Qian Ling watched the strange, nameless, monstrously powerful cultivator charge across the open ground. He moved fast, though she could match his speed if she tried. Despite that, it must be a leisurely pace for him. She tried to understand why he didn’t just rain down death on the spirit beasts. Or simply appear amongst them and erase them from existence with a World Severing Technique.
Why move so slowly?
Unless… the Hidden Master was moving like that for her instruction?
Her heart pounded with excitement as the confusion lifted from her eyes.
Each one of those monkeys was in the Qi Condensing realm, but mostly stage 1 or 2 — individually, they were weaker than her and Mu Min. Perhaps that tall, talking monkey was around 7th stage Qi Condensing like her? She had a momentary shudder at the thought of facing off against a spirit beast capable of speech. Spirit beasts didn’t cultivate through the realms the same as humans, and even if the realm was approximately equal between the two, the spirit beast would always be tougher, stronger, and faster. The intelligence that speech signified amplified the danger of a spirit beast's enhanced physicality.
Though, of course, Qian Ling was from the Shining Mountain Sect.
Mu Min and her could defeat the talking Howling Spirit Monkey if they worked together, but the battle would be bloody and close… possibly pushing the line between defeating an enemy and surviving the encounter.
The Hidden Master reached the troop of spirit beasts and didn’t slow down. He scooped up the cabbage with one hand and lashed out with the other. His fist caught a monkey on the chin and knocked it back. The other monkeys swarmed him, blood flying from their faces as he coated his fist with some kind of technique that blazed with red qi. Fire? Iron?
Her spirit sense couldn’t be sure at this distance.
He continued to move slowly enough that she and Mu Min could witness and learn. There was a wildness to his strikes, a savagery that brought to mind the scraps she’d seen in alleys when visiting Violet Hills City. That the Hidden Master made such a chaotic style work so effectively was but more proof of his genius.
Qian Ling would be the first to say she was more of an academic than a warrior. The Qian Clan was known for silver haired beauty, and not any feats of martial valor. In one fight, the Hidden Master deduced that she fought too rigidly and now offered instruction. She did her best to memorize the erratic and unpredictable flow of his movements, in the hopes she might recreate them later.
However, his educative display prompted an even greater question.
Why was he taking the time to teach them?
He must know how she hunted him — and deceived him — but he went along with everything she said, and even pretended to have a lesser cultivation all the while. Why would a man who could destroy a country in a heartbeat spend any amount of time interacting with her?
Qian Ling was proud, but nobody could be that proud.
She felt as though she stood on the edge of a great abyss — one filled with the thick, spiritually dampening mist of her closest companion — and only faith and courage would reveal if leaping into that uncertainty would yield fortune, or destruction.
The Hidden Master would soon lead the monkeys into the trees. It was time for her to act.
“Mu Min?”
Her dark-haired friend raised an eyebrow.
“Yes, young mistress?”
Not even that title could annoy her right now.
“Let us fulfill the mission placed upon us.”
“As you say,” Mu Min said with a small smile.
That small smile was everything! Qian Ling had feared her friend wouldn’t pick up on the Hidden Master’s secret instructions, but, of course, Mu Min missed nothing.
“Should we place some defences behind?” Mu Min said. “Just in case?”
Ah, Mu Min, ever the pragmatic one. Qian Ling knew she would be lost without her. Fortunately, she wasn’t without her.
“As you say,” Qian Ling said, matching her friend’s smile.
They leaped from the wall, their qi cycling as they conjured up techniques to keep the mortals protected and — hopefully — to impress the Hidden Master that the generous heavens had sent their way.
###
Turns out, I was right about the monkeys flinging muck.
The white furred bastards scooped up dirt, sticks, pinecones, and shit, and pelted it at me with fierce speed. They surrounded me, and the projectiles came from all directions.
I tried to strike back, but it took all my concentration to dodge.
Fortunately, Cabbagy helped.
“Duck, you ungrateful, cockblocking swine.”
I ducked and rolled, propelling myself up to deliver a savage uppercut to a monkey’s jaw. Teeth shattered. My blood swirled around my fist, leeching drops from the gums before I pulled away.
“Incoming. Jump to the left, just like you left any chance of me finding pleasure in the dust.”
