Cultivating Chaos 4 -Ch11- (Patreon)

Ash leaned away from the carved stone face.

To him it looked quite life-like if completely stone. It wasn’t based off anyone nor was it likely to resemble anyone.

When Ash carved it, he was just randomly carving it till it looked as if it were a person.

“You know, this really doesn’t feel any different than Enchanting or Scrivening. Stone carving is more or less the same. Just a different medium,” Ash remarked to himself, though it was more aimed at Locke.

Locke was always listening in and aware of what he was doing. No matter where he was, what he was doing, she was always paying attention to him.

“I imagine so. Going to take up wood carving next? That’d be with a knife rather than a chisel. Might be different enough to fire off different parts of your brain,” Locke remarked per his expectations. She was currently working with Rou in the clinic.

Hui was patrolling the streets and being a visible and angry presence. Since they’d made their deal with the city-lord three days ago, she’d been acting the part of a guard with no mercy.

Anyone found breaking the rules of the city-lord often got a broken bone if they resisted and a trip to the city-guard’s prison. It didn’t matter who it was.

Recruitment for the sect school would be starting in a day or two, though it was obvious many were planning on applying. There were countless people who came to the gates every day just to make sure it wasn’t happening early.

Most were young, though there were clearly those who weren’t as well. Ash hadn’t put an age restriction on anyone as he had no idea where talent would be.

It wasn’t as if anyone had opened up such a place here before.

“Maybe,” Ash remarked and then set the head down. He picked up the next boulder and lifted up his chisel. “Next is… Earth. That’ll finish the set of elemental masters for ranged cultivators. After that it’s just putting Transference papers and personalities into them.”

Ash waggled his chisel around as he looked into the soon-to-be face he was going to make.

“Super hot woman, or giga-chad dude,” Ash mused aloud. “I haven’t made a giga-chad yet. Made a hot woman though.”

“She looks too much like me,”Locke complained.

“Hush. I only borrow your eyes for her. Your eyes are way too amazing, my beloved wife,” Ash soothed her. He briefly contemplated throwing in a flirty addition about when he liked to best look at her eyes, but realized it wasn’t the time for it. “Just know that I love you, Locke Sheng, and that golem will be stealing young cultivator hearts because it borrowed your eyes.

“If I wasn’t a jealous man, I’d be tempted to try gracing more of your features onto a golem. But I am, so I won’t be.”

There was a distinct musical laugh he could hear from Locke. He swore he could hear it coming through the nearby wall that he shared with the medical clinic for his workshop.

“Mmm! You’re just too sweet to me, lately. What am I supposed to do about this, my Chosen One?” Locke purred.

“Say thank you, demand more, and be yourself. Now… excuse me darling,” Ash apologized and then laid the chisel down to the stone. He knew what he wanted to carve now.

Ash quickly lost himself in shifting his chisel and tapping at it to knock chips of stone away. Letting himself submerge into the work.

Unfortunately, the door slammed open just as he struck the chisel to straighten out a cheekbone. Ash ended up startled, pulled on the chisel, and the overly handsome man now had a scar that ran from his cheek to his eyebrow and over one eye.

Grimacing, Ash turned and looked to the door.

Tan stood there, breathing hard. His face was flushed and his eyes were wide.

“I found them,” he blurted out.

Found them? Found wh-oh. The men who assaulted Song.

Right. I promised him I’d handle it.

To come to me when he found them.

Guess it’s time.

Locke, ask Rou if she wants some Healing Dolls.

“Healing… Dolls?” Locke asked curiously.

Yeah, Healing Dolls. I’m gonna go break some dudes apart and give them to Rou to put back together. They can serve some time as test subjects for Rou.

The more she practices, the better she’ll be.

Need people to practice on.

Tan and Song can beat them, or other students, and Rou puts them back together.

Win, win.

“Oh! I like it. I’ll ask her, I know she’ll say yes,” Locke promised.

“Lead me to them,” Ash said, looking to Tan.

There was hope, anger, and a need for a conclusion in the boy’s face.

Strangely, it made Ash feel bigger. As if he were acting the part of an avenging force of justice in some way.

