The Third Cut - Chapter 24 preview (Patreon)

An hour later, the group was nearly two thirds of the way to the ghost village. Wu Ying and Dinh Don had flitted ahead of the group searching for scouts. The wind whispered a warning to Wu Ying as he gusted along, and the wind cultivator flickered over to his prey. A single strike, coming from above towards the top of the head was sufficient, the creature’s vertebrae crushed in that single attack.

He spun and caught the figure as it slipped to the ground, blood and brain fluid leaking from the ears and settled the body against a nearby tree trunk. Kneeling beside the body, he eyed the still figure, the noise of its pair of hearts slowing with each moment as the body caught up to its death.

Long of limb, with elongated bat ears, long fingers that closed to thick knuckles that folded over onto the third knuckle. Gripping hands, for clambering through the forest and swinging through the air. A long tail, that moved like a serpent while its shorter, thicker torso hid its gender features under dense fur. Elongated snout, with teeth meant to bite and rend flesh.

Wu Ying frowned at the body, then looked upward to where the creature had crouched before in the foliage. Its marked fur, brown and black splotches helped hide it in the canopy where it lurked, almost invisible to the naked eye when it had stayed still. Some minor action of the Dao, a warping of shadows and space that helped its camouflage.

“Dangerous,” Wu Ying said, softly to Dinh Don as the portly scout rode up on his horse. “Are you even able to sense them, in the trees?”

Dinh Don sniffed. “My senses might be connected to the earth, but I am not entirely without skill in the woods.”

“My apologies,” Wu Ying said. “I only noticed this one because the wind spoke of it to me. He eluded even my spiritual sense before.”

“You rely too greatly on the wind for your sense, spread it out too far.” The scout sniffed. “Concentrate your focus and your senses, sweep it before you like a brush and you will find that you learn much more.”

“A brush?”

The scout grinned at that. “The Bristled Sense. That’s the name of the art I use.”

Wu Ying had no answer to the man’s obvious pride at his ability. Instead, he gestured at the body beside their feet. “What should we do with this?”

“I’ll take care of it. But we should let your people see what they are up against.” Dinh Don hesitated, then flicked his hand forward. “It would help if we dealt with some of the other scouts though before the others arrive.”

“Not worried they might realise some are missing?”

“The Ma Than Vong might be smart demons, but they are still demons. Discipline is something they still struggle with.” The man chuckled. “I’d be surprised if they remembered to send out relief on time.”

Wu Ying nodded, eyeing the creatures long snout. “Is blood a concern?”

“A little. Their sense of smell is supposedly decent.” Dinh Don shrugged. “Though they also have a connection to the woods that often tells them of others arriving. I’d watch your aura.”

Wu Ying nodded and focused, suppressing his aura further. He drew it deeper and deeper within him, such that it was right beside his skin itself. Within moments, he became nothing more than another background item, no more of import than a tree or a twig or a breeze.

“Wild Gatherer indeed.” Then, as though he refused to be outdone, Dinh Don did the same, fading away from Wu Ying’s senses even as he stared right at the other.

Smiling a little, Wu Ying took to the sky, allowing the wind to thrust him upwards. Already, his friends were coming back with whispered answers, of lurking dangers. A snake, lying in wait there. Branches filled with cobwebs and a lurking spider, scuttling across thrumming threads to deal with a spirit bird that sought escape. Unseen and unnoticed by many, a colony of red ants waged war with another colony of black ants, their prize a crumbling tree.

More. A scout, another of the hanged ghost demons. Lurking in the tree, behind one of the rotting figures of a long dead body. Only string tied to the bones kept it together, and even then, those strings were fraying, scattered remnants all across the ground.

A good thing, that there were no nearly no new corpses. The group was too deep, the locals having drawn back for too long for the Hanged Ghost to take human corpses. In their stead, other demonic beasts were strung up, many of those bodies fresh.

