Zeng Zeng, the most powerful of the rank and file who radiated a basic cultivator’s vitality and quickness was fast enough to turn around and gaze upon Alex with a surprised snarl, but not fast enough to stop the Qi-enhanced blow that cracked against Zeng’s reinforced breastplate, the spirit-beast enhanced cuir bouilli backed by bronze actually strong enough to withstand Alex’s deadly blow, for all that the man was jolted back.
Zeng Zeng’s flashed his black-toothed smile. “You’ll pay for that, worm!” he roared, unsheathing an oversized dao that looked more than capable of slicing Alex in half-
Quickness check successful!
-before collapsing to his knees as blood sprayed from his mouth, a look of incomprehension on his features before he tumbled over in death.
Adderstrike! Adderstrike! Adderstrike!
Alex flashed the dying man, whose chest had been caved in with the force of a freight train, a deadly smile. “Nice armor. Too bad it couldn’t survive multiple Qi strikes chained together. Damn shame, asshole. I hope you rot in hell.”
“Alex?” Yong Ming was looking at him with an odd mix of dazed incomprehension and horror.
She actually flinched when a desperate Alex approached, knowing they had only seconds before a guard saw evidence of what had just happened or someone raised the alarm.
Alex swallowed at the sudden flash of terror in her eyes before realizing it wasn’t his face she was gazing at, so much as his hand.
Covered in blood and gore.
Alex’s eyes widened, only then taking in what had happened, his foe’s miraculously strong armor surviving his first blow near unscathed. But the second blow had cracked it and the third shattered it, as if whatever spirit beast Qi that had given it such temporary resilience had been utterly drained away by the successive blows, and his final blow had struck the man’s chest when ribs and sternum had no doubt already been broken along with the shattered armor, his final strike exploding into the man’s unprotected sternum, fragments of armor tearing through his opponent’s flesh while harming Alex not at all in the invulnerable instant he struck, as if his fist had pierced his foe with shrapnel with the final blow.
Alex’s heart was pounding, wondering what would have happened if his foe’s back-plate hadn’t caught the shrapnel, if it had torn completely through and into Yong Ming right behind him…
He desperately pushed away the thought, ignoring the girl’s shudder as his hands frantically felt over the chain links, desperate to find what he needed in time.
There!
Pulling apart the wax-sealed links with a surge of unbearable relief as a shuddering Yong Ming found herself pulled to her feet, his bloody hand pulling off her collar a second later.
Her horrified gaze became one of wonder. “I can’t believe how close I came to death, just because I let my temper, and then panic, get the best of me.”
She forced herself to squeeze the gore-spattered hand she refused to fear any longer, bowing solemnly over it. “May all the gods bless you, Alex!” Her gaze grew intent, and Alex could sense her sudden desperation. “We have to get out of here. We have no time to lose!”
Alex jerked a nod before gazing at the bodies at his feet, his blood-spattered hand, and the huddling women gazing at the pair of them with desperation and terror.
“Please don’t hurt us!” pled one. “We won’t tell a soul what happened, we swear it!”
“Better yet, take us with you!” begged another.
Desperate eyes belonging to a face once beautiful beseeched him. “Please, hero. Free us and let us follow. Even if we perish, there could be no worse fate than what those monsters are planning, what they already did to us!”
Alex nodded, gazing Yong Ming’s way. “Fortunately, they went down so quickly they didn’t even have time for a scream. But the crack of a broken breastplate surely caught someone’s ear.” He passed her Zeng Zeng’s dao. “Can you use that? Cut the girls free and run that way! I’ll meet up with you when I can.”
He pointed the way he had sensed the gentlest reverberations of woodland Qi when gathering alchemical ingredients earlier, after helping Yong Ming cut the bindings constraining the women, suddenly certain that direction was far less perilous than any other.
“Alex...” Yong Ming left the word hanging.
He flashed a bleak smile. “I’m not done here. Not by a long shot. I’m not sure how this is going to play out, but whether it’s an hour or a day from now, I will come back for you.”