He suddenly wondered if this was how master Li-Tong felt when he’d done something similar for Ash and Yue. If Li-Tong felt akin to a super hero.

I’ve got a shit name for someone who enforces justice.

Need a better name.

“What, a name like Warner?”Locke asked.

***

Ash sniffed and rubbed the back of his wrist against his nose.

Tan and he were standing in front of a deserted building that looked abandoned. Abandoned, condemned, and only redeemable by bulldozing it to the ground completely.

Only then could one rebuild on this place and feel like it wasn’t going to collapse on itself.

“Fu’s in there,” Tan said, pointing at the building. “There’s a basement that they use as their base. This is just… a rotten building that they live underneath of. People leave it alone because of that.”

“No other way out?” Ash asked and wished he had something to blow his nose into. It felt like it was running.

Just my damn luck to catch a cold. Always catch a cold when I travel anywhere.

“No way out. It’s… so people can’t escape,” Tan answered.

“Yeah. Yeah, okay. I’ll bring them back. Alive,” Ash murmured, then coughed once. It felt like his sinuses were draining. He did indeed have a cold.

“What? Why?” demanded Tan.

“Because I’m going to give them to Rou to practice on. She needs people to practice on. You can beat the crap out of them, break a few bones, she heals them, wash, rinse, repeat,” Ash explained. He didn’t think this would take very long. It’d be almost a non-event other than the fact that he was acting in Song and Tan’s place.

“I won’t be the only one who wants to beat on them,” Tan whispered.

“Well, we can use them as punching bags for the sect then. A living practice dummy could do a lot of good,” Ash murmured. “Not to mention, killing someone over rape… well, I get it. But the punishment doesn’t quite fit the crime.

“Years as a martial arts living dummy? That fits. Kinda like serving hard time and doing manual labor.

“If they survive it, I imagine they’ll never consider doing something like that ever again. Or so I’d like to think. In the end though, this is neither justice, nor evil. A measured approach is best. We have to find the right… momentum… for these things.”

“Momentum,” Tan repeated. Ash had thought the boy would reject the idea outright. It sounded as if he were considering it earnestly. “Okay. Yes. How many years?”

“He does this alot?” Ash asked just for confirmation. He was fairly certain of this fact.

“And worse things, yes.”

“Mm… forty years at most. Thirty years at the minimum. He can be released when he’s an old man and his life is already spent,” said Ash after a quick think about it. Without knowing the details it was hard to judge with confidence.

What he felt from Tan was the truth though.

That and he trusted Song quite a bit for some reason. Whoever these people were, they seemed to deserve the fate Ash was planning for them.

Ash moved into the ruin of the building. Searching around he found a fairly obvious path to the back.

Providing one was looking.

Picking his way through the wreckage Ash kept his eyes open. Looking for the entrance Tan had mentioned. Or more specifically, some sort of way into the basement.

When he reached the back corner, Ash found what he was looking for. It was just a hole in the ground that led down into a lit room.

Yeah… my expectations were too high.

Smirking, Ash folded his arms in front of himself, stepped into the hole, and fell.

He landed with a thump in the basement below after having fallen twenty or so feet. The ladder he’d ignored was beside him when he reached the bottom.

“What the—”

Ash turned to the left and found a group of six-teen men in the room. They were sitting, standing, and a few even laid out on the ground. Napping, apparently.

They looked disreputable, worn-out, and little better than what he’d have considered ruffians where he grew up. By and large they were a varied sort, with light-brown hair to black and eyes that ranged a similar hue.

They didn’t really matter to Ash, other than that they mattered to Tan and Song.

“Ah, hello,” Ash said, the corner of his mouth curling up. “I’m here to collect those who have committed crimes in the city of Wahst. I believe that’s… all of you.”

“You come into here and—”

Pushing out with his Qi, Dao, and the simple desire to slaughter them all, Ash tilted his head to one side. Watching as each and every person in this basement crumpled down to the ground.

He did manage to control it this time so that they didn’t pass out. Questions needed to be asked.

“I’ll keep it simple. You’re all coming with me for Song and Tan to identify,” Ash continued and began walking forward. “At the same time, I’m going to ask around and see if anyone else has been wronged by you.

