Kind Young Master [Progression Fantasy - Cultivation]

After the battle with the frog, hunting and killing a darkstone goat was barely a challenge. They'd found it lording over a cavern, subsisting on glowworms and starmoss, both of which Zhang Sha had been happy to collect after the beast was dead. Had Fushuai been alone though, it would have been terrible trouble. He would have been forced to lure it out of the cave at the least, as the goat had stomped its hooves and caused a section of the roof to drop like a fist.

His companion had an earth root, either that, or earth was his primary among mixed elements, but he hadn't revealed another element so far. The fist of rock had softened to the consistency of mud as it fell. Aside from creating a great mess, the goat's attempts to control the terrain had all been thwarted by the wandering cultivator, allowing Fushuai to do the bloody work with his spear.

Spirit beasts, like cultivators, covered a wide range of power, even within the same stage. Still, if the advancement of beasts and men could be compared, that it had a fully formed core at all meant it was more advanced than Fushuai.

It wasn't just that it had been two against one. Since his moment of insight with the mantis, his capabilities had grown so quickly that he felt like a different person. And there were still three more steps before he would so much as be ready to think about foundation formation.

Four of the five required cores were sealed in Xiao Sheng's scripted box. They had been chasing the fifth for three days. The brightmetal hawk led them so high that they entered the lowermost clouds, climbing into the throat of the sky. The world below had vanished hours ago, along with the world above. His eyes could guide him no more than ten paces ahead, his spiritual sense, only a little farther.

They had passed the tree line long ago. Now they traversed bare rock streaked green and brown with veins of copper. Every surface was slick with fog, every gust of wind a hand seeking to cast them into the abyss.

He'd sighted the hawk a handful of times. Its body was half the size of his, though its wings made it appear huge, stretching a cart length to either side. Its proximity became apparent when the caterwauling of animals reached them from below. It was the tribe of snub-nosed apes they had passed not long before. They cried out in distress, alarm, anger; and one of their voices was rising impossibly fast.

Fushuai jogged along a wrist-wide shelf of stone to reach a spur jutting out from the cliff, Zhang Sha close behind.

A sweep of wind cleared the fog ahead of them, and they saw the hawk land. It held an ape in one steel talon, crushed it against the spur, and silenced it with a single nip from its hooked beak.

There was nowhere for them to hide. The beast either already sensed their presence and didn't care, or it would see them as soon as they approached. Fushuai cycled Moon Step and charged.

It wasn't perfect timing. Dawn was almost upon them, and it would come faster and harsher this high in the mountain. Still, the mist and the cold were well aligned with his root, and the technique activated as eagerly as if they were still under the moon.

His visioned sharpened until the hawk's feathers gleamed like tempered blades, edged with serrations no forge could replicate. Its aura rippled with spiritual pressure, stronger than any beast he had faced before. But for the moment, all of its deadly intent was honed upon its prey, providing a window in which to strike.

Energy filled Fushuai's limbs as he burned a thread of qi, crossing the last of the distance between them almost in flight. Suntooth traced a perfectly straight line toward the back of the beast's neck.

The point of his spear landed as the hawk straightened, scraping sparks across the iron feathers, and the beast opened its beak in a cry, torn metal and thunder rolled into one. The sound made him stagger, then the brightmetal hawk unfolded its wings, and each beat of its ascent sent a ripple of force across the cliffside. It rose in a spiraling rush, light refracting from its feathers, talons glowing with the hue of heated copper.

An arrow plunked off its armored stomach and lost itself in the fog, more useless than the spear had been. They retreated into the regathering mist.

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"It may be too much for us," Fushuai said. It was only a few days lost, and there would be other beasts.

Zhang Sha seized his shoulder and pulled him aside just as a razor feather snicked through the roiling gray and embedded itself in the stone of the spur. Fushuai, believing they were hidden, had allowed his focus to slip. He hadn't sensed so much as a hint of its intent.

"I think that choice is made for us," Sha said.

Fushuai spun just as the hawk swooped in above them. He slipped away from its talons and pricked its leg with Suntooth while his companion sprawled across the stone in a wild dodge. Sha rolled back to his feet as the beast disappeared.

