Silver Fox & The Western Hero: Warrior Redeemed: A LitRPG/Wuxian Novel - Book 5

by M. H. Johnson

  The kitsune sprang back to his feet, elegant armor now covered in mud, grass, and loam, snarling at his foe. “You really thought you could fool me? You thought I wouldn’t sense your gambit? And still I almost had you! Flinching when a girl called your name.”

  The kitsune’s lips curled in a cruel sneer, his hissing words meant for Alex’s ears alone. “I wonder which wench caught your eye? You think they’ll stay pure and proper when you’re nothing more than offal buried in a pit? Fool! All it takes is sweet temptation and any lady can be broken, their foolish pride and pathetic dreams turned to desperation and despair. By the time I’m through with them, they’ll be no better than gutter trash! Ha! Do you really think— “

  And the sneering kitsune’s voice broke off in a choking scream when Alex’s only response was a mouthful of caustic spray into the kitsune’s now-burning face, Alex flashing a killer’s smile when the kitsune, so sure his opponent was powerless and capable only of a mouthful of water discretely sipped from a flask, instead got to savor the sensation of his face melting off as it smoked and sizzled from the most caustic poisons known to any Yidushian alchemist.

  And in the heartbeat his foe was caught flatfooted in the extremis of surprise and agony, Alex struck, his fangtian ji delivering a lightning-fast thrust with all the disciplined focus of a trained warrior and all the fury of a man who wanted his foe dead at all costs. Crescent axe-blades smashed his foe’s weapon off line, trapping the curved blade against the kitsune’s chest as the razor-sharp spearhead blasted into Yuci’s chest, sending Alex’s foe crashing to the ground with a choking wheeze.

  There was so much Alex wanted to say to the man glaring back at him with such hate. But he knew better than to take any chances, ignoring the shocked gasps he heard from the onlookers despite the roar of the rain, windmilling his fangtian ji forward with force sufficient to cleave through flesh, bone, and steel.

  “Shadow curse you, Ruidian!” the snarling wujen wheezed, struggling to raise an arm now covered in inky black shadow, and it was Alex who hissed in surprise when his deadly weapon nearly tore free of his grip, as if he had struck a wall of pure force.

  The kitsune spat his hate, ravaged face all but ignored. “You think a pair of burned meridians is enough to stop me from channeling, boy? From taking my due from your flesh?”

  The snarling man lurched back to his feet, wheezing and spitting out pink, frothy blood. “This is nothing, you piece of Ruidian filth!” He then jerked his left hand up as if he were about to claw the sky, his obsidian black fingers dripping blood.

  His gurgling laughter was an awful mixture of agony and glee, his one reddened eye gazing upon horrors only he could see. “I would embrace the darkest curses of my art, accept any scarring to my meridians, so long as I can savor the sound of your endless screams, echoing through the hells for all eternity!”

  The air seemed to shudder with the wujen’s awful curse, and Alex could feel the tendrils of crimson and ebony lurch forward from his foe’s twisted claw of a hand, aimed straight for Alex’s chest.

  Knowing exactly how terrible a gamble he was taking, Alex didn’t dare blink away, or reveal his trump card. He did nothing to hide from his enemy’s sight as he felt the deadly wave of spiritual energy grip the shadows around his own heart.

  Before being torn completely free, sucked in by a portal specifically attuned to Shadow and Wood Qi. The weapons his foe favored above all others, it seemed.

  Yet so long as Alex’s golden door was anchored to him and opened, drawing in just the tiniest part of his soul, he was denied the use of his deadliest gifts.

  But deadly shadow magics that his enemy risked burning out his own meridians casting could find no purchase upon Alex whatsoever. It was why Alex had chosen to ambush the silver bridge at exactly midday, and all that had saved his friend from throttling claws so much smaller than they should have been. It was why Alex welcomed the storm flashing lightning around them even now.

  Because it meant that no one understood the true significance of what Alex had done in those flashes of brilliant light.

  No one save the kitsune gazing at him in horrified disbelief.

  “You tore free your own shadow? Impossible!” hissed his enemy as he desperately scurried back, pulling free a ruby red flask from what could only have been a storage ring.

