Unintended Cultivator

Sen’s pushed his qinggong technique hard. He wanted to cover the ground between him and the ruins as fast as possible. Ideally, he wanted to be moving fast enough to simply run around any beasts or spirits that might be a little slow to go after Laughing River’s illusionary army. Even so, he didn’t push the technique to the limit. He knew that Misty Peak was fast but not quite as fast as he was at top speed. He kept part of his spiritual sense trained backward. For all his tough talk to the fox woman, he didn’t intend to simply throw her to the devilish beasts and angry spirits. Suspicion was one thing, but he wasn’t going to actively sabotage her into an early grave. Yet, of all the things he had imagined might go wrong, having the big spider race out after them had never crossed his mind.

The spider’s actions were so unexpected that Sen nearly lost control of his qinggong technique. He came within a hair of stumbling. While it might not have proven fatal, it would have proven incredibly painful at the speeds he was traveling. He shot a quick look over his shoulder to confirm that he wasn’t imagining things. He saw Misty Peak racing after him, mere steps behind, and lagging behind both of them was the spider. Sen couldn’t decide what was more shocking. The spider deciding to chase after them or the fact that it wasn’t that far behind. Part of Sen was a little appalled that it could move that fast. Part of its speed stemmed from the fact that it was covering more ground with each step than he could. Part of it was the horrifying speed of its legs, which would probably have looked like little more than a blur to mortal eyes.

However, Sen could see what was going to happen. As fast as the spider was, it was going to fall behind. Stupid spider, thought Sen. If it gets itself killed chasing after me, who knows what the spider queen will do. Sen could just imagine having to fight his way back out through the horde just to face another army composed entirely of spiders. He tried to figure out a solution, but they were closing on the remnants of the horde fast. He wasn’t going to have time to really think it through. Desperately wishing that he had some representative of the heavens or fate nearby that he could punch in the face incredibly hard, Sen slowed down. Misty Peak almost crashed into him before she shifted to the side a little and shot past him. She looked back to give him an incredulous look and all but screamed at him.

“What in the hells are you doing?!”

Sen just shook his head and gestured behind himself. Her gaze shifted past him and he watched her eyes go wide. Sen didn’t look back again, just kept the spider fixed in his spiritual sense as it gained ground on them. Sen could practically hear Misty Peak grinding her teeth as she slowed down to match pace with him. She shot him an angry look and started to say something, which was why she missed the flash of misty gray when the spirit appeared in front of them. Sen planted a hand on her shoulder and shoved, sending the fox woman stumbling away. The split-second that it took him to do that wasn’t much wasted time, but it was enough time that Sen collided with the spirit instead of running past it.

Sen’s vision went the same gray color as the spirit had appeared and, for the briefest of moments, he felt as though he were floating in cool water. That sensation was almost immediately shattered when icy fingers seemed to plunge into his brain. Sen lost track of his qinggong technique. He lost track of his legs. Some echo of his consciousness told him that he was limply careening across the ground, but he had no room for that problem around the agony in his skull. He felt an abominable hunger explode to life inside of him like he’d missed every meal for a year. He wanted to consume all of the food in his storage rings. He wanted to consume the spirit beasts around him, devilish beasts or not. He wanted to consume the grass, the soil, the spider, and even the fox woman. A thousand visions of sinking his teeth into anything that might help sate that unspeakable, unyielding hunger passed through his mind.

Sen understood what was happening to him, in theory. He knew that certain kinds of restless spirits could inhabit living human bodies by suppressing the souls that lived in them. The process was hard on human bodies, which usually limited the amount of time a spirit could possess someone before the stolen body simply gave out. Of course, Sen didn’t have a normal human body. He didn’t know how long his body would last under the control of a spirit but it seemed likely that the spirit could use it to do terrible things for years to come. Something like memories spilled into his mind. Except they weren’t memories the way he understood them. They were devoid of all color, washed out, and the only thing that really stood out in them was the hunger. A terrible, inexhaustible need to consume. Sen also knew that spirits could drive a body’s soul out entirely. The soul was all tied up with the body when it came to humans.

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I need to fight this, thought Sen. Yet, he didn’t know where or how to begin. He’d only ever had discussions about how possessions worked and how to fight them. It wasn’t the kind of thing that one could practice without having something try to possess you. He felt everything that made him who he was at the deepest level sinking away from the world. He was drowning in a world made of gray mist and hunger. Worse, there was nothing he could do about it. There was nothing to grab onto. No way to root himself in place. There was only mist. Then, there was pain. Sen was only aware of it in the most distant of ways. Yet, it was there. Right in his skin and in the marrow of his bones. A frenetic energy that felt familiar to Sen started to blaze up, and with it came the pain. It started as a dull burn that swiftly roared into an inferno of pain. Even in his sense-dulled state, Sen was aware of that pain.

There was something like a scream that reached him down in that misty place. It was an inhuman wail composed of equal parts denial, anger, and fear. That scream seemed to make the very foundations of the earth tremble. Sen thrashed beneath the tearing, rending force of that shriek. It was like icicles being driving into his heart. Before the pain of that subsided, the wail came again and Sen wanted to retreat somewhere, anywhere, that the scream couldn’t reach him. He swung his head back and forth, frantic to find some kind of safe harbor or even just a handhold that he could latch onto. Then, a light punched through the mist to land on him. It bathed him in a golden glow and helped to soothe some of the soul ache the shrieking had inflicted. He felt something firm beneath his feet and stumbled toward the light.

The scream came again and threatened to drive Sen into unconsciousness. Except, he knew it would be something worse than unconsciousness. If he succumbed to that pressure, he would never rise from it again. His existence would be little more than a living death. He clung to the promise of that light the same way he clung to consciousness. He stumbled forward, pressing toward what he hoped was salvation with all the will he could muster. His focus condensed down to exactly one thing. Moving toward that light. There may have been more shrieks that tried to afflict him. He was so disoriented and in pain that it became less important to him. With one final agonizing push, Sen came back to himself.

For a few awful seconds, he couldn’t even understand where he was, let alone what he was doing. There was a terrible, blinding light. As sanity started to reassert itself, Sen realized that he was the source of that light. He also saw that the misty gray of the spirit was being driven out of him, but that wasn’t all that was happening. The light pouring off of his very skin was boiling away whatever substance had composed that spirit. There was another of those shrieks, except it was happening in the real world. Sen took a lurching step as that sound assaulted his ears, his mind, and something deep inside of him that he thought was his soul. He was certain he felt something rupture inside one of his eyes. Then, with one last burst of light, the spirit was gone. Sen collapsed to his knees, drawing in ragged breaths as the different parts of his being tried to sort out what went where and exactly who was in charge.

Sen forced himself to look up. Misty Peak was standing a few feet away and staring at him in both fear and awe. The spider was hovering closer to him, scuttling back and forth like a nervous villager who didn’t know how to help an injured friend. Sen worked his mouth a few times and then spat blood onto the ground before he managed to say anything.

“Oh, hells, that hurt. I never want to do that again,” mumbled Sen.

“Are you, well, you again?” asked a hesitant Misty Peak.

“Yeah,” said Sen.

“Okay, great. Glad you’re not possessed. Sorry to add to your list of worries, but you need to get up. Right now!”

“What? Why?” demanded Sen.

He followed the direction of her gaze and wanted to just cry. Devilish beasts were rushing at them. Muttering to himself and ignoring the world of pain that was still coursing through him like lava, Sen pushed himself to his feet. Misty Peak shot him a look that verged on open terror.

“What are you babbling about?” she demanded.

“I said, someone is going to pay for that.”

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