Silver Fox & The Western Hero: Warrior Redeemed: A LitRPG/Wuxian Novel - Book 5

by M. H. Johnson

  “Indeed, you’re right,” agreed Sha Shou. “We know our little mascot is something of a wild one, as at home in the forest as the emperor’s own crack troops. If he were truly wise, he would make his way to any one of a thousand grand cities making up this empire, free of all worry and care, smart enough to avoid the tragic sagas wrapping so many unfortunate fools in their pages, with fond thoughts of the mentors who taught him such sweet, perilous arts as he forges his own path through life.”

  “Do you think that idiot will actually heed your words?” asked the one night watchman whose name Alex never had caught. His Qi Perception, however, caught Sha Shou’s shrug as clearly as if he saw it with his own eyes.

  “Who knows? We gave him far more warning than any other would-be student poking their toes where they didn’t belong. If he’s smart, perhaps we’ll meet some time again in the distant future, far away from here, and pick up our lessons where we last left off,” said Sha Shou, before taking a deep breath and flashing a brilliant smile.

  “Well, no reason for us to stick around here. I do believe the good captain, who glares and spits whenever someone so much as mentions the name of a certain foolish Ruidian, is about ready to head off. Times like these, I’m halfway tempted to cut loose from this mission myself.”

  “But you won’t,” said Tusha Zhe.

  Sha Shou chuckled. “Of course not! But then again, I have no more of a woodland knack than either of you. Some people just have it lucky, I suppose.”

  Alex’s heart was pounding by the time the three cultivators, radiating such deadly potency when they revealed their killing aura for just a heartbeat, made their way back to the caravan. He shook his head, still frustrated by the fact they hadn’t participated in routing the raiders, though knowing they had just been following orders and had, in fact, caught and cut down a handful of bandits with slave collars who had been keen on intercepting the fleeing caravanners while the guard was tied up dealing with the main force.

  Done right, the raiders could have hightailed it out with their ponies, even if they had met significantly greater numbers, only to emerge the victors when the seemingly triumphant guard returned to find not a single caravanner had escaped the slavers’ cruel clutches. Because massive spirit horse hybrids secured to grand oversized wagons were no match for the small horses so favored by raiders eager to slip in and out of the woodlands like ghosts.

  Of course, Alex thought with a smile, they had had no chance of hiding from him.

  Which still begged the question why his former fellow night watchmen and deadliest mentors he had ever had were now effectively warning him off.

  Does Captain Dui Zhang now actively want to punish or even maim him for his admittedly outrageous insolence? Metaphorically smacking the man in the face and literally destroying his property when the man was about to make the most revered offers of friendship and alliance, at least as Alex understood such things to work in this culture?

  Alex winced. Perhaps he had overplayed his hand yet again, ever gifted at playing the fool.

  He chuckled ruefully, suddenly certain he’d never get hired on as a caravanner again, even after he got rid of that damned cursed card hovering over his soul like Damocles’ Sword upon reaching Baidushi.

  He sighed and shook his head.

  Even now he might be playing the utter fool, he realized. Giving up every social advantage he had to spare these people the wrath of spiteful gods, should any act they commit be seen as helping him. Perhaps his even travelling in their shadow would be seen by the most vindictive as accepting the comfort of solace, even if all Alex was doing was metaphorically watching their backs.

  He cursed softly under his breath, already knowing what he had to do.

  His former nighttime companions were right. His best bet was to continue his journey immediately, stopping for nothing, utterly unaffected by the wagon train he was even now passing, a single glance through thickest foliage catching a glimpse of a thoughtful Yan now truly acting the part of a herdsman alongside his forlorn disciples, and Alex genuinely wished them the safest of trips and endless triumph in their journey to rise in the world of cultivation.

  With a farewell wave he knew no one could see, Alex quickly left the caravan behind, finding peace in the thought of fresh starts and simply communing with the glorious forest all around him, reveling in the beautiful day as he swung through the endless canopy of emerald green hue, not stopping until dawn’s first light blossomed into noon’s brilliance, replaced by gentle dusk once more.

