by Dante King
But I was anything other than alone.
Like avenging valkyries, three figures leaped right over my head. Lyra landed in front of the pillar of flame, a wall of water erupting from her hands to sputter it out. The wave crashed through the fire, snuffing it out, and lifted the cultivator behind the spell off his feet to send him into a wall. The man collapsed with a gurgle, going still.
I turned to the bolt of ice just in time to see Regina step into the fray. She might have been naked, and she might have never even cast a spell before, but the connection between herself and the rest of my harem girls had clearly unlocked something inside of her. With an effortless cry, Regina unleashed her own bolt of lava-like flames, splitting the ice spell in two and burning the cultivator behind it to cinders.
But nothing had stopped the electric spell. A bolt of lightning shot directly at me, turning the black sky blue with the force of its passing. I threw up my hands and reached for my Mana Shield, already knowing it was too late. The spell was too quick for me to avoid.
I didn’t have to avoid it.
It was Hazel, dear disobedient Hazel, who stepped between me and the bolt of lightning at the last moment. Her dao sword flashed in her hands, parrying the spell back to its owner like a baseball player on the mound. The home run hit sent the bolt back down the street from whence it came, frying the cultivator on the spot like bacon on a hot griddle. The final man collapsed to the ground, twitching and screaming through his death throes.
Plini watched with mounting horror as first one, then two, then all three of his cronies were wiped off the map. Even I hadn’t seen it coming—my girls were able to match the cultivator’s weaknesses, element for element. To have three of the Hollow Frog Guild’s fighters utterly destroyed in such a short period of time should have broken Plini in half—forced him to flee, or at the very least to bargain. I felt triumph flare in my chest at the sight of his wounded pride, redoubling as all three cultivators’s Cores spilled from their defeated bodies. Villagers would pick them up and make sure they made their way back to me after the fight.
One final person jumped over me, like the period on the end of a mic-drop sentence. Anna landed right in front of me, the impact sending her skirt swirling over her luscious ass as she began to transform. Within moments, her scythe lay in my hands, sharp and deadly and ready for the fight.
“Now it’s one on one,” she moaned orgiastically in my brain. “Let’s make this fucker bleed, baby!”
I brandished the scythe with both hands, testing its edge against the chill night air. With the three cultivators dead, there was nothing standing between myself and Plini. We could have easily ganged up on him—in fact, it would have been the Hollow Frog Guild way to do so—but instead, I prepared myself for one-on-one combat.
“It’s over,” I said, handling the scythe like an extension of my own body. “Surrender now, Plini, and I’ll make it quick.”
As I crossed the distance between myself and the cultivator, a tingle raised the hairs on the back of my neck. No logical thing made me think of it, but suddenly I had the distinct impression Eliezer was watching me, waiting wherever the Peak Supreme God chose to witness the exploits of mortals.
Something deep inside me told me this would be it. I’d succeed or fail Eliezer’s tests depending on how I performed here. Me, versus one of Guildmaster Ji’s most powerful cultivators. I felt like a man at a casino, placing everything he had on black at the roulette table. Only instead of chips, I was betting my powers, my guild—and my harem of beautiful women.
I’m not sure what I expected from the man. Certainly not despair—Plini had too clearly seen his share of battles to collapse like a cheap card table in the face of overwhelming odds. Yet there was nothing in him that seemed to be entertaining a bargain. Instead, he just looked slightly sad, as if someone in the town had told an off-color joke.
“I won’t lie to you, Eric,” Plini said, reaching into his robes. Something short and stubby lay buried beneath the fabric. A dagger, perhaps? “I had hoped it would come to this. Guildmaster Ji refused my request to muder you personally—but after I heard what you did to Seth, I wanted this fight to be me against you.” He spared a short glance at the three dead cultivators laying between us, the corner of his mouth curling in a smirk. “Sacrifices were made.”
That bastard. He’d planted his own cultivators in a configuration he knew would get them killed. What kind of monster did that?
