Chương 9: Chapter 8

Again, they expected a fight. Again, she threw them off. With the most unexpected thing in a world where swords and Qi made the rules. Words.

"An impressive work you've accomplished," she commented mildly.

"Burning away your followers. Activating an artifact's precious charge." She waved, the gesture encompassing the blackened plateau.

"To reach my Sect's doors." She didn't know the artifact could be activated only sparsely, but she didn't need to. They wouldn't have expended their forces if it weren't so. An easy deduction to make, but the Sect Masters were already on edge. They winced, some bared their teeth; others hissed in startled surprise.

"Your doors?" Gan Nim asked, and as always with him, his mocking disbelief was genuine.

"We burned your Sect! Squashed it! Even now, your worms stand, locked in our Qi!" The fire that composed half of his frame flared with every word, until he was almost too dazzling to look at.

"Your vaunted Sect is spent! Your forces are gone!" Did he react to defend his pride or because he realized that his authority lay in producing results? Wu Zetian wondered. In a way, part of her almost hoped he was more than he was steadily letting on. Tangling with a brute was a bore.

"Indeed, that's the truth." Her polite, indulgent smile never wavered.

"And for separating the wheat from chaff, I thank you." Another start, hard enough that a few almost crumpled. Did she know about Zhang Fu, too?

"Enough! Enough! Enough!" Madam Tu barged in. The she-thing of blood and iron writhed, her shape barely holding on.

"Gan Nim, why do you keep bantering with this half-dead woman? Can't you see she's stalling? The artifact sealed her power! She's alone! Let's destroy her!" Her features boiled and bubbled, showing an angle of the cauldron that was her natal artifact. Gan Nim had to tear himself away from whatever rage was taking him.

"Mrn? Yes. Yes! Of course!" The brute pounded his chest with a fist, marking the ground with a lava crescent.

"She's stalling! Of course she is! But your tricks are discovered now, harlot! Enough of this bandying words!" He raised his weapon, bravado returning.

"Or will you stall with more words, relic?" Oh, goodie. The advisor, coming to stabilize the situation and ruin your carefully raised mess. How she loved the type. Even if she could find some comfort in finding them even here, one reincarnation away. A wave of fervor swept over the Masters at the possibility. They readied their weapons. Some of them did so with clear desperation, but they were too deep now. Wu Zetian repressed a huff.

You could build an articulate skyscraper of reason, steady its foundations with motives and proper arguments, and it would crumble under the weight of emotion like an egg under a hammer.

"No stalling. Just politeness." Wu Zetian didn't swing her weapon. She traced a line in the air with it. Where Night Razor's point traced, a hairline-thin crack opened in the rock. Seeing her readiness to fight, the Sect Masters hesitated.

"I'd rather not kill you all. I've been absent for a long time, and my Sect is in need of replenishment. Some of you may fit the place nicely." Obviously, she was lying. She wouldn't let a demonic cultivator in her Sect even if he was the Dragon Emperor himself. But leaving a possible escape was how you got escapees in the first place.

"Lies!" Gan Nim howled.

"The Godless Night always looked down on us. Do you remember, my comrades? Remember the humiliation these outlanders heaped upon us from their ivory palaces? I do! I remember! Do you? Don't you wish for revenge?" He was back at trying to stir a fire. Predictable indeed. But he was scraping the bottom of the barrel now. National divides mattered far less in the cultivation world, and the Godless Night had been part of that side of the world for tens of thousands of years.

"Indeed. Revenge. Who will be the first to grasp it?" Wu Zetian tilted her head in polite invitation.

"You, One-Thousand-And-One-Scar? You, Madame Tu? Or maybe, it'll be you, Chief Stonehorn? Won't you take the chance, Lady Yuji?" The Masters of the Devouring Horde and the Delightful Retreat – a mountain of a man with coppery skin and covered in furs, and a breathtakingly beautiful woman in painted silks – winced as though being hit. They glanced around and were glanced at suspiciously. After all, their Sects hadn't been slaughtered. Wu Zetian dropped the next in a velvety murmurt.

"I am the forgiving sort, and I need competent hands…" She could almost track the process as it developed. Minds that set themselves for a fight now shedding the resolve, opening themselves again to other possibilities. Calculating and vaguely hopeful looks taking the place of steadfastness.

"Foolishness," One-Thousand-And-One-Scar growled. The man's scarred vocal cords turned his voice into a sharp hiss.

"Nobody will listen to your lies, wench!" Madame Tu shrieked. Oh, but they are. Just need another little push…

"Then, please…" She gestured, the ample sleeve of her dress sliding down to reveal ink-stained fingers.

"By any means, let the first come forward." Nobody took her up on the invitation, of course. They may be ready for danger and risk of death, but embracing death readily? For others? Not in a demonic, or, well, any cultivator's mind. Gan Nim's voice had lost nothing of its sound, but the spark that it once held was gone.

