Chapter 7: Cultivators

The pirate ship Catherine made good time with the aid of its dark shroud. Captain Heathcliff proudly stroked the artifact that produced the obscuring barrier and hid them from the eyes of more noble sects in the area, his eyes feasting on the bleak coastline of the Great Desert. No sect would dare pursue him here, not even the great King of Roses whose daughter he had kidnapped and locked below, along with several dozen other maidens and youths he intended to sell in the slave nations of the west.

His crew stirred into action as the ship approached the coastline, their hidden camp in the shadow of the dunes not far now. And just in time too, as the sun rose at their backs and dissipated the last vestiges of the dark shroud.

“Put your backs into it, boys!” Heathcliff bellowed over the sound of wind and wave. “We’re almost home!”

The pirates grinned wickedly and obeyed, knowing a feast of flesh and pleasure awaited them from the slaves the captain intended to keep for himself. While their purity was Heathcliff’s to defile, many of these pirates were not picky men, content to satisfy themselves with the second or tenth time of these noble maidens. Quickly the sails were stowed and tucked into the beam, the great ship swaying as it lurched towards a narrow bay under the influence of the great sweeps crewed by chained slaves. Occasionally the crack of a whip was heard, encouraging hard work.

Captain Heathcliff stroked his long beard and smiled sinisterly as his helmsman guided the ship into their hidden port, his men dropping anchor at the midpoint of the harbor with practiced motions. The helmsman spun the wheel and strained the ship, which twisted about with difficulty to lightly bump against the makeshift pier the pirates had established here long ago.

“Get ‘em up and out!” Heathcliff yelled, his men scrambling to obey. “Well done, Bill.” He said to his helmsman, who nodded thanks and grinned at the prospect of being rewarded with his choice of slave for himself.

Heathcliff watched from the ship as a long line of slaves were herded out of the ship under the threat of lash and sword, their stumbling gait hindered by thick iron chains around their ankles and wrists. A few also had iron collars inscribed with strange patterns, and a few black cloaked experts among his forces watched those with extra care.

Heathcliff snorted. Cultivation was all well and good, but money was far more valuable in this world. Even the best cultivators needed techniques and resources to make breakthrough after breakthrough, and those resources needed money. Heathcliff himself was not all that strong, merely at the fourth tier of cultivation out of the eight known, but he had hired two sixth tier experts and a dozen fifth. Most of his crew was second or third tier, at best. But one of the slaves, the princess of Roses who he had audaciously snatched out of her bedchamber seven days ago, was a seventh tier prodigy who was assumed to be able to eventually reach the mythical ninth level. Her father had been an eighth tier expert able to destroy a city himself, but he had been hindered enough by the expensive poison Heathcliff had snuck into his food to be too late to catch the pirates before they reached their ship. Still, Heathcliff had to be extra careful with the girl, as she was dangerous enough that all his experts combined couldn’t beat her. Fortunately, more money had bought him drugs that kept her mind fuzzy and limbs weak, which added to the slave collar blocking her cultivation made her helpless as a normal girl. Her empty eyes seemed like a looking glass as one of the black robed experts dragged her out of her cell and down the harbor, the pupils unable to contract to their normal slit-like state yet also unable to widen significantly, constantly fluctuating between the two extremes..

For a while Heathcliff admired his slaves, especially the princess. Their fur was matted and sticky, their ears pinned against their heads in the fear-sign he found so attractive. His crew’s scarred and pierced ears stood at attention with joy and happiness in contrast, listening to the harsh panting of the many slaves. Their paws were limp, some trying to extend sealed claws in a pointless gesture of resistance which was quickly quelled by a lash or beating. Many of the females were ample in the chest and hip, thought the Rose Princess was lacking in both departments. Still, her fine red fur hid the blood coming from the too tight shackles and her long hair reached almost to her limp tail at the base of her spine. Her ears flickered weakly, unable to pin back or stand straight under the influence of the many drugs. For a bit Heathcliff indulged his fantasy of taking her, imagining her howls of agony and anguished moans as he pierced her lovely hips, but then he shook his head. She was not for him, not if he wanted to make a profit ever again. And money was far more important than his temporary lust. So he contented himself with the rest, bedraggled tails and fear filled ears satisfying his rising lust and violent urges.