The shaken girl he had rescued nodded solemnly, an unfathomable look upon her features. “I’ll lead these girls away. But as soon as they’re safe...”
“Don’t worry about me, just go!” Alex hissed, gazing at the display of bodies and gore, knowing exactly what he had to do.
Though only seconds had passed, when a pair of rapidly approaching guards stumbled upon the scene, they saw neither captives nor bodies, catching sight of nothing that gave away what precisely had happened. They quickly exchanged confused glances before racing to the flap of the wagon holding the caravan’s most precious contents.
One guard opened the flap. Alex could hear sobs and whimpers from voices far too young within. “Spirit! What happened to Zeng Zeng and the girls? Are they being washed? Master Scar expects that cultivating wench on her knees before him, and he cares not what she smells like! And there are no men here. Are they with the children? Those fools should know better!”
A hauntingly beautiful voice washed over the man. “None have dared claim the prizes I guard, mortal. The pact sealed with your master’s blood is kept still.”
Alex could sense the guard’s frown, the man beside him glancing about furtively. “But what about Zeng Zeng? He was supposed to collect that bitch and bring her to our master!”
Derisive laughter washed over the suddenly pale and shaking man. “You dare to burden me with your petty concerns? Virgins alone do I guard and preserve. I care nothing for the mortal squabbles you silly fools burden yourself with beyond these sacred silk walls! Now begone, mortal, lest you suffer the fate of all those who dare to gaze upon the sacred virgin flesh that I alone may cherish and savor!”
The man blanched, quickly stepping back and replacing the flap, venting a deep sigh of relief when it seemed the spirit had no further interest in him.
He turned back to his companion. “Damn, Master Scar is not going to...” his voice cut off as he gazed upon the decapitated remains of his partner, only to gasp and wheeze when a fist exploded into his chest, struggling just to breathe as his world became a roaring sea of pain, superseded only by horror when he gazed upon the terrible dao glittering coldly in the moonlight, held in the hands of a furious wild-eyed Ruidian.
He blinked away final desperate thoughts, the hot sting of steel kissing flesh becoming the whistling sigh of a torn throat spilling away all his blood in a shower of regret, his spirit crashing into the River of Souls a heartbeat before his body, equipment, and all trace of the blood pool he had made were transferred into the plainest looking copper ring imaginable, as had every other slaver Alex had bested that night.
Alex took a deep, shuddering breath, chilled by the odd communion in the final seconds of his opponent's life, before he claimed all his enemy’s potential for himself.
You have slain 4 slavers and 1 Rank 4 Basic Cultivator. Do you wish to process their potential at this time?
Alex gave a cold shake of his head. He feared a long night ahead of him, and he had no doubt that the killing had just begun.
Still, he had depleted most of his Qi and had to recover 9 of his 14 points if he were to quantize it. He had grown so much already since first coming to this world. And though many millions could, in fact, cultivate, he suspected he was unique in having an internally visualized interface that allowed him to quantize and categorize his talents and capabilities so very well, to say nothing of appreciating at all times just how fatigued, damaged, or close to death he was.
And he’d be a fool to dare the final step of h
is plan at anything less than full strength.
But for right now, depleted as he was, he knew there was one thing he still had to do before taking the handful of minutes needed to recuperate his energies.
After expending yet another Qi point using Bullrush to slip past guards and far closer to the only part of the caravan encampment he could possibly justify being at that hour, he soon found himself exactly where he needed to be.
An irate guard snarled as he flipped open the burlap sack of the wagon, the quartermaster glaring with cold fury, wearing nothing but a hastily donned shirt and cuirass of bronze and spirit beast hide, much like the one Zeng Zeng had worn, with a gladius in hand, perfect for close in-fighting in a cramped wagon. He also radiated a basic cultivator’s strength. Which made sense, Alex thought, as Scar would be loath to have his supplies guarded by a powerless man, or by a man so strong he would dare risk robbing Scar blind and vanishing in the middle of the night.
The bulbous-nosed man glared down at Alex, his breath smelling of rank spirits, and Alex couldn’t help but intuit with his Qi Perception the terrified bed companion hiding in the furs within.