"Our artifact," he said, raising the doll.

"Our artifact will lead us to victory." He almost sounded lame now. Wu Zetian almost felt bad about sliding in the last knife. Almost.

"A pretty trinket. The Soul-Pinning Straw Warden, is it? How long it lasts, I wonder…" That was the last blow. Everything they had prepared was unveiled. All their preparations had been split right open, and Wu Zetian saw it in their slack-jawed, disbelieving expressions. For a moment, it wasn't a fearsome alliance of demonic Sect Masters she was facing. More like a bunch of schoolchildren caught preparing a prank on their teacher. Watching them now, she could almost congratulate herself on a work well-done.

The mix of eagerness, greed and tentative hope they had started with was gone, replaced by wide-eyed despair, frantic calculations, or a mad commitment. What opposition remained had solidified in a stubborn or suicidal determination, but there were neat divides as well. Whatever unity of intent they had was well and truly gone. And just in time. Wu Zetian felt her roots pull more and more Qi into her meridians. Her meridians throbbed with growing power, her reserves filling faster and faster.

The Godless Night Disciples were cycling hard, and she felt some of the sluggishness leave her limbs. Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

"Stand together, you fools!" Gan Nim growled.

"We only need to stall her for a few moments! Remember our formation! If we stand together, we cannot fail!" Even as he spoke, Wu Zetian could see Gan Nim's skill in convincing himself. He so willingly blinded himself that he didn't realize that half of his comrades weren't listening, and the others were too busy focusing their power to its utmost to do so. She spared a short pity's moment for the fiery Sect Master.

In the very brief interaction they shared, she had come to nurture an inkling of appreciation for his ambition. A small professional deformation she could never fully discard: getting too far into the heads of her opponents always pulled some affection out of her. Too bad about that cultivation path. Oh, well.

"Kill her! Kill her!" Madam Tu shrieked. She threw her hands out. The mass of blood and iron erupted into a tangle of tendrils that swelled to the size of houses. Qi auras the sizes of hills flared, flames of different colors that swept the plateau and set the Night churning and swirling. They charged her as one. Or, well, that was likely the plan. Seven Sect Masters attacked her. Two turned tail and ran, two kneeled and shielded themselves and one stood still, peering vacantly into nothing.

Wu Zetian had absolutely no experience in fighting. In her old life, the prospect of violence had been a distant thing, one easily handled by legions of private contractors. She may train her body to retain health, but physical threats were simply not a factor and, as such, disregarded alongside the need to be prepared for them. Her body still moved with the speed and the economy of movements of one with millennia of experience. She jumped, the flood of whips crashing where she had been only a moment before.

Her perceptions flared, and she brought her sword up, blocking a scarred fist with the flat, even as she grabbed a bejewelled spear and a hammer smashed against her hip. Pain shot through her side, to which she replied by kicking the offender and using the momentum to somersault into the air. Night Qi cycled through her like the flow of a nuclear plant. It gathered in her wound, all but devouring both the pain and the poisonous Qi that tried to enter her systems. She didn't glance at it.

Night clumped behind her and she kicked off it. The wind would have howled in her ears if she had allowed it as she ricocheted among platforms, dashing for One-Thousand-And-One-Scar. The scarred cultivator and his two comrades didn't wait; they stepped back, letting three of their numbers take their place. Defensive natal artifacts were deployed, summoning a spinning triangle of cerulian energy that interlocked to form a multi-layered barrier.

Wu Zetian didn't relent, folding Qi in Night Razor as she gathered speed. Suddenly, a wave of force crashed against her. Her Qi stuttered, the smooth flow tangling like it had hit a jam. In the corner of her eye, she saw Gan Nim holding the artifact toward her. The doll gleamed with a sickly light, but what piqued her curiosity was the second Qi signature melding with the Writhing Flame Master's, helping him to activate the treasure. Zhang Fu. The assassin had moved from his previous position.

Wu Zetian threw her perceptions to recapture him even as she swung. A crescent of dark flame slid soundlessly from Night Razor; it slammed against the barrier, turning layers into glimmering fragments and forcing the Masters back, but couldn't break it. Before she could try again, One-Thousand-And-One-Scar and his friends were upon her, weapons swinging. One group for defense. The other for offense. Gan Nim and Zhang Fu at the artifact.

Which could be focused for short bursts of Qi-repressing effects but, like she thought, required more than one user to activate and couldn't be used in its stable effects. Noted. The effect had left her Qi more sluggish and more difficult to access than ever. Wu Zetian twitched a finger beneath her sleeves. Far beneath, a fifty-meter-long formation of dark crystals shattered. The Night Qi she had accumulated in it flooded her meridians, making up for the difference and some.

The demonic Masters moved purposefully and with coordination. The fight was their element far more than talking ever was. But, supplied by experience not her own, Wu Zetian saw the holes left in their formation. One-Thousand-And-One-Scar howled. Air and grit launched themselves away from it in a circular shockwave that swept the plateau's top like a colossal hand.

