Book 3: Chapter 40: Bad News |
Jun stood at the front of the formation and let the number wash over her.
Three thousand cultivators arranged in rows that stretched from the compound's eastern wall to the demolished foundations of what had been Patriarch Sho's secondary training hall before he'd torn it down to make room for more bodies. The packed earth beneath their feet had been beaten so flat and so hard by weeks of drilling that it reflected the morning sun like polished stone.
Three thousand fists at their sides, chins level, eyes locked forward, and waiting.
She'd stopped keeping an exact count at two thousand because the numbers made her vision swim. Wu Xui hadn't stopped counting though. Wu Xui never stopped counting. The older woman maintained a ledger that updated twice daily with entries so precise they included the exact time each new member swore their oath, their elemental affinity, their body cultivation ceiling, their drilling endurance score, and whether they'd brought their own boots or needed to be issued a pair from the quartermaster Patriarch Fen had appointed two days ago because apparently they needed a quartermaster now.
They needed a quartermaster.
Jun's sixteen-year-old brain still hadn't fully processed that.
Among the three thousand stood one hundred who wore a different sash. Pale green silk instead of the standard cloth, tied at the waist in a knot Wu Xui had designed herself.
The inner disciples.
Every single one of them under thirty.
Qi Initiate Fifth Stage minimum.
D-rank elemental affinity or above.
Body cultivation ceiling in the upper thirty percent.
Four-hour drilling endurance without collapse.
Refugees who'd lost everything when IronArch City fell and rebuilt themselves from the mud up. Former sect disciples who'd been abandoned by organisations that no longer existed. Children of cultivators who'd died fighting Demonic Cultivators and inherited nothing except talent and fury. A blacksmith's daughter from the slums who'd never held a sword before walking through the compound gate and who now threw a one-two combination clean enough to make Jun's chest tighten every time she watched.
None of them were rich. Some of them were smart. A few were fast. Several were strong.
All of them were geniuses in their own way.
Wu Xui's criteria had been ruthless, but most importantly, that criteria had been right.
"One!" Jun shouted.
Three thousand left fists snapped forward.
The crack split the morning air and rolled across Cultivator Row like a thunderclap. Windows rattled in frames a few blocks over. A flock of birds erupted from a rooftop and scattered. The illegal food stall vendor, who had somehow survived every guard patrol for the past month through what Jun suspected was either bribery or sorcery, dropped his ladle into his pot and ducked behind his cart.
"Two!"
Three thousand right fists followed.
The sound was heavier this time. Three thousand bodies moving in unison created a pressure wave that pressed against the compound walls and made the pale green banners snap taut on their poles. The Jian with its white tassel rippled across a hundred surfaces, catching the light and throwing it back.
"Step! One! Two!"
The formation shifted and feet scraped packed earth in a single unified motion. Lead feet planted at forty-five degrees and rear feet pushed. Centres of gravity stayed low.
Jun watched them move.
Her chest swelled with something she'd given up trying to name. It sat behind her ribs like a second heartbeat, warm and heavy and completely uninvited. She hadn't asked for this, planned it, wanted it, or understood it when it started. She'd walked into a dojo to challenge its patriarch because her Ancestor told her to get some exercise and stave off the foreign feeling of boredom she had discovered…
And now she stood at the head of an army that shook dust from rafters when it punched.
The Green Grass Blades Sector of the Hu Clan.
An organisation with five elder patriarchs, a quartermaster, a logistics division, a recruitment pipeline, an intelligence network that monitored gang movements across multiple city districts, over a thousand banners bearing her sword's likeness, and a reputation that had spread through Cultivator Row like wildfire through dry brush until every dojo, school, sect, clan, and training hall within the district had either joined by dissolved, or was actively pretending it didn't exist to avoid being absorbed.
All of it built in weeks.
All of it built around a sixteen-year-old girl who still burned red every time someone called her Young Mistress or the Green Angel.
All of it unknown to the Patriarch of the Hu Clan.
Her Ancestor.
Who sat in a courtyard a few blocks away drinking tea with her favorite tree… not that she knew many sentient trees.
He's going to find out. He probably already knows… He definitely already knows.
There is absolutely zero chance that three thousand cultivators drilling his technique within earshot of his home have escaped his attention.
So why hasn't he said anything?
Why hasn't he—
"Young Mistress!"
The shout came from the compound's eastern gate that was high-pitched and cracking. The voice of someone running faster than their lungs could supply air.
Jun's hand found her sword's pommel.
The formation's rhythm stuttered as heads turned in the back rows.
The inner disciples, trained to maintain focus under any disruption, kept punching. The outer ranks wavered.
"Continue!" Jun barked.
Three thousand fists resumed their cycle.
A figure burst through the gate. One of Patriarch Guo's scouts, a boy of maybe seventeen with a runner's build and a face that had lost every drop of colour it had ever possessed. His robes were soaked with sweat and legs shook with each stride. His eyes were so wide the whites showed all the way around his irises.
He made it halfway across the compound before his knees buckled.
Jun crossed the distance in a couple steps and caught him by the collar before he hit the ground. She hauled him upright and set him on his feet. His chest heaved andmouth worked. Sounds came out that weren't words yet.
"Breathe," Jun said.
The scout breathed and tried to regain his composure.
"Report."
"T-The—" He swallowed and tried again. "The Red Demon's—"
Jun's grip on his collar tightened by a fraction.
"—smugglers were attacked! Last night! A force… powerful… they can't… the smugglers couldn't—"
"Slow down."
