I laid on the edge of the cliff, peering down at the flashes of movement I could see in the rising moonlight reflecting off the sea and ignoring the churning of my stomach. I couldn’t make out as much activity as I had even an hour ago. I wanted to take that as a good sign, but I couldn’t be sure. It might mean that my medicines were working; it might just as easily be the case that the camp always quieted down around that time. There just wasn’t any way for me to be sure.

I felt a potent, glowing presence behind me, and I looked back to see Wim standing just out of sight of the cliff. Since reaching Water rank – and fully acclimating to this world – I’d found it far easier to feel the auras of people, but they had to be close to me, or I had to be actively trying to do it, which I never did. I slid back from the cliff, making sure I was safe from being spotted by anyone below, and rose to my feet to face the old man.

Wim wasn’t dressed in his old peasant robes anymore. He wore a shirt of trousers of cream and turquoise silk with a crest sewn into his left shoulder in gold thread. The material shone brightly in the sunlight and looked ridiculously expensive, which I guessed it probably was. He’d brought a contingent of ten people dressed the same as he was, and from how they bowed and scraped to him, he was fairly important in the Brilliant Desert Sea School.

“Xu Xing, what are your thoughts?” he asked me quietly, standing calmly with his hands behind his back. I looked past him to where the gathered sect members stood. Everyone else shifted nervously, talked in quiet tones, or checked and rechecked their gear. Wim looked as relaxed as if he’d been on an afternoon stroll around his farm. I supposed that as powerful as he was, he had every reason to remain calm. There probably wasn’t anything in the school below us that could hurt him.

“It looks like things are quiet,” I said. “There’s been no outcry, so they haven’t found the guards we drugged. I don’t know if my idea worked or not, though.”

“We shall have to risk it, I believe. With the forces gathered here, we should be able to sweep those below away even at their full strength. Any who were unaffected by your medicines will be dealt with. Prepare yourselves.” He turned and walked back to the waiting forces, and I let out a deep breath.

“Your father can be terrifying at times, Jing,” I said to her with a sigh.

“Only his enemies need fear him,” the woman shrugged, then looked at me. “Some might say the same of you, Xu Xing.”

“Me?” I laughed. “Not likely.”

“It is true. While you do not hold the power that my father does, there is a certain quality about you that can be frightening, Xu Xing. When you wish to achieve a goal, you will stop at nothing and let no one stand in your way.”

“That is ruthlessness,” Bai said flatly. “It is a quality we must all adopt in the battle to come, Jing.”

“I do not believe that to be the case,” Jing contradicted. “We must fight, yes, but we can fight with honor and courage.”

“Those below deserve neither,” Bai said coldly. “They deserve only death, Jing.”

“And one way or another, they’ll get it,” I interrupted the pair. “Either they’ll die fighting, or they’ll end up executed for being part of this.” I looked at Bai. “I can’t imagine the other sects allowing these people to live to spread this knowledge, can you?”

“No,” she said with grim satisfaction. “Nor will they allow the School of Earthly Fires to exist beyond this, I believe. That – I shall be satisfied with that.”

“Good. Then let’s get moving, so the others don’t leave us behind.”

The descent to the camp was almost ridiculously easy. The guards Bai knocked out earlier were awake, but the Qi Venom shut down their ability to cultivate for a while, so they couldn’t break out of their bindings. Someone in a green and tan robe encased the pair in smaller versions of the cocoons Dif had made for Builder and Holder to secure them, then a mixed group of ten of our number headed into the tunnel to investigate the other end, while the rest moved down into the main camp.

As it turned out, I’d put more than enough Qi Venom and Restless Slumber pills into the cistern. Half the camp was asleep, and a good chunk of the rest didn’t even try to resist us. The remaining handful of students fell in seconds to the older and more powerful cultivators, and Wim led everyone into the cave system.

We faced our first serious opposition there; either Delver knew we were coming, or he put up more defenses at night. In either case, as we passed the first side passage, a flicker of movement flashed in my vision, and I spun quickly to see a bolt of shimmering, green fire roaring toward me. I reacted instinctively, ducking and slashing at the flames with a qi-coated hand, and the green fore exploded into a wash of harmless warmth.

A storm of flame and stone quickly followed as five students and one orange-robed instructor hurled blast of qi at us, the students calling out random technique names but the instructor totally silent. I heard a shout from ahead, and ten more Earthly Fires practitioners emerged from the second tunnel, charging toward the front of our group, but I ignored them. I had my own problems to deal with.

