Blood & Thunder: Compiled 3 (Patreon)

[Form of the Bound Beast]

Yi Zhen kept one eye on Necahual as she flowed between the slashes and stabs of her opponents. It appeared that he was capable of taking on a myriad of different forms, quite unlike any cultivation method she had heard of. His new form was bipedal, but built oddly, like if a chicken had clawed hands instead of wings. One toe on each foot had a large, hooked talon like a farmer’s sickle. Most of its body was covered in scales, but a vibrant, blood red plumage of feathers decorated its arms, neck, and the end of its tail.

Necahual let out a hiss in his new form, hopping to the side as the Blazing Seven Venom Serpent lashed out, jaws snapping shut on naught but air. Yi Zhen returned her focus to her opponents. Both were mortals, the one with the dao swinging wildly with telegraphed slashes that she could have easily dodged when she were seven while the one with the one with the qiang had clearly never used it.

[Ocean Sword Art: Indomitable Riptide]

Her Azure Sword danced, the qi blade shattering the mortal steel weapons of her opponents before cutting them down. Turning to face the Blazing Seven Venom Serpent, she readied her blade before pausing. Remembering orders given to her by Elder Yao Fen: to observe and interfere as little as possible. To gather as much knowledge on Necahual as she could, both in his mannerisms, his philosophy, contemplations, but most of all: his fighting.

She had felt the aura about him, when the two of them made their initial assault, the feeling of strength, dignity, and nobility coming from him in qi laden waves. She had not been utilizing the [Tongue of Sun and Moon] technique, so she did not understand the name of the technique he used, but it was a surprisingly regal one for one who by all appearances looked like a savage barbarian.

At the moment, his strange, almost bird-like reptilian form danced and weaved around the strikes of the Spirit Beast, narrowly avoiding certain, immediate death. Until the Spirit Beast did something unexpected, its fiery tail whipping around and catching Necahual in the side, the sounds of ribs cracking audible even from her position, sending him flying through the air. Yi Zhen ducked, avoiding being hit by his flying form and readied herself, prepared to end the Spirit Beast. Until there was a rattling, hissing laughter behind her.

She reached back, feeling with her Qi sense, ‘seeing’ the blood dripping from Necahual’s mouth and from where he’d been cut by the broken shards of the broken dao. The impression of Necahual’s intent felt… pleased?

[Knapping of the Teotl]

His qi infused blood surged, forming crystals resembling the knife he’d taken coating his form’s teeth and the sickle claws. With a sound that was a mix of a bark and a chirp, he leapt over Yi Zhen, resuming the fight. Necahual was no faster, but the crystalline blood coating his claws and fangs proved more than capable of cutting through the scaled hide of the Spirit Beast.

Then, the Spirit Beast lunged, venom dripping from its fangs, faster than it had prior. Necahual leapt up, feathered tail curling up above him, three clawed arms spread wide, a satisfied grin upon his strange, alien face. The serpent’s head passed below him, he descended. Flames erupted from the serpent’s back, catching Necahual head on, but he didn’t flinch. One sickle toe flashed, and the fire died, vanishing without the Spirit Beast’s qi to fuel it.

Yi Zhen took in the scene. Necahual, in his strange form, feathers burned away and scales covered in burn patterns. His breathing was rattling, and there was a shard of metal as long as her hand buried in his side. But his right toe claw, covered in blood turned into qi-rich crystal, was buried in the skull of the Blazing Seven Venom Serpent.

Necahual pulled the claw out of its blood crystalline sheathe, and stumbled to the ground before, with a burst of qi, resumed his human form. His hand immediately flew to his side, and with a groan he pulled the shard of metal out. Yi Zhen moved to assist him, but he held up a hand and pulled out the clay jar from his belt. Removing the lid, he took a sip from the liquid inside, while Yi Zhen’s senses were awash from the rich qi radiating from the liquid within.

A blend of wood and fire qi, dancing in harmony unlike anything she had ever experienced, and such potency that she could smell it even with such short exposure. He placed the lid back on the jar, and it was as if the liquid within had no qi. Such a fascinating vessel, to be able to obscure such a rich source of qi so easily.

