Chương 34: Dao Lord Apex

Rowan The entire orphanage was empty. Not just of orphans, but of hidden doors and secret staircases. Rowan placed his hand on a support beam, turning into the hallway. He had tried to use Red Thread Fate Divining several times, but no guiding line appeared in his Divine Sense. Either divining a cultivator was more difficult, or he didn't have enough information, or something was blocking the technique - all things were possible.

"Come out," Rowan snarled. No response. He didn't expect one. He circled the large, naked wooden beam in the parlor thoughtfully. If he couldn't find a way to the basement, then he would just make one. He struck the beam with all his might. The building only trembled. Buildings in Highwater as old as the orphanage had been built to survive the highest floods. They were sturdy, and shared a number of characteristics. The huge central beam had come directly out of a chapter of Helsing Architecture.

That book was, according to his late father, a prized volume for mortals even in far away places. An idea flashed through his mind. He retrieved the dagger from his sleeve, the volatile Fire qi bubbling and bursting within. The weapon had been shoddily made by someone with power but no crafting skills, and it contained a fatal instability. His ancestors would understand if he brought one of their projects down. Rowan stabbed the dagger into the pillar, the blade splitting through the wood like it was butter.

The dagger vibrated with a thrum. The Fire qi was a desperate kind of Yang energy trying to escape the bounds of metallurgy that held it in. These types of daggers were common contraband amongst mortals, and often seized by the sect. They were made with an engraved piece of smooth stone that had been inscribed with a qi inscription, which was then dropped into the smelting mold. Instead of being hammered, new weapons were allowed to cool on racks, and then sharpened on whetstones.

It was one of the easiest ways for a small dispute to become a tragic accident. Rowan took ten steps and pointed his finger at where the dagger's handle protruded. He wasn't sure if a qi blast would set it off - but a Germination certainly would. Green light exploded from Rowan's fingertip, soaring into the dagger. His Wood qi met the metal of the dagger, and it pierced the stone that housed the Fire qi. The fire consumed, growing, bursting past its metal confines.

Red and orange hues danced along the blade for a second before a shockwave exploded outward. Rowan covered his ears against the ear-splitting boom. The entire orphanage shook, walls and wooden beams cracking and splintering, dust clouds blooming. He didn't have time to escape. It all happened too fast. The entire building leaned forward and then the ceiling collapsed down on him, covering him with heavy debris.

Rowan lay underneath the structural material for half a beat, sharp and heavy objects pinching into his body. He could barely draw in a breath. Shafts of sunlight wove through the cracks, the upper half of his face meeting the dull, gray sky. With a grunt, he began shifting the material off of him. At one point, he even let out a strong qi blast, sending a door soaring off of him. He crawled out of the debris mostly unharmed, if slightly bruised. His Qi Sea was less full than he liked.

It hadn't passively recovered much yet since his encounter with Clodde Bastin, and he'd just used even more qi. He was down to a quarter of his qi. The building was still rumbling ominously. Rowan decided that right now wasn't the proper time to pinch pennies. He pulled out a spirit stone. Qi flooded into him as he quickly meditated, cycling it as fast as he could. In two or three minutes the spirit stone dulled and split apart into tiny fragments. His Qi Sea was now nine-tenths full.

It would have to be good enough. There was another loud crack that resonated deep within the orphanage, beneath his feet. And then it happened. The wall between the meeting room at the entrance of the orphanage and the parlor gave a heaving sigh, and began to sink. To sink? The furniture shuddered. The floorboards snapped as the weight of the wall that had lost its support fell through the ground and kept falling and falling, until it disappeared fully from view. A harsh voice boomed from the gaping left behind.

"Who dares to destroy this Dao Lord's residence!?" Dao Lord? A Core Formation cultivator? That would be an easy reason as to why Rowan had neither been able to sense him nor divine for him. Rowan supposed he was probably dead, even if the sect elders themselves arrived on the scene. He rubbed his rosary and sighed. Why was Righteous Mountain attracting all of these higher beings all of a sudden? At least he would have died doing the right thing. Ostra was silent.

A red glow appeared in the darkness of the hole in the ground and a cultivator spun out of it, a matted curtain of hair flowing all about him. The first thing Rowan noticed were the uneven, overgrown nails curling over his fingers. He wore a ratty, hole-filled cloak stained with foul fluid and dirt, and his eyes were so puffy and reddened the corneas looked like they would drip blood if he blinked. Malicious demonic qi bled off the man, his fists clenched in concentration as he arose. One thing was evident.

The man certainly wasn't in Core Formation. Did this cultivator misunderstand? Dao Lord was the title of a cultivator in the fourth realm of cultivation, not the fourth layer of Qi Condensation. If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

"If you're a Dao Lord, I'm Kyrr Helsing," Rowan said, with a sneer that would have made Damion Decatour proud.

"You–!" the demonic cultivator started furiously.

"You horrid boy. Did Bastin rat me out, or that devil Silverteeth? We had a deal. A deal! Who set you up to this, boy? You can't be from that damnable sect. There would be more of you rats otherwise."

"Bastin. He's grown tired of your arrangement," Rowan said. The cultivator seemed to love the sound of his own voice, so Rowan wanted to see if he could pry more information out of him.

"Where did Bastin get the money to hire a cultivator?" the daoist asked himself, incensed.

"That lying scum can't even pay me on time. He's been planning to betray this generous Dao Lord for a long time, hm?"

"I got forty taels off of him."

"Forty? To think he would lie to this Dao Lord to such an extent. What a pitiable man. He couldn't even stomach the taste of the girls after he was done. And he thought he could be a cultivator," the man muttered rapidly.

