Fu Shen flashed a fierce, bloodthirsty grin, anticipating his foe’s next move as if he could glimpse the future. Rare as it was, he exhilarated in the sensation, all but tasting how his foe was about to step back and desperately pull his fangtian ji free, putting himself right in Fu Shen’s path… now!
He cleaved the air with his blood-rune axes, roaring for his foe’s blood before blinking in confusion.
His foe was not where he was supposed to be.
It was Five-Ox giving one final discordant eye-blink as Fu Shen’s axe blasted open his skull before collapsing in death.
No! Impossible! This was where the Ruidian had to be. Was destined to be. He had sensed it!
His eyes widened, seeing his tamed shadow serpent’s head soaring through the air, before crying out in surprise and terror when his insides erupted with a terrible icy heat, disbelieving eyes captivated by the sight of his stomach distending horribly, thanks to the Fangtian Ji spearhead slamming against the inside of his belly so hard he stumbled off his feet. Yet the terrible blade did not break the skin of his hairy stomach, so fierce and mighty was his Rusted Mountain ward.
And it mattered not in the least, as the half-moon crescent blades that had so easily pierced his back were abruptly torn free, yanking out his stomach, spleen, and a flood of slimy blue-gray intestines in a spurting pile of blood and gore, leaving him flopping on the ground like a dying fish as numbing shock turned to agony so intense it was as if the very fires of Hades had flooded Fu Shen’s soul, so agonizing was his reverse disembowelment.
He opened his mouth wide to fill the uncaring sky with his agonized shrieks.
But all that came out was a river of blood as the blackness of death and the mocking laughter of countless devils eager to feast upon his corroded spirit before the icy River of Souls could wash his terrible sins away, emitting hideous cackles that sounded so very like the corrupted monks who had first led him upon his chosen path so very long ago, coming for their prize at last.
11
Alex spun around, fangtian ji held in a high hanging guard, ready to deliver skull-cleaving death from all angles.
But all his foes were down, neither eyes nor Qi Perception detecting any enemy stalking himself or the wide-eyed mortals gazing at him with looks of shock and awe.
Only two slavers were even still alive, one man groaning from the vicious wound Alex had delivered that had snapped his spine but failed to kill him outright, the other man panting shallow, bloody breaths, blood pouring freely from half a dozen spear wounds. The two slavers beside him who had also fallen to the defender’s spears were still with death; wide, vacant eyes focused squarely upon whatever doom awaited them beyond this life.
Only then did Alex take a moment to acknowledge all the accumulated messages that had flashed across his mind’s eye, absorbed in a single blink.
Soul Sight skill check made. Critical success! You understand your opponent so well you can all but read Fu Shen’s mind! He will make no move you don’t know a heartbeat before he does!
Find Weakness Rank 4 versus opponent’s skill Rank 2! Soul Sight modifiers in effect.
Success! Opponent’s martial skills are reduced a full 6 Ranks! You sense the weaknesses behind Rusted Mountain Body Cultivation technique! Perfect for the bloodthirsty cultivator seeking the easiest path to power. Rush forward and kill as many foes as you can! Such a cultivator is near invulnerable from the front, as long as you charge too fast for anyone to hit you in your unprotected rear!
Qi Perception check detects cloaked demonic familiar: Spirit Venom Snake! Contest of skills… tie! You have mortally wounded Spirit Venom Snake while suffering a bite of Toxic Spirit Venom causing 60 Damage!
Pristine Form negates 90 Damage. You have suffered zero damage.
You have gained 30% Immunity to Toxic Spirit Venom!
Bullrush successful! Your opponent is caught off guard.
Adderstrike has shattered Rusted Mountain. It always pays to strike your enemies in the back!
You have successfully cut down nine mortal slavers, one Spirit Venom Snake, and one Rank 3 Infernal Bronze cultivator. Experience earned! Positive Karma earned!
Infernal treasures discovered: Bloodrune axes! Cut through any mortal armor as if it were parchment! Automatic reduction in all cultivator defenses by 2 Ranks. Warning: risk of Soul Erosion with each use.
