Silver Fox & The Western Hero: Warrior’s Path

by Johnson, M. H.

  Obviously, that god wasn’t him.

  He glared at his blades, the tiniest smile escaping when he recalled the benefits of being so close to the netherrealms, how effortless it was to manipulate Dark Qi here and maybe… just maybe… stretch it in ways never intended.

  It took long moments of desperate focus, struggling to feel the black tarry substance of Dark Qi all too slowly slide up the entire length of his blade. Struggling to make it happen, even as he was jarred back into the moment, desperately parrying scythes eager to cleave his soul from his corporeal form. He found himself constantly darting back, Qi Pool slowly but steadily draining as he forever slid around their defenses by using Bullrush far more than he had wanted to, and it was only after he had spent over half his pool in his desperate struggle that he finally understood what he was doing wrong.

  You have successfully dodged death yet again!

  He smiled bleakly as a scythe swung for his head, adroitly dodging away as he slashed his cheeks open perhaps a bit too carelessly. Crimson blood splashed upon the blades as, still wet, he dipped both fully into the River of Souls.

  A single heartbeat passed as the bloody waters completely covered his weapons, until, with a single desperate surge, both weapons were now perfectly coated in shimmering blackness.

  He didn’t bother with the messages flashing across his mind’s eye. His sudden epiphany and sense of his blades and the Dark Qi swirling around and even through the dao, made it clear that he could now do what was needed.

  This time, when the howling spectres shrieked and charged for him, he was ready. Their earlier exchanges had solidified his understanding to the point that he could now sense how his enemies’ greatest strength could be turned to his own advantage.

  “Let’s try this again, assholes, shall we?”

  Soul Sight skill check made!

  You can now sense the flow of Qi through the dead just as well as the living!

  Soul Sight is now Rank 6!

  He laughed as he darted under their blows, now reading their movements perfectly, sensing the flow of corrupted Qi through their ghostly forms far better than he could any opaque cultivator as he led them in a dance that could only have one ending. He weaved away from a barrage of furious slashes while parrying aside the lead spectre’s wild swings before lashing out in turn, cleaving free over-extended limbs in concert with the howling dirges of revenants shocked to find that, even in death, they could feel pain.

  No matter how they fought to surround him, his blades were always ready to dance with their own. The flow of spiritual energy guiding their movements blazed so brightly to Alex that it was nothing to intercept their shadowy scythes, answering deadly slashes with cleaving rebuttals, fatally sharp dao ripping tormented souls free of the strings that bound them as predatory spectres, and the Card of Fate that had forced them all in play.

  Soul Sight modifiers in effect! Opponents’ skill checks reduced 6 full ranks!

  Bullrush! You have successfully pivoted behind your foe!

  Blackswan! You have successfully cleaved past all defenses! Dark Qi shatters all wards! You have cleaved your foe in twain!

  Alex felt a certain fierce thrill when the air reverberated with an all-too-human shriek as wards of shadow were ruptured. Catching sight of a horrified soul slowly sinking into the rivers, he noted with hungry eyes a prize he would claim as the remaining spectres closed, striking as one.

  Bullrush! Bullrush!

  You have successfully avoided Coordinated Assault!

  You are now behind your foes!

  Adderstrike! You have shattered closest foe’s skull!

  Blackswan! You have successfully decapitated two spectres!

  You have successfully parried Panicked Barrage!

  Enemy’s lightning storm fails to penetrate the Veil between life and death!

  You have successfully disemboweled your foe!

  Remaining foes cry out for mercy!

  You show them none!

  In seconds it was over, Alex’s shimmering black blades weaving a lethal dance of death as enchanted scythes were sent flying from severed limbs, his weapons dripping with the ichor of undead revenants or wujen sorcerers eager to please their master, taking on a revenant’s form when and where Alex should be at his absolute weakest.

  But he had never been stronger.

  Either way, the waters roiled with shrieking souls struggling against their own inevitable demise, panicked final seconds all that allowed them to linger.

