Chapter 31 – Post Battle Clarity

Zhao Ren barely had time to register what had happened, but a fight didn’t stop when you wanted it to. Forcing himself to move, he threw out a knife and followed it with one of Bao Hua’s talismans. Hidden Sea Sect’s Dachuan completely ignored the vine that burst from the ground to try and restrict his movement. It was sliced into pieces in an instant. He turned to face Ren, who felt a chill down his spine along with the realization that he had poked a tiger.

Just then two of Aifei’s companions engaged the hulking Dachuan together. Ren hesitated but finally decided against joining in. He would just get in their way. He looked around briefly and saw that most of the demonic cultivators had been slain. He flanked the one Mei Ling was fighting, and together they finished him off. From a short distance away he heard furious explosions and felt an extreme heat that meant Li Xing had finally arrived to reinforce them. Her fire techniques were horrifyingly strong, but Ren was just glad she was on their side.

Things wrapped up quickly after that. The demonic cultivators remained unyielding and fought until their last breath. Ren was bone-weary by then and could barely lift his sword. It was nothing like fighting beasts from secure battlements. These ruthless and intelligent cultivators were also mentally exhausting to deal with.

There was some faint cheering when it ended, and then the cries of the injured took over. Mei Ling trudged off to go help, and Ren made himself useful by gathering the remains of the deceased. Their bodies would be brought back to the sect to honor their bravery and sacrifice. But as he did so, a thought finally broke through the fog around his thoughts. There was very little blood. No… there was almost no blood.

Almost as if he had woken up, Ren finally realized that the blood of friend and foe alike was being absorbed into the soil extremely rapidly! This didn’t happen when the native blood beasts were killed. It was then that he realized this wasn’t just an inheritance trial. It was a slaughter trial as well! Trials that encouraged and rewarded killing others and unlocked events after thresholds were met. Those were some of the harshest trials, and the casualties, as he was now seeing, were always high. He knew the camp leadership would have realized it too but made a note to tell them later.

The flip side of slaughter trials was that those who survived usually ended up extremely wealthy. But he didn’t feel guilty for his new spatial pouch that he claimed from one of those he had slain. There was no point. The rice was already cooked. They had lost almost half their numbers to secure this victory. He just had to remind himself of the cost and thank the heavens that both his friends were alive.

His grisly work finished, he finally found a quiet place and fell deep asleep. When he finally woke, his body protested against his movements. The strain hadn’t faded like it usually did, which showed how far he had pushed himself. His thoughts were still in turmoil, so he sat up and began to meditate.

Flashes of memory from the battle were dredged up along with a lot of feelings of fear, guilt, anger, and more that he couldn’t even name. He remembered the strength displayed by the elites. Even an idle thought of how Xi Yuan might compare to these talents floated up. He slowly cycled his qi through his meridians and focused on his breathing until the sharp edges of the memories hurt less. He tried to order his thoughts and, more importantly, address what had happened with the Aifei.

He went over his hazy memories again and again until he felt sure about the events.

He had seen her in danger. His only thought, ‘Must save her.’

His desire made him inadvertently form a seed of intent and… wait! Ren checked his dantian, and sure enough, the second qi construct of the strand meant to represent karma had vanished!

He didn’t just form a seed, he also empowered the connection on instinct! And when he failed to act according to the intent and Aifei died, the connection was cut. That must have been the pain he felt! But figuring out the events just made him more confused than ever. He had never formed a connection so quickly. In just a breath of time it had formed and bloomed!

Ren realized he had underestimated what seeds of intent were. He had gotten used to practicing for when he could actually cultivate with Causality of Karma. He would focus on his intent on anything from growing spirit plants to making his challenge formations. But he had only truly started forming true seeds of intent a scant few weeks before the trial began. He had only formed one connection so far, and it had been a completely different experience.

This time, during battle, his intent was so strong and simple that he had formed the seed without realizing it. Then because the intent was to go save her, it had bloomed the instant he moved in accordance with it. In fact, he suspected it had been strong enough to draw the spare strand of karma all by itself. The connection was then cut off not just because Aifei died, but also partly because he had failed to act as intended.

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Ren had always treated Causality of Karma with great caution. His every action had been thought through and every action made tentatively with buffers and fallbacks. He acknowledged that Karma was an esoteric dao and not to be underestimated. So it scared him when he realized how lacking he still was and how much he still didn’t know if the method could just activate based on whim.

He barely knew Aifei for a week or so. She was just a kind and friendly senior, not someone very dear to him. Yet none of that mattered, and a powerful connection had formed. If he had saved her, then he wondered if the accidental connection could even be severed. And this time it was a positive connection based on wanting to save. What if he had formed it as a killing intent against Dachuan? Then that connection with a demonic cultivator beyond his means to kill could grow unchecked, possibly staining him with irredeemable sin!