Chapter 49- Heart Eating Hate

Running down fleeing heretics after a battle of this level was no job for a piddly Level Five Earthly cultivator. They sent him out anyway, but only gave him until sunset to vent his hate. Not like there were a whole lot of other Outer Court disciples hanging around the depot. More were being brought in, but it would take time. Tian was covered in a fresh protective suit and racing across the red sands before the echoes of his curses faded from the depot.

Brother Fu would be outraged that he swore, and in front of an Inner Court disciple no less. He would be mad as hell about Tian losing his composure and forgetting etiquette. He would probably say something about how it was only in the test that we can know the strength of our hearts. Something deep like that.

Tian would kneel on the stone pavers outside the old man’s courtyard and endure three whole days of lectures if it meant Brother Fu was safe. He’d kneel there for a month. He didn’t care how long he knelt.

There were corpses littering the wasteland. Tian didn’t know where they came from. Must have been coming behind the Zombies. He remembered what his brothers taught him, and smashed their heads with his dart at the longest possible range. Just in case. They were right too- one of the bodies rolled away with an oath.

Tian stayed on him, leaping towards the wretch and whipping the rope dart around in a short, whistling arc. The heretic got his saber up in time to protect his neck, and in exchange, ate a flying knee to the temple. He swore and clawed at Tian, but the boy was already at his back. With a flick and a shiver, the rope looped around the saber, yanking it towards the heretics throat.

“Wait, no!”

Tian put a knee on the bastards’ spine, and leaned back. The sharp blade bit through the throat. A few seconds later, the heretic went limp. A few seconds after that, the saber dropped to the ground. Tian smashed the head open, checked for a storage ring, didn’t find one, and ran on.

Another head that got smashed open made the body collapse into a swarm of green and black insects that swept out in a storm. Tian spun the rope dart in front of him so fast it was nearly invisible, shattering the swarming insects. He wasn’t sure he killed them all, but he got all the ones that were chasing him.

He found a man left in pieces behind a rocky ledge. Even in the few seconds Tian stood there, he could see the rock particles and Earth qi choking him. The weapons around him all had the shine of quality that came with the Heavenly Person Realm.

“No need to play games, boy. I’m not going to live any longer. All I ask is that you receive my legacy. Use or or don’t. Just be sure that-”

Tian lashed out with his rope dart.

“YOU DARE, JUNIOR!” The crippled man’s eyes glowed orange and he spat a jet of sulfur at Tian’s face. Only the long distance and Tian’s superb reflexes let him dodge. The stink of it stung his eyes. The dart whipped back, around and slammed forward again, this time piercing the heretic’s heart. Tian ripped it out and watched the man die ugly with hate in his eyes.

“My ears are deaf to the cries of heretics.”

Tian sawed the head off. A Heavenly Person Realm heretic probably had a bounty on him. And the storage ring would be valuable, once it had been carefully checked over. Tian looted the weapons and kept running.

He had to be back in the base by sunset. Barely a few hours. No time to waste. There were so many people… no, not people. So many heretics to slaughter. They weren’t people anymore. They gave up the right to that name. Now they were just demons and gu and corpses that needed to be purified and returned to the earth.

Most of the ones he found were badly wounded. Whatever the Direct Disciple had done, it broke the invaders. The Inner Court had capitalized and slaughtered the enemy as they retreated. Sending out the Outer Court Disciples was just tidying up and making sure no fish slipped through the net. It was also a way of providing some care to those Outer Court Disciples. Tian came to this conclusion as he flicked the gore off the barbs of his rope. He really was just running around picking up loot and earning merits.

He was forty heads deep when Counter-Jumper heard a tremor in the earth. He could feel it through the soles of his thin shoes. Tian jumped back as two women pounced at him from under thin slabs of rock. Their hands extended towards him, scratching him, making him jump back even further as he whipped his dart around.

One blocked, as the other attacked. Then they switched off again. Darting in and out, keeping him from focusing down either of them. Tian countered by going large- letting the rope dart whip out past the defending woman, forcing both to dodge. Then he would yank it back, attacking them from behind. High, low, near, far. Always moving. He was pretty sure they weren’t any stronger than he was. It’s just that there were two of them.

“This is taking too long.” One of the women hissed. Tian agreed, but he was already doing his best. Something came at his back. He threw himself to the side, but something caught him in the flank and a trail of fire ripped along the new hole in him. He dashed back, whipping the dart around him, but whatever it was didn’t give him time or space. It stayed on him, jabbing at his face. More came in from the sides. Some slower, some very nearly as fast.

There was a moment when he thought about running. It would be the smart thing to do. It was only a moment.

The author’s content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

“I want you all dead!” Tian twisted like a snake. Snake Head Vine Body was the first combat art he had learned, and it was in his bones now. He dodged, bare inches off the ground, before jumping sideways and slashing up with his rope dart. The barbs ripped open flesh. The head crippled limbs and crushed hearts. He knew he was only killing and disabling the weakest of them. Didn’t matter. So long as they died.

All that mattered was staying alive long enough to kill them all. But he was slowing down. The wounds were piling up on him- a gash across his legs. Claws that ran down his back, breaking ribs and barely missing his spine. Knives coated with poison that burned like hellfire in his blood. They were keeping back now, never letting him rest, but never letting him land a clean hit. Their teamwork was getting better, and he didn’t know if the sun was setting or his eyes were getting darker.

“The Sage strives to be like water, moving effortlessly in accordance with nature, flowing past the rocks and back to the vast ocean that gave birth to it. Always moving, always changing, always the same, and even the rocks wear away to nothing with time. Do you understand?”

Tian was hallucinating. He was hearing Brother Fu’s calm voice, even as he thrashed around in the gathering darkness.

“I don’t know, Brother Fu. I know what those words mean, but not what they mean.”

“I didn’t either, at your age. But let me show you what I think they mean.” And then Brother Fu was there with him. He had a long, wide knife in each hand. He took a step forward and a heretic died. Tian couldn’t catch what happened. There was a blur from Brother Fu’s left. Tian tried to call out but the man just ran himself directly onto Brother Fu’s knife.