The heretic had a peculiar floral smell to him, like roses and mint and anise. The dagger was less fragrant. Hard to smell a knife when it’s pressed against the underside of your chin. Liren watched the heretic with cold eyes, then carefully scrutinized her surroundings.
“Really? Most people at least threaten, or beg. You really are just going to stand there and let the Hearthief venom corrode his will, reducing him to my plaything?” The Heretic sounded amused, but the knife was pressed hard enough to dimple Tian’s skin.
“Yes.”
“And they say we are cruel. I hope you didn’t have any feelings for her, boy. How terrible that your little crush does nothing but watch as the light slowly leaves your eyes forever!”
“Speaking of, what is it with gu sorcerers and bugs? It’s not like you can’t find orthodox spells to use.”
“Oh, that’s quite simple. Orthodox cultivation requires high concentrations of qi to make any meaningful progress, rare herbs for medicines, rare animal parts, rare metals, everything is hard to come by, expensive and difficult to make for one’s self. On the other hand, I can cultivate my cute little bugs anywhere. In the desert, on the ice, even under water. The whole world becomes my cultivation ground. Even the special medicines I feed them frequently can be made with substitute ingredients. All of which are cheap. Gu sorcerers, like our pretty creations, can thrive anywhere.” The heretic’s voice turned bright, and cheerful.
“Well, I can see you really love them.” Liren nodded, keeping her eyes moving.
“Yes, it’s just one of those things. When you are so low that even insects are a treasure, you really start to appreciate things. Let me tell you, those who have never known hunger can’t appreciate the miracle of food, and those who were born with a spirit root will never appreciate the difficulties and suffering of those of us who did not. How could we not love the cuties who give us a path to power? Incidentally, I’d say your comrade has about six heartbeats left of conscious thought, so if there is anything you want to say to him, I’d say it now.”
Tian could feel the heretic’s grin.
“Thee beats. Two. One. Not even a farewell? A last desperate plea? Perhaps an ‘I swear I will be beside you in the next life as well?’ Tsk. Killjoy. I bet you don’t have any friends.”
“Not a lot of them, anyway. I’m picky like that.” Liren nodded. “Where is Threadcutter?” She kept swiveling her head, staring into the darkness. The edge of the horizon was turning faintly brighter. Dawn wasn’t far off.
“Ah? How should I know? A little fellow like me is fortunate to even meet the Fortress Lord, let alone such a mighty figure as Councilor Threadcutter. Mmm. Who are you looking for, anyway? I’m all on my own out here. Except for my little darlings. I suppose that makes me never really alone.”
“Lovely. And I don’t believe you.” Tian could see her eyes tightening. She hadn’t ever managed to hide her temper. The heretic didn’t miss it either.
“Oh! Seems you were a bit more moved by your little lover’s tragic death than you let on. How precious. Well, I shall return him to you. Go, puppet, and kill her!”
Tian lurched forward, the flying sword under his feet wobbling a little, the long staff in his hand rising.
“Oh no. Not this. This is the worst.” Liren’s voice was monotone. “Reckon I’ll just kill you instead.”
“Hahaha! Do you think that’s-” Tian spun around and smashed the heretic’s brains out. Liren flashed forward, her unique movement art making her look like a brief blaze of racing fire. Her spear stabbed the empty air. There was a muffled curse and a tearing noise, as a concealed heretic was revealed. Tian couldn’t get a better look. The man whose head he just knocked off was forming mudras with his hands as swarms of vile things with too many legs and mandibles and wings that scattered poisonous dust all burst from his robes. Even the stump of his neck wasn’t bleeding. A sap like white fluid bubbled up and sealed the wound.
Tian usually welcomed venomous insects. The parasite the wasp had injected into his neck had turned into a nice little treat for his Hell Suppressing Body. However, it wasn’t that he was immune to poison, he could just convert it into a tonic with time and enough vital energy. The difference mattered. Particularly when there were hundreds of gu swarming at him, and while he couldn’t quite grasp their realm, he really didn’t care to find out their capabilities the hard way.
Necrotic poison that rotted the flesh, neurotoxins that destroyed the nerves, making the heart slow and the lungs stop, hemotoxins, cyanotoxins, bites that spread fever and rotting diseases, all things that he could turn into his strength eventually. He just didn’t want to do it in the middle of a fight. Especially when the Fortress Master was watching. He still hadn’t made a move, even with all this.
Tian didn’t try anything clever. He stowed his staff and pulled out a sachet of Gu powder at the same time. The brown dust flew out, then blew back in his face. The insects had synchronized the beating of their wings, driving away the power.
“I’m a gu master! Did you think I wouldn’t notice you destroyed my parasite? Hahahaha! Now you can die for me!”
“Was this sadist just hoping I would fall into despair? Was all that just a game?!”
The voice was no longer human. It was the vibration of beating wings, the chirping of legs rubbing against thoraxes, the screeching cries of things without lips and tongues of pure horror. The morass of twisted and twisting elements that made up the Gu swarm stretched outward, no longer confined to a single body, still tethered by strands of qi.