Insight made! If your saintly artifact can feed upon greater devils, why not infernal treasures?
You have fed your saintly artifact two infernal treasures now forever torn free of the wheel of causality. Your artifact is pleased! Positive Karma accrued!
Alex took a deep, steadying breath, feeling the storm of white Qi swirling around him more clearly than ever before, forced to viscerally appreciate just how far he had come from the desperate boy fighting for his life against bloodthirsty pirates who had so narrowly escaped death back then by dint of fast thinking and spitting gobs of deadly poison.
And now he had cut down ten men and a tainted spirit familiar in less time than it would take him to shower the gore from his body. And one of those men had technically been higher ranked than he. And so much of his success was thanks to developing perhaps the deadliest pair of skills he could, though by themselves they caused no injury at all: Find Weakness and Soul Sight. To sense his opponent’s flow of Qi, to intuitively see the flaws in their techniques, knowing instantly when they were off balance or over committed. It was a powerful ability granting a battlefield advantage that could not be overstated.
Normally, when facing those of equal power or better, it took time to put those skills into effect, desperate seconds or even minutes that would see him skirting the edge of death, far closer than he would like. But against mortal warriors with no organized Qi flow at all, their weaknesses could be instantly spotted. Not that those skills were even needed against mortals.
The disparity between who he was now, with what amounted to an Olympian’s strength, speed, and finesse, able to sense the movements of every foe around him in a sixty-foot radius thanks to Qi Perception, and who he had been just a year or so ago, was nothing short of profound.
The warriors he had overcome, strong and well-built despite their lack of cultivation, men that would have been at home in any MMA ring back on Earth, now moved as if their bodies were marionettes, doing exactly what Alex expected, moving so slowly, so predictably, that he had already struck and pivoted away before they could even finish collapsing into death’s embrace.
It was as if they were all embracing a choreographed dance leading to one predetermined outcome, one where Alex alone would stand triumphant over his foes, no matter how desperate and furious the expressions worn by all the other actors on the stage until the dance was done.
Now Alex understood the expressions of awe and wonder even bards on Storyteller’s Way would wear when describing the exploits of cultivators, entwining their stories into magical tales of glory and triumph back when Alex would eat there on his rare days off from Liu Jian’s alchemy shop during far more innocent times.
Back then, Alex couldn’t help but think the tales were overdone and exaggerated, as much as he had enjoyed taking in the local culture.
But now, looking at the scene of carnage before him, a canvass of death wrought by the deadly instrument in his hands, he could truly believe like never before that even a handful of Bronze cultivators could irrevocably turn the tides of battle, and a handful of Silver champions determine the outcome of an entire war.
As for the Rank 3 Bronze who had fallen to his deadly thrust and disembowelment, a man who would have given any other Rank 1 Bronze a run for their money, it could have been a perilous, perhaps even fatal, fight. But thanks to the skills Alex had learned, forging himself in the crucible of battle, as opposed to the serene contemplation favored by most cultivators, Alex had the skills to sense the flaws in his opponent’s technique, especially when fools spiked their power with infernal infusions that made it so easy for him to spot their weaknes
ses using Soul Sight, allowing him to respond to their moves before they could even finish their attacks. Thus, Fu Shen’s wild, chaotic power also became his greatest weakness when fighting someone like Alex, who had been able to read his intentions so well that for awful moments Alex had almost felt like he had been reading the vile man’s mind.
Of course, Alex still would have been fighting for his life against an unbreachable wall of rusted iron, had he not learned a pair of deadly skills from a certain eccentric alchemist and his beautiful daughter, having taken him in when he was homeless, destitute, with nothing more to his name than a copper ring and desperate hope that he could better himself. In return, Alex had done everything he could to be worthy of their regard. Their friendship. Their trust.
And now Liu Li, alchemist Liu Jian’s beloved daughter, was in mortal peril, and Alex would do all he could to save her.
