I should have realized that Lord Chon would have had a place like this, but when I’d first encountered him, he’d had a side room filled with dead and dying. I guess it was too much to believe that that was the extent of his atrocities.

I watched, my face void of expression, but my teeth clenched in growing frustration as Mao moved more and more earth to give us access to the dead. The exposed gravesite was a mix of bodies in different states of decay.

The pit was rimmed in lime, the alkaline material helping to manage the stench of rotting corpses. The mass grave had been located close enough to the town walls that those in charge of burying the people Chon had killed had needed the material to hide what they had done from the town’s population.

That they had bothered to try to hide Chon’s excess was surprising. I’m not sure why they had gone to the effort. When I arrived at Xiwang, the citizens were broken and defeated, unwilling and unable to attack Chon.

The knowledge of a mass grave might have stirred them to anger, but I had my doubts. They knew Chon was sacrificing their sons and daughters, even if they didn’t realize he was using them as mana batteries. If that wasn’t a cause for them to revolt, then what difference did a mass grave make?

“The bodies were buried individually,” Mao pointed out after she had unearthed the last grave, “probably because it was easier to bury a person as they died than wait.”

“It doesn’t make it any less horrific,” I replied.

“No,” Mao said, her voice projecting sympathy, “but you have to remind yourself that none of this is your fault and that you put an end to the person whose fault it was.”

“Is there any way to identify them?” I asked Na, one of the Healers I had recruited.

She was the most skilled of the Healing cultivators that had joined my House. Her knowledge of anatomy often had her working as a coroner within the Sect when needed. It seemed macabre to recognize that the person most skilled in healing was also the most qualified in determining the cause of death.

“I can tell you what each person died from and when, but unless they are buried with an identifying item or token, there is no way to figure out who is who,” Na informed me.

Unlike Mao, who at least made an attempt to sympathize, Na was immune to the ravages of death. Her work in healing had immured her to the violence and butchery that only comes when Elf attacks Elf. I understood and appreciated her ability to compartmentalize the horrific scene of hundreds of bodies laid out like a giant checkerboard; I just wished it wasn’t necessary.

I wondered if I would develop that same ability in time, but that day wasn’t today. As Mao uncovered more bodies, my stomach churned more and more. It had taken firm resolve and determination to keep my body from reacting to the stench and sight of so many dead, resolve that I found tested.

I refused to empty the contents of my stomach here in the presence of so many people that had already been desecrated so severely.

“Toi? Was anyone missed?” I asked. Toi had been instrumental in setting the boundary for Mao to act. She had set wooden markers as guides to sections of the ground that needed to be moved.

“I’ll double-check,” she replied. Her control of spirit energy manifested as she released a billowing fog of soul energy. This time the mist spread across the ground's surface and worked its way deeper.

“There are two areas where bodies have been buried deeper,” Toi finally said, her search finished. “You will have to move the top layer of the dead to get to them.”

She had placed wooden stakes at the two points she was referencing. I had the bodies in the area moved so that Dao could expose the rest. Moving the dead was gruesome, made easier because of spatial devices. Still, care had to be taken because the bodies were already a jumbled mess.

I hated that we had to treat them with such disrespect, but there was no choice. Toi had informed me that enough negative karma had gathered that a demon outbreak was possible even without a ritual if it wasn’t cleared quickly.

It was already a miracle that a Cultivator hoping to fast-track their advancement hadn’t stumbled upon the site and decided it was worth practicing demon cultivation. I had come across texts and jade tokens that discussed the phenomenon but never met anyone that practiced the art.

The issues of good and evil were not as black and white when it came to cultivation.

In a world where might makes right, and young masters could kill with impunity, why was embracing the dark side of karmic debt demonic? Power should be used wisely, but the way the world worked, those with power could act like villains with impunity.

And no one would consider them evil, cult worshippers, or Demonic Cultivators.

Demonic cultivation or cultivation may be a matter of good and evil, but there were nuances involved in each alignment. It wasn’t the practice of either cultivation technique that made a person evil; it was what they did with the power they gained.

“How does negative karma create the opportunity for a Demonic incursion?” Gwen asked. She had insisted on being present as we uncovered the bodies of those who had been slain. As the only remaining councilor from Chon’s time as ruler, she was the only link left between his rule and mine. The only person I trusted from that time to keep close to me.

“Demonic incursions, Rifts, Mystic Realms, and Beast tides have some commonalities,” I began to explain. “The differences between each event are what defines them.

“Demonic incursions, Rifts, and Mystic Realms allow travel from one place to another. The difference is that Rifts and Mystic Realms will open to other worlds. That is why a Rift that forms can eventually begin the process of two worlds merging.

“A Demonic incursion is a tear between dimensions, a planar excursion between realms, not an opening in time and space. While Cultivators can easily pass back and forth between rifts, a demonic tear is a one-way trip. If you enter, you are not coming back.

“The incursions and beast tides share some commonality; each event sends wave after wave of frenzied, mindless animals, beasts, or demons whose only purpose is to kill and destroy,” I added to my explanation.

“Why haven’t demons conquered the world?” Gwen asked, realizing that if another dimension of beings was willing to mindless kill in wave after wave, the Elven people stood no chance.

“A few reasons,” Mao answered before I could. “World Qi is poison to the denizens of the demonic plane. They can invade and kill, but over time even their strongest will succumb to that poison and be forced to retreat or die.

“Cultivation is a natural evolution of a species, a way for Qi and the Heavens to fortify and push back against the assaults of demon and beast alike. Arrays, formations, artifacts, and highly ranked cultivators have developed means over time to expedite a demon’s demise.

"Each function was honed over millenniums to counter demons. To hold the line until the world Qi that poisons them begins to take effect, or a means is discovered to send them back to where they originated.”