Grunting, I let the bottom of my opponent’s staff sweep up and crack against the side of my thigh. The angle is too awkward to roll with, so I push through the bruising force to shoot my hand out and grab the staff.

  A single hand isn’t able to keep a grip on it as it’s wielder steps back and whips it out of my grip but I’m not worried. As he spins his staff around and down on my head, I meet it with my palm.

  Wave-Breaking Palm

  The force against my hand is as light as a feather, easily shifting it away from my head and off to the side and with but a slight change in direction, my palm juts out to meet his stomach with just enough force.

  Adamantine Crash

  “Ooof!” My opponent drops his staff as he loses his breath and grips his stomach, stumbling back to a knee as in a coughing fit.

  Letting loose a breath, I grab his staff and patiently wait as he catches his breath and unsteadily stands to his feet and offer his weapon back.

  “You had good form, but you were overconfident with your last strike after seeing an opening. You need to be ready for a counterattack at any moment, especially with a chance for a technique that could surprise you,” I say, thankfully the disciple taking my advice graciously.

  We both walk out the sparring ring, my opponent wandering off as I take a seat on a bench and watch a nearby spar between two swordsmen.

  “Die you dishonourable cur!” “You are but a toad lusting for swan meat!”

  Never mind, it’s a feud between two ‘young masters’, and I can tell what exactly it’s over given there’s a group of women sitting off to the side surrounding another among them, the central one giggling and smiling as the two boys fight over her.

  I slightly regret breaking my promise and coming back to the sparring grounds, Xue Xu was right, there’s vultures everywhere.

  It’s entertaining and breaks the monotony of my days so there’s that.

  I watch on as the two show-off with flamboyant strikes and slashes that don’t nearly look as practical as they try to make it seem, though it does gather some commendation from other onlookers, so what do I know.

  With all my friends off doing their own things, most of my days the past month have mainly been filled with training, sparring and a few missions.

  The latter of which have been hunting beasts below my stage for ingredients. Most missions are taken as soon as their posted nowadays by disciples looking for work, in light of the increased number of ‘rogue’ cultivators within and around the sect’s territory. This led to the sect confining outer disciples to an area within a day’s travel of the valley.

  My earnings fell as even with me gaining more fresh spiritual beast meat for consumption and to sell, it still takes a while to do said hunts. Even with the meat though, I haven’t done anything similar to my last intense session, I haven’t conditioned my body yet to consider pushing for the next stage so here I am, trying to fill my day with some sparring.

  I duck down as one of the pair goes flying over my head.

  Also get some entertainment.

  I idly watch as the ‘heroic’ winner basks in the attention the woman gives him, the same one that probably would have done the same to the other disciple had he won instead.

  I feel a sudden breeze at my back and my head snaps around to see a figure blur to a stop a meter away from me, revealing the face of a disciple I faintly recognize.

  “Come with me, Elder Lieshen wishes to meet you,” the girl says with some boredom as her robes flutter.

  Eyes narrowed in thought, I give a nod and get up to follow her, ignoring the murmuring audience around us that turned their attention away from the pair after seeing the disciple appear.

  I follow her to the dojo at the end of the large courtyard where none approach less they offend the elder within.

  She slides open the wooden door without knocking, and with a bit of hesitation, follow her inside. Inside is but a single, wide-open room with weapons and paintings lining the walls with four people inside sitting.

  Following behind the disciple, she gives a light bow to Elder Lieshen who sits behind a small table in the center of the room with his eyes closed and a steaming teacup placed in front of him, and I do the same behind her, bowing deeper in respect.

  “Thank you Lingxi, you may leave us,” he says with a nod and the girl silently raises and turns to leave.

  The door slide shuts behind me as I stay standing, a moment before he waves his hand in front of him where three other outer disciples sit with teacups in front of them, “Take a seat.”