“I’m also going to be asking them who might else be part of your little… gang. Then I’ll go run them down and add them to my collection.

“If you want just a smidgen better treatment from me in the future, you could spare me the effort. Is there anyone not here that I need to go run down? Whoever tells me accurately where others are I need to grab… well… I promise that person won’t have it as bad as the rest of you.”

“No one will talk to—”

Ash turned and threw out a casual kick at the man that was speaking. His foot slammed into their upper-arm and broke it. A new joint forming right at that point as Ash had split the bone cleanly.

Not satisfied with that, Ash brought his foot back and lazily threw another kick at the man’s fore-arm. A satisfying crunch was heard as it broke as well.

Lifting his foot up again, he then put it on the back of the man’s hand and stepped down. The crunching and popping of multiple bones was a strange sensation that was transmitted through his boot-sole.

Shrieking, wailing, and crying, the man was incoherently begging Ash to stop.

The momentum was wrong, though. Ash could feel it.

Right now he was acting as an agent for Song and Tan, as well as the city-lord. The people in this room had a momentum that was their own. It ran contrary to Ash in almost every way at the moment.

These were people who had caused a great many wrongs.

Let’s make a point.

Ash began to slowly walk his boot up the man’s arm. Shattering the bones in his wrist and then working his way up the arm.

He’d move to the other arm afterward.

“Ash! I think the Qi-Lord is coming!” Locke warned.

What? How do you know that?

“Because the Qi flow is going wild along the walls. It’s been pulling it all down from above, but now it’s pulling it from… well… more at our level. Which means something with a massive Qi footprint is now on the city floor,” Locke explained. “So I think it’s the Qi-Lord.”

I mean… okay, yeah. That’s really well thought out.

“That and the city-lord said he was expecting the Qi-Lord today. Tee hee,” Locke teased with a laugh. Her tone had an almost insufferable tone if she didn’t sound as sexy as always. “Wanna punish your naughty wife later for pulling your ear? Mmmm?”

Most certainly. But it’s not your turn. It’s Rou’s.

I love you, Locke. Thanks for keeping it interesting. I’m kinda tied up at the moment though.

“Oh, that? It’s fine. I sent a patrol of the city-lord’s guards your way. I’m pretty certain they’re above you talking to Tan,” Locke replied.

Ash nodded his head as he reached the man’s shoulder. He’d shattered the man’s arm from fingertip to shoulder joint. It was nothing more than bits of bone held together by flesh and tendon.

“Or… you know… wondering if they should go bother the cultivator and the person that sounds like they’re being tortured to death. Something like that,” Locke mused. “I’m still not entirely convinced this is the best option, by the way. I know we talked about it briefly before but… this feels like a risk. Putting ourselves in front of the Qi-Lord like this.”

It’s a risk.

A big one.

There’s no doubt about that.

But we couldn’t have operated in the city without being noticed as cultivators. Once noticed, Hand would have come for us. He’d have made a move.

We needed to be able to operate freely, and openly.

While also hiding somewhat in plain sight.

This is that.

We just have to get over this hump and get the Qi-Lord to agree to our terms. I can still use the formation to escape so… it’s not just me rushing in stupidly.

“I agree to disagree, but I can see the merits of the plan.”

Not arguing with her further, Ash left the basement.

Thankfully there was indeed a city-guard patrol waiting. Ash ordered them to take everyone into custody and take them to the Reset Sect prison. They would be personally tried by the sect.

For whatever reason, the guards seemed glad for that. Ash suspected they were aware of these people and there was more to the story.

Ash planned to just sick Hui on it and let her tear it apart. She was turning into an extremely valuable resource when it came to things he needed finished to a set conclusion.

Having her run down everyone and everything tied into those thugs was something she’d likely enjoy, too. He hadn’t missed how Hui treated Song.

The guards ahead of Ash pushed the door open for the royal warehouse as Ash approached.

“Thanks,” he muttered passing by them.

Walking inside Ash found Locke standing in the corner of the warehouse chatting animatedly with a group of women. They were the city-lord’s wife and her attendants.

Locke had quickly injected herself into their circle, won them over, and now was on incredibly friendly terms with them. Ash hadn’t attempted the same with the city-lord.

It seemed like too much work, really.

