The cultivator glared at him. “And if she had been forced to watch that bitter twist to the glorious tale you strove to weave for her? It would be just reward for the folly you so happily embraced.” He gave an angry shake of his head. “No, she did not. I requested she be cloistered between matches, to which the judges readily agreed, enjoying the fantasy of her innocent form gracing the bloody arena sands as a performer more than a contester. An angel of the arena celebrating the dance of battle, cheered and applauded where you are scorned and despised.”
Alex winced under the man’s disapproving gaze.
“You were a fool not to leave when you had the chance, Alex Hammer. Almost as much of a fool as men who would dare the darkest of misfortunes, hounding that which is best left alone.”
“Thank you for telling me that. I’m glad she didn’t have to see me… I didn’t realize it would be like this.”
“But now you do. In no uncertain terms, you know all too well the fate waiting for you if dare hesitate or hold back for even a moment! And with that single act of asinine hesitation, your demise is almost assured. Even after Elder Panheu made the unprecedented move of speaking your behalf. On a Ruidian slave’s behalf. And you have the gall to mock his grace with the most pathetic display I have ever seen!”
Alex shook his head. “I was only trying to keep from killing that stupid kid. That’s all!”
In a flash, Zhao Doushi was before him, Alex jerking back in sudden fright, chilled by the speed even more than the crackling heat in the man’s eyes. “And what did that foolish act of misplaced mercy buy you? Only that man’s contempt! You spared him only to have him smash in your teeth and spit in your face, glorying in his mockery of a victory and eager to watch your death to come, blaming you, personally, for being forced out of the competition, never mind that the fool wouldn’t have survived two rounds against anyone willing to fight for their lives!”
The hot-eyed cultivator grabbed Alex’s battered uniform. “Because make no mistake, Ruidian. You have no friends here. The judges want to see you dead. The audience wants to see you dead. The overseers will skew things as best they can to see that outcome occur, before a crowd that could care less! All of them feeling justified in cheering on the death of a Ruidian convict. Do you understand, boy?”
Alex gasped in sudden pain, groaning as the man smacked his injured jaw.
“In this mortal world, strength is everything. You were both incredibly lucky and foolish to have risked yourself in the mad folly that saved the lives of three innocents and made an enemy of a Dark Silver.” He flashed a cold smile. “So what will you do now, when your luck’s run out? No silly girl in desperate need of a hero awaits you, Alex. Just a brutally ugly death before people who despise you and aspirants who see you as nothing more than an obstacle on their path to glory.”
Alex swallowed, dropping his gaze, not daring to say a word.
He was surprised when the man’s powerful fist dropped a small pill and a flask of water in his lap.
You have discovered Lesser Body Cultivation Lozenge. This lozenge will heal a total of five Wound Tiers in any injured mortal, or grant any Body Cultivator 5000 cultivation points. Median market potency unknown.
Alex blinked, speechless, gazing up at the man, not able to read a trace of intention from the man’s gaze as he gave a final snort of contempt and strode to the door, pausing only to say a few final words.
“I struck you unjustly at a time when any injury could mean your death. I would clear the ledger between us.”
Alex swallowed. “Thank you.”
The man’s eyes flashed as he spun around. “Thank me for nothing! This does naught but clear the ledger between us.”
Alex quickly nodded his head. “Understood, Master Zhao Doushi.”
The man sighed, shaking his head. “If you were a body cultivator, I would say take it only when you have a solid day to focus on your chosen technique, embracing that technique as much as possible. But should you take it and rest, your body will naturally revert to healing its own wounds. You have a full day and night to recover, and you can thank a certain master willing to take the other side of a sure-lose wager for that small mercy. But before you surrender to slumber, best you pay close attention to the next fight, Alex.”
