Book 9: Chapter 57: Old Wounds
Sen had taken his time approaching the nascent soul cultivators. Some of that was basic caution. The easiest way for him to get caught was for him to get physically seen. The shadows that obscured him would do a good job of helping him avoid that, but he had no way of knowing how acute the elders’ vision was in the darkness. Moving slowly dramatically reduced the odds of them noticing a shadow behaving oddly. The rest was that he wanted them to group up. They had spread out a bit, no doubt hoping to spot his approach. That theoretically made them easier targets, but he had to assume they could move at least as fast as him. It would take mere seconds for them to converge on an attack location. If he didn’t effectively assassinate the one he picked and got stuck in a straight fight, it would be terribly easy for one of the others to get in a lethal strike on him.
Just as importantly, he wanted to get a good look at them. That would be far easier if they were together than him sneaking around in the darkness to get a look at them individually. He still ended up needing to wait for nearly twenty minutes before the three of them grouped up. He recognized one as Elder Mu. He wasn’t sure if he should be impressed by her survival, or if he should have expected it. She was the one the Patriarch had chosen to set that trap. That probably meant she was one of the more powerful and effective elders in the sect. He was still wary of that technique or whatever it had been that she’d used. It had been frighteningly subtle. He found himself constantly checking his motivations and planning to see if they felt authentic.
The other two he recognized from his time lurking around the sect, but he knew very little about them. He hadn’t seen them use their cultivation and had been mostly working to avoid them. He’d listened in on enough conversations that he’d probably recognize their names if he heard them, but he didn’t know them. One was a heavily muscled man who kept swinging a war hammer around like he wanted to beat the air itself to death. The other was an almost impossibly tall woman. Sen wasn’t sure, but he thought she might be taller than him. Her hair was pure white and something told Sen that it was from age, rather than from nature. She also made him much more nervous than the other two.
He was happy to see that none of the three looked to have come out unscathed from the poison baths he’d made for them. One of Elder Mu’s arms was hanging limply at her side. He could only see her hand, but it looked like it had been dipped in acid. She was also moving like every step caused her pain. Sen was willing to bet that if he just gave it another hour, she wouldn’t be able to do anything. The right half of the muscled man’s face looked badly mottled, almost as if the flesh beneath the skin were dying. From the way the man kept turning his head to look at things, Sen thought there was a good chance that side was mostly or entirely non-functional.
While the impossibly tall woman actually looked mostly fine, Sen had seen her stumble, lean against a tree, and vomit. The wind had carried the stench of rotten blood to his nose. It was a revolting smell, but he’d been happy for it. It meant that terrible, terrible things were happening inside of her. Not that any of that meant he could or should underestimate them. He had fought enough battles while badly injured to know that victory was still possible for any or all of them if he was careless. He did smirk a bit when Elder Mu spoke, though.
“That little bastard is out there somewhere. He’s probably watching us right now.”
“Obviously,” said the tall woman. “I can feel his spiritual sense as clearly as you can. And why wouldn’t he wait and watch? It’s the smart choice. It’s what I’d do.”
“That’s because you’re a coward,” barked the muscular man who was forced to turn his head and look up to see the woman’s face.
“Oh, spare me your idiocy. I can’t listen to you spout on about how charging into every battle like an enraged spirit beast is the only true way to do battle. If you can only speak like a child, be silent.”