But the captain hadn’t risen as far as he had on nothing but the power of his fists, roaring as he chopped the air with his weapon, a dozen mirrored axes comprised of Metal Qi blasting into his opponent, surely fit to tear completely through an entire enemy squad.
Only to shatter against a potent shimmering ward of Earth and Metal Qi Alex felt emanating from the laughing man, and Alex could all but taste the infernal taint boosting the cultivator’s power in ways that would have repercussions for lifetimes to come.
But that did Captain Dui Zang little good now, forced to the defensive while the corrupted raiders tore into desperate guardsmen.
Alex dared not waste a moment longer, tearing his eyes free of that deadly spectacle, knowing exactly what he had to do.
Bullrush! Bullrush! You have boosted Dark Qi Projection!
Find Weakness skill check made!
Adderstrike!
In an eyeblink, Alex had double-skipped forward, hurtling into the trees and landing weightless upon a single leaf as he oriented, eyes alight like a fierce hawk as he caught sight of the laughing wujen stripping the flesh off a screaming Yan with his fiery whip, punishing the man who was now a mass of burnt flesh with his hideously potent shield of swirling flame.
A terrible shield even a Silver wouldn’t dare take lightly.
For all that it left the wujen’s back completely exposed.
But what did he have to fear, after all, with only his loyal men behind him?
Yet the cultivator was no fool. Alex had already sensed the potent Qi Ward the man had surrounding him on all sides, more than strong enough to ward any wild swing from even a charging Bronze, or the treacherous dagger of a bandit looking to move up the ranks.
Which availed his enemy nothing as a snarling Alex leaped from his perch, chaining his Bullrushes as he crashed into the cackling wujen, putting everything he had into a furiously focused Adderstrike aimed just below the base of the man’s spine.
And whether the man was late Bronze or true Silver, the peripheral ward of crackling Qi that required little effort to hold and would protect a preening wujen from almost any attack from meat-headed body cultivators, as the man no doubt thought, did absolutely nothing as Alex’s Dark Qi-covered leg passed effortlessly through.
Blasting through the weakest part of the man’s spine with such force that fragments tore right through the shocked cultivator’s throat in an explosion of bone and gore, the corrupt wujen collapsing as if someone had clipped the strings of a marionette, wildly gyrating eyes the only clue that the man still clung to awareness for a few desperate final moments, as if trying to grasp the absolute enormity of his loss.
Bronze cultivator slain. Experience earned!
A cry suddenly went out, the formerly disciplined raiders’ formation lurching as if sensing the death of their master, giving the caravan guards the momentary respite they desperately needed.
But Alex wasn’t done. Not by far.
Allowing his feet to splash into the deadly waters of the River of Souls, flashing a fierce smile for the hissing serpent roaring for his death in the endless distance, sensing the deadly promise of the waters that would happily drown him under their cruel depths for all eternity.
And a snarling Alex didn’t care, splashing into the water and laughing as sudden insight allowed him to sense the flow of divine spiritual energy that was the water’s essence, resonating with the energies of all mortals. Yet Alex felt none of the fear that would drown him within seconds, his feet sinking no more than a few inches as he splashed through the currents, for all that he saw countless layers of souls, both screaming in torment and peacefully asleep, sliding through the water below.
And one blackened soul in particular caught his eye.
The shriveled old wujen who had been tormenting Alex’s friend with deadly flame just moments ago, now desperate to keep his head above the perilous waters, snarling and screaming at the black and crimson vine wrapped around his ankle, trying to pull him into the depths that he found the strength to struggle against for a few more precious seconds as his head slowly drained of oxygen-saturated blood and life in the world just beyond. At that moment, Alex only peripherally sensed the scores of desperately fighting men all around him, half shrouded in mist and moving like they were all stuck in molasses as Alex dared to enter, even if just in momentary passing, the flooded Underworld once more.
“Help me! Help me tear off this vine!”
