Unintended Cultivator

Book 7: Chapter 33: First Test (2)

It was all Sen could do to keep his breathing steady. If this had been his fight, he knew he would have been calm, collected, and focused. He might have even been a little excited. But this wasn’t his fight. Not really. He was mostly a spectator to the danger. His eyes traveled across the backs of the townspeople, and he couldn’t help but pick out the ones he knew and liked best. He could almost see the fear rolling off the people who had never been in any kind of a real fight before. Sparring was useful, but it wasn’t the same as real fighting. Sen had learned that lesson back on the mountain when he’d made his long trek to form his killing intent. Training helped prepare you, but it couldn’t ever replace the actual experience of fear trying to claw its way out of your chest, the thunderous pounding of blood in your ears like a drum that refused to be silent, or pressing need to simply be doing something, even if doing nothing was the best choice. That was a fight he couldn’t help the townspeople win. That was a fight that would happen in their own minds and hearts, and they each needed to find something inside themselves that gave them the strength they needed to overcome.

When the spirit beasts finally burst out of the forest, Sen very nearly broke every promise he’d made to himself and the townspeople, all so he could go on a one-cultivator killing spree. It was a small pack of those gods damned bear-cats. He could kill them. He’d vowed to kill them. It’d be nothing, nothing at all, to cut them down like the waste of life and qi that they all were. It would be right. It would be good. It would be… Sen didn’t realize he’d started to move until he felt a hand seize his arm. He stared down at that hand in blank incomprehension before his eyes followed the arm back to the confused face of Wu Meng Yao. In a blink, Sen came back to himself.

“What are you doing?” she asked. “You said not to interfere. That this was for them to learn.”

Sen looked down and saw his hand wrapped around the hilt of his jian so tightly that it was amazing the weapon hadn’t been damaged. He forced himself to let go of the hilt. He ordered his lungs to take in air. She’s right, he told himself. This isn’t about you. He took a few more steadying breaths and nodded to her. She didn’t release his arm immediately.

“What was that about?” she asked.

Sen glared at the advancing bear-cats. “I hate those things.”

He was gratified to see that the bear-cats didn’t quite know what to make of the group of armed mortals standing between them and the town. The spirit beasts shuffled back and forth a bit before the biggest of the group hiss-snarled something in what Sen presumed was the bear-cat language. Letting go of their reluctance, they surged toward the townspeople.

“Do you think they can beat six of them?” asked Shen Mingxia, the doubt clear in her voice and on her face.

“I don’t know. Neither do they,” said Sen. “That’s the whole point of this. Besides, even if we weren’t here, they’d still have to fight them.”

While Sen had harbored some dim, vain hope that that fight would be over quickly with the mortals earning a decisive victory, life was rarely so clean. Many of the townspeople were clearly unnerved by the charge of the spirit beasts, so their reactions were slow. The teams were slowly pushed out of shape as some people acted immediately while others remained frozen, if only for a moment or two. The groups who had been in front were pushed back toward the reserve groups until a voice cut through the noise and chaos.

“Fight!” screamed Li Hua.

Her face was a mask of untempered rage, and her spear lashed out at a bear-cat to draw blood. That single word seemed to break the semi-paralysis, but the townspeople had lost whatever advantage the bear-cats' initial confusion might have bought them. It would all be uphill from here. Even that one split-second hesitation to unleash her battle cry nearly cost Li Hua her life. The bear-cat she’d wounded turned and swiped at her. It was only the descending blade of halberd that made the spirit beast shy away. Of course, that part was according to plan. Only a very exceptional few mortals stood a real chance against any spirit beast in a one-on-one confrontation. Sen had done his best to drive that one idea into their mind.

“You will not win against spirit beasts with brute force. You must kill them by attrition. It’s not the stuff of legends, but if you cut a spirit beast a thousand times, it will die. You do that by working together. Distract. Harass. Cut. Then, when it’s bled so much it can’t move, you cut off its head.”

As he kept his eyes moving across the fight, he saw the townspeople enacting that plan, more or less. Fear had a real grip on some of the people. Some were simply more talented than others. Sen and Dai Bao had done their best to spread the talent out, but there was no way to predict who would succumb to fear. It meant that some of the fights were lopsided. The bear-cats were savage, but they weren’t stupid. They could recognize where the threats were coming from and would attack the weak links. That forced the others to intervene, putting them closer to claws and teeth. On the whole, though, the strategy was working. Sen did wonder if this strategy could possibly endure the attack of a truly powerful spirit beast, but that wasn’t what he’d been teaching them to fight. If something truly powerful came looking for trouble, the best they could hope for was to buy time for people to flee.

