Cultivation Nerd (xianxia)

The crack from one of the massive swamp trees was followed by an explosion half a mile away, the ancient trunk bursting apart to reveal a pure white creature. Even through the curtain of rain, it was obvious that it was some kind of unicorn, roughly the size of a bus.

Why had it bothered hiding if it was just going to reveal itself anyway?

“Interesting,” I murmured. “It merged its Qi with the tree, masking its aura. That's not easy to do. Though how a creature with Qi as pure as yours managed to hide in a swamp like this. Well, that's another question.”

The swamp's Qi was murky and tainted, completely at odds with the unicorn's pristine aura. Usually, beasts could mask their presence only in their natural habitats. Just from the atmosphere alone, it was obvious people had died here. The abandoned boats hinted at mysterious disappearances, as though some creature had used this place as its hunting grounds for decades.

Though probably not more than half a century. Otherwise, the boats would've rotted away by now. Of course, someone could also have deliberately staged the scene.

Before I could think any further, the unicorn charged. Its hooves skimmed across the rain itself as it raced toward us.

It was clearly attacking. Yet the way it moved was breathtaking, like a white comet dancing through the heart of a storm.

“Liu Feng, do you think you could make me a nice cloak out of that?” Song Song said with a smile, sounding like a complete barbarian incapable of appreciating beauty.

I mean, just look at it. The filthy swamp, the raging storm, and a creature so pure it almost seemed divine, charging us with lethal intent while giving off almost no murderous aura.

“Yes,” I replied. “But it's a pretty big horse. Can I use the leftovers to make a dress for Fu Yating?”

“Absolutely not,” Song Song scoffed. “Buy your wife gifts using things you hunt. If there's anything left over, make me a few scarves instead.”

“You don't even wear scarves. That's never been your style.”

“Yeah?” she smirked. “Maybe I'm about to start now.”

When the unicorn was only six yards away, Song Song cracked her neck.

A blood-red, bone-like rod erupted from her palm as she shot toward the beast. The air detonated around her, and the sonic boom drowned out the pounding rain, blasting the storm aside.

I stepped back and raised a barrier around myself, with Jiang Yeming naturally following behind me.

Wu Yan, on the other hand, didn't retreat. She had no reason to. Her cultivation surpassed both of the combatants.

“I thought you were going to talk to it first,” Jiang Yeming said.

“Talk?” I raised an eyebrow before letting out a snort. “I know how the Beast Sect treats humans. My family lives in the Misty Mountains, and I kill anything that tries to sneak this close to them. My family's safety isn't a joke.”

Even if it were an elder from one of the Great Sects trying to sneak in, I'd do exactly the same. It wasn't because I arrogantly believed nobody could ever slip past my defenses. Quite the opposite. I knew someone eventually might, whether through skill, luck, or both. And with my wife and children unable to defend themselves against that kind of threat, I had no intention of giving anyone a second chance.

Whatever Disney fantasy Jiang Yeming had about us making friends with our enemies, that simply wasn't on the table. I respected those willing to stand before me face-to-face. But as long as my children were still this young, no enemy was allowed anywhere near them.

Contrary to my expectations, Jiang Yeming smiled.

“Of course,” she said. “Liu Sha's safety is more important than some animal.”

She didn't even bother hiding that only one child existed in her eyes.

Song Song's blood-red spear collided with the unicorn's horn. The blood weapon shattered instantly as a brilliant white light erupted from the horn. The beast never slowed, charging straight ahead with every intention of skewering my friend and rearranging her guts.

Instead of retreating, Song Song's crazed grin only widened. Two blood gauntlets formed around her hands as she reached forward and grabbed the unicorn's horn.

What possessed her to challenge the strongest part of a creature like that head-on? Boredom?

She'd spent too long cultivating indoors and had almost nothing exciting to do around Wisdom Hall.

The unicorn danced through the falling rain, soaring upward like a rocket before diving back toward the ground like a falling star. Song Song grinned and gathered Qi into her fists.

