Unintended Cultivator

Despite the monumental amount of death Sen had just dished out, he knew they weren’t done yet. If he had been dealing with the same kinds of numbers they had to face when they’d approached the ruins, they’d have a largely clear path. With the horde concentrated in this spot, though, he’d just landed a serious but not critical blow. So, he stalked toward the enemy, fully intending to punch a hole right through their lines and then run for all he was worth toward the forest. At least, that’s what he told himself. He knew that’s what he should do at any rate. He found himself wondering just how the horde had come to be gathered up right where they came out, just as they left the ruins. Sen didn’t know how long they had been in there. So, how had the horde predicted the moment?

There were a frustrating number of possibilities and no way to narrow them down. It might have been divination. It might have been a betrayal of some kind. He didn’t think that Misty Peak or Glimmer of Night would have given them away, but maybe one of them did. Maybe there was some way to track them inside the ruins that Sen hadn’t recognized. He supposed there was even an outside chance that Brother Khu had tipped off the horde, although even Sen had a hard time believing that. The lack of an explanation stoked his anger, and he dropped his killing intent on the horde in front of him as a way to vent some of that frustration. The beasts that didn’t collapse into bleeding heaps on the ground all froze in place, seemingly stunned by the ferocity of what they felt. Sen didn’t let the opportunity pass him by. He activated his qinggong technique and shot toward them. He hit the massed devilish beasts like a meteor made of wrath. His fist connected with the chest of some kind of rock creature that stood nearly twelve feet tall.

The shockwave that rolled out from that blow flung beasts into the air. Massive cracks appeared on the rock beast’s chest as it was sent crashing and rolling through the ranks of devilish beasts. Sen launched himself after it, lopping off heads and limbs as he went, before he brought his jian down and punched straight through the rock creature. The rock creature exploded and even Sen wasn’t fast enough to avoid getting cut up by the shards or even to avoid being thrown up into the air. Rather than fight it, he decided to take advantage of his brief flight. He channeled for wind and, in an act of intentional spite, he infused a few dozen wind blades with just a touch of divine qi. Those blades carved into the horde like a finely honed butcher’s knife. They cut through bodies. They cut through spirits. More than that, though, the divine qi ignited the devilish beasts with holy fire that sent them howling and screeching into oblivion.

Sen was so focused on the destruction below that he very nearly missed it when a massive spear closed on him. He twisted in the air and brought his jian down to intercept the spear. While he did manage to avoid the worst of it and divert the spear’s course slightly, it still tore a nasty gash across his chest. Worse, he could feel devilish qi trying to find its way inside of him. It was like a thousand worms with razor teeth chewing at the open wound. The divine qi in his skin took up the cause of protecting him, and Sen temporarily put that problem out of his mind. He could worry about it if he survived. Stabilizing himself on a qi platform, his eyes flickered across the battlefield as he sought out whatever had thrown the spear.

It only took a moment before his gaze settled on a hulking figure that almost looked human. Yet, its eyes burned a deep crimson color, and its skin was mottled, looking black in some places and the purple of deep bruising in others. Long white hair whipped around its head in the strong wing conjured by Sen’s own actions and Glimmer of Night enthusiastically bombarding the field with more cracked cores. Sen locked gazes with the creature and felt a minor shiver of worry. Even at a distance, he could feel the unnatural, inhuman strength of the thing’s power. He could also feel its hate burning bright, a hate for everything alive and divine. Grimacing, Sen lowered himself to the ground. There would be no escape as long as that thing remained. All of the other monsters might let them go or lose interest, but this devil would chase and chase until they were all dead.