“How dare you bother me at this hour, cur! Do you truly think you are one of us? Zeng Zeng himself would think twice before troubling me in the dead of night, and you are still the lowest of slaves! Give me one reason why I shouldn’t strike you dead!”
“The fact that you don’t have spirit-beast pants on, so your femoral artery needs a new friend?”
Alex gave no tells, not even blinking when he launched himself forward in one smooth practiced motion, a maneuver he had practiced with Liu Li countless times before.
Left hand slamming forward, locking against the slaver’s right wrist and pinning his blade while slamming the boniest part of his forehead into the quartermaster’s fragile nose, utterly stunning the man and scrambling his ability to react during the heartbeat Alex’s gladius lashed out, not for the gut or groin but just below, tearing back even more savagely than he had thrust, biting deep into his target.
And all without expending a single iota of stored Qi energy, leaving his opponent too stunned even to cry out.
The quartermaster’s mouth opened like a gulping fish as if trying to process both the odd words and the deadly blows received, rapidly weakening sword hand unable to break free of Alex’s fearsome grip, collapsing with a sigh only seconds later, the desperate hand struggling futilely to clamp tight the gushing femoral artery spraying the contents of the wagon a bright pink as Alex leaped inside. The man at last slacked to deathly stillness when the blood flow slowed to a trickle, Alex dragging the now inert quartermaster further inside and securing the flap before anyone could look their way.
And before the whimpering slave huddling in blankets could look his way, the body and the pool of blood were gone with a single caress of Alex’s divine treasure.
“Face down. Hands behind your back. Say nothing. Do nothing!” Alex hissed at the trembling young man who couldn’t be any older than Alex, a fellow slave Alex recalled gazing furtively around with wide, haunted eyes whenever he was seen outside, yet afraid to look anyone in the eye, no matter how clean his skin and fair his clothes were compared to everyone else’s, the reasons why now painfully apparent.
And Alex wouldn’t shame the young man. He felt nothing but a furious pity, a desire to lash out and slay whoever had broken that youth, but of course, the quartermaster was already dead. So all Alex could do was intimidate the young man to terrified stillness, so neither features nor actions could he make out as Alex rapidly began claiming the contents of the wagon, at first touching each item individually before struck with a sudden epiphany, recalling the circles he would draw in the dirt when claiming large chunks of earth or plant life for his garden, recalling as well how his ring could drink many gallons in a heartbeat when he plunged his ring in water.
He didn’t even wince in pain as his gladius pricked his own flesh, quickly drawing crude rings within the wagon, claiming the entirety of the wagon with ten hastily drawn rings.
“Bound by will and blood, I claim all encircled contents as my own!” His eyes widened with fiercest delight when he found the wagon completely empty of everything save the shivering youth.
Who gasped, seconds later, when the collar around his neck was removed.
The lad actually cried out when Alex grabbed his hand, putting a sheathed gladius, one of the many short swords he had claimed along with a fortune in arms, armaments, and general supplies, and whispered cool instructions to the youth now locked in a state between horror, shame, and fierce resolve.
“What do they call you?”
“Worm,” the young man sobbed.
Alex clapped his shoulder. “Are you alive, Worm?”
The youth shuddered and nodded.
Alex chuckled softly. “Correct. Unlike the quartermaster who is very dead, you are very much alive. Do you know what that makes you, Worm?”
“Filth?”
Alex smacked his head. “Is a soldier wounded in battle with a sword blow that ripped open his belly any less of a man than he was before fighting?”
“N-No… if he survives.”
“Correct. Even if that poor soldier is captured and tortured, his fingernails torn out of their sockets, his teeth smashed out, he’s no less of a man, right?”
Worm spent an endless moment of time considering this. “No. He’s damaged. Broken, but he’s no less of a man.”
