Before sighing with heartfelt relief.
It was only his master.
Then he swallowed, taking in Liu Jian's killing gaze, his deadly aura, struck once more by the irrefutable fact that his mentor was no simple alchemist.
As to what exactly he was…
Alex didn't dare ask.
“Master?” He said at last, wincing under the weight of his master’s gaze.
“I think I’ve pinpointed the source of the disturbances within my forest.” Liu Jian flashed an icy smile. “I hope you’ve mastered your Qi attacks, Alex.”
Alex just blinked and stared at his mentor. “Forgive me, sir. Qi Deflection… Piercing Strike… I just can’t quite seem to grasp the pair of them, no matter how much I practice.”
His mentor snorted. “I’d be surprised if you could.”
Alex furrowed his brow. “But you said...”
“Get some sleep, Alex. We’ll talk more about it tomorrow.”
But much to Alex’s surprise, his mentor ignored the dummies and the mock weaponry after they kitted up the next day. He didn’t even bother setting up any elemental barriers for Alex to futilely pound his hands against either. Instead, he passed Alex a gladius and the ji he now knew so well it was almost a part of him, before leading Alex along a path to the nearby woods.
“Master Liu?” Alex softly said, the hushed quiet of the forest inspiring the same in him.
"Your training will be different today, Alex. I think it's time we took a look at what exactly is causing such disturbances in the Qi nearby." He scowled at Alex's ji, quite different from his own hunting spear. "Not necessarily the best choice, but it has been tempered in the blood of a greater spirit beast, and it did not bend or break. Most importantly, it’s a weapon you know well. Its edges will never dull for you, and the shaft will not break against any mortal weapon, so long as you're the one holding it."
Alex blinked, his polearm looking just the same as it had the day before, with its crescent blades and spear point reminding Alex so much of European halberds, though admittedly this weapon was far cooler looking. And after hundreds of hours of practice, it truly did feel like an extension of his hands, and he had been amazed to find the edges honed to such wicked sharpness.
“I'm surprised it didn't dull or pit after that fight with the greater spirit tiger. Its blood should have scoured the blade, right?"
The older man just smiled and shook his head. "No, Alex. Any weapon wielded by a cultivator while hunting spirit beasts gains some prowess from the experience, as if a bit of the life force of the creature remains. But with greater spirit beasts, that potency is so much more. And with you, a virgin, landing the killing blow, to say nothing of the sacrifices you had been willing to make, all of that had an effect on just how much potency your weapon could absorb.”
Alex flushed. "Really? The spiritual energy was aware of the state of my personal life?"
The alchemist grinned. “What personal life, Disciple? I already know you will never break my daughter’s trust. All you do is spar, compound, and cultivate.” He gave an approving nod. “As it should be.”
Alex chuckled ruefully at that. "Fair enough, Master Liu. Where are we headed to, exactly?"
The elder cultivator abruptly held up his hand as they approached the edge of the woods.
Stealth Rank 2 achieved.
They had been traveling for quite some time, Alex losing himself in mirroring Master Liu’s careful movements, surprised to find they had come such a distance. When his mentor pulled back the foliage just before the clearing ahead, Alex was awed and chilled by the sight that met his eyes.
An imposing fortress of wood surrounded by an open palisade could be seen, and for a split second, Alex had thought settlers had forged a new town to tackle the wilderness.
Then Alex heard the screams.
His eyes widened as his nose wrinkled with the scent of a toxic miasma.
Cold dread flooded through him. He turned to Liu Jian.
“Master, what’s going on?”
The older man’s dark eyes seemed to crackle with intensity. Alex instinctively stepped back as a dark green killing aura suddenly radiated from the man.
“Diabolists. Here in my woods. That they would dare!”
Alex said nothing, just gazed at the man radiating such a deadly aura who moments before had seemed more an eccentric mentor than anything else. Before, Alex had wondered if his rank had been as much a gift of prestige or simple alchemical knack as anything else. But now? Now it was as if his mentor had ripped off his genial mask to reveal his true nature at last, radiating an aura so fearsome that Alex suspected even the deadly Elder Ying of the Jianghu sect would give pause before daring to confront the cultivator before Alex now.
