a squeeze. “I bet a Triple Cultivation would be even more powerful than a Dual one. I might even like to learn how to handle Hazel’s weapon, if she could bring herself to loosen up a little…”
Now that was news to me! The thought of the three of us together made me a little weak in the knees, though I was careful not to let it show. Hazel had one hell of an abrasive personality—yet she was as gorgeous as the day was long. And I’d caught a glimpse of something a few times, underneath that hard exterior. Something soft and vulnerable, that maybe liked Anna and me more than she was willing to admit…
“I have the Cores,” Hazel said, striding across the clearing. She held a handful of those desiccated brown stones in one hand—and the corpse of a squirrel in the other. “As I said, you saved my life yet again. Meaning each of these belongs to you.”
I held up my hands. “No,” I said, shaking my head. “We’re a team, Hazel. Besides, you’re a lower level than me. If the gap between us gets any bigger, I’ll just end up saving you again and you’ll feel even worse. You should have the Cores.”
An unreadable look filled her face. “Wise words,” she said, sounding a little taken aback. “Perhaps we should split them, then? Three each?”
I nodded. “That sounds perfect. In exchange, maybe you can give me a lesson on how to use them. Are these Beast Cores, like the one I got from the Croc?”
Hazel stepped closer. I saw blood trickling between her fingers from the squirrel carcass in her hand. “Yes,” she explained, “these are Beast Cores. Though not as powerful as the one from the Marsh Croc, as it is a more dangerous monster.” She handed two of the brown orbs to me. “These you may go ahead and place inside your Black Core, the way you did before. I doubt you will be able to absorb them—likely, they will release their energy the next time you and Anna…”
She’d trailed off. “Copulate?” I asked, trying to be helpful.
“The next time you are together,” Hazel said, as if she’d tried to say have sex only to fail. “So you should try to do that as soon as possible—when I’m not around, of course.”
“Of course,” I agreed smoothly. She didn’t need to know Anna and I had just been discussing her doing a lot more than watching the next time we had sex. “That was two Cores. Where’s the third?”
Hazel tucked away her own Cores and held up the squirrel. “It’s still inside the monster,” she said with a wicked grin, holding the carcass up.
Anna made a face. “Eww, gross!”
“You won’t always have someone with you to harvest Cores from monsters,” Hazel explained, her tone slipping into that teacher mode she’d used when explaining the types of cultivation. “If you’re going to be serious about increasing your understanding of the universe, you’ll need to know how to remove the Core from a creature you’ve defeated. I might as well teach you now—otherwise, they’ll laugh at you once we reach Guildmaster Ji.”
I certainly didn’t want that. “Alright,” I said, rolling up my sleeves. “Show me how it’s done.”
Hazel and I crouched in the dirt, the squirrel laying between us. “The Core is located right next to a monster’s heart,” she explained, pointing at the squirrel’s chest with the tip of her knife. “This is generally true for every monster—although some of them have their hearts in some very odd places. There are large saurian beasts with the heart in a bulb at the tip of their tail, for example, so you can’t always just root inside the creature’s chest hoping for the best.”
I nodded. “But this squirrel—it’s right in here?” I tapped the same spot Hazel had indicated.
“Yes.” She flipped the knife around and held it out to me, handle first. “Go ahead and make a cut.”
I took the knife from her, trying not to think too hard about what I was about to do. To my surprise, there was no info-dump from the knife as I held it for the first time. Maybe whatever power lay inside of me considered the blade a tool, not a weapon, so I didn’t need to know every little thing about its construction and use. Hazel had sharpened the blade to a fine, honed edge, which cut into the squirrel’s chest easily.
“Good, good,” Hazel said as the chest burst open. “Now you have to just dig in there and get it.”
I tried to hide my disgust. “With my hand?”
Hazel cocked an eyebrow. “Do you want the Core, or not?”
With a groan, I slipped my hand into the squirrel’s chest cavity. Something warm and wet enveloped my hand, but it was nowhere near as fun as it usually was. “Jesus,” I winced.
“The Core will be in the center,” Hazel explained. “It’s small and brown, like the ones you’ve already seen. Those pitted indentations on the side should make it clear when you’re holding a Core, and not just an organ.”