Heathcliff motioned for the rest of his men to proceed him once the new slaves had left the ship. The oar-slaves in the lower deck were left where they sat, to be given food and water eventually as they remained chained to their posts. The crew, deliriously happy at having made it to safety in the great desert, cheered and clamored as they reset the tents that had collapsed in sandstorms since their last visit and went about gathering supplies to make a feast. Heathcliff left them to it, walking to the tower on the outskirts of the camp and looking down on his private empire, bought with money and protected by wealth.

He grinned as he projected how much he would make this trip. Perhaps another ship was not out of question. Finding a man loyal to him yet willing to engage in piracy to captain it would be tricky; pirates were a notoriously selfish lot and without his direct supervision he didn’t trust any of them. Still, the profits he envisioned with a fleet of slave ships taking from the eastern sects all their best lads and most beautiful maidens were something out of a dream. He could buy off the western lords to grant him clemency, an impenetrable shield the scattered eastern sects wouldn’t dare touch. And if one did, the consequences would be severe, fulfilling his wildest dreams of vengeance as he defiled their daughters before their very eyes, an example of brutality for the others so they would meekly give him whatever he wished for.

His dreams were cut off by a sigh to his side. He thought he imagined it for a second, after all no pirate of his crew would be so bold as to approach their captain as he gloried over them from on high, but then he realized another detail. It had been the sigh of a girl, high pitched and gentle in a way that a man could not be.

Heathcliff slowly turned and looked down. He found a little girl there, seeming to be barely 10 years in age. Then he noticed other abnormalities.

Her hair was a bright bluish green color he hadn’t seen before, not in fabric nor on people. Her dress and the leather straps she were were similar in color, though the straps had a deep blue base over which that oddly bright color ran. Next were her ears. At first he thought she didn’t have any, flicking his triangular ears atop his head in discomfort at the thought of having them cut off, but then the wind blew her hair to the side and revealed pink, rounded orbs on the side of her head. Were those her ears? What sort of elf beast was she? They weren’t even pointed like those of the true elves he heard of in the myths. She had no fur whatsoever, he noticed suddenly, and instead of paws she had some sort of weird pink dish with five long tendrils extending from it, like some sort of octopus on her hand. And her eyes were closed, sealed by pink lids, but she was still acting like she was looking at his camp from atop the watchpost. Where had she come from, and what was she?

“Who in the blazes are you?” Heathcliff asked, his paw flashing out to grab her throat and lift her in front of him. She was far too young for him to be interested in her, but some of his men would be sure to enjoy her tender young flesh. Even if she was a weird freak.

The cyan girl merely looked at him with her closed eyes, infuriating him further. Pulling her towards him he prepared to rip those lids off and pluck out her eyes, but somehow he wasn’t able to move. Heathcliff was paralyzed as he watched his paw fall from his arm, the flash of a blade registering in his addled mind as the girl lightly landed on her feet and kicked his fallen paw over the tower’s edge, holding a crystal sword Heathcliff saw as the work of a god.

And Artifact wielder, and of this quality… no wonder he couldn’t feel her cultivation. She wouldn’t let a fool like him feel her power, and his only hope was that the experts he hired would come rescue him before she finished him off. Yet to his surprise she didn’t continue, sheathing the blade and shaking her head as if with pity.

“You poor, poor fool.” She said in a melodic voice. “I don’t like suspense, so I’ll make this quick. How do you want to die?”

Heathcliff couldn’t understand. The language she spoke was incomprehensible to him, but seemed to radiate power. But he did realize one thing: she was giving him a chance. A single chance to choose his own fate, and he took it. Screaming a warning he threw himself off the tower and ran towards his crew, bellowing in pain as he hit the ground hard and holding his severed arm to staunch the blood flow. “Intruder! Intruder Alert! Grab your weapons and fight, men!”

He retreated behind his men, grabbing a cloth and awkwardly tying it around his stump of an arm to stop the flowing blood. He turned and looked back at the tower, seeing a horde of pirates surrounding the girl, who seemed to sigh as his eyes landed on her lids. Shaking her head slowly, she took a step off the tower and fell towards the collected pirates.

Arcane was tired of cliches. The ship she had pursued was a pirate vessel, filled with scum of the worst sort and slaves who would soon become no more than broken dolls. She had watched them unloading after harboring in the secret bay, and constantly felt exasperated at the pointlessness of the entire enterprise of slavery. She had tired of slavery when she was young, despite it being outlawed for centuries in almost every civilized world, because she was sick and tired of the accusations of racism that had come based merely on who and what she was.

