Death's Favorite Warlock

by Charles Dean

  Farmer ahead!

  Ophelia’s warning wasn’t even necessary. It was impossible to miss the guy who had turned to see the man who had lit fire to part of their product. Lars wasn’t sure whether to attack or ignore the farmer until he saw the man take out a pair of small handheld gardening scissors and hold them menacingly in his right hand and extend his left hand, palm exposed, out to the side as if to stop Lars from escaping.

  Is this . . . Is this a complete moron? This man was dedicated to protecting the product. He was even willing to cut himself to grow it, and he was willing to sacrifice himself now. Everyone working for “The Panda” was an accomplice. They were all to be killed on sight. They are all either monsters or cowards enabling him, Lars told himself as he spewed his Flame of the Pill God straight at the man he was running toward. He didn’t expect it to be particularly effective, but the guy died nearly instantly the moment his body was engulfed in the fire, his body charred, the Qi exiting it and pouring toward Lars.

  Congratulations. You have successfully killed Jang. You have gained 41 stat points. Your elemental affinity with Wood Qi has increased by 31.

  The moment the Qi poured into Lars, he dumped the newly acquired stat points into more Speed and Power, raising Power by another 10 and Speed by the remaining 31. He didn’t even stop moving though as he shoved past the now-smoldering corpse and continued running through the cultivation resource farm. Two more harvesters popped out, holding gardening shears like they were deadly swords, and began charging toward Lars.

  “We’ll stop him for you, Shawn! Adams! Just catch up quickly!” the closest one to Lars yelled.

  “Thank you!” Lars couldn’t help but reply to them in place of Shawn and Adams as he opened his mouth and then spat out Flame of the Pill God again. It consumed one of them the same way it had Jang, burning him alive on the spot and pulling his essence to Lars.

  Congratulations. You have successfully killed Chon. You have gained 33 stat points. Your elemental affinity with Wood Qi has increased by 19.

  The other one, however, seemed not to be phased at all. Fire constitution, Lars thought. He then tried to think about what would counter fire before sticking out his hand, imagining Ice Qi, and pushing every ounce of it that he could toward the man as he ran toward him just in case his attack didn’t have enough range. It only took a moment before the man’s extremities began to turn bluish purple. Despite appearing to be incredibly effective, Lars didn’t want to risk not killing the man, so he ran into him at full speed, ramming his shoulder into the man’s unguarded sternum and shattering his chest.

  Congratulations. You have successfully killed Yang. You have gained 46 stat points. Your elemental affinity with Fire Qi has increased by 25.

  The point value wasn’t high, but as Lars looked back and saw the two gigantic Stage 6 Qi cultivators still barreling toward him at a blinding speed, he didn’t care how small it was: he needed every point. He found four more gardeners as he rushed through the little farm, and each one stood in Lars’s way despite seeing what had happened to the others. They wielded pitchforks and hoes as weapons, and one even held out a pot as if he were going to swing the empty clay vessel at Lars. In the end, Lars just killed them all and took their Qi without even having to slow down, acquiring a total of 165 more stat points, 61 more elemental Fire Qi, and 35 Ice Qi.

  Lars dumped 59 points into Power and 185 into Speed. His Speed reached 1278, a single point away from making him as fast as a normal Stage 6 Qi-Gathering Cultivator could ever be. He was clearly faster than the two men trailing behind him, and he had gone from being a few feet to several yards ahead of them, so he decided to take a risk. He smashed his way through a door into what was immediately recognizable as the kitchen. Ten men, all clearly at work preparing food, stopped what they were doing when the door broke open and turned toward Lars. Three of them were in front of a stove, and the rest were working around a large table that occupied most of the free space within the large square kitchen, chopping vegetables, organizing ingredients, and plating dishes.

  These people aren’t coming at you. What are you going to do if they’re innocent? If they’re not complicit in Bok Kyu’s actions?

  Good point. He quickly yelled, “I’m here to kill BOK KYU!” before turning his head to check how close his pursuers were and then looking back at the ten men.

  Eight of the ten men picked up their knives or brandished the knives they were already holding, instantly setting them apart from the remaining two.

