“If you are angry, blame yourselves for being too high profile. We are merely solving the problems of others for money.” Tian’s eyes narrowed. Five Poisons Cult sounded like assassins, not the kind of people who stand around in the middle of the street to challenge you to a fight. But they weren’t lying in ambush, unless concealment arrays were suddenly very cheap and widely available. There was Hong, Daoist Li, the ten cultists, and if there were any other cultivators they were a long way away.
Tian reached out to the crane, checking in. She was fine. Fishing happily. He sent her an image of the ambush and called her over, sharing memories of fishermen with nets and bows that had tried to capture her in the past. He felt a surge of avian disdain as wide white wings suddenly beat on the air and the crane launched herself into the sky.
The cultists were making subtle moves, shifting around, clearly angling for better positions to attack and flank Tian and Hong. But not actually attacking. Was there a trap in the ground, perhaps? It seemed unlikely, it was the middle of the day and this was the central road through the town. Ambush from a nearby building? Ambush from who? Tian would be able to sense the immortal breath of anyone actually capable of hurting them.
It was just mortals, most quickly clearing the street, some frozen in terror, pressed up against their stalls or the doorways of closed shops.
Tian had the nastiest feeling that he had seen this before, but couldn’t remember what or when.
“Report your name, villain.” Hong drew a short spear from her ring.
“I am but a weapon of the cult. A dead woman has no need to learn it!”
“Die without a name then!” She twisted her body, moving from stillness to explosive release. The spear vanished with a flash, barely a blur to Tian as it flew towards the most senior of the cultists. The man dodged with an oath, the spear still slicing through a piece of his shoulder before it buried itself in the building behind him. She had another spear in her hand and was rushing towards him before the first drops of red blood hit the yellow earth.
Tian was in motion too- right hand flashing forward, Heavenly Swallows in flight as they drilled towards the throat of one of the level five cultists even as he rushed a second. The darts arrived at the same time as the trap went off.
Four mortals near the entrance to the tea house started vomiting white smoke. There was a smell of burning orchids, and a sudden tinny taste. Then his meridians started to burn.
“Quickly!” The men in black roared and rushed in, pulling out thin knives coated in black tar. Tian’s body was rejecting his qi, his vital energy and his meridians were suddenly incompatible and his body was tearing itself apart. Blinding pain, he could hardly stand. A knife came stabbing down towards him.
His brothers’ care rose to block it.
Hurt, confused, disoriented, weak- block anyway. His hands moved without thinking. Hundreds of hours sparring with the best in the Monastery, just for this moment. The knife came in, and a slim white hand softly grasped the wrist, slid around it and pushed it across the assassin’s body. A second slim hand swept forward and the heel of the palm smashed into the side of the assassin’s chin.
Teeth went flying. A problem that became much less urgent for the assassin as a dreadfully heavy foot buried itself in his crotch. By the time the hand holding the poisoned dagger was twisted around and driven into his chest, the Assassin wasn’t thinking about much of anything other than pain.
Tian could sympathize. He hadn’t hurt this badly since he was swallowed by the demonic bird. He desperately tried to send his mind to the crane, to warn her about the poison. He didn’t know if he managed it. It was hard to breathe. It was getting hard to think. His limbs were growing heavy. The Hell Suppressing Art was roaring into action, but that was depleting his vital energy fast. He needed to rest and cultivate. The assassins weren’t going to give him that time.
Two more were coming at him. Sister Liren. He had to get to Liren, she couldn’t push through this. They would kill her! The assassins were just blurry shapes now, evening shadows swinging impossibly long arms and legs. Tian didn’t trust himself with the rope dart. Not when every move was costing him pain. Get in close. They wanted to finish this at knife range. He’d give them what they wanted.
He stumbled towards the black shape that looked closest, moving to create distance with the other assassin. The killer stabbed out, sharp and fast, looking for his heart. Tian half fell to his right, his left arm whipping up and around in the sort of blunt parry that would have his brothers roaring with outrage. He felt something break in the masked man’s arm. Tian snapped a sharp little kick to the thigh, throwing the assassin off balance.
It was too easy to stick a knife in. Tian grabbed the Myriad Tormenting Worms dagger from the small of his back, and for the first time since it came into his possession, he used it for its intended purpose. The snake-shaped blade sliced through flesh and pierced the gaps between ribs. Once, twice, three times, each cut and stab rotting the flesh with curse qi.
Tian was turning to face the next assassin before the cursed heretic realized he was dying. From the screams, it wouldn’t be a fast death, nor a clean one. The second assassin was on him, lashing out with his knife. Tian saw the other hand move- a hidden dart! He shifted his weight as best he could, but a thick steel dart still caught his hip. More poison, burning him from within.
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He returned the favor with the Worm dagger. He hacked at anything he could reach. The curse would do the hard work. The assassin started screaming. An opening! Tian staggered forward, eating a punch to the face. A fair trade. He buried the cursed dagger in the assassin’s guts.
Sister Liren. Where was she? Was she okay? He had to find her!
Soft wings thundered above, driving gusts of wind through the street. The crane. She descended in her giant form, long feet lashing out and crushing bodies, her beak stabbing down as the men in black shouted and dodged.
