Book 2: Chapter 35: Heart Demons |
Hu Jun took a deep breath. She felt sweat trailed over her closed eyelids, arms growing heavier after the thousandth repetition of the very first sword kata her master had given for her. The feeling and experience of her Weapon Spirit echoed in her limbs. A distant call that guided her steps within the framework her master had created. Nothing, no matter how advanced, ever lost the touch of that base.
Qi shifted from her core and rushed to her blade.
Jun imagined Shao Yating standing before her. The wall of shadows, inky fog, and undead monsters pushing toward her.
Death was at hand.
Either she fought for her life, completed the very basics of her master’s lessons or ruin would find her.
The Qi rumbled, her Weapon Spirit shouted.
Jun felt the voice command her to go, and made her attack form around her with the same intensity, desperation, and fear that had driven her during that fateful day.
Or she tried to at least. Once again the Qi rumbled for a few seconds, threatening to escape from her blade into the world-shaking attack that had been released that day. Yet, it never got that far, always fizzling out and breaking into motes of dispersed energy unable to form into blade aura.
She had failed again. The thousandth time she could not call upon the power that had shaken even a demon as powerful as Cai Xuefang.
Jun was not a swordsman.
She wasn’t a cultivator per se’.
Not even a powerful warrior either.
Hu Jun was the guardian of the Hu Clan. Daughter of the First Elder who had died to summon no one in particular.
Is he even my Ancestor? My blood runs thin… Shui is his direct progeney, I am no one.
The image of Shui nearly shattering the bottleneck into the Liquid Core Stage within the bounds of the Inheritance Instance still rang vivid in her mind. Had the little girl lasted even a few hours longer, she would have exited on the same tier that Jun was. After endless years of struggling and hardship, she would soon enough be overlooked and out done by a girl nearly half her age.
A child at that.
One that seemed favored by fate.
Six fucking dragons arrive the moment she feels any sorrow? What about my grief? What about my loss?
Was Jun not a person just like Shui? What was the difference between them that caused one to be treated so much better than the other? Why her? Why was she the one to watch as others soared? Why couldn’t she be the one that soared?
How many Weapon Spirits have spoken to Shui in just the brief time they had been with their Ancestor? A dozen or more if the little girl was to be believed.
Jun got up, closed her eyes, and tried again. Her Qi rumbled, the She-Devil’s hand rested upon her shoulders as it always had been, and she struck once more. Only to fail yet again. The Qi refused to turn into the strike she had used to cast down her foe not so long ago. A distant dream that felt impossible. Something she would speak about in stories, much to the skepticism of anyone that heard her.
This power.
The Weapon in her hand.
What she felt on that fateful day.
Hu Jun knew without a shadow of doubt that it was not her strength. It wasn’t her achievement. Carried by the tides of a tsunami and hurricane far greater than she could ever be.
It was her Ancestor’s power she had used. All of the development she had gained was not her own.
Where would I have been had Ancestor not showed up? Dead? Or Worse…
She shivered as the image of her warming the bed of Dong ZhenKang.
This was nothing but a debt she could not ever repay. How would she when everything she would ever achieve and had achieved had come from the power she had been gifted. Killing for him would not pay an ounce of what she owed. Living for him? What would someone as powerful as her Ancestor want with someone as lowly as her? He could snap his finger and the most powerful women on this planet would crawl to answer his summon.
She was nothing but an unworthy child in over her head.
Hu Shui shouted from the other side of the clearing. Kicking a ball around, another gift from their Ancestor, with sixfucking dragon hatchlings. As though it was just another day in the life of a normal child. Nothing special here.
What about my False Dragon Mount? Do I get one?
Of course not because she wasn’t anything special. They would dispose of her. Throw her away soon enough once they figured out how insignificant Jun was compared to the rest–
“Aha!” Rong jumped in front of her and grabbed at her nape. He pulled at something.
Jun shouted as a pinprick of pain made a cold feeling wash throughout her body..
Rong held something invisible in both hands. His eyes were bright as he gave a massive smile of nothing but needle-like teeth that were made for ripping things apart. He pushed both of his hands into his face and began to audibly munch on something.
Jun shook like a branch and fell to her knees. All of the energy and Qi in her body flooded out of her as the cold kept up, persistent. “W-What h-happened? W-why am i so cold?”
“I knew I smelled the festering,” Rong’s eyes turned into crescents. “Delicious,” thoroughly enjoying what it had captured. “Mouth watering Heart Demons escaping from the Inheritance Instance. I could never miss that wonderful, tasty stench that follows them. O-Or the crunch and scream when I bite into them.” Rong shivered in ecstasy as he continued to audibly click his teeth and smack his lips.
A-A Heart Demon? I had a Heart Demon?
“Well… Carry on doing whatever it was doing, Junior Jun,” Rong chuckled to himself and ran back to play with Shui.
Jun sat there for what felt like an eternity, just staring at her hands.
Shui’s and her friends’ shouting and laughing echoed in the background, accentuated by the heavy bouncing of the ball. Her Ancestor’s voice seemed to break through the fog that had been covering her ears and mind, speaking with the old Da Ruis about the new training he had come up with.
The world continued to move as though she hadn’t just questioned the very people that had loved her unconditionally.
Her Weapon Spirit appeared before her.
Jun looked up at the intense eyes of the ridiculously confident and noble She-Devil. It looked down at her with a sneer–
The Spirit’s hand moved.
Hu Jun’s head snapped back, pain filling her senses and a ringing her ears.
“You are meant for great things, Hu Jun. Don’t you ever dare let a fucking Heart Demon ever… and I mean fucking ever… make you doubt your superiority. Your lineage is pristine. Purified by your Master’s very hand. He has mountainous expectations for you and you will live up to them whether you like it or not.”
“Y-Yes, Ma’am–”
The Spirit slapped her again. “I am your Weapon Spirit! Act like it! You own my physical blade, command me to act.”
“Yes, Ma–” Jun stopped herself. She knew another slap would have arrived had she made another mistake. Instead she stood up, took a deep breath, and tilted her chin up. “Weapon Spirit!”
“Yes, Wielder of my Blade, Lady Jun?”
“Teach me in detail how to call upon that Qi attack against Shao Yating!”
The Spirit bowed. “Yes, Wielder of my Blade, Lady Hu Jun!”