18
Alex shrieked as pain beyond his comprehension seared his body, soul, and mind.
He had thought himself so clever, reading between the lines.
His enemy’s masterful performance, everything any disciple could want in a fatherly mentor.
What every student secretly yearned for.
A warmth and compassion that had absolutely no place in the ruthless world of cultivation, most especially not Dragon Academy itself, where they would forge you in fire or throw you out as cast-off slag.
And those were perhaps the best masters one could hope for, unless you had countless spirit pearls and a noble’s bloodline to buy you a modicum of courtesy and the illusion of a mentor’s concern.
Yet still, even knowing all that, Alex had bought into it. Lapped it up like honeyed mead and the sweetest nectar from fruits of tender plants that had, for him, wilted over a thousand years ago with the death of everyone who had ever loved him in a world forever lost to his soul.
The gentle concern had surpassed even Master Liu Jian’s gruff affection. And Alex had had to fight and push bitterly just to earn a speck of regard from that alchemist, for all that he was immeasurably grateful to be counted as adopted family by the end.
Then he and his mentor had challenged the darkest of covens, and Alex had been consigned to oblivion, before awakening upon the River of Souls, a too-clever fox nipping him back to awareness once more.
But there was no fox here now.
No avatar of any sort to guide him through the unending agony ripping through his soul.
He had thought gloves of pristine Dark Qi would be enough. Thinking himself so brilliantly clever, recalling how well his key of Qi had shorted out a certain Silver diabolist’s deadly lockbox, a man from whom Alex had claimed a priceless fortune, and saved the souls of three youths now dear to his heart.
But the wards Alex had dared to cross had not been constructed by any Silver cultivator.
They had been of Pristine Gold.
Gold as the massive spirit beast that had filled him, Liu Jian, and Liu Li with such awful terror when they had dared to rob the beast’s private silverbell blossoms, their monstrous foe radiating such a deadly killing aura that even the fiercest predator for miles around had been forced to utter stillness, struggling just to breathe as the terrible creature roared its outrage to the heavens above.
Gold as the headmaster whose reverberating commands had filled the entire school with terror, only Elder Panheu laughing in the face of that doom, swallowing the pristine golden pearl that represented Lai Leng’s eternal cultivation base, consigning the powerful Silver to countless lifetimes of bitter powerlessness and despair, having stolen a prize bordering on the infinite.
It was that level of power that had allowed Alex’s master to transcend from Silver to Gold. And Alex had needed to flee immediately, before the two cultivators could duel for control of the school, lest he be killed instantly with a single surge of deadly will from the headmaster who apparently had despised him just as much as had every other pureblooded cultivator at that school.
Alex had thought himself so clever, filling the barrier between himself and the door prickling with talismans and curses eager to sear his flesh with the eternal blackness of entropy, and decay. A barrier which no normal force could cross. Gold, it seemed, could transcend even that.
Transcending an element its forger couldn’t possibly hope to understand.
Even if it had only been the tiniest flicker of the Gold’s power that had burst through… burst through it had.
Devouring Alex almost completely from within in an endless, timeless moment of hideous agony that tore through him as viciously as every bout of violent illness he had ever suffered in his previous life, all rolled up into one perpetual moment of endless torment.
And it did not stop or abate, no matter how much he shrieked in his dying mind, his body unable to twitch a single muscle as he vaguely sensed his every item, including over twenty spirit beast cores and all of his clothing, being torn free of his body.
It was as if that vile Golden curse, not content with just devouring his nerves and organs, would now devour his psyche, before at last consuming his very soul.
Alex drowned in pain without end. A sea of torment and despair he couldn’t possibly hope to swim free of, crippled arms and legs kicking just as disjointedly as he had as a small drowning child, as the cold, cold waters of the final river between life and death tried to pull him under for the final time.
“Wave your hands, Alex! I need to see you!”
