Corwin Benedict
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The Beautiful Jade: Chapter 67
🕑 Added 2025-02-22 00:19:00 +0000 UTCI look at my sword, twisting the shimmering blade to see it from all angles. My spirit sense goes over it, as I focus on the blade. There’s something, but it’s on the edge of my senses, so faint that I wonder if I’m imagining it.
After a few moments, I lower the sword and put it in its sheath. “Do you see anything, Shia?”
“Yes, but I know little of the weapons you cultivators use.” Shia twists around my arm, down towards the pommel my hand rests on. “I hesitate to say too much.”
I look over to Lai Ming, who is cultivating in the corner of the small cave we had found. I’m fairly certain we’re still being tracked, but we’d managed to put some distance between us and our pursuers. Lai Ming had made some gains to her cultivation, and had wanted to calm her qi before we continue.
“Shia,” I say, turning away from my Senior Sister. “That’s two demons I’ve fought since we got back to this realm.” the unspoken question hangs in the air for a moment before she responds.
“I have my suspicions.” She says. “We best hope they are not correct. War draws demons to it. I hope that is the all of it.”
I move towards the edge of the cave, and look into the distance. Trees block my view, but on the horizon, I see smoke clouding the sky. Qi fluctuates occasionally, telling of fighting that I cannot see.
Movement brings my attention back to the cave as Lai Ming stands up and stretches.
“Close, but not close enough.” She says, her eyes looking into the distance before focusing on me. “I’ll get there soon enough.”
“You will.” I say with a small smile.
“Are you ready?” She asks.
I nod, and she leads the way out of the cave. We make our way down a small hill, and down a small path.
We walk in silence until the path turns into an old road. Abandoned farms make up the side of the road, their fields left untended with the threat of armies on their doorstep.
I have a general sense of where we might be, but I don’t recognize the specific road. We’d traveled northwest for a good while, and are now trying to make our way more northeast so that we can find the river and follow it upstream towards the lands controlled by my father.
The quiet of our walking is upended as the road ahead flashes with qi. Immediately, I sense the spirit of another demon, and I feel as Shia constricts around my midsection.
A few paces in front of us qi gathers, then slashes through the air, the slash is blue and drips like paint. Another slash of paint joins it, followed by another, until a symbol is written there. The symbol brightens before it’s replaced by a man that falls from the symbol, landing on his feet.
Covered in injuries, and holding a sword longer than he is, he breathes heavily, his black and white robes dirtied..
I run forward, and he turns to me, his sword raising towards me. I flow past his sword, drawing my own sword to block a blade of qi and deflect it into a nearby field.
“Lin Jia?” Lu Kun of the Heavenly Truth Sect asks, his voice catching.
A black portal opens in the air in front of us, stopping me from answering.
Three cultivators step out of the strange portal. Two are in Foundation Establishment while the last is a twelfth level qi awakened. All of them wear the robes of the Shan Mountain Sect. My gaze turns to the third one, recognizing the hints of Demonic spirit. They step through the portal and it closes behind them.
“Who are you?” One of the cultivators asks, looking at mine and Lai Ming’s robes.
“Why do you have a demon with you?” I ask, drawing all of their attention to me.
The demon frowns, then he looks to the other two. “Kill her first.”
The cultivator frowns, looking towards Lai Ming, who steps up next to Lu Kun and I. He shares a glance with the other cultivator in Foundation Establishment, then bows his head to the demon. “Of course, Core Disciple Ku Mao.”
He slashes down with his sword, seemingly cutting the air.
My instincts save me as I jump back in time to dodge a sword made of qi slashing through where I was standing.
That’s all that’s needed for the battle to start.
Spears of ice fly towards the cultivators, but a black void appears in front of one of the disciples, swallowing the spears whole.
The disciple slashes his sword again, and the blade materializes next to me, this time cutting my arm as I’m too slow to dodge the attack.
Blood flows down the cut, and I open my mouth, words flowing from me as I change the nature of the battlefield.
First Requiem: Field Of Blood
The notes flow over the road, bringing rivulets of blood with it. Warriors cry out, their dying voices matching the darkness of the song.
The warrior of the first requiem appears beside me, blocking a sword that had appeared to my left.
The demon across from us frowns, then steps towards me. His body dissipates into shadow, and reforms instantly next to me, I block the strike, then throw his blade back as I enter The Roars Of The Ruinous Dragon.
His eyes widen, and he dissipates into shadow as my blade cuts through the spot he’d been standing.
“Behind you.” Shia says.
He reforms again behind me, only for my sword to instantly find his throat, and puncture it through.
He gurgles in surprise, and my sword again pulls the qi from the demon, drawing it into itself hungrily.