  Bowing again, I do my best to remember the lessons my higher standing friends pounded into me and gracefully sit at the end of the line of seated disciples where a teacup waits for me.

  The silence is broken by the elder raising the cup to his lips and taking a sip, prompting the other two to reach for their own cups, the other and I a fraction behind them.

  “The sect has a mission for you,” the elder starts off as he opens his eyes and meets our gazes. “You were chosen as you are the most combat able amongst the outer disciples. Also, the ones that will not be missed.”

  The air shifts at his last words and I tense as the others shift nervously.

  “At least one of you will not return, your deeds hidden to the greater sect, a footnote in a hunting mission turned fatal.”

  I notice out the corner of my eye the disciple seated beside me grip his robes tightly.

  “The reward will of course be well worth it, a High Mortal Impurity Cleansing Pill.”

  My eyes widen as what he says passes through me. Those pills are expensive, even at the mortal level, a single pill is equal to the cost of getting multiple Mortal level techniques from the Inner Library.

  There are impurities everywhere, in the water we drink, the food we eat and even the air we breathe. Hell, we have impurities even before we are born!

  Some of those impurities, not all, can even block one’s cultivation, the most damning of all coming from pills. They are great, helping to advance one’s cultivation exponentially if one is smart about it.

  Most cultivators aren’t.

  Even I likely have a considerable amount in my body, enough that it’s damning my strength and future. At higher levels it’s important to keep impurities at a minimum as qi pathways can get clogged, slowing cultivation.

  Using this pill at my stage however is perfect. It can refine anything and everything, the impurities from my time on the street with subpar food and drink, cleaning my blood, marrow, lungs and more from the pills I’ve consumed.

  I want; no. I need it.

  The elder sets his teacup down, “This is the only chance you have to deny this opportunity, if you stay then you will complete this mission and never speak of it to anyone lesser than an elder of the sect. If you do, you shall face the wrath of the sect.”

  I’m set in what I have to do, but the disciple beside me sets his cup down and bows low to the elder.

  “I wish to not take part in this mission Elder Lieshen,” he says with a nervous tilt.

  The elder just nods his head and waves him off, the man standing and giving another bow before leaving where I came. The three of us that remain don’t move.

  “Very well, you three have made your choice,” he says with finality. “The Empire is preparing for war,” he bluntly says.

  That gets my heart skipping a beat.

  The last war was back when I was an infant, presumably the reason I landed in the orphanage. The elderly don’t have much to do, a lot ending up drunk in taverns and let loose about the ‘glory days’ when they were fighting in the war.

  Cities burned, villages slaughtered, entire regions desolated with remains of soldiers and cultivators stretching across the Empire.

  When the Empire goes to war, it is not small.

  “Raiding parties have already been found, one even in our territory,” the elder glances at me as he notices the flash of anger that I barely contain. “Skirmishes will occur, war following soon after, be it either within the year or in a decade, but it will come.”

  He takes a moment to let us digest that. I knew that it wouldn’t stop at just skirmishes, but what does he expect us to do-

  No. The sect wouldn’t send us as a raiding party. We’re too weak for it.

  “The sect in turn is preparing as well; the restrictions placed on disciples have been loosening over the month. Resources need to be planted, or found and harvested for the sect’s Halls. That is where a problem occurred and you are the solution.”

  “Disciples harvesting meadow of common herbs near the edge of our territory, four days travel from the sect encountered a small group harvesting on our land, fleeing before confrontation could occur.”

  We wait but he doesn’t give any more information afterwards, and a quick look towards the other two show they don’t feel very confident of speaking up.

  “May I ask Elder Lieshen,” his eyes turn to me, “is there any more information about these intruders?”

  He hums for a moment in thought, “Before that, you must know the context, you are not to repeat this information to anyone outside the inner sect, but it is common knowledge there. The Azure Tempest Sect is only one of a dozen sects under the dynasty, the nearest to us being the Heavenly Flowing Petal Sect and our main competitors. In politics,” he says with disgust.

