Unintended Cultivator

“So, I didn’t kill them,” said Sen as he eyed the spirit beasts.

He’d drawn Falling Leaf away from the small group of potential enemies and put up a wind barrier to make sure their voices didn’t carry. Unfortunately, that did nothing to stop the spirit beasts from staring at them. Well, most of them were staring. The wolves didn’t dare look at him for longer than it took to take a flickering glance. The others, though, wore expressions of apprehension and fear. He didn’t know that they were wrong to wear those expressions. Depending on what Falling Leaf had to say, Sen might well end up killing all of them as a precaution. Part of him felt like he should have done so already.

He wasn’t quite angry enough or callous enough to kill them solely for the sin of being spirit beasts—not yet, anyway—but he genuinely thought they posed too much of a risk to allow anywhere near the town. He felt Falling Leaf studying his face. When she frowned at what she saw, he returned his full attention to her.

“What?” he asked.

“You would prefer they were dead,” she stated.

“I would prefer that they weren’t here. As for their continuing to be alive… No. I’m not especially concerned with their survival.”

“They aren’t the ones killing humans,” objected Falling Leaf.

“Or so they claim,” said Sen with no give in his voice. “That’s an easy thing to say when we have no way to confirm it. All we have is their word, and their word has less than no value to me. These ones come from the same group that expected humanity to do all the bleeding just so they could swoop in and claim leadership when everything was done. Right?”

“Yes,” admitted Falling Leaf, her expression pensive.

Sen sighed a little. He was taking out his frustration with the situation on Falling Leaf, except he wasn’t really mad at her. He was mad because there were a bunch of spirit beasts that he didn’t want around just standing over there and waiting for him to make a decision he didn’t want to have to make. Falling Leaf might have helped create the situation, true, but he’d learned that blame was a tricky thing. He doubted that she had intended to put him in a bad position. That wouldn’t have been like her. He’d also learned the hard way that it was a damn sight harder hard to tell exactly what measure of responsibility should be handed out than most people thought it was. Besides, there were at least a few things he needed to know before he decided anything.

“Tell me what happened. How did all of,” he gestured around them, “this come to pass?”

Falling Leaf frowned a little more, but he didn’t think it was aimed at him. The expression had the quality of someone trying to organize information from a chaotic set of events into something that might make sense to someone who wasn’t there. Sen had been in that situation often enough not to press her for more information. She’d talk when she was ready to talk. Pushing her to talk sooner would just end with him having to ask a bunch of questions he could have avoided by being patient for another minute or two. That was another hard-earned bit of wisdom. Her face cleared after another half a minute.

“It was a trap,” she said with a firm nod.

Sen waited. Sen waited a little longer. Certain that it was probably hopeless, he waited a little bit longer. He reached up and pinched the bridge of his nose, wishing for at least the hundredth time that his body was capable of feeling some kind of relief from that action. He very intentionally smoothed any annoyance from his face. He was confident what she’d said was true. She shouldn’t be blamed because he’d been hoping for a bit more depth of information in that report. I may be getting spoiled by all those cultivators who want to tell me every single last detail in the hope that it will get them some kind of favor with me, he thought. Sen usually found the habit annoying, but Falling Leaf’s terse answer proved that an abundance of information could be preferable. Instead, he gave her a small smile.

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“I might have gathered something about that from all those spirit beasts chasing you. Could you maybe go into a little more detail?”

Falling Leaf gave him a shrug and said, “I guess. Does it matter?”

The honest truth was that Sen didn’t know if it mattered, which was the crux of at least one of his problems.

“It might,” he coaxed.

“I gave up on those spirit beasts a while ago. They just couldn’t wrench their claws out of the idea that they were going to end up in charge after all of this. They sent word that they wanted to see me again. Said that they’d changed their minds and wanted to come to some kind of an agreement with you.”

Sen nodded. It was a little suspicious but plausible enough if you didn’t already know how the story ended. After all, it was either him or the Beast King, and Sen’s impression was that the Beast King didn’t want them.

“I went to see them. I thought it would turn out to be useless, but it might help you. So, I went.”

Sen winced a little at that. She’d gone for his sake. Of course, she went for my sake, he thought. She was always trying to do what was best for him, even when it wasn’t what was best for her. Sen thought he had a sense of what had happened after that. He gestured at the spirit beasts who were still hovering nearby.

“They warned you,” he said.

He was careful to keep a neutral tone. It was the perfect setup if you wanted to infiltrate a place. A selfless gesture almost always had the intended side-effect of winning someone’s trust.

“They did,” said Falling Leaf.

“And what would you like to see done with them?” he asked.

He had to ask. They’d asked him for sanctuary, but they’d done Falling Leaf the good turn. It was complicated. She looked from him to them, and then, to Sen’s utter shock, she shrugged.

“I only said I’d do what I could to help them survive the attack,” said Falling Leaf. “The attack is over. They’re alive. I kept my promise.”

“You didn’t promise them sanctuary?” Sen asked in that same neutral tone.

Falling Leaf looked shocked at that question and vehemently shook her head.

“I would never promise them that. They can’t be trusted.”

Sen felt a huge surge of relief. He had been so afraid that he’d have to go back on Falling Leaf’s word. Being honest with himself, he wasn’t sure that he could have made that choice. He had the strong intuition that he would have backed her word even if it had been the wrong choice. He didn’t know if that said something good about him or bad about him, but he was sure it said something about him. Of course, that did beg the question of whether this was all some kind of setup or just a desperation play on the part of the bird-man. A thought occurred to Sen.

“Did you find out what they meant to do to you? Were they intending to kill you?”

“Only if they couldn’t catch me. They meant to turn me over to the beast king. I think I was supposed to buy their way into his good graces.”

There was nothing but red in Sen’s vision for a moment. Then, the red cleared. All that remained inside Sen was a single, incandescent flame of purest rage.

“Did they now?” asked Sen.

Falling Leaf nodded. Sen turned to regard the spirit beasts who were waiting for his decision. He lowered the wind barrier he’d erected and walked over to them. He was vaguely aware that nearby trees were exploding and that the ground beneath him was cracking like glass. The wolves started backing away and whining. The bear’s eyes had gone wide in their nests of red fur. The bird-man looked briefly startled, and then his subservient manner evaporated.

“Now!” bellowed the bird man.

The bear, lizard, and wolves looked baffled as the bird-man and the deer-woman launched themselves at Falling Leaf. Sen wasn’t sure why they’d picked her as their target. Was it revenge for choosing to ally with a human? Did they just not think that they could take Sen? He supposed there was a certain logic to it. If Falling Leaf died, Sen knew that he would go on a killing spree for the ages, but it would probably get him killed in the end. Maybe that was what they were after. Not that it mattered.

“Die,” said Sen.

His killing intent and auric imposition slammed into the deer-woman. There was a flash of dawning horror in her eyes before she exploded into a red cloud. Even as that was happening, Sen had activated his qinggong technique. His jian was in his hand and black lightning was arcing around the blade as Heavens’ Rebuke filled the metal. The bird-man let out a scream of purest agony as the destructive power barely constrained in that blade cleaved wings from body. Sen’s foot lashed out and shattered one of the bird-man’s knees. The spirit beast collapsed to the ground, thrashing and screaming as Heavens’ Rebuke ate its way into the spirit beast’s chest. Sen stared down at the dying bird-man. He made no move to end the suffering. Instead, he turned his cold gaze on the remaining spirit beasts and simply watched them as they watched the bird-man die a slow, excruciating death. Only when he’d gasped his last did Sen address the remaining spirit beast, who had all turned terrified eyes on him.

“Where are the rest of them?” asked Sen.

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