  And when he sensed the furtive presence of a stalking spirit puma nearby, he couldn’t help flashing a feral grin, eager to be one with nature’s dance once more, feeling a visceral thrill when the creature burst out of cover and took one look at its smiling would-be prey, before abruptly turning around and bolting back the way it came.

  Alex immediately gave chase.

  And it was only the voices he heard just before he unleashed Bullrush, freezing him upon his perch, that gave the spirit puma a second chance at life, Alex frozen by a sight that shook him to his core.

  14

  Soldiers were slipping through these woods.

  Soldiers unlike any he had ever seen before, wearing armor that blended so well with the dark forest greens and gloomy shadows, dao that were practically falchions at their hips, and steel round shields small enough to be secured like an overlarge buckler or worn with ease as they trailblazed through endless forest Alex had for too long thought of as his province alone. Upon their backs were compact recurved bows of horn, steel, and wood. And most striking of all… terrifying, in fact, was that Alex sensed the powerful presence not just of soldiers who could cultivate, but those who had actually achieved Bronze, just like him.

  One hundred Bronze cultivators, give or take, effortlessly flowing through the forest, away from the major trade road leading to Baidushi, wearing armor comprised of dyed leather and blackened steel plates that didn’t make a sound as their enemies flowed past Alex along a barely visible trail leading right past his tree.

  He didn’t move a muscle, forcing even his racing heart to calm, ignoring the sudden itch on his cheek as he clung to the crown of the tree he was on, now focused on catching whatever snippets of conversation he could from the soldiers below.

  “Captain says they should get here by midday tomorrow.”

  “Good. Sooner we get this mission over with, better our odds of getting away clean.”

  “Can’t believe we’re not even going to take prisoners. It would be a shame to let good flesh go to waste.”

  “Quiet, you two. We all know why it has to be this way.”

  Alex’s eyes widened in sudden alarm.

  He could feel an awareness tasting like wood and darkest shadow suddenly probing the area. He felt a sudden weight upon his psyche, compelling him to twitch, to move, to struggle against the awful itch now crawling within his mind.

  Almost as if someone below was trying to tease out hiding prey using gifts Alex barely understood.

  But one thing he did understand with absolute clarity was that breaking cover at that moment would be a very, very bad idea.

  “Keep a sharp eye out. Something feels off.”

  And when Alex felt the killing aura of a powerful Silver, so reminiscent of Lord Wan Duan, Erjizhen’s nominal ruler and former assassin whose deadly Qi strikes of exploding steel and stone had nearly torn Alex to shreds, he didn’t hesitate, didn’t delude himself into thinking he could possibly fool an entire company of elite Bronze and perhaps Silver cultivators as well… knew, in fact, that he was as good as dead if he didn’t MOVE!

  Bullrush! Bullrush!

  BOOM!

  And Alex was off so fast that the forest became a shifting collage of trees, only his Qi Perception and Forest Sense letting him navigate almost faster than he could blink as he fled, skipping from branch to distant branch just as fast as when he had fled Erjizhen, with the awful sound of exploding trees in the distance making it damn clear that h
e had been right to flee like a terrified hare, blinking forward dozens of times, Qi reserves depleting well below half, before making due with Forest Flight to swing through the trees at a clip far faster than even a man on horseback could manage.

  Praying he could outrun the half dozen killers now on his coat tails.

  As overwhelmed as he felt, shocked to truly, viscerally sense, firsthand, just how tiny a cog he was in this vast realm of Earth-sized empires and cultivators so deadly they could set ablaze entire cities.

  Of course he had faced daunting odds before.

  But to find himself at odds with an entire regiment of Bronze and Silver soldiers made it clear just how outmatched he, a lone Bronze, truly was.

  But only now, forced to flee an entire regiment of cultivators at least as powerful as he, knowing that even if only one in a thousand citizens could make the first rank of Bronze, and one in a hundred thousand could make the first rank of Silver, that still meant that Yidushi, a city of ten million, could easily field a hundred companies just like the one Alex was fleeing for his life from.

