Unintended Cultivator

Sen consciously kept his pace to something that the foundation formation cultivators could maintain. They covered the first hundred feet or so without challenge. Then, a pack of four water cultivators spotted them. Sen unleashed his killing intent. The four staggered, two of them falling over entirely. Sen directed a lightning bolt at one, a fireball at another, and windblades at the last two. That drew some attention and a bigger group moved to block their path. Sen dropped the fire cycling and reinforced his lightning cycling. He threw a shield of hardened air between his group and them to intercept the water spear and water blades that the group hurled at them. He caught most of them, but a few slipped through. He heard one cry of pain behind him, but he never stopped moving. He aimed the spear at the sky and blanketed the group of water cultivators in absolute darkness. It was an effort to maintain that darkness out in the afternoon sun. So much effort that he didn’t think he could hold it for more than a few seconds. Fortunately, he only needed a few seconds.

Lightning lanced into the sky. It would have been better if there had been clouds, but there was enough of whatever the lightning needed floating in the air that the pillar of lightning that crashed down on the water cultivators shocked even Sen. They were flung out of his tiny area of false night in a spray of exploding dirt. A ground-level thunderclap that sounded like some kind of titanic explosion rocked the entire battlefield. Some fighters on both sides were simply knocked unconscious by the sound. Others clutched at ears that were bleeding. In one fell swoop, Sen had brought the fighting to a stop over nearly a third of the battlefield. He felt pretty good about that until he heard Lo Meifeng screaming at him.

“Sen!”

He looked back and saw that the older cultivator was still on his feet if bleeding from the ears, but the three younger ones were part of the unconscious group. He skidded to a halt and dashed back to them, begrudging every second of delay. He scooped up the first one he came to, the girl, and handed her limp form to the older cultivator. He gave the next one, who was bleeding from some kind of injury, to Lo Meifeng. The last one went over Sen’s shoulder. He tried not to think too hard about the fact that he’d ended up with the idiot who babbled about honor. He spun back toward the compound and started running again. With so many people downed by the noisy assault, confusion reigned. Sen took full advantage of that fact to cover ground. He couldn’t possibly hope for a better distraction. Not that it spared him fully. They still had to run through contested ground. Lone water cultivators or small groups would try to stop or stall him. Most were dealt with at a distance with wind or lightning techniques. If they managed to get close, a blow to the side of the head with a spear haft was usually sufficient to get by them. A few just wouldn’t give up. He put those cultivators down hard and fast.

Just when Sen thought they were going to get to the compound without any more serious confrontations, a cultivator dropped into his path. Sen could feel that she was a core formation cultivator. He still hadn’t refined his ability to distinguish between cultivation levels enough to be confident about it, but he thought she’d managed to add a few layers to her core. That would make her qi and techniques stronger than his. On the flip side, his body cultivation was probably higher than hers, assuming she’d pursued it at all. He slowed to a stop and regarded the woman. She didn’t immediately launch an attack. Instead, she drew her jian and stared at him. Is she really challenging me to a duel in the middle of a battle, thought Sen. Lo Meifeng puffed up next to him and gave the water cultivator in their path an incredulous look.

“She’s actually challenging you to a duel. Here? Now? Some people just don’t have their priorities in order.”

“She’ll hound us the rest of the way in if I don’t accept, won’t she?” asked Sen.

“Yeah. I mean, it’s a battlefield. So, anything can happen. But that’s probably how it will go.”

Sen looked at the older fire cultivator. The man looked pale and unsteady on his feet. He’d be no help in a fight. Sen and Lo Meifeng could probably fend the other cultivator off, but she’d slow them down. That would give others a chance to converge. Sen made his decision. He started cycling for earth. He didn’t hold back with it, using core qi to power the technique. Earth manipulation was always hard work, and this was going to be the biggest thing he’d ever tried. He looked at Lo Meifeng.

Lo Meifeng eyed the cultivator over Sen’s shoulder for a second and then nodded. “Yeah, I think so. Maybe I should fight her, and you should carry them back.”

“Do you think she’d go for it?” he asked.

“No. I just hate carrying people,” admitted Lo Meifeng. “You can’t really fight when you’re carrying people.”