He kept howling, longer than breath intake should allow for, the sound twisting and distorting like many voices were fighting for dominance in his ruined throat. His natal artifact, a massive carving knife, turned above him, shining with blood-red Qi. His two comrades shouted and threw their own artifacts, the three weapons coming together in a crash of metal and stone.

They twisted and melded into a ball of furious light and lightning; it roiled like the heart of an angry god, before unleashing a beam of Qi that traced the plateau. When you stood one full realm above, it was easy to forget the sheer power Nascent Soul cultivators wielded. Watching as the Wu Plateau split in half like a log under an axe put an end to that kind of thinking for Wu Zetian. She jumped, the ground erupting with a continuous flare of energy.

Qi bathed her, crashing against her shield and turning the world into fire and chaos. Her skin blistered, but she ignored it, trusting her Night Qi to mend the damage. Her focus was on her disciples. She increased the power of the barriers she had laid on them, protecting them from the wave of wild Qi. Beneath her, half of the Wu Plateau was sinking. She was focusing on it when Madam Tu and the two defenders flanked her.

They landed around her, feet cracking the blackened soil as their forms were connected by strings of Qi. Wu Zetian recognized the sealing move, just as Gan Nim let out another suppression wave. Wu Zetian's finger twitched. Night fell. It was like a switch had been turned. In a moment, every light source was extinguished, the gloom so thick and oppressive that not even the combined Qi of Nascent Soul cultivators could pierce it. Wu Zetian stepped out from one of the shadows she had laid out previously.

Above, the sounds of screaming and weapons crashing echoed loud and clear as the shadowy impressions she had left of herself erupted in a crushing swarm. She idly wondered why certain cultivators were so fixated on avoiding "dishonorable tricks" like this one. They wanted a straight fight; she wouldn't give them one. It was just common sense, really. She started looking for Zhang Fu. The ex-Sect Elder was a handsome man whose good looks his current anxious concern couldn't quite ruin.

Hiding in a pocket carved from the stony layers of the plateau, he stood at the center of a cloaking formation. A doll similar to the one Gan Nim was cradled in his hands as he peered anxiously toward the stone above him, his perceptions letting him see beyond it.

"Greetings, honored Elder." Zhang Fu whirled around; he let out a startled sound when her eyes fell on her. Wu Zetian mostly ignored him. Her finger came out from the formation boundaries, but the ink didn't; it spread across the formation like water, turning shielding into sealing and cloaking into caging. Zhang Fu's eyes went wide as saucers as he realized what was happening. Too late. By the time he did, all he could do was to pull uselessly to the black sludge holding his legs.

"Do tell me just one thing," Wu Zetian straightened up, her wide robes settling smoothly on her frame.

"I am curious, and it may better my current mood." The speed with which Zhang Fu adjusted was impressive. The Elder still dripped fear, but the eagerness to please was almost moving. For all purposes, any fight had gone out of it, and he was in full survivor mode.

"Anything." He stopped. He swallowed.

"Anything the Founder may require, this unworthy Zhang Fu will satisfy."

"Indeed." Wu Zetian raised a finger, smiling indulgently.

"No lies now. Be honest, waste not of my time and I may even spare you." Calculation moved frantically beneath the terror in Zhang Fu's eyes. Part of Wu Zetian mourned that their meeting was in these circumstances. During moments of composure, he must have been a superb dissembler. His voice had a cultured, noble accent. Now? He talked over himself. She could trace the lines of his thoughts with her fingers. Do I have enough time for those idiots to notice she's here? Can I lie my way to survival? Would she notice?

Wu Zetian let out a mild huff.

"Why did you betray my Sect?" She asked, tilting her head curiously.

"Your authority was indisputable. Your power without peer."

"Is… is the honored Founder being sincere? Will she spare this unworthy disciple?" She put a hand on her chest.

"On my honor." Zhang Fu pursed his lips. The line stopped, then started reeling in. He had made a decision.

"The Sect was dying," he said quickly.

"After the civil war, we were a shadow of what we were. The previous Sect Ma… Deputy Master wouldn't understand. We should have relocated to the other side of the Basin. He called it cowardly. The current one is nothing but an untested youth and just as stubborn. And I… I wasn't going to die for an idiot." Quick and to the point, and quite interesting. Wu Zetian mulled over his words. They shed some light on holes that even the memories of her previous self had. And, well, on the failure of upper management.

He looked at the Elder, at the desperate hope brimming in his eyes. In a way, his choice had been only rational: abandoning a sinking ship piloted by a captain who wouldn't turn his route from an iceberg was just obvious. Then she thought of Gan Nim's greedy eyes, and the Disciples, frozen and scared and killed. She snorted softly, and threw her sword. Zhang Fu managed to open his mouth. Then Night Razor pierced his heart.