  “Politics elder?”

  “Yes politics. Although close, we have several cities separating the two of us, governed by nobles and clans that assign missions that we take for rewards or favours, favours being what the sects value as it can gain preferential policies and treatment from the Imperial court. So with the distance, the sect, or more so the sect leader, has been competing for influence against the Heavenly Flowing Petal Sect since he founded it 236 years ago.”

  “As such,” he continues, “it is likely the intruders are from the flowers, trying to sabotage our efforts, albeit in a minor way. You four are being sent as outer disciples are far easier to deny and be posed as rogue cultivators than any inner disciple. You are to make it a humiliating mistake for them.”

  “How so?” I ask curiously.

  “Slaughter them.”

  ---

  It makes sense why we would need to kill them to a man; no farmer would want another taking their crops much less a sect which would rather kill them.

  The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  But the fact that we’ve been camping out for a week is horrible!

  Thankfully the other two are experienced camping out like this so I haven’t had to deal with any complaints. The only sore point being getting them to agree to ambushing whoever’s sent across into our territory rather than facing them head-on.

  That took a bit, the two uncomfortable though thankfully not too far into the idea of ‘honour’ inflating their ego that I was able to convince them to wait over the week at a decently sized meadow. Said meadow having multiple herbs popping up due to the slightly above average qi density, at least that’s what the sect’s reports said.

  It’s also one of three locations the intruders can come to without going too far into enemy territory, so a bit of camouflage and silently watching on top of trees leaves us here a week later.

  It’s my turn on watch as dusk rapidly approaches, my teammates are resting below in a small alcove dug into the ground. All three of us left behind our sect robes outside a small village a days walk from here, leaving us wearing bland green and brown robes that helps us blends us into the wilderness and let’s us pose as rogue cultivators.

  I’ve gotten more used to using Stone-Veil Immobility over the week that it’s more of an unconscious action rather than something I have to focus on. Plus, side is that I can blank out to pass the boredom!

  My eyes focus on the treeline to my right, the soft sound of rustling leaves reaching my ears. The sun’s down far enough that the forest is near pitch black, the clearing only lightly touched by the orange light of the setting sun so I can’t make anything out as the sound comes to a stop.

  I break my technique, heart picking up speed as blood rushes down my limbs as a figure emerges from the darkness- no, there’s more.

  Slowly reaching down to my waist as three other figures emerge from the darkness, each with weapons sheathed as they creep into the clearing, I grab the acorn on the top of my pouch and with a bare movement of my hand toss it down to my resting partners.

  The intruders don’t notice as it softly lands below me, neither the faint rustling covered by the wind as I hear the one awake shake the one sleeping.

  Any doubts of these being the ones stealing from our sect dissipates as three of the four immediately home in on the various herbs to start picking whilst the fourth, a swordsman, keeps watch for them.

  I stay up on the tree as I hear my partners slip away, towards where the thieves came.

  No doubt there’s someone hanging back and watching from the treeline, hopefully they can take care of them without fuss, if not that’s where I come in.

  I slightly shift in place, legs tensed and braced for what’s to come and wait patiently, watching as the four pick the area clean over the course of a few minutes.

  “GAH! AMBUSH!”

  Metal clashes and a figure comes flying out from the treeline holding their arm as they run and the four in the clearing spring up and bear their weapons as they turn to face the commotion.

  As soon as the last turns away, I sharply breath out and push.

  Crack

  The branch beneath my feet shatters as I fly in a straight line, crossing over a dozen meters in an instant towards the swordsman who can only react in time to turn their head before my fist meets their face.

  Adamantine Crash!

  BOOM

  Their head pops like a grape, bone and flesh exploding in a wave of force.

  The remains of the person’s head splatter across one unlucky thief, and she screams in terror and disgust as she gets covered in gore.

  My muscles loosen and I pull my arm back as the body crumples lifelessly to the ground as my partners dash out from the foliage.