  A hundred companies of Rank 1 or better Bronze cultivators, each headed by a Silver, just like the one that had nearly blown him to smithereens, only seconds ago.

  Alex didn’t know whether to laugh or sob, realizing just how small a cog he was in this vast, merciless world, where beauty and cruelty seemed to go hand in hand. He had already come so far, compared to the confused kid waking up from cryo-sleep as weak and powerless as any mortal, save for the ability to spit poison.

  Only now did he fully appreciate just how precarious his existence still was.

  He had barely taken the first steps along the perilous path of a cultivator.

  And for all that he aspired to achieve the dizzying summit that would allow him to walk on equal footing with the gods, an impossible dream if there ever was one, for now he had to contend with the thousands... no, millions of fellow cultivators in the world around him just as deadly as he and, in many cases, far deadlier.

  If he truly wanted to be a force to be reckoned with, even if he just wanted to be able to live his life without fear, he needed to get stronger at all costs. He needed to find a school that would accept him, earn access to body cultivation manuals that tied in with his sense of ideal body reinforcement techniques, and devise a way to break through to Silver just as fast as he possibly could.

  If he dared any other path forward, he’d be the smallest of pawns, forever swept up by the whims and tides of fate, forever vulnerable to being smashed against rocky shoals by forces far more powerful than he.

  Yet for all the random thoughts careening through the back of his mind, most of his focus was simply on darting through the woods in a desperate attempt to flee his pursuers.

  Perception check made! Quickness check made!

  You have avoided instant death!

  And when he had the sudden urge to leap to the ground via Bullrush and dart under deepest cover as treetops exploded in shrapnel above, he did not hesitate, racing through thick hedges and undergrowth that parted for him effortlessly as he entered a mist-shrouded ravine.

  It was only when he sensed the presence of numerous wild, powerful spirit beasts inhabiting these fog-filled swampy lowlands that he began to feel the first inkling of relief from the terrible weight of dread in the pit of his stomach. Now hidden in thick fog that not even Shadow Qi could hope to penetrate, he flashed a fierce smile at the sound of massive crocs lurching out of the water with ambushing snaps and the surprised screams of the soldiers daring these swampy waters chasing after him.

  But Alex refused to slow his mad pace, refused to be lulled into a state of complacency with such deadly hunters after him, weaving and darting through the mist shrouded wetlands before finally slipping free and heading upslope to the tallest, grandest trees he had ever seen, filling his heart with a profound sense of awe as he effortlessly darted up massive trunks the size of Redwoods, their branches heavy with golden fruit radiating such strong Water and Wood Qi that Alex was left breathless.

  And there he clung, deep in the branches of a grove of trees so vast and massive that they rose over the surrounding forest like pines over shrubs, and it was only the thick foliage on both sides of the trade road cutting through this incredible forest that kept people from seeing this or the other massively tall groves Alex could now make out from this height, dotting the vast endless forest of a thousand shades of green.

  For long moments he just rested upon his perch between trunk and branch, leaning his head against the bark of his massive host, giving silent thanks for his life as his Forest Sense made it clear the half dozen deadly intent scouts, already down one man, had given up their chase, with a prize of spirit beast meat their sole consolation.

  “Thank you,” Alex said, words of heartfelt solemn thanks.

  Of course he knew that the forest was itself the ultimate testing ground, where the strongest flourished and survived, and those proven unfit perished, as was their lot. It was only because Alex had obeyed the unspoken covenant, to treat these woodlands with a certain reverence, refusing to embrace wanton plunder or slaughter, making use of and feeding upon his kills and giving back to the land in turn, that had earned Alex even this much forbearance against interlopers who had committed the highest of all crimes, destroying portions of the woodlands with no pact made, giving nothing of compost, nutrients, or lifeblood in turn.