Focusing back to the matter at hand, Yi Zhen approached and helped Necahual to his feet. She focused her qi and asked, “Are you alright?”

“I’ll recover,” he answered, before turning back to the corpse of the Spirit Beast. “What is the local custom regarding the remains of Spirit Beasts?”

Yi Zhen blinked, surprised that it would even be in question. “Traditionally, the cultivator who slays it harvests its core and refines it into a pill to advance their cultivation.”

To her continued surprise, Necahual scoffed, “Wasteful.” He considered it a moment, before turning to face her, “I am the one who slew it, so that means its remains are mine, correct?”

“Yes,” she answered, curious what he was planning. He grinned, before reaching down and lifting the head onto his shoulder, the rest of the snake’s body trailing behind.

“Come. We passed a lakeside village on the way here. I need to replenish my stores of c̶̭̍̍͜a̵̤̭̔c̷͔̓a̴̰͎͑ȯ̸͔͘ anyway, and this has enough qi in it to serve as a good foundation for a f̴͕̉l̸͍͆͘o̶̪͗̈́a̵̹͒̈́t̵̰̜̒ḭ̷̘́n̴͈̞͝͝g̶̡̳͆̆ ̴͓̅g̶͕̎͂a̷̻̐̓ṙ̶̂͜d̵̼̭͐̃e̶͕̱̓̚n̴̹̊.”

Yi Zhen followed as he dragged the corpse of the Blazing Seven Venom Serpent five hundred li to a small fishing village, nestled between a small lake and the river that fed into the sea. She watched in confusion, as he moved among the villagers. It was strange, serving as translator, but she soon learned the purpose of his request.

He wished to make a box in the lake bed, the walls made of freshly cut trees, place the corpse of the Spirit Beast in the middle, cover it with lake mud, and use it to grow crops on top? It was insane, it was not how farming was done, yet Necahual was insistent that it would work. The village elder was unconvinced, and rather unusually, cared little for the fact that Necahual was clearly a cultivator, having seen him dragging the corpse of a Spirit Beast while injured.

In the end, it was after sunset by the time Yi Zhen called an end to the circular arguing, and the two of them were offered rooms to sleep in by a few of the villagers. Yi Zhen accepted, but Necahual declined, choosing instead to sleep outside, his back against the body of the dead Spirit Beast.

Yi Zhen starred in silent confusion at the sight before her. More than a dozen of the village children huddled around a coarse furred animal that stood nearly half as tall as a man, with an oval shaped body and rectangular shaped head. She had never seen an animal that looked even remotely like it, which led her to conclude that it was the previously missing Necahual.

She tried to understand what purpose this action served, prancing and splashing in the lake shallows, only to draw a blank. She couldn’t think of any way that would advance his Cultivation, nor… her gaze turned to the parents, watching their children playing with amused expressions, and it became clear.

“Clever,” Yi Zhen conceded. It certainly wasn’t a tactic she would have thought of, but if his goal was to earn the trust of the villagers so that they would go along with his bizarre gardening experiment then it was appearing to be rather successful.

One child climbed up onto Necahual’s back and wrapped their arms around his neck, before crying out, “Onwards Black Thunder! The battlefield awaits!”

Necahual chuffed, and obliged the child, moving through the shallows onto the lake shore at a light jog, while other children gathered up balls of mud and threw them at the two. Necahual managed to dodge around the mud clods, narrowly avoiding each and every one. One ball flew wide, reaching the road at the end of the beach, and splattered against the chest of a man in silk robes.

“You dare?” the man bellowed, drawing the attention of all in the area, the child slipping from Necahual’s back to hide behind him. The man stalked towards the group of now scared children, an aura of qi beginning to flow about him. “You court death for sullying the robes of this Qian Juanhong, Young Master of the Black Lotus Sect.”

