Chapter 562 - The true cost of rice.

The air rang with the sharp notes of wind and steel in a symphony of grace and destruction. Sheer bleeding perfection and the cleaving away of anything and everything that failed to be worthy of the Path of Steel.

A quietly panting Eric couldn’t help but grin ruefully in the darkness. It seemed that even with his most recent quickness boost equating to a Mach 5.8 maximum speed sprint… he was still several minutes late.

So Eric chuckled silently when Han Li pointedly ignored his sudden smiling presence, hands respectfully behind his back, just a few dozen feet away. But Eric allowed himself to waste only a few precious seconds in regret, before turning all his focus to the performance before him. He soon found himself lost in every perfect cleaving slice, every last twirling slash of Han Li’s flashing dao, kissing the soft rain that was almost mist that seemed to form whenever she embraced her katas… and of course it made sense as he saw her leaping so lightly from damp grass to puddle, without a single splash.

His newest sparring partner was clearly aligned to Water, made all the more clear when her whirling feet leaped from grass to puddle to rain drop, the air ringing with a warble that obliterated the rainy mist before her and, Eric in that wondrous moment sensed, would have completely obliterated any mortal object as well.

“You’re late.” Han Li stared coolly at a grinning Eric who’s enthusiastic clap rang through the rice paddies lining the mountain-like plateau slope the entire way down, tiny manors, villas, palisades and villages dotting the lush green landscape for miles in all directions.

“You’re nothing short of inspirational,” Eric quipped, before wincing internally at her iron-hard gaze and dipping his head. “And I apologize.”

He suddenly feared that that would be the end of it. She’d coolly dismiss him and his lack of punctuality and propriety and never look his way again. Then he sensed it, her sharp inhalation.

Daring to look up, gazing upon eyes wide with wonder.

“You actually did it.”

Eric blinked. “Did what?”

“Broke through to Bronze!”

Eric felt his cheeks flush as her words rang boldly in the air.

Then she herself stiffened, cheeks flushing prettily at her own faux pas.

“This one apologizes…”

Eric chuckled. “Nothing to apologize for. And I know that in this world, at least, cultivators like to go in big and bold. And if you’re hiding, you’re scheming… even if some of us just want to stay out of the limelight.”

Yet Han Li’s intense focus wouldn’t be deterred. “Well, why are you wasting time on idle chatter? You need to seize the moment and maximize your revelations, before it’s too late!”

Eric winced, hating the thought of missed opportunities. But it hadn’t felt at all like he was on the cusp of a cultivator’s revelation. More like he had just broken through a plateau at the gym. And now there were no limits to his gains.

Because he had physically evolved.

Like the unorthodox cultivator he was. Or, considering his true nature, like a spirit beast might, as much as he hated to admit it.

But still. Humbled by the look in Han Li’s eyes… who had just been spinning upon raindrops and lashing out so powerfully that waves of destruction had radiated from her blade. The Dao of the blades in her hands. So maybe he should shut up his internal dialogue and not always think he knew everything and be OPEN to taking advice from other people?”

“Eric!”

He flinched at the snap in her voice.

“Focus! What lead to your breakthrough. Show me!”

And somehow, no matter that his mental resistance was now a shockingly absurd 790, his mithril dachi, suddenly in his hands, burst into crimson flame as a tiny crimson orb whirled about his head with a low thrum.

“By all that’s profound and sacred, what is that?”

Eric grinned. “Bloodfire Strike. Very good for cutting through resistances, armor, and soul wards.” He tilted his head thoughtfully as his audience of one blanched and stepped back. “Now that I think about it, I haven’t tested just how well it pierces those defenses in quite awhile. I’m betting its pretty good at cutting through most things, by this point.”

Han Li just stared.

Danger Sense skill check: Critical Success!

Eric’s gaze grew intent. “But that’s not what matters.”

You sense the peril behind you!

The girl before him took a shuddering breath. “Eric, I’ve never seen anything… Heaven’s Grace! What did you do?”

Eric flashed a savage grin as the sanguine flames kissing his blade grew no wilder or thicker. They certainly didn’t howl with a primal hunger to blaze away all deception, all falsehood.