This was what Sen had worried might happen. A mindless horde was easy enough to disrupt with fear and surprise. For all of the malevolence radiating from it, this creature was intelligent. Eyeing the spear in the thing’s hand, Sen let the harsh light of Heavens’ Rebuke fade from his jian and sheathed it. Holding out a hand, he summoned the heaven chasing spear. He wasn’t sure it was a match for the monster’s spear, which radiated a dark aura of its own, but Sen simply couldn’t sacrifice that much reach. Focusing for a moment, he imbued the spear with the strength of Heavens’ Rebuke, but he didn’t contain it to the spear’s head. The entire shaft began to radiate that black and purple light. Sen briefly worried that he might harm himself using the technique that way, but its destructive power seemed indifferent to him.

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Sen started moving toward the monster, batting aside or cutting down any spirits or devilish beasts that got in his way. The red-eyed creature moved toward him, slaying its allies in an effort to reach Sen even faster. In no time at all, they stood a handful of paces apart, glaring at each other.

“Who are you?” asked Sen.

The thing laughed before it answered in gravelly tones. “Well, if you are Judgment, little human, then I am Death.”

Those were the only words exchanged before the red-eyed monster attacked. It swept the spear at Sen in a move that would have cut Sen in half at the waist. Sen swung his own spear to block, only to find himself stumbling away, no match for the pure physical power of the blow. That might have been the end of the fight right there, except that Sen heard a shrieking noise and a bellow of anger from the devil. He’d concluded that it must be a devil, for what else could wield that kind of power in a blow that had looked so casual? Glancing back, Sen saw that the devil’s spear was smoking, warping, and cracking apart where his own spear had touched it, the power of Heavens’ Rebuke simply unmaking the weapon. The devil cast the weapon aside and fixed Sen with an even more baleful glare than he’d used before. Straightening up, Sen suppressed the urge to smirk and dove to the side when his intuition warned him of danger.

A beast that looked like it was mostly a fang-filled maw with four legs passed through the empty place where Sen had been moments before. Without even thinking, Sen sent a wind blade corkscrewing down the thing’s throat. He didn’t even get a chance to see if that worked before he had to pivot and cut down a spirit that seemed to have regained its composure. That was a problem that Sen hadn’t foreseen. Granted, the spirit had looked incredibly damaged, almost like it had severed pieces of itself, but that didn’t make it less dangerous. If anything, it probably made the thing even more dangerous. Sen couldn’t imagine that losing big pieces of what passed as its body did good things for whatever hold over rationality the spirit had. Fortunately, contact with the power of Heavens’ Rebuke seemed to be as catastrophic for the spirit as it had been for the devil’s spear.

Sen didn’t get to enjoy that bit of insight before he had to roll out of the way again, barely avoiding a swing of a new spear the devil had conjured from some storage treasure. The impact was enough to send a shower of dirt into the air that obscured everything. Knowing what he would do if he were on the other side of that dirt, Sen swung his spear through the cascade of earth and into the place where he expected the demon to lunge through the dirt. There was a sense of resistance and a scream of agony so powerful that one of Sen’s ears went immediately deaf. He went blind under the spike of torment that felt like it tried to drive straight into his brain through that ear. There was no time to regain rational thought, just the bone-deep knowledge that he needed to put some distance between himself and that devil. Sen managed to get one foot beneath him, activated his qinggong technique, and sent himself sliding away along the ground.

He was vaguely aware of things biting and clawing at him, but those were secondary concerns until he could clear his head a bit. When his vision started to come back, he could see that he was surrounded by devilish beasts. Nothing good can come from this situation, thought Sen just as something clamped down on his left shoulder. The flesh of his shoulder felt like it was on fire, and he felt some kind of poison or venom start to pump into his system. Roaring in anger and pain, Sen cycled for fire. He wasn’t even entirely conscious of what he did with it, but when his voice died away, there was nothing within five feet of him but blackened earth and partial, smoking beast corpses that seemed to have been on the edge of the brief inferno he’d ignited. He could feel the venom working on him already and the immediate response of his many-times refined body trying to purge it. He suspected that he could purge whatever it was, given time, but he wasn’t going to get that time. The devil was already bearing down on him, red eyes lit with pain, rage, and madness.

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