Alex flashed a killer’s smile as the blackened soul looked his way, blinking in confusion. “Who are you? Wait... wait, I know the taste of your malice. You killed me! You just killed me! Fool! Do you know what you did? I wasn’t able to complete the sacrifice. I have yet to free myself of the demon’s vine!”
The blackened soul’s outrage turned instantly to desperate panic as the infernal vine abruptly squeezed his torso so hard his spiritual ribs began to crack. Agonized shrieks rang across the endless stygian river. And somehow, he was still able to plead and blubber for mercy, frantically struggling to keep his head above the water for a few more desperate moments.
“Please, dark one, spare me! I can sense your power. You, you can pluck me free of these vines, can’t you? I can make it worth your while, I swear it! So much dark wisdom I have gained, deciphering the screams of the innocent and wicked alike! In these final moments of life, I can gift you with knowledge it took me years to accrue. So many whispers of black wisdom I have to share! And I am willing to give it all to you, all my secrets, save one! But unwind these awful vines from my soul, and I will tell you everything I—”
The foul sorcerer’s words were cut off when Alex slammed his fist down the spirit’s throat.
And how the wujen’s eyes widened, twisted claws scrabbling desperately against Alex’s shimmering forearm as he slowly tore free a pearl of pristine Silver.
Critical hit! You have successfully claimed Rank 7 Silver Soul Stone with Spirit Crane strike. Spirit Crane Strike is now Rank 3! You can now sense the specific potency of all claimed Soul Stones!
Congratulations! Whether due to transcendent insight or sheer stubbornness, you have managed not to drown in rapids that should have claimed your soul long ago. Water Walking is now Rank 4! Penalty for daring to enter waters eager for your death has been halved!
So much potential Alex now held in his hand. Wasted on a vile monster of a man who, for all his power, had been just a half step away from Silver for centuries. It was only his proximity to a potential he lacked the discipline to truly bring to fruition this lifetime that had allowed him to survive so long, and only as a shriveled old man.
Alex would have felt pity, if he hadn’t hated the vile monster whose vindictive raid had resulted in the death of a girl that his old self could have loved. A lifetime of happiness and laughter she would forever be denied, Alex having tasted only in her final moments between the border of life and death the sweet fate that would have awaited the beautiful girl in Baidushi, had Alex actually been able to save her.
And he had failed.
Utterly.
It was those furious thoughts blazing through his heart and mind that gave such terrible strength to his grip as he claimed the vile cultivator’s eternal treasure forevermore.
“No! Please! Give that back, give that back!” shrieked the soul shriveling even more than it had been before. “You’ve ruined everything... everything—” And then it could say no more, immediately wrapped up in writhing vines that tore into the decaying spirit-flesh, as if the thing were furious that its true prize had been stolen and only this shriveled husk remained.
With a final rasping promise to make Alex pay, the bulging vine of darkness yanked itself and the scrabbling former wujen back into the water.
Alex gave a fierce smile of satisfaction.
Only in that moment sensing the spear held by a cavalryman whose eyes were widening with comical slowness as the very heavens rang with the gong of the vile act Alex had just committed.
You have committed
a Dark Deed! You have irrevocably tainted your karma with a spiritual crime that will resonate for countless lifetimes! Negative consequences muted: wujen had infernal ties. Negative consequences muted: wujen’s existence was locked in destructive cycles for countless lifetimes!
All karmic boons and penalties have been completely negated! You are under the effects of a Divine Cleaved Fates Card!
Alex ignored the voice echoing inside his skull, telling him what he already knew. The beauty and horror was that he could now commit any act, no matter how savage, and suffer no karmic penalty at all.
And he could save countless souls, and the fates would gaze at him with the same indifference.
Only the forest, its own eternal entity, one incomprehensibly vast communal hive mind, seemed to judge Alex on the merits of his treatment of the forest itself. Of course, individual groves might quickly come to appreciate or seek to destroy a symbiote or parasite, but the forest’s view as a whole would only change by the tiniest of increments.