I activated Lightness of Being and ran at the students in the side passage. One of them raised a hand toward me, then shrieked in pain as her robe exploded with thorns that tore into her skin. She ripped at the fabric, tearing it free, but by that time, I was already there. She turned toward me, her mouth opening to shout out a technique, but I silenced her with a qi-enhanced elbow strike to the head. Guardian of the Heavens coated me in a layer of celestial qi, and I used that shielding to smack aside a stone spear hurtling toward my chest. I kicked out at another student’s knee, feeling it collapse with a crack, then ducked a flash of fire and slammed my thorn-covered fist into another’s stomach. That one screamed and collapsed, and I spun as a spike of stone shot up from the ground where I’d been standing, narrowly missing me.

“I do not know who you are,” the orange-clad instructor said ominously, “but…”

I cut him off with a Sun’s Scorching Ray to the chest. The flash of light burned through his robe and into his flesh, and he cried out in pain and clutched the horrific wound. A streak slammed into him, and I saw Jing quickly recovering from the flying kick she’d launched into his unguarded face. She spun and slammed a spinning side kick into another student’s chest, launching them backward to crash heavily to the floor, then slipped to the side and snapped her shin up to crash into the stomach of the last student.

While she took care of them, I jumped on the instructor and slammed a thorn-covered fist into his throat. He gagged as the spikes plunged into his trachea but managed to fling a blast of flame up at my face. I dodged it, slapping it aside with a hand, but that allowed him to roll away. Unfortunately for him, he took the chance to do it.

A blast of black-streaked flame tore into the instructor, and he screamed as the fire seared his flesh. He began beating the flames out of his robe, but as he did, Bai rushed past me, black flame streaming from her curled hands. The instructor whipped a blast of flame at her, but she shrugged it off without effect and slashed her hand at him. He raised his arm to block, and her clawed fingers sank into his flesh. He shrieked again and jerked his arm free, clutching it with his other hand, and Bai slashed her hand across his face.

The instructor dropped, wailing in pain, and I watched in mild horror as reddish-black lines crept out from the gash along his cheek. They spread like branching veins, washing across his face and down his neck. The man curled up and vomited, but instead of bile and acid, red and black sludge splattered to the floor.

“Help me!” he screamed, but Bai simply stood watching him, her face cold and impassive. He raised a hand toward me, and I considered putting him out of his misery, until I remembered that the asshole willingly went along with all this. He wasn’t a student, forced to participate. He’d chosen his side, and now he was paying the damn price for it. That seemed fair to me.

I glanced around and saw that the battle was over almost as quickly as it had started. Jing, Bai and I cleared our side more or less by ourselves; Wim and his people stood over the unmoving bodies of the people who’d attacked up front. Assured that we were safe for the moment, I turned back to watch the instructor slowly succumb to Bai’s venom.

The guy screamed for a few minutes as the qi poison Bai injected into him spread through his veins. He fell silent, spasming and shuddering, then finally fell still. Bai took a deep, shaking breath once he died, and she wiped her hand beneath her eye. I walked over to stand beside her and glanced at her face. I recognized the look. I was totally familiar with the combination of horror, disgust, and satisfaction I saw in her eyes.

“First kill?” I asked her quietly.

“I…” She paused a moment, and I saw gleaming, crimson tears running down her face. “I have killed many beasts, Xu Xing…”

“But this was your first person,” I nodded. “It’s not the same at all, is it?”

“No,” she admitted. “He – he deserved it, though.”

“He did. He signed up for this knowing what it would do to people and not caring. He absolutely deserved to die, Bai Ren. That doesn’t make it any easier, though.”

“I do not understand,” she said softly. “I wished him dead, with all my heart. I wished him to suffer. And now that it is so – I feel disgusted. I feel unclean, Xu Xing. I feel regret for what I did.”

“Yeah, I’ve been there,” I sighed.

“How did you deal with it?” she asked curiously.

“Alcohol, mostly,” I laughed. Seeing her blank face, I explained, “It’s a type of medicine where I come from. It makes you not care about things for a few hours – and you feel like shit when it wears off.”

“Does it make you forget what you have done?”

“No. It just makes it hurt less for a bit. In the end, though, I told myself that it was him or me, and I didn’t want it to be me.” I looked at her. “If that guy had defeated you, instead, what would he have done?”

“Killed me,” she said promptly, then frowned. “Or perhaps not. He may have captured me and forced me to level the core within me, to see how strong I could grow.”

“Exactly. Did you want that?” She shook her head adamantly. “Then you didn’t have a choice. He had to die. You just happened to be the one who killed him, is all.”

