Unintended Cultivator

Book 8: Chapter 54: Human Shields

Sen swept his eyes across the rows of armored men standing between him and the gate of the Wu manor. They were terrified. As they rightly should be facing down a peak core cultivator, thought Sen. I’d question their sanity if they weren’t terrified. Sen let his gaze settle on a man in more ornate armor than the rest. He had at least done his subordinates the courtesy of standing out in front.

“You are not welcome here,” said the man in the ornate armor.

“Do you think that makes a difference?” asked Sen. “Send these men home. I will not treat you kindly if you force me to butcher them.”

“You would have us dishonor ourselves? We have a duty to protect the noble House of Wu.”

“There will be no honor here,” said Sen. “None for you in ordering these men into a fight they cannot win. None for them in being cut down like herd animals. And none for me in doing the slaughtering. As for your duty… You’ll have to find your own way with that.”

Sen waited while the one in charge seemed to weigh what was best to do. Sen was at least mildly sympathetic to the man’s position. After all, if he survived, he would be the one who had to answer to the House of Wu when all of this was over. When Sen’s sympathy and patience gave out, he turned his attention to the rows of men. He let a shadow of his killing intent wash over them.

“Leave,” he commanded.

Whatever discipline had kept them in place up until then cracked and shattered under the influence of Sen’s killing intent. The one in the ornate armor started screaming at them to stand their ground and other absurdities that did nothing to quell the fear that gripped the fleeing group. When it became clear that his efforts were wasted, the man whirled toward Sen.

“You damn cultivators! Always doing whatever you want because no mortals can stop you. You’re not gods!”

“You’re right. We’re not gods. If I were a god, I would have restored the lives of all the innocent people your master helped to murder. But, since I’m not a god, I have to settle for the next best thing. Now, you can join your master in his fate, or you can stand aside. I’d prefer not to kill you. I don’t relish the notion of adding to my karmic debts, but if you stand against me after I’ve provided you ample opportunity to leave,” Sen said before he shrugged in indifference. “I doubt the debt will be heavy.”

As soon as the man’s hand twitched toward his sword, Sen activated his qinggong technique. He covered the distance between them in the blink of an eye and pressed a finger against the man’s forehead. It wasn’t a trick he used often, but he truly had no wish to kill the man. His loyalty to the House of Wu was foolish but also laudable in its own way. Killing him would accomplish nothing. Even the idea of it felt petty. So, Sen sank his qi into the man’s body and made a hundred tiny adjustments that knocked the man unconscious without doing any permanent damage to him. Sen watched the man’s eyes roll up into the back of his head before the fool crumpled to the ground. It would likely take the man a few hours to wake up, by which time Sen’s business with the House of Wu ought to be concluded.

After considering the gates for a moment, he let his spiritual sense sweep forward into the courtyard. His jaw clenched when he sensed dozens of people, mortals, waiting inside. May the gods damn you forever, Wu Chia-Hao, thought Sen. Trying to use all of these people as shields. Wind qi swirled around Sen before it raced over the walls and crushed all of those people to the ground. It didn’t kill any of them, but some of them were certainly injured. Snarling a little bit, Sen seized the metal in the gates and ripped them out the walls. The mangled remains of those gates crashed into the street behind him. Sen stalked forward with fury in his heart. He was forced to step over more than a few of the people he’d crushed to the ground. He surveyed the visible injuries. There were some obviously broken bones. He stopped in his tracks when he saw a few people with deep cuts. The kind that would kill them if not attended to immediately. He walked over and gave each of them a healing elixir.

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One of them looked up at him with pain and confusion and asked, “Why?”

“Because you have done nothing to earn death today,” answered Sen.

He walked up to the ornate doors of the manor, and then politely knocked. An ashen-faced older woman opened the door. She was shaking so hard that Sen found it shocking she managed to stay on her feet. Looking past her, he could see that there was no one else in sight. The woman offered him a deep bow.

