Cultivating Chaos 5 - ch 11- (Patreon)

Ren stood there, hands on hips, and looking imperiously beautiful.

“Si’Sha! You may choose if it’s a Champion, Hand, or otherwise, I care not!” Ren called out and then stamped her foot. It was a high pitched clack of a rather nice shoe striking stone but no more than that. “I’ll even tell you in advance that if you choose a Champion, I’ll send a Hand! If you send a Hand, I’ll send someone without a formal rank in my hiarchy!”

Si’Sha had a pained and angry look on her face. As if she were attempting to down a bowl of noodles made of glass strung on barbed wire.

“Ghast,” Si’Sha got out finally in a choked voice. “You… you dare? Here?”

“Yes? Why wouldn’t I dare. It isn’t as if this hasn’t occurred before. I have challenged you. Per our own oaths and agreements, you must respond,” declared Ren with iron in her words. “I declare the penalty for declination as one-fourth of the proposed bets since the value I have put up for the wager is far in excess of what the opposing bet is.”

Everyone was staring at Si’Sha.

“At what point can we claim her as the prize?” wondered Na under her breath. “She seems as if she would be a good sparring partner for the Brides.”

Apparently that didn’t go unheard.

There was a smattering of laughters and titters that spread through the crowd.

“I accept!” shrieked Si’Sha. “I demand a higher wager! For-for-for your damned insults!”

“Fine, fine. I’ll wager my organization against half of yours,” Ren allowed with a wave of her hand. “Or just yourself. Whichever you prefer. As Bride Na noted, you have some worth. It would be a shame to kill you.

“And Si’Sha… I won’t let you go. I plan on running you down eternally. Your attack upon me with Xing… I took that as a threat on my life. You will not escape again. This is to the end.

“It would be best just to meet my wager head on since this will only cease when one of us loses.”

Si’Sha’s eyes widened at Ren’s words and she lifted her chin.

There was a strange look that flashed through her eyes and across her face that Ash couldn’t identify.

“Half my organazation against yours!” Si’Sha demanded. “My champion shall fight!”

Ren nodded at that and looked to Ash.

“Did you ever appoint any other hands? For Heights and Lake-City?” he asked

With a small shake of her head, Ren looked curious at his question and where it was going.

“I appoint Hui Sheng and Chunhua Sheng as Hands,” murmured Ash then looked to the two women. “Which of you wants a fight to the death with the champion of Si’Sha?”

He had deliberately picked Hui and Chunhua, feeling that they were the most likely to win a fight to the end.

Mei nodded her head at that then gently moved herself up into Ash’s side. He could tell she was feeling a bit insecure with him pushing on ahead as he was.

Reaching out with his right hand he slipped it into hers and linked their fingers together. Holding her hand tightly.

Chunhua and Hui turned to face one another.

“I was able to show-case my worth in front of Ash and the royal in-laws,” Chunhua stated in an amicable way. “Have you had an opportunity to show-case your worth like this yet? I’m not aware of it if so.”

“I have… not, no,” Hui admitted. Then she performed a martial salute to Chunhua and bent her head over her hands. “Thank you, Bride Chunhua.”

“Of course,” Chunhua replied with a laugh, performing a salute in return. “We must be kind to our family. Who are you, if not my sister, Hui Sheng?”

“I… yes. You are family. Thank you, Bride. Sister,” corrected Hui with a strange hiccup in her voice. “I shall take the fight and show-case myself. I’m sorry I just… family. I have family.”

“Yes you do, Hui Sheng,” Mei put in firmly. “I do like the idea of calling each other Sister, since we have Brother’s now.

“Would the Knights be offended in also being our Brothers?”

“No,” Yix put in with absolute conviction. “We’d be honored to be your Brothers. I also have no regrets in giving way for our Sister to show-case herself. We Knights will have our own time to shine.”

The Knight’s performed their own salute as one.

“Hui Sheng, of the Brides of Sheng, Hand of Lake-City, shall take the challenge,” stated Ren with absolute authority. “By the way, Si’Sha, I’ve taken a husband! My name is Ren Sheng now! I look forward to watching your entire world crumble away.

“You shouldn’t have made this as personal as you had! You came for my life! I shall come with yours with equal ferocity! One does not attempt to kill someone without expecting to in turn be killed!”

I mean, that’s a very cultivator thing to expect.

Makes sense to me.

Hui pulled her veiled-hat from her head and set it down. Slowly she walked to the center of the square where the majority of people had fled in every other direction.

“Look upon me! I am Hui Sheng!” she demanded and held her arms up, one of her hands immediately becoming a ball of pitch black Qi, the other glowing a bright and golden color. “I show you my face if only to glorify the Brides! Just as Ren Sheng does! You should feel fortunate.”

