Demon Hunters (Chi Warriors Book 2)

by Ino Lee

  A kama flew at Shian’s head, the blade spinning forcefully through the air by its sickle end. Li whipped his crescent moon knife to intercept, its weight sufficient to deflect the airborne projectile.

  Shian’s light went out as she realized the near miss and looked at Li thankfully. Aiying tracked the trajectory of the kama with her bow, but did not see what threw it.

  “Keep moving!” Li said.

  A scream sounded off behind them, followed by another from the opposite direction. They were being hunted.

  Tofu lifted Kai above his shoulders, noting his difficulty keeping up with short legs. While he wasn’t the fastest warrior due to his stout muscles, Kai’s weight didn’t affect him either.

  Kai lifted his staff and signaled with a new orb. He turned back.

  “Make it pulse, Wenyen!”

  His heart dropped. The monk was nowhere to be seen.

  A tiger claw chain wrapped around Shu’s leg and tripped him, held on the other end by a mutated ninja. The Shaolin bowman chopped the chain with a saber and broke free, but a second ninja was already there, impaling him through the heart. He gasped as the demon leered at him, its face cloth removed to expose its ghostly white features. Qi moved over to engage.

  Aiying fired an arrow at a lo-shur dagwai, then whirled her chain and lashed out at its approach. The demon caught her metal dart with its teeth and pulled, struggling for control.

  Shen called out to Li. “We must root them before they return again. Go—do not delay!”

  He rushed over to help his brother.

  Li, Shian, Tofu, and Kai continued on without pause. Unlike their departure with Xiong, the presence of the radiance pool heightened the danger to the point that sentimentality could no longer play a role in their decisions. They had to do whatever it took to survive. Their numbers were rapidly declining as the Koon Kagi continued to chip away at their force.

  The chase wore on Li. How did things end up so badly? He felt alone, usually relying on his brother to make it through such difficult times. Shian was a young and upcoming monk, and Tofu a reliable fighter, but they were not the equivalent of Wong, or even Jaguan, or Tengfei, or Xiong. The unforgiving land would not let up. It would continue to tire, test, and strip them of all hope until they were dead.

  Open land showed on their left. Li examined the terrain and saw alarming activity.

  “I understand now. The lo-shur came in waves not to test us, but to direct us . . . into that.”

  An enormous wooden carriage on wheels was propelled by four mutated zhuks.

  “Is that a radiance pool?” Kai said.

  “Yes.”

  “We must escape it,” Shian said.

  Li nodded. “Move away from it if you can, but its range will extend for many miles. It is too large, too close. You must run like you never have.”

  “What do you mean? What will you do? You can’t assault it. There are four possessed zhuks.”

  “That is madness,” Tofu added.

  Li opened his canteen and drank again, then handed it over. His voice was even.

  “That was not my primary intention.”

  “Then what?” Shian asked.

  He nodded at a barely noticeable human figure, completely black and unassuming. It had separated from the foremost zhuk in spirit form and then solidified, moving casually toward them, gaining distance at an unnatural speed.

  “I must go down the path of Xiong and the others. I will stay behind. I must stop that kaigun-shur.”

  39

  SHIAN AND TOFU angled away from the radiance pool, pushing as hard as they could. The presence of the kaigun-shur was alarming. Shian had never seen one before and was surprised one could exist so far from the chi pools of the main temples since they needed massive radiant energies to solidify their spectral bodies; then again, she had never traveled so far into the Koon Kagi, where the dark energy was naturally stronger, and the zhuks’ mobile pool was enormous. If Li could not stop the demon, they had to escape the pool’s solidification range or they were dead. She wondered if she should have stayed with Li.

  Kai sat atop Tofu, raising his staff to signal for help. Shian thought to help, but her attention was needed on the ground, not in the sky; the thought of the kama flying at her head earlier crossed her mind.

  “There!” Shian warned.