  Alex’s gaze was twisted in a bestial grimace as he roared and struck, his enemy’s contemptible arrogance melting to terror as Alex’s fangtian ji cleaved through the air to crash down upon Yuci’s desperately raised shadow shield again and again. He howled like a madman, lashing out with the same mad frenzy he had once used to smash a massive obsidian block to shattered rubble with nothing more than the power of his own desperate resolve and the whirlwind of Light Qi all around, fueled by a howling storm so like the one even now growing in force and fury all around, the dome of Lightning Qi now surrounded by a swirling cyclone of hurricane winds, and all Alex felt was the glorious fury of the storm, his weapon crashing down in an explosion of sparks and the clang of steel.

  All of Alex’s careful plans to husband his strength, to show the powerful Silvers and Golds gazing so intently at them from the balconies above absolutely nothing of what he was truly capable of, had transformed to a berserker’s desperate need to destroy the vile serpent twining about his soul like death’s black promise laughing at his fate.

  A vile doom Alex would slay in turn, just as he had the serpent god that had dared to strike when he was at his most vulnerable.

  At his deadliest.

  Savvy even in his madness, tasting his foe’s strengths, weaknesses, the flow of Qi through seared channels with a pristine clarity, Alex knew exactly what would rupture his foe’s final desperate defenses, and caring not at all the secrets this would reveal.

  He could now sense how deep his foe’s reserves truly went; how black the man’s soul truly was.

  Storm Strike!

  When Alex’s fangtian ji next crashed against his fallen foe’s upraised shield of shadow, it did so not just with the killing force of a polearm’s swing, but with the brilliant cleansing flash of lightning.

  His enemy was flung through the air in an explosion of crackling Qi.

  Alex howled with a madman’s triumph, charging forward like a batter eager to strike the ball in the air before him and send it crashing into the bleachers...

  …before being stopped cold by dark guttural laughter that froze him in his tracks.

  The laughter of the gloating tactician who utterly despised WiFu and his pawn for daring to oppose his own plans, for being too stubborn to fold quietly to the side and allow favored gods alone to control the fate and destiny of this world-board.

  For daring to suggest that any amount of unexpected chaos in careful regimentation, or transformative insight within established order, could bring anything but ruin to the comfortable monotony so many gods were more than happy to embrace for the foreseeable eternity.

  And Alex was now certain that he understood why.

  Their secret loathing that filled them with such terror, even as they had forced Alex to live every day coming to grips with that very same terror, until fear turned to fury and he laughed at the nightmare of eternal death coming to claim him, transforming his own fragile weakness into the darkest of strengths.

  Daring to stride within the waters of oblivion, the River of Souls, the slightest hint of which filled most gods with dread.

  For chaos didn’t just bring unexpected change, growth, and systemic evolution. It brought with it the fog of uncertainty. A future clouded by the unknown. The incomprehensible. And, however slight the risks, however unlikely the circumstances, within those shadowy realms of endless possible futures there lay the promise of oblivion as well.

  Even for the gods.

  For that reason more than any other, his enemies had grown increasingly desperate in their attempts to stop him.

  And how they had railed and cursed WiFu’s daring when he had at last played the Fo
g of War card, when Alex had been desperately hiding in the deepest of lake beds from a Silver assassin so skilled with Earth Qi he could make stone explode at will, closer to death than he had ever been before.

  Until the day Alex was forced to face down Shui Jun herself. The divine serpent who had actually dared to make her home within the River of Souls, which no other immortal dared.

  And that had been the day Alex had sent the entire pantheon in a panicked fury, having the gall, the temerity, not just to accept his doom, but to rail against it with such indomitable resolve that he had actually dared the impossible.

  Instead of being consumed utterly by those deadly styxian waters, he had channeled them for his own end.

  He had used the River of Souls to slay a god.

  Reminding all of his foes just how perilous those waters were. Even for the gods above. Perhaps especially for the gods above.

  Now, more than ever, his enemies would do anything, it seemed, to stop him.