Instead, they grew more real.

Dominion’s Reach is now in effect! You have expended 1.5 Soul Reserves. Your blade is now infused with 5 Ranks of Dominion. In a world of shadows, mirages, and paper-thin reality, your blade is REAL! Capable of cleaving through any attempts to faze, fade, cloak, transpose or dimensionally leap away. For no cloak of guile or conceit will hinder your ability to cleave free all deception to reveal the truth of your blade to all!

Real enough that when the air rang with the rustle and flare of giant quills, Eric’s blade was already singing through the air as Battletime shrieked into high gear… the deadly quill that could pierce tungsten carbide now moving at a crawl, Eric having more than enough time for Infravision to spot the brilliant flare of what could only be an oversized spirit beast, a giant cross between a rook and a porcupine glaring their way from a natural rocky bluff, a hundred or so yards away.

Eric’s blade swept through the air with effortless grace, sweeping through the deadly quill and obliterating it as effortlessly as caressing a pristine canvas with a stroke of his brush.

Then a return brush stroke swept through the air, and the rocky bluff was now no more.

The air roared with the sound of superheated rubble exploding, and Eric’s once-more normal sized blade blew through any shrapnel that dared approach the fragile student of the Way gazing at Eric in frozen awe as he embraced Battletime to the fullest, the ricocheting rubble flying just as he willed with his return swings, for the suddenly blazing aura of his Domain meant that rubble kissed by an extension of himself forbid any other fate than for the air to rain with rubble exactly where he willed it.

He then took a fierce, satisfied breath some seconds later, pleased to see that, no matter the scorched mass of superheated and martially melted rock, not one rice paddy had been damaged with his rebuttal.

Phoenix Reach in effect! Dominion’s Reach in effect!

300 Qi and 150 Temporary Soul Reserves expended!

You have OBLITERATED your target without destroying a single rice paddy!

Congratulations! Swordsmanship has Leveled Up!

You have achieved Rank 38 in Swordsmanship!

Eric couldn’t help it, he laughed allowed even as Han Li fell to her knees, gazing up at him with tears in her eyes as he closed his eyes and shuddered with revelation.

He had been on the cusp of it for some time. He knew that. Seeing Han Li’s graceful dance had been enough to push him upon the cusp of a breakthrough.

And then, sweeping his blade with fiery crimson arts that could parry bullet or stone just feet away, or extend a hundred yards to obliterate a nest of snipers with a single stroke of his chosen instrument… or lash out with the howling fury of a berserker determined to pound down obnoxious squid into the calamari they were always destined to be… all of it, together, had been just enough to tip him over into Rank 38 in one of the first skills he had claimed as he closed his eyes and shuddered with the memories and sweet revelations of nearly two years of fighting for his life with his saber and dachi in hand.

Such that when he opened his eyes, smiling into Han Li’s haunted orbs, all choices led to one.

“You feel it, don’t you?”

“I… yes.” Her eyes teared with wonder. “I feel it. I do!”

“Then prove it.”

Her eyes widened with revelation, lips bubbling with awed laughter as her twin dao, blazing with what could only be Sword Qi, danced and spun through the air before plunging right for the grinning exiled faerie prince before her.

Eric laughed aloud as she deduced the truth of his nature with the subtle weave and flash of her blades.

Just as he sensed the terrible pressure she was forced to endure. Her family exiled with her grandfather’s failed ascension, crippled by intrigue and bitter clan struggles in highland affairs of cultivation, dominance, and power.

For they embraced a higher art in their dance of mithril and steel. An art that forbade all artifice and deception.

For a single heartbeat, Eric tasted a profound truth. This was the real reason why deception was so frowned upon in cultivation circles. Why so many would rather boldly declare themselves and their power. That it was a strength, those not so lost in compromise and intrigue that they would unabashedly do so.

For the truth of their convictions was the truth of their souls.

A truth that blazed as they sought insight and revelation by glimpsing far greater insights and revelations than anything conveyed in mortal arts.

A truth they were both just on the cusp of grasping

A truth that remained, stubbornly, utterly beyond both their ken as the stars blazed so brightly overhead.