Pure white skin, entirely human descent, genetically engineered for perfect symmetry in appearance and better than average mental abilities, exceptional talent, etc. etc. She was the symbol of the slaveholders, the minority group that had never been subjugated, that had been created and given dominion. Just because the longest lasting rulers, most of the noble families, and almost all the wealthy were like her in appearance did not imply that her kind was still keeping down the (insert other minority group of the year). Just because she was (white, engineered, rich, talented, pure human, or whatever) did not meant that the less fortunate among the (insert other group here) deserved to take from her without giving anything back.

Arcane hated slavery and those who practiced it for arguably the completely wrong reason: because of how it inconvenienced her. But she was not one to feel any trace of guilt over that logic; humans were selfish creatures whether they were high or low on the totem pole. And it seemed that the races born from humans such as these beast people were no different, selfish and greedy bastards who cared nothing for how much pain and suffering they caused.

In short, Arcane didn’t care why she knew slavery was bad. She had decided it was, and so that was the end of it. Thus, these beastmen were going to die. The only question that remained was how: the easy way, or the hard way.

It seemed the one she asked had chosen the hard way.

Arcane descended from the rickety tower on the outskirts of the camp, a waiting horde of crude weapons made of stone and unclean beasts awaiting her. She rolled her eyes behind closed lids; if this was enough to stop her, she would not be alive today.

A sheen of power coated her clothing. Amusing as it would be to let the pirates cut it off and distract themselves with lewd thoughts while waiting for her to panic and cover herself, she was not in the mood to play that game. So she let her glass sword hang by her side as she landed, bending her knees into a slight crouch as the pirate horde charged, believing her easy prey despite their captain’s bellowed warnings.

The dancing blade reinforced those warnings quickly. Two pirates were cut in half by the sharp edge which slid through leather armor like paper, the rest pausing as crimson flowers bloomed around them. Arcane didn’t wait for them to recover.

One step forward and she was dancing among them. Left, right, left, left, right, spin… She was moving slowly, ever so slowly, but the pirates could not nothing but react to her movements after she made them. Primitive swords blocked her swing with effort, the sheer force of the blow throwing the holder backwards as she bounced off lightly and attacked the opposite side. She spun right and left like a top, her feet stepping between the countless falling bodies who didn’t manage to defend in time and found themselves short a paw or leg for their trouble. Screams of agony started filling the battlefield as she danced on, expressionlessly killing without any hesitation.

The pirates started to retreat. Some few with courage or skills remained to delay her while the rest grabbed bows from the supplies and sent stone tipped arrows towards the melee.

Arcane watched the first wave approach her and let out a breath, disengaging from the men with whom she had been toying. Her sword was held out in front of her, steady as a rock even as it swayed in the slightest wind.

The first arrow reached her. Her eyes closed and her ears listening to the whistling wind, Arcane tilted the glass sword and deflected the arrow with the barest of motions, turning it slightly to pierce the eye of a pirate coming up behind her. He screamed in agony and doubled over as she let the next split itself on her blade, the twinned shafts driving into the knees of another pair. Arcane then slid her blade gently upwards, deflecting one arrow into two and sending all three falling to the ground powerlessly just behind her. With her left hand she tapped another arrow midshaft, deflecting it into the skull of the man whose eye had been taken first and dropping him to the ground in death.

Five more came at once. Arcane turned sideways, her blade reaching out and dancing back and forth in a slight motion to make a hole through which she slipped, the five arrows continuing to make a line as they slammed into the wall around the camp.

Panicked and desperate, the pirates kept shooting as Arcane advanced through the rain of arrows. Not one arrowhead touched her skin, nor did any ruffle her hair as she danced through and around the flying shafts. One of the archers closest to her knocked ten arrows in a desperate plea for survival and shot them all, but they scattered around her without even being touched. Throwing up his hand and the bow, he turned and ran only to be pierced by two arrows from the back. Arcane had started spinning, catching the arrows on her sword and hurling them towards the shooters in the distance. One by one they fell or fled, screaming from the horror she inflicted on them. Heathcliff couldn’t believe his eyes, as Arcane effortlessly destroyed his crew and drove them screaming into the desert.

He didn’t give up yet, though. Even now the cultivators he hired were moving towards her, the two sixth tier experts hanging back and allowing the dozen fifth tiers to the front. He drew back his lip over his teeth. The girl would pay for destroying his crew and taking his hand, he swore to himself. Even if she was a sixth tier expert she would be crushed by numbers, and no ten year old had ever reached that high, no matter how much of a genius they were. The rose princess herself had only just reached seventh tier, after spending 3 years at sixth from when she was thirteen. And she was the fastest cultivator in history except the black prince who was trying to purchase her, who had reached seventh tier at fifteen after only two years in the sixth.

