Chương 53: Demon

Elder Sun was racing down the mountain, and Jianyi was pulled along. To his surprise, they didn't take the road to the city, but veered off to the east. The sun had long passed its zenith as they moved through the fallow fields and lightly wooded countryside. Outside of the sect's formations, it was cold, and winter had taken hold of the region. At the speed with which the elder moved, their destination seemed to shoot out of the ground.

A large manor house with a head-high gray stone wall and a red, green, and gold paifang marking its outer borders. From what he could see, it was a sprawling complex with multiple buildings and courtyards. The central building had two stories and was made from wood on a raised platform. It looked tranquil, and from his vantage, Jianyi could see no movement. There were no guards visible, but that didn't mean they weren't there. The elder had stopped at a distance and watched the compound calmly.

"This was once the summer residence of the Zhu family—Merchants who had gotten rich trading silver from a mine they operated not far from here. The silver ran out, so did their wealth. It was bought a few years ago by a man who has no history, and if my investigation is correct, this is the hideout of a cell of the cultists. Killing all of them is a given, but more than anything, I need more information, so we will try to keep the compound whole for further research."

Jianyi nodded—never having had a way or intention to destroy the manor in the first place.

"Stay behind me, but don't fall too far behind. I don't expect you to do anything, just watch and learn. Nothing will happen to you today. Understand?" The last time Jianyi had accompanied the elder on a mission, he had to guard the gate and fought—and killed—two of the demonic cultists. A memory that had gotten him a few sleepless nights. Therefore, he was happy to just accompany the elder with no responsibility and no chance of a fight that he felt ill-prepared to succeed in, yet.

The elder produced the black spear that Jianyi had used as inspiration for his Veil of the Immutable Will construct, defending his spirit and soul. He nodded for Jianyi to do the same, and he followed suit. Once more they raced with incredible speed, and despite trusting the elder fully, he had to hold his breath as they neared the large gate without any sign of stopping. But he need not have worried. Without any indication of how, it evaporated before them.

They slowed down in the outer courtyard, a few trees graced the slightly run-down rock garden, weeds sprouting between the gravel. No guards were waiting for them, but just a breath or two after they had entered with the resounding bang of a ton of hardened wood turning into a barrage of splinters, the left half of the large door of the main building opened. A gray-haired woman stepped out, open-mouthed, looking at the devastation. Only belatedly did she see Jianyi and the elder. Belatedly was too late.

Before she could react in any way, the elder appeared before her and, with a movement too fast for Jianyi to process, separated her head from her neck. He scrambled to catch up with the elder, who barely paused and stepped through the door that seemed to be covered in hastily scratched formations from the inside. Jianyi had expected to walk into a reception room; instead, he stood in something that he could only describe as a great hall.

Easily fifteen paces long and ten wide, with finely carved wooden beams holding the pagoda roof up. Lanterns and streamers gave the room a festive atmosphere. The only other defining feature was a dais with a stool for the lord of the manor. Given how abandoned the compound had looked so far, there should be at most a few people around. Jianyi was wrong again. What made him freeze in his steps, though, wasn't the twenty or so men and women cowering on the floor, but the…

being just rising from the stool at the other end of the room. More than two paces tall, metallic skin, three horns, dark like wrought iron, on its head, hands with long metallic nails, and its full body encased in a silvery scale armor. His—yes, it seemed to be male—eyes were glowing silver as well, no eyelids visible. The most disturbing part, though, was the pressure that the creature emanated. It was like a stench for his spirit. He felt unclean just being in its presence.

Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences. The beast—it had to be a demonic beast—roared.

"Forlorn Hope! Kill him!" While Jianyi was still processing that the beast could talk, Elder Sun had already done three things. He unleashed his aura. Only for the briefest of moments, Jianyi was affected by the feeling of hopelessness. But it didn't go away—it shifted. Based on half of the cultists falling unconscious—or even dead, Jianyi wasn't sure—the elder had just focused it on their enemies. He had also called forth five cards and selected one. Lastly, he had moved.

At least that was what Jianyi suspected, because the Elder disappeared faster than he could see, and then reappeared in the midst of the cultists and started to harvest their lives with his spear like they were wheat stalks in the summer. Despite the turmoil in the room and in his head, Jianyi gripped his spear harder and prepared to fight. This had been what he had always hoped for—an opportunity to fight against the demonic beasts that had killed his father.