I dodged to the left, and the flying crap hit another monkey in the eyes. Seizing the opportunity, I grabbed the blinded monkey with my blood-gloved hand. I yanked, and the arm tore out of the socket, hanging by strands of muscle alone.
The spirit beast shrieked in agony.
I wanted to follow up, but there were too many of them, and they were swarming me. I took hits, their claws cutting my flesh like knives, but I did my best to dodge and clear some room. Cabbagy was tucked inside my robe, and I had to keep him safe from the grasping hands.
Stolen story; please report.
I kicked one away, but another monkey darted past my guard. With a swipe too quick to block, the beast scooped out my throat
The monkey stepped back, grinning triumphantly.
Blood hissed and bubbled from the wound as my lungs filled.
I raised an eyebrow, and the beast’s jaw dropped.
All the monkeys stared at me, their rudimentary intelligences bright enough to be put off by someone who should be dead on the ground but remained standing.
I didn’t waste the opportunity.
My swirling blood gloves gripped the monkey’s jaw and ripped it free. The monkey slumped, blood gushing as I pegged the fanged jawbone at another beast and charged into some others. They shrieked as I kept fighting, throwing fists as fast as my muscles could take, doing everything to keep the momentum I’d stolen.
“They’re not that strong!” Cabbagy shouted. “Don’t let them pin you down! And watch out for the big bastard!”
As if on cue, the larger, one-eyed monkey waded through the lesser spirit beasts. Last time we fought, there’d been a time pressure. Now, we were so surrounded that I couldn’t afford to give any one of the creatures my singular attention.
I had a feeling that if it came down to a one-on-one with the larger monkey, things might go bad really fast.
Taking a page out of a monkey’s book, I flung mud at the larger spirit beast. I hit his one remaining eye, quenching the yellow fire there long enough to give me breathing room as I lashed out at the lesser beasts. My gloves swirled and flowed, my fingers long enough to give me some extra reach, but not at the swollen size I’d used in my last battle.
I didn’t have enough blood, willpower, or time to pull off something like that.
Not when I was so surrounded.
The good news was that the Howling Spirit Monkeys were no longer paying any attention to Falling Hen Village.
Back at the walls, Qian Ling and Mu Min were racing around, doing something with qi I couldn’t detect — I could only tell they were doing something at all because of the unnatural mist spreading between the walls and the trees.
“So, tell me, oh unfaithful wanker,” Cabbagy said. “How exactly will you lure the monkeys away?”
“Ye of little faith,” I said as I ducked a monkey’s wild haymaker, only to receive a spinning kick from another monkey that sent me tumbling along the ground. “Ouch.”
“You were saying something?” Cabbagy said as he rolled to a stop next to me.
He looked thoroughly unimpressed.
I glowered at him as I picked myself up out of the dirt. The monkeys hooted at me, already charging over to resume their attacks. Blood dripped from my torn flesh, though I did my best to keep it inside my body.
The mist now completely hid the mortal village and was advancing toward us. I hadn’t asked the cultivators to do that, but I was glad they’d taken steps to protect the mortals. It wasn’t something I’d expected them to do at all, if I was being honest.
Bending to scoop up Cabbagy, I brushed off some dirt as the monkeys charged me.
“Don’t worry, Cabbagy,” I said as I tucked him into my robe and freed my hands. “I have a plan.”
Despite my words of bravado, I was worried. Did I have a plan?
Of course I did.
Planning was my favorite thing in the whole world, and I was even willing to admit — modestly, of course — that I was a great and strategic mastermind.
However, did that make all my plans ones I was willing to follow through on?
Well…
I charged into the monkeys before they could reach me. With both hands sheathed in bloody gloves, I gouged fur with every clawed strike. More blood spilled onto the forest floor, enough to slicken puddles in the torn-up mud.
Dodging some attacks, taking others I wasn’t fast enough to avoid, I made my way toward the towering figure of the one-eyed monkey.
His single yellow eye glared at me.
“You!” he snarled around his large fangs. “Weak and stupid!”
“Strong and smart!” I shouted back as I leaped up and delivered a kick to his chest.
The impact sent him back a step, but he reached out and grabbed my leg before I could fall away. His powerful fingers squeezed, and my bones creaked.
“Got you now!” he said as he flung me to the ground.
