Tian whipped his rope dart around in a blur, snapping it forward like a fifteen foot pike and aimed for an eye cluster. The demon flattened itself on the ground, then leaped forward like a frog. Its claws spread out like a hunting cat, hind legs curled up to gut whatever it landed on. Tian shifted left and flicked the rope into loops, snagging the demon out of the air and flicking it upward.

“That felt weird.” He didn’t have time to get more introspective than that. The demon got launched, but not very far. It gave Tian a chance to pull back the rope dart, whip it around and make another skewering attack on the falling demon. It had already twisted its body around in the air to land on its feet. The dart caught it just behind the front leg, where the ribs would be on a mammal. Tian felt the dart punch in, then rip out again.

Black bile sprayed over the desert, steaming as it hit the hot sand. Cold. Freezing cold. Caustic enough to melt holes in the rock and stinking like a charnel house. The demon screamed again. Tian didn’t know if he hurt it, or if that was just the noise it always made. It didn’t slow down any when it turned and charged him again.

If stabbing it once wasn’t enough, Tian would just have to do it more often. He certainly didn’t want to try his palm arts against a demon’s skin. He remembered struggling through it from the inside. The demon bared its fangs at him, hundreds of needle teeth in a mouth that opened far, far too wide. Tian kept moving, shifting around but trying to stay close to his comrades. The heavy dart came in flat from the side, landing a bludgeoning blow on the demon’s head.

The demon made a sound. It didn’t seem like pain. If anything, the demon sounded like it was laughing at him. Then it spat its teeth at Tian. Those hundreds of teeth came in a spray, hissing through the air. Tian grinned as he saw them come. He used Light Body and jumped straight up. The demon adjusted its aim, its too-many eyes squinting in anticipation of the bloody mess to come.

Tian had managed to get the dart back close to him, but it was now directly underneath him. Not a tactically useful location. Unless you had been playing Grandpa Jun’s jumping games your whole life.

With a flex of vital energy, the rope turned into a rigid pole, the dart head buried in the ground. Tian kicked off the pole, going straight up once more. A loop of the rope around his ankle made sure the rope dart came with him. He was now thirty feet above the battlefield, a mess of demons and talismans and flying swords and flashing saber lights. It was a preview of Hell. Tian called the rope up into his hands and whirled it over his head, then flung it down once more. The rope turned back into a lance. Tian wrapped his legs around it and rode it all the way down- straight through the demon.

This time Tian knew it was screaming in agony. He was screaming with it- one of the needle teeth had caught him. He kicked off the pole again, this time moving towards the back of the demon. He didn’t get very far. He let the rope go soft the instant after he jumped. The rope bent over the lip of the wound and trailed down the demon’s back. As Tian landed, the teeth hidden in the rope ripped the hole even wider. Then Tian lunged forward, letting his whole body drag the rope and dart out of the demon.

One down. It wasn’t enough to honor Brother Meng. It would never be enough.

The tooth was buried in his hip. Tian’s fingers could reach it. He grabbed it, ripped it out, and slapped a treated bandage over it. The pain was unreal. A white hot suffering that alternated with a freezing cold that soaked through his side. He could feel the flesh being infiltrated by the poison and sickness the demons spread. A hastily slapped on talisman slowed the spread, but didn’t stop it.

The cold and darkness consumed his vital energy, dissipating it to a bare dreg. Tian switched to Advent of Spring and cycled it as fast as he could while trying to see where the next attack was coming from. The demon that hurt him was dead. Still twitching, but dead. The pain in his hip blinded him with a white flash of migraine. He felt his fingers and toes turning cold, then numb. Then his hands and feet. Then his lower arms and legs.

Advent of Spring didn’t stop working. Qi rushed into his body in great gulps. It seemed to be almost ripped from the air and dragged through his meridians and down to the lower dantian. The golden furnace warmed the qi and transformed it into vital energy, and the vital energy burst into the vacuum left by the yin poison.

It was like watching fire cover dead grass, then green shoots rising up through the flames. The yang profusion was agonizing too, but in that dreadful moment of balance, he felt an incredible lucidity. Every nerve was sensitized. Every muscle thrummed with life and teetered on the edge of death. Every inhale and exhale were perfectly matched. Necessary compliments to each other. Endlessly cycling.

He had never felt anything like it. He had heard the words “ecstasy” and “revelation” but there wasn’t enough consciousness in Tian to put his feelings into something as limited as words. He existed in a shattered moment, a point of perfect stillness in the chaos of the battlefield.

The moment broke when another demon came charging over. Tian had a sense of profound yin imbalance, and instinctively threw his dart at it. There was a scream like a mother watching her children burn in a house fire, and the moment was lost.

Stolen story; please report.

“BASTARD!” Tian screamed right back, and charged the demon. His rope dart spun in a blur and whipped down at the man-shaped demon with six arms and a tumorous lump for a head. The scream had come from the fanged mouth that stretched the width of the Demon’s belly. The demon seemed offended that such a little bite would attack it. The corners of the wide mouth pulled down and the arms stretched out with rigid claw-like hands. The mouth opened, a low roar and a stinking blast of foul air blowing out of it.

