The Third Cut - Chapter 37 preview (Patreon)

Wu Ying had twenty one flags in hand, the majority stored in a storage ring on one hand and the other three already planted. The rest he held in one hand easily, as he ran along the ground from point to point. Yang Mu had cast a flurry of yellow talismans into the air which had shot off towards the edges of the clearing, emplacing themselves on the ground. These were the targets that the cultivators were to strike.

Each time he grew close, Wu Ying would throw a flag at the location, guiding its movement with a tendril of chi and his wind to land. Dinh Don was doing the same on his side, though he was both less accurate and quick as Wu Ying. On the other hand, what he lacked in accuracy he made up for by shifting the flags to their appropriate location with a pulse of his chi, the flags bobbing up and down as they rode the wave of chi.

In the meantime, Thien Giang with the fewest number of flags was taking careful steps over to her location, stabbing the flags in deep before moving onwards. Each time a flag was planted, it would unroll and begin flapping in an unseen wind, drawing in chi from the surroundings as the enchantments woven into the flags themselves activated.

No movement yet, not from the creatures in the temple. If they concerned themselves with what the cultivators were doing, they had not shown it.

Twenty flags.

Wu Ying breathed slowly, cycling air through his lungs. Funny how, even after all this time, all the changes; breathing and the act of breathing, of eating and sleeping was important to him. Perhaps at some point, such acts might no longer be necessary as an immortal. But Wu Ying thought that it such a change would be a true loss if that was the case.

Every path to immortality was different, but he would miss being human if his path up the mountain required him to discard such mundane things. Even the flicker of pain from stubbing a toe or a stretch held too long would be missed, for such moments were a contrast to everyday existence.

Fourteen. He was halfway through his destination, for the next set of talismans were placed close together. He threw them out, guiding them with the barest of touches, only to fall short with one as his attention was forcibly pulled away.

An aura, cloying and sticky, repugnant in the way it crept and stuck to his own unfolded across the surroundings. It emanated from the worm under the ground, the subdued creature having woken. The stretching of its aura was a reflex action, but under its pressure Wu Ying felt his own wind aura buckle.

Instinctively Wu Ying stopped fighting it, allowing himself and his aura to be displaced. Such was the strength of the aura itself, he found his own path in the physical world shifted, and he quickly readjusted his plans for emplacing the flags.

Eleven flags.

Removing his hand from the flag he had buried into the ground, he extracted three more and tossed one immediately at another target. Another flexing of energy by the creature and Wu Ying had to struggle to keep the flag flying in the right direction, so that it struck the ground properly.

Ten.

Now the worm was moving, flowing forward. As though angered by their actions, its aura intensified further. Each moment was a struggle, like he was moving through deep water. No, not water, mud. For it clung to him, refused to let him go, offered no escape.

A momentary flashback, of being gripped by a creature of suction cups and tentacles, that had sought his life by crushing and eating him. Then, Wu Ying pushed pass it, his feet digging into the ground even as he forced himself to breathe.

He was not underwater. He was not even under the ground or mired in mud. Or…

“It’s making the earth muddy!” Wu Ying cursed, kicking off the ground and using his wind to lift him off the earth. “’Ware!”

“Hun dan! The flags are shifting,” Yang Mu cursed. “Get the rest in, now.”

Wu Ying, in the air, stopped concentrating on getting placement exact. Instead, he thew the flags he had in his hands into they sky and then extracted the others, repeating the motion as the wind sent the flags to their original spots. Thank the gods for cultivator memory, for he knew roughly where they had to go and not where the new talismans were. Also, thankfully, as a wind cultivator, as he was hovering, he found himself significantly less affected by the aura.

It seemed he was not the only one who had recognized the weakness in the moving worm’s attack. Be Long had jumped high, his hands moving in arcane gestures as he triggered a series of cultivation techniques. Light glowed around the metal cultivator, digging deep into the earth and connecting him to the worm. Bands of copper stretched and wrapped around the monster, stopping its surging motion and halting it.

Briefly.

A surge of concentrated energy was enough to shatter the bands and send Be Long plummeting to the ground. Even as he fell, the earth surged upwards as a muddy soup to engulf the copper cultivator. He was swallowed within moments, even as the worm pulsed its aura to constrict and crush.

On the other side, Dinh Don was having the least trouble with the aura. Perhaps because this was his element, he skated across the muddy ground with admirable ease, using the earth to help him complete placement faster than before.

Thien Giang took to leaping to emplace her flags, sending still forming mud splattering all around her with each explosive leap and landing. The earth beneath was still solid, though her landings sunk her a foot or more deep each time. Even so, it was a small matter for the cultivator to bunch her legs again and jump, a metal frog flinging itself through the air.

Five. Four. Three. One.

“Done.” Wu Ying shouted his acknowledgement. Moments later, Dinh Don repeated it on his side. The moment he was finished, his hands dipped to the ground as he sent energy into the earth as well.

“Almost!” Thien Giang bunched her feet again and jumped. However, in a movement too fast to catch, only sensory impressions lasting, something emerged from the temple and slammed into her. It took the metal cultivator out of the air, sending her into the woods behind and shattering trees and sending leaves scattering.

Somehow, the woman had managed to throw the flag into the air, perhaps reflexively or by accident. Wu Ying caught it before it landed, guiding the winds to send it to the final resting spot. Moments later, another explosion happened as Be Long was vomited from the ground, the bronze cultivator’s chest heaving as he exited the earth.

“Good!” Crying out loud, Yang Mu spun about and slammed the flags she held into the ground around her.

