BOOK 11: CHAPTER 52: WE THOUGHT THEY WERE LYING

The rest of the trip back to the sect passed in relative peace. Sen noticed a few stray spirit beasts, but most were deep in the wilds, alone, and didn’t seem particularly powerful to his spiritual sense. He contemplated pursuing them anyway. Just because they felt weaker, it didn’t mean that they were weaker. After all, he could make himself seem less powerful than he actually was. It only stood to reason that some spirit beasts might be able to do the same. He also couldn’t be sure they weren’t on some errand for the Beast King. While all that might be possible, he also doubted how plausible it was.

He also couldn’t shake the image of himself swooping down on some spirit beast just to discover that it was a rabbit without sapience. That image swiftly decided for him that chasing down those lone spirit beasts was an unnecessary level of vindictiveness. Not over suspicions that were more likely to be exaggerated paranoia than real threats. Plus, he didn’t want to waste any more time getting back and seeing Ai. The closer they got, the more difficult it became for him to restrain his growing happiness. The amused smirk that Grandmother Lu directed at him from time to time told him he wasn’t doing a very good job of it.

That happiness abruptly faded when the sect and town entered the range of his spiritual sense. He looked at Lai Dongmei and found her frowning into the distance. She’d sensed it, as well. The entire town and sect were surrounded. For a split second, he’d thought that they’d come under assault by a small force of spirit beasts, but the impressions he was getting were wrong. The force surrounding the town was composed of mortals and cultivators. He supposed that a large contingent of refugees might have arrived recently. Sua Xing Xing and the rest of the town might still be working to make new homes for them. Still, it felt wrong to Sen.

That suspicion was soon confirmed. Sen didn’t even try to suppress his sigh when the six cultivators rose from the trees on either side of the road below. They rose to block his path, although they all looked very, very nervous to be taking on that action.

“Stop!” commanded the apparent leader.

Like most cultivators, the man had enjoyed the fruits of repeated advancements. However, he’d chosen to shave his head for reasons that Sen couldn’t fathom. It wasn’t in keeping with the cultivator traditions he’d been taught by Master Feng, Uncle Kho, and Auntie Caihong. Even wandering cultivators like Sen had once been grew their hair long and then pulled it back into a touji or some other manner of topknot, depending on where they came from. The shaved head did little to hide the beads of sweat that were breaking out on the core cultivator’s head. Sen drew his qi platform to a halt, mostly to humor the other man.

“Forgiveness, honored elders,” said the man, “but I cannot allow—”

“You should give exceedingly careful consideration to the next words that you speak,” said Lai Dongmei.

Sen glanced at her. The woman’s tone was beyond cold, and the expression she wore was that of the Golden Phoenix Sect Matriarch. That was to say, her face was blank, but it was a dreadful sort of blankness. The kind of emptiness that came in the quiet moment before someone extremely powerful expressed their displeasure with a breathtaking and overwhelming act of violence. That message, it seemed, was not lost on the cultivators floating in their path. The shaved-headed leader swallowed hard.

Sen supposed that it said a lot about the gulf that normally existed between core cultivators and nascent soul cultivators that she had gotten that reaction without actually doing anything. Neither of them had unveiled their killing intent. Sen hadn’t brought his auric imposition down on them like a hammer, even if it was a close thing. He had almost done that the second they appeared. It was only his ignorance of the exact disposition of the town and sect that had made him refrain. So far, his qi platform was the only overt display of cultivator power his little group had expressed.

“Forgiveness, honored elder,” said the leader with a hasty bow. “There is a minor conflict ahead. Our sect is simply seeking to reclaim some resources taken from us by the people of the town.”

Lai Dongmei directed a sad look at the man when she said, “You should have given your words more

consideration.”

The man blinked a few times before he said, “I’m not sure I understand, honored elder.”

“She said that because I know you’re lying,” offered Sen. “I know it for a fact.”

“Honored elder, I swear to you—”

“I am Judgment’s Gale,” said Sen, cutting the man off. “I know you’re lying because the sect and the town you’re attacking belong to me.”

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

The frantic expression on the man’s face might have been funny in some other circumstance. Now, it just told Sen that the man had known his own words for lies. Crimson-edged wind blades cut the man into several large chunks while leaving the rest of the group untouched, aside from the sprays of blood that covered them all.

“You,” said Sen, pointing randomly to another man.

That one at least had his hair grown out and pulled back into a topknot. It gave Sen a tiny bit of hope that the man might be, if not smarter, than at least wiser than the dead man had been.