“Wel—Welcome t—to Wu Manor, Lor—Lord Lu,” she said in a choked whisper.

Sen inclined his head and said, “Thank you. If you will please escort me to the patriarch, I would be most grateful to you.”

Sen fell into step behind the woman. They walked in silence for most of a minute before Sen broke the silence.

“They sent you out there to die. Did you offend someone?”

The woman stumbled to a halt. She half-turned before arresting that motion.

“My masters would never do that,” she said in a voice that told him she knew she was lying.

“They did,” said Sen. “If you ever decide that you would like to work for someone who doesn’t see their servants as disposable, present yourself at Lu Manor. Present this to the guards.”

He held out a blue token to the woman. There was nothing intrinsically special about it, aside from the dragon etched into the material. It had been Lo Meifeng’s idea. Something Sen could hand out to people he didn’t necessarily trust but thought might prove useful in some way. Since he’d been told repeatedly that servants frequently knew a lot of secrets, it struck him as a worthwhile gamble. Plus, after this, he doubted the woman was going to feel any kind of loyalty to the House of Wu. Still, there was a long enough pause that he thought the servant might decline the offer. Then, she snatched the token and secreted it away somewhere on her person. Maybe it would bear fruit, maybe it wouldn’t. This was ultimately Lo Meifeng’s project, not his, so she’d have to sort out anyone who showed up looking to take advantage of one of those tokens. She led him deep into the manor before stopping in front of a door. She reached out with a trembling hand to knock, but Sen caught her hand. He had the feeling that she was more afraid of what might happen to her if that door opened than what he might do to her.

“You should go now,” he told her gently.

Giving him a look of undiluted gratitude, she ran away down the hall. He waited until she was well away before he turned his gaze back to the door. He had to fight the desire to obliterate the door. Wu Chia-Hao’s callous disregard for the lives of those people he positioned both inside and outside the walls had made Sen angry. That might have even been the point. To make him angry enough to storm into the room and kill the Wu patriarch in a rage. It was a tempting idea, but Sen had questions. So, instead, he put on a bored expression, opened the door, and sauntered in like he owned the place. He caught six crossbow bolts in a flurry of motion. He dropped five of them and held the last one up to look at the slimy coating on it. A quick examination with his qi revealed that it was poison. Sen looked around the room at the six slack-jawed men holding crossbows in their hands like they’d forgotten the weapons. Sen turned his bored expression on Wu Chia-Hao, who looked like someone had just fed him rotten meat.

“Get out,” said Sen.

The stunned men hesitated for the barest breath before they ran. Sen grabbed the slowest one with his free hand. The man looked at him like he expected Sen to suddenly breathe fire onto him. Come to think of it, thought Sen, I probably could do that now. Shaking away the stray thought, he gave the man he’d caught a friendly smile.

“Please close the door on your way out,” Sen told the man.

The wide-eyed, would-be assassin started nodding frantically.

“Yes! Anything you want! Please don’t kill me.”

“I won’t, as long as you close the door on your way out,” said Sen before a thought struck him. “Close, not slam if you please.”

He released the man who closed the door with utmost caution and care. Sen walked over and dropped into a seat across from Wu Chia-Hao. He held up the crossbow bolt.

“Did someone tell you that this poison would kill me?” Sen asked. “If they did, they lied.”

Then, just to prove the point, Sen licked some of the poison off the bolt before he dropped it to the floor. The concoction tasted vile, but his action had the intended effect. Wu Chia-Hao lost what little color had remained in his face.

“You don’t need to do this. You don’t need to kill me. We can… We can negotiate,” said the Wu patriarch, trying to put on a smile that looked positively ghastly. “I have money. Land. Businesses. I’ll give you whatever you want.”

“Negotiate. There is nothing to negotiate. You will die this day. It cannot be avoided. It will not be averted. There are only two questions that remain to be answered. The first is, how much will you suffer before you die? The second is, will your house die with you?”