General Lai led their group through the pitch-black tunnel, ignoring the vine as they searched for its origin. As they moved, Yue Bing saw several red tendrils wriggling in the earth like worms. They struggled to return to their retreating parent vine. Some were lucky enough to make it back, but others broke off and withered, leaving behind only a faint red gas invisible to most cultivators.
Sensing the stray vitality, Yue Bing’s ankh let out a light suction force and absorbed it. Then, striking while the iron was hot, it reached out toward the unretracted red tendrils, forming a fifty-foot kill zone around her as its red runes glowed brightly.
You should stop, she scolded the artifact. Not only did she not want to be exposed, but the act of absorbing blood vitality made her sick to her stomach. Seeing the Southern blood cultivators had only made matters worse; the carnage they wrought on the battlefield had left a distinct and bloody impression in her psyche.
Such good food, and you’re letting it go to waste, a voice replied. It was a voice she hadn’t heard in a long time, the voice of the ankh. Their vitality is very nourishing, and their resentment even more so. Besides, haven’t you always wanted to reach the next stage in cultivating your secret technique? This is the best way.
Yue Bing’s stomach heaved. You want me to feed on vitality and resentment too? she questioned. If it wasn’t for your miraculous healing techniques, I’d give you to my brother Ling Dong and have him melt you down for scrap.
There’s nothing wrong with harvesting what already exists, the ankh said defensively. Besides, I’m stealing it from those who would do harm to others. I’m both saving people and preventing harm. It’s the perfect solution.
Yue Bing sighed. Eat what you will, but leave me out of it, she said.
In truth, the ankh’s words were uncomfortable for more than one reason. She could feel a light tingling sensation running down her back as the ochre aura seeped into the ankh. Contrary to what she expected, the ankh wasn’t shining with malevolence like the dark artifact it was. Instead, it felt pure and holy, not unlike the jade aura of merit that surrounded her and a few of the cultivators around her. But she knew it was a cover for its true nature, a disguise meant to deceive and ensnare.
You’ll come around in time, the ankh said. You’re just letting the world prejudice your actions. Then, having received her approval, it began drinking deeply. It wasn’t just the red tendrils that were disappearing now, but vitality from the vine itself. A steady stream was being siphoned from its strong body as they traveled. Unbeknownst to her companions, the stalk they left behind was withering and wilting.
They traveled for a quarter hour before arriving at a fork in the road. There, they saw a second group of vines joining together with the first group. They combined into a single large trunk more than twelve feet in diameter. The larger vine was slowly but surely sucking back the branch vines into its thick body, the imperfect process leaving a green and red ooze where they joined together.
General Lai slashed the wall with his sword, leaving a deep gash in the shape of an arrow. Then he carved a few characters below the arrow as instructions for those who would follow. They continued down the tunnel, and the process repeated itself many times. Sometimes it was four branch vines. At other times it was just two. In all cases, they converged onto a larger one that led farther behind enemy lines.
After wandering for two hours, they finally entered a room unlike anything they’d ever seen. Four large vines entered the chamber, one from each of the four cardinal directions. They converged on a large bloody bud at the center of the room that writhed and pulsed with each passing breath. With every squirm of the bud, the vines shivered and pumped large amounts of vitality into it. A bloodred liquid oozed out from it, so thick that even the weakest soldiers could see it.
Main bud aside, the vines in this room were also different. Each one was covered in large bloody pustules that seemed ready to burst at any moment. Yue Bing approached one of them and swept it with her incandescent force. A shadow twitched and struggled within the pustule as she made contact. To her surprise, it was shaped like a short human with a long tail and tiny horns. A malevolent ochre glow confirmed its identity beyond the shadow of a doubt.
“General Lai, you need to see this,” she said.
The grizzled general flew up beside her and frowned as his incandescent force probed the bud.
“Have you seen something like this before?” he asked.