The man’s intense gaze met Alex’s own as the sound of screams intensified. “We have no time for reconnaissance. If those victims, whoever they are, are to have any chance of surviving what’s coming, we need to act now. Are you ready?”
Alex nodded. “You know I am.”
Liu Jian flashed an ice-cold smile. “Good. Then your mission is simple. While I draw the attention of the diabolical filth within, you are to enter that fortress, find where the victims are located, and free them. That is all.”
Alex’s eyes widened.
His mentor’s eyes narrowed. “We are wasting time, boy. If you would truly walk the path of the righteous hero, it must be here. It must be now!”
Alex clenched his fists upon the shaft of his weapon. “As you said. Lives are on the line. I’m in.”
“Good. They will no doubt leave one or two guards to threaten or kill the captives, in case I prove more than their match, threatening to take the lives of the innocent if I don’t surrender.”
Alex nodded, understanding his role as they broke free of cover, racing towards the palisade ahead, as the screams raised in pitch, one breaking off in a dying gurgle that made Alex flinch.
“Separate! Head west. I shall strike to the east. And whichever fool they leave guarding the captives...”
Alex dipped his head. “They’re as good as dead.”
His mentor flashed a mirthless smile, Alex blinked as he felt his mentor slip several vials into his palm. “Fight with care, lad. If you die on me, I’ll never here the end of it from my little Li.”
Alex nodded, placing the potions in storage. “But how are you going to get there...”
And the words died on his lips as he saw Master Liu’s deadly green aura twist and writhe as a ball of caustic slime shot free from his palm before arcing over the palisade, and Alex could only hope that the fresh screams he heard were not the captives.
But the effect was profound and immediate as a dozen men dressed in patchwork armor roared and flooded out the open palisade entrance, charging a laughing Liu Jian who all but invited them to close as he mocked them.
“So! More diabolist scum dares to invade these lands! It’s time for you fools to fall to Death’s blade, as has every intruder before you!”
The lead diabolist snarled, eyes blazing with crimson hate. Alex felt a cold chill as he sensed a deadly black-crimson aura flow over the man, his limbs bulging grotesquely, his formerly baggy, poorly fitted armor of leather and rawhide was now tightly fitted to his muscular frame.
Alex hissed, feeling the creature radiate a cultivator's strength, its forked tongue whispering horrific syllables that made the air writhe and bleed until a massive crimson trident manifested itself out of thin air.
“You should have stayed in your den, Alchemist! But you dare to interfere in that which does not concern you. For your temerity, there can be only one reward. Death!”
With those words, the entire band roared and charged forward, and although most radiated the strength of frenzied madness alone, Alex sensed the killing aura of other infernalists among them.
But one glance into Liu Jian’s furious countenance and he knew his master would never forgive him if he didn’t seize the moment and act.
&
nbsp; He raced for the palisade entrance, not daring to tap his Qi until the time was right.
“Intruder!” screamed one wild-eyed man armed with a bladed staff, popping up just in front of Alex.
Foe has been critically hit. Foe has perished. Experience earned.
Before gazing out with eyes filled with horrific wonder, blinking once in confusion as Alex’s ji lashed out almost of its own accord, splitting the man’s skull just like he had split so many coconuts and self-repairing bronze helmets during his endless daily training sessions. Only now there was almost no resistance as his weapon windmilled forward, just the slightest jarring crack, and Alex didn’t hesitate to twist and jerk back, quickly dislodging his weapon and charging forward, ji in high guard to lunge or snap around in a second killing blow as automatically as blinking, so deeply were the instincts ingrained within him now.
Alex ignored the hot blood spatter running down his face, doing his best to dispel the awful stench of blood, offal, and death that the inner compound reeked of, as Master Liu’s words, boosted by some odd Qi power, echoed through the compound entirely.
“My name is Liu Jian, and I claim these woodlands as my own! Any fey, mortal, or demon that wishes to contest my claim must face me now, or forever accede to my dominion!”