  Even if it meant blessing a foe they could only hope would cut Alex down by proxy, binding Yuci’s very soul with the singular purpose of destroying Alex utterly, rendering the kitsune’s attacks impervious to all Alex’s defenses.

  Just one reason why Alex had struck with such furious abandon after taking that desperate gamble, allowing his enemy to think him weak, crippled, paying for it in cuts and bleeding wounds that even now refused to heal, tainted by the divine curse of his foe’s hate as they were.

  And it seemed the gods weren’t done yet, as the kitsune’s eyes widened with sharpest euphoria, howling with glee as his wounds began to patch themselves in midair as he crashed to the ground, this time landing on his feet, glittering hate-filled features twisting into a feral grin.

  “Providence itself has answered my prayers, Ruidian filth! Your attacks can do nothing to me now! I am one with the powers above! Their health my own, my injuries nothing upon their divine flesh!”

  Alex felt a cold chill in his gut, heightened by the mocking laughter he could almost swear General Shalu meant for him alone to hear.

  “What’s the matter, WiFu? Nothing to say?” roared the bloated god’s lugubrious voice as time seemed to stretch and slow in the heartbeats Alex readied himself for his enemy’s onslaught, imagining all too well WiFu’s calculated sangfroid, the bemused smile he flashed his brother, taking a sip of blood red wine, perhaps Alex’s own blood, from his golden vessel.

  “Oh, there’s so much I could say, brother. But if you’re so desperate to see my piece fall that you’re willing to put your own skin in the game, having absolutely no idea what the stakes truly are, what that silly fallen descendant of mine actually dares to do, then what can I do but salute your dedication?”

  WiFu raised his chalice in a mocking salute as Shalu’s eyes widened, before shaking his own hesitation away.

  “The card has been played, Silver Fox, as is my right! I don’t need to know his moves to know he fights for his life, his body wounded by Shadow, Wood, and Lightning! There is only one location with that combination of powers in play in all of Baidushi at this moment. The palace itself! No, WiFu. You and I both know who my newest pawn faces, and with Soul Link in effect, my little pet won’t take a lick of damage!” The bloated deity chortled as a card of shimmering bronze smacked atop the Jade card lying upon a chip of bone and obsidian Alex sensed was right next to his own.

  WiFu nodded, giving his opponent a mock salute with his cup, unaffected by Lord Zheng Yi and Long Wang’s hard glittering gazes, both of them peering intently at the board. “Indeed, and once again, I commend your bravery, brother, willing to take the wounds suffered by a front-line soldier as your own.”

  Shalu’s laughter roared like the howling thunder as Alex charged into his enemy, face lit by an unholy rictus of a glee every bit as twisted as the kitsune’s.

  Fangtian ji and saber crashed together in a dance of death in time to the storm of howling wind and flashing lightning all around. The audience stared on, as if captivated by the sight of two warriors fighting with such reckless abandon, desperation, and grace.

  Both fought with the mad speed and desperate frenzy of front-line Silvers leading the vanguards of respective armies, the air exploding with the crack of thunder and lightning whenever Alex’s fangtian ji knocked aside his enemy’s probing dao, as black storms of billowing shadow howling for Alex’s soul were sucked into a vortex only Alex and a select few others could see.

  But the kitsune had the perfect advantage, as more than one observer noted in whispered tones that caught Alex’s now exquisite hearing perfectly. How he would charge with reckless abandon, no matter how deadly Alex’s blows, how any thrust or cleaving strike might knock the nimble assassin off balance, but never for more than the time it took him to cartwheel back to his feet before his left hand was tossing daggers and his right lashing out with curved blade once more.

  Yet despite this truth, despite the fact that the young Ruidian below faced a favorite agent of the Red Prince himself, somehow, he survived.

  Somehow, he hung on.

  Forever knowing just when to duck and weave past teasing strikes and lethal cuts, or twist his hips and slide to the side when his foe would lash out with an unexpected lunge not even the most skilled swordsmen in the audience expected, roaring and howling his desperate promises to tear free Alex’s soul as he had every other fool to cross him, threats and dark curses hurled with such abandon that even royal brows raised.

