Demonic qi…

  My eyes widened at this revelation.

  “Do you mean to say…?”

  The Butcher Bird twittered with unrepressed glee.

  “Yes! You understand now. The properties of demonic qi are fascinating, and the applications are truly endless. I’m fortunate my masters left behind some functional portals; the math is dreadfully complicated.”

  My merchant self wondered what exactly math had to do with anything. The rest of my selves wondered if demonic qi was what animated me. If I lacked a soul, as the Butcher Bird said, then something else must move my physical body. That could explain why I healed so easily from damage that would kill anyone else.

  But what exactly was the thing that held my reservoirs of qi, blood, flesh, and bone?

  “Are your experiments like me?” I asked.

  The Butcher Bird twittered good-naturedly.

  “Certainly not! I made every effort to improve upon the human form. Honestly, you must admit that your design is singularly uninspired. It’s a wonder that humans have achieved anything that they have, simply a fluke of the heavens if you ask me!”

  “What are you saying?”

  “I’m saying I undid the heavens’ great design, and the jealous, petty nature of the heavens is such that it will strike me down if I ever leave this valley! They can’t stand anyone challenging their works!”

  The air quivered, and the room shook. Stone flaked down to the ground and dust filled the air, but the Butcher Bird cleared it all with a flap of his wing.

  “I apologize,” he said with his dark eyes burning in his black mask. “Sometimes I feel cooped up in this valley.”

  “It’s quite alright. I completely understand feeling claustrophobic.”

  The Butcher Bird twittered.

  “The way your demonic qi works is different from my experiments. It’s a fascinating technique, and I would need to cut you apart and watch you go back together several times to understand just how exactly the demonic qi is stitched into your flesh. Don’t worry, we’ll have plenty of time for that later.”

  “I’m not sure I want to do that.”

  The Butcher Bird pinned me with a stare.

  “You want to learn from me. So, you will assist me in learning. Did you plan to take without giving? Did you come to my valley to steal from me?”

  Again, the air quivered. The room shook, and my body trembled, bones splintering as the Butcher Bird grasped me with crushing intent. Surprisingly, the intent didn’t hurt. It seemed only qi damage really hurt, and since the Butcher Bird’s body was partially formed of qi, it could damage me with physical attacks.

  Since I didn’t feel pain, I decided, perhaps foolishly, not to back down. My willpower slowly teased further through the blood, and this action alone lent me confidence, even if there was no way I could physically harm the Butcher Bird.

  “You can’t keep me here,” I said.

  The Butcher Bird screeched with mocking laughter.

  “I can do whatever I want! But if you’re really so sure, then go ahead and leave. I won’t tell you anything about the demonic qi in your body, or the facilities, or our masters, and you can leave here with your questions unanswered. Walk into the elevator and leave.”

  Elevator? I glanced at the room between rooms.

  “You’ll just come after my expedition,” I said. “This isn’t a real offer.”

  “What if it is? I’ll even let your expedition stay nine days unmolested. Of course, you’ll have to contend with the valley itself, but I won’t actively interfere. You won’t even see me again.”

  I raised an eyebrow.

  “You think I was born yesterday?”

  “I think you’re a little bit older, but not by much. This is a serious offer that I’m extending to a fellow experiment. I understand that you don’t want to be a part of any research, and so I’ll let you go.”

  I scoffed.

  “And when my expedition and I run into your experiments while we’re out in the valley, you’ll — what? — turn away and close your eyes?”

  “You’re quite insolent.”

  “You’re quite insincere,” I said with all the bravado my merchant self could muster. “If you’re going to get information from me, then give me information at the end, or did all your words about theft only work one way?”

  The Butcher Bird stared at me before twittering.

  “You remind me so much of our masters,” it said. “Since you seem like you want to trade, I will make a deal. I will return you to your companions, and you will guide them to the Myriad Tree at the northern end of Howling Blossom Valley. For every member of your party that survives, I shall answer one question.”

  This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

  “How can I trust this deal?”

  “I unblocked your connection between your mind and your reservoirs. If that doesn’t inspire trust, I don’t know what will.”

  The Butcher Bird was right, in a way. How could it inspire any trust in me when it held so much power? I was forced to accept the deal by virtue of its power over me, since I couldn’t stop it if I wanted to, and I had to trust implicitly that it would do the right thing.

  This was obviously impossible while looking through a viewport at humans wriggling on a colossal tree.

  “I know how I can trust you,” I said.

  “How?”

  “Leverage.”

  I drew on the willpower I’d spread throughout the blood and drained it up into a tendril that struck at the Butcher Bird. The Nascent Soul spirit beast dodged effortlessly and swept a wing in a slap that turned my body to pink mist and sent my head sailing through the air. It caught my head and glared into my eyes.

  “That was very foolish.”

  I grinned, which only made the bird more furious.

  “Why are you smiling?” it asked me.

  Because I managed to keep a hold of my willpower after the blinding pain of being beheaded, stretched out below us were the finished sigils of the soul-severing ceremony. By selectively drawing the blood, I’d left the ceremony characters drawn on the floor. My qi pulsed, and the sigils burned as they activated.

  The Butcher Bird was caught in the center of the ritual circle, and it screeched as it fell to the ground. My head bounced and rolled away, but I used a blood tendril from my neck to orient myself.

  Where the Plum Blossom assassins all fell like lumps of clay, the Butcher Bird writhed in agony. Color drifted from its body like smoke as it grew insubstantial.