For now.

“Enough!” Han Li stepped back, arms trembling with exhaustion or revelation, taking deep breaths as beautiful grey eyes locked with Eric’s own. “You felt it, didn’t you?”

Eric denied nothing with his gentle smile, nostrils flaring as he caught the intoxicating scents of jasmine and honeysuckle, a thousand blossoming wildflowers, and a beautiful young woman in her prime. For he too had been pushed, once he restricted his Quickness and Strength to be no greater than her own.

His Perception alone he allowed to soar. Both to savor ever glimpse of revelation that he could… and to keep an eye on the bitterly flaring heat signature stalking them still.

He solemnly nodded. “I do.”

She flushed, for some reason, cheeks blazing as she gazed at him so intently.

“I felt like I could taste eternity, when we danced.”

She flashed a brilliant smile. “Every possible sword-stroke. You could see it, couldn’t you? Every second branching off into endless permutations. We but chose the notes that best fit our song.”

Eric nodded. There was so much else he wanted to say, so many revelations about the flow of those notes, those endless possibilities revealing a higher order truth… though he had no clear idea of what that was, or even how, exactly, to put those glimmers of profound revelation into easily understood words.

And perhaps his gently smiling sparring partner could sense his frustration as well. “Don’t.” Her finger gently touched his lips.

Eric blinked at this, before gently clasping her hand with his own.

She trembled, her nostrils flaring.

“Eric…”

For an endless moment Eric had no words… and this time, it had nothing to do with higher order concepts.

The air rang with unexpected golden peels.

Eric shivered, ears ringing with a sound that rang long after the noise faded to the gentle pattern of rain and Han Li’s guilty look.

“Eric… forgive me. But duty calls.”

Eric blinked at this, before dipping his head. “Of course.” He halfway raised his hand then stopped, not sure what to say as she turned around and darted back for her home, as far more mundane bells seemed to rouse dozens of farmers from the humble abodes near the fields that were their homes. Yet there was no panic, merely the intent looks of men and women with a job to do and eager to do it as fast and expediently as possible as all made their way to what Eric surmized were grain silos. They then began laying out dozens of large burlap sacks filled with grain on an elevated wooden platform.

Eric paid silent witness to the hardworking farmers as Han Li and her grandfather oversaw the operation until the platform was packed high with what looked like several hundred burlap sacks filled with rice.

Then Han Li and her grandfather, along with every last peasant in sight, were kowtowing with lowered heads as the breeze abruptly smelled of freshly sliced peaches, an emerald green rug gently floating down the side of the mountain upon which were three strikingly handsome men in pristine blue ru jackets over lilly white paofu robes embroidered in intricate designs with golden threads.

All of them wore jian secured to their ebony silk belts and gazed down at the world around them with the absolutely flawless features and aloofness of those who had ascended above the common rabble. Or so their every movement and gesture seemed to convey, and Eric couldn’t deny the spiritual pressure he felt them freely giving off.

“Advanced Bronze, between Ranks 20 and 30,” Eric thought to himself. Which was certainly no small amount of power to reveal offhand.

For a heartbeat, Eric feared for Han Li and her grandfather. Yet save for a single pointed glare from one of the three, the trio paid them no mind at first, the tallest cultivator springing from the rug to flutter down to the ground with his paofu robes fluttering like a leaf as he touched ground as gracefully as any hero of the silver screen… as if he had dived through invisible water more than crashed through the air.

He didn’t even bother acknowledging the kowtowing farmers. He merely placed a 3 by 3 foot chest of lacquered wood beside the massive stack of rice sacks and stepped back.

Han Li’s father took that as his cue, the air filling with his short bark of command.

“Fill the ascended one’s vessel!”

At which point the farmers began placing the grain sacks into the chest radiating so much mystical energy as smooth and efficiently as clockwork, Eric blinking as he considered just how spacious such a spiritual treasure had to be. And when had cultivators not had access to storage devices in any novel or anime series he had ever enjoyed?

Of course they did.