“And I chose the most painful way I could manage,” she said softly. “I believe – I fear that the beast core is taking me over, changing my nature.”

“Maybe,” I acknowledged. “Or maybe you’re just angry and want to hurt the people who hurt you. That’s not the worst thing in the world. It’s pretty natural, really.”

“Would you have done the same?” she asked challengingly.

“In a heartbeat, Bai Ren. I’ve done way worse than that, and sometimes for far worse reasons. Don’t use me as your moral compass; I’ll never point in the right direction.” I placed a hand on her shoulder.

“Here’s the thing. The fact that this is eating you up is a good thing. It means that even if the core is influencing you, you’re still you. If it ever stops bothering you, well, that’s when you have to be concerned about becoming less than a person.” I knew that for a fact. I’d passed that point years ago, and I’d only recently started to look back.

She sighed. “Again, you show great wisdom, Xu Xing. I will consider your words, and I will take solace in the fact that while my core is that of a beast, my spirit is not. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” I turned away from her and saw Jing watching us. The woman’s gaze looked vaguely troubled, and she stared at me in an almost disconcerting way. I stared back for a moment, and she turned away. I suppressed another sigh. What the hell was she upset about now?

We continued on toward the back cavern, where Wim simply smashed the door into splinters with a casual swipe and walked calmly inside. The last room was the largest, and it was obviously where the Earthly Fires people continued their experiments. I saw not one but four separate stone slabs, all of them blood-drenched to the point that they looked black. Three instructors in orange robes stood at the back of the room, and a wall of what looked like about twenty simple students stood in front of them. The flip-flopping in my stomach told otherwise, though. The defenders were anything but simple.

Wim strode forward, his face impassive, and the rest of us followed, spreading out to encircle the defenders. The orange-robed instructor in the middle, a bald man with oddly gleaming skin, stepped forward and looked at us contemptuously. I took a moment to quickly scan him; I wasn’t happy with what I saw.

Delver-in-Diamonds

Level 19 Lava Cultivator (Unusual)

Sky Rank

Estimated Physical Stats:

Prowess: 26 Vigor: 28 Celerity: 24 Skill: 25

“So,” the man said haughtily, “you have come to your dooms, then?”

“You are Delver-in-Diamonds?” Wim asked almost lazily.

“I am. I rule here, in the true School of the Earthly Fires. And who are you, to intrude on my demesne?”

“True school?” Wim repeated.

“Yes, the true school! Above, students learn pathetic techniques of cultivation that require decades to achieve even a hint of mastery and power. Here, I grant them true power, power gained through death and battle.” He swept a hand over the students. “These have become greater in a week than they were after years of study and cultivation! This is the true path to power in this world, and we of the School of the Earthly Fires are the first to step upon it! We will stand atop this new world, and you can do nothing to stop it!”

Wim shook his head. “You are a fool, Delver-in-Diamonds, but a dangerous one. What you have done threatens the very Wheel itself. This cannot be allowed…”

Wim cut off as I fired a Sun’s Scorching Ray directly into Delver’s face. The man screamed and clutched his hands to his head, falling back. Wim looked sharply at me, and I shrugged.

“It was always going to end in a fight anyway. Might as well get the first shot in.”

I activated Lightness of Being and ran for the line of students, who stood looking at their master in stunned surprise. I hit them like a ton of bricks; my first thorn-covered and qi-enhanced punch tore into a student’s throat, and she dropped to her knees, clutching the spray of oddly green blood that spurted from her. I fired another Scorching Ray into the man beside her, burning through his chest and sending him screaming to the ground, then gestured to the next student. That man shrieked as his robe grew dozens of thorns that punched into his body, and I used his distraction to slam my elbow into his face.

Both sides seemed taken aback by my sudden attacks, and they stood there, watching the carnage for a long few seconds. Jing reacted first, also rushing the students and slamming her heel into one’s chest. That more mundane attack seemed to be all the catalyst that anyone needed, and our people rushed forward, engaging the now-ragged semicircle of defenders with fists, qi, and blades. I saw a gout of black flame wash over someone on my left as Bai hit them with her bestial abilities; on my right, Jing’s feet practically flew as she lashed out at students.

I chose to go right up the middle, pushing past the students I’d wounded. They were dangerous, but they weren’t the issue. We needed to get to the teachers behind them to end this. I rushed at the first orange-robed figure and slammed a fist into her stomach with a loud crack. My knuckles ached from the impact, but I felt something crumble beneath my fist, and she bent over as the blow crashed through her defenses and into her soft abdomen. I ducked as she swept a backfist at me and jabbed a thorny fist at her face. Her head rocked back from the blow, but the thorns merely scraped along her alabaster skin, leaving only faint white lines in her flesh.

