In the wake of the calamitous battle between Xong Wuyi and the demonic ape, there was destruction abound in the Vermillion Ginkgo forest. Jintian cautiously walked through the swaths of decimated earth, craters nearly as deep as a lake scarring the once peaceful landscape. He briefly wondered if these craters would fill with rain, overflow, and connect to form a new lake of their own.
Life had changed drastically for the creatures of the forest… but new life could now emerge from this change. A new source of water would mean a new gathering place for animals to drink. And in that process, even this seemingly earth shattering destruction could lead to growth and renewal.
The wheels of karma turn endlessly. It was just as Xong Wuyi had said. From this one battle, life would be altered here forever, though whether for the better or worse only time would tell.
Jintian paused for a few moments, lost in that thought. He felt as though he was on the cusp of discovering something, like when he had first had an epiphany towards the Dao of Ice. But no matter how he tried to grasp it, he failed, the feeling as elusive as water slipping from his cupped fingers.
Sighing, he shook his head, gathering himself. There were now entire leagues of forest that had been transformed into open fields, and he could see dozens of demonic beast corpses strewn across the area, either hanging limply from the trees or laying broken on the ground.
Jintian licked his lips.
Perhaps this had been good fortune for him after all! For where there were demonic beast corpses, there would be…
Cores! Dozens and dozens of cores!
Cackling madly, Jintian drew his sword from his bag of holding, his earlier caution leaving him as he immediately set upon the corpses closest to him. He was now almost an expert in dissecting and extracting the most valuable organs from demonic beasts, his sword flashing in the sunlight as he severed what he knew would fetch the best price.
There were demonic beasts of all types. The Viper Panthers and Direwolves were the most common, with several Crimson Cloud Bears lying dead. And there were more he had not encountered yet as well, which he would consult his guide for whenever he came across them.
The large feline animals with several rainbow colored spots in its fur and nearly twice the size of the viper panthers were Nine Spotted Leopards, for instance, while the green monkeys he had noticed his second day in the forest were called Mountain Sage Apes. There were several more varieties of demonic beasts, all of which were summarily butchered as Jintian sang loudly.
"Spirit stones~ Spirit stones~ oh how I love you, spirit stones~" He hummed gleefully. But all of this paled in comparison to the sheer amount of demonic beast cores he was gathering! After nearly twenty minutes, he had accrued a handsome sum of nearly fifty two of them!
He was forced to stop, however, when he noticed a gathering of demonic beasts at the edge of his spiritual sense. Looking around, he saw over a dozen of the creatures approaching the corpses he had left behind, sniffing them cautiously before beginning to eat.
Jintian quickly retreated as he sensed more and more of the demonic beasts beginning to migrate towards the corpses. His heart ached when he saw that there were still dozens upon dozens of them that he had not been able to harvest, but he knew better than to let greed get the better of him. Smiling contentedly, Jintian patted his bag of holding where he could just imagine all of the cores were jingling and jangling around in, and pulled out his walking stick. Then, he once again resumed his journey north.
-
Jintian spent the next week of his travels in a somewhat leisurely manner. Apparently, the demonic ape really had been the cause for the increased aggression in the demonic beasts within the forest. Whereas he had previously been attacked by nearly a dozen of them a day, he now only ran into one or two of them.
Somewhat regretful of that, he knew that it was ultimately a good thing. The forest would return to relative safety for the mortals that inhabited it, and he could spend more time enjoying the journey without needing to remain on constant alert. While he did keep his spiritual sense active, he now found himself more able to admire the scenery around him.
The forest held a serene, ancient beauty within it. The trees now were titanic in size, more than ten times the thickness of his waist and rising upwards of nearly seven hundred feet. And yet, the canopy was spread wide enough that the forest was never cast into gloom, rays of sunlight piercing the interior to offer breathtaking moments of forest beauty.
However, for all of the beauty offered to him, after six days of traveling in solitude, he was beginning to feel a bit lonely. His only company were the demonic beasts that occasionally attacked him, and the more mundane animals that observed him warily from afar. The longer he spent in his own mind, the more often he found himself reliving the memories of his old life as a simple farmer's son.
His heart ached in his chest when he saw a white rabbit that popped its head over the underbrush, sniffing towards him before darting back under the foliage. He thought of his brother, and after a few moments, his mind drifted towards Kang Shanxi and his sister.
Xiyun wasn't too much older now, compared to when he had left. She would have learned more words by now, perhaps even begun to walk more regularly. He wondered if she missed him, or if she had already forgotten her older brother. That thought saddened him.
Would she even remember him, when he returned? Or would he merely be a character in the stories that Kang Shanxi told her, in the quiet moments after dinner?
