by Dante King
The thing buckled at the knees, letting out a cry of pain. So you’re human enough to feel that, I thought, willing my nerveless fingers to recover from the shock of the punch. Let’s see if you feel this!
The Shade’s halberd landed next to the edge of the arena. He dove for it—but by then, I was already on him.
No bard would ever sing of what happened next. There were songs about cultivators, of course—fabled legends of ancient magicians who traded spells with the fiercest of monsters. Anyone who got even close to the level of the Peak Supreme God had an epic or two under their belt, a yarn where they tossed a mountain at an invading army or moved the heavens to turn back time and save a woman who loved them.
Those were the kinds of stories people liked to hear about cultivators—the heroic ones. The clean ones.
They definitely didn’t want to hear about a guy beating a living statue to death with a magic pair of brass knuckles, surrounded by an army of pissed off beetles.
My fists came down on the Bronze Shade again, and again, and again. Someone was screaming like a rabid caveman, and it took several long moments to realize it wasn’t a new monster joining the fray but was, in fact, me. A note of fear entered the mindless chittering of the Demonic Rust Beetles around the arena, the pack backing off as I gave their boss a punishment he’d never forget.
The Shade kept trying to rise. Every time he did, I slammed that mana shield into the ruin I’d made of his face and screamed.
I’d dug gardens with this spell. I’d helped Lyra replace the trees her and my other students destroyed during their drills. This spell had helped create life, make the world a better place.
Now I used it to destroy.
I straddled the Shade’s chest, kicking the halberd away. I didn’t want there to be any chance this thing could blindly grab its weapon and get a lucky blow. I punched through the mask of his face again and again, until something let out a sickening crunch. The Shade’s head buckled inward, crumbling as a final punch went all the way through. My mana shield grazed the ground, kicking up a spray of dust as the Bronze Shade kicked once and went still.
The monster was dead. I’d killed the fucking thing.
But the Beetles didn’t turn back to normal. If anything, they looked even more furious than before. I swore I saw a low, animal cunning in those beady eyes. They knew I’d just killed their one ticket to reopening the mineshaft, and they were pissed.
“Eric!” A voice cut my study of the Bronze Shade’s body short. “Help!”
I looked over my shoulder to see the Demonic Beetles almost on the ridge. Lyra looked utterly panicked, while Bao juggled three fireballs between his open palms like he was looking forward to pushing the creatures backward with his flames. Of course his fire spells were too weak to destroy anything, much less creatures formed with the element of Metal. Bao would only be good for slowing the Beetles down for a few moments before they devoured Lyra whole.
I couldn’t let that happen. Anna lay beneath a thick carpet of the creatures. “To me!” I commanded, stretching my hand out.
I hadn’t realized it would work until it was already working. The scythe began to shake beneath the weight of hundreds of beetles, then it suddenly shot like an arrow through the group, flying to my open palm like it was magnetized. From the cry of delighted ecstasy Anna made in my skull, she was just as shocked as I was.
“That’s so cool!” Anna said telepathically, her voice dripping with excitement and bloodlust. “You can summon me whenever you want, Master! I’m literally at your beck and call!”
The M-word never failed to send a spike of lust right between my legs. I didn’t have time to act on it, however—Lyra and Bao needed me. Dropping into a battle stance, I charged for the ridge, swinging the scythe before me like a farmer clearing a field of grain.
Demonic Rust Beetles fell before me, flipping over in death or just sinking to the ground as the scythe’s hard edge slashed through their bodies. It was like trying to cut my way through the jungle with a machete! Every step more of the creatures rushed in, waving segmented arms and fangs in a murderous rush to be the first to lay a glove on me. If they didn’t all seem to be moving in slow motion, they might have been able to do it.
As the first wave of the monsters made it to the lip of the ridge, I took a flying leap and landed right between them and Lyra. Anna howled with bliss in my head at the acrobatic move, cackling with delight as I gave the redhead a little nod and turned to face the wave of insectoid invaders.