Sen nodded in understanding, but most of his attention was focused down into the earth. “I’m going to clear you a path. It might not get you all the way there, but it should get you close enough.”

“What are you going to do?”

With a roar of effort, Sen lifted his hand up into the air. In a straight line back to the compound, the earth split apart into two long mounds that drove cultivators back in either direction. Then, a row of stone shafts shot up along either side of the narrow path Sen had left down the middle. Those pillars effectively created two walls that would keep Lo Meifeng and the fire cultivators on the path, but also impede any attacks of opportunity that got thrown their way. Sen released the technique and almost collapsed at the wave of exhaustion that rushed up to greet him. Sen glanced at the core cultivator waiting to fight him. Her eyes had gone a bit wide at the display of raw power. Sen looked at Lo Meifeng, only to find her staring at him with her mouth hanging open.

“That’s why I didn’t want to waste a bunch of qi on secondary fights,” said Sen, passing over the fire cultivator he’d been carrying. “I wanted it for stuff like that.”

Lo Meifeng’s mouth moved a few times before she clamped her jaw shut and shook her head.

“I’ll see you at the compound,” was all she said.

“Yeah,” said a weary Sen. “I’ll be right along.”

As Lo Meifeng took off down the path that Sen built, he turned his attention to the water cultivator who had gone through all the trouble to challenge him. He stowed the spear as he approached her. She seemed to have regained her composure and stood there waiting for him with a calm expression. She inclined her head as he got close enough for them to speak.

“You cultivate more than one kind of qi,” she noted. “Impressive.”

Sen shrugged. “I suppose. It’s all I’ve ever done. It just seems normal to me. So, are we going to throw techniques at each other until someone dies, or did you have something else in mind?”

She nodded to his hip. “Can you actually use that?”

Sen looked down at his jian and sighed. “You should pick something else.”

The woman lifted an eyebrow at him and confidence radiated off of her. “Your power is substantial, but it’s no substitute for skill.”

“As you wish,” said Sen, and drew the ascendant level weapon.

When the woman sensed the true nature of the blade, some of the confidence she’d been projecting died. When Sen assumed his defensive stance, even more of it bled away. For his part, Sen was wary. There were a hundred little tells in the way the woman stood, in the way she held and shifted her jian, that shouted that she was very experienced with the weapon. He wasn’t going to assume victory in his head until they’d had at least a few passes against each other. It started the way those things always started. They tested each other. Thrusts met parries. Slashes were avoided or, if absolutely necessary, blocked. Sen was impressed. She had the cleanest form of anyone he’d met since Master Feng. There was almost no wasted motion or squandered energy. Of course, he’d had those same instincts drilled into him with thousands of hours of repetition and sparring. She disengaged, and he let her. He hadn’t wanted the duel to begin with. As he glanced around, he could see that everyone had backed off from their location and left them with an open space to conduct their duel. Honor on the battlefield, after all, he thought.

“Who are you?” she demanded.

“Just a humble wandering cultivator,” said Sen.

“What is your name?”

“What’s yours?”

The woman seemed briefly startled and then her cheeks went pink with embarrassment. “I didn’t introduce myself. I am Chan Yu Ming of the Clear Spring sect.”

Sen gave her a shallow bow. “I am Lu Sen.”

Chan Yu Ming gave him an expectant look and said, “Is that all?”

“No sect. No order,” he answered and, after wincing internally, added, “but some call me Judgment’s Gale.”

Chan Yu Ming’s brow furrowed. “Judgment’s Gale? That is a…”

“It’s a ridiculous name. I know,” said Sen. “I didn’t pick it.”

“You are a master of the jian,” she said, stating it as a fact.

Sen shook his head. “No. The one who taught me is a master. I’m little more than a dim reflection of his skill.”

“And who is this master who is so skilled that you are his pale shadow.”

Sen debated about what to say, but he was tired. So, he just answered her. “Feng Ming.”

Chan Yu Ming went a little pale. “You cannot mean that Feng Ming.”

“I do. Do you still wish to continue?”

