The Third Cut - Chapter 15 preview (Patreon)

Thankfully, dealing with the last few earth elephants was significantly simpler. Many had expanded their energy to protect themselves, with Tou He able to send the untainted fleeing. After that, the rest of the fight was unsurprising, if a little more difficult to complete.

“These tainted cores. It makes them powerful – stronger than what you’d expect a creature of the same level to be,” Wu Ying commented as he finished extracting the massive core from the matriarch earth elephant. He shook his hand clean, extracting an insulated jade box to store the jagged spirit stone. Even holding it, Wu Ying felt like he needed to give his hand a good wash.

“It does. It’s what made keeping these creatures contained such a problem for the city,” Tou He confirmed. The monk was seated on the nearby rise, keeping watch for further problems while Wu Ying worked.

“I can sense how the taint has entered the bones and meat,” Wu Ying commented, prodding the hardened flesh. “I’d consider skinning it, but can it even be used?”

“Some would,” Tou He said.

“But you don’t suggest it?”

“Even the best cleansing rituals leave a trace behind.”

“Ah….” Wu Ying imagined trying to move around in such tainted leather armour, or even eating the meat or consuming a pill made from this. He could not help but shudder a little. The thought was similar to eating rancid pork. You could wash the meat and the slime away, cook it as best you could afford, but the taste and the memory would always be there. Nevermind the stomach troubles it could cause anyway, even if you cooked the meat as thoroughly as possible. And if you mixed it with good herbs or other sources…

“Let’s drag the bodies over here then. I’ll extract the rest, you can burn it all away.” Wu Ying could not help but grin. “I’m assuming your flames can do that?”

“Oh, yes.” The answer was absent minded, for Tou He was already moving away to begin the process.

Wu Ying stretched, stepping away from the corpse and glancing down at the torn and beaten up robes he wore. If there was one aspect that he missed most of all about the Sect, it was the easy surplus of clothing that one could acquire at a discount. Not that he had done so initially, but now, as an Elder and a rather successful Gatherer, minor expenses like purchasing multiple sets of robes were a small thing.

“Watch out!”

A quick hop sideways had Wu Ying cross a dozen feet, removing himself from the point of impact. Moments later, the limp corpse of one of the earthen elephants slammed into the ground, raising a cloud of dirt and squirting blood into the air.

Wind rose defensively, driving the droplets away and clearing the air. However, moments later, another body landed near the first, as Tou He continued to toss

“Someone was holding back, it seems.” Wu Ying muttered to himself, watching as his friend heaved the massive corpses around like they were no more heavy than the bags of rice he once carried up the mountain.  Then, as Tou He paused as he sought to locate more corpses, Wu Ying raised his voice. “Stop throwing them at me if you want me to do any harvesting!”

“Fine, fine. If the great wind gatherer needs me to be careful…”

***

The pair watched the flames catch on the corpses, burning merrily and brighter. A small nudge of Wu Ying’s will had the winds carry the stench upwards and away from the pair, such that they were spared from the noxious fumes. Well, beyond the occasional times when the wind felt playful, shifting to send a strand or a rolling cloud over the two.

After one such gust, Tou He pulled away further and glared at his friend who followed him, wrinkling his nose as the bun he had been chewing upon was stained by the smoke. “Your control is poor, Wu Ying.?”

“It’s not so much control as a partnership,” Wu Ying said. “I can’t tell them what to do so much as strongly request it. The wind, however, does what it wants.”

“Dangerous. If I tried that with the flames, they’d consume me. I am the one in control of the fire, not the other way around.”

“A difference in dao or element?” Wu Ying asked, curious to hear his friend’s opinion.

“Maybe a little of both.” Tou He shook his head. “I know some others – not of the fire element, but water and wood in particular – who espouse your views. Where the elements are a partnership. Others view the elements as a portion of themselves, no more required to be dominated than you would dominate one’s own heart or lungs. Control perhaps, but not dominate.

“The fire that you gifted me though. It is not inherently a part of me. It is an element I must battle constantly or risk it consuming me entirely.”

“Ah… I’m sorry.”

“For what? I knew taking the dragon’s blood was dangerous at the time. It was my choice,” Tou He said. “And I have gained much from it in the interim.”

Wu Ying turned his attention then to the fiery depression where the corpses were being consumed. The fire that consumed the corpses was brighter and hotter than any he had seen, outside of the blacksmith’s forge. It burnt so hot that portions of it were green and other parts, entirely clear as though colour itself was burnt away.

Fat, flesh, muscle and even bone was consumed by the heat. The massive corpses shrunk by inches, the chi within either dispersed back into the metal and earth chi or consumed and transformed into fire chi. Wood chi, already fading as the creatures died, became fuel for the fire chi and the liquid in the body hissed and escaped into the air, the corpses shrinking with each moment. Most of all, the taint that had marred the corpses were consumed, destroyed and cleansed entirely.

It was as he watched the flames do so that Wu Ying was struck with the obvious. Between his earlier upbringing, his dao path and the dragon flames he now controlled, it was easy to see why Tou He had been selected to come down.

“So, you were sent down to deal with the taint.  What can you tell me about the it?” Wu Ying said, as the pair continued to watch the fire.

“To find and deal with the source, yes.” Tou He confirmed. Having finished his snack, he conjured another bun, peeling the wrapping off the bottom before he added. “If I could. There was some belief that I would be sent to aid the local efforts.”