The scope of it took me by surprise. I took an involuntary step back, then lowered the edge of the scythe between myself and the cultivator. “Don’t come any closer,” I commanded.
Plini shook his head. “I won’t need to.”
He finished removing the item in his robes and switched it to his right hand. Plini held the hilt of a sword—bladeless, barely a foot of jet-black obsidian rock. Though it clearly was borderline useless as a weapon, something about the twisted hilt sent a spike of dread through my guts.
Plini closed his eyes and channeled.
Darkness ran up the hilt of his non-existent blade—and suddenly, it was all too real. Tendrils of the same material that corrupted the Cores we’d looted from the Demonic Rust Beetles twirled together, forming an edge of solid darkness. The sides of it shimmered, as if the blade cut through reality itself to assume its horrifying form.
“The element of Darkness,” I groaned, barely hearing Anna’s shriek inside my skull. “You’ve been experimenting with it, too.”
“Of course,” Plini said with a shrug. “Seth was my protege in more ways than one. This element interests Guildmaster Ji greatly. As far as we’ve been able to tell none of the ordinary elemental weaknesses apply when you infuse a weapon with darkness to this level.”
I swallowed hard. So what was he saying? Every element was weak against his blade?
“It’s a pity we didn’t have more time to research the corrupted cores,” Plini said, sizing me up. “But when I hand your Black Core to Guildmaster Ji, the next phase of the plan will truly begin, Eric. You and your guild are just a footnote in the true history of this world.”
I forced out a bitter laugh. “Oh yeah? If it’s not me, then who’s your real target?”
Plini sounded almost disappointed that I hadn’t figured it out. “The Peak Supreme God, of course,” he said, as if it were plain as day. “We’re going to take Eliezer’s place.”
Before I had a moment to absorb the shock of that statement, Plini struck.
Good lord, he’s fast! I lifted the scythe just in time. Plini sprung forward like a serpent, delivering an overhand slash that nearly knocked Anna from my grip. My arm went numb all the way up to the elbow as I twisted away, shaking it madly.
“That’d be the darkness,” Plini said with a grunt. After that quicker than thought attack, he seemed to be taking his time, stepping around me in a slow, easy circle. “It only lasts a few seconds, unfortunately. I’ll allow you to recover fully this time. Next time, you’ll see what a follow-up strike does.”
Shit. Plini knew what he was doing. And he had one of the most powerful weapons I’d ever seen in his repertoire. It didn’t matter that it couldn’t become a woman and give him a kiss goodnight—if I didn’t watch myself, it would be me taking a nice long nap.
Plini struck again. This time he twisted just before the strike, fainting against my parry. His blade slashed my upper arm, just beneath the shoulder. A shallow cut — but the whole limb went instantly numb, on pins and needles as I groaned with mingled pain and shock.
“Hah!” Plini punched me in the chest. It was designed more to humiliate me than hurt, but it still tossed me back a few steps. The man moved slowly and deliberately—except when he wanted to strike fast, at which point he was like a fucking bolt of lightning. He kept on walking toward me slowly, grinning as the numbness in my arm oh so slowly began to fade.
Bastard! I thought. He knows exactly how long my arm will be out of commission. He’s dragging this out—turning it into a show. He wants to hu
miliate me.
It made a sick kind of sense. Killing Eric Hyde carried the risk of making him into a martyr for any other heroes in the province who dreamed of resisting the Hollow Frog Guild. But giving me the sort of beating a parent gave a disobedient child—breaking me down until I begged for mercy in front of my own harem—that would destroy my legend like nothing else could. This wasn’t just an assassination.
Plini was here to wipe me from the history books.
I had to do something to throw him off-guard. As he lifted a foot, twisting to the side to deliver a cut to my mid-section, I dove to the side and lifted my palm.
Eric Casts Fan of Knives!
It was the first time I’d used the spell in battle, and it was an impression visual display. Knife-like projectiles burst from my open palm and shot toward Plini. I was expecting him to do an impression of a human pincushion, but instead, he cut each and every one of them down.
Using this minor distraction, I channeled through Anna, pulling the energy of the world around me into the attack.
