by Dante King
His pupil Seth, however, had no such capacity for self-reflection. “You heard the man, let’s kill ‘em all!” the blonde headed youth laughed, his words nearly becoming a girlish giggle. He pointed at Hazel. “I want to leave her alive, though. I’ve heard a lot about that bitch. She used to be a cultivator before Guildmaster Ji stole her powers away. I bet it’d be a lot of fun having a fallen slut like that serve in my bedroom for a few weeks before I cut her throat.”
Hazel bared her teeth, her dao sword flashing at her side. “Bring it, cur,” she snarled, her voice filled with an almost sensual lust for killing.
But Prini refused to move. The man glanced back at Governor Shingu, let out a noise that might be a grunt of disgust or a clearing of his mighty throat, then stepped forward to stare down at me. He had a few inches on me, I won’t deny it. Though I was taller than most of the men in this world, Cultivator Prini was clearly an outlier.
The man’s slate-gray eyes narrowed. “I heard you killed Vargas,” Prini said. From his tone, I couldn’t tell if he was proud or enraged by the fact.
Meet him head to head, I told myself. Eliezer wouldn’t even consider this man worthy of his notice. Make him fear you.
“I did,” I said, the corner of my mouth curling in a smirk. “I’m even more powerful now than I was then. I have the Peak Supreme God’s blessing, Prini. So if you want to die today, I’m more than happy to send you to meet your maker!”
Prini just chuckled. “Ah, young people,” he said, stroking his long beard as if he’d only just now noticed how much gray was in it. “I did not come here to kill a dozen cultivators, whelp. I’ve seen what I need to see.” To my great surprise, he bowed—though not with the respect someone gives to a superior or even an equal talent. More like the quick acknowledgement duelists used before battle. “I look forward to crossing skills with you, Eric Hyde.”
“Any time,” I shot back, sounding more confident than I felt.
“What… what are you doing!?” Governor Shingu’s voice grew more shrill by the second. “Kill them all! I command you! What are you waiting for?”
Prini shrugged. “I don’t take orders from you,” he said simply.
The Governor’s eyes bugged out of his head. “What!?”
“I wanted to know if there was an unlicensed guild practicing in this town,” Prini said, taking in the whole of the garden with a gesture. “And now I know.” Another one of those quick, flashing bows, over so soon it might have been an insult. “Good day.”
Prini retreated, leaving a dumbfounded pupil behind. Seth stared after him for a few moments, his jaw working furiously, then he spat: “You can’t seriously be thinking of letting this man go!?”
Prini turned around as fast as a whip, his gaze turning stormy with the force of command. “Come,” he growled, his tone one that would brook no more discussion. “We will report back to Guildmaster Ji. Rest assured—this is not over. We will return in force to destroy this unlicensed guild and rescue the Governor.”
Now, I thought, my heart leaping into my throat. As Seth reluctantly followed his master, I cupped my hands around my mouth and made a final taunt.
“Who, me?” I said.
Prini froze at the threshold. Slowly he turned, the brilliant sheen of his robes replaced by a face contorting in surprise and rage. “What!?”
“You’ve heard Governor Shingu,” I said, striding over to the tied-up Governor with a grin. “He’s been captured. Clearly, he’s in no state to perform his duties.”
“That’s not true!’ the Governor cried. Tears had begun to form in the corners of his eyes. “Please…”
“He’s retiring,” I told the man, giving the Governor a good-natured clap on the shoulder. I cocked a hand to my ear, as if I were hearing something being spoken at a whisper. “And I don’t know if you heard him just now, but he’s decided to make me his successor!”
“I have not!” Governor Shingu protested. “You are a worm, Eric Hyde! A pervert, a poison, a… a piece of cow dung!”
Prini’s face darkened. “Are you so certain of that, Eric Hyde? I will need to report this to Guildmaster Ji, you understand.”
There was a warning in the man’s words—but what else could he do to me? It didn’t look like he’d risk his or his pupil’s neck in open combat with my Guild. Not today, at any rate. Not for Governor Shingu.
