WilliamDArand
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Cultivating Chaos 5 -ch 6-
🕑 Added 2024-02-28 20:21:48 +0000 UTCAsh had been sat here in this small room for the better part of a month.
Endlessly cultivating, distributing Qi to his Brides, and working up the right cultivation for Wahst, Heights, and Lake-City.
The last of which had been named without his input, though he understood it.
Of everything that city had, and what was near it, the Lake of the Fallen Bride was the most discerning feature for the city. As well as a constant reminder to the populace.
At this point all three cities were cultivating as one with the help of the formations. At first Wahst had suffered some to push out it’s Qi to the other two cities, but they were now roughly at the same level.
As well as at the level Wahst had been originally.
Heights and Lake-City were now actively patrolled and the momentum was moving in step with the Sheng Alliance.
Opening his eyes, Ash felt better.
His Dao, Qi-Sea, and middle-Dantian all felt as if they were moving in accordance with one another.
Endlessly, he’d been working to rebuild his foundation, condense his Qi-Sea, and grow his Dao into a uniform position to everything else.
The golden pillar now rotated slowly in position with the Qi-Sea. The top of it was now part of the middle-Dantian.
Forming the floor for more than half of it, though thankfully it wasn’t rotating. He had no idea why, but he felt like that would’ve been disorienting for some reason.
In the middle-Dantian were all the statues. All of them lined up around Ash as the center. There were very few of the statues that weren’t gold now.
Those that hadn’t been, he had actively begun plucking at with his chains. Force-feeding them Qi and well-wishes as well as any type of mental clarity they might need.
He had found that he could understand their needs and thoughts if he focused on them, gave them a small pulse of concern, and then could respond.
Yue never responded.
In fact, he couldn’t even feel emotions from her.
Almost as if she had locked her mind against him.
“I think I’m ready,” Ash murmured. At this exact moment, he felt as if his mind, spirit, and will, were all in accordance with one another.
“That’s good!” Xiuying cheered from the corner. She was currently prodding at a cauldron. Her back carving and transference papers for Alchemy, Herbalism, and Horticulture had gone very well.
“That is very good,” agreed Na who was slowly forming and reforming her jade into different shapes.
Na and Xiuying had taken it on themselves to care for every need Ash might have in his training.
Though the “closed door” part had been ignored within the first day.
In fact, he often had visitors.
“Wait… what are you ready for? Do I need to leave the room again?” Xiuying asked, standing up and looking confused.
“I’m ready for that,” Na agreed.
“I’m ready to get back to stuff. Our plans. Work,” Ash clarified.
Despite Xiuying’s wishes, he had most certainly not taken the woman to bed.
Anyone else who visited him in the evening was a different matter.
Unfortunately Siu made herself known every single night before and after his marital relations. At the start to ramp him into a level of lust he had never known existed, then to drain him just after his peak.
Leaving him extremely satisfied and drained.
Though helping her with her Dantian never came back up. He didn’t know why, nor did he question it. Right now, she’d be too much to handle for him.
“Ah, good. We should go find Mistress Sheng. I know she had planned to have a council of sorts today,” suggested Na.
“Mei is indeed holding a council today. I’ll let her know you’re done. We’re at the Bridal Fort today and all Brides who can attend, will be here.
“Also… good morning, darling. I missed you last night. I had to go help with preperations for today’s council though and gave my turn over.”
It’s fine. I did miss you, but I was glad to see Moira, too.
You all keep me distracted from missing everyone else.
“Locke said they’re holding the council at the fort,” Ash murmured and stood up. Pushing his hands into his back and getting a resounding crack out of it.
“Ah… I didn’t know that,” Na admitted. “I only heard about it as I ran across Locke when I went to the Hall.”
Kinda nice that you can move people in and out of the Hall. Shame their Bridal Rings don’t work the way we want them to, but it’s nice that you can feel them requesting to go to the Hall.
“Right? It’s amazing. Though… it might also be the pretty young lady next to you. Fortune’s Chosen. Since she’s become part and parcel to your daily life, everything… is going our way.
“You… ah… there’s… we’ve had a number of talks about making sure you and we keep her happy. Luck isn’t something to normally rely on, but if it’s something we can utilize, we should.”
Ah… is that so?
“Yes. I can’t deny it. I personally want to kick every single woman out of the Sheng Alliance and replace them all with men. Just so you can’t even look at these women.
“But… our luck has been extraordinary. Maybe beyond extraordinary. Miraculous?”
“How lucky are you, Xiuying?” Ash asked, glancing over to the woman. She was just finishing up with making a pill.
Reaching in, she pulled it out.
Immediately Ash was struck with the extreme Qi radiating out of it.
“I don’t know?” Xiuying admitted. “But hey, look. I made a Refiner level one attractor pill. But it’s weird. It feels more like the description of an Immortal Rank one pill.”
That answers that, I guess.
“Right. I’m leaving the Hall. Need to get to the fort. Coming?” he asked.
“Of course!” Xiuying said, putting her cauldron away. Na nodded and moved over to him.
“Off we go then,” he murmured and moved them out of the Hall.