Alex nodded solemnly as the man turned and left, carefully sequestering the valuable body cultivation pill in storage, hoping to study it or use it at a future date, assuming he would actually survive to do so. Fortunately, his divine cultivation technique gave him an edge none of his enemies expected. It might not make him supernaturally strong, though perhaps one day… but if nothing else, it did help clear injuries that should have left him weakened and partially crippled, as that monster of a judge Lai Leng had no doubt intended. As to whether or not that judge who so clearly despised him was responsible for the poison-coated whip, Alex didn’t have a shadow of a doubt.
And one day, for what that alchemist had done to him, for what he had done to Liu Li’s family, for what he was trying to do to him even now, Alex would make him pay. Would make his whole treacherous clan pay. A dark oath he swore in his heart, before seeking the calm stillness that was best for most forms of cultivation.
He spent some time embracing Eternal Fox, rejuvenating his body and mind, healing his injuries. In a surprisingly short period of time, he was fine.
His heart and mind were another thing when he was snapped out of his concentration by desperate screams, jerking up to look out the window despite himself, catching the desperately pleading gaze of a youth doing all he could to break out of a choke hold. The smaller, younger man kicked and struggled as a powerfully-built cultivator’s muscles rippled as he slowly throttled the dying slave, fingers wrapped just above his collar.
And no count was called. As the youth, hardly more than a boy, gurgled and choked, given only a heartbeat’s reprieve as he was slammed to the ground face first, pinned in place by the muscular giant flashing a cruel, ugly smile, his beady black eyes glittering with unholy glee.
Powerful feet then deliberately stomped down upon the kid’s spine.
Alex could feel the sickening crack of bone. And the giant didn’t stop, even as the youth screamed and begged. The monster smashed down repeatedly on the youth’s back, legs, arms, and shoulders. He raised his heel over the youth’s neck and looked at the crowd.
Then he smiled, straddled the boy, and forced powerful fingers between collar and throat once more, ripping out the kid’s jugular with a spray of blood.
The crowd roared in approval.
Alex’s gut clenched to hear the boy’s death rattle, their deadly match ending just feet away from the arena walls, Alex’s tiny window giving him a perfect view. He could actually see the boy’s shattered nose, broken teeth, and crimson tinted eyes before the youth gave a final terrible shudder, and died.
The giant cultivator lifted himself off the young fallen slave and roared to the cheers and exultation of the crowd.
“Huong Kuong wins!” roared the announcer, using the clever system of echoing chambers once more, but all thoughts of awe and wonder had long since fled Alex’s soul.
What he felt instead was horror. Having only noted in that moment the unusually wide almond eyes of the boy who had died. The light brown hair on his head. A confused, terrified face that looked like no killer at all.
For all that he had been pinned and throttled for far longer than five seconds, there had been no countdown whatsoever, no move to interfere.
Only then did he recall Master Zhao’s words that there was one further fight it would be in his best interest to watch that day. And now Alex understood why. Understood deep in the depths of his soul where a hot fire suddenly blazed.
That hadn’t been a fight.
It had been an execution.
And that boy had had Ruidian blood in his veins.
32
“They’re making me fight you? A worthless piece of Ruidian trash? This is an insult!” snapped the hot-eyed asp
irant led into the ring seconds after Alex. The crowed hooted and booed, as they had every time he had entered before, and to the poor boy who had died as well.
Alex gazed coldly at the sneering cultivator before him. All dreams of idealism and noble virtue had died the moment he had caught that dying youth’s gaze, haunting him even when he lost himself in cultivation, daring to process a single lesser beast core, knowing he was taking a risk, but of everyone he had met at the temple, Zhao Doushi alone he trusted not to stab him in the back the moment he was vulnerable. Yet even daring so much, he knew better than to actually transfer into his ring. Unexplained rapid healing was one thing, but if any spying cultivator he had failed to sense had even the slightest inkling of the true nature of the worthless-looking copper wire twined around his finger, he knew he would be ruthlessly hounded for his secrets, and no doubt killed once they had what they wanted.