I slide my sword out, and he falls to the floor, his blood joining those of the ancient battlefield.
A sharp cry makes me look up, and I see one of the cultivators freezing from the icy sword piercing his heart.
The last cultivator draws on his qi, and a black portal starts to form. He’s a second too late as Lu Kun’s sword chops his head off.
The head rolls and I let the illusion go, leaving only the dead disciple’s blood on the ground.
Shia slithers through my clothes, dropping to the ground and opening her mouth wide to swallow the dead demon.
“Whoa!” Lu Kun yells, jumping away from the snake.
Lai Ming and I both look at him, and he looks back at us guiltily.
“Sorry. Snakes, they uh… they scare me a little.”
I hum, then wait silently as Shia finishes her meal and travels back up my robes.
“Are you alright?” I ask, noticing blood flowing from several cuts on Lu Kun’s body. His robes are covered in blood and rips, and the man himself looks like he hasn’t gotten much sleep.
He shakes his head. “I’ve been running from those three for days.”
“Why were they after you?” Lai Ming asks.
He looks over to the other girl, her blade melting into water. “I need to get to Lin city.” Is his only answer.
Lai Ming shares a glance with me.
“We’re going to Lin City.” I say.
“A fortuitous encounter then.” He bows his head. “Formations block my attempts to move quickly, but we must make haste.”
We don’t need more encouragement than that to continue our journey. The road meets up with the river, and we follow its banks towards the city.
***
It follows me, sensing the spirit of its enemies and fallen brethren. It moves ravenously, always hungry, always starving. It moves through the city to the river. It finds a cave, where the first of its kind was slain, then up the river, where bodies still float, then it leaves the river, moving until it finds the bodies of two slain swordsmen. It looks up, its eyes meeting mine. A sharp smile covers its face, and all I can see are those teeth, and its eyes. Bloodthirsty eyes that have lost all reason, that only desire to kill and devour everything that stands in its way.
I gasp for air as I wake up, sweat covering me. Shia is out of my robes, her gaze on the path behind us. Illuminated only by moonlight, it takes a moment for my brain to catch up to me.
I shove myself up off the ground and hurry to the other two.
Lai Ming watches the surroundings while Lu Kun and I sleep.
“We need to move.” I say to her in a hushed whisper, then I give Lu Kun a shove with my foot.
He wakes up, and reaches for the large sword next to him.
“Hurry!” I continue.
The both of them don’t question me as we pick up our bags and place them into storage rings.
Then we’re off, into the night.
Creatures call to each other in the darkness, but Shia warns me before we approach the nest of anything dangerous, her own senses better than ours in the forest.
We make haste and get closer to the city, but some distance away, I start to feel it.
A ravenous spirit, devouring the very air around it.
I lead us to a clearing, then hum softly to illuminate the world around us. There’s no point in hiding ourselves in the night. Whatever it is has already found us.
We stand there, a circle of trees providing cover, hiding things despite the illumination provided by my illusion.
But the thing that chases us, does not care to hide.
A paw touches the ground, the earth giving beneath it. A large creature stands there, several tails swishing in the air behind it. What once might have been a fox is corrupted by the demonic path it follows, It’s eyes red, and its fur pink with streaks of blood. It stands twice as tall as I do.
“You’ve done well so far, little hunters, little hunters.” The Demonic Fox says, its voice like a million whispers in my mind, grating and cutting, invading places they shouldn’t. “So so well well. If only you’d been a little quieter, quite like a little mouse. But no no, I hunt mouses all the same, all the same.”
The Demonic Fox looks at me, twisting its head, “You hold the scent of death, death. Like my master. I will bring you to him? Yes, yes.” A large smile fills the creature's face. “But the others? The others must die, die.” Its qi expands, revealing it to be something far beyond our level, closer to the Matriarch of The Flowing River Sect. It’s spirit and qi invades me, rushing through my veins as it attempts to control my body and my qi.
I fall to my knees, my eyes wide.
A sharp spirit pushes it back, striking like lightning and cutting the fox’s spirit to threads.
“Quiet your words, abomination.” Shia leaves my sleeves, falling to the floor and expanding until she looks down on the fox.
The fox steps back, its face flashing with fear before the emotion is overridden by its ravenous desires.
“Guardian! But you are weak, weak.” A terrible laughter fills it. “You will die before me, and I will feast upon you. Yes, feast upon you.”
“I am strong enough, Huli.” Spirit floods her, and her crown of golden scales expands until all of her scales shimmer with a golden gleam. Her size increases, and her fangs drip with venom.
The fox recurls, “Die!”
The fox disappears to my sight, and blood spurts from Shia’s scales.