Alex felt a sudden jolt of horrified awe as he choked and spluttered and fought just for a single gasp of air as he drowned in the roiling sea of his childhood.
The real reason why he had been so terrified of daring the high dive at ten, early friendships and admiration then turning so rapidly to derision and scorn.
Because his early friends had never known.
Never known his greatest nightmare was the deep blue sea he drowned in, even now.
Their captain had a stellar reputation. Sailing their yacht through seas as peaceful as a dream, and how Alex’s mother had smiled like the beautiful model she had been before her husband had caught her heart, she and Alex enjoying a warm morning by the beach before being picked up for a sail around the island his father was so excited to buy.
Before that storm had hit. And the crystal blue seas had turned leaden and gray. And a little boy who had known better than all the adults had eased the too tight straps of his life jacket.
The keel abruptly grinding against a coral reef, Alex thrust out of his mother’s arms and into a violent roiling sea.
How he had shrieked and screamed, the lessons his private swimming instructors had tried to impart upon a four-year-old boy gone as if he had never entered the water before.
Liquid, frigid as the void between the stars, filled his nostrils with the promise of oblivion, eyes catching a last look of the starry night sky above, before he finally slipped under.
“Hold on, son. I got you! Kick for me, Alex, kick!”
Heart swelling with impossible hope and wonder, Alex’s surging soul did just that, bursting free of oblivion’s caress as he fought just to get a single gasp of life-giving air as the choppy waves sprayed sea water into his mouth.
“Dad, you’re here! You came for me! Dad!”
Alex was in awe of the powerful arms and legs he felt lifting him free of the frigid waters that had almost drowned him. Squeezing shut eyes that stung with tears as much as salty sea spray. “Dad! Your back! You didn’t die. No one died!”
Young Alex cried for joy as he swum for the shore.
Before realizing that the powerful arms and legs carrying his soul so carefully, so tenderly, were his own.
“I’m proud of you, son. Prouder than you will ever know.”
A voice that echoed in his mind alone, for his ears heard nothing but his own awful sobs resonating in a cavernous chamber as he pulled his naked, shivering body to the rocky lip of the pool of water he had been summarily thrown into, eyes looking up at the tiny opening above, actually catching sight of two shadowy silhouettes.
“They always make the weirdest scream, once we toss them into the water.”
“Tossed him in? We did no such thing. Put him to bed on his comfy pillow. Not our fault he didn’t think to roll off the hole.”
Dark laughter echoed in the cavernous chamber Alex found himself naked and shivering in, laughter echoed by far off shrieks and cackling howls.
“By Long Wang’s beard, the howlers are active tonight.”
“Good! They’ll make short work of that fool, dead or drowned, and then we get to divvy up the spoils.”
The sound of a massive stone block being leveraged with steel claw bars only magnified the cold dread Alex felt, naked and helpless, shaking arms barely having the strength to pull himself to the slime-covered stone ledge.
But that was nothing compared to the jolt of sublime te
rror he felt when he caught sight of his hands in the last sliver of moonlight, ears finally registering the most horrific words he could fathom echoing inside his skull.
“But why did you take that ugly little piece of copper twine from his corpse? I got chills just looking at it.”
Cold laughter tore at Alex’s horrified soul. “I felt that too. At first, I didn’t even want to look at that worthless piece of trash. Filthy. Disgusting. Unclean. But for some strange reason, it just glowed in my eyes, and finally I truly saw it. Then I had the strangest vision.”
The other voice snorted. “Vision? You? Drunken delusion is more like it.”
“Laugh all you like, fool. I was promised seven lifetimes worth of luck. Seven lifetimes! If only I would take this ring and accept its burden, I would savor seven rebirths where I was blessed in power and fortune. Heaven on earth!”
His companion’s voice had turned serious, though Alex hardly heard a word, his ears roaring with the sound of his own thundering heart.
“Shihong, I think that ring must be cursed. I feel nothing but darkness when I look at it. When I look at you.”
