Running down fleeing heretics after a battle of this level was no job for a piddly Level Five Earthly cultivator. They sent him out anyway, but only gave him until sunset to vent his hate. Not like there were a whole lot of other Outer Court disciples hanging around the depot. More were being brought in, but it would take time. Tian was covered in a fresh protective suit and racing across the red sands before the echoes of his curses faded from the depot.
Brother Fu would be outraged that he swore, and in front of an Inner Court disciple no less. He would be mad as hell about Tian losing his composure and forgetting etiquette. He would probably say something about how it was only in the test that we can know the strength of our hearts. Something deep like that.
Tian would kneel on the stone pavers outside the old man’s courtyard and endure three whole days of lectures if it meant Brother Fu was safe. He’d kneel there for a month. He didn’t care how long he knelt.
There were corpses littering the wasteland. Tian didn’t know where they came from. Must have been coming behind the Zombies. He remembered what his brothers taught him, and smashed their heads with his dart at the longest possible range. Just in case. They were right too- one of the bodies rolled away with an oath.
Tian stayed on him, leaping towards the wretch and whipping the rope dart around in a short, whistling arc. The heretic got his saber up in time to protect his neck, and in exchange, ate a flying knee to the temple. He swore and clawed at Tian, but the boy was already at his back. With a flick and a shiver, the rope looped around the saber, yanking it towards the heretics throat.
“Wait, no!”
Tian put a knee on the bastards’ spine, and leaned back. The sharp blade bit through the throat. A few seconds later, the heretic went limp. A few seconds after that, the saber dropped to the ground. Tian smashed the head open, checked for a storage ring, didn’t find one, and ran on.
Another head that got smashed open made the body collapse into a swarm of green and black insects that swept out in a storm. Tian spun the rope dart in front of him so fast it was nearly invisible, shattering the swarming insects. He wasn’t sure he killed them all, but he got all the ones that were chasing him.
He found a man left in pieces behind a rocky ledge. Even in the few seconds Tian stood there, he could see the rock particles and Earth qi choking him. The weapons around him all had the shine of quality that came with the Heavenly Person Realm.
“No need to play games, boy. I’m not going to live any longer. All I ask is that you receive my legacy. Use or or don’t. Just be sure that-”
Tian lashed out with his rope dart.
“YOU DARE, JUNIOR!” The crippled man’s eyes glowed orange and he spat a jet of sulfur at Tian’s face. Only the long distance and Tian’s superb reflexes let him dodge. The stink of it stung his eyes. The dart whipped back, around and slammed forward again, this time piercing the heretic’s heart. Tian ripped it out and watched the man die ugly with hate in his eyes.
“My ears are deaf to the cries of heretics.”
Tian sawed the head off. A Heavenly Person Realm heretic probably had a bounty on him. And the storage ring would be valuable, once it had been carefully checked over. Tian looted the weapons and kept running.
He had to be back in the base by sunset. Barely a few hours. No time to waste. There were so many people… no, not people. So many heretics to slaughter. They weren’t people anymore. They gave up the right to that name. Now they were just demons and gu and corpses that needed to be purified and returned to the earth.
Most of the ones he found were badly wounded. Whatever the Direct Disciple had done, it broke the invaders. The Inner Court had capitalized and slaughtered the enemy as they retreated. Sending out the Outer Court Disciples was just tidying up and making sure no fish slipped through the net. It was also a way of providing some care to those Outer Court Disciples. Tian came to this conclusion as he flicked the gore off the barbs of his rope. He really was just running around picking up loot and earning merits.
He was forty heads deep when Counter-Jumper heard a tremor in the earth. He could feel it through the soles of his thin shoes. Tian jumped back as two women pounced at him from under thin slabs of rock. Their hands extended towards him, scratching him, making him jump back even further as he whipped his dart around.
One blocked, as the other attacked. Then they switched off again. Darting in and out, keeping him from focusing down either of them. Tian countered by going large- letting the rope dart whip out past the defending woman, forcing both to dodge. Then he would yank it back, attacking them from behind. High, low, near, far. Always moving. He was pretty sure they weren’t any stronger than he was. It’s just that there were two of them.
“This is taking too long.” One of the women hissed. Tian agreed, but he was already doing his best. Something came at his back. He threw himself to the side, but something caught him in the flank and a trail of fire ripped along the new hole in him. He dashed back, whipping the dart around him, but whatever it was didn’t give him time or space. It stayed on him, jabbing at his face. More came in from the sides. Some slower, some very nearly as fast.
There was a moment when he thought about running. It would be the smart thing to do. It was only a moment.
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“I want you all dead!” Tian twisted like a snake. Snake Head Vine Body was the first combat art he had learned, and it was in his bones now. He dodged, bare inches off the ground, before jumping sideways and slashing up with his rope dart. The barbs ripped open flesh. The head crippled limbs and crushed hearts. He knew he was only killing and disabling the weakest of them. Didn’t matter. So long as they died.