Alex’s eyes widened at the gall of his master, when the sudden roaring from the rear of the compound as wooden buildings were smashed aside by a hideous creature of blood, shadow, and death pushing its way forward, and Alex realized that yes, there had been a point to the challenge, as the nightmare horror and another score of followers clamoring behind it quickly charged out to the field beyond, none glancing the way of a suddenly terrified Alex who swung around to the left of the massive compound as the hoard of foes poured out the front gate from the rightmost entrance.
Alex wasted not a second, his cautious footsteps turning to a mad sprint as a young girl’s screams tore through the compound.
There!
Leftmost entrance, guarded by a pair of obese guards armed with little more than the dao at their waists and hot, predatory glares.
One of their eyes widened at Alex's presence. "Hey, you! You're supposed to be out front with the master! Wait… you're not one of the new recruits!"
And before the larger man could say another word, Alex had speared him with his ji, surprised to find how easily the blade punctured what even he could tell was toughened rawhide, shaped and molded.
But he wasted no time in extraneous thought as his foe was smashed off his feet, Alex stepping back and windmilling his weapon to intercept the dao slashing for his face before tearing open the brow of the second guard in a shower of blood, whipping the tip of his spearhead in a weaving slash before stepping back and snapping his polearm back into low guard.
His dazed foe just stared at him in odd disbelief, one hand clamping against the massive flap of skin on his brow, stumbling back a single foot, sword held in a shaking grip, blinking away a stream of blood from his eyes. "Who are you? We’ve never struck a Ruidian caravan. Why are you attacking us?”
Alex and the second guardsman gazed at each other for an awful, endless moment, as if the man was unable to believe that Alex had just killed his companion and attempted to kill him, and Alex shocked to find he had just taken two lives in less than a minute.
Then with a roar, Alex exploded off his back foot, lashing out with his ji in a cleaving chop, the half-moon axe head blasting through the man’s skull in a shower of blood and bone, his enemy’s desperately raised dao effortlessly knocked aside, no match for the power behind the polearm’s cleaving blow.
For a long moment, Alex stared down at the grizzly remains of the men he had just butchered in hot blood, remembering countless conversations with his childhood friends about which was truly deadlier, a sword or a spear. And the answer was here before him, written in blood, so devastating an advantage the extra 3 feet of reach and the ability to hold the shaft in two hands for maximum leverage and control had been, blasting right through his opponent's confused defenses.
Polearms had been kings of the battlefield for a reason, whether or not fantasy stories or his favorite MMORPGs had ever gotten it right.
Alex!
He gasped as Liu Jian’s thoughts slammed into his meridian, his master somehow using the very power of Qi to project thoughts not into his mind, but into his very center of being.
"An archdemon is present! I cannot kill, only delay! Rescue the captives and close the rift!"
Alex’s eyes widened as he snapped out of his daze. Close a rift? How was he supposed to do that?
He shook his head. It was a pointless question. There was no way he could answer it unless he actually survived long enough to reach his target, and he already knew he was going in.
He took a deep breath, girding himself for the nightmare he was about to embrace, compelled into desperate action by the screams beyond.
But he forced himself to stop for one crucial moment before entering the dimly lit keep proper, caressing his blood-spattered ji's half-moon axe heads and spear tip with his ring before sipping deep of the contents within himself.
And once he entered that awful wooden palisade full of winding corridors, screams, and the stench of blood, he felt as if his life had come full circle. A thousand years encapsulated in a few months savoring the outside world before being trapped in the bowels of that terrible ship once more.
And when a second pair of racing guards stumbled around a corner, armored in the same baggy rawhide as the others had been, Alex didn't hesitate to lunge forward, blasting through the first soldier's pathetic attempt to parry, shattering the man's solar plexus with the force of his blow.
The diabolist crumpled, eyes rolling in the back of his head, blood spurting from mouth, nose, and chest as Alex yanked his ji free with a furious wrench, instinctively raising his weapon in a high hanging guard as the second guard screamed and charged forward.
