Chapter LX: Battle Against Demonic Beasts I

Demonic Wildlands

Month of the Tortoise 33, 172 ,328 DE

When I climb onto the outer surface of the gas bag superstructure, The Silver Princess' gun turret floats only a couple meters above the Wind Knife . I reach the open main hatch of the Silver Princess with an easy jump.

I find Vorn on the bridge with Brigitte. With his hands on the controls for the cannon, he feeds Yuan Qi into them while appearing to feel out the functionality of the patterns built into them.

"Brigitte, move us about one kilometer off the War Knife's port bow."

"Aye, Master."

Under Brigitte's control, the Silver Princess swiftly and smoothly moves away from the War Knife and slows to a near stop relative to the other airship.

"Have you figure out to control the cannon?"

Vorn looks in my direction. "More or less."

"Target the back edge of the bridge's windows. The camera is sighted in for about three kilometers. Each of the smaller cross marks matches up with about three hundred meter difference in rang. The shots tend to drift to the left, but not by much."

Vorn nods. "Okay."

Vorn's initial handling of the cannon is a bit jerky, but after playing with it for thirty seconds or so, he smoothly controls its motion. Once he settles the cross hairs just behind the back of the bridge's windows, he fires the shot.

Boom-BOOM-BOOM-BOOM!

The shell hits just behind and below the bridge's windows, and multiple explosions immediately follow the initial detonation of the shell. The bridge windows shatter, and clouds of flame billow outward. From the gun deck, more clouds of fire, and a plume of fire burst from the hole I cut in the gas bag superstructure. In less than a minute, flames engulf the entire airship, and it plummets toward the ground.

Vorn adjusts to the turret's declination to follow the fall of the War Knife to the forest below. "I think I have the knack for controlling the turret down, but it feels like the turret is fighting against me."

"It's because you use Yuan Qi. The turret's controls are built around Mana. Yuan Qi is a deliberate perversion of Mana created by the Daos."

Vorn frowns at me. "How do you know that?"

"The Great Tree told me. I used to think Yuan Qi was just polluted Mana. But with I have become, the closer I examine Old Man Jones' work, the better I understand. Yuan Qi is a perversion that should not exist."

From her position at the Silver Princess' controls, she gapes at my back. A mix of confusion and disbelief fill her scent, but she does not say anything.

Vorn's eyes flicker from me to Brigitte, and he appears to consider his words before speaking. "I know what are, but are you sure about that?"

I nod. "I feel every time I compare the feel of someone using Yuan Qi to my own Power. Next time you face a Ferocious Beast that uses spell-like abilities, pay attention to the feel of the of its Power. You should be able to notice the difference between its Mana and your Yuan Qi."

I turn to face Brigitte. "You have questions?"

"No." As Brigitte looks at me with a bored expression, she shakes her head. If my senses were limited to the those of a common human, I would never doubt that she was bored and uninterested in my conversation with Vorn. But her scent carries a mixture of odors indicating a twisted mix of emotions. At the very least, she is disbelieving and outraged, and heavy regret seems to underlie the disbelief and outrage.

"Take us back to the mountaintop."

"Aye, Master." Brigitte's almost cheerful response remains at odds with the story conveyed by her scent.

Brigitte takes the Silver Princess above the altitude of the mountaintop, before turning toward it. The flaming wreckage of the sunk transport illuminates a section of the ruins with flickering, red light. The second transport, with the disabled propellers drifts away from the northwest edge of the mountaintop. I see no signs of activity on the drifting airship or among the ruins.

Vorn pans the gun camera back and forth across the mountaintop ruins. Despite his lack of expression and placid tone of voice, his scent revels his concern. "I can't see any signs of people moving around up there. Where are they hiding?"

While the Silver Princess moves closer, I keep switching between the view from the gun camera looking out the bridge window. At about a kilometer out, I catch a glimpse of movement.

"Search the area around near the wreckage of the sunk transport."

Vorn adjusts the gun camera's focal point, and several shapes can be seen sneaking around the area. As they move, they alternate between walking on two leg and four. When their heads turn toward our direction, faint glowing points stand out in their heads.

"Are those apes?"

"Yellow Earth Apes. Corrupted ones. Demonic Apes, now. Brigitte.

As he glares into the holographic image, Vorn's angry expression matches his scent, Brigitte is different. Her calm expression and mannerisms do nothing to conceal the fear in her scent.

"Brigitte, drop me at the edge of the mountaintop, then keep well clear until I call signal for you. I'm going hunting."

Vorn shifts his glare onto me. "You're not going alone."

"It won't be as easy as those corrupted Gnolls."

"I'm ready. Whatever happens, happens."

I nod. "Your choice."

Brigitte point toward the northwest. "I'll come close ground along that clear area. You'll have to jump."

"That's fine."

When the Silver Princess closes in on the mountaintop, Vorn and I head for the main hatch. The sound of the propellers changes, and under Brigitte's deft handling, the Silver Princess slews though the air, turning the starboard side toward the mountaintop. Vorn jumps out first.