  Those are the ones that are bad, Lars thought, shooting out his Flame of the Pill God at them. Unfortunately for Lars, it only burned one of them, and not even terribly badly. Unphased, the rest charged around the large table toward Lars from both sides with blades raised.

  What the heck? Disappointed in the outcome, Lars considered trying to repeat the skill but didn’t have the chance before a knife came right at him from his left side. His hand moved instinctually, hitting the attacker’s wrist and knocking the knife to the ground. A second attacker approached him from the right, and rather than risk getting cut, Lars grabbed one of the kitchen rags, used it to wrap around the guy’s wrist, and moved to the side so the blade didn’t pierce into him. The man tried to pull his knife free, but Lars turned and yanked the trapped blade past his body and into the attacker on his left.

  The attack was largely ineffective, but it still put both men facing Lars, and neither lost their balance or footing. Lars let go of the rag and punched them both in the face as quickly as he could, one right after the other, relying on his Speed to connect the hits. This time, his attack was effective. Their faces didn’t explode as he had hoped, but the two fell backward toward one of the men behind them. Unfortunately for Lars, as they plummeted toward the next attacker in line, a new assailant behind Lars came in for an attack.

  Duck! Just duck as fast as you can! It’s always a punch toward the body.

  Lars listened to Ophelia, and sure enough, the man behind Lars had gone for a back punch, which swished above Lars’s head. Normally, the man would have been able to pull his hand back in time to attack again, but Lars’s ridiculously high Speed, which made the punch seem like it was in slow motion, let Lars grab onto the man’s arm and throw him into the two guys he had punched and the man behind them who was keeping them standing. The four of them went toppling backward.

  “I’m going to kill you!” the angry voice yelled from outside. The shout was louder than Lars would have liked and caused him to panic. He could handle these guys in the kitchen. They were slow. They may have been tough, and they may have been able to take a punch, but they weren’t particularly strong or fast.

  Crap, I have to do this quicker! Lars activated Knife Hand and rushed at the four downed cooks. Their eyes filled with panic, but it was too late. The two-foot Qi blade pierced through their guts, and then Lars slashed at their throats in quick succession. Lars didn’t give them a moment to recover, and he kept stabbing them until he saw the Qi leaving their bodies.

  Just as he thought everything had gone perfectly though, he felt a cold, piercing sensation on his back. Another cook had run up behind him and landed an attack on his exposed back, stripping him of 150 of his 447 hit points in one strike.

  Lars turned around, eyes wide with shock as he felt the pain shooting through his back and looked at the damage that had been done. He didn’t expect one of the cooks to be that strong.

  Relax, it’s not 490 Power. It’s 380. The attack was critical, though, so the coefficient was 3 instead of 5. That’s why the damage was so high.

  That’s still 380! Lars gritted his teeth as he looked at the new points he had just gotten from the four fresh kills: 345 stat points as well as 155 Fire Qi, 75 Earth Qi, and 62 Metal Qi. Lars looked at the porcupine-tailed man who had just stabbed him. He saw a glimmer of Ramon in the man’s face before noting the man was about to attack him with yet another knife thrust. Speed. I need more Speed, Lars thought as he realized the wind-up forecasted where the blow w
as going to be aimed: right toward his sternum. Even though he knew where it would land, a hand was almost always faster than a body, and he didn’t have faith in his ability to dodge the attack, so he dumped every point of the newly acquired 345 stat points into Speed, raising it to 1,623.

  It felt like the knife was piercing through molasses as it came at him. Lars slid to the side, stepped forward, and stabbed his Knife Hand through the man’s ribs and into his heart. The horror on the porcupine-blooded warrior’s face was the same as the one that had been left on Ramon’s face as they extracted him from the baem’s carcass. Strands of Qi began pouring out of the man and into Lars, and the feeling of ecstasy covered up the pain from the wound still fresh in his back.