“I haven’t,” Yue Bing said, shaking her head. “But I have little doubt that this creature has devilish origins. We should be careful in here. It would be extremely bothersome if they hatched before we finished.”
General Lai nodded. He held his hand up and let out a wave of pressure. The many soldiers in the room stopped what they were doing and converged around him. “No touching anything,” he instructed. “Once the colonels and I have formulated a plan, we’ll let you know.” Then he looked to the two colonels. “Would either of you happen to have any incendiary supplies with you?”
“That’s a negative, sir,” Colonel Bai said. “Since we weren’t assigned to a sabotage mission, we didn’t bring such supplies with us.”
“A pity,” General Bai muttered.
“I might be able to do something about that,” Yue Bing said. She hesitated before pulling a deep-red talisman from her bag of holding. It emanated a frightening pressure that caused even General Lai’s eyes to narrow. “But this is a last resort,” she said. “I’m sure you can tell the value of this talisman at a glance. It’s a protective treasure my master left me, and I’m very hesitant to use it.”
General Lai nodded. “We’ll try to avoid using it if possible. Let’s look at the bud in the center first.”
Yue Bing and the two colonels followed him onto a platform where the bloody bud was located. The moment they stepped onto it, the bud opened, revealing a thick pool of red and ochre liquid.
“This liquid contains vital essence and resentment,” Yue Bing said. “It’s being concentrated in the center using a mysterious formation. Even with my skills in formations, I’m unable to fathom its inner workings.” Though the concentration of vitality didn’t surprise her, what did surprise her was how fast it was pumping. It was much faster than her ankh could absorb discreetly.
“Just what are they trying to make?” General Lai asked with disgust. “And how many lives did it take to create this thing? Thousands? Tens of thousands?”
“We should destroy it,” Colonel Ming said softly. “This plant has slain far too many of our brothers. It will kill many more if we don’t kill it.”
“I don’t disagree with you,” General Lai said. “I’m just concerned about those pustules. If we try to destroy the bud, they might just hatch. Now, I’m no expert, but I’d hate to be here when that happens. Those things feel dangerous.”
The general and his two colonels continued bickering in the background, but Yue Bing had a new object of focus. A few moments ago, the allocation of life force had changed. The vitality in the bud had stopped accumulating. Instead, it began flowing backward and into the vines themselves. Simultaneously, the vitality in each of the buds began to surge.
Did we trigger some sort of trap? she thought.
Before she could warn anyone, a splashing sound filled the room. Everyone looked to a nearby pustule, where a red-skinned monstrosity emerged. Its black beady eyes were filled with malevolence, while its body was filled with another frightening pressure, the pressure of bone forging. It leapt onto a nearby soldier, who screamed as its sharp claws dug into his chest. The creature died under the combined assault of a dozen soldiers.
Paff. Paff. Paff.
One pustule after another burst, each one releasing the aura of an initial-bone-forging cultivator. Pandemonium erupted as the soldiers fought for their lives. In the span of thirty breaths, a few hundred creatures had emerged. General Lai’s flying swords whipped around the room, hacking tiny arms and heads, which regrew and reattached themselves in a
matter of seconds.
“We need to evacuate,” he said after a few more waves. “We’ll lose if we don’t find more favorable terrain. Soldiers, form a spearhead formation around Dr. Yue. I’ll be the spear tip, and we’ll force our way out of here.”
“What about the bud?” Colonel Ming asked.
“What about it?” General Lai snapped. He slashed out with a sword, creating a thin red line in the bud, which quickly disappeared. “Does it look like we have time to deal with it? It wouldn’t be a problem if we had incendiaries, but it would take me at least a half hour to whittle down that flower’s life force. And that was if it stopped siphoning extra essence from heaven knows where.”
“General Lai is right,” Yue Bing said. “That bud has absorbed the vitality of thousands of men and the resentment of an entire battlefield. It would be far too difficult to destroy it in a short while. A dead soldier is a useless soldier. We can always consider another course of action if we make it out.”