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Much as he had expected, Sen could see that people were getting tired. Spear thrusts were getting sloppy. Halberd swings were coming later than they should. Then, it happened. Wang Bo stepped on something and stumbled. If he had stumbled sideways or backward, it would have been fine, but he stumbled forward. Right toward the waiting jaws of bear-cat. Sen had restrained himself when people were taking minor injuries, but it took him less than a fraction of a second to analyze where everyone in Wang Bo’s group was positioned. No one would be able to intervene in time. Sen activated his qinggong technique and gleefully put himself between the screaming Wang Go and the bear-cat. The spirit beast seemed utterly perplexed as its jaws closed around Sen’s arm and found precisely no give in that body cultivation-hardened flesh. It was everything that Sen could do not to simply kill it on the spot, but he restrained himself to simply jerking his arm and sending the beast bouncing away on the ground. He turned and looked at the stunned group. It had probably looked to them like he’d appeared from nowhere.

“Fall back,” he told them. “Send a new team forward.”

When Wu Meng Yao and Shen Mingxia saw what Sen had done, they followed suit. They intervened for two other groups that seemed to be the most hard-pressed by the fighting. The exhausted townspeople didn’t need any convincing, simply retreating toward the wall. Three of the reserve groups came forward and none of them looked excited anymore. They’d seen what fighting spirit beasts really looked like and realized that it wasn’t glorious or anything like the stories they’d heard. It was just danger and blood. The advantage was that they’d had more time to master their fear, and they were fresh. The bear-cats were all injured to one degree or another, which made them a little slower. It wasn’t a lot, but a little could mean everything in a fight. Once the new teams were situated, Sen fell back. He kept his attention and spiritual sense mostly on the battle, but there were injuries to tend and spirits to bolster. He went to each team, bandaged the more serious wounds he found, and passed out water. Before moving on to a new team, he met the eyes of every person while he made the same speech.

“You fought. You survived. The town is still safe.”

That straightened backs and even triggered a few grim smiles.

“Now, rest,” said Sen “You may be needed again before the end.”

The fight seemed to drag on forever to Sen, although he knew that each group wasn’t fighting for very long before they needed to be cycled out. What he couldn’t understand was why the bear-cats didn’t simply withdraw. It would have been the smart choice, at least on the surface. He knew that if they fled, he would hunt them down in the forest and slaughter them all, but he didn’t think that they could know that. Instead, they stayed and fought. Maybe, they really are just that vindictive, thought Sen. They’d rather stay and die with the hope of killing a few people than retreat.

Sen saw the life of one of the bear-cats wink out in his spiritual sense just a moment before a cheer went up from the resting teams. Sen was about to order that team back, but Dai Bao beat him to it. While the townspeople were happy, Sen knew that the bear-cats would become wilder and more vicious after one of theirs fell. The only saving grace was that the spirit beasts had been thoroughly bloodied. The townspeople couldn’t land many deep cuts, but, just as he’d told them, enough cuts would do the job. Sen watched on in cold approval as, one by one, the bear-cats fell. Wu Meng Yao still had to intervene one more time to save someone. Sen thought she acted a little too hastily, but he decided he’d rather that she act a little prematurely than not act soon enough. Shen Mingxia had appointed herself the person in charge of deciding when to have teams trade out. Again, Sen thought she was acting a little sooner than necessary, but it probably prevented some injuries. Ideally, there would have been group leaders to make calls like that, but it was just one more thing that Sen hadn’t thought of. I guess everyone is learning some things today, he thought.

Sen was a little surprised when it was Dai Bao who struck down the last of the bear-cats. He’d handed off his spear and commandeered a halberd. The roar he let loose as he brought the blade down on the bear-cat’s neck could probably have been heard clear to the far side of the town. For a long moment, there was just the sound of the man taking heaving breaths. Then, he thrust that bloody halberd toward the sky and loosed another roar, this one of victory. The rest of the battle-weary townspeople momentarily forgot their wounds and their exhaustion. They all thrust their weapons into the air and took up that triumphant cry. Sen would have been content to leave it at that, but Dai Bao turned to look at Sen. There was something searching in the man’s expression that Sen didn’t quite know how to interpret.

“Say something, you idiot,” hissed Wu Meng Yao under her breath.

“Like what?” he muttered back, trying to not move his lips.

“They want your approval.”

Oh hells, thought Sen. To buy himself a few seconds to think, he clasped his hands behind his back and walked toward Dai Bao with a stern look on his face. When he reached Dai Bao, he could see individual droplets of blood that had splattered across the man’s face. Sen inclined his head to Dai Bao and then turned to look at the rest of the townspeople. I should say something inspiring, thought Sen. Inspiring is good, right? What the hells do I know about inspiring people? Realizing that the right words were not going to find him, Sen just pushed forward and hoped he didn’t screw it up too badly. He infused his voice with a touch of qi so it would resonate.

“You fought bravely. You fought well. You protected each other, and you protected your home. You, farmers, shopkeepers, woodcutters, mortals, took up arms and slew spirit beasts. It’s easy to fight when you have the power and strength of a cultivator. You fought with nothing but your skill, your will, and your heart. After what I saw today, I can tell you that you carry the hearts of legends inside of you. And I could not be prouder of what you achieved here today.”

Oh, please let that be enough, prayed Sen.

The explosion of savage, joyous cheering that washed over him told him it was.