“Correct. You understand that truth, but not the truth before you. What those bastards did? Was just another kind of injury. One designed to break the spirit and leave the body intact. But I’ll tell you a secret. A very powerful secret. Our foes are fools. They think your spirit is weak. They think a simple battlefield injury can destroy you. Can break you. But your body is intact. And you outsmarted them, lulled them into complacency, so the injuries they inflicted were far, far less than they could have been. Because you still have your limbs, you still have your life. You can still fight!”
Worm’s eyes widened, considering Alex’s words. “But they...”
“Thought they could break you with the mildest of injuries and some cruel laughter. They’re fools. To truly break a person, you need to cut off their arms, their legs, burn out their tongue and eyes. Even then, a committed enough foe can still become a thorn in their side. The secret they forgot, Worm, is the only way to truly break someone is to kill them. Whereas you are very much intact. Most definitely capable of fighting, and the moment you laugh at the thought of their mocking words, you become an enemy they can never master!”
The young man’s eyes suddenly blazed. He held his blade with a fierce, tight grip. “I hate those bastards,” the youth whispered. “I hate them so much!”
Alex nodded. “Good. Now the first step in reclaiming yourself. A new name. How about Wolf? A fierce and loyal brother-in-arms more than capable of tearing out his enemy’s throats.”
The boy lowered his head. “I like it. But my real name is—”
“—Something none of these bastards ever need to hear. Something you share in secret with one of the girls you’ll help rescue. A girl who has suffered the same war wounds you have. A girl who needs a man who can love and cherish her, no matter life’s cruelties. A girl who would love and cherish you in turn. To that woman you will one day give your name. To me? You are Wolf. Now follow me, Wolf. We have captives to save and enemies to kill.”
There was something in the boy’s eyes. A fire Alex didn’t expect to see. Having only hoped to salvage a broken boy’s pride from suicide’s caress, he found himself instead gazing into amber eyes crackling with intelligence and bitter resolve. And when Alex took the time to kit himself for battle with lamellar armor, helmet, greaves and gambeson, Wolf asked for the same. And perhaps it said something for the strange moment of kinship between them that Alex didn’t hesitate to pull the treasures forth, along with gladius and fangtian ji exactly matching his own.
The young man held his weapons lik
e a soldier would, yet his perfect pale skin and intense gaze belonged to a nobleman.
Alex bowed his head, passing his new battle brother several healing elixirs and a fierce smile. “Ready for some killing?”
And the cold smile Wolf flash backed fit his namesake. “Damn right I am!”
“Good,” Alex said, quickly filling in the young noble eager to redeem himself the next step to his plan.
8
Peng’s dark eyes flared open the moment Alex and his new friend crept to the sleeping slaves, having spent an anxious moment slipping past what were now panicked, furious guards; Scar roaring loudest of all for a search party, the foul fire mage sending one man to screaming with a surge of his will and the collar; thankfully, perhaps, one of those whose collars Alex hadn’t gotten around to tweaking, promising dire retribution if the men didn’t all stay put, too anxious to stare at them as he raced around the camp, yelling at random men as Scar led half the remaining slavers after their lost prizes and what they assumed were treacherous men daring to rob from their master.
“What the hell did you do, boy?” Peng snapped, before frowning at Wolf. “Worm? Why are you...” He blinked, as if a dozen things were clicking for him at once.
“It’s Wolf.” Wolf’s words were curt and cold.
Peng, to his credit, only nodded. “A good choice.” He turned to Alex. “The men are ready, though your timing is piss poor. Our targets are very much awake and expecting trouble!”
Alex quickly slammed Wolf to the ground, who had the sense not to fight as he covered them both with furs, all the slaves now in a haphazard bundle, as one of the pair of harried looking guards glared at them before continuing their hasty rounds, muttering amongst themselves about traitors, swearing that even the quartermaster was in on it, doubling Scar’s fury.
Peng cursed. “The quartermaster fled? That fool’s our ticket to supplies!” His eyes then widened as Alex lifted the furs, a dozen shiny spears now in evidence. He quickly covered the spears as a second pair of anxious-looking guards glared at them for only a second before continuing their rounds.
Silver Fox & The Western Hero: Warrior Reforged: A LitRPG/Wuxia Novel - Book 2 Page 10