“Both of you stay back,” I commanded, now firmly in control of the high ground. “I’ve got this!”
The rest was almost easy. Without their leader to marshal them, the Demonic Rust Beetles had neither the intelligence to outflank me or the sense to flood our position with an overwhelming show of force. Only three or four of the creatures could climb onto the ridge at one time—and as they did, I cut them down without mercy.
Black ichor dripped at my feet by the time I was done. The creatures’s blood stained the entire ridge, a one-man massacre leading to where I held Anna firmly in my hands. By the time the wave crested, Lyra had recovered enough to get in on the act, sending walls of water down the ridge to slow down any sneak attacks from the rest of the Rust Beetles.
As we fought, the light went out of the insect’s eyes. Whatever magic animated them into more dangerous forms had reached its limit. These were the same ordinary creatures that had bedevilled the miners of Jinshu for years—and if a miner with a pickaxe could fight his way through a couple of the things, a trained cultivator could lay waste to all he surveyed. I understood why the elders of Jinshu had asked cultivators to seal the mine in the first place, however. This would be a massive hindrance to collecting ore if the creatures were allowed to roam free.
I’m not sure how long we fought off the tidal wave of Rust Beetles. All I know is the sun was in a different position in the sky when I thrust my scythe forward to find nothing but empty air awaiting me. Corpses of beetles littered the ground like cigarette butts after a concert, most of which had flipped upside down in death the way gross bugs always did. I surveyed the landscape, looking for another enemy to fight, but it was over. We’d won.
Blood surged in my ears as I fought down the urge to kill. Only when they began to quiet did I notice Anna’s moans in my skull. The girl’s cries of passion had been a constant companion during the fight, as if she’d gotten a good hard pounding in the bedroom the whole time she’d been killing monsters in my hands. Now she sounded rode hard and put away wet, her little whimpers as the battle ended filled with bloody satisfaction.
The familiar shimmer filled the air, and my girlfriend stood next to me again. “Oh wow,” Anna groaned, her violet bangs matted to her forehead with sweat. The narrow horns jutting from her hairline had already begun to recede. “That was wild, baby! God, I enjoyed that so much!”
Without an ounce of shame, Anna licked the tips of her fingers, as if savoring the taste of a lover. “I am so sweaty,” she panted, nibbling her bottom lip as she glanced up at me. “You really know how to work me hard, Eric! Did it feel good putting me through my paces? Like you owned me?”
I was about to tell her exactly how wielding her made me feel. A fireball whizzed past my head, and both of us dropped to the dirt.
“Bao!?” I turned to stare at the aged cultivator, who’d loosed the spell. “What was that about? You almost hit us—”
Bao pointed. The fireball arced through the air and hit the Bronze Shade. The creature had somehow managed to find its feet, though its face was a ruin that resembled a piece of broken pottery. As it advanced, the tiny fireball hit it right in the hole I’d punched through the monster’s face.
It toppled and went still, dead as the stones it resembled.
Bao patted his robes down with a self-satisfied expression. “I saved you,” the man said, grinning from ear to ear. “Bao the Cultivator has slain the monster that haunted the Jinshu Mine! The people of the town can be safe on
ce more, thanks to the actions of this legendary hero!” He turned to me, nodding graciously. “And Eric Hyde’s help, of course.”
“Of course,” I agreed, watching the Bronze Shade to make sure it wouldn’t get up a second time. Bao was technically correct that he’d killed the beast, and if he wanted to claim that glory for himself, I wouldn’t stop him. “Great job, Bao. You really showed him.”
Both Anna and Lyra suppressed giggles at my barely concealed sarcasm. “What would we do without you, Bao?” Lyra asked, smiling through her tiredness.
“It would be a poorer journey for certain,” Bao replied, the joke flying right over his head. “Shall we return to the rest of your party, Eric Hyde? Young Hazel and Regina will be anxious to hear the news of our great victory…”
That they would! As far as I knew, the two of them were still in Jinshu, huddled among the second-story buildings with the rest of the townsfolk. Now that the Bronze Shade was dead, there’d be no more Rust Beetles infesting the town—but we’d need everyone’s help to clear the current group out from the streets and buildings.
