Unintended Cultivator

Sen’s first reaction was to go find someone older and wiser to make this decision. Barring that, he just needed to find someone other than him. I’m not qualified to make this choice for the entire town, he thought. I should ask…Then, it hit him. There wasn’t anyone else to ask. In this place, there was no other authority to shamelessly dump this unwanted decision onto while he fled to do something else. He could certainly ask Master Feng, Auntie Caihong, or Uncle Kho for their advice, and they would give it. But advice was all he would get.

They had made it clear to him that they didn’t intend to gainsay his decisions in the town or sect. On the one hand, it was a courtesy they were showing him. On the other, it was lesson they were teaching him about responsibility. He’d started a sect and more or less laid claim to a town without thinking about all of the consequences. The fact that he hadn’t really set out to do either of those things was a big part of the lesson. They would not save him from this.

Others in the sect might object if he let these unknown spirit beasts stay. He almost laughed out loud at that. Of course, they’re going to object, he thought. Who am I kidding? If I was in their place, I’d object. The townspeople would have things to say about it, as well. The cultivators in the sect could likely defend themselves if these spirit beasts were a threat. The townspeople were another matter. If spirit beasts that were already inside the walls decided to do some killing, there was painfully little the mortals could do about it. The sect members would eventually bring the killing to a halt, but it wouldn’t happen before a lot of people died. That possibility was enough on its own for him to summarily dismiss the idea and leave these spirit beasts to their fates. He owed the townspeople and those at the academy his protection. Inviting these spirit beasts inside their defenses felt a lot like betraying the trust that all of those people had put in him.

The only thing that kept him from immediately telling the spirit beasts to leave was Falling Leaf. She had been adamant that he not kill them. Of course, not killing them was different from trusting them or letting them stay. The truth was that Sen was deeply suspicious of all of them. What better way to set up an ambush than to feign opposition to the beast king and get inside the walls? Even if the people inside the walls were as suspicious as Sen, people were also lazy about things they saw as regular. If some spirit beast walked by a particular stretch of wall every single day, people would quickly learn to dismiss the behavior.

Then, when the moment of betrayal came, it would be easy for a malicious spirit beast to help the enemy breach the walls. They could undermine the formations or simply kill some guards and open the gates. There were more insidious possibilities that made Sen’s stomach churn. How easy would it be to poison the food supply or the wells? The cultivators might survive it, but any mortal unlucky enough to get the tainted food or water most likely wouldn’t get through it. Even if they did, they’d likely never return to their former health. The kind of damage poisons and toxins did inside the body were often irreparable if not caught early enough, even for someone possessed of Sen’s skills.

Then, there was always the possibility of assassination. Sen wasn’t too worried about himself or the nascent soul cultivators, but the leadership of the sect was made up of core formation cultivators. They were in no way easy to kill, but it could be done with the right combination of weapons, skills, and surprise. If even one of these spirit beasts had ill intentions, Sen could wake up one morning to find that the functional head of his sect had been neatly cleaved from the body. Not a wholly insurmountable challenge if he was given some time to fix it, but he was under no illusion that he’d get that kind of time. A blow like that always fell within hours of the main attack itself.

He studied each of them in turn. The bird-man was still on its knees, head pressed to the ground in abject supplication. There was an odd bear with mostly black and white fur, save for a wide ring of bright red fur around each eye. That spirit beast was staring at him with the soft, wet, black eyes nestled into that red fur. Eyes that seemed to plead with him for mercy that he was in no way sure he was prepared to offer them. There were two large wolves with stark white fur and eyes a disturbing, pale blue. Their paws looked to have been carved out of ice itself. Small patches of soil were even freezing beneath those paws. He couldn’t have said how he knew, but he knew that one was male, the other female, and that they were mates. Unlike the bear, they stared at him with defiance in their eyes, as though he was the one who had something to prove to them.

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Sen’s inclination to send them away hardened at that look in their eyes. He met those stares with one far colder and unforgiving than the one he’d used on the bear.

“Take care where you direct those looks,” said Sen.

He released a little of his killing intent and let it wash over the wolves. Both wolves let out pained noises and crouched low to the ground. To drive home the point that they were only experiencing a small piece of his strength, he released a little more of his killing intent. The wolves were locked into place, their eyes fixed on something rest couldn’t see. Their breathing came in sharp, shallow gasps. The bird-man looked up and cried out.

“Please, forgive them. They don’t understand your ways!”

“Then, this will be a learning opportunity for them,” said Sen, releasing his killing intent and pinning the wolves to the ground with his auric imposition. “Listen closely. Your lives hang on Falling Leaf’s word and my sufferance. Given that your kind has been butchering humans across this nation, that sufferance is very limited right now. You are not masters in this place. Act accordingly.”

Sen knew he was taking out some misplaced frustrations on the wolves, but it was less than he thought it would be. It turned out that most of his hostility stemmed from his inherent distrust of these spirit beasts. The truth was that he wanted them to leave. If he could make them vanish back into the wilds of their own accord, rather than ordering them to leave, that would simplify his life in a lot of ways. However, while all of this was happening, he couldn’t help but wonder why it was happening so easily. He knew that spirit beasts were sort of like cultivators in that they grew more powerful over time, but he had wiped away dozens of them with what had felt like very little effort.

It hadn’t been quite as easy as he’d tried to make it look, but he’d expected to have to work harder at it. Some of it was simply that he’d taken the time to build up to that final qi technique, which had amplified its strength. Yet, he had the distinct impression that these spirit beasts and the ones he’d killed were on the weaker end. With the exception of the bird-man, who felt like he possessed strength similar to Sen’s own. Sen suspected that fight might prove more interesting. What he didn’t understand was why there had been so many weak spirit beasts on both sides of this little fight. Then, the obvious struck him. Of course, they’re weak, he thought. If they had true strength, they would have challenged the beast king. They wouldn’t have been trying to forge some absurd, lopsided agreement with the humans. Sen assumed that these spirit beasts were what was left of that group. A fact that endeared them to him even less.

He snapped his eyes over to the last two. One was a vaguely female, semi-human-looking creature that had probably started out life as some kind of deer. The other was a large lizard that would outsize most dogs. They both flinched back from whatever they saw in Sen’s eyes. He locked gazes with each of the spirit beasts for a moment.

“I won’t pretend that I’m happy you’re here. I’m not. Frankly, I’m inclined to send you all away. The only reason I haven’t done it yet is because I need to talk to Falling Leaf. But let’s say that the heavens intercede, a miracle occurs, and I do decide to let you stay. If you’ve come here with any expectation other than following every gods damned rule I decide you need,” he pointed to the forest, “you know where to go. There will be no second chances. There will be no forgiveness. If I so much as suspect that you might be conspiring against us—”

It was as if Falling Leaf had been in on this impromptu speech Sen had decided to give. There was an inhuman, bloodcurdling scream from a lot closer than Sen might have expected. The spirit beasts were all staring in the direction of the scream, so they got a good look at Falling Leaf as she appeared between some nearby trees. Her arms were pure red from her fingertips to her elbows. There were blood splatters on her clothes and even across her face. Then, much to Sen’s delight, she gave him a bright smile and waved, which sent droplets of blood flying through the air. It would have been a downright chilling sight if it hadn’t been so unbelievably useful to him at that moment.

“Well,” said Sen. “I’ll let you draw your own conclusions.”