Arcane watched the cultivators move towards her. They were confident, made arrogant by her lack of any form of their energy.

Arcane’s disdain for cultivation came from this arrogance. It bred into its followers an insufferable belief that it was the only form of power, that any who did not obviously have great reservoirs of energy from which to draw on, reservoirs built up over years in meditative poses, could not be strong. While the followers of other paths knew full well that power could be hidden without effort, and that hidden power could not possibly be seen through so easily, cultivators never seemed to know that a hidden serpent was far more dangerous than a proud lion.

Perhaps because they were often made immune to such poisons, Arcane joked to herself. The she returned to the battle ahead of her. Easy as it was going to be, she didn’t like being arrogant herself. The possibility that acting prideful would help her avoid such fights never entered her head, as she had only ever experienced it driving others into more.

Watching warily, she saw the twelve fifth tier cultivators (though Arcane had no clue of their ‘tier’ or how they measured their energy) spread out and send their weakest forward. He was younger than the rest, but still sure he was enough to crush this impudent girl. Gathering his energy, he thrust it towards her and created with it a storm of forceful wind.

Arcane did nothing. As the energy touched her, it turned from violent and destructive to placid and calm, falling into her body and disappearing without a trace. This was the other reason she disdained cultivation: they never created their own energy, nor did they use it to affect phenomena outside themselves. Energy absorbed from the world was the world’s energy, and anyone with half a brain and an ounce of cultivation talent could absorb that energy as their own simply by undoing the minimal personalization a cultivator had made to it. True, it was an inefficient system by which one sacrificed some energy to absorb the cultivator’s, but Arcane didn’t mind wasting energy. And the psychological impact of stealing another’s power was… impressive.

Horrified the fifth tier cultivator sent blast after blast of energy at her, each being absorbed easily and disappearing without causing her hair to stir from its place on her shoulders. Bored, Arcane pointed her sword and demonstrated the proper way to use wind to attack.

The cultivator seemed to explode, cut into thousands of pieces by blades of wind that raged through the space he occupied. The explosion of blood seemed to stir the others to action, who raced forward with enhanced speed to attack her body directly, giving up on ranged attacks as meaningless.

Arcane was bored with this game, though. Knives of wind ripped in every direction, and the other eleven saw their outstretched hands turn into tattered shreds of flesh. The strongest used their energy to throw themselves away while the weakest six couldn’t stop and fell into the storm of razors, exploding into flowers of blood and leaving only five fifth tier and two sixth tier beings alive.

Heathcliff couldn’t believe his eyes. She was a wielder in his mind, and he associated her powers with the divine crystal sword, but creating wind that could tear apart a fifth tier cultivator was beyond any artifact he knew. So he shouted a warning to the remaining cultivators.

“Get her sword! It’s an artifact!”

Arcane glanced at him, quirking an eyebrow in amusement, while the remaining experts turned their gazes to the glass sword and drew a deep breath. An artifact of such beauty and power was well worth them risking their lives. With an instant silent conference the two sixth tier cultivators blasted the razor wind zone away and left her open to attack from the five fifth tiers and themselves. One grabbed the blade of the sword and pulled, yanking it out of her unresisting hand and racing backwards, glorying in its clear blade and rubbing it against his face in happiness.

“You’ve lost your weapon and power. Surrender, and we may spare your life.” One of the sixth tier cultivators said, gathering a great force in his hand to smite her if she refused.

“Give that to us.” The other cultivator said, turning to the fifth tier expert who had taken the sword at the cost of his hand.

“No way. I took it, it’s mine.” the fifth tier man retorted, hugging the sword close. The other sixth tier being kept an eye on that interaction, no longer worried about Arcane. Heathcliff too was moving towards the sword, envy in his eyes as he watched it.

“You can’t wield it yet. Give it over.” the sixth tier man said, walking slowly forward with the other four fifth tiers at his back.

“Get back, I’m warning you.” The claimer growled, leveling the blade at the other cultivators.

“Maybe you should give it up, lad.” Heathcliff said, walking behind him. “I’ll give you ten thousand gilded pieces.”

“Captain, My brother and I are claiming that artifact by right of battle.” The sixth tier man said angrily, turning on the captain.

“I’m not giving this up until I die!” The swordbearer screamed, swinging it aggressively. “Work, you blasted thing.” He cursed the sword which was not creating the razor wind no matter what he did.

