Cultivating Chaos

by William D. Arand

  Can’t say I blame her. This is probably how she herself was captured. Just in a different city and a different veil.

  “Because I have no right to refuse it. Don’t worry, we’ll just hang in the back and let them do as they will. I have no desire to actually participate,” Ash said.

  Moira nodded at his words. “Good. I’m glad to hear that.”

  Looking at the veil, Ash couldn’t help but wonder. It was a sheer, translucent, film-like substance that surrounded the entire nine kingdoms.

  The veils would open up at random intervals, allowing for veil raids, as they were called.

  Each veil seemingly went to a different world. A different land. There were even noted instances where veils had changed. Where once a veil had led to a land filled with nothing but humans, a year later, it went to a volcanic world of fire and hell.

  That on top of the fact that people intentionally went on veil raids to fight other species made the whole prospect fairly dangerous.

  Yan and Jing had spoken of an older cousin who had been lost on a veil raid. She’d never come back after heading over.

  It was this veil, in fact. Her name had been Lan, and she’d simply vanished.

  There was a shuddering shimmer that spread throughout the veil, and a gap opened up all on its own.

  Several cultivators stepped into the gap and then sat down.

  They were the gate keepers. They would hold the veil open as the raid proceeded.

  Everyone began to rush through the open veil.

  The raid had begun.

  Moving as a group, everyone started across the boundary.

  An hour later, the attack had started. From the look of it, it would be over quickly here as well.

  Out in front of himself, Ash watched as numerous cultivators stormed through the mining camp. Watching it made Ash a little sick.

  Anyone in a gray vest was targeted first. That was their way of differentiating between uniforms and civilian clothes.

  The ones in gray vests were the soldiers of this area. Guards and overseers. Those who had power.

  And what better way to express one’s own power than by defeating others with power?

  Ultimately, this was really just a test of strength with the possibility of stealing resources.

  People, equipment, coins—anything that could be carried, stored, or bound.

  “It’s sickening,” Moira said.

  “It is… normal,” Jia countered. “This is simply the way of the cultivator. It is not as if other veils do not do the same. Do you not see some of my own countrymen down there? This is not unique to us.”

  Ash couldn’t disagree with either of them, because they were both right on their respective points.

  It didn’t make him like it any more or less. He was no fool, though. He wasn’t going to argue with his superiors, but neither was he going to be a pacifist.

  Having long since toggled on his abilities and charged them to full, Ash was ready for anything that should happen or come his way.

  Except it was unlikely he’d be troubled. They were clearly in the minority by remaining back, but they weren’t alone, either.

  Even some of the youngest recruits were down there testing themselves. Killing or being killed simply to see if they had what it took to do so. But not all of them.

  Looking to the entrance of the mine Ash watched a large frog-looking monstrosity directing people with a meaty fist.

  “They are probably a distant relative of your own people, Moira. Though they seem to have far more genetic diversity,” Jia said.

  “Mm. My countrymen all have wings of one sort or another. Being of the Owl tribe, I held great prestige.”

  Ash winced as an old woman was backhanded by the frog-like man and sent flying. She crashed into a wall and fell limp to the ground. Turning to one side, the monster trundled off in another direction.

  Then Ash saw a man.

  A man in rags standing in the mouth of the entrance. A man he instantly recognized. One he’d been hoping to see since he’d shown up here.

  One he’d long given up on seeing.

  Even though he couldn’t see the man’s face, he knew who it was.

  He knew it in the very core of his being.

  It was his cousin Trav, who had apparently been pulled from the boat with him.

  Then Trav was knocked into the mine under the weight of what looked like a guard. Vanishing into the darkness, Ash could no longer see him.

  “I’ll be back,” Ash said hurriedly.

  Kicking off from the ground, Ash began to rapidly cross the distance toward the mine entrance.

  Each time his feet hit the ground, he used Spring Step. The ground whipped by him as he went. As did numerous cultivators, enemy guards, and slaves.

  Before he could get to the mine entrance, it began to cave in on itself. Rocks and debris fell and covered the entryway.

  Ash came to a sudden stop. There wasn’t anything he was going to be able to do to get through the rubble.

  Looking around, he realized he was in a small cleared area to the side of the mines. A part of the camp that was uninhabited and at the edge of the layout.

  Rather than going backward, through those who might be ready for him, or forward, deeper into enemy lines, Ash moved toward the perimeter of the camp.

  Slipping through the nearby trees, he moved out of sight and started to loop back around to where he’d started.

  A heavy thump beside him made Ash startle to one side, immediately drawing his butterfly swords and holding them in front of himself.

  “Why did you leave?” Moira asked, her wings settling down on her back. She tilted her head to one side, her lips pulled down in a frown.

  “I thought I recognized someone,” Ash said, letting his hands drop to his sides. “I wanted to see if it was—”

  The clash of metal on metal nearby caught his attention. It was much closer than the battle going on in the camp.

  Moira looked toward the sound of the noise, her head tilting around in a strange way.

  “We should go back,” she said. “I’ll carry you.”