Letting her hands fall to her sides, Hui then took up a position in the ready stance. Her entire body was thrumming.

Ash could feel her determination calling out to his Dao. As if wishing to be pet upon the head.

Delving into his Dao, Ash called it forth. Willed it to life and cast it out into the world.

The entirety of the area fell immediately under it’s influence though there were those who obviously moved counter to it.

Somewhat outside of the Dao, Ash noted that the his Brides and the Knights were like drums. Each of them striking a pounding beat that demanded ever more to join in.

Even Ren was a drum that stamped out a steady and demanding rhythm for all to fall into.

Hui was the loudest of them as she stood there.

The counter-point of the enemy felt like a number of different instruments all randomly throwing out notes and discordant attempts at a melody.

Snorting, Ash pushed on his Dao and ran it up. Letting it start to take some Qi and push.

As his control grew over his Dao, that there was a momentum to all things, he’d come to understand that even the amount of Qi his Dao took was a form of momentum.

He could feed it a trickle and let it build to a crashing tsunami if he did it right.

“Ha… haaaa… aaahhh,” panted Ren, suddenly leaning towards Tala who was beside her. “The… I… I feel it. His Dao. It’s… I’m part of it.”

The big Bunny put an arm around her and held her upright.

“It’s a bit much for your first induction to his Dao,” Tala got out in a soft growl. Then she laughed. “Though I’m pleased to see how well you fit with us, Ren Sheng. Your momentum is splendid with our own.

“My Elegant Self will make sure to include you in the inner-Bride workings. Someone with such a strong momentum must be included.”

A man wrapped in odd leathers and hefting a Qi-Enhanced spear strode forward out of Si’Sha’s people. There were no details of his face or features visible.

There was a strong feeling of counter-momentum in this man.

Additionally, Ash could see a red box in the corner when he looked at the man to try and figure out his strength.

He didn’t need to read it to know this man was strong.

Very strong.

Strong to the point that Ash would bet on him being a Sovereign Immortal or close to it.

As Ash stood there trying to understand their foe, he could feel the Qi of the surrounding area simply pass by this man. More akig to how it did with the weapons.

“Ah… Qi-Enhanced leather,” Ren murmured.

Hui snorted and lifted up the hand holding the black Death-Qi.

“I’m ready,” she pronounced, staring at the man.

“Then die,” stated the man and lunged forward with the spear that’d hung loosely in his fingers.

Twisting to one side, Hui let the spear track past her stomach, then as casually as could be, she slapped a hand into the haft of the weapon.

Knocking the tip into the ground.

As she did, the beat of her momentum sped up and became louder. Everyone in the Sheng Alliance responded in kind, the whole of the thing in lock-step.

Hui kicked at the spear with her foot rolled to the right, planted her golden hand to the ground, and performed a rather liquid looking flip.

Landing right side up and with both of her hands in front of herself again.

The spear was no longer in the man’s hand but was not embedded in in the guts of someone who had looked very similar to this man in dress and stature. They had been standing beside Si’Sha only a moment ago.

Now they were on their knees with their hands around the point of the spear where the head was attached to the wood.

Not waiting, Hui had already wound back her arm and threw it back out.

Black darts shooting forward toward the man in a flashing spray of violence.

Their hands came up in front of themselves and they batted away a number of the projectiles while twisting in an odd way at the same time. Other darts simply shooting past him to land in Si’Sha’s people.

The rattle and boom of the Sheng momentum was climbing still. Each and every thrum bringing everything into the frame they wished.

Along the chains that stretched out to the other realm and people like Liu, there was a pounding sensation coming back to Ash.

Qi had was being sent his way unendingly as of late, but right now, he could feel them all pushing their own fragments of the great whole to the drum beat.

“It seems the Brides have heard us,” mused Ash and then opened his Dao up wider. He let it spill out to Liu and envelope her as well as all of the Brides who held chains there.

In that flash of a moment Ash felt every statue that resided in his middle-Dantian flash to gold in an instant. All of them felt the pull of his Dao and their connection to him.

Then in the next, he knew that everyone in his momentum could feel one another. That they were indeed one entity and moving in concert.

“Heavens, we’re beautiful and terrifying,” Mei whispered as everyone seemed to understand the strength of their organization.

Surprisingly, her words seemed to solidify something else entirely in Ash’s middle Dantian. He wanted to look but right now he was entirely focused on Hui.

Several blasts of what felt like Qi shot toward Hui and were broken apart by her and one went wide to splatter into the Knights.

