Sky Pride

Chapter 55- Tying Off

Madness consumed Threadcutter. Tian could see it, see the blazing sin, the crimson clouds turned so black that the only red were the hungry demon faces that rose and fell from the thunderheads around the heretic. The calm, indifferent face he wore when he first arrived was destroyed; his face was now a flesh mask carved to only express rage, and hate, and a desire to hurt others. The cunning and wisdom that let him contend for control of Black Iron Gorge was entirely gone. Tian didn’t think it would ever return.

The surviving sorcerer glanced at Tian, looked at Liren’s battle, looked at Threadcutter, and sighed. It seemed he agreed with Tian’s assessment. He lifted an orange stone, and crushed it. The flame array floating above him tripled in size, and sent a blizzard of fire spears at Tian. So many, it was actually blinding, a storm of depraved fire qi, that took Tian’s full concentration and all of his new staff play to deflect. Not without cost. He could feel his qi deplete by a large measure, and his reserves were far deeper than an ordinary Heavenly Realm cultivator who had only cultivated for a couple of years.

Tian endured the barrage, and when he thought it was reaching its end, he burst forward, ready to take the head off the overconfident sorcerer.

Who wasn’t there.

Tian wasn’t sure who was more surprised, Threadcutter or himself. The two paused for a fraction of a second, just watching the little glimmer of light that was the sorcerer vanish over the horizon.

“One hell of an escape item.” Tian muttered.

“He can run, but it just means he will suffer longer.” Threadcutter snarled, his hands reaching out, trying to clench the edge of the sky.

Tian was about to agree, realized he was about to agree with a heretic, and felt so revolted, the only way to purge the sick from his mouth was to crush Threadcutter’s head. He circulated his new art, and the space around him grew hazy and uncertain. The white hair fluttered in the blue sky, even as he seemed bathed in moonlight and shadow. The sky turned into water, the staff descending with a trace of inevitability and holy mystery. Threadcutter wasn’t too far gone to miss death coming. He shifted to the side, yanking a pair of iron shears from a pouch on his waist.

“Four hundred and seventy three years. That’s how long I nurtured the ghost infant. Four hundred and seventy three years. I don’t have another four hundred and seventy three years.”

The shears opened, corrupted metal qi forming cutting blades tens of feet long. The old heretic’s hand closed with convulsive strength. Tian slipped to the side, the blades brushing past him without slowing his advance. The next snip missed entirely. Then Tian was on him.

It unfolded like the operation of a natural law. Threadcutter lunged forward with the shears, trying to stab the brilliant boy in front of him. Tian struck downward, determined to crush the sin-ridden heretic. Threadcutter missed, lost in the illusion, trying to cut away the moon from the lake. Tian saw things very clearly. The staff fell like a bolt of true tribulation lightning.

There was a feeling of resistance, as though the sin were so dense, it could block the fatal blow. Or, at the very least, shove away the virtuous qi coming to rectify the sinner. A lifetime of atrocity. A lifetime of evil on a scale Tian could scarcely conceive of. It wasn’t enough. The heretic blazed, convulsing as green-gold wood qi tore him apart, and the reddish black sin flames ate up the pieces. There wasn’t much left to hit the ground. Tian smiled coldly, collecting the rings of the fallen heretics, and just to be sure, burned and purified the bodies, collecting any hidden storage tools. He didn’t rush over to Liren. She had matters well in hand, and he was sure she didn’t want him to help.

The four fake Inner Court members were dead, their bodies carelessly heaped on the steppes. Tian had to assume she was kicking or throwing them down that way deliberately. It was working. The Long brothers were sweating. The younger brother was in much worse shape. Liren had started the fight with him, and the damage showed. Robes were torn, defensive tools hung broken, shattered pendants dangled from his waist belt, but he had managed to avoid serious injury. Barely. The older was in better shape, but you could see the losses piling up on his body.

Tian thought they might run. He watched a moment longer, then shook his head. They had a vicious look in their eyes, like hungry dogs fighting. They were pressed, but they didn’t think they were beaten. It took more than the usual ruthlessness to butcher a family, then look the survivors dead in the eye with not a hint of shame. They knew that it was her or them, and they had never been willing to pay the price for their greed.

It was odd, though. Where the heretics were cloaked in clouds of blazing sin, the Long brothers were just ordinary. No merit, no sinfire. He felt an instinctive revulsion looking at them, but that might just be personal. Was what they had done too ordinary, or done at too many removes to count as their ‘sin?’ Or had their centuries of service to the mountain actually accumulated merit? No, sin and merit didn’t offset each other. You accumulated both, and paid for both separately. It was something else.

Liren paused for a moment, raising her spear into a high guard. “You know how I know all that ‘It was just business’ business is bullshit? Because you dug up my dads and fed their bodies to hungry dogs. Dogs that you had to bring into the city, just for that purpose. You probably starved them too, just to be sure. You didn’t need to break our will, or scare us, or scare others. Two Martial Uncles with a huge family beneath you, endless ties to other Heavenly cultivators, insane income, the backing of the Monastery, who the hell did you need to scare? But you did it anyway.”

The brothers didn’t say anything, silently raising the tips of their swords with their right hands, while their left thumbs rested on their storage rings.

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“But after all your centuries struggling, you never even became elders. It took me just twenty years to become a core disciple. I will be a direct disciple, should I ever decide I want a master. I know you know the difference between a so-called core disciple and a true direct disciple, don’t you? It’s not the Skytreading Art.”

“You think we haven’t had enlightenment? Please! That’s just an excuse they use-” The younger brother’s words seemed to bolt from him, bursting from the tension in his neck and chest.