“I do,” I said with a shrug. “It’s a tall order, but I reluctantly accept the post of Governor. My first order of business will be granting ‘Clan Hyde’ official status as a Guild in this province, as a matter of fact.”
Prini stared blankly into my eyes for a moment, then sighed. “Guildmaster Ji didn’t want the Governor replaced just yet. But what’s done is done.”
Huh? What did he mean by just yet? The hell kind of plan did Guildmaster Ji have for this region—
My train of thought came to a screeching halt as Prini opened his hand. A spell like nothing I’d ever seen exploded from between his fingers. It looked like a half-dozen will-o’-the-wisps, flying through the air like wiggling worms as they left spectral trails behind. They traced a complicated symbol before Prini’s face, then dove directly toward the startled Governor.
The worms burrowed through his skin, exploding with light as they passed into the man’s body. Governor Shingu’s screams rose higher and higher, like a teakettle on the verge of boiling over. He fell still with the quickness of a headsman’s axe. The silence was even more frightening than the screams.
As the light faded, Governor Shingu slumped to the side within his prison of vines. He was dead as a stone.
“Guildmaster Ji will deal with you directly from now on,” Prini informed me curtly. The ghost of a smile flickered across the man’s face. “After all, you are the new Governor.”
The two cultivators withdrew, and even closed the screen door behind them as they exited the Hungry Herb Tavern. I was left standing there, stunned, with my new guild surrounding me and the corpse of Governor Shingu laying in a chair. The color had already drained from the fat man’s corpulent face, leaving his cheeks a pale, flabby gray.
“Eric,” Lyra said, tearing her gaze away from Shingu. “You’re the Governor now!”
“I… I am,” I said, the words becoming more real as the shock of Shingu’s death faded. “I really am. I just overthrew the fucking government.”
As if this were the cue for everyone to snap out of it, the room filled with excited conversation. Someone pulled up a chair and had me sit down. Belatedly, I realized my legs had been starting to shake.
Governor Shingu was dead, and I’d just moved into his spot. All the towns in this section of the province were now mine to control. My guild was legal—or at least unprosecutable by anyone but the Hollow Frog Guild. I was in charge.
It was a step. A small one, to be sure—I doubted it would be enough to satisfy the Peak Supreme God. But it sure as hell felt good.
“That was one of the most foolish things I’ve ever seen,” Hazel said, shaking her head. Her blonde ponytail rocked from side to side, swaying like a cat’s tail. “I could have taken Seth all by myself, but that older cultivator would have destroyed this entire room without breaking a sweat!”
“This time, maybe,” I said, wrapping an arm around Anna as she embraced me. “By the time he comes back, though, we’ll be ready for him. We know what we’re up against now—and there’s no one holding us back!”
“It’s playing with fire, to be sure,” Lyra purred, fanning herself with an implement provided by a barmaid. The redhead’s words told me she was concerned, but the look on her face said I can’t believe how turned on I just got watching you take control. If she hadn’t put so much importance on getting back into that bathrobe, Lyra might have just untied it and climbed into my arms right then and there.
“Right—but I’m a cultivator,” I said with a smirk. “Playing with fire is kind of what I do, huh?”
Lyra giggled and sat down on my knee. Anna took the other one, so tha
t both women writhed against me like strippers. “Hey,” Lyra purred, “since you’re the Governor now, maybe you can get a few of these inconvenient brewery taxes repealed? They’re really putting a crimp on my beer business.”
Something between my legs hardened as Lyra rubbed her thigh against it. It made my thoughts cloudy, and my senses as sharp as the edge of a knife. “You’ll have to bribe me,” I told her, putting a hand on the back of her neck. “Obviously.”
Where those words would have angered her coming from another man, for Lyra they were a source of delight. “Why, Governor, whatever could you want from an old maid like me? I have nothing I can provide you—except perhaps a night with one of my comely barmaids…”
I got the gist of her play-acting immediately. “I was thinking more of a night with you,” I growled, sweeping the redhead off her feet. “Or maybe a late morning at the very least. Come on, let’s go practice some more Dual Cultivation.”