But this scout, this one had chosen a human body to hide behind. To watch, for the inevitable reaction when another mortal came across the desecrated body. A chance to launch a surprise attack perhaps, or to scuttle away and alert its friends.

It mattered not to Wu Ying.

He flitted through the trees, a ghost that barely touched the leaves as he neared the creature. He kept his blade in its sheath, remembering the warning about scents and struck with his hand only. Flying almost directly from below the creature, he rose on the wind that carried his scent at the last moment, causing the creature to flinch backwards. Right into the knife ridge of his hand.

Wu Ying felt cartilage crumble under his hand, trachea crushed. Another hand blocked flailing arm from striking him, using the leverage to keep the body from falling. He spun in the air, pivoting with the wind to kick the creature in the ribs, shattering bone and crushing heart and lungs beneath to add to the critical blows.

Moments later, he lowered the dying creature to the ground, set aside for Dinh Don and the others to deal with. Fighting the Ma Than Vong was simple, a trivial exertion only of his skills. Locating them and narrowing the gap before they learnt of their presence only barely harder.

Like a green ghost, flowing through the shadowed undergrowth, Wu Ying struck at the scouts, opening a narrow gap in the curtain of watchfulness the Ma Than Vong had created. Through that gap, the rest of the team rode, Dinh Don manipulating the earth to bury the corpses behind them as they went.

Eventually, however, the easy part was over. Wu Ying was forced to halt his actions and await the team, for the village was but a short distance away. As he waited upon a tree limb, he listened to the wind as it spoke of the corruption in the air and the burning splinter within the village, of the corruption in the air and the screams of those within.

***

The group convened below a short rise that obstructed their view of the village below, though a crafting by Minh Trac over the surrounding area bent the light and vision coming to them, allowing the group to view the village without exposing themselves.

The village – really, the ruins of an ancient city in which the Ma Than Vong had moved into – sprawled across significant area of land. It reached all the way to where the group stood, buildings and roads pulled apart and torn down by the never-ending encroachment of the jungle. Where the group stood, only minor signs of the previously magnificent green stone civilization stood, a remnant block there, a path that had yet to be completely destroyed here.

Closer to the village itself, the jungle had been beaten back on a more regular basis, leaving remnant walls and buildings still standing. Many of those walls were vine-choked, often easily mistaken for a standing shrub or tree if not for the regularity of their lines and placement along the curving streets leading to the new village walls.

And what walls they were. Massive stone blocks, torn from older buildings and glittering green-grey, they rose up around the much smaller true portion of the village, enclosing the demons within. They stretched for a good li in either direction from the main gates, and another couple of li down, overlooking the stream that ran through their center before being enclosed again.

Within the walls of the city, undestroyed older buildings still stood, many of them patched together with stone torn from older works or simple clay and reed patches. The existing buildings were a diverse mixture of patched together remnants and still pristine works, all of them stained with splashes of mud, soot and dark red, even black liquid.

Through the winding streets, fires were built and tended, offering warmth and light to the darkening day, even as a pale shadow seemed to hang over the entire settlement adding to the shadows that oversaw the location. It was this shadow that Wu Ying and the other cultivators eyed, for their spiritual senses spoke of a twisted corruption that emanated from the singular towering stepped pyramid in the center.

“So, you were not wrong in that the corruption is spreading,” Bich Trang said. “This miasma… it hangs in the air.”

“But is not part of it,” Wu Ying said, shaking his head. “Or not intrinsically so.” The wind tugged at his robes, pushing at him gently as it whispered further advice and histrionics. “And my dao, my grasp is of the wind, not the air. The wind cares not about the smell or corruption, not as much as a dao of the air might.”

“Excuses,” Thien Gang sniffed.

“Oh, and you’ve been at all helpful during this expedition,” Yang Mu said. “Remind me again what you’ve done beyond eat and shit?” She tapped her lips and then smiled. “You’ve done a lot of both though.”

“Better than a prissy princess who acts as though she doesn’t do either, but leaves the largest turds of us all.”