As I watched, the Bronze Shade melted away. Flakes of rust peeled from its metallic body, leaving a pile of shavings on the ground below. As it disintegrated before my party’s eyes, words appeared in the air over its body:
Darkness Comprehension Increased!
Initiating Memorize Stage (Dark Wave: Level 1)
Memorize Stage reached 25% (Dark Wave: Level 1)
“The element of Darkness,” Anna murmured, watching the words fade. “Funny—I don’t have any desire to specialize in that one.”
Neither did I. I felt the knowledge in the back of my head, a tiny fragment of understanding involving the true nature of beasts like the Bronze Shade and the energy they served. Thinking about it too much, however, made my eyes water and my head hurt. I wasn’t sure if I needed more comprehension or less.
“Some things man was not meant to know,” I muttered, quoting a horror writer who’d written plenty of stories about protagonists discovering arcane knowledge that destroyed their sanity. I didn’t want to end up like them… but if I kept fighting creatures like this, I would be one way or the other. Maybe by the time I needed these sorts of spells, I’d be powerful enough to handle them.
“The Cores,” Lyra said, scooting down the ridge. “We should collect them. There’s so many…we could kickstart an army with all of these!”
If each of the Cores were usable, Lyra would have been right on the money. Alas, it wasn’t to be. Our party set about collecting the Cores from the Rust Beetles, but I headed right for the Bronze Shade itself. Something about its death throes tugged at hidden knowledge in the back of my brain. I felt as if I already knew what I was going to see when I examined its body—and I wasn’t going to like it.
There. A golden core sat where the creature’s chest had been, waiting for me like buried treasure. Only the gold was shot through with tendrils of darkness, exactly like the one I’d pulled from the body of the thing wearing Governor Shingu’s body. A deep feeling of foreboding settled over me as I plucked the orb from the thing’s ruined shell, then tucked it in my robes.
“The Core is corrupted,” I announced, glancing back over my shoulder at Anna. Her face was twisted in disgust, and I realized something was wrong. “What?”
With a grunt, she pulled the Metal Core out of the nearest dead Rust Beetle. Just like the Core I’d taken from the Bronze Shade, it too was threaded through with those strange tendrils of creeping darkness.
“All the ones who turned Demonic are like this,” Anna said, disappointment fringing her tone. “Every damn one!”
A stone’s throw away, Lyra pulled a clean Core from the body of a Rust Beetle killed further up the ridge. “Some of the ones we took out at the end are alright,” the redhead said, tucking the orb into a satchel at her side. “The Shade’s influence had already waned from the creatures then. But I’m afraid most of these Cores are going to be useless unless we can figure out a way to cleanse them of this taint.”
I peered down into the Core I’d harvested from the Bronze Shade. Just from the aura surrounding it, I could tell I held no ordinary source of cultivation—this one carried some serious power. As much as I hesitated at the thought of carrying dozens of these creepy, corrupted Cores around with me, I couldn’t help but covet the power they held.
I made a decision. “Get all the clean Cores you can,” I told the group. “Then grab a half-dozen or so of the corrupted ones. I’ll hold onto the Bronze Shade’s Core myself for now. There’s something inside of it… if we could just get those tendrils out of the Core, it might be something special.”
In no time at all, the group finished the task. Lyra’s satchel bulged with newly harvested Cores, and Bao was forced to hold out his robe like a man catching someone jumping from a burning building, the fabric full of not roof shingles but glowing Cores.
“I will need a share of these myself, of course,” Bao said as he followed my group down the ridge. “As for the corrupted Cores—a cultivator like myself does not trifle with such things. You may keep the Cores harvested from the Demonic Rust Beetles—and that very strange one from the Bronze Shade’s chest.”