Slow applause filled the courtyard, breaking the building tension. A girl was sitting on the sand watching the conflict play out, applauding without a care in the world. All involved, including the slaves sitting despondently in their pens and the pirates coming back from the surrounding desert, turned to stare at her.

“Bravo, bravo.” Arcane sung happily. “Always nice to see human greed still alive and well, even when humans are long gone.” She said lightly, shaking her head as she spoke of things beyond the understanding of anyone else gathered at that place.

“Girl, is this your surrender?” The sixth tier being who had asked before tried to confirm, still watching the man with the glass sword far more closely.

“Surrender? Why?” Arcane asked lightly, clapping her hands a single time. At that signal a dozen crystal swords exactly like the one the man was holding floated up from the sand around her and floated behind her back. Every last one shone just as gloriously and brilliantly as the one in the man’s hand. “I see no reason to think I should, honestly.”

The sixth tier cultivator stumbled backwards, the power in his hands vanishing in shock as the girl reached up and took two of the swords into hand, slowly standing up while swinging the artifact level weapons lightly. The fifth tier man dropped the stolen sword from his trembling hands, the blade clattering against the sand unnaturally as every one of the surviving pirates took several steps backwards, come of the more cowardly turning to run in terror.

Arcane flashed into motion. The paired blades tore through the first sixth tier cultivator in a heartbeat, then she turned towards the second just as he managed to get out the word “Brother!” before he died.

Two blood flowers exploding where the strongest experts had stood previously convinced the rest that this was not a battle they could win, and they turned to flee. A glance from Arcane sent the remaining swords flying in pursuit, ripping through the throats and hearts of the pirates starting from the outermost and shooting inwards to leave only bloody bodies where the troop had been. Heathcliff fell to his knees as the girl walked towards him, ready to plead for his life with all the money he had.

“I-I-I’ll give you money, a million, no, ten million gilded pieces! You can have all these slaves, you can have my ship, just please spare my life!” He begged on his knees, his one hand over his other stump in a posture of absolute submission.

“Okay.” Arcane said simply.

“I’ll give up anything, I’ll reform, just please don’t kill… okay?” Heathcliff was startled. No cultivator would allow an enemy to escape, but this girl just said okay when he pleaded for his life. Arcane just nodded at the question.

“Yep, it’s fine. Off you go.” She said, waving towards the desert. “Just leave the gold here.”

Heathcliff, thanking everything he worshipped (his money) for sparing his miserable life, emptied all his spatial pouches onto the sand and took off running before she changed her mind. Arcane watched him as he crossed over the closest dune and shook her head.

“Moron.” She muttered, picking up some of the gold and letting it run through her hands. In the distance she heard a scream and the roars of sand lizards, shaking her head as she wondered how the beastman had expected to survive encountering the massive pack of them that had followed her here without a hand. Or even with one; after killing hundreds of them while paralleling the pirates she had found a group of several dozen following her just out of sight and scavenging the corpses she left behind. It had amused her enough that she left them alone, curious as to what their plan was. So far, it seemed they hadn’t had one.

Of course, Arcane was well aware that Heathcliff couldn’t have known about the army of sand lizards trailing after her, though she wasn’t aware yet those lizards were called sand dragons, equal to a seventh tier cultivator normally and an eighth tier among their strongest, and typically avoided the coast for favor of the deeper desert which was the reason it was considered uninhabitable. Still, even if she had known, it was unlikely anything would have changed about her behavior.

Arcane threw more of the corpses in that direction as she walked towards the pens, returning the glass swords to sand except for a pair she sheathed over her back. Whistling, she came to the locked door and kicked it down.

“Hm-hmhm-hmhm-hm. What to do with you now?” She wondered aloud in sing-song, watching idly as the rest of the pen collapsed outwards as it lost the support of the gate. Shrugging, she decided not to mind it.

“Thank you, thank you great one.” One of the women said, coming forward to kneel in front of the brightly dressed girl. One after another the rest came to kneel at her feet, satisfying the innate craving to be worshipped of the many times goddess. Still, while supplication was all well and good, supplication in chains made her feel a touch uncomfortable. So she reached out a hand and drew the keys to her, tossing them into the pen and quickly stepping out of the circle of filthy men and women around her.

They seemed to understand the message, starting the laborious process of freeing themselves while constantly thanking Arcane through tears. Bored at how long it was taking Arcane wandered over to the small pen where a red haired beast girl with thicker chains and a collar was sitting dazedly. Arcane tilter her head to consider for a second, then peeked around to make sure no one was watching. After that a quick strike of telekinesis had shattered the chains and collar, and the pen collapsed outwards as the girl’s cultivation returned to her suddenly. Grimacing at having freed a cultivator, and a powerful one from the looks of it, Arcane shook her head and started to walk away.