“You are wrong.” She shook her head. “It’s the absolute truth. It’s just a nicer way of saying they can’t be bothered to teach incompetents, and would be ashamed to let them represent the true lineage of the sect. A sect you aren’t even part of. You are a servant. Just a slightly larger ant. And in the back of your mind, from the day you stood at the top of the Ascension Steps and looked around Mountain Gate City, you knew it. Now the servant dares dress others in the master’s livery, borrow the master’s name, disobey the master’s orders, and even raise their swords in rebellion against their masters.”

Tian could almost see her words worming their way inside the brothers’ heads. The way their veins throbbed along their temples and foreheads reminded him of the spread of an infection.

“A Member of the Inner Court dares rebel, pointing their swords at a Core Disciple, conspiring with enemies of the sect, violating sect discipline, murdering those under the sect’s protection, disgracing the sect before the world. As a member of the Discipline Squad, there is no need to report and request permission. The penalty is death. See how I crush you ants!”

She didn’t wait for a reply. Tian knew there was nothing they could say she was interested in hearing. Not even “Sorry.”

Liren was at the chest of the younger, mouthier, brother, the tip of her spear exploding defensive tools, shattering talisman lights, piercing the soft armor hidden under his robe. Tian blinked furiously, trying to reconstruct how she got there. It was a lunge, but the lunge had always existed, her spear had always pierced his chest and killed him, it was just now that it happened… no that wasn’t right, but he couldn’t even describe what he thought he saw. The Long brothers didn’t know what happened either. The long horn of her spear had pierced through the younger brother’s chest, and six inches out the back besides. She twisted it as she dragged it out, pulling pieces of his heart out with it.

The older brother roared, furious, flinging out talismans, chains that snaked like vipers, flying axes formed from azure qi and brass hummingbirds that darted faster than even an immortal eye could follow. Liren kicked the younger brother’s body down onto the pile below, then turned to face the older brother. There was a blaze of qi, blinding Tian, forcing him to look away and desperately blink the spots out of his eyes. By the time he turned back, it was over. The chains and little hummingbirds were scattered on the ground. The azure axes had shattered, vanishing into the air. The fine straight sword, an expensive, well crafted blade, tumbled from the old man’s hands.

Liren kicked him off the spear, letting him land with a thud on the heap.

“We picked up all the bones we could find, you know. We are pretty sure we got them all, but really, how could we know for sure? I say ‘we,’ I mean a few desperate beggars and mercenaries too desperate for their next jar of wine or pipe of opium to care if they lived or died. I’m sure they only succeeded with the Long clan’s ‘kind permission.’ I thought about doing the same, but I can’t. Just stupidly irresponsible to leave Heavenly corpses lying around.”

“True. But think of it like this. The Long Clan overturned your dad’s graves. They won’t be buried at all. There won’t even be ashes left.”

“Yeah. Yeah.” She nodded, swaying.

Tian flew over and wrapped his arm around her waist. “Let’s get on the ground. I’ll tidy up. There is barely a breath of qi left in you.”

“I did it. I killed those bastards.”

“You did. Your spear dao overcame all their talismans and treasures. Those thousands of hours spent practicing weren’t wasted.”

“Yeah.” She curled up, resting her head between her knees. She didn’t sound happy. Didn’t sound sad either. Just exhausted. Tian left her to it, quickly tidying up the battlefield and collecting the loot. He was an old hand at this. There would be nothing left that could be used by heretics, nor that would harm the mortals. Maybe a somewhat more spiritual patch of grass, but that would be about it.

Yalau came riding over. “Dead slavers and the kingdom butchers its own strongest defenders in civil war. Today wasn’t all bad.”

Tian snorted and shook his head. “They weren’t doing much defending. Hostage? And the guide to whatever you think we are trying to find?”

“A wolf knows hunger, and the scent of prey being stalked. We have known you were hunting someone, and something, since you first came to the steppes.” She didn’t quite sneer, which Tian reckoned was wise because, exhausted or not, he was in the mood to knock her clean off that horse of hers and see what Wuusan might trade for her life.

The semi-visible presence of the Wolf and Horse spirits did somewhat discourage the thought. The wolf spirit howled, soft and beckoning. From out of the grass trotted a ghostly wolf.

“You have some cursed body that consumes spirits. She burns them. Here. A home for your hostage.” She tossed Tian an elaborately carved tooth. If it was from a wolf, it was from a wolf larger than Tian had ever seen. The tooth was the length of his palm. The spirit trotted over and leapt into the bone.

“Bind it with a drop of blood.”

“Grandpa?”

It’s not trapped, and that is the way to bind it. The spirit is not very powerful now, but they aren’t screwing around. This is a spirit with a lineage. It’s wrong to use biological terms for something that has never had a physical body, but you could think of it as a son of the so-called Great Wolf Spirit.

Tian’s spine stiffened “Unexpectedly sincere.”

Not as much as you might think. Remember, the spirits can see the fate dragon and the city god just fine. And who do you think is just about their favorite person right now? From the Wolf and Horse’s perspective, and their reading of your character, this has only advantages and no disadvantages for the youngster, and is completely in line with how hostages and foster arrangements work in the tribes.

“I’ll do my best to raise him right. Any advice?”

She ignored the question. “He will help you find things, including what you are looking for. As for what that might be… our divination says north of here, and a good way east. I see you have cleaned up the battlefield and collected all your loot. Let us provide you one final service. A quick trip off our steppes!”

And with absolutely no warning, a giant horse hoof appeared behind them. The damned thing kicked them clear over the horizon, trailing profanity behind them the whole way.