Yet to see the utter disdain they clearly had for the mortals serving them left Eric feeling oddly disappointed, for some reason. Though to be fair, when the last of the grain was placed in the lacquered chest and the farmers immediately flowed into dogeza once more… the cultivator’s melodious words were the farthest thing from discourteous.

“Payment for service rendered. Payment for rice gathered. Oaths kept. Obligations fulfilled.”

Han Li’s father bowed solemnly and low before lifting his head to accept the silk purse he was handed.

The tiniest of nods given and the cultivator then ascended the air as effortlessly as Eric might, walking on steps that perhaps only he could see before sitting crosslegged on the floating emerald alongside the other pair, the mystical grain storage chest now between all three of them as they prepared to leave once more.

Before stopping abruptly, three pairs of eyes now glaring Eric’s way.

“Who is the wandering cultivator before us?”

Han Li paled. Her grandfather cleared his throat to speak, but a casually raised hand silenced him instantly.

Eric paid the three a respectful bow, because it hurt him not at all to give face and soothe potential ruffled feathers as best he could.

“My name is Eric Carpenter, honored cultivators.”

The words hung awkwardly in the air as the three continued to stare.

The shortest of the three sneered, giving a minute sake of his head. “Clueless barbarian. He clearly knows nothing!”

The tallest smiled coldly. “He’s clearly not from NanDushi, either.”

“Why are you here, Eric Carpenter?” The middle cultivator asked, his voice free of contempt or suspicion.

Eric bowed once more. “I am aspiring student of the blade and was inspired by the grace and mastery I witnessed from afar. So, I inquired if the gracious Han Li would consent to give me what gentle pointers she might deem this humble student worthy of.”

The man’s burrow forrowed. “You sought to challenge her before the harvest was complete?”

Eric bowed and shook his head. “Forgive this one’s lack of clarity. I sought only inspiration. It neither my goal nor desire to imperil her grace or beauty in any form. Merely to be inspired by it.”

“He’s courting her,” the shortest said with a soft sneer, continuing to speak in a dialect he no doubt thought Eric had no hope of deciphering.

The tallest one nodded, eyes narrowing. “He’s a netherworlder.”

“Of course he is.”

The middle one addressed Eric in the local NanDushian dialect once more. “And where are you from, Eric Carpenter?”

“I was born on a world called Earth, in the Sol Star System, honored cultivator.”

“A netherrealm, them?”

“So I’m given to understand, honored cultivator.”

The man flashed a cool smile. “Your words are polite enough, Eric Carpenter. But I can tell when a man speaks falsehoods… and speaks from a place of mortal terror. The fear shows in their eyes, no matter how they try to hide it. The fear of misstepping. The fear of perishing for the sake of a simple mistake. Yet I sense neither fear nor falsehood from you.”

Eric calmly held the man’s gaze. He had already shown as much courtesy as he could without debasing himself and risking earning their contempt. He would not bow out of servility now… and no additional question had been asked.

The middle cultivator’s smile grew. “Tell me, Eric Carpenter, do you truly have no fear of us?”

Eric couldn’t help it. His lips curled in a very human smirk.

“None whatsoever, honored cultivator.”

The air grew thick with sudden tension.

The smallest of the three glared Eric’s way with sudden killing intent. “How dare he!”

Han Li lurched back in horror, her grandfather now glaring Eric’s way with unmistakable dismay.

The mortals trembled in unmistakable terror, the air ripe with the stink of their fear-sweat.

Strangely, the cultivator addressing Eric flashed an oddly approving smile. “Excellent. I assume that means you know how to use the blade at your hip, and that you wouldn’t be opposed to trading pointers with us, Eric Carpenter?”

Eric’s smile didn’t waver. “So long as the honorable Li Clan here won’t suffer for my victory or defeat, so long as the terms are made clear to all parties, then I would be more than happy to trade pointers with you or either of your companions.”

The tallest and shortest now openly glared at Eric.

“The sheer insolence of that fool!”

The middle cultivator, however, nodded in clear approval. “Excellent. Then the contest will be to yield. Of course all techniques shall be permitted, for no cultivator worth his salt would spar without fire, or the flames of his own inspiration will be forever unlit. Wouldn’t you agree?”