"I'm jumping. Get out of here." As soon as I shout, I leap out.

Before my feet touch touch the ground, the sound of the propellers change, once more, and the Silver Princess rapidly accelerates away from the mountain.

Vorn looks toward the departing airship. "Do you think she'll come back when we signal her?"

"Her oath will force her to."

Vorn reveals a disbelieving expression. "It wasn't a Blood Oath."

" The Od witnessed her oath and sealed her to it."

As I shift my knives from my Core Realm, and they appear in my hands, Vorn shakes his head and speaks in a hushed whisper. "I've never seen anyone manipulate a spatial storage device so smoothly. You don't give away any clues about what the storage space is built into."

Ignoring Vorn's leading comment, I test the air. Other than the scents of some reptiles and rodents, there are only the faint, nearly day old, or older, traces of humans, who were probably nothing more than patrols. The wind, which is blowing roughly toward the east, keeps any hint of smoke from reaching our location.

Even with the constant sound of the wind blowing through the ruins, the lows, grunts, roars, and bellows of the Demonic Beats can still be heard.

After cocking his head to one side and listening, Vorn frowns. "It sounds like there are quite a few of them out there."

"At least twenty, maybe as many as thirty. The echoes make it hard to distinguish them by their calls."

"Even as a human, you have senses are like a dog."

"I heard a Demonic Cat among the Beasts. You can fuck it. Let's move out." Without waiting for a reply, I move out in a near-silent jog.

"Asshole." After muttering one last insult, Vorn follows almost as silently. For such a big human, he shows surprising levels of stealth and dexterity. He appears to have improved, probably through a more thorough integration of the Beast Blood he uses for Cultivation.

Nearer to the center of the mountaintop, we come to an area with hundreds of human scents laid one over the top of the other. The coppery smell of fresh-spilled, human blood mixes with the scents of the humans, and the stench of Chaos corruption overlays everything.

I raise my hand, and Vorn comes to a stop next to me. His question comes out in a whisper I would have trouble hearing more than two meters away. "What is it?"

"You don't smell it?"

"You mean the blood?"

"A lot of human blood was spilled nearby. From the strength of the smell, multiple humans were probably killed. I don't smell any Beasts. The killers were probably other humans."

Vorn looks around with a scowl. "We don't know where Jaanfaag' went. He could have come back to take everyone useful to him and kill the rest. That would be about normal for him."

While listening to the angry calls of the Demonic Beasts, I track down the sources of the human blood. The nearest turns out to be a man and a woman. Lying in pools of drying blood, they died from having head crushed by something with an irregular shape. Bruise on their forearms and marks in dirt and rubble indicate that they were held down and killed with a single blow each.. They died at least six or seven hours ago, before we first engaged the War Knife .

Both of the corpses were Cultivators, but neither should have been above the Qi Condensation realm. Torn straps attached to their belts should have once held pouches of some sort. Their clothing resembles that of the Dunkle Sonne Empire and most of the small kingdoms surrounding it. On their fingers, they have matching gold rings. While it is not a practice in east of the Kami Kaze Mountains, in Dunkle Sonne Empire and surrounding Kingdoms, married couples commonly exchange rings at the time of their marriage. Their hands show old scars that look like burns, and sniffing their hands, I find traces of chemicals, many that I do not recognize.

When I touch the corpses, Chaos energies within them stir. Even though they do not show any physical signs, they were corrupted by Chaos.

The scents of a half-dozen other humans linger in the area, but they

After examining the corpses' hands, Vorn grunts softly. "Do you think they were alchemist?"

"Probably."

"This happened before our battle with the War Knife . You didn't find any indication of it in that woman's memories?"

"I can only pick up her thoughts at the time I'm observing her Mind. I've read about techniques for digging deep into the Mind of another, but I've never practiced them. Also, this a good distance away from where the War Knife was tied down. She may not have seen any of this."

Vorn scans the ground. "It look like they came from this way, and whoever killed them left the same way."

We find more dead humans in the nearby ruins. From their clothing and features, they came from a variety of kingdoms or empires. Most of the more attractive females and a pair of effeminate males were raped before being killed.

As we pass near or check each corpse, I sense the stirring of more Chaos energies. The miasma of Chaos energies in the air and stones thickens the closer we move to the center of the mountaintop. Once we deal with the Demonic Beasts, I could use get Tia and Tama to purge to purge the corpses, but the miasma in the air has spread too far to deal with. Just purifying the corpses will be tedious and time consuming.

BOOM!

A fireball lights up the northeastern horizon for a few seconds before disappearing.

Vorn looks at me. "The damaged transport?"

I shrug. "Probably."

A new round of roars and bellows rises from the throats of the Demonic Beasts. The closest sound no more than two or three hundred meters distant. The wind will be carrying our scents right too them.

"Our prey is coming to us."

Vorn takes his battle axe in his right hand and draws his oversized revolver with his left.

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