“I know!” snapped the other man. “It’s cursed. How could it be otherwise? I’m no fool. But I’m telling you, the promise was made by the gods themselves! Even should I die in this vile place, my soul, at least, will not be reincarnated as a hungry ghost, no matter how many sacrifices we perform. Seven golden lifetimes and a pardon for all my sins, and all I had to do was claim that corpse’s ring!”
Their conversation was abruptly shut off, along with the last slivers of moonlight, when the massive stone finally slid back into place with a crash, and Alex felt true terror for the first time that he could recall.
He was alone in the bowels of a massive cavern complex filled with malevolent shadow beasts and who knew what else, with not a shred of food, clothing, or a single weapon to his name.
And worst of all, far worse, an ancient promise had been broken. A covenant Alex somehow sensed had been honored each and every time he had made that same foolish choice, over who knew how many lifetimes, had just been shattered.
The ring sworn to him as his birthright each time he entered this world, his sanctuary, his salvation, was gone.
All his resources, all his treasures.
An entire massive library he had swindled from his hated foes.
Gone.
Alex just sat there at the edge of the massive underground pool he had been thrown into, just trying to comprehend the gravity of his situation.
Quickness check made!
Only just dodging aside when a school of ravenous spirit fish swarmed the spot his lower legs had been dangling in, Alex so despondent he could barely move.
A jolt flooded his veins with terror that forced him to his feet, his Soul Sight only pinging a heartbeat before his foes had struck, having clustered and raced through the waters in unison only in that heartbeat.
A coordinated attack. By fish.
He couldn’t help chuckling bitterly. A part of him wanted to give up. Even the gods thought nothing of betraying him.
He truly was as good as dead.
“The hell I will. You hear me? The hell I’ll give up!” Alex roared to the heavens, the hoots and hollers of creatures racing through the darkness the only reply he heard.
Alex swallowed as he sensed predators closing in from the far entrance of the terrain, making their way through the broken stony ruins of some lost building or temple that had been built in this cavern, countess centuries ago.
Flowing together as a pack.
Getting ready for the kill.
Alex’s heart surged with adrenaline.
He was beyond grateful his Qi Perception had evolved to Rank 6, allowing him to sense his surroundings in the dark and feel everyone’s place upon the board of his surroundings as if they were all pins poking the palm of his hand.
“We were betrayed, little fox,” said a despondent voice he recognized all too well. “All declarations of an honorable game were but pretext. A ruse. Our opponents happy to play by the rules only for so long as victory seemed certain.”
“They took my ring,” Alex hissed. “My ring! I thought… I know it sounds silly, even arrogant, but I thought that worthless piece of copper twine was beneath everyone’s bother, and always had been. For like, ever.”
Bitter laughter rang through his mind. “Not silly at all, Alex. It was part of the bargain struck. If you were truly too foolish to embrace seven lives as sweet as any dream, the plain ring you chose with no treasures save the works you had already written would at least be yours, if nothing else in this life.”
Alex swallowed. “And now it’s gone.”
“And now it’s gone.”
“WiFu. I’m surrounded by spirit beasts. Smart spirit beasts. Coordinating their movements, closing in unison!”
Silence met his declaration.
“Master, what do I do? I have nothing to my name! What do I do?”
“Alex. I can only give you one piece of advice.”
“What’s that?”
“Survive.”
Alex blinked, outrage overriding his ability to speak.
“Good. Then listen!” WiFu’s voice rang with a sudden odd intensity. Alex couldn’t have interrupted if he had tried. “Our enemies committed the gravest of sins. They dared to break covenant, thinking they could force a victory with your final death. Forcing you out of the game for all time!” Dark laughter filled Alex’s terrified soul. “Those fools thought the card they were forced to surrender would be spent in a foolish effort to rescue you from the trap you now find yourself in. Leaving us no better off than before, and you far, far worse. But they were wrong. Wrong! I will hold this card until the final gambit of the final game approaches, and I shall wipe their smirks away from their vile faces with their own bloody tears! You and me, we will destroy all they hold dear, Alex!”