  A lizard slithered around a bluff, clinging effortlessly to rock, before it jumped. Shian radiated her monk staff in an attempt to charm it, but the dagwai’s mind was already under the control of a lo-shur. Though the lizard was weaponless, it was still dangerous and raked out with sharp claws against her staff and came on aggressively with teeth. Shian backed away and jumped over a tail slash, then pulsed energy to stun it.

  “Keep going!” she yelled at Tofu.

  A scream sounded. More movement chased them. She waved her scepter around menacingly, her eyes and gemstone alight with chi fire.

  Tofu stumbled, bit by shuriken. He fell forward awkwardly and dropped Kai. Another mutated dagwai sped forward on all fours and lunged, snapping its teeth viciously as Tofu held back with both arms. A claw raked his face.

  Kai moved in screaming, batting its head in an explosion of light. The dagwai flipped across the ground, rolling past Shian with blackness still in its eyes. When it stopped, it did not move again.

  Tofu held his face. “Run, Kai. Run!”

  Kai fled. A lo-shur ninja hounded him, but stopped short when the boy held his staff out to ward it off, the tip crackling with energy. The demon considered its companion’s demise and second-guessed its assault. Kai was bright with chi and the energy of the gemstone looked dangerous regardless of who was holding it.

  Two more demonic ninja cut off the escape path and closed in.

  Shian caught up to Kai and stood at his back. The two rotated and defended with their brilliant staffs aglow on the darkening mountain. The demons kept back, waiting, watching a trio of chi flames rotate—two at the eyes and one from the gemstone—until the time was right to pounce. Thunder returned and rain dripped.

  Countless eyes crept in around them, some red, some black, on the ground, and in the mountain heights.

  The end was near.

  Shian clung to an ounce of hope. They were still two monks of active chi fai.

  “Kai, one last chance,” she said with her mind. “Can you summon a chi burst?”

  “No.”

  “Try. Just like your hit on the dagwai. Project out and stamp your monk staff.”

  “I don’t—”

  “Do it. It will affect the lo-shur more than the others.”

  The ninjas stirred and postured.

  “On three,” she said. “You can do it. One . . . two . . . three!”

  They slammed their staffs on the ground and sent out matching bursts of energy, knocking the closest Koon Gee off their feet.

  They ran with blind fury, over rock, under archways, and through pillars of stone. A series of howls dogged them and sharp metal screamed past their ears. They could hear the giddiness of the ninjas and the savageness of the dagwais as they hunted, all eagerly closing in, all coming for them.

  Shian held her staff high and flashed a light orb. It no longer mattered for her attention to be on the ground—death was everywhere.

  She screamed with her mind.

  “Shaolin! Shaolin! Shaolin!”

  Her cries for help seemed to disappear into the vastness, eaten by the land.

  A voice returned. “Be still, Shian.”

  She was not sure if she imagined the sound.

  A large shadow flew overhead. She watched it pass and saw an immense chi spark fall from the sky like a fallen star, touching down in a plume of energy. She recognized it immediately—the Monk Staff of Shaolin.

  Another shadow passed and a second form dropped closer to them. This figur
e lightly touched the earth, a ninja with human eyes and red war paint. A shuriken shot from her side, lashing out at a distant ninja before returning.

  The Monk Staff flashed again nearby and the torens circled around.

  “Tae!” Kai screamed. “Tae!”

  He ran to her and gave her an overjoyed hug, then defended with his weapon.

  “I can’t believe we found you,” Tae said.

  Shian came to her senses and joined them. “Beware, Tae—it is not safe.”

  Lo-shur ninjas circled around as lightning flashed. Tae ripped a shuriken blade, and then the second, causing a ninja to flip and dive away. She unsheathed her katana, the sound of the chi-cured metal against the scabbard ringing in new hope.

  The pack of ninjas enclosed.

  Youta landed hard with Shin’ichi buzzing loudly, and then Takeo, backing off the ninjas. The torens passed by and redirected to the cliffs.

  “Yes!” Youta said to Takeo. “Do you see? Ninjas.”

  Takeo unsheathed Kokaiji and then his wakizashi, screaming excitedly, spreading both arms in a wide fighting stance.

  “Looks like they want a taste of Sun steel.”