It didn’t matter that his eccentric mentor had actually been a deadly Silver cultivator in disguise, and one on the verge of breaking through to Gold. It didn’t matter that Liu Li was actually a royal princess in disguise. Alex’s sacrifice on her behalf, surrendering the divine treasures he had forged while caught between life and death for centuries or just a handful of meditative breaths, all so she would have a second chance at life, was one he would do over again in a heartbeat. Just as her heart had touched his own.
It didn’t even matter that she would forever be leagues beyond him.
Her life and the lives of millions of others were in dire peril. No matter that WiFu himself had said that Alex now had time, even he made it clear that Alex needed to get stronger. If he was to have even a hope of saving the first kitsune to touch his heart in a thousand years, he needed to blossom in ways terrible and grand.
No matter how many enemies he had to kill.
And if his heart still ached for a certain smirking kitsune girl who just happened to be royalty, caught between two women who had touched his soul, then that was his burden to bear. He would do whatever it took to fight by their side against whatever perils were poised to strike at them, just as soon as he had the cultivation breakthroughs he desperately needed.
After sharp whispers and quiet murmurs were exchanged, much to Alex’s surprise, the entire band of guards, drivers, and what seemed simple farmers and their wives and children proceeded to fall to their knees and kowtow before him. All save for two groaning guards who seemed too injured to do more than pant and hold their bleeding wounds.
“Hero, we thank you from the bottom of our hearts for your timely intervention!” said the oldest member of their caravan, who looked to be around fifty or so, though still powerfully-built with a salt and pepper beard and features hardened by time and trials. He kept his head lowered as he spoke, which gave Alex the odd sensation that the man was giving fervent thanks to his blood-spattered chest plate.
“My name is Cai Gen. Though we are little more than hardworking farmers, I swear to you upon this day that you have the gratitude of our entire clan, for rescuing our sons and daughters from the vile depredations of these monsters!” Cai Gen gave a bitter shake of his head. “This last year has not been kind to us, noble one, for all that our crops bloom with our tragedies as never before. It was a gamble, taking our best spearmen and archers along with us to Erjizhen.” His lips tightened in a hard frown. “But that monstrous cultivator spoke dark runes that caused all our crossbows to misfire! Had they struck true… but that is neither here nor there. What matters, all that matters, is that the gods answered our prayers in our hour of greatest peril.”
He then lowered his gaze even further, paying deferential tribute to Alex’s belly. “Honored hero, I regret to say that our resources our minimal, but we are not so foolish as to deny that we owe you our very lives. If you would wait for payment until we reach town, we would be honored to give you a full ten percent of our proceeds.”
Alex blinked, finding the sight of more than a dozen men and women kotowing before him more than a bit surreal. He took off his helmet, showcasing his unmistakably Ruidian features, brilliant blue eyes and gold blond hair now clearly visible for all to see.
“You all do know what I look like, right? Please don’t bow if you’re going to resent me for it later.”
More than a couple of men froze in their posture, the elder himself paling before him.
“My apologies if we have done anything to offend a gem master,” Cai Gen quickly said.
Alex blinked, having girded himself for contempt and rejection, no matter that he had just saved their caravan. He was so used to instant scorn and derision until he had proven his worth over and over again, that to find the entire caravan of farmers and guards not looking at him with anything more than perhaps a bit of healthy fear was downright unnerving.
And he wasn’t so clueless that he couldn’t decipher the meaning behind the inviting smiles he saw from a pair of beautiful girls wearing identical clothing that perfectly matched their mirrored features, having already put down a pair of deadly looking crossbows, for all that they, like all the others fighting from the wagons, wore no armor.
Alex felt a growing tension in the air. Perhaps his continued silence was unnerving for them.
“No, I’m not a gem master,” he quickly said. “Just someone who knows his way around a fangtian ji.”
The elder frowned. “Truly, young sir? A Ruidian so powerful he could cut down a dozen slavers, and no gem upon your brow?”
Alex flashed a rueful smile, tasting blood upon his lips.
Not his own.