Eric smirked. “Forever unlit. I like that. Sure. Use whatever cultivator technique you like. Of course… that means I’m free to use whatever technique I have access to as well, right?”

The tallest blanched and glared. “Ware, brother. He’s obviously a Contender. Weak as most are, the records are clear. Some of these netherrealm abominations still have access to truly profane and forbidden arts.”

Yet the cultivator addressing Eric directly didn’t seem troubled at all. If anything, his smile grew. “Excellent. Of course, not contest free of mortal peril is truly worth our time, our potential, our focus, if there aren’t stakes of one sort or another involved. Wouldn’t you agree, Eric Carpenter?”

Eric’s own smile was a perfect match for his would-be challenger’s the man’s drive a mirror of his own. His thoughts raced. If he played his cards right… this was exactly what he had hoped for. Even if the path forward would be far different than the one he had originally planned on taking.

“I agree completely.”

The man gazed pointedly at Eric’s rune-covered blade. “Should I best you… your dachi is mine. Given free and clear. And you will explain the nature of the runes blessing your blade.”

Sudden tension filled the clearing. Sharp and thick and Eric could see the looks of dismay and suppressed anger in both Han Li and her grandfather’s faces. The sheer despair in the peasants, clearly only wanting to get out of this alive. And from the three cultivators… a fierce combination of envy and hunger and a desire to grasp whatever edge they could. Whatever insight or revelation might push them forward. Or at least an interesting curiosity to gossip about with their friends up topside, when they convey the trials of another long day mucking about with peasants and rice.

And somehow he knew that if he were to refuse…

But he had no intention of refusing, whatsoever.

Indeed, he couldn’t have been more pleased, now mentally dubbing the cultivators Tall, Mid, and Shorty.

“I accept.”

The tension immediately transformed to relieved sighs from the most desperate to smug grins from the most powerful.

None smiling wider than Eric.

Perhaps uncomfortably so.

“In return, I have but a single request. Hopefully no trouble for such esteemed cultivators such as yourself at all.”

This earned a quirked eyebrow and an amused turn of the lips from Mid, the spokesman of the group.

“Oh, and what would that be, Eric Carpenter?”

“Permission to trade freely with the Jade Consortium.”

Eric’s smile didn’t waver when the air turned thick and deadly with killing intent.

“That you would dare!” Shorty snarled. “An unworthy outsider like you? Your very existence would taint it is pristine halls!”

Han Li’s grandfather paled, his granddaughter bracing him, gazing at Eric with an odd mixture of pity and dismay. Half the mortals fainted.

“Leave the affairs of your betters,” Mid snapped. With desperate sobs of gratitude, the several dozen peasants present immediately scurried for their lives, dragging their more dazed compatriots away until the field was clear of anyone save cultivators.

Mid then turned to Eric. “Do you even know what you dare to ask, outsider?”

Eric tried his best to control his eye-roll. “I merely ask the right to bring wealth, value, and opportunity to the countless cultivators up high who might find a use for someone of my skills. Not to mention the profits to be made in base coinage. And of course, should I offer a bad deal or trade, nothing says the Jade Syndicate has to accept, right? Only trade that benefit both parties. So what’s not to like?”

Yet Mid did not look convinced. “Prove you actually have something that would be of the slightest interest to—”

His words cut off in a wide-eyed look of disbelief when Eric revealed the prize he had so recently claimed from the depths of the sea.

If Han Li and her grandfather had been caught off guard before, now they were both staring at Eric’s oddly glowing prize with speechless wonder.

“Brother, look at the size of that beast core! Radiating the element of space… of vastness! Flume would pay a fortune in spirit pearls for such a thing!” Shorty whispered in a strangled voice.

Eric kept his smile innocuous. “So, I take it this would be worthy of Jade Consortium trading rights?”

Mid’s eyes twinkled with unmistakable avarice, despite his golden peel of laughter. “Indeed it would, friend. Indeed it would.” He then revealed an actual jade talisman before him. “I give my oath that, should you defeat me per the terms already set, I will surrender my marker and allow you to bind it as your own.”