Eric Casts Blossom!
It was the weakest spell in my repertoire. But amplified through Anna, it caused the ground around Plini to spring to life in an orgy of flowering plants and vines. Thick ropes of plant matter wrapped around the cultivator’s legs, rooting him to the spot.
I couldn’t squander this chance. Lifting Anna, I tossed the edge of her scythe over Plini’s head, catching him from behind like a stagehand trying to get a performer off the stage in an old cartoon. The scythe formed a hook, cutting into the back of Plini’s neck. I’d done the move a dozen times before, and each time the outcome was the same: the target was instantly decapitated, their head severed from their body.
Instead, the edge of Anna’s scythe form sparked off Plini like he was made of steel.
What? I reared back to stab, but before I could the cultivator lifted both hands and summoned a wall of darkness. The plants growing around him were ripped to ribbons, disintegrating into the air as he used my instant of shock to give me a sock in the face. I flipped over, nearly losing Anna as I went down on one knee in the dirt.
This wasn’t an ordinary cultivator fight. Hell, this wasn’t even like fighting Vargus at the Silent Auction. Back then, I’d been in combat with a cultivator a level or two up the ladder from me, and bridged the gap with my Dual Cultivation. But Plini had to at least be at least an Embryonic Soul Cultivator, or even a Soul Blooming Cultivator. Those were both levels in the Second Realm, while I was still in the First Realm. That gap felt insurmountable—literally impossible to cross.
I had one other card I could play.
Girls, to me! I called out in my mind, lifting myself to my feet. I don’t know how I knew that they would respond to my mental call—only that the moment of oneness we’d shared while combining our powers had altered our relationship forever. I felt each of them in my head: surprised at first, then ready. We had this.
The world literally depended on it.
“This is what I’m talking about,” Plini said, switching his sword of darkness from a one-handed grip to a flashy, two-handed stance. “We really, really wanted you to get a little bit more experience before we harvested that Black Core, Hyde. It’s going to be hell to make up the experience gap.”
“Fuck you,” I snarled, lacking any better jibe. I just needed to burn a few seconds to let the cavalry arrive.
A little smik flashed across Plini’s face, as if he were pleased at my lack of eloquence. “The worst part of this is, I’m not even the strongest cultivator in the Hollow Frog Guild. There are at least a half-dozen cultivators with just as much power as I control. That’s without even mentioning my master, Guildmaster Ji. You never would have stood a chance against us, Hyde. You got lucky against Vargus, but this is the end of the line.”
He was right—Plini was no aberration. The man was near the apex of cultivation within the Hollow Frog Guild, but his strength was merely uncommon — not unique. Suddenly I understood the truth of what Eliezer the Peak Supreme God had been trying to tell me.
You should be further along than this. His words echoed in my skull. How blind had I been? A source of nearly limitless potential rested inside of my body, the envy of every wicked cultivator in this province, and I’d squandered my power. I’d been afraid to claim what was mine by right. All because I cared about exploration, about building a better guild, about building relationships over conquest.
As I glanced up at Plini, those relationships came to defend me. Hazel sprang from an alleyway, carrying Regina in rope dart form as she swung the spike at Plini’s face. The cultivator barely had time to turn before she sank Regina’s spike deep in his neck, the pair already shimmering as they transformed. Regina flipped into human form, quick as thought, and grabbed the already half-formed dao sword that was Hazel out of the air—then stabbed through the cut her own weapon had opened.
It was poetry in motion. It was the kind of attack that would have brought a cultivator like Vargas to his knees, killing him instantly.
Plini shrugged it off as if it wasn’t even there.
The gouge in his neck sealed itself instantly, the thin trickle of blood staunching itself like a tourniquet. Plini grinned and socked Regina in the gut, sending her sprawling to the ground. Before Hazel could transform back into a woman, he grabbed the dao sword in mid air and tossed it down the street with a grunt.