“Thanks,” I said. I knew I could argue with Bao about the rest of the Cores, but the man had a legitimate claim on the more powerful one taken from the Shade. He’d landed the finishing blow on the living statue, after all. The fact that he was willing to let it go spoke highly of him, and his desire to keep the peace. “I’m sure we’ll find some way to cleanse these things.”
“Perhaps someone in the town will be able to help you,” Bao said with a shrug. “The people of Jinshu have more experience with these corrupted creatures than most townsfolk. I wouldn’t be surprised if someone has encountered these tainted Cores before…”
The walk to the ridge felt almost casual. After a fight, my women were always loose and in need of a good lay—and, to tell the truth, I was as well. So there was a good deal more flirting and hidden pats on the backside as we made our way back to Jinshu. I was looking forward to getting a bed beneath me as soon as possible—with Lyra and Anna along for the ride.
Maybe Hazel, too, I thought as we rounded the corner to the village. After that little speech by Lyra, she might finally be ready to join us…
Rust Beetles still lined the streets, but there were huge gaps in their number as we approached. Many of them had simply given up, or wandered out into the woods once the prey they chased had vanished. Those left looked like they’d be easy enough kills, once we stashed the Cores and got back to fighting.
“Hazel!” I yelled, cocking a hand around my mouth as I climbed onto a cart in the middle of the road. “Regina! Come out—we’re back! The mine is closed and the Beetles are dead!”
A window on the second floor of the town’s inn opened. Hazel’s blonde head shot out, surveying the state of our bedraggled group with a faint smile on her features.
“The streets are still crawling with Rust Beetles,” she said, giving the clumps of the creatures remaining a dismissive sniff.
Before I could say another word, Bao cut me off. “There will be no more Rust Beetles!” the cultivator announced, raising his voice to a sonorous level I’d have previously considered impossible for the old man to produce. “Bao the Cultivator has slain the monster in the Jinshu Mines, and Eric Hyde has sealed the mineshaft so that no more Beetles can trouble you!”
All the windows in the inn opened. I quickly realized the entire town was up there with my women, packed in like sardines in a tin box. Arms, hands and faces stuck out from the windows as the townsfolk craned their necks to see, startled by the change in their streets.
“We’re very tired,” I announced, not having to lie. “If you could all make your way down here and grab a few weapons, we can get the rest of these Rust Beetles out of your village. My name is Eric Hyde, and I’m the new Governor of this region. I’ll be wanting to meet with your elders as soon as I’m able, to d
iscuss the Hollow Frog Guild. And then, I think, we’ll be celebrating…”
Cheers rose from the inn. As the villagers kicked open the front doors, brooms and pitchforks held in their hands, I rolled my shoulders and prepared to get back to work. Just a little more, then you can rest, I told myself, locking eyes with Hazel in her second-floor window. A little R&R is exactly what you need. Maybe with a new girl to explore…
With a laugh, our group charged into the streets.
Chapter 11
The Second Battle of Jinshu was nowhere near as glorious as the first, but it was a great deal more fun.
With the Bronze Shade routed and the Jinshu Mine closed down, all that was left was to clear the streets to ensure the safety of the populace. I was nearly tapped out when it came to mana, and Lyra could barely summon a few raindrops as a spell—but as it turned out, it didn’t matter. The entire town of Jinshu came out to help, wielding whatever makeshift weapons they had. They took down the Rust Beetles in twos and threes, slicing the beasts open or crushing them beneath the thuds of their heavy boots. As Beetles died, more and more got the message and skittered into the nearby woods, crawling for their lives.
By the time the sun went down, the town was clear. Families went building to building, sweeping out any errant Rust Beetles remaining in their residences. Someone lit a bonfire at the village’s main intersection and began tossing the creatures into the flames—after Anna or Lyra harvested their Cores, of course. We’d need all the energy we could for the battle to come against the Hollow Frog Guild. That was what I needed to speak with Jinshu’s leaders about, after all.
But it could wait. After the fight against the Bronze Shade and the hard work of street clearing, I needed a break. My whole group did.