One saw Tian staggering, looking for Sister Liren. Tian saw him hesitate, then reach down and scoop up a stone. The man who had hurt him so much picked up a stone and threw it at him. Tian dodged, or tried to. He heard his collarbone snap. His vision turned white with pain. Then red.
They were rock throwers. They said he couldn’t be in town. They made him hurt. And they were throwing rocks at him.
The scream of rage was so loud it drowned out the screams of the dying. Tian didn’t realize he was the one screaming.
There was a rock thrower, all in black. Tian ran over as fast as his shaky legs would carry him, screaming all the way. A knife came. He slapped it to one side, not hearing fingers breaking. Just seeing the man’s posture crumble. Seeing weakness. Three strong fingers snatched the assassin's throat. Then tore it out. Blood sprayed Tian’s face. Hot, stinking, blinding. Everything was red. There were rock throwers. Sister Liren was in danger.
Kill.
“Brother Zihao, COME BACK. Please, for Heaven’s sake, COME BACK!”
Tian gasped. He could breathe again. His meridians and dantian howled with pain, desperate for vital energy, but free of the poison. Advent of Spring began cycling, drawing in enormous lungfulls of qi and sending it to be refined by his lower dantian. His body hurt. There was some corrupting, dissolving agent in the needles that struck him. It felt like he tore some tendons. Maybe his hands were a little broken?
It was fine. Advent of Spring could heal all that. The Hell Suppressing Sutra was already turning toxins into tonic.
He stared down dully. His hands weren’t broken. There were bone shards lodged in them. He appeared to be kneeling in the torn apart remains of a black robed man. He looked up at Liren. She was cut up, battered and leaning on her spear, but her breath was strong and her vital energy burned dim but steady. A little sigh escaped him.
“It’s good that you are safe. It’s good that you are safe. I worried.” The words came out flat. He didn’t have the energy to put inflection on them.
“You worried me too, idiot! What happened?”
“I don’t know. We’ll figure it out. I just…” He trailed off. There were things they should do right now. Urgent things. He knew they existed, he just couldn’t think of what they were. “I don’t like it when people throw rocks at me, Sister Liren. I don’t like it at all.”
Daoist Li took them to an inn owned, indirectly, by his sect. He had looked after the mortals with as much care as a bystander could offer. It was more than Tian had expected. Daoist Li looked very happy to hear that, bowing deeply and repeatedly, showering them in apologies. Tian could see the beads of sweat rising from the older man’s neck. He could smell the acrid stench of bone-deep fear. Their rooms were large, clean, and could be barred from the inside. Tian dropped the thick wooden beam into place before cataloging his injuries.
Broken clavicle. Multiple torn muscles. Strained muscles and tendons. His ribs were tender, though he didn’t think any were broken. At some point, someone had managed to get a cut on him, along with the needles and poison. The bruises were beyond counting, and truthfully, weren’t worth paying attention to. The swelling and discoloration were vanishing with every cycle of his breath.
Most concerning was the damage to his meridians. Nothing torn or broken, but anything beyond quiet cultivation for the next week or three was simply impossible. The damage came too soon after the strain he put on them in Bluestone City. It would be a month or more before he was properly combat capable. Drugs that could treat damage to the meridians were rare, expensive and above all, powerful. He still had some from Doctor Pei, but he really didn’t know if his system could stand the shock of Heavenly tier medicine right now.
Besides, Sister Liren probably needed them too, and he’d bet her system could take the strain.
Tian didn’t force himself to his feet, didn’t rush off to check on her. He had been told, endlessly, by the doctors in the hospital and his brothers from the Temple, the very first person he had to look after, was himself. Because if he was less than fully functional, then he wasn’t going to be able to help others. Get himself stable, fix the easy stuff, then go check on others.
He would need to spend some time with Little Treasure. It was time he learned how to meditate and confront the horrors of the world with a calm heart. In the quiet of his hotel room, Tian bitterly laughed.
“How am I supposed to teach him, when I don’t know?”
Tian joined the others for breakfast the next morning. It turned into a general debriefing. Daoist Li wasn’t sure how many cultivators the Five Poisons Cult actually had, but they certainly didn’t have many that were Level Eight or Nine. They wouldn’t be eager to try another ambush after what the last one cost them.
Nobody wanted to mention what they saw Tian do, or what his body was capable of even with the vital energy revolting inside of him. He appreciated that. He would talk it over with Sister Hong later. In the meantime, he could see the older man pressing his hands hard into his legs as he bowed and apologized again for his lack of concrete information. To Tian. He must have done something quite dreadful out there.
It seemed he wouldn’t be making a new tea friend.
“Our route is easy enough to figure out. We have been traveling up and down the Agate for months now, so it wouldn’t be too hard to alert assassins and mercenaries to wait for us. The question that’s got me wondering is, who put a price on our heads?” Tian asked. “Because we’ve been busy, but not that busy. Just doing what all the Level Nines do when they are out in the world, really.”
Hong nodded along. “And the next question- what do we want to do about it? Do we want to run down the Cult, or do we let it slide for now, and stay on mission? Because whatever we choose, things could go really wrong.”