She flung a hand out, and I rolled to the side as a trio of stone spears sailed through the space where my head had been. I rose to my feet, but pain flared in my right foot, and I jerked it back to see a three-inch stone spike jutting up from the floor beneath it. The woman grinned at me, but her face turned to an expression of pain as I caused a pair of thorns to shoot out from her robe, one stabbing into each thigh.

My foot burned, but I pushed through the pain and half-ran, half-limped toward the woman. She recovered quickly and kicked up at my face, but I slipped the blow and wrapped my arm around her outstretched ankle, trapping it beneath my armpit. She bent her other leg, probably intending to do some fancy spinning kick to make me let go, but I slammed a thorn-covered hammerfist down on the side of her outstretched knee. The joint collapsed with a crack, and she shrieked in pain. I released the leg, and she instinctively brought it down to the floor, but the moment she put weight on it, it collapsed, dropping her to one knee with it.

I activated Lightness of Being and rushed to take her back, wrapping an arm around her throat and falling backward to pull her on top of me. I wrapped my legs around her waist to pin her in place and tightened my grip on her throat. As I did, I activated Thorn’s Embrace, and a pair of wooden spikes ripped through her stony armor and plunged into her neck. She beat at my arm and legs with her hands, trying to free herself, but the motions just tore the flesh of her throat. I felt a wash of warmth spill over my arm; her struggles must have nicked her jugular.

Sudden pain flared in my lower back, but I ignored it and hung on grimly. Another stab of pain joined the first, and I clamped down tighter. I felt a second burst of blood, this one hitting my arm with force, and I knew I’d gotten her carotid. Her thrashing grew weaker as blood spilled from her body, and after a moment, she went limp and still. I rolled her over, feeling more pain as a pair of somethings slid out of my back, and rose weakly to my feet. I produced one of my restoration pills and popped it, along with a qi pill to help restore some of my lost energy.

An incredible force slammed me against the cavern wall, and I saw stars as my head cracked against stone. I slumped to the ground, dazed, but something gripped my throat and lifted me into the air. I forced my eyes to focus and saw Delver-in-Diamonds standing before me, his eyes blazing with fury and a cruel sneer plastered across his burned face.

“You dare!” he said fiercely, tightening his grip on my throat so that I couldn’t breathe. “You dare to lay hands on your betters, you filthy cultivator! I will teach you of the meaning of pain. You will be the next on my table, screaming and begging for mercy…”

The secret to dealing with being choked is to ignore what’s actually choking you. It’s hard because your instinct is to grab it and try to pry it free. The problem is, that rarely works, and the longer you try, the weaker you get as you run out of air. Instead, attack the person doing the choking. A good hit or two will make them let go – it’s hard to keep up a choke when someone’s pounding your face or kicking your nuts. Or firing blasts of celestial qi directly into your eye, as I did to Delver.

He screamed in pain and dropped me, grabbing his ruined left eye and staggering backward. I sucked in a deep breath, then lifted my hand and fired another blast with my dwindling qi pool. I was aiming for his chest, but as I fired, he lurched toward me. I saw Jing standing behind him, her foot extended from the kick she’d just planted on his spine. The beam took him low in the stomach, and I heard something shatter as the blast burned into him.

Delver shrieked again, this time a cry of fear rather than pain, and he dropped to the ground, clutching the wound in his stomach. “NOO!” he screamed as thick, black ooze pumped from the wound. “What have you done?”

“Honestly?” I responded as I staggered painfully to my feet. “No clue, asshole.”

Delver tried to rise, but his legs failed beneath him. He held up his shaking, gore-covered hands, and I saw lines of black corruption spreading along the backs of them, filling his veins. Similar veins raced up his cheeks and spread across his face, pooling in his good eye and turning it jet black. His entire body quivered, and his burned face twisted in pain.

“K-kill me,” he begged before vomiting up a thick mass of black ooze. “Please! C-core…shattered. Corr…uption…”

I walked up to him and kicked him in the chest, knocking him onto his back. “This is better than you deserve, you piece of shit,” I grated at him. “You deserve to be torn from the Wheel, to suffer the fate you gave to all these others, but you’re lucky. I’ve got just a bit of mercy left in me today.”