  Yet words that had cowed more than one foe had no effect at all on a snarling Alex, gazing at the kitsune before him with such furious hate. But still, it was the Ruidian who was slowly giving up ground, slowly being backed away from the crowd and toward the far perimeter of the once-luxurious courtyard, exquisite blossoms and rosebushes and verdant green grass now a ravaged casualty of the unearthly storm tearing through even a Gold’s crackling wards.

  Yuci flashed a cruel smile as his plan finally came to fruition, Alex now only feet away from the nearly flooding banks of the normally sluggish river now linked to the deadliest of arts. He chuckled coldly at the Ruidian he had led so expertly to his doom, laughing when the youth tripped over his own dropped flasks, crashing to the ground, fumbling his own weapon like a fool.

  And releasing his hold on his anchored spirit door as well.

  Yuci howled and laughed with victory.

  “Fool! Thinking you could defy me, the chosen of the gods! Your pathetic poisons will do you no good when the gods of vengeance take my pain and strengthen my blows! And for your earlier defiance, I will make you endure a thousand cuts before finally releasing you to death and the River of Souls!”

  The kitsune laughed as he pounced forward, crashing down upon a collapsed Alex, clearly in no position to do anything but die as the snarling kitsune’s blade slammed down upon clay flasks that exploded with Yuci’s cleaving blow.

  Yet the Ruidian whose neck so clearly belonged to him was no longer there.

  You have chained Bullrush three times!

  You have critically struck your foe!

  Yuci’s eyes widened but only for a heartbeat, quickly turning around with a hiss, readying himself for anything...

  …except his foe blasting forward in an eyeblink, fangtian ji set not to impale but to topple Yuci over, earning Alex a furious glare and barking laughter as the kitsune landed flat on his back amidst piles of caustic sticky goop sizzling through Yuci’s flesh as his skull cracked against the hard marble walkway between garden plots... and doing him no damage at all.

  “Fool! You can do me no harm, Ruidian! The mercy of the gods wards my flesh from your foul blows!”

  Something about Alex’s smile.

  The smirking kitsune’s features froze, eyes growing wide with sudden horror.

  As if some shadowy corner of his mind, recalling his own ancient heritage, sensed in a flash what was about to happen.

  Desperately, he tried to raise his arms in defense, finding his skull and back pinned to the ground by a combinatio
n of amoebic slime and Universal Adhesive that of course did his flesh absolutely no damage... yet left him utterly stuck in place. “It doesn’t matter what you do!” Yuci hissed. “You can cause my body no harm. None at all!”

  Alex cold laughter drowned out the storm.

  “Tell that bloated bastard Shalu I’m coming for him, Yuci. Tell him with your shattered, broken soul that will never rise again that I will do to him exactly what I do to you!”

  And with those words and a beastly howl, Alex struck his foe.

  Repeatedly.

  Hiding nothing from a horrified audience as he embraced his darkest arts, intending far worse than simply cleaving the head off his hated foe.

  Soul Cleave! Reduced cost due to proximity to River of Souls! 4 Qi spent! You are using a Forbidden Art before the River of Death! Successful save versus Oblivion nullifies all limits! Do you wish to channel the full force and potency of the River of Souls?

  “YES!” Alex roared, feeling the howling river, so eager to consume, flood him from finger to toe. A maelstrom that would have choked him, had he not been ablaze with white hot fury and absolute focus as the cause of all his terror and despair, all his trials and tribulations, was finally in sight.

  Trapped before him.

  Linked to the body of his most hated foe.

  Alex howled like a madman, embracing the ice-cold death so eager to consume him for all time, eagerly giving that dark stygian gift to another.

  28

  Yuci shrieked, sensing oblivion’s caress when Alex’s now-ghostly fangtian ji cleaved through flesh, bone, and the stone tiles below.

  Soul Cleave!

  Saving throw versus Oblivion made!

  Yet it was not his screams that Alex savored as flesh instantly knitted up, but the surprised gasp of another, General Shalu’s horrified eyes locking with WiFu’s smirking countenance when he spurted a surprised mouthful of blood for the first time in twenty thousand years.

  “Careful there, brother. I think something you ate disagrees with you.”