  Their disintegrating forms shone bright with Silver and Gold Soul Stones blazing fiercely, all that had allowed them to be summoned from the deeps to serve bitter gods eager for Alex’s destruction.

  Soul Stones Alex hungered for, and this time would not hesitate to claim.

  Spirit Crane strike has successfully claimed one Rank 3 Silver Soul Stone! You have effortlessly flung away the fading spirit slipping into oblivion’s grasp!

  You have failed to claim Rank 2 Gold Soul Stone! Your feet begin to sink under the River’s deadly currents.

  Willpower check made.

  Fearless Resolve in play!

  You have successfully claimed Rank 2 Gold Soul Stone!

  Action turn spent laughing in the face of death!

  Skillcheck successful! You have claimed Rank 5 Silver Soul Stone!

  And then Alex got the notification he really didn’t want to see, snarling as he held back, no matter how his hands hungered for the flash of gold.

  Soul Sight detects Rank 1 Gold Soul Stone! Note. Saintly past lives detected!

  “Please, Mercy!”

  Before Alex could send his right arm, now covered in a rainbow shimmer of pristine Qi, down the throat of a ghostly young woman gaping at him in wide-eyed horror, he saw flickers of an ancient queen who had ruled wisely and well, a powerful merchant who had traded in spirit pears and priceless herbs, letting none of her employees suffer for want, so long as they did their part to keep their shared enterprise hale and strong. And he saw, as well, glimpses of a young mother who had done all she could to escape persecution with her daughters, even at the destruction of her priceless cultivation base, her sole joy in watching her children grow hale and strong while she endured every degradation so they would have a chance at a better life.

  Even in this life, he beheld a sage both wise and kind, a powerful young wujen who had served as a village leader, before the butchery of her entire clan by imperial soldiers, following forged orders planted by a tribal enemy, filled her with blackest fury and hate, twisting her in directions dark and foul.

  Alex couldn’t deny the lives wherein her soul had shined like the sun, a force of light and love to all who knew her.

  The terrified ghost’s eyes filled with instant understanding, worthy of any spirit that might once have embraced Gold, when she saw the truth of her own soul flickering in Alex’s sky-blue eyes. Her own haunted gaze shifted to a look of desperate gratitude and relief when Alex relaxed his grip and allowed her spirit to fade away.

  “Thank you,” he heard her whisper as she eased back into the waters, and much to his surprise, she was not forced into torment, but instead allowed to fall into a deep, dreamless sleep until it was time for her to embrace the wheel of life once more.

  The Spirit of Jin Jin recognizes your transcendent mercy and swears eternal gratitude to the soul of Alex Hammer! Such Golden cords of karma that bind you will transcend any single lifetime and can lead to lifelong friendships, unexpected allies when you need them the most, or future love! In a world of billions, there is at least one more soul who will be invested in your fate, in this life and all others, for so long as your spirit embraces the wheel of rebirth and renewal!

  Cleaved Fates card in effect! All karmic ties have been severed! Spiritual connection between the spirit of Jin Jin and the Soul of Alex Hammer has been severed!

  Alex smiled bitterly and shook his head. “No surprise there,” he said with a sigh as the remaining spirits slipped entirely under the river, be
ing sucked into the currents of the whirlpool and fleeing the pocket netherrealm.

  His hand darted out one last time, however, managing to grab ahold of a final wriggling soul like a fish. He forced his shimmering hand down the howling spirit’s throat, his foe’s jaw cracking as it bucked and writhed before his relentless assault. Shoving ever more of his forearm down his enemy’s gullet, he tore free a final Rank 1 Silver Soul Stone, flashing a single bleak smile when the shriveled specter began to shriek and wail, doomed never to be reborn as anything but a powerless mortal from that moment on.

  You have dared the forbidden! Your soul blackens with the karmic weight of four cores torn free of their rightful spirits for all time!