“Fine,” Colonel Ming said, joining in the spearhead formation. The soldiers’ auras melded together as they released one sword each. They poured their qi into these focuses that fell under the control of General Lai. He used the power of these fifty-odd swords to create a devastating attack at the tip of their formation. Any devils caught in his range were reduced to bloody smears. Their group advanced along the blood-soaked ground toward one of the chamber’s four exits. As they moved, the small devils attacked their flanks, occasionally wounding the defending cultivators.
“Once we make it to a corridor, we’ll be able to fight them,” General Lai said. “Earth cultivators, get ready to funnel them. Fire and metal cultivators, be ready to attack in rotation.” As he pushed them toward the tunnel, he pressed his core-transmission jade to his mouth and muttered a message. Neither Yue Bing nor the colonels were privy to its contents.
An intense thirty breaths passed as they crossed a quarter of the room in their retreat from the center. A loud chattering had filled the chamber as the small red devils came to their senses. Instead of charging directly toward them, they congregated into small battle teams and formed hand seals. These incantations resulted in the summoning of tiny, shard-like blades that could be controlled mentally while they attacked with their claws, teeth, and tails.
Seeing this, General Lai picked up the pace. They lost five more of their comrades by the time they arrived at one of the four corridors. Yet instead of having them head in, General Lai motioned for them to stop. Yue Bing and the others looked around in confusion, but the reason soon became apparent. Even more chattering was coming from inside the narrow passageway. A few breaths later, a second horde of impish devils appeared before them.
“Now might be a good time to use that trump card,” General Lai said to Yue Bing, who summoned the dark-red talisman.
“I can attack one direction but not both,” she said. “Whatever you think is best, I’ll support you.” On the one hand, they could aim to destroy as many of these tiny devils as possible and try to destroy the bud in the center. On the other hand, they could try to carve a path through the tunnel and attempt to escape.
The tiny devils hesitated when they saw the talisman in her hands. They halted just twenty feet away from them, their weapons ready. Was their fear instinctual, or were these creatures capable of thought and reason? Regardless of the reason, their hesitation gave the wounded troops a chance to catch their breath. It also gave General Lai a chance to think.
“There’s really no reason why this can’t be resolved peacefully,” a man’s voice suddenly said.
They looked back toward the center of the room, where a figure had unknowingly appeared. He wore long black robes that covered his face, his wide hood revealing only the faintest bit of pale skin. “You don’t want to waste your precious treasure—or your lives, for that matter—and I don’t want to waste my blood-born devil spawn. Why don’t we take a step back and relax? I’m sure we can come to an agreement.”
Yue Bing and the two colonels looked to General Lai. He sighed before pulling back their sword formation and sending the swords back to his soldiers. Then, he waved his hand. Their forces formed a circular formation and summoned spears. Their group of elite soldiers now looked like a veritable pincushion. It was a defensive formation built to stall for as much time as possible.
Chapter 11
Seeing General Lai shift to a defensive formation, the black-robed man waved his hand. The blood-born devil spawn retreated a dozen feet back and sheathed their summoned weapons into small green membranes affixed to their mostly naked bodies. Meanwhile, the soldiers took the opportunity to steady their qi and catch their breath. The tension was palpable, and even the slightest misstep could set off a bloody massacre.
“I must applaud you for discovering my plan,” the man said. “Now that you know what I’m up to, it’s impossible for me to continue.” He sighed and shook his head. “I can only harvest this pitiful amount of resentment and vitality and leave before your reinforcements arrive. You can consider this your victory.”
“It’s a greater victory than you think,” General Lai said, grinning. “Reinforcements will be arriving any minute. Lucky for you, I value the lives of my soldiers. You should take your devil spawn and leave before they arrive. Forget about taking the bud.”