I struck the earth and bounced away, spinning through the air with a broken leg and shattered hip. If I was mortal, that injury would immobilize me for life, but I felt no pain, and it only took a moment to redirect my blood manipulation and keep my legs working properly.
Though my control was stretched thin.
“That was part of your plan?” Cabbagy said with far too much sarcasm.
“Of course it was!”
The large monkey held my snapped bone in his hand and stabbed at me far faster than I expected. I scrabbled away from him, ducking strikes from my own bone as the thick mists swept over us. The qi technique obscured our senses, and I made my move.
I stopped and let the one-eyed monkey stab down into my chest.
The bone struck me, and I gripped it hard as I fell away into the mists.
Getting close to him had been my one chance to reclaim that piece of myself. Holding it like a dagger in my hand brought back memories of my time as a street rat. My heart pounded with that same kind of desperation — I might not feel pain anymore, but I still needed to survive.
I avoided the smaller monkeys as I wove my way through the mists. The world grew quiet and close, and if I wasn’t so focused on the battle, I might have found it claustrophobic. It was easy to get lost in the mists, but Cabbagy muttered directions to me, and I trusted him.
After circling around, the larger monkey’s silhouette emerged, and I leaped onto his back. He roared and bucked, but I wrapped one arm around his neck. With my other hand, I thrust the shard of bone into his throat. Blood spouted out, and I latched my mouth around that fountain of power.
He grabbed at me, powerful hands tearing away my flesh in chunks, but I refused to let go. My teeth lengthened and latched onto his thick, furry neck. I sucked down blood like my life depended on it — which it quite possibly did.
My stomach engorged like a ravenous tick, and I felt the depths of my blood manipulation grow at the same time. Drawing on the pool inside my stomach, I lengthened the bloody gloves on my fingers and dug them down into the tall monkey’s flesh.
There was a terribly strange sensation as the blood I controlled came into contact with the blood protected by the one-eyed monkey’s qi. It felt like reaching out for something in the dark and being slapped away by an unseen hand.
A hand I could try and sneak past.
My willpower pushed and probed, and a brief battle played out. I felt an echo of the burning sensation from the Cleansing Flame Array as foreign qi ripped blood from my control.
While I tried to push my blood into the larger monkey, he struggled with the strength of ten men. His oversized hands ripped at me, yanking flesh from my body and flicking it to the ground. He gripped my limbs, my neck, and pulled.
With willpower alone, I kept my body locked tight around his. My limbs were so stiff, I almost couldn’t toss Cabbagy free before the monkey leaped back to crush me under his weight.
He fell back, and my ribs and spine cracked and snapped under his weight like dry noodles underfoot. My stomach split and blood flowed out, but I pulled it back into my body with my rejuvenated control.
All that blood was more than enough to patch up the wounds and piece me back together.
Now that the monkey was on his back and I was underneath, there was nothing he could do.
“Evil…” he gasped. “Monster…”
“So is your mother,” I whispered into his ear with blood dripping from my lips.
He thrashed, but the damage was done.
The last of his blood drained from the hole in his neck. Now, the only blood flowing through his veins was mine.
The other monkeys remained in the mist, and my kill was undiscovered.
Working quickly with blood and my dagger of bone, I disembowled the tall monkey and scooped out the space inside his torso like I was preparing meat for the market.
I could hear the monkeys shrieking in the mists. Some of the sounds were rage, some were pain, but all were close if I could hear them so clearly. I needed to act before they stumbled their way toward the village walls.
Holding Cabbagy close, I climbed up inside the torso I’d hollowed out. Using some blood to seal the wound, I sent the rest into his body along the channels I’d already located. Twitching the limbs with my blood control was a very awkward sensation, and I knew that the limp movement I conjured wouldn’t fool anyone intelligent.
Not to mention the gigantic wound that was barely hidden by the thick white fur. Though the spirit beasts were smart, I prayed they weren’t that smart.
The smaller monkeys hooted nearby as more and more gathered. Anger and frustration warped their howling voices, and I knew I had to act now or risk discovery and destruction.
“All of you!” I shouted in my best — and pretty good, if I do say so myself — impression of the tall monkey’s voice. “Come to me, now!”
I hoped my plan worked, because if it didn't, I was a sitting duck slathered in monkey juices, and I doubted the spirit beasts would take kindly to that flavor.
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