Chapter 160: Intruders (Patreon)

Finally back. Sorry for the delay, but I heavily underestimated the amount of work that was coming my way. Should hopefully be able to return back to normal releases now, fingers crossed.

One by one, seven small flames were lit, shedding some light into the dark room. Soon, the smell of smoldering incense filled the air and the fire Qi, already enriched by the environment, began to gather and densify.

The incense candles, based on the Burning Thorns Sect’s pine trees’ resin, were their most produced cultivation product. Arranged as they were, in a small circle, they were an acceptable substitute for a proper elemental cultivation formation. They weren’t quite as effective, of course, as the more sophisticated formations, but they were easier to set up and, more importantly, cheaper to operate.

Lixian Shen stepped into the circle of candles and settled into a lotus position. This room actually did possess a proper formation to support her fire cultivation, but it had remained inactive for several weeks by now. She had used it until it had ceased to work, and now she didn’t have the resources to repair and operate it anymore.

The war and all that had followed for her sect had already left them in a rather dire spot, and she had used up pretty much all resources she’d had left in her attempt to push herself to the Dao Contemplation Realm after Patriarch Sha had been assassinated. Now that she remained as the only ‘proper’ elder besides Tang Luli, the head elder and his faction had cut her off from most of her usual income, so she had to be frugal with what remained, even if it slowed her down.

Taking a deep breath of the incense-filled air, Lixian Shen closed her singular functioning eye focused on the Dao of Fire. As always, burning pain flared up in the half of her face that was covered by her mask, but she pushed through it with practiced ease. Beyond the pain lay the vast depths of knowledge and understanding yet unknown to her and she got to work contemplating them.

Despite her efforts, she wasn’t anywhere close to reaching the point of breakthrough yet, though the same could be said about the head elder. Neither of them was truly talented, at least not in the context of cultivators on their level, and neither had been seen as a likely candidate to be the next to reach the Dao Contemplation Realm before the other elders had been assassinated.

On some level, Lixian Shen had already accepted that. In fact, she would have been fine with pretty much any of the other elders becoming the next patriarch – just not with Elder Luli. She despised the man. She despised his arrogant demeanor when facing the other elders. She despised his underhanded politicking. Most of all, she despised how she was seen as lesser than him, just because her family was from a city while his stood at the center of the sect. She despised him, and she envied him for it – and for that she despised herself.

His conduct with the demonic cult had only strengthened her conviction that he couldn’t be allowed to lead them – turning down the help they desperately needed from a stronger cultivator for some vague and fickle reason like honor while handing out some of the sect’s last resources was irresponsible to the highest degree.

So, now that she was the only remaining candidate beside him, there was nothing she could do but push forward as much as she could.

The questions the Dao posed her were plenty and obtuse. Lixian Shen knew the fire. She knew the fire well. She knew how it felt to burn… and how it felt to be burned – the skar underneath her mask flared up in pain again – and yet she still struggled to grasp its core. Uncovering it, understanding it, was an arduous journey, but it was one she had to take.

Suddenly, she couldn’t tell how long it had been since she began her cultivation, a prick at the edge of her consciousness disturbed her contemplations. For a moment, she considered ignoring it, resuming the string of thoughts she had been following, but her curiosity won out. The world of questions and contemplations drifted back into the darkness and she opened her eyes…

…just in time to catch on to the glistening the candlelight in the steel that was racing towards her.

Instincts built up over more than a century sprang into action, taking over her muscles faster than a thought could form and twisting her around the blade meant pierce her throat. She felt the cold of the steel as it scraped past the uppermost layer of her skin. The dagger flew past her, embedding itself deep into the wooden wall behind her.

In the same movement that had just saved her life, Lixian Shen shot to her feet. Before she had time to gather her bearings, another dagger came flying, this one aimed at her heart. She swatted it aside, only to barely dive beneath the sword slash that followed it.

The intruder, a figure cloaked entirely in black, attempted to follow up with another slash, but she caught his wrist before he could follow through. Flames gathered in the palm of her free hand, ready to strike the attacker down, but before she could do so, her instincts screamed at her once more and she let go, jumping backwards to dodge the downward arc of a massive cleaver.

It was only now that her soul sense, which she had shut off for her cultivation, caught up fully, informing her that there were not just two but five intruders in the room with her. That was about all she could grasp before the next one was upon her.

She stepped around the spear that they were thrusting towards her, responding with a strike of her palm, which was still wreathed in flame, while simultaneously kicking one of the candles that happened to be near her foot at the next attacker as a distraction.

Her palm strike caught the spear-wielder in the chest, the flames exploding out of her hand and throwing them backwards. The fourth attacker’s axe missed its mark, the candle having distracted them just enough. Unfortunately, though she twirled around in an attempt to evade it, an arrow loosened by the fifth attacker, who’d been standing back, pierced her upper left arm.

Lixian Shen grit her teeth through the pain as she ducked under the swordsman’s next attack and snatched up the spear that had fallen to the floor. She tried grasping it with both hands but quickly realized that she could barely use her left arm now. Instead, she swung it in a wide arc to drive back the three attackers that had surrounded her before hurling it at the archer before he could loosen another arrow.

It was unfortunate that she didn’t have a more useful weapon with her, but a Dao Attunement cultivator didn’t need weapons to fight. She used the moment of reprieve the spear had bought her to call forth more flames in her hand and hurl them towards the cleaver-wielding attacker.

They dove out of the way while the other two rushed at her. She regathered the flames in her hand for another attack while preparing to dodge the attacks when she suddenly felt a wave of weakness wash over her, originating from her left arm. Poison!

She barely managed to jump out of the axe’s way, but failed to sidestep the sword thrust towards her face. The sword’s blade, by sheer luck, hit her mask and bounced off. Though disoriented by the impact, Lixian Shen managed to jump back several feet, out of the attacker’s immediate range, while her mask clattered to the floor.

She drove the poison back with a burst of Qi and tried to take a deep breath to refocus herself. She’d been in similarly bad situations, she could still – another arrow cut through the air, piercing her chest and barely missing the heart. More pain rushed through her. A kick into her back sent her reeling forward – the spear-wielder had recovered from her attack.

She tried and failed to call forth more flames to her hand – her qi was occupied keeping the poison from the two arrows at bay. She was surrounded from all four sides now. Judging by their strength and the Qi she felt from these intruders, they had to be demonic cultivators. The cult had managed to make its way past their defenses once again – and she was to be its next victim.

Now sure of their victory, none of her foes seemed in a hurry to attack. Lixian Shen felt the poison begin to overwhelm her attempts to drive it back. She had never encountered a poison this potent herself and she couldn’t imagine where a demonic cult could have procured it.

Her vision blurred; she staggered and fell. The swordsman stepped forward, putting his blade to her throat. His face was veiled by his cloak, but she could sense the triumphant glee nonetheless.

He pulled back his sword to prepare to thrust it through her throat and… hesitated. His gaze drifted to the door, as if he’d felt something. Lixian Shen couldn’t follow his gaze anymore, but moments later she felt something through the poisonous haze as well. An approaching presence, willfully announcing itself.

In the next moment, something flew past her field of vision. Something she size and shape of her door. Flashes of light, screams, then darkness and silence, all in the span of seconds. Then a hand on her forehead and warm, soothing Qi.

It was fire Qi, like her own, but unlike her own, her scarred face felt no pain as it flowed through her.