"I should have killed him long ago. This compassionate heart of mine always gets taken advantage of. I was hoping he would condense a Qi Sea and become a decent meal." As the man ratted on, Rowan slowly circled him, trying to get in a clearer spot so he wouldn't trip over debris when the fighting started.

"I've never eaten a cultivator before. I would prefer it if you were a girl, but I'm not too picky."

"You live underground. What could you possibly be picky about?"

"Hah!" The demonic cultivator laughed. He seemed to be growing in size.

"Everyone thinks the demonic way is cheap and easy. What do you know? What could you possibly know?" A shift in the air. Rowan knew the attack was coming before it happened. The malicious qi thickened like a gathering storm cloud, responding to the man's spike of killing intent. A tentacle of flesh slapped the spot where Rowan had just been a second before, tearing through the floor like a cleaver, leaving a bloody smear in its wake. Black qi poured from the corner of the man's eyes like mist.

"You'll see. You'll see. I'll show you the demonic way!" Rowan clenched his jaw. This was a real demonic cultivator. Exactly the kind he'd been searching for.

"Tell me your name!" demanded Rowan. The man smiled, all too happy to provide.

"This one is Dao Lord Apex! Engrave it into your heart, for you shall become a part of it soon." Rowan ran through the list of names inside of his mind and found it familiar… this must be the Daoist Apex in the Tally Book. Mid-stage Qi Condensation. Fourth layer. One black tally mark - a thousand lives taken. 40 points of Store Credit!

"Daoist Apex," he said, unable to call him Dao Lord.

"Know that it is Rowan Helsing who will be taking your life."

"An arrogant child from a cultivation house?" The man grinned sharply.

"I will consume you in many pieces, and then I will destroy your house as you've destroyed mine. I will start with the children of your family and eat and eat until I've had my fill of every one of your members." The sword slid out from Rowan's sleeve, the hilt landing in his palm. He unsheathed it with a loud shing.

"You think far too highly of yourself." They struck at the same time. The large body of his enemy spun, a growing, grotesque cone of twisted flesh. A large tentacle swiped across the hall, tearing through the remnants of wall after wall after wall. Rowan leaped into the air, striking down at the main body with his sword. Steel bit into the flesh, but didn't cut through. It was like the flesh was made of rubber. Rowan grunted, putting his full strength into the blow, but it was no use.

He leaped back several paces, dodging the tentacles. Daoist Apex was a demonic body cultivator. He had used the blood and flesh of countless mortals to reinforce his form. Rowan's strength, by nature of his new physique, was stronger than average for his level of cultivation but he hadn't learned any body cultivation techniques yet. When it came to pure strength and resilience, he was no match for Daoist Apex. And a sword of mortal steel wouldn't cut it either. What should he do?

He'd been hoping to whittle down Daoist Apex before finishing him off with an overcharged Germination. If he shot a Germination at him now, what if it didn't kill him? He doubted the man would be polite enough to give him a few minutes to sit and refill his Qi Sea. Rowan glanced at his sword. The metal alone wasn't enough, but what if he reinforced it with some of his qi? As tentacles rained down on him, Rowan dodged left and right.

Daoist Apex continued to grow in size, a second and third tentacle forming, and his attacks were becoming faster and hitting harder. Rowan found a second to breathe. He carefully extended out his qi, coating his sword in it. But the sword trembled in his grasp. Metallic leaves began to sprout from the sword's edges, steel vines growing around it. His qi wasn't reinforcing the sword - it was mutating it. Rowan stopped immediately, sweeping right to avoid a crashing slab of flesh. Fine.

If the body was too hardy, then he would just aim for the head! Just as he leaped forward to strike, Daoist Apex was also running towards him. The man's eyes were watching Rowan's sword. He ducked at the last second. Rowan twisted out of the way of a kick, slashing outward at the man's chest. They were going to collide. Rowan, on instinct, flared his qi to try and soften the impact. The force of this collision reverberated through both of them.

Rowan gritted his teeth as he flew backwards and his back slammed into a wall. The loud thud of both cultivators crashing could be heard multiple streets over. Dust rose as the last of the orphanage's architecture finally collapsed. The hardwood floor cracked, splintering like a porcelain bowl that had fallen to the ground. With a great shifting and rumbling, the hole in the center of the orphanage expanded, debris and furniture sliding into it.

Rowan staggered back, hanging onto a doorframe as the floor fell under him. The snapping and popping of rotten wooden beams echoed somewhere in the darkness below. Large splinters of wood flew into the air, a few hitting Rowan. It seemed whatever structural components existed between the orphanage and the crawlspace below had been destroyed. Rowan's breath was punched out from him as the ceiling above him cracked and fell, hitting him. The doorframe he was clinging onto plunged into the abyss below.

To the side, Daoist Apex had also fallen into the hole, his tentacles writhing as he tried and failed to grasp the edges of the hole. One second before he met the floor, Rowan stepped on a large piece of wall and launched himself out of the way of the collapsing mass of wood, stone, and glass. He stumbled into a rocky wall. They were twenty feet below the orphanage. Rowan didn't know how far the tunnels around him extended, but he counted three large openings.

This wasn't just a demonic cultivator squatting in a basement. This was years and years of effort, an entire operation. The tunnels might have even been built before the orphanage itself. Neither of them could get out easily - if they were going to fight, it would be happening here. A thunderous noise shook the cavern as Daoist Apex hit the ground. The man hadn't been as graceful as Rowan, taking the full brunt of the fall and the furniture raining down onto him. Rowan coughed, blood splattering on the ground.

His bones ached. He fumbled a blood-clotting pill from his sleeve, swallowing it down. He didn't know what he'd injured, but it would take a few moments to heal. Daoist Apex rose from his cocoon of debris.