My willpower flared like oily rags tossed onto a fire. The fresh blood was rejuvenating, and as my control straightened out, I stopped drinking from the monkey, and I pulled.

  The creature drained into my throat, and my stomach ballooned, sloshing with blood as my head grew giddy.

  “Behind you, kid!”

  I spun, ripping my fangs so quickly from the spirit monkey’s throat that I almost decapitated the creature.

  Another monkey had snuck up on me, some bloody streaks through his fur, and whatever burned in his eyes flared as he beheld my monstrous visage.

  For a second, I saw my own blood-soaked, fang-filled face reflected in his eyes, and then I was upon him. My gauntlets lengthened as my willpower established itself, and my long ruby fingers closed around his wrist before he could run.

  I wrenched.

  The monkey’s arm came free at the socket, and he howled as he staggered away. I grabbed his head, my long fingers wrapping around to find purchase in his eye sockets. The beast’s pained howl was cut short as I yanked his skull back hard enough to snap vertebrae.

  The other monkeys turned to run, but they were blood, and I was thirsty.

  With quick bounding movements, I pursued the fleeing troop. Most sprinted even harder, leaping up into trees and swinging away, but some had the poor judgment to attack me with fangs and claws bared.

  My long fingers scooped at them. Though still liquid and flowing, the swirling of my blood control gouged fur and flesh like cream from a tub. Blood splattered the pine needles on the ground. Monkeys shrieked as I tore them apart.

  One monkey leaped at my face. Teeth sank into my head, and my skull cracked. For a moment, I staggered back, my bloody fingers dribbling to the ground, before my will reasserted itself.

  Bloody cables flowed down from my gloves and up my arms, wrapping around my bulging muscles and contracting. I grabbed the monkey wrapped around my head, and with terrible strength, I ripped the bastard in half.

  Its scream was drowned out by a fierce roar, a sound that sent the other spirit beasts fleeing into the trees. I looked around, ready to fight whatever monster came next, but after a moment, I realized the roar came from me.

  I stopped, letting the echoes fade into the silent trees.

  I closed my eyes, stilling my blood, and let my fangs settle back into teeth. After looking about the now silent forest and ensuring nothing else lay in wait, I finally let my willpower lapse.

  While my own blood flowed back into my veins, the stolen monkey blood sloshed to the ground in a great puddle of gore.

  Weariness settled into my mind and muscles as my injuries made themselves known. I could feel my regeneration fixing the cuts and gouges caused by teeth and claws, my ribs slowly crinkled back together, and my shoulder throbbed as the earlier dislocation repaired itself.

  Though in the heat of battle I’d felt unstoppable, the cost of all that blood manipulation was becoming apparent. Even that surge of momentum from feeding had faded.

  I didn’t sleep or feel pain, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t be bone weary — apparently.

  The walk back to the crossroads was longer than I expected, and I let the peace of the watching stars settle into me.

  I’d pushed myself in that fight and done more than I’d ever thought myself capable. There was more, I knew that, lying in wait. My body remained a mystery, but I was finally scratching the surface.

  When I reached the crossroads, I approached Mr Post.

  “Oh!” he said excitedly. “You’re still alive? That’s so, so good!”

  I blinked, giving my mind a minute to readjust to speaking after the battle.

  “Did you figure out which way to go?” I asked.

  “Um… yes.”

  We stared at each other for another minute.

  I sighed.

  “And?”

  Mr Post tilted slightly to indicate which road I needed to follow.

  “Thank you,” I said as I straightened him.

  “That’s so polite!”

  “And thank your roads, as well.”

  I looked down, but the roads said nothing.

  “Don’t mind them,” said Mr Post. “They’re just shy. Trust me, they were happy to help.”

  With a small bow, I thanked them all again before walking over to collect Cabbagy from where he’d sat while I fought.

  Though why I was bringing that infuriating vegetable along with me, I couldn’t say.

  “You did great, kid,” Cabbagy said.

  I smiled.

  “Thanks.”

  His encouragement was actually a pretty good reason to bring him along. The road could be lonely, after all.

  Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

  I scooped him up and tucked him into the crook of my arm.

  But then he ruined the moment.

  “Obviously, I would have done better, but for someone as inexperienced and untalented as you — solid job!”

  “Thanks,” I mumbled as we started down the road.

  “No, seriously. I mean it.”

  I nodded.

  “I suppose I should thank you again for all the warnings you gave me,” I said.

  “No thanks needed, kid. But maybe next time, you’ll pay more attention to what I say when you’re not in combat? Hmmm?”

  “Sure.”

  “Like if a certain cabbage wanted to visit a whorehouse to look for his wife?”

  I stopped and lifted Cabbagy into the moonlight. I took a long, hard look at his blood-speckled leaves.

  “Is that what you want?”

  If I didn’t know better, I would have thought Cabbagy was blushing. Of course, he wasn’t; nobody that bitter and annoying could feel any shame.

  Since he didn’t answer, I wiped the blood from his leaves and tucked him back under my arm. I needed to get new clothes and probably have a bath. Hopefully, I would find a town along the road Mr Post sent me down.

  As it was, I kept walking, chewing occasionally on the arm of a monkey I’d ripped free to dull my growing hunger, and wondered what kind of seasoning an Azure Tiger Blossom provided.

  The deeper I went into the forest, the more I felt a vague tug at my mind. I’d felt it earlier, while trying to figure out which direction to go. It almost felt like a voice, or a rope, but it was too faint for me to know the direction. Still, I knew for sure that something in the forest was calling to me.