“Oh, I didn’t know you cared so much to check on mine.”

“Anyone with a nose could-”

“Enough!” Bich Trang snapped. “You are professionals. Nervous as you might be, bickering is unacceptable.”

Thien Gang lowered her head a little, her cheeks a little red as she kept her gaze downwards. At the same time, Yang Mu just raised her chin.

“Nervous? Why would we be nervous about assaulting a city?” Tou He said. “Not as though we’d be outnumbered by hundreds, maybe thousands. And while most are no stronger than Body Cleansing, I can sense at least a half-dozen flames that burn with an intensity of a Core Formation cultivator.”

“I’m more concerned about the Nascent Soul level one that is near the splinter. I cannot but think that we will have to confront them to acquire the splinter.” Be Long hesitated, then added. “We are trying to acquire the splinter are we not?”

“Acquire or destroy,” Phuong Vy said, the diminutive scholar looking up briefly as she finished dipping another set of knives into a pot of scentless poisons. “I believe I have the right equipment to contain the corruption so that we can study it further and make the destruction of the true source easier. But if not, destroying it immediately will be necessary.”

“A Nascent Soul demon is dangerous. Not as dangerous as a Spirit Beast of the same rank, of course,” Be Long nodded to Bich Trang whose bird had joined them by perching on a branch high above, glaring at the group in silent disapproval. It was still worrying how something so big and powerful could be so silent, hiding its strength and arrival with disturbing ease. “But dangerous, nonetheless.”

“Sao Choi will not taking direct action during the battle,” Bich Trang said. “There are a number of aerial scouts that can be dealt with, but otherwise, it will not enter the city.”

“Why?” Wu Ying could not help but ask.

Bich Trang just shook her head, refusing to answer his question. The wind cultivator could not help but frown, as did his friends, all of them looking unhappy at the sudden loss of one of their most powerful trump cards. Though, Wu Ying noted, none of the special unit members looked surprised at all.

“If that is the case, can we do this?” Captain Ky said.

“You were the one pushing for us to deal with the village originally,” Thien Gang said, annoyed.

“I might have been over-enthusiastic,” Be Long replied.

“It doesn’t matter. We can deal with a Nascent Soul demon, if necessary. Hold it off long enough, at least, for the others to handle.” Bich Trang looked at both Minh Trac and Thien Gang as he said this, his gaze heavy with unspoken meaning.

“Do you want me to use them now?” Minh Trac said, surprised.

“We have a spare, do we not?” Bich Trang said.

“We do. But…”

“It’s necessary. If a single splinter can do this much damage, we need to know what we’re likely to face. If we can contain it, destroy it from a distance or even close the opening, or whatever it might be, it can only benefit us. Entering a battle with no true knowledge is a failure of planning of the most basic level.”

Wu Ying cocked his head to the side. “You might want to look at the front of the temple closer before you make a final decision.”

The group turned to regard him and then looked upward. Minh Trac sighed audibly, but then manipulated the formation to magnify the projected vision around the temple in the center of the city. A small gasp escaped Yang Mu’s lips, a hand rising to cover them. Thien Gang snorted, but she did not take her gaze off the projection, whilst the remainder of the group stared at what was revealed in silent horror.

Four figures, their corpses significantly fresher than the majority of humanoid corpses that the group had passed under. Some were missing limbs, one had a large hole in the center of their chest where the heart would have been, while one last one had its head crushed. All had died, painfully from the shocked horror on their faces, their bodies left to be hung.

“I guess we know where the rest of the expeditions ended at least.” Tou He then placed his hands together, bowing his head and chanting. “Namo Amitoufo. May they rest in peace and their families find release from suffering.”

“We should send a message back,” Be Long said, into the silence.

“When we enter. Ready yourselves. We will make them pay for their desecration,” Bich Trang said, her voice firmer than ever.

Wu Ying cast one last look up at the bodies, their twisted and bulging cheeks, their swinging bodies and then inclined his head to the Colonel. Hanged ghosts indeed.