All that mattered was staying alive long enough to kill them all. But he was slowing down. The wounds were piling up on him- a gash across his legs. Claws that ran down his back, breaking ribs and barely missing his spine. Knives coated with poison that burned like hellfire in his blood. They were keeping back now, never letting him rest, but never letting him land a clean hit. Their teamwork was getting better, and he didn’t know if the sun was setting or his eyes were getting darker.
“The Sage strives to be like water, moving effortlessly in accordance with nature, flowing past the rocks and back to the vast ocean that gave birth to it. Always moving, always changing, always the same, and even the rocks wear away to nothing with time. Do you understand?”
Tian was hallucinating. He was hearing Brother Fu’s calm voice, even as he thrashed around in the gathering darkness.
“I don’t know, Brother Fu. I know what those words mean, but not what they mean.”
“I didn’t either, at your age. But let me show you what I think they mean.” And then Brother Fu was there with him. He had a long, wide knife in each hand. He took a step forward and a heretic died. Tian couldn’t catch what happened. There was a blur from Brother Fu’s left. Tian tried to call out but the man just ran himself directly onto Brother Fu’s knife.
Brother Fu had been turning, and his arm was out wide. The man had charged forward at exactly the wrong moment. Then Brother Fu fell back, and the stabbed man was stabbed again by a heretic’s claws that lodged in his spine. It looked accidental.
Brother Fu stepped forward at an angle, and his trailing knife dragged gently through a throat. He shifted right and as a heretic turned to continue their lunge, they tripped over one of the thrashing bodies on the ground. Just a little trip, and they fell all the way to hell as their heart split open on the waiting knife.
“I fought like you for so long. Rushing in. A storm of violence and hate. It reached a peak when I extended that hate to myself. Everything should die. Everything. I held on to my heart with ragged nails, sparing the mortals and not falling into heresy. But those who walk by the riverside must expect to get their shoes wet.”
Brother Fu seemed to be moving aimlessly through the battlefield while their enemies senselessly threw themselves on his blades. It wasn’t magic or an art, Tian was sure he would be able to tell if it was. He just didn’t know what it was.
“All because I couldn’t break through my realm. All because I felt trapped. Maddened by my mundane existence. But we are not alone, little Tian. We are not groping blindly. We are part of an ancient lineage, inheriting a treasury of wisdom.”
They were running out of enemies. The heretics were turning and running, but somehow, they kept running into Brother Fu. He always seemed to be where they were going.
“Part of that wisdom is the path of effortless action. Not inaction, but simply acting in accordance with nature. I move with the great Dao, and these pitiable people do not. I will relieve them of their lives, so they no longer suffer in this world and bring suffering to others. They will be judged by King Yan, and be relieved of the self delusion they suffered from. They will be tormented in hell, and relieved of their sins. They will drink Granny Meng’s soup and be relieved of the burdens of memory and connections. Then they will be reborn, free and innocent. Ready to do better in the next life.”
The last heretic spun in place and flung a snake at Tian. For no other reason than spite. Tian couldn’t move any more. The poison had robbed all the strength from his body. It didn't matter. Brother Fu caught the snake on the flat of his blade, spun around and launched the snake back at the man who threw it.
It was quiet. There were a few quieting gasps, a few limbs still drummed and thrashed on the hard packed earth. But mostly, it was quiet. Brother Fu wiped his blades clean, and walked over to Tian. He gently put an antidote in his mouth and helped him swallow.
“That will hold you for a little bit. We have a few minutes before you need to return to base.”
“I am… so glad to see you, Senior Brother.”
“I’m glad to see you too, Tian. You were easy to follow, everyone at the Depot knew exactly the way you were headed. Did you know they are calling you the Mad Dog’s Pup?”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Don’t mind it. The nicknames, I mean. An insult is like a drink. It only harms you if you accept it.”
“I’m not insulted.”
“Most people wouldn’t like being called a dog, Tian, let alone a puppy.”
“I’m happy to be called your son.”
The wind blew across the sands. The heretics went still. Off to judgement and a better life. The sun was still a little ways above the horizon, but it set fast, this time of year.
“Tian, I-”
“You don’t have to say anything. I just wanted to say it. I just really wanted to say it. And for you to be safe.” Tian was exhausted. So tired his hands were shaking and his body shivered. He wanted to throw up.
There was a soft sigh, and Brother Fu wrapped him in a hug. “You know you only have one dad, right? The one who gave you life.”
“Never knew him, don’t want to know him, don’t give a damn about him or the woman who birthed me.”
Brother Fu laughed. “Even now I want to correct you- “I don’t give a damn, Senior Brother Fu.”
“Sounds like a very Dad thing to do, Senior Brother Fu.”
The laughter got a little louder. “Sit. I promised you something.”
Brother Fu pulled out his tea set. He poured hot water over the cups, then filled the teapot with more hot water and set the tea to steeping. He poured out the first steep and refilled the pot with clean water. The second steep he served.
Tian picked up the little clay cup with both hands, one holding the bottom, the other gently pinching the warm sides. The tea was hot, faintly green and smelling of sweet grass and bamboo warmed by the sun after the rain. His hands were covered in blood. He watched the setting sun and the smiling face of his father and drank.