“WiFu. Silver Fox! I’m naked in the bowels of this rift. I have nothing! Spirit beasts are approaching! What do I do?”
“All you need to do is survive. I’m counting on you, Alex. Don’t let me down.”
“WiFu! I need more than that! What the hell do I do?”
Utter silence was his only answer.
“Fuck!” Alex hissed when the soft padding steps of a stalking predator pinged upon his senses, Qi Perception all that truly let him sense it in time.
A desperate look around and up, at last appreciating the opportunity before him.
Quickness check made!
Bullrush successful!
Your foe has missed his mark!
The crash of Qi-infused flesh battering stone below could be heard as Alex roosted upon an ancient broken pillar some twenty feet in the air, the roof of the cavern another hundred or so feet higher still.
Perhaps far higher. As if the true dimensions of this cavern were now somehow stretching beyond all belief, all comprehension, for all that everything, save the creatures so eager for his blood below, was utterly still.
And Alex could now make out the baleful stares of first one, then another, then yet another pair of hate-filled yellow eyes peering his way from the flagstones below the pillar he roosted upon. Eyes promising the most hideous of deaths, brutal punishment for daring even to exist, finding himself before predators who would gladly eat him alive.
Qi Perception check made! There’s more than one way to circle shattered ruins!
Alex felt it, then. A tingling sense of death on the nape of his neck.
It didn’t matter that he was twenty feet above his foes, and that nothing pinged brightly to his senses.
It didn’t matter that he was exhausted and down to his last handful of Qi points.
All that mattered was that he gave nothing away, frozen like a statue at howling beasts attempting to distract him from below...
Until he all but felt the pressure of air shifting behind him as a hideous foe leaped down for his throat.
Adderstrike! Adderstrike! You
have shattered your foe’s jaw! You have bruised your foe’s neck! Foe is stunned! Foe has crashed to the ground!
Nether pack eats downed foe!
In one fluid motion Alex pivoted and struck, hands flashing in a furious blur, gazing into baleful death just an instant before he could be sent crashing back into the River of Souls, depleted and drained, too exhausted to fight the awful currents yet again.
Adderstrike! He felt a furious burst of satisfaction even as his soul screamed with terror, looking death in the eye. Rank 1 Bronze strength and Adderstrike together had shattered tooth and jaw of a terrible beast so ruthless, so calculating, Alex couldn’t help but wonder if it was a tool of vindictive gods still breaking all the rules they could, happy to smash even the board, so long as they could grind just one particular loathsome pawn under their feet.
For even with a jugular crushed by two more successive blows, draining Alex to a meager 2.5 points, the jackal-like abomination did everything it could to slam Alex down into the ravenous pit of darkbeasts below.
Finesse check made!
But there really was more to battle than strength and quickness, vital as those stats were.
Coordination was also vital, Alex slamming into the broken pillar, his legs hooking the far side as his foe flew overhead, getting off one final vindictive slash with claws aimed for Alex’s eyes, quickly blocked by a now-lacerated forearm, healing within seconds from the notification flashing in his mind’s eye as the howling beast crashed into his fellow abominations...
That quickly tore their own weakened pack member to bloody ribbons.
But what truly chilled Alex to the quick was the way the largest of the pack, snarling and snapping at all his brethren, tore into the shrieking, mortally-wounded member’s skull, swallowing its beast core in a single bite.
And the lupine smile it sent Alex’s way as its pack trotted off froze Alex’s spine.
Alex shuddered in horrified disbelief; the greater spirit beast’s intentions now utterly clear as it gazed at Alex with coldly calculating eyes just as savvy as any cultivator’s.
His ultimate foe would deny Alex all sustenance.
Silver Fox & The Western Hero: Warrior's Oath: A LitRPG/Wuxia Novel - Book 4 Page 28