  Ash was staring toward the sound of fighting. He couldn’t explain it, but he felt a need to go that way. His mind told him he’d be better off heading back, but he also wanted to see if he could blow off some steam and clear his head with a fight.

  Maybe I’m more of a cultivator than I thought.

  “Let’s just look,” Ash said, moving towards the fighting.

  Growling under her breath, Moira followed along beside him. Drawing her blade from its sheath, she did a double take.

  “I still have mana,” she said.

  “Oh? That’s good. That’ll make this easier.”

  “I shouldn’t have mana.”

  “Well, we did kinda channel it through your Dantian rather than whatever it was you did previously. Your Dantian is holding it.”

  Ash saw movement between the trees up ahead of himself. It looked like a handful of people all circling another.

  “That doesn’t seem normal,” Moira complained. “I asked around a bit in the stables. What you’ve done isn’t supposed to be possible to begin with. Carrying mana into another veil is very… abnormal.”

  The trees thinned out in front of him and Ash could finally see the fight.

  A tall, leggy woman stood amongst a group of humans who were wearing rags. She held a massive two-handed sword that looked impossible to wield.

  She was dressed in finery. Expensive clothes that were clearly dyed in unnatural colors and cut to fit her figure.

  Her clothes, let alone herself, didn’t fit the camp. She clearly didn’t belong here.

  That and the fact she that had three-foot-long rabbit ears coming out the top of her head, marking her as a Kin. One of the natural inhabitants of this veil.

  Her hair and fur was dark black, though he couldn’t see her face from here.

  “…ie! Just as you’ve killed so many of us,” shouted one of the
humans.

  Charging forward, he swung a club at her in an overhead smash.

  Flicking the blade to one side, she deflected the attack and then slashed at the man. She moved much faster than her frame would seem to allow. Bringing that big blade around as if it were lightweight.

  It slammed into the man’s chest and flung him backward.

  Peeling her sword away and back into her original pose, the woman turned her head around to look at the crowd around her. It gave Ash a chance to see her face.

  She had delicate features and was quite pretty.

  Her bright-green eyes caught on Ash for a brief moment before moving on.

  Before she could do anything else, several men charged out at her at the same time. All from different angles.

  The reality of combat was that if you were surrounded, it was only a question of time. Especially with a big sword such as that of the Kin’s.

  Realizing she was about to be overrun, Ash darted forward. The moment she went down in a crush of bodies like that, she’d probably get her head smashed in.

  Leading with his swords, he carved his way through the outer ring of bodies as the woman was dogpiled on.

  As he slashed and chopped at everything in front of him, it was that long before the group realized they were being attacked.

  Moira was beside him, moving her blade with only a bit of hesitancy. She was no swords-woman, but she wasn’t an amateur either.

  Figuring out that the odds had clearly turned, the survivors ran off, leaving behind their dead and dying.

  Ash didn’t see the woman when the people cleared away. Looking into the mess of bodies around where she’d been standing, he could see a flash of red clothing and her massive blade.

  “Watch them,” Ash muttered. Cleaning his swords off on the pants of a dying woman with a gut wound, he stepped into the center.

  Reaching down, he grabbed the Rabbit woman under her armpits and started hauling her free. Her head lolled backward, her green eyes staring up at him.

  A large knot was forming on her temple, and her eyes seemed to be focusing and unfocusing.

  “Not sure you understand Kingdom,” Ash said softly. “But I mean you no harm. Just getting you clear and away from here.”

  The Kin hadn’t let go of her sword, and the tip was dragging along through the dirt alongside her boots.

  “Ash, we should leave her and go,” Moira said, her big yellow eyes studying their surroundings.

  “We leave her here and she dies. I don’t really want to do that.”

  Grunting, Moira kept looking to the trees around them.

  “Can’t really take her with us, either. They’ll slave brand her the moment you get her to the camp. And if we stay here, the veil will close eventually and strand us,” Moira pressed. “They’re regrouping. There’s more of them, too.”

  Ash lifted his head and looked ahead. He could just barely see people out there, moving around.

  Probably collecting their wounded and dead before they rush us.

  Leave her to die, take her with us and have the first cultivator with a slave seal claim her, or stay here and be stranded.

  Could I at least have one option that wasn’t garbage?

  “Project a slave symbol onto her forehead. Use her blood to draw the symbol and seal it with your own,” Locke commanded.

  Immediately, a circular design appeared on her brow. Glowing in the same way the traces for Moira’s back had.

  Choosing, Ash dropped the Kin to the ground and dabbed a finger into her bleeding temple. Quickly, he sketched out the design Locke had supplied.

  Thankfully, it only took a few seconds.

  No sooner than he’d finished, he reached down and sliced his pinky on her blade, then pressed the bloody digit to the center of the symbol.

  Flashing red, the symbol sparked to life and then sank into her flesh. The Kin made no move and said nothing. She only stared at him with her green eyes.

  “Ok, let’s get out of here,” Ash said. He took her sword from her hand and stored it in his ring. Picking her up, he tossed her over his shoulders in a fireman’s carry and started jogging back to their camp.

  “You’re going to enslave her?” Moira asked.

