Kind Young Master [Progression Fantasy - Cultivation]

Fushuai chose the hill outside Sand Orchard to be the site of their contest. Even without weapons, it was too easy to spread damage and destruction. They were lucky no mortals had lost their lives that afternoon.

Hou Fen had approached to speak to him about the event and its aftermath, seeking reassurance that they were not about to bear witness to a deadlier contest. Several people were injured. The clash of auras had been enough to leave a number of the villagers bedridden, either ill with qi imbalances or outright knocked unconscious by the bare edge of the spiritual force that had been on display. He'd visited a few of them, and it seemed they would recover, but he hadn't been able to offer help. Zhang Sha likely could have produced a tonic for those with imbalances, but he hadn't moved an inch in hours.

He was meditating. Hopefully, he would find peace within himself to salve his frustration. His aura was more stable than it had been just after the fight, and Fushuai was loath to disturb him.

"If I prove myself to you, then I have your word that we are free to be on our way?"

Only two cultivators stood atop the hill. Lin, Mei Li, and the fox were standing vigil on a roof at the edge of the village, the sole witnesses.

The Steel Ribbon disciple had completely recovered from what little damage he'd sustained. Even his robes were mended where they had been punctured by needles. His expression was that of a displeased elder.

"Did I not say as much? Don't test my patience."

"Of course." Fushuai inclined his head a fraction. "I am the one being tested."

After a moment of flared nostrils and narrowed eyes, Duan Dai seemed to decide it wasn't worth debating whether that statement had been meant as a slight.

"I set the same limits for you as for your Sect Brother. First to yield or to my satisfaction."

"Are you prepared?" Fushuai asked lightly, raising his fists in a martial salute, already cycling. For him to be the one to ask implied he was the senior between them. A minor note, and one he knew his opponent would not miss. Stirring his ire presented a risk, but a disgruntled opponent was one who made mistakes.

"It is you who should have prepared!" Duan Dai launched himself forward much as he had that afternoon, azure light gathering around his feet and fists, limned also by the fading radiance of a falling sun. His aura lacked polarity, well-balanced. The same would be true of his techniques.

Moonstep swept through Fushuai, and he danced to one side. It was clear from the previous performance that he would not fare well attempting to meet the attack strength for strength. The blue-rimmed fist slammed into the ground like a boulder dropping from a mountaintop. Soil and sand erupted in a curtain, and Fushuai responded with a spinning kick. Duan Dai absorbed the blow on his back, rolling forward and coming up in a crouch.

His killing intent sliced forward, only to meet no resistance. A sword striking mist. They moved over and around the hilltop, exchanging feints and strikes. A metal style. Harsh, decisive, deadly. Fushuai managed to stay one heartbeat ahead, dodging, flying, dancing, knowing that a solid blow from his opponent would end as badly for him as it had for Zhang Sha.

"Are you a cultivator or a hummingbird?" Duan Dai demanded, sending up a wave of dirt as his heel plowed into the hill with another miss. "That kick was a brush of silk." His arms spun, and the silver on his sleeves tightened. There were steel bands woven into his robes. He was spending more energy quickly, but he had more to begin with.

Still, the distance between them was not as vast as it could have been. Two pillars, Fushuai guessed. That put him a half-step behind. He sensed the metal aspect of the other man's aura, lacking the flavor of a singular root. It was merely a specialization.

"What will satisfy you? Surely, you do not expect this junior to defeat you."

"I am already satisfied." The expression that accompanied this statement was the first genuine smile he had shown. "I thought there might be something special in you, some reason to be wary. Not without skill, yet still more mouse than lion. Did the accursed one put you aside when he found you couldn't meet his expectations?"

Fushuai stilled. The dust was settling around them, and for the moment, the attacks had ceased.

"I don't understand what you mean." Denial was futile. Its purpose was to buy him another moment unassailed. As the words left his lips, he spent a thread of Yin to activate Hunger's Lure, preparing to call upon his newest technique next.

"Spare me your cowardly deception. The Gilded Spear said that Gao Fushuai was last seen in the company of his two sisters, a wandering cultivator, and a pure body fox." His chin jerked toward the three watching from a rooftop. "Your pet has grown, and I've already dealt with the wanderer. The heavens blessed me when I came here. A few stories from the mortals were no proof, but seeing you all together, I was sure. Killing you will earn me a superb reward."

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Fushuai let out a breath. It was an answer, at least. With no more need for guesswork, no more room for hope. They had been allowed a period of grace when his existence was not widely known. Now that period had elapsed. Unable to touch Xiao Sheng, the agents of the empire had widened their search to learn of his disciple, and the Ash Eater sect had given them all the information they needed. Duan Dai had told them as much, concealing the whole truth behind the smoke of a burning mountain.

"Was Ashen City even destroyed, or were you calling a stag a horse?"

"It is no more." His dao snicked free of its sheath. The broad, curved blade was large even for its kind. "It was the famous Sun Tianlei who learned of their failure and made an example of them. Now everyone knows the consequence of having you in hand and letting you slip away."

