Book 9: Chapter 12: Dubious Alliance
As the pair traveled deeper and deeper into the wilds, Sen had a dawning realization. All those times that Falling Leaf had disappeared into the wilds, she hadn’t just been avoiding humans or hunting. He was sure those had been the reasons some of the time, but she had clearly been executing some strategy of her own. Part of him shuddered at the thought of her out here, alone, looking like a human in what could only be described as hostile territory. That thought made Sen pause mentally. The wilds had always been hostile territory, even before he knew there was some kind of spirit beast ruler planning a war. However, the danger stemmed from the difference in advancement between the person, or transformed ghost panther, and the spirit beasts.
While Falling Leaf had lost some ground relative to Sen, her advancement had been substantial since leaving the mountain. Spirit beasts didn’t progress in stages the way that cultivators did, which made assessing her exact strength tricky. Still, he’d put her approximate strength somewhere in the upper-middle range of core formation. Spirit beasts also enjoyed strength, speed, and durability gains as they advanced. It wasn’t an improvement on the same level as body cultivation but dwarfed the physical benefits that pure spirit cultivators got from advancing. In short, Sen realized that he’d been drastically underestimating Falling Leaf’s power.
It was only in contrast to someone like him, or the nascent soul cultivators that seemed to flock around him, that Falling Leaf looked underpowered. There were spirit beasts deeper into the wilds that could pose legitimate threats to her, like that dragon they’d met, but probably not very many. This close to the road and human civilization, she probably was the peak predator in the area when she could be bothered with it. The sick feeling that had seized Sen at the thought of her traveling by herself in these untamed places loosened its grip. He didn’t feel entirely better. There was always the possibility of ambushes or being overwhelmed by numbers, but he could at least push away the fear that some random beast she couldn’t handle was going to pounce on her in an unwary moment.
Falling Leaf finally drew to a halt, having led Sen to a secluded little spot with a sizeable cave entrance in the side of a rocky hill that was almost large enough to qualify as a cliff. Sen observed the opening in the rock for several seconds before he turned a questioning eye to the ghost panther. If they were going in, he wanted to get on with it. If they were waiting for something, he wanted to know what it was. Instead of answering, she just held up a hand to indicate that he should be patient. Sen sighed. Patience wasn’t always his strongest suit. It was easy enough to be patient when he was doing alchemy or working on formations because waiting between steps was part of the process. He thought of those moments or hours as productive patience. He wasn’t just waiting. He was waiting with intention. Doing nothing while he hoped that something might eventually happen did not feel productive to him.
He resisted the urge to extend his spiritual sense. He’d been masking his presence this entire time to avoid drawing too much attention to himself. He wasn’t quite hiding, because he didn’t want to blind himself that much in this environment. Anyone who sensed him would likely mistake him for little more than a peak foundation formation cultivator. It was a technique he didn’t use that often because it invited trouble from sect cultivators looking to be fools, and he preferred not to have every journey he took turn into a bloodbath. Unfortunately, extending his spiritual sense would require dropping the masking technique and revealing his true strength. Better to save that in case something unfortunate happens, thought Sen. So, he did his best to marshal his patience and waited.
A few minutes later, he saw movement in the cave. At first, it was just a vaguely human shape in the darkness, but it slowly resolved itself into something decidedly inhuman. It vaguely reminded him of Boulder’s Shadow, the only other ghost panther Sen knew was alive. It was a big creature that seemed caught somewhere between a true spirit beast and a full-blown human transformation like Falling Leaf. Where Boulder’s Shadow had a feline quality, this creature was lupine. It still had some of the elongated snout and the sharp ears. As it drew closer, Sen saw that white fur covered every inch of the creature, or almost every inch. It wore a loose loincloth. Sen briefly wondered why but was mostly just grateful to be spared the sight of the creature’s manhood. He assumed it was male at any rate. It had the heavier build that Sen associated with men. When it stepped out of the cave, it gave a respectful nod to Falling Leaf. Then it turned yellow eyes on Sen.
“Falling Leaf, why have you brought this weak creature before me?”
Sen saw the corners of Falling Leaf’s lips twitch as she suppressed a smile. Oh, thought Sen. She did this on purpose. She could have let me in on the plan, whatever the plan is. Before the ghost panther could answer, Sen felt a swell of qi from the wolf spirit beast. It didn’t coalesce into a traditional qi attack but rather took the form of something akin to Sen’s own auric imposition. The aura descended on Sen, trying to hammer him to the ground, or maybe find purchase in some nonexistent crack in his defenses. He honestly wasn’t sure what the wolf meant to accomplish, and it didn’t matter in the end. The technique crashed into Sen and shattered like glass. The wolf staggered and turned an expression on him that Sen interpreted as a stunned. He wasn’t sure, though. Reading these partially transformed spirit beasts was more like guessing than knowing.
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