The woman was quiet for a long moment, her dark eyes studying Sen. It took Sen a second to realize that he wasn’t really watching for her to attack. He was just looking at her. No, he was admiring her. He thought she was pretty. There’s something wrong with me, he admonished himself. Of course, I think the woman I’m probably going to have to kill is pretty! Like I don’t have enough problems. He felt a vague, momentary sense of guilt as a memory of Lifen crossed his mind. Yet, he recognized that guilt as misplaced. He and Lifen had enjoyed each other, but it had never been a romance in any sense that he understood. There had never been discussions about a shared future or commitments. He didn’t feel attached to her in that way. He wasn’t indifferent to her and would do what he could to rescue her from that cult, but he wasn’t in love with her. He never had been, and he was confident that she hadn’t been in love with him. Still, of all the people he could find attractive, this woman on the opposite side of a small war wasn’t a smart choice.

Something of what had been passing through his mind must have shown through on his face, because Chan Yu Ming straightened up as though she’d been startled. Then, she found other parts of the battlefield to look at. Sen recognized that this whole scenario was vaguely absurd and would probably be hilarious to anyone not caught in the middle of it. When it became clear that the woman had been thrown completely off course, Sen spoke up.

“Do you?”

“Do I what?” she asked, still looking elsewhere.

“Do you wish to continue?”

That question brought the reality of the situation crashing back down on the woman. Her eyes found his again, and he saw a dizzying array of things in them. Curiosity. Interest. Regret. Fear. And those were just the things he could identify.

“I must. I have a duty.”

Sen nodded. “I’d really rather not kill you, but not so much that I’ll let you kill me.”

She nodded at that. “Even if things were not as they are, you’re a student of Feng Ming. I have to know.”

Sen supposed that any true student of the jian would feel the same way. How could she pass up the opportunity to test herself against what Feng Ming could teach?

“Then, come and learn what you wish to know.”

When she came at him the second time, there was a focused intensity to her. Her entire world had boiled down to this moment. Sen let himself fall into the place where his conscious mind ceded control to years of painfully won skills and reflexes that had been burned into the fibers of his muscles. Whoever had trained Chan Yu Ming knew their business. She and Sen flowed across the battlefield, their blades all but invisible to anyone beneath core formation. Sen had no attention to give to the rest of the battle. He only had room in his world for what was right in front of him. Even as they fought, Sen learned things. Chan Yu Ming’s style was more like Auntie Caihong’s than Master Feng's, but the style had hidden fangs that appeared as sudden bursts of aggression. He had to adapt as he fought, modifying what he knew on the fly to counter a tactic he'd never seen before or unorthodox variations on a strike. It was the most alive, the most himself, that he’d felt since he left the mountain.

Yet, as the fight dragged on, Sen began to see the weaknesses in Chan Yu Ming’s style and form. They were few and far between, but they were there. He could exploit them if he chose to and end the fight. He ignored those weaknesses for a time, but she had said she wanted to know. Did he have the right to deny her that knowledge? He didn’t think that he did have the right. Yet, the thought of destroying someone with that much skill, that much talent, made his heart ache. How much more could she become if given the opportunity and the knowledge he now had about her style and skills? Then again, he had skill as well. He waited for the moment. When the right combination of weaknesses aligned, an infinitesimally misplaced foot, a blade a hair’s breadth out of position, Sen struck. It cost him a deep cut along his shoulder, but his blade passed through her ribs. She shuddered at the pain of it.

“Now, I know,” she said.

“Now, you know,” Sen said in a soft voice.

With nothing else to do, he slid his jian back out of her chest. He caught her before she could fall, and gently laid her onto the ground.

“It was,” she wheezed, “a good fight.”

“I’m looking forward to the next one,” said Sen absently.

“You should be mindful,” Chan Yu Ming chided around a labored breath, “of those who are dying.”

Sen looked at her and snorted. “Dying? You’re acting like I stabbed you through the heart.”

“What?”

“Do you really think I’d kill you after all of that?”

He pulled one of the carefully hoarded healing pills from Auntie Caihong and pressed it into the woman’s mouth.

“Just give that a minute. It might not heal you completely, but it’ll keep you alive.”

It was then that Sen realized that it was deathly quiet. He looked around and had to resist the urge to jump to his feet. The battle had stopped. No one was fighting. Every single person on that battlefield was looking at him and Chan Yu Ming.

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