But it was enough. Enough that Alex never harvested more than the woods were willing to give him, never stinting to nurture in turn with his nutrient rich wastes. And when he felt a debt was owed, a splash of his blood as well. Knowing that in some infinitesimal way, at least, his choices made a difference in the incomprehensibly vast vegetative forest that was so massive it was beyond comprehension.
And no matter how subtle the positive effect, he now felt at least benign indifference, if not outright welcome, from the woods as a whole. And the greatest gift of all, besides the glorious ability to leap through the trees so effortlessly when not encumbered by arms and armor, was his ability to commune with the nearby forest at will. Such that it seemed but an extension of himself. Those times more than any other, he felt welcome. Connected. At home.
He felt like he finally belonged.
Perhaps for that reason as much as any other, he had loved his brief time feeling truly connected to the land all around him, whose rhythm and flow he came to appreciate so deeply in just a few weeks’ time.
Before the cries of a panicked woman desperate to save her child reminded him that personal bonds of loyalty and love can trump even karma, at least in this one life, and that the deeds he committed that were witnessed by others, such as pulling an eternal Soul Stone free of a living soul, in a sense damning that spirit of its potential for countless future lifetimes, had been enough to shock and horrify every single mortal who had glimpsed Alex’s momentary plunge into the River of Souls.
Before Alex tore himself free of those perilous waters with Death’s own gong announcing his terrible presence, no one getting a closer look at the horror of his actions than the handful of men who had charged with spears couched like charger’s lances, eager to run him through. And how odd it was, Alex thought, seeing brilliant drops of sweat and blood shimmering in the air for long moments as time seemed to warp and slow, the horrified lead bandit having time only to blink once before Alex’s Dark Qi-covered fist tore through his low-ranked basic cultivator’s skull.
But he had been an honorable and virtuous man, just two lifetimes ago, so Alex left his soul alone.
“No! Master Flame! You killed Master Flame!” roared the furious Bronze Ogre, voice sounding strangely tinny as the world rapidly lurched back to its normal pace, Alex now fully in the mortal realm once more.
“That’s right, I did,” Alex said to the massive body cultivator snarling at him, the giant almost taking the bait before he spat his hate and turned back to the captain once more, whipping his ball and chain around at insane speeds as a limping Dui Zhang braced himself for another onslaught.
Alex frowned, noting by the way the captain grimaced and snarled that even his incredible physique had not escaped damage, the man’s shoulder clearly broken.
But before he could lurch forward and assist, a shiver racing across his soul made him snap his eyes around, glimpsing sight of the friend who was about to pass through the veil.
His eyes locked upon a rapidly breathing Yan’s own as the man gasped, his charred face almost unrecognizable, left arm completely seared off, his entire body covered with hideous fiery wounds, glimpsing death soon to come.
And how chillingly easy it was for Alex to court oblivion once more, his foot sliding so easily back into the River of Souls. Knowing how perilous a game he truly was playing, the crutch of bitter rage replaced by the horror of losing yet another person he had come to think of as a friend. Yet he did not hesitate to open his awareness past the veil, recalling bonds forged with Ruidian friends that had given him such insights, and a certain kitsune girl who had inspired him to such greatness.
“Yan!”
A dry cough and chuckle as the man wheezed, a temporary respite they shared as rallying guards pushed back the milling and disorganized bandits, now ghostly in appearance, Alex and Yan caught somewhere between the living world and the realm of the dead.
“Please, Alex. The kids are hiding. You’ll know where. Bring them to Thunderbird Academy. They’ll be safe there.”
“Enough of that, Yan. We’re getting you out of here.”
His dying friend. Dead friend? Little more than charred, broken flesh that had been speared and gutted repeatedly, gave a tired snort. “We both know that’s not happening.”
Alex glared. Odd, how the man shuddered and paled at his glance, after smirking at his own grievous wounds. “Shut up and think the word ‘Accept’!”
“Alex...”
“Do it!”
Yan gave him the strangest look.
Yan Song has been formally accepted as a member of your party!
Yan Song is suffering Mortal Injury!
Do you wish to invest experience earned in restoring your party member?