Fortunately, both the Eternal Fox and the Dual Path cultivation techniques, different as they were, used Dark and Light Qi in tandem. His body cultivation technique used them both with absolute efficiency, supercharging his cells and rejuvenating them, and his ring allowed him to store all the Dark and Light Qi his intense core-enhanced cultivation processed, each lesser core the equivalent of a thousand hours training in either technique. And for all that he had only begun to chip away at his final blockage, the needs of his body of course came first as he ever so slowly advanced to Rank 6 Eternal Fox.
Though whether or not he would actually achieve that goal, or any of the other goals that had inspired him for so long, had now been ground down to a single bitter equation. Would he successfully take down the cultivator glaring at him even now, or would he fall before the man glaring at him with such hate, and be just as ruthlessly executed as the boy he had seen butchered outside his cell window?
He clenched his fists as the slender man before him continued to insult him.
“Well, Ruidian slave? I gave you an order! Bow before your master and concede this fight, or I’ll whip the skin off your back for daring to strike me even after I beat you!”
The crowd roared and laughed. Even the judges smiled in approval. “All slaves who dare to lose their matches are to be whipped, lest they fight with anything but savage animal desperation. This slave has already tasted the whip once before. And once you break him, we will happily let you have the honor,” assured none other than Lai Leng from his elevated podium, presently wearing silken cultivator robes of deep violet, the judges to his left and right, similarly robed, nodding their heads in agreement.
“That is, assuming Lord Yuren’s secondborn actually wins the match,” cautioned none other than a coolly smiling Elder Panheu from his own front row seat, today sitting remarkably close to the judges, his own attire the same brilliant silver as the beard he stroked so thoughtfully, gazing Alex’s way.
“As if there was any question as to that,” said a coldly-grinning Lai Leng, his nasty smile making it all too clear to Alex that yes, he had been behind the tainted whip, no doubt expecting Alex to move like a broken cripple.
And Alex suddenly understood. He had been deliberately poisoned not just out of malicious glee, but to make him easy prey for the young lord to score a smooth victory from, perhaps a family friend of the vile cultivator planning Alex’s death even now.
“But of course there is. If there wasn’t, there would be no sport, now would there?” said Panheu. “Our patrons would be bored, our students would learn nothing, and there wouldn’t be a single spirit pearl to be won.”
The judge chuckled coldly. “Whoever dared bet against Lord Yuren’s son deserves to lose every pearl he dared wager.”
The pair of men shared a cool smile at that.
Alex smirked as the men all but declared their wagers before the crowd that was gazing at Alex hungrily even now, as if eager to see him get torn to shreds.
And save for the gazes of a few students who seemed more curious or concerned than gleefully hostile, it was obvious the crowd was eager for the show to begin.
Alex smiled coldly at the noble-born demanding he kowtow even now.
If they wanted a show? He would give it to them.
“Well, slave? You heard your master, bow!” snarled none other than Lai Leng.
Alex deliberately turned to the three judges and bowed before them. Several members of the crowd tittered, the judges to either side of the alchemist smirked, even as Lai Leng glared daggers of hate at Alex. “Not to us, to the lord, fool!”
But Alex’s opponent had already charged. “How dare you ignore me, Ruidian worm!” yelled the man even now striking at Alex.
Finesse check made! You have struck your foe!
The noble struck only air as Alex nimbly danced aside before slamming his opponent’s rear with the heel of his foot, sending the man sprawling to the sands amidst the mocking laughter of the fickle crowd.
“How dare you strike me, cur!” roared the arrogant youth, seething at Alex as he sprung back to his feet, charging forward once more.
Quickness check made! You have dodged your opponent’s blows!
You have successfully deciphered your opponent’s moves. You understand the flaws in his technique!
Alex flashed a cold smile as his enemy tried in vain to strike him. He telegraphed all his moves just as badly as Hao Chan had once telegraphed her own kicks, though far, far less gracefully and with only a fraction of his beloved friend’s bone-cracking force. And she had been trained as a dancer before Alex had forged her into the deadliest of battle maidens.