“Stop.” A soprano voice halted her, coming from the quickly recovering redhead who was flexing her claws and stretching her limbs.

Arcane turned around and stared at the girl, ready to kill her if she picked a fight or even got on her nerves slightly. But the redhead catgirl merely stood and asked her a question. “Are you the one who freed me?”

Arcane shook her head, knowing exactly where this line of questioning went and wanting nothing to do with it. But the redhead raised an eyebrow and looked at the other girls still laboriously working to get free. “Oh? Am I supposed to believe that?” She asked suspiciously.

“It would be lovely if you could, but of course you can’t.” Arcane muttered under her breath, but the sharp ears of a cultivator and the enhanced senses of a beast allowed the redhead to catch a trace of it.

“What was that?” She asked with a glare.

“What was what?” Arcane asked, playing dumb and trying to walk away again. The redhead jumped out and caught her shoulder, turning her around and glaring even more harshly.

“You were the one who freed me.” She declared, no longer a question.

“Nope.” Arcane said simply, starting to turn away again before the sharp claws threatened to cut into her leather straps.

“... I am the Rose Princess Annabelle of the Rose kingdom. I thank you for freeing me, and request that you fetch your master who defeated these pirates.” She demanded, pride and arrogance dripping from every word.

Arcane saw an opening and took it. “Of course. I’ll be back” never. She finished in her mind, spinning away and running towards the outside of the camp. Unfortunately she had taken too long with the ‘princess’ and the other slaves had managed to get free, surrounding her before she made it halfway.

“Great mistress, thank you for your mercy.” A woman cried, holding onto the edge of her dress.

“You were spectacular! Where did you get such powerful artifacts?” A young man asked, staring at her swords.

“What’s your cultivation? I can’t sense anything but you killed two sixth tier experts in a heartbeat! You must be low eighth tier at the minimum!” Another man praised.

Arcane struggled to pass through but was hindered by the press of people she had just freed. While she was still contemplating whether or not she should just kill all of them to save herself the trouble an arrogant soprano voice called over the crowd.

“What did you say?” Annabelle asked, striding proudly through the crowd to grab the man who just spoke, who she felt to be a fourth tier cultivator and as such unworthy to be fawning over a child.

“Uh-uh-uh” The man grunted, his eyes swimming as he searched for an escape from the princess’s grasp.

“Your highness.” A calm voice came from a fifth tier girl, a bit older than Annabelle, who was holding herself up with the last traces of noble dignity around her filthy dress and stained skin.

“Lady Jasmina! What happened to you?” Annabelle asked, letting the man escape into the crowd still blocking Arcane’s path. She had decided against mass murder for now, but calling the sand lizards closer and blaming everything on them was sounding like a better and better option.

“Nevermind that. We must thank our savior first. She killed all the pirates herself, using an artifact like a crystal sword. It was divine in its power and beauty…” The blonde catgirl started to gush while Annabelle looked, stupefied, between her and the still-considering-massacre-an- option Arcane. Currently the inability to successfully call the sand lizards was the only thing standing between the surrounding beast people and annihilation. That and her concern over her dress and recently acquired ship if she summoned a sandstorm.

“This… child? Killed two sixth tier experts? Are you sure, Jasmina?” Annabelle asked, staring at Arcane.

“I am, your highness. She is an incredible expert who came out of the desert.” Jasmina declared, guiding Annabelle closer to the exasperated Arcane who had almost given up on getting cleanly away from this spout of sentiment.

The newly free slaves cleared away, clear heads among them heading to the food to finish cooking it and inventory the supplies they had available. Soon only a few were left around the two young ladies confronting Arcane, who at last gave up and turned to face them.

“You killed the pirates?” Annabelle asked slowly.

Arcane merely stared at her with her closed eyes, her face asking ‘Would you believe it if I said no?’ Annabelle seemed to understand and nodded, kneeling in front of her and bowing her head.

“Please forgive my former rudeness. I thank you for freeing me from that torment.”

Arcane nodded and tried to turn away, but gasps around her and the silent pressure made her give up and remain where she was. Finally she said “you’re welcome.” to the immobile Princess.

Annabelle stood up and bowed again. “My father will reward you handsomely once we return to the Rose Kingdom. Is the ship intact?”