  Surrounding the four in a triangle, I observe the remaining thieves. The woman trying to shake off the gore covering her has a dangerous looking whip in hand, metal gleaming along it and looking like serrated blades. The injured one that my partners missed has knives sheathed all across his body, though luckily it looks like he won’t be using his injured arm anytime soon. The last two have more common weapons, a sword and a hammer.

  I meet my teammates eyes, Liu with a sword on my left and An with her two bladed fans on my right. The plan I try to convey gets broken as the hammer wielder rushes towards An with a roar and a swing of his heavy hammer that she has to frantically retreat from as it displaces air with a roar in its wake and the battle is on.

  “You dishonourable curs! I shall dice you into a thousand pieces and make you wish for death!” The remaining sword wielder declares as he rushes towards me, and I dash to meet him.

  “DIE!” He screams as he uses one hand to diagonally slice towards me, a victorious glint in his eyes as he sees my palm raise up to meet his blade.

  I briefly enjoy the look of shock on his face as I effortlessly divert it around me to the side, leaving his arm wide open.

  Crack

  “AAGGGHH!” The man screams as I sickeningly bend his arm the wrong way, shattered, and leaving his sword to limply fall from his hands.

  He staggers back, cradling his arm as he cries in pain and doesn’t notice as I scoop up his fallen sword.

  “YOU-!”

  Schlick

  His rageful scream cuts off, looking down at his chest incredulously and sees his own sword pierced through his heart.

  I push him away, leaving the sword in his chest that he feebly paws at in his final moments and turn my gaze towards-

  “GAAH!”

  My eyes snap towards Liu and I see him kneeling, knives sticking out across his body as he holds his arm with a whimper, fleshed flayed from bone as he gazes at the opponents closing in on him. His eyes frantically glance around and meets mine.

  “ZHA-!”

  I dart my eyes away as a knife impales his eye and charge towards the hammer wielder that An has feebly been trying to run from. She keeps an arm by her side as she retreats, injured, maybe broken, and keeps the man on wary by swinging her fan around whenever he tries to swing at her with any sort of buildup.

  “JUST DIE!” The man screams as he attacks her with a renewed fury that An barely handles.

  Luckily it distracts him from hearing me running at him from behind, spear now in my hands.

  Unfortunately it seems he’s a higher stage as he somehow hears me at the last second and tries slipping past my blow, but he’s not fast enough to completely escape.

  “Guh!” He grunts in pain as my tip just pierces through his armour, digging a few inches into his lower back.

  My opponent immediately spins in place, hammer stuck out, and I let my spear slip from my grasp to raise my arms.

  A clang of metal striking metal rings out and I grunt at the bone-breaking force hits my forearms, but that’s all it does as I let my feet give out from under me and follow the force. My top goes flying to the side as my feet rise into the air and even though frantic, I keep it in control as I cartwheel in place and slam my feet down, feeling the sheer force race across my body.

  A flash of gleaming metal however makes me shift the force to my legs as my opponent’s head goes flying, cleanly decapitated from his neck, revealing An standing behind him, not a drop of blood on her fan.

  I can only check from the corner of my eye and my spatial awareness to roughly guess where the last of the thieves are before I have to use the force coursing through my body.

  BOOM

  Leaping sideways is an odd angle, making me cover far less distance than my first leap from the tree despite having more strength to use but it’s enough to rapidly cover half the distance to the pair trying to retreat into the forest.

  Their curses reach my ears even as I stumble a bit but recover to slam my feet down and charge at them like a bull.

  They don’t have the explosive strength like I do, so it’s just as they reach the treeline that I get close enough to take a swing at the knife user.

  Crack

  My eyes narrow as he ducks down by a hair’s breadth, leaving my fist to go through the trunk of a tree.