The beast summoned cards—something that Jianyi hadn't known was possible—and activated one as well. Jianyi stepped fully into the hall. A dozen or more sleek, fiery projectiles shot from Elder Sun into the group of cultists. Four of which had also activated their decks. Three vicious-looking, metallic, S-shaped blades, glowing with purple corruption, shot from the demon towards Elder Sun. Jianyi knew that if he even got close to those blades, he would perish immediately.

Not so the elder, who activated a second technique which produced a thicket of vines that blocked the blades as well as the attacks of the other cultivators and continued to spread throughout the hall. Shouts behind him made Jianyi turn around. Two men entered the room, one armed with a spear, the other with a jian, the short sword popular in some parts of the Empire.

He stepped to the side to be able to keep an eye on the fight behind him and attacked the first man, who was slightly smaller and only marginally older than him. His grip on his spear indicated that he was not an expert fighter, and Jianyi's spear penetrated the man's chest before he could defend himself. He could see that more techniques were activated behind him, but he had to focus on his remaining opponent. The sword-wielder.

His face bore the unblemished look of a cultivator, and Jianyi was all too aware that he had at best one technique available to him, but as he had never practiced with it, he thought it would be madness to try it now. His duel against Lu Shan had to be the blueprint: Relentless attack. He hoped for a better outcome. The simple thrust of a well-executed Piercing Fang was his opening move. The demonic cultivator sidestepped effortlessly, his speed on a different level than Jianyi's.

This man was at least one cultivation realm higher than him. Still, he attacked, but got nothing but a sneer from the man, whose hair hung loose over his shoulders. Cards appeared before him, and Jianyi tried to distract him, just like against Lu Shan, but this opponent had sufficient experience to not be so easily dissuaded from casting a potentially deadly technique. As Jianyi launched one more desperate attack, the man's torso exploded in flames.

For a moment, he was confused by what had happened, but then he turned to find Elder Sun having shot another hailstorm of fiery projectiles, one of which had killed his opponent. Jianyi didn't know how many techniques the elder could wield, but he didn't show any indication of stopping. This time, he launched an attack that made the dried vines from his earlier defense explode in flames, killing the last of the cultivators.

Three plates of corroded metal interposed themselves between the demonic beast and the incoming fire attack, shielding him from the flames. Or tried to. One after the other melted under the inferno unleashed by Jianyi's teacher. The demon roared in frustration.

"Forlorn Hope, your days are numbered; you will go down with this plane." Elder Sun was not deterred and followed his own wave of flames to deliver a Blazing Arc, a descending diagonal attack that carved through the demon's flesh despite his attempts to block, killing him on the spot. There was silence in the room, except for Jianyi's ragged breath and the whisper of a few remaining flames from Elder Sun's inferno.

Jianyi's eyes flickered to the corpse of the demonic being, still resting on the dais with its torso cleaved apart. He let his spear sink and took a deep breath; the immediate danger seemed over.

"Wait here; I will check the rest of the compound," the elder said and moved so fast that he was back before Jianyi could calm down.

"Teacher, what is a demonic beast doing here?" he asked, his voice still trembling from the stress of the last minutes. Minutes? Yes, it had been at most three or four minutes since they entered the compound. It felt like an eternity; so much had happened.

"What demonic beast? Oh," the elder chuckled darkly.

"This, my young friend, was not a demonic beast; this was a demon," he said, dispassionately inspecting the carnage around them. Jianyi had always used the terms demon and demonic beast interchangeably.

"What is the difference?"

"Are they not teaching you anything in these classes you have?" The elder seemed genuinely exasperated.

"Now is not the time; I will explain later." The elder quickly moved towards the cultivator that Jianyi had battled with, searched him, found a storage device, and pulled out a small silver implement that he handed to Jianyi. A spirit needle, the device used to extract cards from the bodies of beasts and cultivators.

"Come, take it and use it on this man. Just hold it over the body and infuse some qi into it. If there is something to gather, it will latch onto it on its own." Jianyi did as he was told, for the first time harvesting a card from a slain enemy. That it was a human and not a beast or natural treasure made him shiver slightly with a macabre feeling. But in some ways, better a demonic cultivator than a spirit beast. One was the enemy, the other just a being in tune with its nature.

He held the small artifact a couple of handspans over the remains of the body and felt his qi connect with the spirit needle, and in turn, the needle connected with the quickly dissipating spirit of the demonic cultivator. A card materialized above the body, and Jianyi snatched it up.