Book 9: Chapter 20: Outside Intervention
Silence hung in the air as the stunned Shattering Earth Sect members stared at Sen in disbelief. Chan Runchu looked like someone had stabbed him. It was one of the core formation cultivators who regained their ability to speak first.
“How dare you speak to Elder Chan that way. He is a nascent soul cultivator! Know your place!”
Sen just looked at the man. There had been a time when all Sen could do with killing intent was blanket the area. A long road and more fights than Sen cared to remember had honed his ability with his killing intent. What had once been a hammer was now a finely honed instrument that struck only what he wanted it to strike. Sen unchained a little piece of that killing intent and let it loose on the man. From one heartbeat to the next, the core cultivator went from standing there with a belligerent look on his face to thrashing on the ground, screaming, and bleeding from his eyes, nose, and ears.
The other Shattering Earth core cultivators drew back from the man as though afraid they might catch whatever he had. Even Chan Runchu looked startled at the abrupt change. He tried to shield his junior, which bought the man about one second of relief. Sen simply released a little more of his killing intent and it punched straight through whatever protection the nascent soul cultivator had offered. The core cultivator’s screaming redoubled as his bleeding and thrashing intensified. Sen moved his eyes to meet those of the nascent soul cultivator.
“Do you suppose he knows his place now?” asked Sen in a casual voice.
The arrogance on Chan Runchu’s face had vanished, only to be replaced with anger.
“Release him at once!”
“Why? Would you release one of my people if they had spoken to you that way? Or would you have killed them out of hand for not knowing their place?”
It seemed that Chan Runchu didn’t have the right answer to that question because his mouth worked a few times but no words came out. Sen felt no sympathy for the nascent soul cultivator. A confrontation like this had been inevitable from the second he decided to make his academy a sect. The Shattering Earth Sect had simply been the ones who decided to move first, which meant Sen needed to make an example here. He couldn’t leave any doubt that challenging his authority here was a monumental mistake. He just wasn’t sure what the best path to accomplishing that goal was. He could kill all but one of them and let that sole survivor carry the tale. It had a certain efficiency to it. Of course, that would make him more enemies at a time when he didn’t need more enemies.