Kind Young Master [Progression Fantasy - Cultivation]

Fushuai moved a heartbeat too late. The creature slammed into him like a landslide, and his hand against its powerful neck left its jaws snapping shut a fingerwidth from his throat. He fell hard, the wind punched from his lungs, the bones in his arms jarring with the impact.

The beast's breath was hot and rank on his face. He pushed it to one side, scrambling to his feet and attempting to put the stone table between them. The chimera was having none of it, snapping at his hands as he retreated.

He kicked, and the monster yelped. His hand found the skinning knife at his belt, a sliver of sharp iron not intended for combat. Goshung's regime hadn't included knives or daggers yet; they were not one of the four noble answers, but the fundamentals were the same.

The hound saw the blade and circled to block the cave's exit. Its gaze was too clever by far. He breathed in through his nose. Out through his mouth, cycling qi to his limbs and loosening his stance.

Do not die stiff, Goshung had told him once. Sage advice.

The chimera lunged again.

Fushuai sidestepped and felt the scrape of its claws against his hip, the kiss of stone where he brushed against the table. His answering slash was a clean cut across its ribs.

The blade caught. Skipped. Skittered off harmlessly.

Of course it did. These were not the scales of a fish or snake. They were plates, cunningly grown, laid one atop the next as interlocking armor. The knife was not a sacred treasure, not forged in infernal flame or quenched in dragon's blood. It was meant for peeling skin from dead rabbits.

He stepped back, wrist tingling from the recoil, again using the table as a buffer. The beast paced around, head high, its breath a harsh rasp.

Another pass. He struck low, aiming beneath the foreleg. The blade missed the joint, caught a scale edge, and nearly pulled from his grasp. A puncture had appeared on his arm, whether from claw, tooth, or scale, it did not matter.

If a warrior came covered in armor, the answer was to strike at the gaps and joints. For this beast, that meant its eyes or its open mouth. But there was a simpler answer.

He let the blade fall, and the chimera paused as it struck the ground. A flicker of hesitation at an action it did not understand. Fushuai cycled more qi into his fists and feet, and their brief respite was finished.

In Goshung's opinion, the various martial forms, of which there were hundreds, were a distraction. In truth, only two styles existed: soft and hard. The Asura's preference was the direct method, power against power. A suitable attitude for someone who had more power in his arm than was found in most nations.

When the creature came again, he didn't meet it strength against strength. He turned, caught its momentum, and redirected it with a shoulder, a twist of the hips. It crashed against the table, sending the lantern tumbling.

Fingers curled, he drove the hardened ridge of his palm into the seam at the base of its skull. Once, twice. He could crack a riverstone easily enough, knock down a tree with enough effort and determination. This was much the same.

The beast yelped, twisted, and Fushuai was once again on the defensive, keeping clear of its fangs, then slipping behind it and throwing himself against its hindquarters. It was a mad scramble of a moment that ended with him on top of the chimera, his knee pressed against the side of its throat.

Its legs kicked, and he felt its claws tear through his trousers and leave furrows in his shin. He adjusted, working himself onto the scaly hound's back and pulling it back down as it tried to rise. He locked his arm around its throat, his legs around its belly, and tightened with all of his strength.

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It bucked, struggled, and snapped, but its weapons could no longer reach him. Its breath came in a strangled hiss, and then not at all. He held it for what seemed like minutes even after it had stopped moving.

A shadow fell over him.

"So," Goshung said. "You have killed again."

"Beasts are not men." Fushuai extricated himself from the finished grapple and stood to examine his injuries. The puncture on his arm, the slashes on his leg, and the rest were only bruises. With an effort of will, he caused the blood to stop flowing from the lacerations.

The Asura's grin was feral. For whatever reason, he had taken his human guise again. "Aren't they?"

Not interested in beginning a philosophical debate. Fushuai went about tidying the mess they had made, replacing the now cracked lantern on the table and stacking the books that had at some point been kicked into disarray.

The devil lost his grin. "What are you doing?"

"I have invaded the home of a fellow cultivator. Unorthodox or not, his dwelling is still deserving of respect."

"You aren't going to loot it?" There was a note of confusion in his question that bordered on genuine concern.

It wouldn't have been right. Theft was theft. He had already trespassed; that was no reason to compound the violation. The rogue had not harmed him directly. Endangered him, certainly, by allowing the other chimera to roam free, but that offense was more than repaid now. If there had been true treasures here, perhaps his scruples would have proved less than ironclad. Looking around the laboratory den, he saw little that he would have wanted.

"His path is not mine," Fushuai said. "There is nothing for me here."

Goshung nodded, though it was clear he was not entirely convinced. "You killed the beast. Its seed is yours."

Fushuai didn't argue further. He needed the seed, and taking it would not make the rogue any more his enemy than he was already. Prying it free of the chimera's armored carcass was another matter, but diligence eventually prevailed.

***

High above the cave, nestled among a crooked crown of pines, the rogue cultivator, once known as the Hollow Anatomist, watched as the pair emerged.

The youth came first, bloodied but upright. He moved with the stiffness of recent battle, pain enough to provide a lesson without crippling. Behind him walked a taller figure, dark of skin and wearing nothing at all, moving as comfortably as if they had taken a stroll through a garden rather than trespassed upon the sanctum of another cultivator.

He narrowed his eyes.

The boy was unremarkable, with no advancement to speak of if he was the age he appeared. Were it only him, his death would have followed in a breath.

The other was something else entirely.

Even now, the taller man veiled his aura with such casual elegance that it may as well not have existed. Not a breath. Not a whisper. Only a faint wrongness that made the trees lean away and the shadows bend strangely at his passing.

A demonic cultivator. There could be no other explanation for his appearance. The man had horns, for heaven's sake.

And yet they walked together, teacher and pupil. The thought unsettled him.

What could a monster such as that want with a youth so green?

His gaze dropped to the cliff, to the still-hidden entrance of his lair. Another chimera lost. Slain by a fool who could never understand the purpose of his work.

Perhaps it was time to leave the Lonely Mountain. There were other peaks. Other beasts. Less attention. With his thoughts drifting, he almost didn't see the shift.

The demonic cultivator stopped. Tilted his head. Looked up. The faintest hint of amusement in that gaze, as if he had been aware all along, and seen no reason to act on it.

The Hollow Anatomist went still, not daring to breathe, and waited. The moment passed as quickly as it had arrived. The devil gave no other sign, turning to once more follow the youth into the cover of the forest.

So. He had been seen. Marked, perhaps. But spared. It was as much mercy as permission. He sank back against a pine trunk, the roughness of the bark reminding him he was alive. Perhaps the teacher meant to use him as a lesson for his student, or he was simply committed to the precepts of the old jianghu to the extent that he would not raise a hand against someone so far beneath him.

Of course, there was always a chance that he had been hallucinating and the boy was actually alone. But he was almost certain that he wasn't. The ghosts that haunted him were yammering in the back of his skull, as they always did, and the flickers at the edges of his vision were as ephemeral as the spirits from which they had been born.

Regardless of the devil's motivations, it meant this place was still safe for him. Temporarily, at least.

He would stay.

The upper slopes of the Lonely Mountain were rich in life and raw material. In herbs and rare minerals, and all manner of qi. They were also rich in dreams. In legends, tales, and memories. In forgotten tokens of faith and spirits that had once aspired to ascend to the Golden Road, only to lose themselves amid the heights.

For a cultivator who had been cast out of his sect for walking the Path of Dreaming Hunger, even a single dream was a thing worth killing for.