  And when the thick bark morphed before Alex’s eyes into a shallow blister that could almost be considered a bowl, Alex nodded to himself, understanding at once the price to be paid, slashing open his wrist with his belt-knife and pressing it against the trunk.

  You have accessed one Lesser Beast Core. You are engaged in Power Healing.

  You have fully tapped one Lesser Beast Core.

  You have fed Elder Grove multiple liters of your blood!

  Elder Grove is now positively disposed to your presence! Roots will not seek to bind you during your sleep and drain you of all nutrients!

  Elder Grove will consent to you plucking one Golden Fruit for your blood sacrifice!

  Alex, only mildly drained thanks to his Power Healing, for all that he had fed the massive tree a shocking amount of blood, was all too happy to take advantage of the hammock of branches that had mysteriously formed while he had been feeding the tree, leaning back with a contented sigh when a massive golden apple plopped into his hand, not hesitating to take a bite of its sweet juicy flesh, eyes widening with sudden clarity as he felt a connection to the forest like never before.

  You have consumed 1 Golden Apple of Wisdom!

  Forest Sense is now Rank 4.

  Forest Flight is now Rank 4.

  Scholarship has increased by 1 point!

  Your chances of making cultivation breakthroughs have been permanently boosted!

  Alex spent a moment just delighting in his newly-strengthened connection to the forest all around him, surprised by how clearheaded he felt at that moment, how strikingly sharp and vivid his memories of the last half-day had become, now able to sense more of the forest and the flow of life within than he ever had before.

  He couldn’t help startling just a tiny bit at the sudden vision he was struck with, cultivators dressed in simple plant fibers and spirit beast skins who had a powerful connection to the land all around them, individuals he would call druids were he, in fact, trapped in any sort of Tolkienesque game and not actually reborn in an alternate world so reminiscent of a mystical China in the height of its ancient glory. Each of those cultivators in his vision were ritualistically slicing shallow cuts upon palms or forearms and solemnly feeding trees just like this behemoth drops of blood over periods of months, even years, all in the hopes of earning the prize he had consumed so readily, the power of his Eternal Fox unified cultivation technique proving a boon in ways he had never before imagined.

  He solemnly bowed his head once more.

  “This one thanks you for the gift. And I would love nothing more than to
rest here for a time and gaze at the endless starry night sky from this glorious height. But if I don’t act now, dozens of lives will be lost.” Alex flashed a rueful smile, knowing such probably meant little to the forest, assuming it could understand his words at all. But still, it never hurt to share, out of respect if nothing else. “And that company of men will probably think nothing of blasting apart trees as well as destroying a caravan that always respected the rules of the road, our livestock never stinting to nurture the forest in turn for its bounties during our travels.”

  Just as he was about to scale down before using Forest Flight to make his way amongst the branches of far smaller trees, he was hit by sudden inspiration, his newly-heightened Forest Sense allowing him to percieve the glorious flow of spiritual energies radiating from this height like a beautiful sea of Qi.

  Insight gained!

  You have made a breakthrough!

  And that insight was all he needed to leap off the massive arboreal sentinel from a breathtaking height that would have made a far more innocent version of himself scream with terror, spreading his arms almost as if he could fly.

  Yet he did not plummet to his death.

  Though he did howl with exultation and a hint of madness, soaring upon waves of spiritual energy unique to the endless forest that he alone could see.

  Delighting in the sheer joy of flying before exhilaration transformed to fear as he remembered the terrible threat that had tried so hard to kill him, a threat that might hear the echo of his laughter, no matter how many miles away he was, and even now might be readying themselves to ambush the caravan.

  His exultation turned to disciplined focus, now racing as fast as the hunting hawk above the treetops as he flew past the winding paths he had taken to avoid capture, until at last the road was in sight.

  No matter that his Qi Pool had already plummeted to less than half, he felt an incredible rush of satisfaction as his skills continued to develop and evolve. And now that he was racing above the ley line proper, his Qi expenditure had dropped down to almost nothing as he soared along the road, eagerly looking for the telltale signs of the caravan he had abandoned just the day before.