Eric blinked at this, before bowing his head in respect. Because even if it was the least of trinkets for the truly elite, for him… utterly barred to access to the true economic powers that shaped actual worlds… he was finally being shown a path to achieving at least one of his goals.

And the words spilling from Mid’s lips were, in truth, exactly what he had expected to hear. No matter the angry hiss from Han Li, her alarmed grandfather pinching her to apologetic silence.

“In return, you will surrender both blade and beast core, should you yield or perish before my blows.”

Eric flashed a tight smile, not blind to the subtle alteration made. Not yield or be disarmed, but yield or die.

“Forgiveness, honored cultivator. But I cannot echo that path, for if you perish to my blade, I’ll have no more rights over your talisman than any thief or brigand.”

Shorty seethed. “The mouth on that fool. Best you take his teeth so he may never smirk so again, brother!”

Mid gave the dryest of chuckles. “Of course. To disarmament or surrender. Do you accept the terms?”

Eric smirked, pausing only long enough to store his prize once more before bowing his head, already knowing what was coming. “I D—”

But Mid was already darting forward, Jian radiating the Essence of Sharpness unsheathed, executing a devastating lung like a winding serpent, slipping past any counter to plunge deep into the air… for Eric had already twisted aside.

Tall blinked in surprise. “No! How did he move so fast?”

“Not natural!” Shorty hissed.

Mid was the farthest thing from deterred of course, eyes flashing with wild hunger as he snarled and lunged his jian for Eric’s center, winding his blade even as is plunged forward… only for Eric’s dachi to dart forward and twist as he bound his hilt against the cultivator’s suddenly trapped blade before jerking it free of his opponent’s strained grip with a winch, Eric hardly using his absurd strength at all.

For long, perilous moments, all six cultivators gazed at the jian lazily cartwheeling through the sky.

“Brother!” Shorty’s startled gasp jostled Mid out of his stupor, blaring at Eric as he squeezed his bleeding and dislocated thumb before racing upon the misty air and snatching his blade in mid air.

“I have reclaimed my blade. It has never touched the soil!” Mid declare with a hot challenge in his gaze.

Eric shrugged, casual smile firmly in place. “Sure, man. We’re good. Shall we?”

The cultivator’s eyes flashed and the earth trembled.

Spikes of stone shot through the air where Eric had been standing as wind blasted from a thrown talisman, the howling gale powerful enough to blast multiple wagons, and no less than three village huts were torn free of the terraced slope.

Perception Check: Success!

Quickness Check made!

Yet no heat signatures could be sensed from the presently vacant homes that were now shredded wood, bamboo, and lost family necessities and heirlooms blowing across countless distant fields as panicked villagers sobbed their dismay and Mid flashed through the air in a streak of lightning.

Three elemental powers, at least one generated by talisman released almost simultaneously. And the fierce look of triumph on the cultivator’s face was that of one savoring victory as he lunged forward with a shout that cracked both the stone tiles upon the path Eric had been standing upon, but not the razor sharp stone spikes that had been enhanced with Qi.

Then all was breathless silence, save for the vibrating tip of a jian crackling with lightning.

Mid’s eyes widened with furious surprise. “How?”

The words slipped free almost involuntarily. For his sword and stone spikes had struck nothing but air, his shout shattering stone tiles that had never known Eric’s footsteps, the howling gust of wind, already past, leaving only the ruin of fragile mortal lives behind.

He abruptly spun around, locking gazes with his two fellow Energy Storage cultivators. “Where is he?”

Then he froze, feeling the kiss of death upon his neck, the air resonating with words as chill as howling winter winds. “Swords, Mid. Let’s stick to swords, shall we? Your Qi attacks are doing nothing for me.”

All three cultivators froze at Eric’s words.

Mid suppressed a tremble as Eric smirked and stepped back.

“How dare you mock us, outlander!” Roared Shorty, who abruptly threw forth a handful of sparkling talismans.

Eric suppressed a grin, sensing the twisting currents of lightning and abjuration now surrounding both him and his opponent.

“Now see how you fare, denied all access to trickery, vermin!”