He found it almost effortless to weave and dodge aside, heart hammering with a dark sense of anticipation, waiting for the perfect moment.
“You dance around like a monkey!” his opponent roared. “A damned white little monkey! I will break you, cur, and then whip you within an inch of your miserable life!”
Alex smiled as he adroitly leaned out of range of a vicious and all-too-visibly telegraphed right hook, aided by nothing more than a certain amount of strength and whatever speed clearing a handful of meridian blockages had gained the man, for Alex sensed no flow of Qi, no matter how deeply he studied his opponent. Or perhaps it simply meant that Alex still had a long way to go before he could read the Qi flow of cultivators like he could wild spirit beasts.
Either way, his opponent might be head and shoulders above most mortals, but compared to the level Alex and his friends had trained at, he was shockingly slow.
So slow that Alex could spare the moment it took to catch a surprised Lai Leng’s eyes and smile at the man who had so expected Alex to be a broken cripple.
And then he struck.
Physical Find Weakness skill check made! You sense the flaws in your foe’s technique! Your opponent is wide open!
Diagonal Kick bruises kidneys, your opponent is stunned!
Reverse Roundhouse has shattered your opponent’s jaw, your foe has collapsed!
Alex didn’t spare even a second to savor the elation of the roaring crowd as his opponent collapsed to the ground in a broken heap, knowing he only had a heartbeat to make his point, embracing Hao Chan’s graceful Silver Swan style with a flexibility he could not have before endless nights groaning through her grueling stretch routines, but it had been worth it, for the payoff of her beaming smile.
That, and the ability to do exactly what he was doing now, his leg arcing high before crashing downward with hideous striking force, his finishing axe heel kick shattering his foe’s spine.
The audience went deathly silent when the young nobleman collapsed, and Alex felt a fierce sense of exultation, gazing boldly into the eyes of so many who had discounted him as nothing, caring not at all if he lived or died, so long as his suffering entertained them.
But now it was him standing tall and triumphant over his fallen opponent who would now be crippled for life with a shattered hip and spine, were he back on Earth a thousand years ago, Alex’s singular mercy being his strike landing at the base of the spine.
He could have s
hattered the fool’s neck, just as easily.
But that point made no difference to the shocked crowd, who, for some reason, had expected Alex to lose, perhaps spectacularly, and save for a few considering glances from a bare handful of cultivators, the only one actively beaming was Elder Panheu himself.
“Healer!” screamed a suddenly-panicked Lai Leng. “Bring the healers to treat young Lord Yuren immediately!” He glared caustic hate at Alex. “And bring me that Ruidian’s head!”
Alex froze, filled with sudden blackest fury as he met the man’s hate-filled gaze.
In that moment he understood that he had been a fool.
A blind and utter fool.
Daring to think there could be anything but blackest hate between this school and a Disciple of the Fox, between himself and arrogant cultivators who saw Ruidians as fit for nothing more than training posts.
Daring to think that entering this school would be anything but a death sentence.
Either that, or a declaration of war.
The entire crowd went deathly silent.
Alex stood tall and proud before the entire stadium as Lai Leng flashed Alex the cruelest of grins.
And Alex dared to smile back, rage cracking free massive restraints he never even realized he had until that moment.
Restraints holding back a terrible storm of darkest Qi he had so carefully cultivated and saved, over this lifetime and perhaps countless others, waiting for a chance, a single chance, to forge meridian channels that would serve as the first step along his own divine cultivation path that he had pursued, fruitlessly, over who knew how many lifetimes.
Only to be ruthlessly cut down, as he had who knew how many times before. Endlessly butchered, just for daring to follow his own path.
It had never been clearer than it was at that terrible moment that they were all against him. Their patron gods Long Wang and Zheng Yi had always opposed him and WiFu, and would always oppose them, no matter the situation.
Silver Fox & The Western Hero: Warrior Reforged: A LitRPG/Wuxia Novel - Book 2 Page 43