You have selected YES!
Warning, imperfect connection sensed. Yan did not assist in claiming wujen potency! Yan’s ancestral Ruidian blood allows for basic node formation. Insufficient connection for full restoration! Note: Eternal Soul Stone transcends all limits of race and party.
It will require 1 Bronze Soul Stone to bring Yan Song back to full health.
Proceed?
You have chosen YES!
And a dozen guards and raiders alike flinched when Yan began to shriek as if he were being seared from the inside out.
Alex seized the moment, tensing just as the massive Bronze’s ball and chain smashed into the captain with such force that he went flying back with a cry, shield and arm now both crumpled wrecks.
The beastly-looking giant of a raider roared with laughter, his face twisting with a sadistic grin.
“And now to claim your heart, fool!” the giant sneered, before blinking down at the tiny Ruidian suddenly before him, glaring such hate as his unsheathed shark-toothed dao cleaved forth against the laughing Steel cultivator’s parrying arm, infused as it was with the same Metal Qi that had countered even Captain Dui Zang’s terrible axe.
That did absolutely nothing to prevent the dao’s toothy blade from blasting right through the giant’s arm a heartbeat before cleaving completely through his chest, the force and fury of the entire crashing sea somehow behind the blow, as if the spirit of the massive shark that had given its teeth to the blade was alive for one pristine moment as it tore the giant of a cultivator completely in twain, ripping through Qi wards and Steel body cultivation techniques as if they were no more substantial than Alex slicing his blade through the sea itself.
But the might of the crashing sea wasn’t all that had roared through Alex in that moment of dark transcendence as his foe’s two halves crashed to the ground in a massive spray of blood and gore.
For just a heartbeat, feet still splashing in the stygian river he had dared enter twice that day, Alex had channeled the Waters of Oblivion directly through his blade.
Enemy raiders are temporarily dazed.
You have seized the initiative!
Bullrush! Find Weakness skill check made!
Black Swan! Critical success! You’re one wit
h the storm and the water so eager to embrace you, still striding within the River of Souls, now channeled effortlessly into your foes.
You have saved versus Oblivion, embracing forces you barely understand.
Congratulations! Black Swan is now Rank 4! You have used 8 Qi Points. Your peripheral meridians have suffered Moderate Strain.
Dark Qi requirements met. You have learned your first Dark Qi variant! You have learned Soul Strike! You can now channel the very essence of the River of Souls with Soul Strike! Soul Strike Rank = Black Swan Rank! This counts as a Forbidden Technique! Requirements: must dare to risk oblivion, feeling the abyssal waters lap at your feet! This can be most easily be achieved by embracing bloody mayhem, or by using Spirit Crane Strike within the previous 24 hours. Pro tip: don’t go to sleep anytime soon!
Note: channeling the Waters of the Dead repeatedly may increase Qi costs and meridian strain risks, or increase your risk of sliding deeper into the River of Souls. Risks reset with the dawning of each new day.
Note: Compatible artifacts with affinity to the River of Souls detected! You now enjoy an additional +4 to all skill and survival checks when using Spirit Shark Dao with Soul Strike!
For an endless moment, Alex and the man he had cleaved in half gazed at each other in perfect stillness.
Soul Sight skill check made!
The former giant then blinked in dazed confusion, only then seeming to realize that he had been cleaved completely in half, the ground turning crimson with the rivers of his lifeblood, his deep Bronze status and massive build the only reasons why he had lasted even that many seconds. “How did you—”
The man’s eyes widened in sudden horror when Alex rammed his eerily glowing fist down his throat.
His feral snarl echoed strangely through the nearby woods, enemy raiders lurching back with startled cries, Alex paying them little mind as he forced his arm ever deeper into the space between life and death, desperate to feel the pulse of power calling to him so seductively, even as he began to feel the teasing caress of spiritual waters, now so much more real to Alex than they had been moments ago.
Silver Fox & The Western Hero: Warrior Redeemed: A LitRPG/Wuxian Novel - Book 5 Page 21