Chương 8

The world turned white. Chao Wei's technique struck Lodin square in the chest. The compressed lightning detonated against his flesh and the air qi spiral followed an instant later, a one-two punch of current and wind that drove him backward across the stone. Lightning crawled across his skin, forked and split and rejoined, traced burning lines from sternum to shoulders to fingertips. The wind tore at his hair and clothes, whipped them into a frenzy, filled his ears with a roar that drowned out all other sound.

His heels left furrows in the concrete as the force of the blow spent itself against his body and drove him backward. He ground to a halt at the edge of the platform, smoke rising from the blackened scorch mark on the center of his chest. The lightning faded, the wind died, and the vortex collapsed in on itself and vanished, leaving nothing behind but the smell of burning ozone. Silence fell over the arena. The crowd held its breath again. The torches flickered and steadied.

Somewhere in the distance a dog barked, and the sound seemed to come from another world. Lodin stood where the blast had pushed him. His chest rose and fell slowly, breathing measured. The point of impact burned angry and raw on his skin. His hair hung wild around his face, singed at the tips. He grinned.

"Good technique," he said.

"I don't know you that well, Chao Wei, but I think it suits you." Chao Wei stood on the far side of the arena. His arms hung limp at his sides. Sweat ran down his face and dripped from his chin, and fresh blood trickled from his nose where the effort had burst a blood vessel. He stared at Lodin. His eyes were wide, lips parted.

"Your move," he said. Lodin's grin sharpened.

"So it is." Lodin looked at Chao Wei across the fractured platform. He had taken the man's measure. This one was different from Oren Shen and Wen Heung in every way that mattered. Chao Wei had earned his advancement. He deserved to see the real difference between them. Lodin moved. There was a crack heard from one end of the arena to the other and beyond. Half of Saltside heard it. One moment, he stood at the edge of the platform.

The next, a spray of glittering blood droplets flew as Lodin's fist streaked past Chao Wei's jaw, arm fully extended, knuckles hot from the impact. Wei's feet had already left the ground before he was even aware he'd been hit. His body spun through the air, arms and legs loose, robes spread wide. He cleared the edge of the platform and struck the cobblestones beyond with a sound like a sack of grain dropped from a rooftop. He bounced, tumbled, skidded, and came to rest in a heap twenty feet from where he had stood.

For a moment he did not move. Then his hand twitched, his chest heaved. He pushed himself up onto one elbow, shook his head, and blinked at the night sky above him. His jaw hung at a wrong angle. Blood ran from his mouth and pooled on the stones beneath his face. His eyes found Lodin, and they were wild. Lodin stepped up to the edge of the platform, folded his arms and smiled down at Chao Wei.

"Looks like I survived your best shot," he said.

"And you survived mine. Draw?" Chao Wei stared at him, dumbfounded. Blood dripped from his chin and pattered on the stones beneath him. The Chief Outer Disciple of the Divine Gale Sect planted one hand on the ground and pushed himself to his knees. Then to his feet. He swayed for a moment, found his balance, and straightened posture. His jaw was crooked, robes torn, face a mask of blood and dust. He brought his right fist to his left palm and bowed, crisp and clean.

"No… Your victory." His four underclassmen looked at him in disbelief, but as soon as he saluted and bowed to Lodin, they all did the same. – FORMAL COMBAT CONCLUDED Victor: Lodin Lundgren (Unaffiliated) Defeated: Chao Wei (Divine Gale Sect) Method: Submission – Lodin copied the gesture and returned Chao Wei's crisp bow with one of his own. Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

"Well fought," said Lodin.

"And congratulations on your advancement." Chao Wei's stoic expression cracked into a smile at that. There was a look of intense relief in his eyes.

"What in the seven hells are you," he asked. Lodin grinned, shrugged. Wei shook his head.

"How? How is such strength possible at Qi Condensation realm?"

"Trying to explain it would dishonor a great teacher."

"You must come to our sect compound," said Wei.

"You shall be treated as an honored guest." Lodin's eyebrow rose.

"Even after I beat up your guys?"

"Oren Shen and Wen Heung will heal from their injuries. The matter of my advancement, for which you are directly responsible, supersedes that issue." Lodin rubbed his chin. There was a remote chance Somchai Lek hadn't fled the Divine Gale Sect compound. If he hadn't, it would mean he had nothing to hide—that he didn't belong on mom's list in the first place. And mom didn't make mistakes. But all the same, it would have been bad form not to check for himself.

"What's for dinner?" he asked. - - - - If Kang Dae Han hadn't seen it with his own eyes, he wouldn't have believed it. If one of those eyes hadn't been forged by Heaven itself, he may still have doubted his senses. The Chief Outer Disciple of the Divine Gale Sect never had a chance, before or after his advancement. Dae Han stood at the edge of the crowd, Moon Presence wrapped around him like a cloak of invisibility. His jaw had gone slack. Hands hung limp at his sides.

The kasa shadowed his face, but beneath its brim his one good eye had glazed over, fixed on nothing. The golden glow beneath his eyepatch pulsed and faded. Someone jostled him on their way by. He did not move. A child ran past and bumped his leg, and he did not look down. His mind was elsewhere, far away, in a place where numbers made sense and the world followed rules. The crowd cheered, but as the combatants quit the stage, the gathering began to disperse.