Eric ignored the hot-tempered shortest member of their crew as a glaring Mid met his gaze.

“I did not authorize this.”

“Considering the handful of talismans that just exploded in your offhand… I believe you.”

This earned a bitter hard smile from the blemish-free cultivator. “My challenge thus remains unsullied.”

“Of course.”

Shorty’s lips curled in a furious snarl. “Oaths mean nothing before the unclean! Your mask is torn, outsider! Your cloaks of deception and guile sundered! Your true form will now be revealed to us!”

Eric and Mid ignored the hotblooded cultivator, Eric’s opponent finally honoring Eric with a grim salute of flashing steel.

“I find you worthy.”

Eric smirked. “Good. I always aim to—”

Eric’s words were cut off as his opponent darted forward with another winding lunge that parried even as it struck, before being trapped in the mithril serpent wrapping about it in turn.

Lightning flashed, lighting up Eric’s flesh with less of a jolt than Rachel’s kiss.

Storm’s Promise mitigated by 783 Qi Resistance!

Obliterating Strike mitigated to… static cling!

Then Eric closed the distance with a wrench and twist, forcing Mid’s wrist and thumb back as the man roared a pain-filled curse before tripping off Eric’s leg hook, stumbling to the ground, eyes widening with dismay as they both gazed at the jian windmilling through the air once more…

Before Eric plucked it free.

He flashed a hard smile. “Thank you for the pointers, honored cultivator. I believe you dropped this blade?”

Mid froze in his crouched position for long seconds, eyes flaring with killing hate… before instantly smoothing out to cool neutrality, gracefully on his feet once more, brushing the dust off his hanfu with as much dignity as he could.

“I did indeed. Thank you for recovering it.”

Eric dipped his head. “Of course, honored cultivator.” His words saved all face, yet the fire in his gaze made it clear that their conversation was far from over.

Mid reached for the storage pouch on his robe belt before his hand stiffened, hard eyes pinning Eric’s own as he reached out for the hilt of his sword Eric had presented, yanking it back with a lurch…

His eyes widened.

He gazed down a the hilt of his blade. Firmly in his hand.

As for the edge crackling with lightning… it was still held firmly in Eric’s careful grip.

“Impossible!” Tall hissed. “No one can grab lightning so boldly without being struck for their insolence!”

“His hand neither bleeds nor burns. It should have been cleaved right off his arrogant wrist! He’s an abomination. We must tell the elders at once!” Shorty hissed.

Eric glared into Mid’s increasingly anxious gaze. “I believe you have something that now belongs to me, honored cultivator.”

Mid’s stunned disbelief turned to an outrage glare. “You would dare to insist upon that now? After all you have done?”

Eric flashed a bleak smile. Ignoring Han Li’s anxious whimper and the bitter murmurs of Mid’s companions. “Let me put this as… diplomatically as I can. Do I look like I’m going to back down, Mid? Go on. Tell me that you and your companions have every intention of striking me dead, should I dare take you at your word and claim what is mine. Now look into my fucking eyes, Mid. Do you see any fear? Even a trace of worry?”

Mid’s glare froze to a look of genuine dismay with whatever he saw in Eric’s sky blue irises he was almost certain weren’t blazing with frozen flame. Still, he did his best to force Eric to back down.

“You’d be a fool to cross us any further than you already have, insolent child! Lower your head before your betters, turn around, and walk away. And pray we forgive your insolence, lest you’d take things to a head that will end in bitter tears for you and yours!”

His words cut off when Eric tightly clenched the man’s hanfu garments, jerking the 300+ Strength cultivator as Eric leaned in close, lips curling in a smile as his heart pounded in his chest.

Not with fear, but sheer bloody excitement. So incensed by the cold, petty, honorless conniving so reminiscent of the goblin-tainted bureaucratic fuckery back home that he was now far hungrier to put his fist through the faces of a world full of assholes than he had been for a very long time.

Days, at least.

“You wanna know how far I’ll take this? I’LL WADE THROUGH RIVERS OF FUCKING BLOOD! NOW KEEP YOUR FUCKING WORD AND PAY THE FUCK UP!”