I slammed my fist down and plunged the single eight-inch thorn jutting from it into his chest. The wooden spike pierced his heart, and I twisted it around in him, tearing the wound open so that he’d bleed out. It also had to hurt like a mother fucker, which was fine by me. My mercy was still pretty underdeveloped, and it only went so far. Delver gurgled once, coughing up a spray of foul ichor, spasmed briefly, and fell still.

I rose and looked around at the remaining battle. Wim fought the other instructor, or to be accurate, he let the other instructor attack him, then slapped the man to the ground with enough force to crush bone. Bai stood back, hurling jets of black-streaked fire where she safely could, while Jing joined back in the battle after giving me a brief look that I couldn’t quite read. I just watched; it was obvious that the battle was winding down, and the school’s defenders were getting the worst of it. Besides, I wasn’t in any shape to fight. My back and foot burned, my throat throbbed, and I kept coughing to try and clear it, even though I knew it wouldn’t help.

Instead, I activated Flesh of the Stars to boost my healing, took another celestial qi pill, and pulled up my waiting notification.

Unassigned XP: 8,015

Unassigned XP can be divided between the following Professions:

Pugilist (Max 3,495 XP), Celestial Guardian, Inquisitor (max 2,186 XP)

You have 24 hours to assign unused XP, or they will be randomly assigned.

I immediately added as much as possible to my Inquisitor profession, which brought it tantalizingly close to leveling up again. That left only 2,780 XP to add to Celestial Guardian, but doing that at least gave me a new level in that profession.

Profession: Celestial Guardian has gained a level!

New Level: 4

For every level of Celestial Guardian, you gain:

Reason, Intuition, Perception, Prowess, Celerity, and Skill +1

3 Skill Points

I tossed all three skill points into Unarmed Combat, which pushed it into a new level, as well.

Skill: Unarmed Combat has gained a level

Unarmed Combat (Savant 1)

Benefits: Rapid Striking – Attack speed is doubled for ten seconds, usable once per day per 10 ranks of this skill

I closed out the notifications as the battle finally ceased. I looked around; while we’d won, the battle hadn’t been totally one-sided. It looked like we had three wounded and one dead, a black-robed swordsman whose exposed face showed the black lines of qi poisoning. Two of the wounded seemed to be fighting off the poison in their body, meaning they were probably higher-ranked cultivators, but the third trembled and fell to a knee, gripping her slashed stomach and groaning in pain.

One of the yellow-and-orange robed Amber Teardrop members rushed to that person’s side, laying a hand on the wound. The physician’s face went pale, and they pulled out a pair of pills, handing them to the injured woman.

“Take these, quickly,” the physician ordered.

“Is Runner-on-the-Wind badly poisoned?” a man wearing the same silver-and-tan robe as the injured woman asked, his face drawn with concern.

“She is – I do not know what is happening,” the physician admitted as the woman clutched her stomach and let out another groan. “I have never seen a venom such as this before.”

“Can you help her?” Wim asked, walking over to stand beside the fallen woman.

“I am uncertain,” the Amber Teardrop guy shook his head. “Usually, qi venom attacks the meridians, damaging them and hampering the afflicted cultivator’s ability to draw in or push out qi. This toxin, though, is attacking her cultivation spiral directly. It seems to be – encasing it in layers of hardened venom.”

My eyes widened as I realized what was happening. “It’s turning her spiral into a beast core!” I breathed.

Wim turned quickly to look at me. “What, Xu Xing?”

“That was something that Banisher of Waves was trying to do,” I shook my head. “Or that the Inner Elders of the school wanted him to do, at least. They wanted the change to be spread through the qi poison, but he said it was impossible.”

“Then either he was incorrect, or he lied to his Elders,” the physician said. “Now that you have explained it, I can see what is happening.”

“Can you reverse it?”

“Myself? No. I have not the skill. I can slow it, however, and I will endeavor to do so.” He looked up at Wim. “Dancer-in-Flames must see this woman at once. She is perhaps the only one in the City of the Sunrise Moon who might be able to treat her.”

“Then we will return to the city immediately,” Wim said. “We can finish cleansing this place once we have found a cure…”

Wim fell silent as a figure rushed into the room. The man was dressed in the same cream and turquoise robe as Wader-in-the-Morning-Waters, but his robes were tattered and drenched with blood. He staggered forward, his face drawn and pale and his eyes filled with horror.

“The cursed!” the man gasped. “Wader-in-Morning-Waters, the cursed!”

“What do you mean, Rider-of-Sunset-Tides?” Wim demanded, walking over and grabbing the injured cultivator.

“They come! The cursed are coming to kill us all!”