Casting about for their enemies, Wu Ying blinked. Even as the pressure from the worm’s aura continued to pulse through the surroundings, turning earth to mud; its very presence beneath the ground had faded. He opened his mouth to shout a warning, only to watch as the monster reared up in front of Yang Mu, it’s massive mouth open and hungry. In contrast to all around them, the earth around the talisman master’s feet was solid, the plug of earth rocking to the side and forcing her to her knees as she held last flag in one hand and a pulsing, enchanted fan in the other.

“Too late,” Yang Mu cried in triumph moments before she plunged the flag into the ground.

It never reached it, for the final corrupted demonic beast took action.

***

The pulse of energy, a twisting cone of corrupted energy with tendrils of dao enlightenment within flew from the entrance of the temple. A single furred bipedal creature stood there, a hand extended as the energy it had drawn and released tore through the air, piercing the worm through and through and enveloping Yang Mu. Wu Ying found himself screaming her name, as he watched the energy wash over the surroundings.

“The formation, the corruption, is in its body!” Minh Trac said, waving his hand up and down from their exposed location a short distance away from where Yang Mu had been. Their formation flags had been torn apart from the backwash of the attack.

Wu Ying eyes were locked on where Yang Mu had been, the breeze already carrying him over to the location. The massive worm that had reared upwards, its body the size of his family house before it had been blasted now slumped sideways. A hole the size of Wu Ying’s torso showed up from one side of it, but even as blood and viscera pumped out from it, flesh and muscle was knitting together. It would take more than a single attack – even by another Nascent Soul creature – to kill the massive monster.

The body crashed away, throwing up mud and dirt that Wu Ying flew through without a care. His wind aura took the debris and flung it aside and way from him, scattering it all around as he emerged on the other side. Dreading what he expected to see, his heart clenched tight and his lungs refusing to breathe.

Only to find Yang Mu on the other side, alive. The glimmering portals that her fans had created were fading, the energy of the attack poured through the portal to exit behind her a short distance away. The fans were fading, the enchanted energy stored within them consumed in that single moment of expenditure. Worst, the formation that Yang Mu had been in the midst of creating was gone, destroyed by that singular attack.

Wu Ying landed beside her, pulling her into his arms. He hugged her tight and then released her, scanning her for injury. She offered him a weak, exhausted smile, though the wood cultivator was fast recovering.

“You’re alive.”

“I am.” She grimaced. “Not for lack of trying on our enemies’ part.”

“Where is Sao Choi!” Wu Ying said. Already, the incursion team was acting, taking on the revealed biped Nascent Soul demon with its twisted arm. No, more than arm. Now that Wu Ying could actually see the creature and pay attention to it, he could sense the defilement.

Someone had taken the dark-furred ape with streaks of white hair along its body and hammered in metallic formation spikes into its body. Each of those spikes was deeply engraved with formation words, though at the ends of each metal rod was a single, familiar character – Chaos.

That was not the only dishonor enacted upon the creature however, for its left arm had been torn off and another attached. That arm was hairless, dense enchanted runes and characters carved deep into the flesh, runes that bled and wept greenish fluid. The very air hung around the arm, twisted and spiraling away for its very presence was entirely anathema to this world to it.

In its entirety, the creature itself was a rupture in this world, what had been done to it a savage and heretical action. The chi pulsing from the monster was corrupted but in such plentiful supply, it was clear that it was no plain Nascent Soul monster.

Even as it stood there, glowing eldritch green and sickly yellow and blood red runes made of flesh and blood hung around it, forming a circle of energy that warded off the combined attacks of the others, runes peeling from the alien arm as needed to provide additional protection. At the same time, in its other arm, the untainted one, a new attack was built.

“I saw it go after Thien Giang,” Yang Mu said, casting aside the useless flag. The formation they had planned to wield was gone now, destroyed. There was no recovering it, not without significant time. “We have to help them.”

“Agree-” He never had time to finish his words. His only warning was the worm as it burrowed into the earth again, submerging the portion of its body still above the ground. Chi formed and exploded outwards, corrupt energy seeking the pair of still unmoving targets.

Time slowed for the wind cultivator, as his mind sought a solution. Instinct had him step ahead of Yang Mu, hand dropping to his side. He could not face this attack direct, he had not the strength. If he was his Master, perhaps…

But he was not him, and he had his own techniques.

Hand down by his side, he took a step to the right, opening his hips with the motion as his foot landed at an angle. His right hand, holding the Saint-jian came out of its sheath, turning sideways and upwards as he cut. Robes rose and gusted in the wind that followed his motion, the Never Empty Wine Pot burning through the air, joining him to the corrupted air all around.

He followed the motion of his foot, turning the rest of the way with his body as he pivoted. Foot, hip, shoulder, arm, other foot touching down not just once but three times in quick succession as he pivoted around. Spinning himself and the world around him, revolving like a top.

Or a cyclone.

Wind, beckoned by the barest application of dao and chi came rushing in to fulfil his commands. Air surged forwards, a looping gust that caught the twisted dao and chi empowered attack and threw it sideways as a sixth, stronger wind joined the five that Wu Ying had threaded through his attack.

Wu Ying’s own understanding of the world and a torrent of his own chi met the attack, and for a brief moment it felt like it would not shift.

But it is always easier to divert rather than challenge, to bend rather than stand strong. If you turn and turn enough, sometimes you came back to the place you started at, the calamity that had come bearing down upon you having passed by.

Corrupted chi tore through the world and struck the ground, burrowing deep within to injure the hiding worm. And when the attack finally guttered out, Wu Ying and Yang Mu still stood. Smoke rose from their robes, protective enchantments pushed to the brink. Their hair was in disarray, ends frayed from the passing energy and Wu Ying’s uninjured sword arm had a cherry blossom glow to them, the energy that had been cast aside leaking through to harm it. His injured hand throbbed, as though the energy cast at them had wakened the flames that burnt it.

Still, they stood.

The Third Cut of the Wandering Dragon.

The Dragon Turns.