Yi Zhen considered what she knew of the Black Lotus Sect. They were small, and a mere three centuries old, hardly worth the arrogance this Young Master was strutting around with. She shook her head, and moved to intervene. Only to stop as she noticed Necahual’s muscles tensing.

The seemingly stubby legs of his form blurred and propelled him with surprising speed towards the Young Master, the top of his mud covered head slamming into the small of his target’s back. The Young Master folded backwards over Necahual’s form, letting out a skwak of surprise as the unexpected force drove him past the children and into the lake. Necahual let out an almost barking sound, before racing into the lake and easily diving under the water’s surface. The Young Master stood, and turned around, facing the wide eyed villagers.

“Who dares assault a Young Master of the Black Lotus Sect? I will-yeeeaahrg!”

What the Young Master would do was unsaid as he jumped up in the air, his hands flying to his hindquarters that had a large, bloody chunk sheared off of it. Necahual stood behind him, blood surrounding his whiskered muzzle as he spat out the bite he’d taken out of the Young Master. In doing so, Yi Zhen caught sight of two pairs of teeth that had her eyebrows rising in surprise. The form he’d been playing with children in… was some sort of rodent?

The Young Master turned around, fury blazing in his eyes, and met the narrowed eyes of Necahual. No words were said, as the Young Master’s qi, brimming with the scent of still waters and stagnant ponds, swirled and met against the qi of Necahual, rich with the tang of blood and the scent of life. Necahual moved first, exploding into motion and leaping at his foe, whose qi dove into the lake, forcing a wall of water and roots to grow between him and his attacker.

[Barrier of Still Roots]

But Necahual was undeterred, his teeth easily cut through the fibrous wall, boring a hole in mere moments and leaping through. The Young Master lashed out with a punch, his form perfect and his qi granting him strength and speed far beyond what any mortal soldier could hope to achieve. Necahual met the punch with the top of his head, reinforced with his own, bloodsoaked qi.

An unstoppable force met an immovable object, there was a sound akin to the ringing of a gong, before the Young Master’s arm was knocked back, and Necahual was thrown through the hole he had leapt from.

Yi Zhen watched passively, her hand resting on the hilt of her Azure Sword should it appear that Necahual would be slain. Her orders were clear, and the Black Lotus Sect would know better than to tempt the wrath of the Indomitable Ocean Sword Sect. But, it appears that whatever rodent Necahual had turned into was far more at home in the water than she had imagined, as he was showing a surprising amount of grace and speed, even more than some of the Inner Disciples at her own sect.

In the end, it was little contest, as while the Black Lotus Style was inspired by the lotus flower, it was not particularly well suited to fighting a semiaquatic foe. Necahual dragged the cultivator’s body to shore, and dropped it on the beach. Before moving to the child that had climbed onto his back, and rubbing his head against them like he was a large dog.

“Young Mistress,” the voice of the village elder spoke up beside Yi Zhen. She turned her gaze to the man, and he continued, “Once the strange cultivator turns back, tell him I will give his floating garden a try.”

Yi Zhen inclined her head, before turning back to Necahual and the legion of children surrounding him once more.

[hr][/hr]

Necahual smiled as his minder told him the village elder’s words. The material the locals used in their tools was strange, but considering how crippled they were (an entire village unable to utilize their teotl, how unfortunate for them), it served them better than the standard tools in Aztlan would have.

With his help, the chinampa frame was made in an hour, green saplings and young trees making a living box, and the lake mud was pressed up against the interior walls. Then, he took a fang from the snake titan to be prepared as a trophy at a later point, and deposited both it and the Discrace’s bodies at the center of the frame. Their teotl rich bodies would serve as fantastic fertilizer. He’d hold off on planting cacao in the chinampa for now, if in six months they managed to keep it productive, then he’d reconsider.

For now, he worked with the villagers in transporting lake sediment into the wooden frame, filling the inside and pushing the lake water out as more and more mud was filled in. Finally, it was finished, and the seeds of various vegetables were planted. He would make sure to return, and before he did, he’d be sure to learn the translation technique, relying on someone to make sure he was understood was becoming rather tiresome.