  You have held to your internal code of only harvesting corrupted souls! Even in the blackest pits of purgatory, the pristine light of virtue may shine forth! Candidate for Honorable Hellion noted! You have cleaved free the cores of blackened souls exclusively! Corruption penalty minimized! Karmic penalty minimized!

  Cleaved Fates card in effect! All karmic ties have been severed! Your karmic virtue has been reset to zero!

  He might never be properly rewarded for his virtue, but he would never suffer a spiritual penalty for daring to embrace the most forbidden of vices, either.

  And this, more than anything else, gave him pause, knowing how perilously easy it would be to fall down a very dark path indeed. Since there were no longer any external forces keeping him in check, he grew more determined than ever to hold to his code of only devouring the most corrupt soul’s priceless treasures.

  Because if he surrendered even once, and pillaged the pure as well as the guilty, then a certain priceless element of his own soul—his internal sense of virtue and justice, the simple knowledge that he was following an ethical path, however cruel the outside world might be—would be lost, killing a part of himself that his enemies could never otherwise reach.

  He shuddered as his soul was suddenly flooded by all the sweet, sweet potential of multiple fallen wujen, whose lost souls had become the playthings of the gods, their potency roaring through him in ways that had nothing to do with the forbidden.

  Yet all he had to do was gaze at his own reflection in the eyes of a spectre only now forming, to understand that he had become a monster that even the dead should fear.

  When it desperately fled, doing all it could to discorporate, Alex did nothing to stop it.

  Somehow, he was certain that that was one foe, whether spectre or projecting wujen, who would never dare to face him again.

  He took a deep breath of Dark Qi-saturated air, hawk-like gaze searching over the basin entire, before his eyes alighted upon what he had most feared to find.

  Qi Perception check made!

  The rift had been torn in space itself, just below the basin water level on the far side of the chamber so as to flood these mystic waters with the River of Souls directly, before being allowed to drain away in the center of the basin, a second rift in the fabric of space and time sending it back to the Underworld.

  But not before serving as a fatal trap to cut down any would-be Jade bold enough to dare the heavens, thereby assuring that a horrific death would be their only reward.

  He glared for long moments at those rifts, even going so far as to allow his fingers to caress the deadly cold waters flooding into the chambers. He imprinted their presence so firmly in his mind that he was forever certain he would sense the location of this terrible schism, no matter where he was in relation to it.

  Before getting a message that filled him with awe and horror in equal measure.

  You have imprinted multiple entrance points into The River of Souls. Do you wish to upgrade your interface map and triangulate River of Souls? This will cost one Potency Point. Yes/No…

  You have chosen Yes! 8 unspent potency points remain. Internal map upgraded to 5-D interface.

  You have successfully imprinted River of Souls!

  You now have enhanced understanding of River of Souls!

  Alex shivered with awe, feeling like never before the ebb and flow of unearthly currents and spiritual energies that formed that river, to say nothing of sensing the links of Light and Dark Qi that so perfectly contained countless billions of souls awaiting their next turn upon the wheel of life.

  It was more than a simple river as he understood the term, instead flowing in a massive multidimensional wheel that was as much endless ocean as well-contained conduit. In that moment of pristine clarity, he sensed the flows of entropy and rebirth emanating in all directions from that terrible, wondrous creation.

  He chuckled softly as the very tip of his finger began to grow translucent, knowing there was a price to be paid for his forcing his finger into the heart of the pristine flood for well over a minute.

  Only now, he understood the river’s multidimensional flow with such profound clarity that it was nothing for him to twist and turn his finger in ways that would have made his normal self shriek with horror. The digit seemed to shrink, invert, and grow impossibly distant all at once, when really he was simply pulling his finger free of entropic currents flowing crosswise to the bridge between the Mortal Realms and the Divine.

  As he shivered with transcendent insight, he couldn’t help but chuckle softly, gazing at the finger as whole and healthy as it had ever been, and realizing he never needed to fear even the deepest currents of the river turning his body into a spirit, ever again.

  So long as he never succumbed to its call, never stopped fighting that current. Because the moment he surrendered to its terrible freezing caress, he was lost, forevermore.