Before Alex smashed his foe’s dao off line while darting back, both hands now on his ji and giving him absolute leverage and control before slamming forward a heartbeat later, his deadly weapon blasting through the stomach of the man whose full weight crashed into Alex, effectively running up his point like a boar until the crescent blades jerked him to a sudden stop, blood and intestines spurting everywhere as the diabolist crumpled to the ground, eyes wide with horror and unspeakable pain as he felt Death's caress through the magnificent rent now in his abdomen.
Alex tore his weapon free, and a single hard stomp of his boot to the man’s neck put him out of his agony for good.
Five foes have fallen before you! Their potency is now your own!
Experience earned!
Alex’s eyes widened as the sweet rush of power flowing into his soul caressed him, but the increasingly desperate cries of victims being sacrificed burned the wicked joy away.
Terror alone compelled him now as he dashed through the winding corridors, expertly pivoting as he lashed out with fearsome, unexpected lunges at any enemy he ran into before they could do more than blink at the weapon that had ruptured their abdomen, neck, or skull, with streams of deadly bile just one more tactic that allowed him to survive as his enemies fell.
Alex felt a chill of horror as a dual dao-wielding diabolist roared and charged forward, his whirling blades slicing through the air. To hesitate was death, Master Liu having ingrained that lesson into Alex's thick skull more than any other. Even as his mind froze, knowing he had no chance of countering both those blades if his foe closed, his weapon was already plunging forward. And Alex was indeed grateful for his mentor's grueling training regimen as his ji snaked between the pair of dao and found its mark, two-handed grip giving him leverage his foe’s panicked parry couldn't hope counter.
His enemy's desperate final swing, as if hoping to slice Alex's throat before the polearm jerked him to a halt, came to nothing, the dao clanging against Alex's armor with little force as shock robbed the man of all strength, crumpling to the ground wi
th a piteous groan.
Even as Alex shook away the shock and horror threatening to overwhelm him, certain truths about himself had become unmistakably clear in the crucible of battle. As mad and chaotic as this frantic dash for captives in a fortress of his enemies was, he seemed to have a knack for instantaneous reactions in the moments where most people froze with surprise.
On the ship, it had been fire and venom that had seen him through.
Here, it was the result of many months of intensive training in polearm use that made the difference between life and the brutal death his enemies would give him, mouth full of caustic brew a final trump card when all else failed. Yet it was a card he was reluctant to play, having only coated his weapon once during this hunt, for the same reason he forbore using his Qi attacks at all, Liu Jian’s unspoken warning resonating within him still.
His surprisingly deadly mentor might be able to handle corrupted cultivators, but Alex’s best bet was to fly beneath their notice. If he pulsed even a flicker of his power, deadly infernalists would realize that more than one cultivator had dared to challenge them, and worse, had penetrated the keep itself. He was almost certain that Biochemical Mastery was less likely to trigger a metaphoric flag than Adderstrike, but he was reluctant to use either, unless he had no choice.
He was jolted free of brooding reflection when his unsuspecting flesh was pierced by tainted steel.
In that horrific moment of shock and pain, he realized that his hunt was over.
He had just become the prey.
Perception Check failed! You have been struck from behind! Lamellar armor pierced! Killing blow mitigated to Medium Wound and 35 damage. Bleeding Wound status in effect! You have saved against Stunning blow!
Even as shock sought to overwhelm him, he could visualize his mentor’s fierce, disapproving gaze. “Don’t stand there like a flummoxed fool, boy. Pivot and strike, just as I taught you! Just as you’ve practiced for a thousand hours, your body knowing this dance at least as well as your mind!”
And Alex’s arms were already moving as he twisted his hips and spine while snapping back with the butt end of his ji, his weapon cracking against an unseen foe who groaned, the deadly blade that had pierced his back going no further as Alex pivoted and spun, holding back a gasp as he felt the weapon pull free of his flesh, clanking upon the ground.
Silver Fox & The Western Hero: Warrior Reborn: A LitRPG/Wuxia Novel - Book 1 Page 40