“You’re bluffing,” the man said flatly, stroking the bloody lotus bud. “Do you really think I’d abandon this? It took me seventeen years to find a seed, and ten more years to spread it throughout the battlefield. All without anyone noticing. No, it’s you and your men who should retreat. I don’t particularly care about them, but raising devil spawn is rather troublesome. It’s a win-win proposal, don’t you think?”
“Come now, I’m sure it’s easy enough to find blood vitality and resentment in the south,” General Lai countered. “Otherwise, how could you raise so many blood artists?”
To Yue Bing, he sent an entirely different message. We need to stall for time, he said. Reinforcements are on their way, but they’ll need an incense time.
“You know nothing about my situation,” the man said. Then he looked toward Yue Bing. “I see that you haven’t put that talisman away, darling. Would you mind? I rather don’t like negotiating with a weapon pointed at me.”
At General Lai’s signal, Yue Bing stored it. Her gaze shifted to a nearby devil spawn as she wracked her brain for a way to continue the conversation. “These devil spawn don’t seem very efficient,” she remarked. “Wouldn’t it be easier to train troops?”
“Devil spawn listen,” the man said dryly.
“But you could have ten times as many troops,” Yue Bing pointed out.
“I’m not interested in debating the economics of minions,” the man said. “Now tell me, flight or fight? I don’t have all day.”
No matter what, we can’t leave, General Lai sent to her.
Why not? Yue Bing asked.
He wants us out of here, which means that he needs to do something that’s more important than killing an enemy general, General Lai said. And given his behavior, he obviously knows our reinforcements are closing in. If we leave, he wins. I need you to find out why he needs us to leave. You can see things others can’t.
Yue Bing looked around the room while ignoring the devil spawn. Now that she was paying attention, she noticed that the vitality flow had changed. The blood pustules had hatched, so the vital energy was now flowing to the bloody bud with full force. The liquid in the bud’s pool was also much thicker than before and covered in a light ochre sheen.
It’s the bud, she sent to General Lai. The vital essence inside it is reaching some sort of threshold, and he likely doesn’t want it interrupted. She hesitated and gripped her ankh tightly, and it emitted a bloody red cloud that extended toward the pool. The light suction force on her ankh intensified and locked on to the bloody pool within the bud. The ochre sheen on the pool faded slightly, causing the black-robed man to shift uncomfortably. I’ve used my ankh to stop the process. H
e won’t be able to finish harvesting the bud if we stay here.
General Lai’s eyes narrowed. Are those blood arts? Where did you learn those? His tone was grave, almost accusing.
It doesn’t matter where I learned them, Yue Bing said crisply. What matters is that I can buy the time we need. If we don’t stop him, he wins. Then all our men will have died in vain.
The general paused for a moment in thought, then nodded. Do what you need to do.
“I don’t have much time,” the black-robed man said upon noticing that the vital essence pool was no longer accumulating. “I’ll give you thirty breaths to leave, no more.”
As he spoke, the devil spawn in the corridor climbed the walls in the tunnel and entered the main chamber. While it seemed like they were clearing the way for them, they were also moving defensively in front of the bloody bud.
Twenty tense breaths passed. The general said nothing, but it was clear to Yue Bing that he was engaging in mental communications with his officers. Five more breaths passed before General Lai spoke. I don’t care where you learned what you’re doing—keep doing it. We’ll protect you for as long as we can.
The soldiers sent out swords in unison. Swords now circled their spear formation, which tightened around Yue Bing.
As the soldiers dug in their heels, the chattering resumed. The horde of devil spawn drew their weapons and attacked their defensive formation. They split into two groups that attacked their formation like a pincer. Shields, spears, and swords clashed with claw, tail, and dagger. Both man and devil screamed as warm blood splashed onto the compacted soil.
It’s either the devil spawn or the bud now, Yue Bing sent to the general, noting that their groups had purposefully left the large plant open. It was a taunt of sorts—they could take their chances and try to destroy the bud with the talisman, but if they did, they’d be overrun by the horde.
Prioritize the left flank, the general instructed.
Violet Heart Page 11