No sooner than he did, then he went and checked through the only chain that wasn’t a Brides. The only person in all of Ash’s connections that wasn’t someone he wanted around.
A rogue cultivator that’d seemingly been working for the people in the wilds.
Grasping it, Ash got a feeling for where they were.
Which, surprisingly, didn’t feel that far off.
In fact, they felt as if they were outside of Wahst and in the ruins.
Perhaps even as close as where the jail portal would typically empty out, or not much further than that at least.
“That man is back,” Ash murmured, looking to the chain. “The one that nearly killed Chunhua, Hui, and Tala.”
“I see,” Na muttered. “What do you want to doi?”
“Hui, Moira, and Chunhua are in Wahst,” Locke quickly interjected. “If you decide to do something, since I don’t think I could convince you not to if you did, take them with you.
“Rou is in the Hall right now cataloging medicines and can be pulled out if you need help with injuries.”
I owe him. He nearly killed them.
What do you and the others always tell me? Leaving an enemy behind is giving them a knife?
“Yes… but… alright. Just please be careful, Ashley Sheng, my love.”
Of course, how could I give you that child your statue seems to be holding?
I mean, that’s what it looks like to me.
Naked, golden, and cradling a baby to her bosom.
“I hate you. Shut up. Shush!”
“First we need to find Hui, Moira, and Chunhua. Then we’re going to go kill this man. Go get what you need and meet me at the gate.,” Ash replied.
“Oh, I don’t really think I’m ready for that. Can I hide in the Hall?” Xiuying asked.
“That’d be fine,” Ash allowed with a chuckle.
***
Moving through the ruins at a jog, Ash was surprised.
There were signs that people had been here often and were even trying to take care of the location. The streets were cleaned, ruins moved to the sides, and a great deal of open area had been made.
“The patrols have made progress,” Hui stated as she jogged alongside Ash. “It’ll take time to get any deeper.”
He hadn’t realized that the Brides were working at stabilizing part of the ruins.
Given that there was a long term goal to take the prison portal-entry area, it wasn’t a surprise that it was happening. Only that it was happening already.
Ash looked to the chain and saw that it was shifting rapidly around.
Which only ever happened when he was much closer to the target.
“He’s up ahead somewhere,” Ash announced.
Chunhua let out a soft growl and she began to summon Qi around herself.
Ash immediately dialed up the rate of Qi going into her.
“Oh! Ah… I forgot about that,” Chunhua gasped out as she nearly stumbled over her own feet. “How much can I use?”
“However much it takes to kill him. The Hall is full,” answered Ash. “I haven’t used much of it at all and neither did the Brides. It all gets stored if it isn’t actively needed.”
“Because I’m your bride?” Chunhua asked in a curious tone.
Ash laughed at that and glanced at the white-eyed sorceress.
“Yes. You all seem to take great pleasure in being reminded that my possession are your possession,” Ash remarked.
“Did you forget again that you’re not in your homeworld? There is almost always a senior partner in a relationship, and possessions flow only one way.”
With a grunt, Ash didn’t respond.
Nor did Chunhua, though she did call up more Qi.
Hui was also pooling her Qi, one hand coated in Death Qi and the other with Life Qi.
“This time I will do better. I have much more experience than I did previously,” growled Hui.
Ash thankfully noted that she didn’t falter between her forms of address anymore. She was growing as a person.
“Ahahha, I really don’t think I should be here!” Xiuying chirped with a very nervous laugh. “Oh the lengths I go for my Chosen One!”
In the end, Xiuying had declined to go into the Hall.
For whatever reason, she wanted to remain here.
With him.
There was a general laugh at that.
Even Na laughed, surprisingly.
“Everyone likes her. She makes everyone laugh. She’s… honestly a breath of fresh air. We have a lot of very serious, very dedicated cultivators. There aren’t many with a good sense of humor.
“It’s… sex and violence. Or violence and sex. Or just violence. Or sex.”
Ash couldn’t deny that.
It’d felt rather grim and over-bearing at times to him. He’d been the only one with any sense of humor.
“Xiuying, thank you,” Ash blurted out as they cleared a broken wall that blocked their view.
The man stood in front of them in the center of the street.
He wasn’t alone, however.
Nor was he dressed as he had been last time.
A full helmet adorned his head that looked to be made out of metal. Kitted out in what looked to be guards armor.
All those around him were dressed in the same way.
They all looked like guards.
“There’s no need for—”
The man’s voice fell away as he got a good look at all of them.
“Oh. You again,” he grumbled.
“That’s right, me again,” Ash shouted and then dashed forward. He used spring step with each foot-fall. Propelling him forward as if he were shot out of a cannon. “I owe you for what you did to my wives!”
In the second it took to reach the man Ash had cocked his arm back, summoned his butterfly swords and lunged forward.
Ash could see the surprise in the man’s eyes as he practically appeared before the man. So close were they that he could even see the white’s of his eyes.
The butterfly sword found purchase but only barely.
Unbelievably the man had squirmed to the side at the last possible second.
A hunk of his breastplate screeched as it tore away from the rest and clattered to the ground. Shooting away with the force of the attack.
