by Rick Scott
Olja waited, just as she had for weeks while tracking the fiend, ascertaining which direction the demon would venture next. It paused for so long that she feared it might have sensed her. But eventually the Oni grunted and slunk off towards the North. She waited for the beast to be fully out of sight before standing on the tree branch to gauge where it had sensed its prey.
In the distance, the faded lights of a small village flickered in the center of the valley. It was the first time the Oni had ventured towards a human settlement. Olja’s heartbeat sped. This had to be it. She glanced over her shoulder, to where the Tsu trackers were camped less than a day or so behind her.
There was still time.
So long as she reached the village before they did.
Chapter 6 – The Peach Tree
Kenji finished breakfast early to get a head start on securing the rope about the tree. The rebirthing ceremony would perhaps not take place till the afternoon, but considering what other peripherals might need to be arranged, he didn’t want to leave the most important part till the last minute.
Xian Lu was still asleep by the time he left the house. The weariness in Kenji’s bones made him envious of his father sleeping in. With as late as he trained last night he was not certain how much sleep he’d even had. Rubbing the knots from his shoulders, he stepped into the cool pre-dawn air and made his way to the shed.
It took him just a few minutes to load the freshly braided century rope into the wheelbarrow but by the time he spun it about to leave, a silhouette was standing within the doorway. His heart leapt, until it became clear the diminutive form was that of a small girl.
“Shinoto?” Kenji said, still unable to make out a face in the pale morning light.
“Yes,” she answered. “It’s me.”
As she stepped inside the shed, Kenji could see her eyes and face were red and puffy. “What happened?”
“I’m not to see you anymore,” she said. “It would be inappropriate, for both our families. I trust you understand.”
She stated the words with formal diction and tone, like a rehearsed line. “What is this? Did Chet Fai make you do this?”
Shinoto sighed. “Please don’t make this any harder than it is, Kenji. I had to beg my father just to come in person and say this much to you. I’m sorry, but…we can’t be friends.”
She performed a short bow and ran out of the shed.
“Hey wait!” He dropped the wheelbarrow and ran after her. “Shinoto!”
By the time he reached the door she was already well down the road, her robes a flurry of white in the semidarkness. His stomach was sick. He should have known his actions wouldn’t come without consequences. Curse his insolence. He should have just apologized right away. Or better yet, not struck her brother in the first place. Compared to this, taking the insult would have been a much smaller price to pay.
Kenji’s chest heaved as Shinoto disappeared from sight. He’d just lost his best friend twice, and not even channeling would bring her back this time.
* * *
Remorse turned to anger and then resentment as Kenji pushed the wheelbarrow up the steep hill. He barely even remembered crossing the four or five acres of orchard to reach the peach tree fields. His mind was locked in that moment of time when Chet Fai taunted him with that insult about his mother. But try as he might to change the outcome in his mind, Kenji ended up punching him every single time.
“Stupid Chet Fai…” he muttered.
The sun was edging on the horizon, climbing above the hilltop trees. It highlighted the sheen of sweat on his brow, made so both from exertion and the fiery angst burning within his heart. The wheelbarrow was considerably heavier now too, after having picked up a hoe and several iron stakes from the orchard shed. Normally Waru would be helping to carry them, but not surprisingly he was nowhere to be found.
“Probably hungover,” he muttered again. “Old fool.”
And what did he know about women, anyway? About anything?
Kenji dumped the contents of the wheelbarrow unceremoniously onto the crest of the hill. Any other time he’d have gingerly placed the rope on the ground, but he didn’t care anymore. Why did he draw so much misfortune in life?
Stupid Waru. Always giving me false hope.
What would someone like him even know about what his future held? Waru—a failure who was un-tiered and never reborn, a useless fieldhand at almost 60. Tears filled Kenji’s eyes.
That’s going to be me, he thought…he is me.
As much as he didn’t want to accept it, it was true. This world was not a place where everyone could reach jade tier, or become a mystic warrior. The opposite instead was more true. The majority of people lacked the talents and discipline to reach even 4th tier. It was only from being within one of the artisan clan villages that Kenji was privileged to live amongst those who could not only cultivate to the 8th tier but be reborn to re-reach it several times.
If his origins were true, his mother would be one of the thousands living in the large cities, where normal folks like Waru found more purpose in life pursuing pleasures than cultivation. And feeling as he did now, he could not blame them.
The entire system was flawed—made for those who were gifted from birth either by talent or privilege.
And Kenji had neither.
He grabbed the hoe and began chopping at the earth around the base of the large peach tree, taking his vengeance out upon the tough grass. He slammed one of the iron stakes into the ground and tied one end of the century rope to it before glaring up at the tree.
“Curse you too,” he said, but his conscience made him immediately utter a prayer of forgiveness. A tree this old likely held a living spirit and the last thing he needed was a spiteful tree guardian to add to his misfortunes.