  He took a deep breath, his focus now entirely upon the far end of the basin, which lay shrouded in mist and spray from the waterfall of pure spiritual energy crashing down into the deadly pool, the flood of heavenly energy enough to push even the black styxian waters away.

  And that was when Alex felt it. he sheer, terrifying presence of death itself, its silhouette slithering free of the mist and spray, the titanic avatar of death crashing forth with a roar…

  He wrenched his eyes away, momentarily dizzy and off-balance for a terrifying heartbeat that he feared would spell his doom… before everything snapped into focus, balance restored, as he realized his first impression of a vast monster had been a trick of light and perception.

  Instantly, he recognized his foe.

  A divine serpent that had once come so close to killing him, before he had turned the tables with a desperate feat that had surprised no one more than himself when he had actually pulled it off.

  Once a vast, titanic leviathan, his nemesis was now little bigger than the pet snake his sisters had kept in a past that still felt so real, despite the countless centuries that had passed since he had last been able to tell his siblings how much he loved them.

  The serpent gazed at Alex for long considering moments before giving a snakelike shrug. “Oh. It’s you. Very well; I find you worthy. Now go.”

  “Shui Jun?”

  The shimmering serpent, whose scales flashed like rainbows under the crashing waterfall of spiritual energy, snorted. “Don’t say my name like we’re kin, mortal, for all that my power courses through you with every beat of your immortal heart.”

  “Ah.” Alex cleared his throat. “Perhaps this one owes you an apology?”

  “Don’t be a fool. You bested me. The power and triumph you earned in striding the Path of Conquest trumps all other oaths and conventions. To dare imply otherwise, to take anything but fiercest pride in your most ruthless victories, smacks of unforgivable weakness.”

  Shui Jun turned fast as lightning, suddenly perched upon Alex’s neck, jeweled eyes glittering. “And yet… when you eventually fall, as even the gods will, sinking into my waters when eternity finally wears away your soul… do you truly think you’ll be able to escape me again, Alex Hammer?”

  Alex felt icy dread slither down his spine.

  The serpent’s eyes sparkled like sapphires as it gave a thoughtful tilt of the head. “Still, s
hould one somehow find himself channeling this very river through the same obnoxious god that dared to use me upon the board of fate… should one choose to feed me any immortal who might fall to a certain disciple’s blade… Shui Jun is not above forgiveness. Or mercy.”

  Alex just stared.

  The serpent chuckled. “Instead of eternal damnation, choking endlessly in these waters… seven golden lives for you. Just as I swore to do for any god to fall into my waters, eventually; those cowardly fools having sufficient foresight to at least consider the possibility that even their days are numbered. Of course, their craven hearts yearn for mercy and the sweetest tales to their lives, yet even they expect their eighth life to be fraught with challenges and hardships, like anyone else’s, forced by the bitterness of strife to ascend once more. As if their souls would be capable of the same feat twice.”

  The snake hissed.

  “As if their souls were anything like your own.”

  Before Alex could say a word, the snake—which could have so easily torn out his throat, it moved so fast—had already disappeared.

  But not without a few final words hissed in his ear.

  “The golden door underneath these falls will lead you to prizes wondrous and grand. The the price for claiming those divine treasures? You already know. But don’t let that stop you from claiming rewards that will fill your enemies’ hearts with envy and bile. Because not even you would be foolish enough to ascend the falls themselves, and dare the realm your master knows so very well.”

  14

  For endless moments, Alex stared at the wonder of that magnificent fall, a roaring cascade of unfathomable power and potency.

  He had tasted the truth of Shui Jun’s words, and had no doubt that beyond those falls were indeed treasures wondrous and grand, fit rewards for any champion to have made it so far. Prizes left by different gods than the ones that had turned the sacred pool into a deathly trap, perhaps? Or were they prizes left by whoever had come before?

  He felt an odd chill, wondering if the rules of time were far easier to overrule here than in the world below, where the cycles of life and death kept time in firm ascendance.