  ###

  Qian Ling balanced on a tree branch high above the crossroads with her sleeve held over her nose. Monkey corpses littered the forest floor. The stench of blood and viscera was overpowering, twisting the qi in the area into something deeply violent. The wood and wind qi in the environment were slowly teasing apart and dispersing the malevolence, but it would take time.

  Qian Ling knew she should go down there for a closer inspection, but her spirit senses begged her to stay away.

  She glanced over at Mu Min, who hung even further back. With a two-stage difference in their cultivation, Mu Min’s senses weren’t as strong as Qian Ling’s, but they were more delicate. Already pale as jade, Mu Min’s features had taken on a decidedly sickened hue after they’d returned to see what became of the wandering cultivator.

  Once they deployed the mist technique, the two cultivators had raced away to hide in the forest. When the troop of injured monkeys raced past them, hooting and screeching, they assumed their plan was successful.

  They circled back through the forest toward the crossroads.

  Qian Ling hoped to find the remnants of his robes and perhaps a savaged corpse. She would take the head and present it to her junior.

  What she’d found instead…

  “Are you sure you want to keep doing this?” Mu Min asked.

  Qian Ling fixed a cold stare on her friend.

  “Are you questioning my honor? The honor of our sect?”

  Mu Min slowly shook her head, but Qian Ling knew it had nothing to do with the icy glare she’d conjured. In truth, she couldn’t blame her friend.

  “Come,” Qian Ling said. “Let’s take a closer look.”

  She dropped down from branch to branch, her silver hair almost glowing in the moonlight, until she balanced on a branch that leaned perilously close to the bloody ground. The gore was grotesque. Monkeys were ripped in half and scattered like the paper decorations after the sect’s Autumn Equinox Festival.

  “It reminds me of a butcher,” Mu Min said from beside her.

  “Butchers have more grace than this,” Qian Ling said as she examined a detached limb. “Do you think it could be…”

  “The demonic cultivators your junior pursued?” Mu Min asked, completing Qian Ling’s question. “It’s a reasonable assumption.”

  “Yes, but I don’t detect any demonic qi.”

  Mu Min gave a slight shrug.

  “Could we even tell with all the violence disturbing the area?”

  “Hard to say.”

  “What do we do?”

  Qian Ling sighed. As much as she wished to pursue her revenge and leave the cleanup to the forest’s natural qi flows, there was a chance the violence might warp this crossroads into a cursed spot.

  No matter her goals, she must fulfill her duty. Such was the life of a member of the righteous Shining Mountain Sect.

  “We cleanse this place,” she said.

  It took the pair only half an hour to harvest the beast cores from the Howling Spirit Monkeys. Unfortunately, none had an elemental aspect, but all cores held some value, and Qian Ling didn’t begrudge the time it took to collect them.

  As she was storing them, the moonlight flashed on a particular core. She held it to the light, her qi-enhanced vision studying a patch of discoloration. She’d assumed it was a defect in the low-quality core, but now…

  “What do you make of this, Mu Min?”

  She tossed the core to Mu Min, who caught it easily.

  “Hmm, something stamped on the core. A handprint?”

  “That’s what it looks like to me. Not a human hand, though.”

  “No… wasn’t there mention of a large hand in the report from those who investigated the demonic disturbance?”

  Qian Ling had thought of that as well, but she didn’t know what to make of it. She inspected another core.

  “The same design is on all of them,” she said. “It looks like a monkey’s paw.”

  “If it’s demonic in origin, why don’t we detect any demonic qi?”

  Both cultivators spent a moment thoroughly scanning the area with their spirit senses. They detected the blood and carnage and the disturbed dirt from where the battle took place, but nothing unnatural.

  “It’s a mystery,” Qian Ling said. “We’ll mention it when we report back to the sect, but we’ve already spent enough time on this as it is.”

  “As you say, young mistress.”

  They hurriedly collected the rest of the cores — ten in total, all with the same design — and stored them in Qian Ling’s spatial ring. The cores weren’t particularly strong, so they wouldn’t strain her storage treasure.

  Once harvested, they piled the corpses into the center of the crossroads to maximise the effect of their cleansing formation. Qian Ling placed the bright red flags of a Scouring Ash Formation and filled it with her qi.

  Once full, it activated, and a brief but bright inferno raged within the flags. After the formation died, only ash remained. The forest let out a sigh around them, as the decontaminated ash drifted away on a breeze.

  Qian Ling felt a little weight lift off her shoulders now that the malice had faded from the air.

  “What do we do now?” Mu Min said.

  “We continue after the stranger,” Qian Ling said. “His tracks are still as easy to follow as they have been all day.”

  Mu Min hesitated, but she couldn’t hide anything from Qian Ling.

  “What is it, Mu Min?”

  “Are you sure this is wise, Qian Ling?”

  “You —”

  “No, I’m not asking about honor. I’m asking about intelligence. Look at what this man did to these monkeys. After he pointed them out to us, mind you. I know you’re mad about what happened to Ren Feilong, but…”

  She trailed off, but Qian Ling understood her point. They weren’t just chasing a rude wandering cultivator who needed to be reminded of his place in the world. They were chasing an enigma.

  Anyone strong enough to see through their concealment techniques would know they were pursuing him. If they were following him, then their intention was obvious — even without them wearing the same grey and silver robes as Ren Feilong.

  Only an idiot would point out a danger to an enemy. An idiot or… someone who truly wasn’t in danger.

  Just who exactly were they following?