  “What… have… you… done…?”

  “Evened out the deal,” I said. “I don’t know what will happen to a Nascent Soul spirit beast if it remains inside a soul-severing ritual. Would you like to perform this experiment with me?”

  The Butcher Bird glared at me.

  “This won’t hold me.”

  It wouldn’t.

  I could already feel a snapping, buckling pressure in my mind as the Butcher Bird’s monstrous qi reserves burned against the sigils. At most, I had as long as it takes for an incense stick to burn.

  “I don’t need to hold you.”

  “What?”

  “This is merely a presentation. You said it was difficult for you to separate bodies and souls, right? If you follow through with your side of the deal, then I’ll teach you this ritual.”

  The Butcher Bird narrowed its eyes as it bled away into the air.

  “I could torture this out of you.”

  “No, you couldn’t. You’ve seen what I can survive.”

  “Everyone breaks eventually.”

  I shrugged, well, as much of a shrug you can do as a severed head on the ground.

  “Nah.”

  “I’ve seen enough of this ritual already.”

  “No, you haven’t,” I said with a smile. “You really haven’t.”

  And that was the unfortunate truth. My memories of this ritual were deep and painful, and one of the few reasons I was glad that I didn’t dream.

  The Butcher Bird let out a soft tweet that sounded like a sigh.

  “You really do remind me of our masters.”

  “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

  “You should.”

  “So, we have a deal? Information for information? Freedom for freedom?”

  We stared at each other as the sigils burned out one by one. They would disintegrate completely far earlier than I’d predicted. I had practically no time at all.

  “Yes, we have a deal.”

  “Wonderful,” I said. “Let me just erase —”

  All the remaining sigils burned up at once, and the Butcher Bird flapped its wings as its body resolved into a more solid form.

  “The sun will set soon on your first night in the valley. I will return you to your expedition, then you have eight more days to reach the Myriad Tree. Once you arrive, you will teach me the rest of your soul-severing ritual.”

  So, he’d already picked up most of the ritual from this singular experience with the sigils. As expected of a Nascent Soul spirit beast. It was truly frightening.

  “Alright,” I said, eager to still appear confident. “Once I finish healing, we can…”

  Air whistled past my ears as the Butcher Bird rushed through the air. Its talons firmly clasped me as we flew up through stone pipes in the ceiling that I never would have fit through if I still had my body. I expected the walls to be smooth, but they were lined with stone hairs, like the escape tunnel out of Mountain Root City.

  There was no time to consider the implications of that.

  We burst out of a hole in the ground and into sunlight. Tall grass stretched out around us, and as we flew higher, I saw the horizon was too close, with the deep red light of sunset filling the sky. The Butcher Bird hovered with slow, perfunctory flaps of its wings.

  Below us, I made out my party moving through the tall grass. Chen Ai led the way, with the Shen clan behind her helping to clear a path, and the Ran following. The grass left an obvious trail of their movement, just as it left obvious trails for the man walking towards them. I could only see his head sticking out above the grass, with long dark hair trailing behind him like an inky veil.

  Who was that?

  Was it one of the demonic qi animations the Butcher Bird mentioned?

  The Butcher Bird interrupted my speculation.

  “You never healed your damage in front of your expedition members. I can only assume your regeneration is a secret because of its demonic origin. So, I would like to see what you do now.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Consider this compensation for your earlier insolence. How will you react when your expedition sees you in a state that no human could survive? Will you play dead to preserve your secret? Surely you could regenerate later and protect your party from the shadows, but then you won’t be able to help right now with the demonic spawn marching towards them. How many of them will die? How many questions will you lose? Secrets vs safety, a fascinating question, and one that lies at the heart of all demonic cultivators. Go on, tell me what lies in your heart.”

  With that, the Butcher Bird released me.

  I fell, and the air whistled, and the sun glowed red on the horizon. In moments, I struck the ground and rolled through the tall grass. My skull cracked and my brain squished. It would take a minute for me to recover my willpower and focus on my regeneration.

  Hopefully, nobody saw me, and I could just heal quietly and then find Chen Ai once my body was formed. I’d be naked again, but that wasn’t the worst outcome. I was sort of getting used to it not being my fault, which was funny considering it was the entire reason I was in this valley in the first place.

  I wrily shook my head at the way my life had turned out, which was what revealed to me that I could move again. Time for healing…

  I opened my eyes and found myself staring straight at a helmet half-buried in the ground. It must have been left behind by a warrior who fell to the Dancing Blades Field.

  “Ah!” said the helmet. “It’s a ghost!”

  “Shut up,” I whispered. “I’m not a ghost.”

  “Did you hear that?” Chen Ai’s voice came through the grass.

  “It was this ghost!” shouted the helmet. “Don’t come near!”

  “It came from over there,” said Shen Tongtong.

  “Be ready,” Chen Ai ordered.

  The grass rustled as the expedition approached with cautious steps.

  Oh no, oh no, I formed blood tendrils to crawl away before…

  “Senior brother!” Chen Ai shouted as she emerged from the tall grass and scooped me up. “What has happened to you?!”

  Before they found me.

  MC: Sorry for the late chapter. I blame Cabbagy.

  Cabbagy: How is it my fault?

  MC: Hey man, I just say what he tells me to say.

  Cabbagy: Come on, kid, have some backbone.

  MC: You know what… yeah! I’m my own person, I can decide what I say and… oops!

  Cabbagy: Looks like you fell over there.

  MC: I think the author wrote out my backbone.

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