"Come with me," he said, "I know where there is shelter."

It was the first time he had taken the lead, bringing them to the other side of the spur and leaping to an outcrop far below. They avoided a few more flying blades as they made their way to a cut where the cliffside parted into a ravine. To Fushuai's surprise, the cut gave way to a crumbling stair and a crater ringed by stone structures. Ruins.

Columns rose from the fog. The walls beyond still held mosaics, though many were cracked and faded. Ivy clung in damp braids, and some archways had collapsed entirely. There was no opportunity to admire the ancient craftsmanship, the hawk had followed them, and it was sending blades feathers as greetings.

They ducked beneath a sagging lintel and into a long hall just as the hawk itself whooshed by, talons extended.

"Does this lead anywhere?" Fushuai asked, looking to where doors branched off from the hall.

"Only dead ends. The way out of these ruins is the way we came in." Zhang Sha untied a stoppered clay bottle from his belt and held it out. "Do you think you can get close enough to smash this against the beast?"

"What is it?" Fushuai turned it over in his hands, and felt something shift inside.

"A powder that will confuse it," he looked away, "I hope. Whether it works or not, I suggest you hold your breath when you try."

Fushuai was already adjusting his technique, increasing the flow of qi until he was nearly translucent and he knew the exact location of the hawk by the sound of its feathers cutting through the air fifty paces above and away.

Zhang Sha squinted at him, then nodded in approval.

"If you slip out," he said, "I will make a nuisance of myself. If it dives for me, that will be your chance."

As deep in the technique as Fushuai was, he felt like he had entered an alternate world. Yin was strong here despite the impending dawn. A fallen and forgotten place, the inevitable counterpart to whatever it had once been. The hawk would not see him until he was too close for it to matter.

The ruined complex was larger than it seemed, a town more than a temple. Hallways led into open courtyards, some choked with vines or collapsed entirely, others filled with low, grasslike moss. Here and there, he noted signs of more recent habitation, dead campfires and pottery, but he did not stop to examine them.

He made his way back around to where they had escaped the hawk just as a stone column collapsed with a roar. Zhang Sha had weakened its base until it could no longer support itself. The brightmetal hawk answered, its shriek a whipcrack of fury. He could feel the press of its aura against his teeth.

Leaping to the roof of a half-broken shrine, he gripped the clay bottle in one hand and the spear in the other. The hawk came screaming from the clouds, wings an arsenal, eyes fixed upon Sha's position as he fled back toward shelter. Its momentum was deadly.

He ran off the roof into the open air. It couldn't support him, not like the hotspring, but he was light enough to sink instead of fall, as if he were kicking through a pool of water. The hawk banked, and he threw. The clay shattered against its shoulder, exploding in a cloud of glittering dust, and the beast crashed into a stone wall.

He was on it before it could right itself. The hawk flailed as if drunk, eyes clouded, spreading shimmering powder with every chaotic motion. At the last instant, the beast's talons rose, and he twisted mid-drop, driving the spear toward the smaller feathers under its throat. Suntooth pierced it, then jerked in his hand. He heard a snap, and as his slippers alighted again on the stones, the hawk's talons ripped into his belly.

By sheer force of will, he maintained his technique, dashing away and holding the wound closed with one hand. He knew that he had struck true; the hawk's strangled calls were proof enough. It remained behind, raging, half-mad, and in agony.

He stopped in the doorway to what might have once been a home. The Yin was thick here, cloying to the point of being sickening. But he couldn't afford to spare any attention to whatever was wrong deeper in the ruin. His stomach had been ripped open.

He cut off Moon Step in favor of reinforcing his body and slowing the flow of blood. If he stopped cycling now, he would crumple. Turning, he saw Zhang Sha approach the maddened spirit beast, striking it with another bottle before backing away. The powder from this one was different, dark rather than bright. Even from a distance, Fushuai could sense the poison.

The hawk struggled for a while longer. Its life had already ended, as his might. Fushuai moved away from the sense of wrongness, then rested his back against the wall of the building and slid down to the stones.

He looked at his stomach.

He was going to need another tunic.