Vendors called out prices for roasted nuts and meat skewers. Torches crackled and spat. An evening in Saltside continued as it always had, its denizens oblivious to the fact that the founding principles of the arts of cultivation had just been violated twice in the span of a single day. Dae Han's mouth hung open so long it began to dry out. Eventually, a single word croaked from it.

"... What." The word fell flat in the night air. Kang Dae Han blinked, looked down at his hands as if he had never seen them before. He needed a drink. He needed several. And then, even if it killed him, he would figure out how this madness was possible. - - - - Somchai Lek paced back and forth, chewing on his lower lip until it bled.

"They brought Oren Shen and Wen Heung into the infirmary at the sect compound… They'd been beaten… By some barbarian fresh off the boat, a Qi Condensation level cultivator. How could a man at Qi Condensation beat them both, I've no earthly idea, but he beat them. Badly… And they said he had my name? On a list?" Elder Gutou sat across from Lek, cross legged, still as a statue. He listened with a hint of amusement on his emaciated features as Lek recounted the afternoon's events.

They were the only occupants of Gutou's private office, in the well-appointed backrooms of The Burning Lotus, a secret establishment known for its discretion in catering to the vices of the wealthy and powerful. A quiet, distant voice in Somchai Lek's mind told him that showing his face here was a grave mistake. But he hadn't known what else to do.

"And so you assumed the worst," Gutou said, his tone gentle, whispery.

"Left your compound and came here, to me, for protection." Gutou had the look of an extreme ascetic, pale, hairless and skeletal, with deep, sunken eyes. An unusual appearance for a purveyor of pleasures. But few dealt with Gutou face to face, and fewer still had the courage to ask questions. Even fewer would know his true nature at a glance. Demonic cultivators had learned well the arts of concealment.

"Chao Wei told me he was going to question me when he returned," Somchai Lek stammered.

"This, I presume, is why you fled," said Gutou. Lek nodded. His eyes darted to the door, as if he expected the elders of the Divine Gale Sect to kick it down any moment.

"It did not occur to you that your sudden disappearance could be taken as an admission of guilt?" Gutou asked. Somchai Lek's eyes widened in horror.

"And I imagine it did not occur to you to dispose of your stock of black opium before your hasty departure, where it will doubtless be discovered if your possessions were to be searched?" Lek's face went white as a sheet. He fell to his knees and pressed his forehead to the mat, teeth gritted.

"F-forgive me Elder, I… I truly didn't know what to do." It was quiet for several long moments. Lek could feel the glacial chill of Gutou's gaze upon him, though he didn't dare to look up and meet it.

"What else did you hear about this foreigner," Gutou asked.

"I heard nothing else Elder, I'm sorry." Another stretch of silence. Somchai Lek thought his heart would burst, with how hard it hammered against the inside of his ribs. Elder Gutou let out a soft sigh.

"You can get up, Somchai Lek." Lek swallowed hard. He paused, then raised his head enough to look at the elder. The skeletal elder smiled, and extended his hand.

"Sit up now. Take my hand, and hear my words." Lek closed his eyes. He drew a long breath and let it out slow, forced his shoulders to unclench. Then he did as Gutou said, straightened his posture, reached out, and placed his hand in the elder's palm. The elder's hand closed around his, and Lek shivered. Gutou's skin felt like the belly of a dead fish, cool, slick, too smooth.

"It will be alright," Gutou said. The cadence of his words was slow, meant to soothe.

"All is forgiven. No one could have predicted such a situation. No one could blame you for not knowing what to do." Somchai Lek smiled. Something loosened in his chest, and the weight that had pressed down on him since he fled the compound seemed to lift. Then he noticed his hand felt strange. It was too cold. A chill that sank past the skin and into the meat of his palm, into the bones of his fingers. He tried to pull away, but his muscles would not answer. His arm hung limp in Gutou's grip.

He looked down, and his eyes went wide. The flesh of his hand had gone gray, then black, and cracked like old leather left too long in the sun. The dead fingers curled inward, skin stretched tight over knuckle bones that jutted like stones beneath a threadbare blanket. Veins stood out in dark lines, empty of blood. And Gutou's hand, which had been pale as bone, now flushed a vivid, arterial red. The color spread up his wrist and beneath the sleeve of his robe. Panic stabbed him in the heart.

"What—" Lek's voice came out thin and reedy.

"What are you—""Hush now," Gutou's tone had not changed. Still gentle. Still kind.

"It will be over soon." The cold crept up Lek's forearm. He watched the color drain, the skin mottle, the muscle beneath shrivel. He could feel the slow collapse of his tissue, the evacuation of something essential, drawn out of him as water through a straw. His breath came in short, shallow gasps. He tried again to pull free. His shoulder twitched.

"Please…" he whispered, and the effort of whispering one word was as much of a drain as pushing a boulder up a hill. Gutou smiled. The expression carved deep lines into his face, and his sunken eyes gleamed. The crimson flush had spread to his cheeks now, his throat, his scalp. Where Lek's vitality went, the elder seemed to swell with it; the hollows of his face filled out, the papery skin took on a healthier sheen. The cold reached Lek's shoulder.

He felt it cross into his chest, a creep of numbness that pressed against his heart. His vision swam. The room seemed to recede, as if he viewed it from the far end of a long tunnel. Lek opened his mouth. No sound came out. His lungs had gone still. His heart followed. Everything else did too, except for the relentless pull that drew the last of him out through his arm and into the creature that held his hand. The last thing Somchai Lek saw was Gutou's face, flushed with stolen life, eyes bright with pleasure.

Then nothing at all.