  A ninja crawled around a high ledge and whispered contemptibly, punctuating each syllable.

  “Sam-u-rai.”

  It leapt with dual knives, and the rest of the ninjas pounced. Blades flashed and rain fell, the patter of water sputtering against rock, interspersed by the sound of thunder, metal, and screams.

  Tae struck a ninja’s sword hard. She normally would have waited to engage an enemy of such caliber, parrying patiently and measuring its skill to devise a plan of attack, but not this time—the first use of her perfectly tuned Sun sword would be offensive, not defensive. She knocked back the demon, which fought back warily, uncertain of the false ninja with a samurai sword. When the demon finally cut loose and pressed, emboldened by the other ninjas and the advantage of the land, Tae felt a tingle from her sword that compelled her to move back and slash, catching the ninja on the arm. She whipped a cutting disc and scored it across the torso, causing the ninja to explode in black smoke, the spirit ripping apart from its flesh to find a healthier host. Tae chased it with a sword flash, but the radiant light energy was only enough to sting it. Kai, however, packed a more potent punch with his monk staff, searing its spectral form as it flailed away.

  Takeo brushed back a ninja with Kokaiji and lunged with his secondary. The demon flipped away while another jabbed with a spear, giving time for the first to unleash stars that caused him to flinch, barely lifting his blade in time to block his face. One stuck to his arm.

  “Two lo-shur, one samurai.” He pulled out the shuriken and let it fall. “Good.”

  Shian joined him. “One samurai, one monk.”

  He nodded, shouted, and reengaged.

  Youta pushed toward the glow of the Monk Staff, wanting to concentrate the power of the sharded weapons up front. He sidestepped and sliced a ninja with red eyes, deflected, parried, and thrust into another—quick strokes.

  Tengfei whirled the Monk Staff and flared its gemstone, its contents a swirl of chi water and light, warding off several circling figures. They collapsed in unison and the agile monk defended with both ends of the staff, using one end to deflect and the other to block, flipping to avoid the rest. He swept a dagwai’s legs and used his weapon’s reach to strike a mutated ninja, shocking it in the chest, then following with a jab and a charged uppercut. The staff’s energy disrupted the lo-shur’s hold on the ninja, briefly separating the two as its physical form fell back. Tengfei pulsed his gemstone and knocked the spirit away. He meant to chase and finish it off, but the lizard lunged and snapped its teeth around the end of the staff, forcing him to engage.

  Shin’ichi buzzed and flashed hot white, tearing through the lo-shur spirit that Tengfei had just sent away. The Shogun struck again and again with an elated cry, shearing off fragments of its phantom form, thrilled at finally having a weapon that could cause real damage against the dreaded spirits. The lo-shur dissipated to nothingness.

  Tae looked to help Takeo and Shian with their demons after having dealt with her own. She targeted Shian’s with cutting discs, holding back to keep Kai away from the danger, but the ninja was cunning. It saw the danger coming and dodged the first disc, then ricocheted the second with its sword at Shian. The cable caught around Shian’s staff and tangled, drawing Tae in.

  The lo-shur wasted no time and charged the monk with her tethered staff. It aggressively delivered consecutive strikes that were clumsily blocked, then dove and reached for the line, yanking the weapon out of her arms. Shian was vulnerable and flashed a light orb in its face in a desperate attempt to stay alive.

  The demon shielded the light with an arm and thought its enemy pathetic, rushing forward to finish off its weaponless foe. Suddenly its back stung from ninja stars. It turned to observe Tae advancing and knew its chance to filet the monk had been squandered, having to divert its attention to the katana-wielding human’s assault.

  When it made a move to defend, however, its sword rattled on the ground and its arm went limp, touched by the flaming hand of Shian. No longer could its fingers bend as the connective nerves that controlled them were shut down. It struck out with its remaining good arm to send Shian reeling, but could do nothing to stop Tae’s katana from entering its heart.