  “Already did. I plan on treating her just like you. So let me ask you, do I treat you like a slave?” Ash asked as he moved.

  “No. You do not.”

  Sixteen

  They were finally approaching the Jade Fist Sect’s home location. Its “school” as it was called.

  It was huge.

  A massive sprawling campus that seemed to dominate the entire landscape.

  When people described it, they had always spoken of it as a place where everyone trained and learned.

  In Ash’s head, he’d simply converted the Spark’s Jump Sect and made it larger.

  His guess had been nowhere near reality.

  The Jade Fist was almost a city unto itself. With sleeping quarters, dining halls, training areas, gardening, forestry, blacksmithing—everything a city would need to survive on its own.

  The Jade Fist was self-sufficient, powerful, and not even the local top-tier sect.

  “Ash, she’s waking up,” Moira said.

  Looking over into Ying Yue’s cart, he saw the Rabbit woman’s eyes slowly moving around. It was obvious she was inspecting her surroundings.

  “Do you think she understands us?” Ying Yue asked, peering back over the driver’s seat of the cart.

  “Unlikely,” Jia said with a chopping motion of her hand. “Most do not learn Kingdom.”

  “I did,” Moira said with a small smile.

  “You are an outlier, and smarter than the vast majority of outlanders,” Jia said, holding to her previous statement.

  “Well, we can’t really have her going around not understanding anyone,” Ash said.

  He looked to Ying Yue.

  “I swear on my life, and bind myself in full view of the heavens, to never betray your secrets,” Ying Yue said.

  Ash raised his eyebrows at that. He hadn’t even had a chance to ask her to swear to not betray him.

  “I have eyes. I can see talent. I can see someone marked,” Ying Yue said. “I’ll not stand in the way of destiny.”

  Ash shook his head at that. “You sound like Jia.”

  He pulled a transference page from his ring that he’d made before they left. It was for reading and writing the language of the nine kingdoms.

  Having learned it in the Hall, he knew it was something he could transfer.

  He held it out between two fingers to the Rabbit woman.

  During the entire exchange, she’d remained perfectly still. Watching them without saying a word.

  Green eyes stared at him before looking to the paper.

  Nodding, Ash mimicked holding the paper to his forehead, then held it back out to her again.

  The Kin took the paper and frowned at him, then slowly pressed it to her forehead.

  “She’s gonna be laid up for a bit,” Ash said, looking back to the gate of the Jade Fist Sect.

  “It put me flat for an hour each time,” Jia murmured. “I thought for sure he had ulterior motives in mind.”

  Ying Yue frowned, looking to Jia.

  “Why would he? You thought he was going to rob you?” she asked.

  Good point there. That statement doesn’t make sense from the outside.

  You finally going to drop the disguise?

  “Since we are sharing secrets as a group. I am a woman,” Jia said simply, with a shrug of her shoulders. “I am the firstborn of a middle-realm family, attempting to escape my family’s grasp.

  “Also, I have learned several abilities that are far in excess of what should be possible. In fact, they would be treasures even in my home realm.

  “Ash gave them to me for nothing.”

  Ying Yue’s gaze had changed from curious to appraising.

  Even Ash was a touch surprised. He had no idea that Jia had come from the middle re
alm.

  That was where people began the path to generate a true Dao. There were families there with a number of Dao practitioners.

  “I am a master Spell-Blade,” Moira said. “And I’m able to cast my spells without repercussion now. I grow stronger every day, and my ability is already stronger than it was previously. I require little preparation to cast anymore, and simply draw on my wells.

  “Ash is the reason. He performed a type of carving on my back. For no reason other than that I asked.”

  Ying Yue looked between the two women and then to Ash.

  He shrugged at her. There was nothing in his memories that could tell him what a Spell-Blade was.

  Probably a body refiner?

  “Fated One. Marked multiple times,” Ying Yue said, shaking her head at him.

  “As for me,” Ying Yue said slowly, turning forward again. “I carry a grand master’s seal from the free-merchants guild. I’ve already purchased a shop and home in the Jade Fist Sect brokered through them, with full permissions, and will be trading out of it. I’m the youngest in the guild, in their history, and already have more wealth than many of them.

  “I earned this because of Ash and the deals he made through me, providing me with the ability to do so. I became an equal to family and sect merchants simply due to my access to Ash’s spirit stones.

  “Which he shared with me for nothing.”

  “And what of you then, Ash? What secret do you hold?” Jia asked, looking to him. “It would seem you are far from ordinary now. Events seem to be spiraling out from around you.”

  “Uh,” he said intelligently.

  “Do not speak of me, or what I am. Though you could probably tell them of the ring, and that you came from another world. It would actually be believable,” Locke said.

  Looking around, Ash confirmed no one else was nearby. They’d be crossing over into the Jade Fist Sect city proper soon, though. If he wanted to speak of it without the possibility of someone hearing him, it’d be now.

  “I’m not from the Kingdom… or any other veils… I’m from a different world. Perhaps a different universe,” Ash said. “And I have a storage ring I found that is far more than a storage ring.”