  I yank my arm out with a grunt and face the panting knife wielder who skids to a stop, one such knife in his remaining useable hand, the whip user also coming to a stop and standing to the side with her weapon unfurled.

  I hear An dashing towards us but the knife user takes the initiative to send a blade flying at me that I twist away from but it’s just a distraction as a whip comes flying at me, wrapping around my greave with just a bit going high and digging into my thigh that she pulls.

  I can’t contain my scream of pain as it tears a chunk of flesh right out and blood pulses out the wound as I drop to my knee.

  A knife scraps across my breastplate, throwing sparks in my face before it slides across the metal and digs the flesh of my shoulder.

  Out the corner of my eye, I see a glint of metal racing towards me, right before An intercepts the whip heading towards me with a fan, knocking it off course and giving me a chance to breath.

  The knife wielder slams into me, tackling me to the ground and I grunt in pain as he pulls his blade out my shoulder.

  “DIE!” He thrusts back down towards me, aiming for my face.

  My gauntlet catches it by the blade.

  He tries pushing his weight down onto the dagger with both hands, inching it slowly towards my face and I feel it scrape against my chainmail clad palms, digging into the metal as it inches down.

  “Give! Up!” He grits as he keeps pushing onto me, my hand shaking to keep him away.

  Metal creaks as I clench my free hand and throw a hook right below his ribcage.

  I feel something give under my fist, and it takes a second for his body to catchup to the blow, but as soon as it does, the man’s eyes bulge and he lets his dagger clatter to the ground, soon going down with it as he clutches his side.

  Getting to my feet, wincing at the pain in my thigh, I hover over the man as he throws up between sobs

  Tie Feng knows his stuff, though the fact that I likely popped his liver is a bit disturbing.

  Pulling the sword at my waist in a rear grip, I plunge it down to put the man out of his misery.

  Flicking it to the side to throw the blood off, I sheathe the sword, a short sword in my hands, and look over to see An leaning against a tree gasping for breath while holding her arm, the woman with the whip no where in sight.

  “Where’s the last one?” I ask as I jog close to her as I wipe my sweat away and try to catch my breath.

  She winces as she turns to point with her chin to the side, deeper into the now completely dark forest, “She ran there, I can’t keep up with her, not with this damned arm.”

  “Don’t worry,” I say with a nod, “I’ll get her.”

  Pushing off the ground, I take off in a sprint, not bothering to keep my passage quiet as I barrel through branches and over the dirt.

  My thigh is going to give me hell after this, but I have to kill the woman before I run out of energy.

  My breaths get faster and faster as I run through the forest, noticing nothing but the wilderness for a few minutes as I start to slow down.

  It’s only luck that a thin beam of moonlight piercing through the leaves reflected the bladed whip heading straight towards me.

  I drop to the ground and go rolling as the whip cracks above me and retreats into the darkness.

  Huffing, I groan and push myself up to my feet and see the woman hiding behind a tree I rolled past.

  She turns to run but I can’t let her and try dashing to her but my foot on my bad leg kicks a stone and that’s enough to drop me back to the ground.

  Planting a hand down, my brow tightens as the ground swims in my vision, forcing back the bile threatening to come up my throat.

  I hear the woman abort her retreat, stopping a few meters from me.

  “Hoh? It seems the bastard was actually able to do something useful before you killed him. That’s a first.”

  I huff a breath as I plant a foot down, needing a moment before I can push myself unsteadily to my feet but I still sway in place and need to catch myself on a tree.

  “Wha- what’s ‘appening to m’.”

  I see two figures of the woman circle around me, and I try to follow both with my eyes but need to shut them as I feel my legs try to give out beneath me.

  “Oh~ just a little bit of nectar from a beautiful flower back home, I’m sure you’ll love the dreams it’ll give you the few seconds before you pass on.”

  Flowers? Poison. Elder Lieshen said their sect doesn’t have flowers in their name for nothing, he also gave us something just in case.