Annabelle turned to the rest of the slaves, effortlessly taking charge as Arcane watched her sweep through the horde of people. She had regained her regal bearing even in the tattered rags of a slave, radiating presence and majesty with every step she took. Shaking her head, Arcane walked towards the outskirts of the camp where she demolished the gate and made a whistling sound towards the horizon. She had eventually figured out how to call the sand lizards to her location, by remembering the sound they constantly used to call more towards her when they first appeared. Not that there had been a use for that knowledge until now.

A few seconds later the horde of lizards dashed over the hill, swarming over the bloody corpses and devouring them hungrily. Several large lizards spotted her and called a warning, making them all pause and watch her warily. When Arcane simply threw a few more corpses over the wreckage of the wall they seemed to relax slightly, fixing one eye on her and assigning seven particularly large lizards to watch her without doing anything else, taking turns to swallow bodies she threw in their direction in amusement.

The biggest of the seven did not participate, glaring at her over the heads of its fellows and tensing every time she moved. Seeing this Arcane lunged at the lizards and it sprung to its feet, hissing and snarling as it appeared in between her and the nearest other. Glaring at her, it refused to make any further offensive moves as she relaxed, laughing at its snarling teeth. The giant lizard’s mouth was as large as an adult body, more than enough to swallow her whole effortlessly, but it was the one being tense at their interaction.

Arcane broke up the ruins of the wall while toying with the lizards, her actions unobserved as many slaves had headed towards the ship while the rest were rummaging through the inventory of the pirates.

The largest sand lizard moved as often as she did, watchfully preventing her getting close to any of the others. It's six allies fanned out as well, keeping their distance but twitching whenever she made an unexpected motion. Arcane found it amusing for a rather long time before she grew tired of the game and the work of cleaning up the mess of the camp. Throwing a tent on the ground, she let herself collapse backwards and lay staring up at the sky.

Hearing a sniffing at the side of her head, she turned and saw the great lizard watching her from up close, courage peaked by her prone form. It's slitted eyes met hers and refused to look away, it's tongue flickering out of its mouth every few seconds like a snake.

“You're a bold one, aren't you?” Arcane told it, returning to her contemplation of the noonday sun. The lizard just hissed back, coming closer to look down at her from straight above.

“... That's a bit too bold, if you catch my meaning.” Arcane muttered with her view blocked by a giant reptilian head. “But I don't suppose you do, do you?”

She took this chance to sort through the knowledge she had stolen mid fight from the cultivators and pirates. This world was a cultivation based society, as she had expected, with sects teaching their ways forming the majority of upper class social groups and a few merchants and traders making up the rest. It was a highly tribal society at that level, with essentially aristocratic families coming from the sects ruling over the majority of people who never managed to cultivate at all. Those peasants farmed and gathered resources and traded, working beneath the cultivators in every way and becoming unnoticed by the elites who only considered themselves and their peers really ‘human’ (or in this case, elf-beasten).

Arcane sighed in annoyance. True, there were really only three paths of power that societies took in this universe: martial societies following the path of cultivation, fantastic societies following the path of ‘magic’, and mercantile societies following the path of wealth. Each path was present in every society, along with wielding and occasionally contracting, but the main one changed how the society measured itself. Did it value age and stored energy, or did it most desire talent and those few special youths who could change the world? Or perhaps was wealth alone the determiner of fate, and the blood lineage that often carried it a benefactor of such favor.

But of those three Arcane felt the cultivation sects were the worst. They stratified themselves on the basis of personal and group power, always resorting to the premise that ‘might is right’ without considering other ways. Arcane disdained full equality and the ignoring of personal ability when determining hierarchy to be sure, but this opposite extreme was just as bad in her mind.

Arcane turned her thoughts away from the severe criticism of cultivation as the basis for a society and towards the lizard species of whom a particularly sizable individual blocked her sunlight. This world considered cultivation to have eight tiers, she learned, although the summated total of their cultivation knowledge barely reached the lowest rank of the system Arcane remembered. In that system this large lizard, and the other six wary of her, were of the eighth and highest tier. This largest lizard was further at the extreme peak of the eighth tier, possible enough on its own to destroy the strongest of elfbeast kingdoms. They were supposedly descended from dragons in the Age of Gods, though Arcane scoffed at such notions (she remembered dragons, the original ones, far too well) and were the reason this desert was considered the most dangerous region on the planet.

Which of course perfectly explained why it was so abandoned and safe for the dark beasts to put her down their, Arcane complained mentally.