Both Anna and Lyra looked more than up for it. With the news that I was now in charge of the entire region, both girls looked at me with a newfound respect that bordered on awe. I could tell the rest of the guild had the same shocked reactions. It’s good to be in charge, I thought, carrying Lyra toward the screen door. All hail Governor Eric.
I was almost out of the room when a flash of motion caught my eye. The body of the former Governor Shingu had begun shaking within its prison of vines, rocking back and forth like a man having a seizure. He wasn’t still alive, was he? For a moment, I entertained the notion that Prini’s spell hadn’t killed the man—perhaps it was only meant to stun, not end the Governor’s life?
“Oh no,” Lyra gasped. She dropped from my arms, her voice raised in a tone of alarm. “Get everyone out of here! Evacuate the Tavern—”
Her words were cut off by a sound like a tapestry being torn in two. Governor Shingu’s body began to break apart—and as it did, it grew rapidly like a balloon being inflated with helium. The vines around the corpse crumbled to dust as the shell of Shingu’s body cracked, oozing with black ichor. Something peeled back the layers of his body like an ill-fitting suit, discarding them to the floor in greasy ribbons of flesh.
An abomination stood where the man had once slumped. A monster wearing the face of Governor Shingu.
Chapter 4
“Everyone get back!” I roared, putting myself between my Guild and the monster. “Anna, to me! I’ll handle this!”
The thing that had burst from inside Governor Shingu swayed on its feet for a long moment, like a chick taking its first steps from inside an egg. The black ichor dripped from its body, obscuring the fine details of its form. Whatever this thing was, it was both taller and brawnier than the Governor had ever been in life. Nearly seven feet tall, the beast’s arms and legs were covered in thick cords of muscle. A single horn rose from the center of its forehead, more like a rhino’s than a unicorns. As the ichor pooled on the floor I could see the creature’s skin was ice blue, and it wore nothing but a tattered loincloth around its waist.
Its eyes flashed with bloody murder.
“What is that thing?” someone cried. All around me, cultivators backed toward the door, frightened of this new intruder. We had no idea what this monster could do. Governor Shingu had no cultivation to speak of, but Prini’s spell could have done anything to the man’s body.
“It’s a monster,” Lyra snarled. “A Vasrashat.” The unfamiliar word sounded strange in her mouth. “That cultivator must have been even more high-level than we were afraid of to turn Governor Shingu into a beast like this!”
I didn’t have time to ask what a Vasrashat was or what it could do. I reached inward as the thing’s face cleared, its wide head dropping into a battle stance as it charged forward. Governor Shingu’s face remained placid and blank on that fearsome body, and the effect was so disturbing it sent a chill down my spine.
The monster had no weapons, but it didn’t need them. Its fingers elongated into vicious claws, each tipped with a nail sharper than any knife. It leaped through the air, pointed like an arrow at me—as if none of the other cultivators in the room even existed. Whatever set of commands Prini had managed to get into this creature’s head before it was summoned, it clearly had one primary directive: kill Eric Hyde.
Great, I thought, ducking to the side as it charged. Maybe we can exploit that!
I rolled across the dirt floor of the garden, the Vasrashat’s claws slashing through empty air just behind me. Sky and ground flipped for an instant as I did a somersault, then came to a stop in a crouch a few feet away from the monster’s broad back. Anna hadn’t reached me yet: she was still with the other cultivators, hustling them out of the sliding screen door as fast as she could. Interestingly enough, a few members of the group were refusing to leave—Soojin among them. I saw them shaking their heads, pointing at me as if they wanted to join in the fight—
The Vasrashat turned like a dancer, its claws flashing in the light coming down through the sunroof. This time I had no chance to get out of the way. I threw up an arm to try and block the blow, but those claws slashed right through. Fortunately it was a glancing blow, and the claws didn’t sink deep enough to hit bone. It still hurt like hell, though, and sent bright droplets of blood streaming to the ground.
The Vasrashat let out a low, triumphant growl. It had drawn first blood, and now it pushed the attack.