“Yes, honored elder,” wheezed the man.

“I’m going to offer the same advice my companion gave your friend. Give exceedingly careful consideration to the next words that you speak. Do you understand my meaning?”

The new man glanced down at the scattered pile of body parts that had landed on the road below. It appeared to take an effort of will for the cultivator to force himself to look up enough to stare Sen straight in the chest.

“I understand.”

“Good. Now, I want you to explain to me in three sentences or less exactly what in the thousand hells possessed you fools to attack my people.”

The lengthy silence that followed that command would normally have irritated Sen. It seemed, however, that this cultivator was indeed giving considerable thought to exactly what he said next. He had no doubt intuited, correctly, that whatever slim hope of survival there might be in the situation depended on it. Sen suspected that the man was tempted to lie about some things, maybe even everything. The problem was that this man wasn’t dealing with some random passerby.

Nascent soul cultivators were notorious for not bothering with things they considered beneath them. Some petty sect squabble would normally meet that requirement. A swift lie, even one that everyone knew was a lie, would usually be enough to get most cultivators to simply bypass the place. Unfortunately, the man couldn’t lie without hazarding the risk that Sen, who was not simply going to bypass the town, would know it for a lie. One lie had already been met with a death sentence. It would only stand to reason that a second lie would draw a similar fate or an even worse one. That possibility apparently loomed too large in the man’s mind.

“The spirit beasts attacked us in the north.”

“Where in the north?” asked Sen.

“We lived in a town at the base of Mt. Solace.”

The mention of the town brought to mind unpleasant memories of an attempted robbery by a cultivator and some mortal near that town. When the man hunched, Sen realized his displeasure must have been evident on his face.

“You’re not all from there,” said Sen.

“No,” admitted the cultivator. “There were a couple of small sects that hadn’t been destroyed. We came across them as we fled south. They joined us.”

“You mean they took control.”

“Yes, honored elder.”

“And then what?”

“There were stories of a new city. One that had strong walls and as much food as people could eat and—"

The man trailed off. His lack of excitement about confirming information that Sen had obviously deduced was clear for all to see.

“Say it,” ordered Sen

“We decided to take the city for ourselves,” said the man as he hunched in on himself even more.

“You decided to take it,” said Sen in a flat voice. “Were you not warned who this place belonged to?”

The way the remaining cultivators exchanged looks confirmed that Sua Xing Xing had informed them.

“Well?” demanded Sen.

“Yes, honored elder,” said the man.

“And you did it anyway? If you were all so desperate for death, you should have simply let the spirit beasts take you.”

“We thought they were lying!” shouted one of the other cultivators.

“And you think that makes it better somehow?” asked Sen as he turned his eyes on her.

The woman visibly wilted beneath his gaze.

“No,” she whispered.

“No,” agreed Sen. “No, it most certainly does not. I should simply kill you all for attacking my home and sect this way. But I have a better way to spend your lives. Take me to whoever commands this pitiful group of bandits.”

“Bandits?” asked one of the cultivators in an affronted voice.

“Yes. Bandits. That’s what you call people who steal things. And you should know, being a bandit in my lands comes with a death sentence. From this moment on, you continue to breathe only by my whim. So, I suggest you stop pretending that I should give a damn about what you think and take me where I want to go.”

With that last, Sen finally released a sliver of his killing intent. Not enough to make them lose their grips on their qi platform techniques and plummet to the earth below, but enough to make death feel all too close. As it was, he was still forced to snatch two of them in fists of air qi when they passed out. That reminded him that he hadn’t been impressed with the training of the one cultivator he’d met near Mt. Solace. It seemed that the problems with her training truly had been a common issue. Fortunately, the other three raised no more objections and turned toward the town.

“What do you mean to do to them?” asked Grandmother Lu, her face clouded with concern.

The question drew a curious look from Lai Dongmei as well.

“They all just volunteered to be the permanent vanguard of my army,” said Sen.

“That’s still a death sentence. It just takes longer,” observed Lai Dongmei in a casual tone.

There was nothing critical in her words. It was an observation and nothing more.

“It’s a better death than the one I would have given them for putting my—” he stopped himself from saying daughter. “For putting my people in harm’s way. For that, I would have shattered their cores, burned out their qi channels, and burned them alive. I expect it would have been days, if not weeks, of unrelenting agony before they’re bodies finally gave out. At least, they’ll be useful this way. However brief that use might be.”

“They can hear you, Sen,” warned Grandmother Lu.

“They were meant to.”