Arcane reached up and touched the lizards chin, startling it into jumping straight up and scrambling backwards when it landed. Arcane giggled at that, sitting up easily and looking around the deserted camp again.

“You lot’ll clean this up, no?” Arcane asked the lizard, which hissed at her again while thrashing its tail back and forth. “Yeah, yeah, whatever.”

Dismissively ignoring the evident hostility, Arcane stood up and stretched, twisting to reposition the pair of swords on her back that had become misaligned during her impromptu nap. Muttering, she walked through the lizards slowly invading the outskirts of the camp and grabbed a few things from the captain’s body out in the desert. A makeshift compass, a crude spyglass, and a strange black key were added to the spatial pouches filled with metal coated stones that she had learned were money in this world and a few documents detailing who had employed the pirate and what he had been promised. She hadn't bothered to read them, nor count the money. However much there was was enough for her needs, considering there were none.

Walking back into camp followed by her paranoid escort she found the lizards had invaded even deeper and were currently devouring the tents and weapons the Pirates had left scattered everywhere. Raising an eyebrow Arcane walked past them to warning hisses from every direction, all of which she promptly ignored. When she got past the lizards she was greeted by several outstretched blades trembling in the hands of the former slaves, who were warily watching the lizard horde under the inspired leadership of one rose princess Annabelle, whose flaming red hair stood behind the only sword that did not falter as the largest lizard approached at Arcane’s back.

“... Did you call these lizards?” Annabelle asked, doubting it to be possible but hoping nonetheless.

Arcane stared at her then waved a hand at the largest lizard, who immediately slashed something out of the air and growled menacingly. Remaining silent, she shrugged and walked away.

“... Explain this.” Annabelle demanded, her blade blocking Arcane’s smooth path of exiting the situation and forcing Arcane to decide between breaking her advance or breaking the girl. It was a tough choice, made even tougher by the conveniently close lizards nearby to clean up.

“They've been following me for a while.” Arcane decided to take the simpler option for now. She could always break the girl later. “I figured they were hungry.”

“... This many sand dragons… And you made it out of the desert?!” Annabelle screamed before forcing her voice to a whisper. “What the hell are you?”

“... Sand, dragons? Bit ostentatious for these lizards, don't you think?” Arcane wondered aloud, half turning to look at the big one again and waving her hand so the beast would follow.

“Lizards? Those are all seventh tier at minimum, plus a bunch of eighth tier and a king at the late eighth tier! If that group got to the eastern continent it would be a massacre, and I doubt the western would fare any better.” Annabelle explained furiously, gesturing wildly to indicate the magnitude of the threat. Arcane looked from her to the lizards and back again several times.

“... Okay.” She said finally, trying to walk away again. The group of weapon holding slaves shuffled backwards rapidly to keep her between them and the lizards, much as the big lizard had kept itself between her and the rest of its kind. Arcane did not want to be in such a position, however. She did not remember choosing to become the protector of elfbeasts.

“How in the blazing plains are you so calm?!” Annabelle demanded, her eyes focused entirely on the yawning big lizard showing its rows of teeth.

Arcane quirked an eyebrow at her. “Because they aren't a threat?” She said simply, shaking her head at how obvious it was.

“Not a threat!? That's a natural disaster incarnate! The blazes do you mean not a threat?” Annabelle continued in a harsh whisper, backing up even further as the big lizard walked several steps forward to quickly swallow a few bodies lying in the sand.

Arcane sighed and turned around. Walking quickly before they could stop her, she paused right in front of the largest lizard and stared at it. The lizard stared right back, obviously nervous at the direct confrontation that had so far been avoided and whistling for the other six to stop what they were doing and surround her. Arcane waited until they were in position and then raised her hand. The seven lizards followed it up, fangs showing from slightly open mouths ready for anything they could expect.

They were not ready for Arcane. As she dropped her hand, she enhanced the gravity around them to ten times normal, slamming all seven into the ground and causing the rest, who had been surreptitiously watching, to withdraw rapidly. Struggling against the weight of their own bodies, the seven lizards pushed themselves forward to block her path to the others, an admirable feat of courage that Arcane had no intention of lauding or punishing. Releasing the gravity, she walked right out of the encirclement as they hastily rose and snarled at her again to the dumbfounded freed slaves.

“See? Not a threat.” Arcane said as she passed Annabelle, waving dismissively at the massive lizard who was keeping a much more respectful distance from her after that little demonstration. Annabelle and the rest had no response except to slowly come to their senses and follow her to the ship.