  Lars didn’t hesitate. He rushed past the man he had just killed, stabbing the next one and then the next one in the throat and the heart and finishing off the last cook with an uppercut Knife Hand and a stab deep into the belly. What had felt like it would be a tense fight nearly became a walk in the park. After the Speed boost, Lars was able to dodge each of their attacks with ease and then finish them off with his Qi blade until only he was left standing at the other end of the kitchen. The slaughter had gifted him 472 stat points plus another 82 Fire Qi, 41 Metal Qi, and 50 Wind Qi, and despite the hole in his back that should have been killing him, the only thing he could feel was pure pleasure as the Qi kept coursing into him from his victims.

  “I’M GOING TO MURDER YOU THE MOMENT I CATCH YOU!” The shout came from the door to the kitchen, and the large lizard-tailed oaf didn’t even stop for a second as he barrelled into the room straight toward Lars. His body practically flew as he jumped, tucking his feet into his chest, across the entire length of the massive prep table in the middle of the kitchen, landing right next to Lars. The moment his feet touched down, the reptilian cultivator threw both his tail and his left fist at Lars, leaving Lars with only one way to dodge: jumping backward.

  Freaking hell, Lars cursed. He thanked his newly gained speed as he landed at the other end of the room.

  “I got you now, you little tailless bastard,” the other guard shouted as he came in and started rushing around the large table straight toward Lars. Between the two of them, they had blocked off both routes out of the kitchen, leaving Lars trapped in a corner of the room.

  I say go for the one in front of you. He is a bit more acrobatic, so you should take him out first.

  The joyous euphoria from the Qi flowing into his body had started to fade. The pain in his back was returning as the throbbing grew more powerful, and it left Lars with only one thought: I need to kill more people before I fight them. Lars quickly weighed his options. He could try jumping over the table to get past them, but they could just as easily intercept him the moment he attempted it. Then he’d have even less space to dodge whatever attacks or skills they used to hit him.

  No, stop thinking like that. You’re not a normal person anymore, Lars chided himself. His eyes went to his left, where there was nothing but a long plaster wall made from thatch and heat-hardened clay. Without giving it another thought, he trusted his instincts and threw both his arms up to shield his face before jumping through the wall as fast and hard as he could.

  His 539 Power made him nearly fifty-four times as strong as he used to be, and he easily broke through the wall and back out into Bok Kyu’s courtyard. He was in a gap between two buildings so small that if he had a bit more Power, he might have shot through into the next room.

  “You can’t get away!” Shawn and Adams yelled in unison.

  Lars hung a left and began running back toward the center of the compound, hoping he’d find more people. I need more! The thought kept ringing through his head as he felt the pain on his back grow and the fear of the people behind him catching up and killing him intensify. He didn’t want to die like this; he didn’t want to die before feeling that Qi again.

  He heard them explode through the wall behind him too so they could get into the alley, but Lars had already made it past the kitchen, across the main courtyard, and into the building opposite of the kitchen on the other side of the compound by the time they had broken through. His legs were moving faster than they had ever moved before, and he was pushing every ounce of energy into them.

  He was hoping to find another kitchen and more people—more victims—when he broke into the next room, but all he found was communal sleeping quarters with two men lying down. One was tossing a ball above his face while the other was studying what looked to be a picture book.

  “Who are you?” one asked.

  “I’m here to kill Bok Kyu!” Lars shouted.

  “Fine by me,” the man tossing the ball said, rolling over.

  What? No outrage?

  “Try not to make a mess. No matter who is the boss, I’ll probably still get stuck cleaning it up tonight,” the one reading the picture book said as he flipped to the next wordless page.

  Nope, innocent, Lars cursed. He turned to look behind him only to see that the two men were still chasing him and beginning to catch up. He needed Qi, but he couldn’t kill anyone who was innocent. For all he knew, these people may have been stuck like slaves working for Bok Kyu, afraid their wives and daughters might end up like the girls that the monster kept lined up on each side of him.

  Forget it, Lars thought. He turned and sprang through the wall just like he had in the kitchen, but this time, he pushed forward again and broke into the next building rather than running along the alley between buildings and returning to the courtyard.