My fingers dug in deeper. Trying to find the Core inside this squirrel was like digging into my ex-girlfriend’s purse trying to find where she’d put my car keys, only infinitely more gross. Fluids coated my hand as I pressed this way and that, trying to find the Core.
In the end, I needn’t have worried. The moment my fingertip touched the Beast Core, I felt a little sizzle of energy like touching a doorknob after rubbing your socks on carpet. I pulled the Core out, wiping it as clean as I could on Hazel’s handkerchief. Some ichor still clung to the Beast Core, but it looked much better on the outside of the squirrel than it had inside.
“Well done,” Hazel said, looking impressed. “Many Cultivators are squeamish their first time harvesting a Beast Core. Your fortitude speaks well of your potential skill.”
“Yeah,” I said, wiping my hand off on a nearby tree. Bits of blood and gore clung to my fingertips, stubbornly refusing to leave. Gross. “Reminds me a little bit of my high school biology class, to tell you the truth. Dissecting rats…”
One of Hazel’s flawless eyebrows rose. “Biology?”
It would take too long to explain. “I’ve done something like this before. Not for a very long time, though. And only briefly.”
Hazel nodded, evidently satisfied by my spotty explanation. “We should get going,” she said, staring off into the treeline. “Our guild’s local base is not far from here—perhaps another half-hour’s march. Hopefully we’ll make it there before more monsters converge on this location.”
As Hazel left the two of us in the dust, Anna came up and offered a high-five. With my non-squirrel covered hand, of course. “Nice job, dude,” she said, beaming with pride. “I couldn’t watch—the sight of blood makes me way too squeamish. If we come across any more of these Beast Cores, you just give me a head’s up before you start digging around in any bodies.”
How strange, I thought, looking Anna up and down. She gets off on bathing in blood when she’s a weapon, yet the sight of it makes her sick when she’s back in human form. It made me wonder, not for the first time, if the weapon transformation brought on by my cultivation unlocked some hidden desires even the person themselves didn’t know about.
If I ever ran into Eliezer again, I’d have to ask him. After thanking him for the sex magic, of course. The thing was, I was kind of thinking that maybe I shouldn’t want to get revenge on the dude, after all. I know realized that he’d given me a pretty sweat deal.
“Let’s get moving,” I said, hastening to catch up with Hazel. “That woman won’t think twice about leaving us behind. I kind of get the impression she doesn’t want to be an
ywhere near us.”
Anna flashed a secretive smile. “You don’t really believe that,” she purred, giving my shoulder a little bite as she passed. “You feel it too, right? What’s inside of Hazel?”
The two of us locked eyes, but didn’t say a word. For the moment, the emotion we’d noticed remained unspoken between us. Neither of us dared speak it allowed as we followed Hazel into the brush.
It wouldn’t be long, however, before those feelings broke through Hazel’s icy exterior and came to the surface. And once they did, things between us would never be the same.
Chapter 10
The edge of the jungle ruins crept up on Anna and me.
Gradually, the low sloping hills of the Verdant Ruins gave way to flatland. If this really had been a video game, there probably would have been a loading screen as we made our way through a gap in the trees, emerging into the sun. As it stood, Anna and I found ourselves looking at the rough outline of a road, the brush on both sides cleared back enough for the sun to shine through. At the end of the path, a wall of logs stood upright, forming a tall, wooden palisade. This had to be the Hollow Frog Guild’s base of operations.
“We’re here,” Hazel said, her shoulders sagging with relief. “Home.”
It was about as happy as she ever looked. I couldn’t say the sight of the wooden fort filled me with excitement, exactly—but I was definitely looking forward to having a sturdy door between me and the monsters in this area. It would also be nice to get a soft, comfy bed under Anna and me. Both of us could definitely use some more ‘Dual Cultivation’.
As we got closer to the fort, I saw a deep trench gouged into the earth around the wall. The Guild had built a moat around their hideout, filling it with sharp wooden stakes and sludgy, toxic-looking brown water. A narrow bridge provided the only entrance point, with a big wooden gate on the other side. Hazel headed for it.