  She clicks her tongue as I fumble at my waist and pull out a pill bottle from my pouch, “Now, now, no need to do that when you can show me how beautiful you’ll look as you bleed from your orifices.”

  I blearily see all four figures raise an arm and send her whip at my arm, “Scream for me~”

  SCREEECH

  I can’t contain the bile and vomit, the sound of scraping metal piercing my brain as the whip wraps around the gauntlet holding the bottle which drops from my hands.

  “Good boy~”

  My hand grabs the bladed whip, feeling the blades digging into the chainmail on my palm and slowly cutting through it from my grip, and I pull.

  “WhaAAAH- OOF!” She screams as I use the bit of strength I still have to yank her towards me, her frame far too light to resist even half my strength and we go tumbling back in a heap as she crashes into me.

  I groan as my nausea gets worse and I feel the woman gasping in pain under me after hitting my metal armour face first.

  “Mah fwace! Wha’ you ‘o to my fwace!” She gets out nasally, nose crooked and bleeding freely.

  I slam a palm over her face to shut up her screeching and grind her head down in the ground as I push myself up to mount myself atop her.

  She frantically starts kicking her legs, her knees hitting my back and I actually feel those unbalance me before she grabs the hand over her face with both hands and slowly starts pushing it off. Shifting my hand, she lets go and my palm slams into the ground beside her head and I go falling to my side as I lose the fight against my balance.

  Groaning in discomfort and annoyance as my vision starts to narrow. I shut my eyes and grab one of her arms with both hands. I hear her yelling as she pounds and scratches at me with her other arm, but I ignore her as I spin my body on the ground, lodging her arm between my legs and against my torso and arch.

  CRACK

  Her scream hits a pitch higher than the ringing in my ears, but I don’t let go of the limp arm in my hands and just loosen my legs to pull her up by her broken arm.

  She fights through the pain however and still hits me with her fist as she gets dragged up, one landing on my injured shoulder that makes stars appear behind my eyes and makes me let go of her arm. She rolls off me as she cradles her broken arm, sobbing as she does, but I grit my teeth and roll after her and wrap an arm around her neck.

  I force my weight down as she struggles under me and her hand comes up to feebly pull my arm off but I get my other arm up to grab my bicep and lock my hand around the back of her head.

  Her efforts turn up a notch as she chokes from my grip and starts pulling harder before she suddenly gets a lot of strength, enough to roll us around so she’s on top, but I force my arm to stay wrapped around her neck.

  I try wrapping my legs to hook my ankles between her thighs to anchor myself, but her flailing legs just kick mine off and I panic as I feel myself lose strength, arm slowly budging around her neck before she suddenly loses strength. In the brief haze, she gives one last effort to pull my arm, but it’s not enough and she goes completely limp, unconscious.

  I toss her off me, I can’t bring enough strength to snap her neck, and I just take a second and breath.

  Before promptly vomiting to the side.

  Body shaking way too much, I push myself to my knees and fumble for the sword at my waist, yanking it out and falling back to the ground.

  I hear a small groan come from the woman and leap towards her and plunge my sword into her side.

  I pull it out and aim higher, slinking it into her chest.

  I pull it out and thrust it a final time back in and stop.

  She shudders once before going still.

  I let go of Lan- my sword, dropping to all fours as I rapidly try to fill my lungs.

  Blood drips down from my nose, slowly painting the grass red.

  My eyes land on the white ceramic pill bottle sitting a few meters away, right where I dropped it.

  Putting my hands under me, I crawl towards it, taking inches at a time as I feel my body slowly shutting down.

  My legs give out first, dropping me onto my belly.

  Bloody gauntlets dig into the grass and pull me forward.

  My arms give out as I get within arms reach of the bottle. I can’t see anything around me anymore.

  I relish the cool grass pressing against my face. I didn’t know I was feeling so hot.

  The last I see through my blurry vision is a dark silhouette running towards me before it’s taken from me.