Despite his foul disposition, the tree was still awe-inspiring to behold. Its trunk was somewhat narrow and short, but its branches exploded outwards in wide boughs that spanned for more than thirty feet all around. They then soared upwards more than fifty feet and leaned to one side as if permanently blown with the wind. Bright-green leaves clung to the topmost branches, ushering in the colors of spring.
The blossoms would be coming soon.
Normally they would wait until the tree had blossomed before rebirthing, as doing so would give an added boon of fruit, especially if the tree had already been rebirthed once before. The fruit would compact its already-stored Qi, concentrating it, making it more dense.
Kenji understood the principle was the same when it came to people undergoing a rebirth. Like the fruit, one’s doma grew in size and capacity when they ascended the eight foundational tiers and while capacities varied from person to person, the 8th tier was the maximum anyone could reach, the same as an apple could never grow to be the size of a watermelon.
To grow beyond that point required either rebirthing through the sacred Han techniques, or ascending through mystic arts to reach a higher Dan of existence. Like the miniature apple Shinoto had been gifted, when one was rebirthed, their doma was shrunk back to its original size, but the Qi within it was forever more concentrated and dense. Likewise, when one ascended through the mystic arts, the doma was shrunk yet again, but instead of becoming more dense, one’s Qi become more energized, like pressure building within a sealed pot of boiling water.
Or at least, that was as much as Kenji understood about the process. He supposed only a true mystic artist would be able to explain what it was like to be reborn as not a youth, but as an entirely new being. The 1st Dan alone allowed one to supersede all manner of human limitations, granting increased strength and endurance, even needing to eat less. At somewhere past tenth Dan, one ceased to age as fast and beyond that they ceased to age altogether, becoming truly immortal.
If the legends were true, upon reaching the 100th Dan one would literally have the power of a god and ascend to the celestial heavens. But with each Dan or rebirth came the added need to cultivate ever-increasing quantities of Qi to stretch one’s do
ma further. Kenji did not know what quantities were required to ascend to the 100th Dan, but he was quite certain that even an entire orchard of twice-rebirthed peaches would not be enough.
Not that he had any personal desire to ascend to the 100th Dan, but it did raise the question as to why his father had chosen to rebirth this tree outside of its season. To miss out on such a harvest would be quite the loss.
Upon closer examination of the tree’s bark, the reason became clear. On one half of the trunk a thick black scale had formed, running up the tree’s side. The tree was diseased and dying. A rebirth was required to not only concentrate its essence but to allow it to live longer. Eventually the tree would die as all natural things did. Even those rebirthed would eventually reach a natural end. But the rebirth could return it to a younger and healthier state. And by the look of the black scale, it was needed sooner rather than later.
Even now it seemed to grow before his eyes, stretching up the side of the tree.
Kenji blinked. Am I seeing things?
Dropping the hoe, he peered closer to determine if he was indeed seeing things or not. He marked a place on the untarnished bark and watched.
Slowly but assuredly, like water flowing across an unbalanced table, the black scale was consuming the tree bark right before his eyes. The flow increased and a sickness entered Kenji’s stomach.
This doesn’t feel right.
A sense of darkness consumed him as a foul stench permeated the air. It wasn’t a natural odor, something he could stop by blocking his nose. The scent seemed to flow straight through his being, like it was poisoning his soul.
Dark Qi…
A low growl came from behind him.
Kenji spun about, his heart in his throat.
Not more than a few paces from him, a wolf the size of a horse crouched low to the ground, waiting to pounce. Glowing red eyes pierced him as the beast’s maw opened and its putrid breath washed over him like a sickening fog. His knees grew weak with fear as his heart pounded within his chest.
This was no normal wolf; even now he could see its fur smoldering unnaturally as if on fire. Kenji looked for the hoe he had dropped but it was securely under one of the beast’s hand-sized paws.
Dear heavens…
The wolf snarled and leapt.
Kenji could only scream.
Chapter 7 – Oni
Kenji braced himself, expecting to feel the piercing bite of jaws, but instead the world exploded in a brilliant flash of light.
“THUNDER GOD’S KISS!”
His feet left the ground as a bolt of lightning struck the wolf’s head. He flew backwards with a powerful blast and his back slammed into the base of the tree. The shout had been so loud that it reverberated like thunder itself.
The wolf appeared stunned for a moment and then a figure nearly as large as the wolf itself came crashing down on top of it, firing it down the hill with a powerful kick.
A wave of Qi hit Kenji like a second bolt of lightning as a woman appeared before him.
His mind struggled to make sense of what he was seeing. She was unlike any woman he had ever seen before—taller than even he was with a head of short golden hair. Her clothing too was like none he had ever seen. Her deep jade gown was cut with long slits up the side, revealing a set of powerful legs clad in sheer silk stockings and metal boots. Upon her hands were gauntlets made of polished metal, but they covered only her palms and the back of her hands. The woman looked down at him with a set of deep azure eyes. She appeared perhaps thirty, with a wide, firm jaw. If not for her slender nose and ample bosom, Kenji might have mistook her for a man at first, although the longer he look, he saw she was not unattractive at all—simply different.
“Are you hurt?” she asked him in a commanding voice. “Did it touch you?”
