50 – A Grotesque, Galling Offence
I felt the fireball before I saw it, a sudden and massive rippling of magicka in the air that even a man with no affinity for the stuff would have felt if they were close enough. The flash itself was a blinding halo of flame, and the whole mountain shuddered violently. The shock wave alone shattered whatever buildings were still standing.
“Shit,” Yomi hissed, her eyes squinting against the glare. “I can almost taste that from here!”Her eyes were wide, but even something so devastating wouldn’t halt her.
We raced toward the blazing aurora, in defiance of all common sense, while great waves of smoke wafted up from the yawning wound in the earth, nearly eight meters deep. The base of the crater was smooth, a tract of earth still hissing from the scalding heat.
“Goddess,” Yomi murmured from the corner of her mouth.
I followed where her gaze was and grimaced at the sight of strange metal trees protruding from the earth. Young men, cultivators I assumed, were pierced and hanging on the branches, their pained gasps and cries forming a horrible chorus in the courtyard.
I narrowed my eyes at the sight of it. Even at a glance I could tell this wasn’t just torture for the sake of it. The metal growths hummed with magicka, and from the restrained bodies emerged steady streams of strange black smoke.
“We gotta cut them down. Might be able to get them to a healer,” Yomi said, but I held her firm by the shoulder.
“No point,” I said, motioning toward them. “Those lads are dead, sure enough. If anything those spikes are the only thing keeping ‘em alive.” Dragging the moment of their death out into some kind of hellish eternity.
What a horrible thing.The mere thought of it sent a horrible shudder racing down my body.
At least I usually killed people quick and clean unless I personally hated them.
“Quite right, my good man, quite right!”
We turned to the source of the voice, and I narrowed my eyes as a man wreathed in tongues of golden flame slowly floated down from the sky toward us. He grinned, and his teeth were like twin rows of glossy black diamonds.
“You know when I killed the grandmaster of this little sect, I thought I’d lost all my playthings. And now here you two are, seeking to prolong my fun. It warms my heart. It truly does.” The winged beasts were circling high above, like a pack of vultures.
Their numbers were far smaller by now, at least.
“And who are you supposed to be?” Yomi asked.
“I could ask the same of you. But, for the sake of being mannerly... Call me Sha.”
Yomi’s mouth hung slightly ajar. “That’s... Sha, the White Flame Warden?”
Sha chuckled. “Familiar with my work, eh?” he asked. He raised his hands aloft, and I could see plumes of pale fire whirling up his forearms.
“Someone I should know?” I asked her.
“A... monster from history. The kind of creature usually told in horror stories to naughty children.”
“Oh... I am far more than a creature of history. But my flame is as white hot now as it was in the past.”
Sha flicked a hand toward me, wreathed in a shimmering haze of intense heat, and fired a long gout of flame toward me. It crossed the air, far faster than even a lightning bolt, yet I made no move to dodge or block it.
"Goddess!" Yomi shouted, jumping back in shock. "Amon, are you-"
The smoke and flames slowly parted. I didn't have a mark on me. "Felt hotter," I said, spitting onto the melted flagstones. It hissed when it struck the stone. "Fire doesn't work on me. A bad day for you, then."
Sha, to my surprise, grinned. "Not at all. If anything I appreciate a little extra challenge. Tell me, westerner, what kind of technique lets you do that?"
"No technique," I replied. "It's just... how I am."
"Fascinating, truly fascinating," he said, trailing off into a chuckle. He suddenly crossed the distance, even faster than his tide of flame had, and this time I swept my blade up to meet his incoming chop. The thwack of flesh hitting metal echoed across the annihilated courtyard, and a broad chunk of the ground exploded beneath us.
We exchanged a rapid series of blows, the whole mountain seeming to shudder, and Sha broke away to avoid a flurry of shadowy darts which flew from Yomi's hand. The woman became a living cloud of black smoke, swiftly spearing through the air to appear behind Sha's lean body.
But the burning man turned quickly in the air, deftly avoiding several swipes from Yomi's gleaming billhook. "You're good," he said, the flat of his head smacking away an incoming blow with a spray of bright orange sparks. I saw, briefly, a chunk of Sha's hand had been sliced open, but the wound knit itself shut almost as quickly as it had appeared. "Much more fun than the Snake Flower."
A hard kick launched Yomi back into the earth, uprooting a trench in the ground, but the former assassin swiftly flipped to her feet and came to a skidding halt.
"You want fun, eh?" Yomi asked, giving him a jagged smile. "We'll see how fun this is when my blade goes somewhere unpleasant."
She glanced around, and I could see her eyes settle upon the various disciples hung upon the spiked trees. She took a breath, magicka rising off her body like a thick black vapour, and then her power surged forth in an explosive tide that shattered the trees and put the poor youngsters out of their misery.
"Spoilsport," Sha said, pouting. "Suppose I'll have to mine what I need from the two of you."
"Mine?" I repeated. Was my damn Babel stone acting up on me?
Sha snapped his fingers and several dozen of the horrible buzzard men swept down from aloft, racing at Yomi like a living tide. She grinned, her billhook flashing as she raised it.
And Sha turned his focus to me and rushed me like a living comet.
This truly was odd, Sha noted. He'd lived a long life of many centuries, had faced all kinds of cultivators and warriors, but this was the first time he'd ever fought a western cultivator.
The truth was that the demons and the yokai had an... understanding of sorts. Though hailing from different planes of the dark netherworlds, they were alike in their interests and general disdain for humans. It had been decided, long before Sha had even been born, that they would each take half of the world and let the sea be the dividing line from where they pillaged.
It was simply easier, all sides agreed, than wasting energy on warring with each other. Though the Demon King giving himself that title was his own sly way of riling them up...
Still, Sha wondered, were all the great warriors of the west like this? Brawny, undaunted, wielding weapons taller than their whole bodies? He found it simultaneously amusing and concerning as he ducked and weaved about the arcing slashes.
Those that he had to block always hit a little harder than the last, sending jolts of pain through his whole body. Yet, for as much as those strikes stung, he was elated.
Already he was pushing himself harder than the Grandmaster had managed. Though he did wonder what this oddball westerner, this beast among men, was doing out in this insignificant armpit of Tsukio?
A hard kick sent the stranger skidding back across the stones, but before Sha could celebrate he felt a sharp stab of pain lance up his outstretched leg.
A dagger was sticking up through his left ankle, made from the same black steel as that monstrous sword, and it had pierced him with worrying ease. So fast he hadn’t even perceived it. Sha stared at it, not believing his own eyes. When had he-
The foreigner snapped his fingers and Sha gave a sharp howl of pain. He could feel the dagger... expanding in his flesh, points and barbs starting to sprout from the flat of it. Sha grit his teeth, his qi reinforcing his body and fighting against the invasive presence. But it was a losing battle, the points spreading deeper and deeper until Sha had no choice but to slice his left leg off at the knee.
He huffed for breath, the severed limb collapsing into a mass of molten metal, and gradually a new leg blossomed to replace the old. Sha was seething now.
It was all fun and games until someone could actually hurt him.
And for an offence so utterly grotesque, so galling in nature, there really only was one response.
He forced the grin back onto his face. "Tricky," he said. Then from his right hand sprouted a long shaft of boiling light that rapidly forged into the shape of a katana. "I have my tricks too."