An entire city, the place where he had been born, had been erased to make a point. Though the name was unknown to him, he would remember it. The tip of the dao pointed at his eye.

"I will not let you slip—"

Fushuai opened his mouth, and a torrent of black flame poured forth. In the same instant, a rattan shield appeared in the air between them; its face painted with a roaring tiger. Its defensive inscriptions unraveled, and the wicker and hide of its frame were incinerated. The devouring flames continued onward, expanding rather than being spent. Duan Dai used the split second's delay to dash out of its path.

He let the technique die, a twitch of intent bringing the monk's spade out of his storage ring and into his hands. His arms shook from the impact as he deflected the other cultivator's oversized blade. Whirling, he attempted to hook his ankle with the crescent end of his weapon, and had to abandon the move to avoid being split in half. Hunger's Lure provided little benefit. Yang wasn't hampering him, though the buffer it created did allow his energy to cycle more smoothly. His opponent was not one to rely on raw qi techniques, so the Lure had little to catch.

Steel scraped, and dust bloomed into clouds. Fushuai's feet were barely touching the ground.

The blackflame was as costly as it was effective. He hesitated to use it again until it was certain to be worth the price. As they circled, seeking weakness, he was put completely on the defensive. Beyond his opponent, he saw his sisters leap from the rooftop, headed in the opposite direction. Fleeing? He hoped so. If he died here, there would be no reason for anyone to pursue them.

Bai Tu did not flee.

Fushuai wanted to shout for the beast to turn back, to stay with his sisters and protect them in the days to come. He did not have the breath to spare. His spade nearly sundered in another clash, and then the fox was on the hill, a blur of fur and fang. Duan Dai didn't so much as look in his direction, slipping aside from the headlong lunge and swiping his dao back in a reversed grip. Its tip sliced hide, tracing a wound from Bai Tu's forward shoulder to his back hip. The fox yelped, slid along the churned earth, and rolled down the side of the hill.

Another friend who should not have been allowed to follow. Fushuai reached within himself for that icy certainty he had felt when Zhang Sha had been about to die. Instead, all he found was doubt. It was his decisions that had brought them to this point. His overconfidence and willingness to gamble. He should have sent both his sisters away in the beginning. He should have rejected Bai Tu's companionship, by force, if necessary. He should never have come back here.

He was not an immortal hero. Not even the disciple of one, anymore. The heavens had given him enough chances already.

Another stroke nearly ripped the spade from his grasp, and he leaped backward, sensing the growing strain in his weapon. Soon, it would break.

He spent another thread of Yin, preparing to give all that he had left in a final burst of flame. Duan Dai pursued him. He would have closed the gap before he completed the technique had the claw of a bloodiron crab not exploded from the ground between them. With a snarl, he redirected his attack and severed the claw off at its first joint. The limb fell, only to be joined by another beast appearing in a swirl of sand, diving from above.

A stag's body, a crane's wings, and a serpent's neck.

"Demons!" Duan Dai shouted, warding away snapping fangs with a spin of his blade. "How many pets do you have?" Fushuai recognized the monster. It was the chimera he had seen depicted in a diagram on the wall of Zhang Sha's lair. Its presence was an impossibility he did not have time to question. Energy surged from his center at the completion of his technique, rising through his throat like a winter frost, then pouring from his mouth in a cone of onyx flame.

A raised dao met the blast, supported by a will as hardened as the steel from which it had been forged. Duan Dao split the dark wave, unyielding even as it licked his hands and gnawed his robes. Fushuai followed his technique, knocking the dao aside with his spade, flipping the weapon to catch the other cultivator's throat in the crescent at its base.

He pinned Duan Dai to the hilltop by his neck and drove his foot down onto the hand that held a dao. His eyes bulged out of his head, and he sputtered a curse. The crab claw had vanished, and in place of the chimera, Zhang Sha stood with his knife in hand. Something had changed in his eyes.

"Finish him."

"Eurgh." Their captive struggled, but his will had flagged, devoured by the blackflame. "You can't kill me." The raw words scraped out.

Fushuai maintained the pressure on both wrist and throat. "Why?"

"People...Sand Orchard...all will die...if you do."

Zhang Sha kicked the dao away from him, then stabbed his knife through the center of his hand.

"Explain."

Duan Dai bared his teeth. "I don't...euck...go back. Brothers...investigate."

The monk's spade raised by a hair. "Why would they harm the villagers?

"If you're gone, they have to punish someone." Even as he answered, Fushuai sensed the shift in intent as the huge, curved blade rose from where it had fallen and streaked toward him like an arrow.

The points of the crescent bit into the earth as he pressed down with all his strength. The curve wasn't sharp, but it crushed the tender organs of the cultivator's throat, and Duan Dai's face turned white as a blank scroll, his mouth gaping in a final gasp.

Zhang Sha barely turned the leaping dao aside, his knife snapping from the impact, and its edge grazed Fushuai's robes as it went by. It dropped from the air when its master died.