Tian’s eyes narrowed, quickly darting between the swirling mass of insects as he tried to keep a little distance. If there was a central brain for the swarm, he wasn’t seeing it. But there had to be something. He stopped his retreat and rushed forward on the sword. He jabbed out with a finger, sending a thin needle of wood qi into a beetle with more spikes and hooks on it than any beetle should have. The qi ripped into it, piercing the shell and tearing apart the squishy innards. Part of the swarm immediately lost cohesion, no longer moving in perfect order with the rest.
He was too focused to feel the changes in his expression. Tian was smiling. The kind of smile that made one wonder who was the real demon in this fight. His hands flashed out again, needles of qi jabbing into any nodes in the twisting elemental morass he could see. He didn’t need to know what they did. He just had to break them. Once he disrupted a half dozen of them, he flung another fistful of gu powder. This time only some of the insects managed to drive off the dust. Many more did not. The highest quality gu powder landed on their shells. The screams were almost instantaneous.
There weren’t any more reversals, no more surprises. A few of the gu tried to fly off on their own, slipping away with some of that knotwork of qi. Tian didn’t spare a single one of them. How the sorcerer had managed it, he didn’t know, but what he had done was pretty obvious. Tian was very thorough. He turned to help Liren, who was battling a heretic that had allowed himself to be possessed by a demon. It had three heads, one human, one crow, one lion, and six arms. Each of the arms carried a different weapon.
Tian felt something in his mind congeal, just for a moment. Even with everything he had seen, the sheer unreality of the demonic heretic overwhelmed him. Bones didn’t work like that. Joints didn’t work like that, the spine needed to support the body, and it certainly wasn’t supporting a body like that! But he could see matted blood on the lion’s fur, smell the stink of carrion on the heretic, the stink of an old bird’s nest and the stink of sulfur. The mirror it held was inscribed with sharp, geometric lines, always turning at ninety degrees and folding around on themselves, creating a maze around the mirror's surface. The heavy knife was a cattle-killing chopper, pulled from a slaughterhouse. The hook was too big for a pig’s carcass, too big for any practical use- it was to catch and display human trophies. A weapon of humiliation and torment.
How were you supposed to kill something like that? Something where a lion’s head roared out cones of sound that ripped the air apart, or a crow’s head spat purple flames, a being capable of parrying and attacking at the same time with absolutely no blind angles? He quickly ran through all the methods of attack, realizing that there were no good ways, merely desperate ones.
He thought too much. Liren had told him that often enough. Now she was demonstrating it. Meet complexity with simplicity, reduce confusion to a single point. Three heads, six arms, strange weapons, whatever. There was only one heart.
Liren had fought a few rounds with the horror, and they were both looking the worse for wear. Her lips were pulled back in a snarl, her robes torn and scorched, showing shimmers of gold underneath. The heretic’s weapons were starting to crack. The mirror was nearly shattered, the defensive treasure no longer able to hang on.
Tian didn’t wait to find out what else the demon might have in store. He raised his staff, and rushed forward. He chose the side of the body with the lion’s head and the mirror treasure. The lion’s face snarled and roared. The sound hit Tian like a physical thing, shaking him, battering him. He could feel the vibrations trying to shake his heart and brain. His body wasn’t so weak. Tian didn’t retreat a single step, swinging the staff out and down. Pouring his qi into it, making it heavy, heavy, heavy. The mirror treasure rose to block him, as a punch dagger and a scourge swept in from either side.
Tian stopped short and transformed the chop into a thrust, stabbing out with a bolt of wood qi. Narrow, dense, and focused exactly on the fracturing parts of the mirror. Tian could feel the heretic trying to stabilize it, using his own yin qi to counteract Tian’s yang. But could the heretic really afford to split his attention? Liren came in with a flurry of thrusts, all stabbing at the heart, or the spot where the neck met the chest. The heretic’s attention wavered. The mirror exploded. And it took a whole arm off with it.
Maybe he should have expected tentacles covered in barbs to come ripping out of the wound, grasping for him, whirling, hungry, hateful. It seemed fitting. But for all their horror, the sight of them made Tian pleased. There was little qi in them. Tian didn’t relent. He pressed forward, this time trapping the tentacles in a wrap around his staff before shifting his angle and smashing into an accupoint on an arm holding the scourge. He had the range advantage, and fully intended to use it. The lion head roared again, this time more in pain than dominance. The human head roared too.
“How long are you going to watch? They will pick you off on your own at this rate!”
“How disappointing. I really thought you might be enough to draw out all their hidden cards. How very disappointing.” The voice was dusty-dry. Tian recognized the Fortress Master’s voice. It was coming from the direction of the tallest tower, lit by spell lights behind its ward. Spell lights that were spiraling outward, forming a formation in the sky.
“Well, I suppose I will just spend a little and tidy you all away in one blow.” The formation grew swiftly, covering miles around. “At least I won’t have to pay you incompetents, which is a savings. And there will be plenty of free slaves to pick up afterwards. Frugality is a virtue, you know.”