A flash erupted in front of his eyes, and Lyra was there. The redhead didn’t even get a single spell off. Plini grabbed her around the throat, then tossed her over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. Lyra let out a little groan as she landed near the ruined front gate of the town, falling ass over teakettle onto the muddy ground.
I’d lost. My women had lost.
Plini sniffed as he took in the tangle of women lying on the ground around him. “Your little whores can’t hurt me, Hyde,” he said sadly, stepping over Regina as she writhed on the ground. “You would have been better served putting them all together the way you did to clear the fire—but even that would’ve just delayed the inevitable. You were never going to beat me, Eric.”
“Bastard!” Anna raged like a hellcat inside my head. “Let me at him!”
“No, Anna, don’t,” I said to her mentally, too late to stop her. “He’ll tear you apart—”
The scythe leaped from my hands transforming in mid-air into the demonic form of Anna. She popped into motion mid kick, delivering a heel-crunch of a strike that would’ve broken the jaw of any cultivator we’d faced before. Instead, with Plini, it was like stubbing your toe on a statue.
He grabbed her leg and shoved her to the side, so dismissive he didn’t even bother with a decent attack. “Now you have no weapon, Hyde,” he said with a shrug. “Your stable of whores aren’t good for anything but spreading their legs. Which has its pleasures, I admit—Guildmaster Ji is a notable fan of such women—but, unfortunately, is not the kind of thing liable to help you in a duel between cultivators.”
God damn it, he was so smug. I wanted to punch his stupid face in!
All it would do is give me something to try while I died. Even now, Plini advanced, taking it slow and savoring the moment. The dark blade of his arcane weapon filled the night air with a sizzling sound, as if it already anticipated rending my flesh.
I stared at the weapon, and at him. I fucked up, I thought, as close to giving up as I’d ever come in my life. I failed my women. I failed my guild. I’ve lost everything. Everything except this stupid fucking Black Core…
As if on cue, the Core inside me began to vibrate.
Huh? It pulsed within my chest, filling me with a humming sound that felt like the voice of God. All you have to do is take it, Eliezer’s voice whispered in my brain. All the power.
I felt like I was on the verge of something… something new. Some new level of power, that could maybe match even Plini’s might.
All I had to do was take it.
The sudden change in me didn’t go unnoticed by the c
ultivator. Plini paused, staring down at me. The beam of his blade cast dark shadows deep in his eyes.
“What’s happening, Hyde? Reaching deep down within for that big, heroic moment?”
I was reaching, to be sure. But there was nothing heroic about it.
Eliezer, I thought, remembering my first visit with the Peak Supreme God. Anna and I had been so naive then — a couple on our second date, visiting the Chesterton County Fair during its Asian-culture themed carnival. The Peak Supreme God made the world stop turning. He told us he could snap his fingers and make it so that humans never walked the face of the Earth. He murdered me in order to unlock my power!
I’d been avoiding this conclusion for so long, but it was inescapable. For a being like Eliezer, there were no such things as dirty hands. The Peak Supreme God wouldn’t think twice before burning worlds or smashing galaxies asunder to get what he wanted. If something posed an existential threat to himself, his harem, the women he loved, it wouldn’t matter what the rules were. What moral concepts like good and bad looked like. Those things were only shadows of the truth—reflections of a higher, more powerful reality.
I realized what I had to do. In order to win, to truly prove myself to Eliezer, I had to discard everything that held me back. I had to be as ruthless and mercenary as the Peak Supreme God himself.
It was dangerous, to be sure. The only thing holding me back from the brink—from becoming a creature as vile and wicked as those I fought—was my harem. Could I trust them to keep me sane and on the right track?
Slowly, my gaze traveled from girl to girl, taking in their forms. Of course they could. And the women who joined after them would only help more. We’d take this world piece by piece, until all of it belonged to us.
Until we could succeed the Peak Supreme God for real.
Was that a glint of fear in Plini’s eyes as I rose to my full height? Surely he suspected something—though the look on his face told me he believed victory was assured. He cocked his head to the side, as if waiting to receive my final declaration before being skewered on his weird, eye-watering sword.