I backed up a step, then another, dancing backward out of the creature’s reach. My arm stung like a hundred wasps covered it, and was more sluggish to respond than I’d anticipated. The creature sensed this, its jaws slavering with drool as it pushed me further and further toward the wall surrounding the town. All I could do was move backward, barely out of reach of its vicious, knife-like claws.
“Just a little further,” I growled, stepping through a row of Lyra’s gardenias. She was going to have my hide for that, but as long as she didn’t have to see me or anyone else get torn about by the Vasrashat, she’d probably forgive me. “Come on, you beast! You want another piece of me? Come and take it!”
The face of Governor Shingu remained placid and neutral, but my words must have touched something deep within the beast’s core. It sprang forward, throwing caution to the wind as it closed on its prey.
The Black Core inside of me vibrated as I reached for my cultivation, sensing the forces of nature all around me. In an instant the world was alive with sensation: I could feel the shoots of new growth pushing through the fertile dirt of Lyra’s garden, and I could smell the rain in the clouds hanging above our heads. I could even feel the platelets in my blood as they slowly stitched my wound, pouring themselves into the gap where flesh was broken by tooth and claw.
Time to go to work.
Eric Casts Blossom!
Thick vines ripped from the ground, wrapping themselves around the Vasrashat’s legs. It was the same trick I’d tried when it wore the form of Governor Shingu—and to my surprise, it worked. The beast might have been fiercer, but it was no more intelligent than the man it had once been.
The Vasrashat tried to move forward, its single horn swaying back and forth as it flexed its leg muscles. When the vines refused to give, it leaned down to claw at the plant mass covering its limbs.
A knife blossomed between its shoulder blades.
A roar of mingled pain and fury erupted from the Vasrashat. It turned as best as it was able to see Hazel standing at the head of a group of cultivators, all with spells at the ready. As much as it was suicide for someone without magic to face down a monster like this, the sight of Hazel throwing herself into harm’s way warmed my heart. Maybe she cared about me after all.
“Now!” Hazel yelled, dropping to the ground like a puppet with its strings cut. Behind her, four cultivators yelled in unison, tossing spells at the Vasrashat.
Soojin Casts Flame!
Xavier Casts Spout!
Dominic Casts Ember!
Tatiana Casts Needle Strike!
The words flashed before my eyes quicker th
an thought. None were particularly high-level spells—and in the case of Soojin and Xavier, they actively cancelled each other out. Still, wind and water and flames rolled over the Vasrashat, damaging it and seriously pissing it off.
The flames also had the unfortunate side-effect of burning through the vines holding the monster in place. With the strands of plant matter weakened, the creature’s legs ripped through vines, shrugging them off like a fish slipping the net. The Vasrashat roared with anger at being pelted with so many spells, advancing on the clutch of cultivators with its blank expression and heaving shoulders.
No!
“Come back here!” I yelled, as loud as I could manage. “You’re supposed to be killing me, you dumb beast! Get your ass over here!”
It either couldn’t hear me or wasn’t listening. The Vasrashat jumped into the fray, slamming Dominic aside with a punch that sent the young man sprawling across a nearby tree. Tatiana unleashed another spray of wood-aspected needles in the monster’s face, but it shrugged them off and kicked her right between the breasts. Tatiana’s eyes wide as wide as saucers as the sickening crunch of bone filled the garden, and the girl crumpled.
I ran straight toward the monster, holding out the arm not covered in blood. “Anna,” I shouted, wondering what the hell my girlfriend had gotten herself into. “I need you!”
The Vasrashat slashed poor Xavier in the face, sending the man to the floor clutching his chin with blood dripping between his fingers. That left the monster standing before Soojin. She stared up at it, defiance written in every molecule of her body as she pulled more water out of the earth around her.
“Go to hell!” the young woman shrieked, unleashing the strongest spell she’d ever cast right in the monster’s face.
The water rolled off it, splashing all over the plants behind its legs. This would have been its cue to smirk, or laugh cruelly, but all the while it kept staring straight ahead with Governor Shingu’s frozen, motionless face.