“And there have been none?” Wu Ying muttered, worriedly.

“None what?”

“Local efforts to stop the taint.”

“None that have survived or continued,” Tou He clarified. He turned and gestured back the way the city was. “The local government have kept details of the taint quiet, but it seems that at least two expeditions have been sent to locate and deal with the problem. Both have not been heard from. The last expedition was a month and a half ago. Since then, the government has pulled back their people, concentrating on shoring up their defences while further aid is requested.”

“Because of the increasing number of tainted Core Formation monsters.”

“Exactly.”

“And this taint, the source, it creates demonic beast at a faster rate than ever,” Wu Ying said, softly. “Makes them stronger than even they should be, maybe even damages spirit beasts who have managed to escape the fate of becoming a demonic beast. Or am I wrong?”

“No, not wrong. That is what I believe too.”

“Then pulling back is a fool’s move,” Wu Ying said firmly. “Hiding away just allows the taint to increase. The source must be dealt with.”

“Agreed.” Tou He fell silent for a time, staring at the fire before he added, almost as an after thought. “The last expedition contained a mixture of the city’s martial elders and a division from the army holding the fortification. A half-dozen Core Formation elders. And none returned.”

“Ah…” Wu Ying’s indignation at the foolishness of the locals faded. It was not that they did not see the problem. It was that they did not feel like they could change their destiny anyway. Or perhaps, a little of that and a little politics. “Are there not more elders in their schools?”

“They’re not martial schools, Ah Ying.” Tou He shook his head. “That one,” he gestured at the largest hill a distance from them where multiple buildings ran up and down, “focuses on teaching cultivation techniques to their bureaucrats.” Finger tracked to the right. “That school is one you might want to visit. They’re gatherers – though, really, they’re just farmers. Wood and earth elements, mostly.

“They focus more on elements, guiding people to the professions that suit their elements and their inclinations more firmly. You know of how they run their armies?”

“Mass conscription at an early age. Everyone is forced to train locally, with current or retired army personnel organizing the training,” Wu Ying said immediately.

“Exactly. They have fewer villages, because of the forest and spirit beast. So they’re more concentrated in their cities or the areas around their cities, with travel between locations much more difficult and safeguarded by the army.” Tou He shook his head. “There’s a broader focus on training their people, raising the general level higher.”

“How do they afford that?” Wu Ying said with a frown. One of the problems that faced cultivators in general were the lack of resources. While prodigies and those who ran into significant amounts of beneficial events could skip many of the impediments to cultivation, most stalled due to a lack of resources to provide aid when an obstacle occurred.

Wu Ying himself had been lucky, having encountered more than his share of beneficial events and dao inspiration. Yet, he had also utillised a much larger proportion of resources than your average cultivator to reach the heights he had. If not for the fact that he was a Gatherer, an individual able to acquire these rare resources directly, he would have not progressed as far or as fast.

“Look around you,” Tou He said. “We import a portion of the beast stones we need from the south. Do you think they’d sell them to us, if they had a need?”

“Ah…”

“So, they intend to wait then? Until the army is able to send additional aid. Maybe a dedicated team?” Wu Ying mused. “How long has this been going on?”

“The taint? A few years.”

“So you think they have time?”

Tou He just shrugged.

“Do you know anything else?” Wu Ying said, a little frustrated.

“Know? No.”

“But you suspect something.”

“You do too.” Lips thinned. “It is not the same, but this smell, this taint. We have experienced it before, once.”

“Demonic chi.”

Tou He nodded and Wu Ying winced. That it was invading spirit beast meant that there was a source, possibly uncontrolled, possibly created or guided on purpose into these creatures. A fount or a spring, a gate between the demonic realm and the middle kingdom.

A travesty against the Dao.

Demons were not, inherently, bad. It was a matter of phrasing and definition. A spirit beast who broke from their natural path of ascension had to tread a careful path or see the spirit core it built twist and break, driving it insane and turning it onto a diabolic, unthinking path. In that, they were unnatural and no longer in sync with the Dao, and were thus correctly named.

On the other hand, there were other creatures who had gained strength or sentience, whose very nature – like the taotei, the hundun, the qionggi – was destructive, chaotic and vicious. Though peasant and cultivator alike called them demons, they were not in opposition to their dao. In fact, by embodying these aspects further, they were able to grow in strength.

But this warping of another, this corruption was wrong. It forcibly altered the natural world, attempting to subvert nature and beasts in ways that was not meant to be. It was why such fonts, such breaches or gates that were left open to the demonic plain were not allowed.

It was why it would need to be closed.

A bone cracked, shattering as the heat ate away at its body, showering the surroundings with sparks. Wu Ying checked the fire again, but like before, Tou He’s control of the flame was spectacular. Outside a ring of around a foot from the corpses, the flames refused to burn, dying off as soon as the sparks landed. Though the heat from the fire should have created lava and slag, crisped the earth and made it liquid, somehow Tou He had kept the flame and heat contained.

The pair fell into a companionable silence, Wu Ying turning over their conversation in his mind. It seemed his objective was not as easy to be dealt with as he first believed. Then again, he could hear the whisper of the southern wind in his ears. The promise of secrets of heaven and hell to be exposed.

If he dared to walk this path.