Or at least, it would have if it hadn’t struck the shield that Chunhua held.

It’d been spread out across the entirety of their side of the fight so that there wouldn’t be any accidental hits as ther were for Si’Sha’s people.

Hui responded with a glowing orb from one hand and a flick of a black saw-blade from the other. The first lazily floating over as the second blew through the air in a hurry.

Throwing up some type of shield of Qi in front of himself with a thrown gesture of his hand, the man stood still as both projectiles slammed into it.

He then thrust his arms forward with a snapping of noise and his body was encased in swirling Qi.

It reminded Ash of what artists often did to try and symbolize wind or currents. Or a wind tunnel that was using colored smoke to show where the wind-resistance was the most.

Hui built a shell of black and gold that surrounded here in an oval-like shape. Then the two threw several more projectiles at one another.

After two more exchanges Hui’s shield withdrew back into her hands and the man had lost the strange currents.

With a small check, Ash felt that Hui was using Qi at a steady rate, but it wasn’t much of a loss. What he was gaining far outstripped what she was using.

That and he was actively drawing in all the Qi the man was throwing at Hui for himself. The Battle-Cultivation that was always running drew everything in that it could lay a finger on.

All the momentum of the fight was growing ever higher. The Dao itself was pressing in against those who worked against the Sheng Alliance now.

As with all things, the Dao of momentum, if given time and momentum, would simply take control.

Storming forward the man closed the distance between himself and Hui again, though she seemed eager to cross fists with him. She had been training frequently with the Knights in hand-to-hand combat.

A flurry of punches went back and forth, several landing on each combatant, then a kick or two from the man, halted by Hui blocking and shifting inward.

Such a move brought them up close to one another inside the range of hands and feet.

To which Hui dropped her head down in a bone crunching head-butt.

The crown of her head smashing the bridge of the man’s nose.

Unfortunately the man threw out an elbow into Hui’s shoulder in the exchange. Both impacts sent the women stumbling back in different directions.

Laughing, Hui looked to her left arm which had held her Death-Qi in this fight. There was most certainly something wrong with it just with a casual glance.

“That hurts!” she proclaimed, laughing again. “But not half as much as it hurt when my Dantian died. Do you have any idea how much that hurt?

“This is fine though. I’m enjoying this. Its good. Good for me. One must experience such pain to understand joy. I have a much better grasp of it now.”

Laughing still, Hui lifted her golden covered hand, her left arm dangling at her side. She once more put herself into position then launched herself forward.

The man had been struggling with his most certainly broken nose until that moment.

As of now the momentum of the fight was now at a great height even as Ash continued to feed it Qi.

Hui jumped forward. Her whole body spiraling as she did so and becoming a strange blur of black and gold.

Her golden hand became almost like a spear tip as she flew forward.

With a boom her finger-tips struck the man’s arms as they came together to block her attack. The forces between the two coming together a massive impact that made Ash’s teeth slap together with a crack.

A blast of Qi had also shot out in every direction, crashing against Chunhua’s shield as well as blinding everyone with the flash of light it caused.

When the Qi faded away, Hui stood by herself.

The body of the man she’d been fighting was below her. Both of his arms had been torn off. Blood pumping out of both limbs as he laid on the ground squirming.

Hui’s right hand had been blown off as well. Everything from the wrist down was missing.

Right now she held it up and was staring at it critically.

Ash’s Dao never stopped booming out it’s rhythm and demand of the current momentum. It never ceased and continued.

Despite this fight being over, the conflict was not ended.

Uh… Locke?

“Xiuying should be able to craft a pill to fix it but… ah… that’s… quite bad. I’m not sure it’ll actually wo—”

As if nothing were wrong, Xiuying had casually walked up to Hui, pulled something out a bag at her waist, and held it up to Hui.

Whatever she said to her made the other woman laugh and bob her head down to take the pill from her hand. She tilted her head back, swallowed, then followed Xiuying back to the Sheng Alliance.

All the while looking very pleased with herself.

“Hui?” Mei asked as the woman drifted closer to Ash. “Are you well? What happened?”

“I underestimated how much force I put into the blow,” Hui admitted with a laugh. “Your Dao is so strong! I didn’t think it would amplify everything. I’m pleased to be your wife.

“Ah… I won, you know. I beat him. He was easily almost an Immortal, you realize. I beat him.”

“Her hand will be fine,” Xiuying put in quickly, putting an arm around Hui’s hips. “I made a lizard pill! Well, out of lizards, I guess. I boiled something like a hundred lizards together. Then threw in a whole bunch of healthy stuff.