Jintian sighed heavily, shaking such thoughts from his mind. But soon after they began to drift towards Xingyue, and he frowned, patting his cheeks roughly.
"Hopefully she finds a good man." He muttered, and then nodded to himself when he realized that he meant it.
"I hope he's not as handsome as me." He admitted quietly after a few moments, then flushed at the childish thought.
Eventually Jintian came upon a small river, winding through the forest with a slow, leisurely current. It was nearly twenty feet wide, and Jintian watched it for a few moments before feeling the sudden urge to bathe.
He didn't really sweat now, oddly enough. In fact, he'd found that he almost always smelled pleasant, no matter how much he exerted himself. Sniffing himself again, he placed his scent at a mixture of tilled earth and ripe fruit awaiting harvest.
Still, he wasn't sure when he would be able to bathe next. Deciding he needed no more convincing, Jintian disrobed, and waded into the river. The shock of its cold might have made him gasp only a year ago, but after circulating his qi he found it almost as pleasant as a warm bath.
Breathing contentedly, Jintian scrubbed himself with his hands, dunking his head underwater and bursting upwards in a shower of droplets that pattered against the surface of the river.
In a rare moment of peace and quiet, he allowed himself to fully rest, floating on his back. The current of the river was so weak that he could remain in place with relative ease, only occasionally stroking backwards while otherwise bobbing contentedly on the surface of the water.
"This was worth surviving that stampede and Xong Wuyi." He mused quietly, looking up at the swaying leaves of the forest. He slowly breathed out, and for a few minutes, allowed his mind to drift into nothingness as he closed his eyes.
That was, until he caught the scent of something faintly metallic wafting from the water.
He opened his eyes slowly, turning his gaze to the river, and then jolted upright with a yelp. Without his notice… the river had been dyed a dark red around him.
Jintian leapt out of the river, droplets falling from his hair in crimson teardrops that soaked the dirt beneath him. Hurriedly donning his robe, he crouched down by the river to inspect the water, and felt a chill run through him as he realized he recognized what it was, having cleaned his own game in the Taihe river.
Blood. There was blood in the water.
Keeping calm, he turned his gaze further east, where the river was sourced from. Sure enough, it was dyed crimson for quite a ways. For the blood to remain undissolved for that long… just how much of it could there be? What could have been the source?
Mouth settling into a grim line, Jintian drew his sword and began to run up the river. At a full sprint, the trees were little more than oaken blurs that sped past his vision, each step caving the soft mud inward underneath him. He traveled half a mile in just under a minute, and that's when he saw it, his expression darkening further and further as he realized he could now hear screaming in the distance, as well as the acrid tang of smoke filling the air.
And after only another ten seconds, he saw it.
What looked to be a trade caravan had been set ablaze. He could see nearly two dozen people running frantically, either scattering into the forest or battling with a dozen or so men who had set themselves upon the caravan. Over a dozen more bodies laid lifelessly on the ground, several of them bisected and floating down the river's current.
What looked to be large, furry oxen were bleating in panic, bucking frantically in an attempt to escape their burning wagons, while screams and desperate cries rang through the air in sonorous horror.
Grip tightening around his sword, Jintian cast his spiritual sense over the skirmish. All of the attackers were cultivators, though only three of them were above the First Circle. One of them was a Third Cricle cultivator like himself, while the other two seemed to have just broken through into the Second.
The caravan itself only had two cultivators among them, one in the Third Circle, and one in the Second. If there had been more before his arrival, he did not know. Nor did he have the time to ask.
He saw a mortal woman crawling backwards with a child held in her arms, terror plain on her face, while a First Circle cultivator laughed and raised his sword over his head. Jintian's heart thundered in his ears as a primal kind of wrath filled his bones. In this moment, he could not think about what his next actions would be, or what they would mean.
A woman was about to die, a mother protecting her child.
Just like his mother.
Moving with pure, beastly rage, Jintian roared as he channeled the Strike spell within himself. With a powerful leap, he landed squarely in the center of the burning caravan, right behind the cultivator, and the spell flared to life. The First Circle cultivator seemed to sense the threat behind him, spinning around and slicing towards Jintian out of pure instinct.
But it was too late.
Before the blade reached him, the Strike spell hit him squarely in his chest. Powered fully by Jintian's cultivation, it blew the cultivator off of his feet and he was sent shrieking away, slamming against a tree and falling limply to the ground. Jintian could sense that he was still alive, but severely wounded.