The scout's eyes found hers and locked on. His breathing steadied by a degree. His hands, which had been clutching at nothing, found his knees and pressed against them for stability. "The Red Demon's smuggler warehouses at the northern river docks were hit last night by a force the scouts couldn't identify. Unknown cultivators that were very strong. Much stronger than anything in the gang territories. The smugglers held but took heavy casualties and the attackers withdrew."
Jun's stomach dropped.
"The attackers are coming back. Today! The Red Demon knows and she's mobilising her forces…" The scout's voice cracked again. "A-All of them, Lady Jun. Every lieutenant, every guard, every fighter, thug, cultivator, gang member, and anyone under the pale red banner. Four thousand members of the Red Steel Hammer Gang are moving toward the northern docks. The Red Demon herself is leading them."
The compound went quiet.
Three thousand fists had stopped mid-punch as they stared at the scout and Jun.
Jun released the scout's collar and stepped back.
Four thousand. She built an army four thousand strong. When did she… how did she…
She killed the thought.
It didn't matter how.
What mattered was that Shui was marching four thousand gang members toward a force strong enough to assault fortified warehouses and knew that an army was coming but chose not to retreat.
"Elders. Now!"
The five patriarchs materialised from their positions along the formation's edges.
Duan brought up the rear, fully open eyes bright, moving with the speed of a man whose joints no longer ached and whose body had been quietly, impossibly rebuilding itself since a cup of tea that tasted like the universe had been distilled into liquid form.
They formed a tight circle around Jun and the scout.
Patriarch Fen raised his hand. Qi pulsed from his palm in a dome that settled over the group like a bell jar. Sound died at its edges. The three thousand cultivators beyond the barrier saw mouths moving but heard nothing.
"What happened?" Jun looked at the scout.
The boy straightened under the combined attention of six people whose collective Qi could have flattened the building behind him. "T-The Red Demon's smugglers were attacked yesterday by a powerful force they can't beat! The Red Demon and the leader of the cultivators that attacked are going to clash within the hour! The Red Demon is making her way there with all her lieutenants, guards, guardians, and forces in tow! Four thousand members of the Red Steel Hammer are all moving." His voice pitched higher. "A war has broken out! A war!"
Jun's jaw set. Her fingers wrapped around the sword's grip until the leather creaked under her grip. The She-Devil hummed in satisfaction that it would finally see some action.
"Mobilise the forces. We move as soon as possible before the clash."
Four patriarchs snapped to attention.
Patriarch Duan didn't move. "Lady Jun, we should not involve ourselves in gang warfare. The Red Demon chose this fight. Our forces are trained for defence and discipline. Marching three thousand cultivators into a three-way conflict at the river docks will draw the Merchant Emperor's attention, collapse our anonymity, and potentially—"
Jun looked at him.
The look lasted all of two seconds.
Duan's mouth closed. His fully open eyes searched her face, reading something in the set of her jaw, the white knuckles on her sword, the way her breathing had gone shallow and fast. His brow furrowed and the lines around his mouth deepened as understanding crept across his features in a slow wave.
"Y-You know the Red Demon that well?"
"It's Shui."
His eyes went wide. The colour drained from his face in a tide that started at his hairline and rolled down past his jaw. He mimed words but couldn’t utter a sound. His hands, which had been folded calmly before him, separated and found each other again in a grip that turned his knuckles bone-white.
"T-T-The little—"
Jun nodded once.
The other four patriarchs watched the exchange with expressions ranging from Guo's blank confusion to Sho's narrowed eyes.
Duan gulped audibly. His grip on his own hands tightened further. His eyes, still wide, drifted from Jun to the compound gate and then south toward the courtyard a few blocks away where a certain someone sat drinking tea. His jaw worked side to side twice.
"By the heavens." His voice came out thin. "I-Is your Ancestor a fighting type? His miraculous drink has healed me and made me stronger than my peak—"
Wu Xui appeared from thin air.
No footsteps preceded her arrival. No door opened. No shadow shifted. One heartbeat the space beside Jun was empty and the next heartbeat it contained a woman whose presence made the Qi-dampening dome around them shudder and compress inward by six inches.
Every patriarch flinched.
Duan's hands separated and dropped to his sides.
"What you drank," Wu Xui said in a flat voice. "was the absolute bottom of the barrel trash he could give. Anything better would have made you ascend."
Patriarch Duan's face went from pale to translucent. His legs trembled and gaze snapped to the south, toward the courtyard where the tea table sat under the canopy of a Spirit Tree so powerful he could not even sense it. But more important than that, toward the man who had poured him a cup of the worst thing in his collection and it had healed sixty years of accumulated damage and pushed him past his lifetime peak in a single sitting.
"If she dies…" Duan whispered.
Wu Xui's eyes met his. The warmth that sometimes softened her features was absent. What remained was the Blood Demoness. The woman who had nearly skinned a merchant for haggling. The cultivator whose Qi signature made the dome around them crack at the seams.
"I fear nothing will survive the Calamity that would befall us."
Jun stared at Wu Xui.
She had always known her Ancestor was strong. She'd watched him backhand Hei Gu's cultivation into dust. She'd felt the frozen Dao roll across the continent and bury a city in snow. She'd seen hidden masters freeze at the sight of his eyes and call themselves foolish juniors. She'd lived under his protection for two years and never once questioned whether that protection was sufficient.
She had never heard anyone call him a Calamity to her face.
The word carried a weight that pressed against her chest and made her ribs ache. Calamity. The same title given to a being that caused the Great Seclusion.
Her Ancestor.
The man who drank tea with a greedy tree and scolded her for not finishing her Katas.
I'll ask Wu Xui about that later. First… Save Shui before Ancestor notices and this… Calamity befalls everyone.