Lewd Cultivator in Brockton Bay 21 (Patreon)

A Lewd Cultivator in Brockton Bay
Chapter 21: Upon the Ground

-VB-

“What is to pierce the heavens?”

It was an odd question, and I didn’t understand why it was being posed to me right now.

“I’m not sure?”

“Hu huu… You were supposed to think on the question, disciple.”

Was I seeing someone’s memories? Or hearing it?

I tried looking around but my head continued to stare ahead. I saw a long bearded man in dark blue long gi, and his stern and sharp eyes stared down at me disappointingly.

What is to pierce the heavens?

It sounded like something I should be thinking about as well. Cultivation and all that, right? To my surprise, I found that I had no idea what to think of the question.

What is to pierce the heavens?

To answer the question, I needed to know what the heavens were.

What are the heavens?

They were … a place?

Uh, holy shit. I was going through cultivation without even knowing what I was doing, was I?

Okay, okay, okay. Being a cultivator meant that I was going against the Will of the Heavens. Will of the Heavens often meant a predestined path for all those who lived under it.

So …

Heaven … was … fate?

No, that wasn’t it. If it was, then couldn’t there be “immortality” that was a fate for someone?

No, I think I knew what the Will of the Heavens was.

It was the natural order, of what the world is supposed to be according to the Heavens.

So then the Heavens were …

If I was being loose with the terms, then were they like the administrators?

To pierce the heavens.

“To break the system,” I/the disciple answered.

The master smiled. “Good. You understand the second step that all cultivators take: to break the natural order of the world.”

-VB-

I woke up to Amy’s disgusted screams which then changed abruptly to angry shouts.

“Goddamnit, Alan!”

Blearily, I woke up. I didn’t bother overcharging my senses or anything because apparently this was my fault-?

I stopped as I felt something squishy and warm around me. Feeling around as my eyes adjusted to the dim light of the morning. As I got used to it, I realized that it happened.

I’d broken through another level.

Of course, this also made my body just explode with useless excrements, aka parts of my body that the body saw as no longer viable or useful, which wet the bed and Amy in blood and viscera.

“This is going to take forever to clean!” she hissed at me angrily.

I raised my hands in surrender.

“I’ll clean it,” I mumbled sleepily as I got up. She huffed and walked into the master bathroom, ignoring me staring at her toned ass and taut pregnant belly.

Shrugging, I collected the ruined bedsheet, comforter, and pillow cases. I was just content with the fact that it happened in the morning and not in the middle of the night. That would make Amy very cranky.

Cranky Amy or not, I had just achieved a breakthrough.

I wanted to test it out.

But not before I had a sip of beer.

-VB-

With no true advanced materials for me to work off of, all I could do was reinforce what I did have.

“HO!”

Instead of practicing inside the basement, I decided to do this somewhere that wouldn’t mind taking a beating: the Boat Graveyard.

“HO!”

It was invigorating just how much of a difference a breakthrough made in how strong I was.

“HO!”

I excelled the last of my breath with my last punch to the ground, admiring the deep crater I’d made with a properly guided punch.

Of course, I had guided my fist with ki and exerted it outwards like a shell, but the point was, I was advancing through the cultivation. If I was going by the single term levels, then I supposed that I was in the Spirit stage. Numerically speaking, I would be in the Third Stage.

I was reaching a point where I would definitely be classified as parahuman without a doubt. Or rather, the world already has done so, but it would be cemented.

I drew my fist back from the ground and held it at my side as I drew in a deep breath of air.

“You must be that new New Wave cape!”

I paused and turned towards the source of the voice.

To my surprise, I saw people I didn’t expect to meet.

The Boat Graveyard was a literal junkyard filled with not just the sunken and abandoned boats but also trash that people left behind. There were mounds and mounds of plastic bags and other things here. Standing between two particular mounds was the Undersiders.

I was half tempted to pretend to not know them, but it felt needlessly complicated.

“How may I help you?” I asked them. “Undersiders?”

Tattletale stood at the center with Grue to her left and Bitch and Regent to her right and back.

“We were just curious to see the main figure of the latest clusterfuck to hit Brockton Bay just chilling and training out in the open,” Tattletale began casually. “You weren’t trying to hide, but then why would you be out here? Too much damage to the house?”

I grunted in annoyance. She was trying to bait information out.

“Yes,” I replied with a sigh. “Does it matter to you?”

“Eh. I’m just curious what the new guy’s doing. You know, his power getting stronger and all.”

Grue seemed to tense a little at her words.

“And you know that I do spar with the likes of Assault, yes?”

“Ye-”

“And that I could pummel anyone else who's squishy enough if they bother me too much?”

She narrowed her eyes at me behind her mask. “Heroes don’t threaten, Rabbit. It wouldn’t do you good to have what you just said be released online?”

“I don’t mind.”

She blinked. “What?”

“It’s not like my hands are not clean,” I replied as I turned to face her fully. I didn’t have my power armor with me, but these four?

They were the perfect opponents for me. I also haven’t forgotten the fact that they ran over my groceries into paste in the early days of my arrival and left me alone to deal with the gangsters when I was still a regular and squishy person.

Tattletale paled. “Oh. Right. Hero. Villain.” A pause. “GRUE!”

Immediately, a bellowing darkness covered everything.

But it didn’t stop me from moving.

And none of these villains were Brutes or Movers.

With a single jump, I flew high into the air and out of the smoke like a dogfighter plane flying out of the clouds, and twirled in the air to reorient myself.

I knew that fighting in the smoke would lead to an immediate loss. There was no information I could use coming in, so why even bother?

But up here?

I could see.

And I saw the smoke only around where I had been, not around Grue or his teammates.

“Big mistake,” I grunted as I began to fall.

I gathered ki around myself, ignoring the way Tattletale was shouting at her teammates.

And landed back in the smoke with enough force to cause the ground to crater and split.

With another push, I jumped towards where I remembered the Undersiders being and jumped out of the smoke. The smoke was closing in again, but I saw them.

And I rushed.

With a clean swipe, I struck Grue right in the chest with a palm strike as he was about to flee, and watched in amazement as he tumbled away like thirty feet. I turned, but then my feet gave out for no reason.

‘Regent!’

I whirled around and found the scepter-taser wielding bastard, but before I could run towards him, Bitch’s empowered dogs - each the size of a small truck - jumped me.

I ducked under the flying bite of the first, jumped to the side of the second, jumped over the third, and used the fourth as a stepstone to reach Bitch first.

The girl tried to fight back, but I was the Brute, not her, and her dogs weren’t as fast as I was.

When she threw a punch, I pushed it to the side with the strike of her force and then once I pulled that arm open, I punched her right in the solar plexus. Or I would have because Regent fucked me over again and I missed her at point blank range!

She kneed me in the stomach (I think she was aiming for my dick), and I spun around instead of a full spin kick. This one made it and struck her right at the temple with my heel. She keeled over, and the dogs immediately began to lose their form.

Turning to Tattletale and Regent, I attacked the two of them with the full blast of my “aura.”

Regent dropped to his knees.

Tattletale held on, but she ended up falling on her ass and scrambling backwards.

In three strides, I was between the two of them with my hands pulled back.

T-Tap.

One strike each to the back of their necks sent the two teenage villains into the la la land.

Letting out a deep breath, I turned my attention towards the dogs, who were whimpering and crowding around Bitch’s unconscious body.

Humming in satisfaction, I pulled out my smartphone from my pocket and called.

“Hello, this is Rabbit as you guys call me. I’m in the Trainyard right now and have the Undersiders with me, all unconscious. Wanna come pick them up?”