Moving over to the position that lord Hand had been at, Ash put his hands behind his back, then looked over to the city-lord.

He nodded his head at the man.

“Nothing new to report,” Ash offered up. “Work continues. Though I did run down a group of bandits I’ll be taking personal custody over. They assaulted a young woman I’m protecting. I’ll relay to you what happens.”

The city-lord had been watching Ash as he walked in and took his place.

“Oh. Alright. Thank you. I… your… assistant… Hui, has been very diligent. My prison is quite full,” the city-lord tried.

“Mm, is she being over zealous? I can tell her to ease up,” offered Ash.

“Actually, no. Everyone she’s brought in has actually been a valid arrest,” Kyle admitted, though he frowned as he said it. “I just… I… I’m surprised. I didn’t think there was so much crime in my city. That there was this much one person could see just walking around.”

Thinking on that, Ash chewed at the inside of his cheek. The only answer he came up with wasn’t that satisfying but it was at least understandable.

“I’d say there was no point to your guards taking action unless they felt they could make it stick beyond a doubt,” Ash ventured. “I mean… couldn’t Hand’s men of simply overridden anything your guards wanted to do? Just negate any charge they put on someone and erased it outright.

“This doesn’t feel like anything new, but more of a continuation of the previous problem. That this is nothing more than a symptom of the problem that was lord Hand. That’s all. I wouldn’t be too concerned about it.

“If anything, if I were you, I’d expect quite a few more surprises like this. I’m sure as you start going through everything, more and more will shake loose. It’s unavoidable.”

The city-lord looked upset at Ash’s words. As if they were an apple he’d just taken a bite out of, only to discover it was worm ridden.

“Yes. I see what you mean,” he mumbled instead. Then he sighed heavily. “I see what you mean. I’ll have to have all the important things double checked now, before they become a problem later. Double checked, confirmed, validated.”

“I’d say so,” Ash agreed with a nod of his head. “But hey, at least it’s a problem you can solve. Those are the best kind of problems. Problems without an answer or solution or annoying as hell. Like an itch inside of your skull.

“Or you wanna like… sneeze… but can’t. Just makes your nose tingle. Ya know?”

“Err… being hungry after just having eaten?” offered Kyle.

“Yeah, that. Exactly. So, you’ve got a problem. It has a solution. Be thankful,” Ash paraphrased.

“I shall be. You’re right. Be thankful,” Kyle said and slowly nodded his head. His head turned fractionally and Ash realized he was looking to Locke and his own wife. “By the way… I appreciate your wife taking the time to speak with my own. To be… a person, to her. Cultivators tend to treat us like bugs at worst, animals at best.

“My wife never felt quite comfortable in my own court because of it. Your wife has shortened that gap and removed it entirely. At least for you, your wife, and your assistant.”

“Yes, I understand what you mean. I’m working to correct that but it won’t be easy. Or quick,” Ash acknowledged. There was a thump that made the ground tremble.

“That’s… the Qi-Lord. Ghast,” Kyle answered the unasked question. “We’ll need to go greet her. She’ll probably be right outside. Then move to where-ever she chooses. I rule by her allowance.”

Because she doesn’t want to be down here.

There’s no Qi to be had for someone with any power.

She’d be empty within a week if all she did was normal every day things. If she tried to fight, it’d bleed away even faster.

Though… she? Ghast is a Qi… Lady? Rather than a Qi-Lord?

“I don’t know. But I don’t like it,” growled Locke as they all began moving to the door of the warehouse. It was clear to Ash Locke was agitated suddenly.

He had no idea why Locke was anxious but he hoped she’d share the information.

Except when they exited the warehouse, the flash of envy, anger, and jealousy that ripped through the Hall and to Ash gave him his answer.

Locke didn’t want Ash around other women.

Especially attractive women.

Standing not far away was a woman who could only be the Qi-Lord Ghast, given the insane amount of Qi she held within herself. Beyond her was a large balloon that reminded Ash of a blimp.

The woman and her Qi was mildly terrifying though to Ash.

Although not entirely for the amount of Qi she held.

Simply put, she was heartbreakingly pretty and soul-crushingly sexy. In a way Ash had never seen or fantasized about.