Chest heaving, he looked wildly at the woman, who clutched her child in her arms as she stared at him with wide eyes. "Go! GO!" Jintian roared at the woman, sensing two First Circle cultivators dashing towards him. He only had time enough to see her scramble to her feet, before he wheeled around to face his new enemies.
The bandits all wore leather armor that covered their most vital parts, with small plates of iron stitched over their hearts and stomachs. They charged him, crying wildly with raised swords as Jintian gritted his teeth and tightened his grip on his sword.
One of them glanced at their fallen comrade, their expression darkening with fury. But it was a moment of distraction, and the past two weeks of Jintian's repeated skirmishes with demonic beasts had honed his predator instinct to a razor edge.
In that split second that his gaze was elsewhere, Jintian sprang towards him with his sword raised. The two men had only enough time to yelp and raise their swords, before Jintian's own blade kissed the distracted one's edge. Jintian's sword skittered down the sword, knocking it away with a light push before he thrusted it cleanly through the man's chest, slipping just under the iron plating and skewering him through his mid section. Jintian then placed his finger against the man, a Strike spell already gathering in his dantian.
The other man roared and swung towards Jintian just as the spell was released, blasting the wounded man backwards and sending him tumbling across the ground. His neck hit the earth and snapped to the side, the man rolling limply to a stop. Jintian raised his sword, meeting his opponents blade and momentarily locking them in place.
"YOU BASTARD!" The man screamed at him, but Jintian's expression matched his own in vicious ferocity. Jintian kicked the man's knee, buckling it underneath him. The bandit went down with a grunt, and with a sing of steel Jintian slit his throat in one smooth motion, a two-step maneuver he had practiced with Kang Shanxi over and over again until it had become almost instinctual.
The man stared at him, his eyes widening as he clutched his neck with his free hand. He staggered back to his feet, sword raising, and Jintian stabbed him through the belly.
The man slumped onto Jintian's shoulder, gurgling incomprehensibly as Jintian finally seemed to snap out of the trance he had been in. He staggered backwards, pushing the man off of him with a yelp. The bandit landed onto his back, his arms raising slowly before falling back down, staring wide-eyed at Jintian as the light left them.
Killed… Jintian thought blankly, his mind emptying of reason for a few torturous seconds. I… I killed them.
His body felt hot and feverish, while his heart pounded agonizingly in his chest. He stumbled backwards again, looking around at his burning surroundings in a daze.
I just killed two men. He thought again, staring down at the blood dripping from his sword. I just-
"HEY KID, PULL YOURSELF TOGETHER!" He was jolted out of his daze by a shout in his ear. He snapped his head to the side to see a man standing there, hair matted to his head with blood and a long gash drawn down his cheek. The man looked wildly to the side, cursing and kicking Jintian in the stomach, sending him tumbling backwards.
A moment later a flash of light sliced through the air where he had been only moments prior, Sword Qi cutting a cart in half before disappearing in the distance. Jintian shook his head, glancing to the side to see one of the Second Circle bandits running towards them, one of his arms hanging limply at his side.
He was yanked back up to his feet by the man who had just saved his life, who he now realized was the Second Circle cultivator he had sensed before. The man cursed again, before sparing a second to glance at him. "Look kid, I don't know who you are, but get yourself together or you'll die!"
With that last warning, he charged forward to meet the bandit, dual flashes of light splitting the air as Sword Qi clashed between them, leaving deep gouges in the earth. Jintian clenched his jaw, his grip tightening on his sword.
Right. He thought, eyes scanning the battle before resting on the other Second Circle bandit who was running to help the first. I can think about it later. For now…
Jintian took a deep breath, before launching forward to meet the approaching cultivator. The man looked surprised, but met him with a snarl, Sword Qi gathering around his weapon.
Jintian gathered his Sword Qi, and they both slashed towards one another fifteen feet apart. The Qi flashed outward, clashing in midair. But unlike the clash between the other two, the cultivator's Qi shattered apart while Jintian's Qi continued its path forward.
He was in the Third Circle, after all, while his opponent was only in the Second.
The man screamed as Jintian's Qi sliced deeply into his shoulder, nearly severing his sword arm completely. It dangled at his side, his sword dropping as he snarled, pointing towards Jintian.
Jintian realized a second later that the bandit was casting a technique, and in reflex, Jintian raised his own hand. Another spell thrummed to life, and despite the fact that the bandit had begun nearly two seconds before him… Jintian's Dancing Flame Serpent slithered through the air first, engulfing the bandit whole as he gave a blood-curdling screech.
For the first time, Jintian truly realized why exactly Kang Shanxi had been so excited about how uniquely malleable his Qi was. He had yet to realize it, but he would soon learn that in terms of pure casting speed alone…
Jintian was in a league of his own.