  Takeo hammered his foe with both blades, angered by the gash in his arm. He ignored the discomfort and kept the ninja on its heels, constantly defending from every angle, until he stuck out a leg and throttled the ninja over the side of the hill. Just as he did, a mutated dagwai appeared and jumped him, wrapping him up and rolling down the same embankment. They twisted and turned, Takeo gaining the advantage as they crashed into a pool of water. He held back its arms to prevent from being clawed, leaving its head free to snap up at him. The clatter of its teeth rang loudly, a testament to its raw power. Leaning away from its bite, he saw a rock, grabbed it, and came down hard on its face.

  He lifted the rock and slammed it again. “Stupid.” Another blow followed. “Lizard.”

  The dagwai struggled as he held its head underwater, its wet leathery hide difficult to grip, but the strikes from the rock sufficient to dizzy and weaken it. He doubted his ability to hold it down long enough to drown it, but the lo-shur suddenly split from the dagwai’s body and passed through him, the feeling of the specter cold and chilling. The muscles and heft of the dagwai shrank back to normal, enabling the large samurai to snap its neck.

  He looked up for signs of danger and breathed heavily. A panicked feeling suddenly overtook him as he realized the absence of his sword—a samurai must never lose his sword. He rushed up the hill and found it along with his wakizashi. He was partially relieved, but still apprehensive as he returned to the battlefield.

  When he reached the top of the embankment, he gaped at a lo-shur zhuk and a red devil unan that had joined the battle, wondering what to do next.

  The demonic zhuk chopped hard at Tae as she rolled away. Youta and Tengfei came charging in.

  Youta examined the zhuk’s swordaxe. “Folded metal.”

  He rushed in close, using its preoccupation with Tae to reach its body, but the lo-shur beast jumped back and defended with its oversized blade. It stepped lightly and jockeyed for position, then brought the full weight of its metal down on Youta when the chance appeared. Shin’ichi held firm against the monstrous blade and trembled, shaking the Shogun to his bones.

  The zhuk could hardly believe Youta’s resiliency, as it kicked him into the side of a rock wall. It lifted its sword to chop him in half, but its leg was knocked out from underneath it by a blast from the Monk Staff. Water splashed as it fell hard on its back. The last thing it saw was a bright white light coming down on it, oddly beautiful.

  Kai warded off the red devil with his glowing staff.

  “Come on, boy, you have no
chance,” the demon taunted.

  The unan batted away his weapon and pondered how to capture him without actually killing him, when a wakizashi punctured through its chest. It saw the samurai who threw the blade, but refocused on Kai—if it could get to him first, he could be used as a hostage.

  It flung a trident at Kai’s legs and tripped him up, pulled the wakizashi from its chest, then lunged and took hold of a foot as he tried to get away. Kai thrust his staff’s gemstone at its mask in desperation, but the unan buried its face in the ground to avoid it. The staff thumped its head harmlessly and a thought emerged; he would embrace his monk skills by using ability over strength. The staff burned with a hot ember when energy was funneled into its gemstone, touching long enough to set the unan’s head on fire.

  The unan screamed and took off in a wild frenzy, stumbling haphazardly down the hill and dousing its head in a pool of water. When it finally regained its composure, it saw Takeo stand tall at the top of the hill. It grumbled and slunk away.

  “Are you all right?” Takeo said.

  “Fine,” Kai said.

  The rest of the party joined them, looking down the hill after the unan.

  “They will regroup,” Shian said. “It won’t be long before more Koon Gee come.”

  “Let’s get out of this place then. Can the toren carry us all?” Tae asked.

  Takeo looked up at the cliffs. “I think so, but not far. There is also lightning to contend with.”

  “We must risk it,” Youta said.

  Shian interrupted. “Li has engaged a kaigun-shur. I cannot leave. I must find him. Go on without me. The load will be lighter.”

  “A kaigun-shur? I will go too,” Tengfei said.

  “Me too,” Tae said.

  Youta made up his mind as well. “Call the toren, Takeo. You will bring Kai to safety.”

  Takeo thought to argue, knowing the Shogun would stay behind too, but pressed his fingers to his lips and whistled loudly.