Kenji wasn’t sure himself. “I–I don’t think so.”
He gazed again at the giant woman. Even from just a few feet away he could sense her immense inner power. It was the same sort of pressure he’d felt when Chet Fai was about to strike him, but compared to her, Chet Fai was a flea. Kenji had encountered mystic artists before, normally when they came to the village every year to recruit for the schools. Or occasionally one or two might be travelling with a platoon of imperial soldiers on patrol or with the gray robes responsible for collecting taxes. But never had he witnessed one use power such as this.
“Wait here,” she said and then withdrew a sliver of crystal the shape and size of a small sword. “There’s only one chance to trap it. We need to act before it fully transforms.”
Transforms?
Kenji stumbled to his feet as the woman leapt from the hilltop. She charged down the steep bank to where the wolf had crashed through several peach trees, their trunks bent and splintered.
By the heavens…All that from a single kick?
But the wolf was not dead. It shimmied on the ground, snarling and whining. Then another sound filled the air, like the ripping of cloth. Kenji realized it was the wolf’s skin, tearing open and exposing the animal’s spine. Kenji’s stomach lurched as black liquid, thick like honey oozed from out of the wolf’s back. Then like the innards of a cut fish, something slick and writhing poured out of it.
What under heaven…?
The trees around the black mass instantly darkened, their leaves turning brown and falling like rain. The dark mass sprouted legs like a spider, black and thick like bamboo trunks. A head then began to form, taking the shape of a human skull, but not quite. Elongated teeth sprouted from its gaping jaws and where its eyes would be, were instead two glowing embers, red like hot coals.
The woman with golden hair stood just a few feet from it, seemingly in deep concentration. She glowed with a faint light as she focused her Qi, appearing to be channeling it into the crystal within her palm. It elongated like a spear within her hand and then she threw it with incredible speed.
The beast wailed as the spear hit it in the midsection and then the projectile shattered like ice. For every piece that exploded a new spear formed, and then drove into the creature from above, filling it like a pin cushion.
The beast cried out with a flesh-crawling screech. It shook the ground even from where Kenji stood as it tried to free itself, but the crystal spears stayed fast, pinning it to the ground. The woman spun about and with a series of quick hops, vaulted across the quickly blackening grass, touching the tops of peach trees as she made her way back up the hill.
She landed before him with a solid thud and Kenji once again had to appreciate just how tall she was. He’d read of the Xjian people to the north, said to be descended from giants. Whether it was true or not he did not know, but this woman certainly appeared as if she could be one of them. Especially with her hair; they were said to have hair the color of gold. But the Xjian kingdom was also more than a thousand miles away.
“Are you Xjian?” Kenji asked cautiously.
“It’s not important who I am,” she said, her diction coarse and unmannered. “What’s important is who you are. What’s your name?”
Kenji swallowed. “My name is Kenji.”
He then realized that he was addressing a mystic warrior, one perhaps several Dan in ascension. And she had just saved his life! Kenji fell to his knees. “Forgive me, great master. This one is grateful for your saving me.”
“Get off your knees,” she said unceremoniously. “I haven’t saved you yet.”
She then turned her head to where the spider beast was still bucking against the crystal spears. “Curse the heavens… a four-horned demon…”
Kenji looked to see what she meant and sure enough, the skull-like head of the beast had four black-tipped horns protruding from it like a crown.
“The containment spell isn’t going to last long.” The woman snatched him by the wrist. “Come on! We need to go!”
“What?”
Kenji resisted as she pulled him, but even with his strength she easily dragged him across the ground.
“Stop!” he shouted.
“What are you doing?”
“Now, I’m saving you,” she said. And then she stared him at a moment more. “If you even are worth saving. By the nine hells, you’d better be the right one.”
Right one? “What do you mean?”
“Shut up and let’s go!” She picked him up by the waist and literally carried him like a child.
“Stop! Let go of me!” His vision became a jumbled blur as he bounced underneath her arm. “What are you doing?”
“I can run faster for the both of us! If you don’t want to get eaten by a demon I suggest you hold on.”
This was insane. Whoever this woman was, he wasn’t about to let her kidnap him. Using the only weapon he had, Kenji sunk his teeth into her forearm as deeply as he could. He tasted blood before her skin became rock hard in his mouth, and his own bite kicked against his jaw.
“Argh! You little…” She tossed him to the ground, perhaps more from reflex than from pain. As skilled as she was, she was clearly able to resist the bite. And his teeth now had the ache to prove it. He stumbled to his feet and started to run, but the woman had already crossed his path, sealing his exit.
“Look, stop!” she yelled, holding a palm towards him. “You’re going to die if you stay here.”
“What?”
“That demon is after you, understand?”
“Me?” This couldn’t be right. “Why?”
“I can’t explain now! Just know that it is!”
This was making less sense by the moment. “Who are you, even?”
“My name is Olja,” she said. “Now if you want to live, you need to come with me. Before that spell breaks.”
Breaks? “What’s going to happen if it does? Will it attack the village?”