Tian wasn’t polite with demons. He threw his dart straight in there. The demon snapped its jaw shut and grinned around it. Tian could feel it chewing on the rope. It was still charging at him too. Tian grinned back.

Well. He showed his teeth.

Tian ran straight at the demon. The demon spread its arms wide and got low and counter charged, making sure there would be no place for Tian to escape. Tian didn’t shift an inch from running straight at the horrible thing. He roared, shaking a small fist at the big monster. Practically radiating a resolve to die with the beast.

Then he stopped sharp and cut hard right, wrapping the rope around him as he activated Snake Head Vine Body. The demon, eager for the clash, ran straight past the bracing Tian. The saw teeth bit, and Tian ripped the demon’s mouth wide open. He damn near cut the monster in half.

The gore-stained rope dart with its unsettlingly organic looking head whipped around like it was a Hell-beast itself. It paused for a fraction of a second in the air, then the dart angled downward like a scorpion’s stinger. Tian snapped the rope dart down, smashed through the tumor on the beast’s shoulders and buried the dart in what remained of its chest.

Then he ripped it out again. And then he was on to the next one.

“Tsk. Looks like I have to make a move after all.”

A rain of long needles fell over the battlefield, landing on the demons and not a few of them burying themselves in five clusters in the dirt. The demons fell apart in loose heaps of stinking caustic flesh. The five patches of targeted dirt started darkening with blood.

And like that, the battle was over for the Warriors of Ancient Crane Monastery. Tian’s battle was just beginning.

Demons- that meant using the Sin Warding talismans. Tian raced around the battlefield, pasting them on everyone he passed. Dead or alive. The dead started smoking as the talismans burned on their chests, the enchantment reacting violently to whatever was inside the late brothers and sisters. It made the living scream. Mostly they bit off the sound and endured. Mostly. Tian knew exactly how they felt.

The talismans weren’t supposed to cure anyone- they bought time. That was it. Extra time to save the living and time to purify the dead.

“Drag the wounded over to me! Drag yourself over to me! I know one of you knows how to triage- get to it!” Tian yelled. Brother Wong had shown him that. Don’t ask, it’s an emergency. Command! Give orders, and make damn sure you know what you are doing.

Broken bones- they will keep. Clawed open upper arm- infection and poison but they didn’t tear a major artery, so it will keep for a moment. Stab through the chest, already smelling like rotten meat. That won’t keep. Tian moved to pour a cleansing powder into the wound, then slowed his hand. He pulled out a second talisman instead, and pasted it on the sister’s chest. She wasn’t dead yet, but the rot had gotten too deep, too fast. He couldn’t save her. So he moved on to the next person who needed him, feeling like he left something with the dying sister that he could never get back.

The junkyard made him hard. Grandpa Jun and his brothers had worked tirelessly to make sure he wasn’t cruel. But compassion has its price.

“Little Doctor, Sister Mei-”

“Is dead. I’m sorry. I am truly, truly sorry. But you need to shut up and get out of my light, so this brother will live!”

“She’s breathing! She’s still breathing.”

“Get him out of my light!”

“Come on, come on brother. Come with me.”

“She’s breathing! She’s still breathing!”

“Come on, you can be with her now.”

“She’s still breathing. I. I know she’s breathing. She can still be saved.”

“Brother…”

“Looks like you have things well in hand, ‘Little Doctor.’” The voice was amused, and coming from directly overhead. Martial Uncle Ku drifted down on his long sword.

“Not that well in hand, Martial Uncle. Anything you can do to help would be appreciated.”

“Hmm. I wonder.” Tian looked up for a moment. None of the seniors were saying anything. Even the one who had just lost someone dear to him wasn’t saying anything. He just sat sprawled in the dirt, resting her head in his lap, gently cleaning her face.

Tian kept his hands working. He rushed to the next brother, then the next. Trying to get them stable enough to let him work on someone else for a blessed few minutes, until he had to go back and fix the next problem that went wrong with them, over and over. The sun kept moving across the sky, and eventually sank below the horizon.

Twenty four cultivators from the Outer Court had left the Depot just a few days ago. By the time the last of the sun’s glow had faded, there were fifteen of them that still lived, with five seriously wounded. They had been ambushed by fifty demons. Tian had killed two, his brothers and sisters killed many more, but it wouldn’t have been enough.

If Martial Uncle Ku hadn’t intervened, they would all have died. Tian still hated him. The man would slaughter demons and kill heretics, but he wouldn’t lift a finger to save the wounded brothers and sisters.

The weeping brother was still caressing the sister’s face. Tian didn’t think she had been very pretty in life. Not ugly, but not some great beauty. He could see in his brother’s face that she was still the most beautiful woman in the world to him. Tian kept his mouth shut, and buried the hate deep in his heart, wrapping the black morass around it. Some feelings weren’t allowed for the weak. You could only choke them down and use them to grow strong.