  “HEY?! WHAT THE HELL?! I SAID TRY NOT TO MAKE A MESS!” the man with the picture book yelled, throwing it on the ground. “Freaking hell, Frank. Frank, did you see this?! Did you—”

  Although his tirade was still going on, Lars couldn’t hear him as he continued into the next room. This one wasn’t a sleeping quarter but rather a lounge with four women sitting around a table, cups in hand, smoking some pipe with a thick purple cloud coming out the end of it.

  “Who are you?” one of the women in a beautiful light-red and white lace outfit that didn’t hide anything on her body asked as her fluffy fox tail curved around and hid her chest and everything on her face below her eyes.

  “He has no tail . . .” a brunette in a dark brown brassiere said, not even bothering to use her hands to cover her front. Her simian tail curled around the pipe and pulled it to the side as she spoke.

  “No tail indeed. I wonder what it was before someone plucked it,” the third of the four women said as she stood up. Her purple corset matched the smoke. She took another puff, rolling her shoulders back and popping her spine, a short tuft of purple feathers fanning out and then contracting as if she had a male peacock’s tail.

  “Perhaps a rat.” The last woman didn’t even bother moving as she made the comment. Her black leather outfit matched the black feathers jutting out behind her.

  Every single one of them was beautiful, so much so that Lars imagined even Desdemona and Maggie would have trouble comparing to them, and not even a woman twice as beautiful as Dawn had been before she died could match their visual allure. They were breathtaking, so much so that Lars stopped in his tracks, momentarily pausing his rampage.

  No white-knighting. Say the line, and if they fight, you kill them. Come on, we’re on a roll! DO IT!!! DON’T LET ME DOWN, LARS!!! THIS IS THE DAY I’VE ALWAYS BEEN DREAMING OF! TASTE THEIR BLOOD! KILL THEM ALL!

  White-knighting? What? Lars blinked and then shook his head. Even if he didn’t know what she was talking about, she was right. “I’M HERE TO KILL BOK KYU!” he shouted, declaring his intentions so that he could judge the women’s reactions and see if they deserved to be sacrificed to his need for Qi.

  “Then you’re here to die!” the fox said, her tail dropping to reveal that she was holding a paper fan with a thin metal strip running across its edge. When spread out to its fullest, the fan was as large as Lars’s chest, and by the time he could make out what it was, it was already flying toward him with a ring of electricit
y pulsing around it that expanded and contracted.

  Lars quickly reacted by grabbing one of the wooden beam fragments left over from breaking into the room and using it to smash the fan upward and change its trajectory, but the electric current surrounding the fan jumped into Lars, lighting up his body and burning his skin.

  Ouch! Freaking dammit! Son of a— Lars gritted his teeth as a string of obscenities flew through his mind from the pain traveling up his arms with the lightning.

  “Ha! Serves you right to think you can kill Bok Kyu!” the brown-bra-wearing woman said as she pulled out another pipe. She blew into it, shooting out a poisonous dart that Lars should have been able to swat out of the air given how slowly it seemed to move. However, as he tried to move his arms and smack it away, he discovered the lightning hadn’t just been painful: it had numbed his arms and slowed his movements. Even with his incredibly high Speed, which let him react and move around the attacks of lower Qi-Gathering Stage cultivators like they were punching through water, he could only watch in horror as the dart pierced into him.

  “Gotcha! You’re dead now, idiot,” the monkey-tailed woman gloated. She and the fan wielder exchanged a look and high-fived.

  What was in the dart?! Lars panicked, but then he realized that his health hadn’t dropped any further. He tried to move his arms and legs and discovered that the numbing sensation from the lightning was gradually fading.

  “Hahaha! You can struggle, but your death is seconds away, and your body has been stripped of power by Bok Kyu’s mistress, Oh Gong. If you’re kind, then I, Queen of the Iron Fans shall end your life mercifully,” the fan woman taunted as Lars’s body continued to regain its feeling.

  “He’s . . . He’s not stopping. He’s not slowing down. Be careful!” Oh Gong warned as she pulled at the self-proclaimed Queen of the Iron Fans’ arms, trying to get her friend to back up. But Lars didn’t allow it. He had fully regained his speed, and within a moment, he had crossed the room and activated Knife Hand. He thrust the Qi blade forward, pierced the fan queen’s abdomen, and stabbed up into her heart.