He held back a wince of disgust, keeping his smile firmly in place. “The way I see it, we defeated these bastards together as a team. For all that a handful shieldmen working together might have a decent shot at overrunning a single row of spearmen, with my fangtian ji, capable of hooking their shields back or just chopping into them like a poleaxe, the tide of battle shifted pretty quickly. Then it was just a handful of poorly-trained swordsmen caught between a spear wall and a man who mastered his chosen weapon almost since the day he was born. When you think about it like that, the outcome was pretty much inevitable.”
The caravanners blinked and frowned, his reassuring patter warring with their common sense. They weren’t fools. They had faced a dozen hard-bitten slavers who had nearly slaughtered them. And now it was the slavers who had been cut down to the last man, the two mortally wounded survivors quickly put out of their misery, and Alex didn’t blame the caravanners one bit. Only a fool left an enemy at their back in this ruthless world, and those monsters deserved no mercy, not after having come so close to cutting down and enslaving a dozen or so farmers who wanted nothing more than to live their lives in peace.
Alex smiled and spoke on. Ultimately, everyone wanted to believe their own competence and glory, and no doubt they’d happily remember events as he portrayed them as time went on. “Of course, I’m happy to accept whatever you wish to give me, but it sounds like you all need whatever you can get from the sale of your produce. So, I’m happy to give up my share in exchange for your company along the road, and whatever interesting bits of news or gossip you care to share with me.”
The elder’s eyes widened in surprise. He flashed Alex a grateful smile. “Truly a hero in every sense of the word. We are grateful, young sir, and I fear you are right. We truly do need every bit of coin we can get if we are to make necessary repairs to our village compound and entice other young adventurous souls to join our clan.”
Alex blinked at this. “You pay people to join your village?”
The pair of fresh-faced girls grinned at that, their crossbows traded for pins they artfully placed in their hair, kohl-lined eyes gazing consideringly into his baby blues before the twins exchanged glances and giggles.
“It’s a bit more complicated than that, lad,” said the elder with a smile, tilting his head as he took Alex’s measure. “Truly, you don’t know? I thought Ruidian villages shared similar customs to our own, though in truth I have made only a few acquaintances from yo
ur tribe, over the years.”
Alex chuckled. “Please, call me Alex. I’m from the city, actually, and unfortunately know nothing of your customs or those of Ruidian communes either.”
As Alex spoke, several of the guardsmen were methodically stripping the fallen slavers of whatever valuable gear they could find, an act which Alex didn’t fault in the least, though his glare froze the pair of men before they could touch the body of the fallen Bronze.
“He died an infernalist, his soul already reborn in hell. Touch his gear at your peril,” he said, the pair of scavengers immediately falling back with frantic bows.
Even the village elder paled. “Truly, Alex, I think you may have saved us from a fate worse than death.”
“Oh, I just served as the reserve shock troop you needed for your spearmen to grind those idiots to dust,” Alex assured with a smile, glad to see there was at least one woman skilled in basic herbology applying compresses to the pair of injured men, their looks of profound relief filling Alex with the hope that their wounds were far from life-threatening, though he promised himself he would check on them later. “Now, what was that you were saying about the customs of your people?”
Cai Gen nodded gamely, the caravan moving forward as they spoke, everyone intent on finding a fresh campsite well away from the scene of slaughter to have a safe meal and set up camp, since food was one item in plentiful supply. Time passed by pleasantly enough as Elder Cai Gen and the twin girls, who turned out to be his granddaughters, filled Alex in regarding just a few of the numerous customs of the myriad peoples who lived outside the massive population centers dotting this impossibly vast continent.
“So you see, Alex, isolated towns and farming communities are always on the lookout for youths on the cusp of manhood who aren’t afraid to seek their fortune harvesting valuable herbs rich in spiritual energy, or the most bountiful crops to be found anywhere,” explained Cai Gen. “Ideally, we’ll find a handful of strong young men with good heads on their shoulders who are looking for wives and fresh opportunity. And if we’re truly fortunate, we might just find a youth with a cultivator’s blood somewhere in his family lineage!”
Silver Fox & The Western Hero: Warrior's Oath: A LitRPG/Wuxia Novel - Book 4 Page 15