Letting the attack carry him on, Ash went with the momentum. Spinning in the opposite direction due to the rebound of striking the man.
The left butterfly sword came up in a guard and the rigth went backward. Leaving Ash staring at the other man as he turned to face Ash.
All the guards who were around him, if they were even guards in fact, were now being engaged by the rest of his group.
“Oh heavens!” squeaked Xiuying as she literally ran away from two cultivators. Her right hand was pressed to her chest while her left trailed behind her.
I… don’t… ah.
She tripped over a rock and went face down into the ground. Her veiled hat crumpling as she did so.
Before Ash could think of responding, a different cultivator slammed into the two that’d been chasing her.
One of them getting skewered through the middle out of sheer bad-luck as they collided. Then the second one’s foot landed in a pothole and his leg snapped in a grotesque way as he continued to fall from the collision.
Hui was only a step away from where the man landed and she neatly put her black-Qi-clad hand through the back of their helmeted head.
Exploding it.
Xiuying scrambled up to her feet and ran right between Na and a guard as they broke apart. Only for her veil to get caught on the man’s weapon, get entangled with it.
“Oh no, no, no, no!” bawled Xiuying as she jerked her hat to the side, somehow wrenching the weapon out of the man’s hand.
To which Na neatly punched her jade spear through the man’s chest with an incredulous look on her face.
Blinking, Ash realized that he and his opponent had both been watching the freight-train that was Xiuying blunder her way through the fight.
All the while absolutely wrecking the guards without even seeming to.
At the same time, Ash and his opponent looked to one another again.
Then they both charged headlong at one another.
Without even realizing he’d done it, Ash called up his Dao.
The heavy beat of the fight was all encompasing.
Each thump matched the blows going back and forth between his people and the enemy. The clash of their weapons, the use of abilities, and the violence of it all, playing out in a half realized rhythm.
Now that it was active, his Dao exerted absolute pressure on everyone involved. Bending and forcing all to meet his momentum.
To those on his side they were propelled, to those that stood against them, they were battered by it as if it were an actual force.
The Qi-chains to his allies were constantly pumping fresh Qi into them as they fought. There wasn’t a moment where they weren’t filled to the brim and at their peak.
Chunhua was unleashing torrential amounts of elemental forces at several guards who had decided to take her on. One was even attempting to use Qi to stop her attacks, but it was clear they didn’t have the same type of firepower.
The man’s saber came up in a violent slash from below and nearly straight up.
Ash deflected it with one of his swords and slashed out at the middle of the saber with the other. Causing it to ring loudly and get knocked back.
Not for the first time Ash was going to attack their weapons first.
In his battles, he had found people got hesitant, wary, or paranoid, when he went for their ability to fight.
On cue, the man jerked the saber back into position and shifted away from Ash at the same time. His eyes locked to Ash and looking confused and concerned in equal measure.
As casually as could be, with a grin from ear to ear, Ash attached the new chains to himself. A new source of Qi joined the original from the man.
Xiuying chose that moment to squeak, duck into view, slip partially, then scurry away. A guard that came after her attempting to follow her erratic path.
Instead he stepped on a loose rock, fell, and somehow his short-sword ended up sticking straight up out of his back.
It had damn near impossibly landed with the hilt hilting the ground and the tip somewhat upright. The metal going right through his ribs.
Unfortunately, Xiuying hadn’t even realized her pursuer was gone.
Instead, she threw her hand behind her and let out a cone of fire as she continued to run away. The flames washing over the man Ash had been fighting from head to foot in a torrent of fire.
Immediately the man threw up a Qi-shield to keep himself from burning to death in that instant. It locked him in place as well.
“I love her,” Ash mumbled. “I’ll never let her leave my side.”
Using spring step Ash appeared in front of the man again as soon as the fire died away. His butterfly-swords coming out in unison in a heavy crossblow.
Each of them being propelled with a full usage of spring-step.
A heavy bang rang out as both Qi-infused weapons came to an absolute stop against the shield. Ash’s muscles screaming with the extreme exertion.
It was such a heavy blow that even Ash’s Dao of momentum stuttered for a moment before it finally recovered.
Attaching the two new chains Ash dodged backward again. Using spring-step to gain distance to recover his posture.
Xiuying had fluttered off to the side by this point and had joined up with Chunhua and was hiding behind the sorceress. Accidentally bumping the woman while cowering there, causing an ice-spear from Chunhua to go a bit off course and ram right through a guard that’d been trying to pincer attack Na with someone else.
Both Chunhua and Na had a surprised look to their features.
“You’re draining me,” hissed the man, glaring at Ash and lifting his saber. He did spare a moment to look around himself. As if to insure that Xiuying wasn’t nearby.
“Oh that I am. Your Qi is delicious,” growled Ash, moving forward again. He planned to make sure this man died here today.
Even if it meant loading him up with an ungodly number of chains just to drain him to death at some point.
That’d be just fine to Ash.
Comments
Marauder
I still hope Yue will be okay and return though. I really like her.
Wayward_Vagabond
Amazing. 🤣