“Then I just made that pill. I made a few of them in fact. I think it’ll help her get her hand back. If we’re lucky that is. I really don’t know.”

“But who are you if not my Bride, Fortune’s Chosen,” Ash stated, wanting to put absolute ownership over her luck for himself. “And who is she if not your Sister? I’ll just assume that luck is exactly what is on our side. In fact… how about— ”

Ash reached out and laid his right hand to Hui’s head, his left hand to her right wrist. He quickly looked into her with his senses as well as his Dao.

With force he pushed his will into Hui.

That all things would flow correctly according to Xiuying’s medicine and his will.

His Dao.

The momentum of her hand regenerating would occur flawlessly and without issue. That all would be as it should be.

In that moment while his Dao was still thrumming and pounding away, it could not be denied.

Hui stood in the center of the whirlwind of his momentum and his desire here was akin to a force all his own.

Xiuying’s medicine, enforced by his will, and guided by the Dao, would most certainly reconstruct her hand perfectly, as well as her shoulder.

Lifting her ruined hand he looked to it critically, expecting results.

No sooner than his eyes found the ruined flesh then he saw it writhing about. Growing outward even as he gazed at it.

“It would seem, Hui, that you didn’t heed my words about protecting yourself,” Ash growled and glanced to the woman’s face.

His right hand was now gently smoothing her hair back and petting her. Just as if she were receiving a reward.

“I… that… I needed to win,” she breathed out in a hushed whisper, her eyes now looking to her wrist as the hand began to rebuild itself.

“How is it you were planning to cultivate with me without a hand? To hold my own hand? To touch me?” Ash demanded.

“That… ah,” whimpered Hui, her voice trailing off.

“I’m disappointed in you Hui. Deeply disappointed,” he continued. “If you do not treat yourself as a prized Bride of mine, how am I supposed to? I demand you to never repeat this again. You will not endanger your life, or your self, for something like this.

“I know for a fact that you’re a brilliant woman. You could have come up with a different solution. In fact, I’m sure you did, didn’t you? Tell me.”

“I could’ve just kept throwing my darts till he ran out of Qi or died,” admitted Hui. Her face trembling in a weird way as she spoke. “Or beat him down in a straight up fight in hand-to-hand. Or just taken his weapon from him and used it against him. It wasn’t far away on the ground.”

“See? My brilliant Hui knew better. No more of this in the future, okay? How can I cultivate with you without a hand? Besides, your hands are quite beautiful,” Ash chided her. His hand on the wreck of her wrist slid up to hold the point that here hand was forming at.

Bones were grotesquely sticking out as they formed.

This might take some time he imagined, but the hand was repairing itself.

He didn’t think this was likely to repeat itself though.

“Yes, Ashley,” whined Hui. “I’m sorry. I’ll treasure myself as you treasure me.”

She then began to sob brokenly, her head dropping down to rest on his shoulder.

The hand on her head slid down to her shoulder and he just held her.

“Would you look at that, it really is lucky! Her hand is just growing back. I’ll need to boil up more lizards!” Xiuying got out with a laugh. “Maybe some frogs, too. Or-or-or… wait… how rare are phoenixes? Could I boil hundreds of those to make a resurrection potion?”

“Xiuying, you’re never allowed to leave my side,” Ash ordered. “You’re my Fortune’s Chosen. My Bride. You’re too lucky to ever let go.

“That and it doesn’t help that I think you’re beautiful as well as talented.”

“Awww, aren’t you sweet, Husband. I’ll gladly never leave yourside. Besides, a Fortune’s Chosen and a Fated One should never team up given the tribulation that’ll occur,” warned Xiuying with a laugh. “Unless your Fated One simply abducts tribulations for Qi. Then I suppose it’s fine. You’d have to be an extraordinarily rare and blessed Fortune’s Chosen for that to happen though.”

“— challenge you for the rest of your domain, again the whole of mine, plus my life, and the lives of all my people!” demanded Ren, shouting at what was likely Si’Sha. “Come! I demand satisfaction. We shall not leave till it’s settled and it isn’t as if you can run! You’ve already lost half your domain.

“If you run, I’ll just go take the rest by force. Take it and hunt you down. So… put another wager down with me.”

“I like her,” Mei murmured, her hand sliding down to rest on Ash’s rear end. “I’m so glad she’s on our side now.”

Siu was still standing behind Ash and he felt a momentary pull on his libido as she casually touched him.

Stuck between Mei, Hui, Siu, Xiuying, and Ren’s Dao acting on him, he was thankful for it.

“Fine!” screamed Si’Sha. “Fine! I’ll send out a Hand, send out a non-ranked, just like you said! The rest of my domain for all of yours!”