“Show me what you're made of, you filthy beast!” she roared like a complete madwoman.

The unicorn became a streak of white light. Just as it looked like their attacks were about to collide...

It suddenly veered around Song Song. The beast shot straight toward the barrier where Jiang Yeming and I stood.

Oh?

It reached us almost instantly. I activated my first Foundation Technique, pushing my mind into overdrive while trying to complete the hand seals for a Level 6 Array. It wasn't enough. The unicorn was simply too fast.

Despite that, except for a leap in heartbeat, I didn't worry too much.

Because Wu Yan was already there.

She appeared directly in front of the charging beast, her arms stretched so long they nearly reached her heels. As she thrust them forward, they wrapped around the unicorn's neck like boneless snakes.

A blinding beam erupted from the unicorn's horn. It pierced straight through Wu Yan's abdomen, leaving behind a fist-sized hole where part of her intestines had once been.

Shit.

I winced.

If she'd wanted to defend herself, she could've reinforced herself with Qi and at least reduced the damage. Instead, the unicorn's head began bubbling. Wart-like growths rapidly spread across it as its skull swelled until it was nearly half the size of its entire body.

It looked ready to burst.

That was why Wu Yan had willingly taken the hit. The flesh around the hole in her abdomen writhed like a nest of worms. She consciously tried to reshape her body and close the wound, but the lingering Qi around the injury halted every attempt at change.

This was probably an awful matchup for Wu Yan. The unicorn's element might involve halting change itself... perhaps stillness, purification, or something similar. There wasn't enough information to know for certain.

One of the unicorn's swollen eyes suddenly burst from its socket. A lump of cyst-like flesh squeezed through the opening as thick, black blood, more like rancid oil than anything living, splattered across the swamp.

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Gross.

What in the world had Wu Yan done inside that thing's body to make it react like this?

Song Song appeared above the beast, wielding a comically oversized crimson blade, ready to cleave the unicorn in two.

She swung.

Clang!

A translucent silver barrier materialized around both the unicorn and Wu Yan, grinding against Song Song's massive blade.

Song Song's deep blue eyes gleamed with malicious delight as a terrifying grin spread across her face, so wide it looked as though it might split her cheeks apart.

Then she burst into manic laughter.

“It seems my new coat has quite the personality!” she cackled.

“I forgot how mentally deranged that woman is,” Jiang Yeming commented beside me.

The unicorn's single swollen eye shifted toward me. It opened its mouth as though trying to say something, but with Wu Yan's grip crushing its throat, all that escaped was a wet gurgle followed by a mouthful of blood.

Why the hell was it staring at me? Jiang Yeming was the one talking.

“I know the women are pretty,” I complained, “but you don't have to glare at me. I'm not the one causing you all this pain.”

“I'm flattered you think I'm pretty, friend,” Song Song replied. “But you're a bit too plain-looking. Standing next to me would only make you look uglier.”

I wasn't even talking about her specifically.

Song Song raised the enormous crimson blade once more, coating it in thick crimson Qi that rippled like flowing red jelly.

Bang!

This time, the white barrier cracked. A white light spilled through the fracture.

For some reason, the unicorn's lone enlarged eye remained fixed on me.

It was uncomfortable.

The beast let out a muffled grunt and kicked wildly against the air, desperately trying to wrench its neck free from Wu Yan's iron grip.

“It seems to have suffered a backlash,” Jiang Yeming observed. “The most common element for unicorns to evolve toward is Purity. Due to its bloodline, that affinity has been taken to an extreme. Creatures like this can't directly harm people they recognize as pure.”

Wait. Was that actually real? I'd read conflicting theories about it before, but no one could ever seem to agree on what actually qualified as purity.

“It seems that despite everything,” Jiang Yeming continued, “Wu Yan is still a pure girl in heart and in body.”

I winced.

There were already cultivation techniques that rewarded people for remaining "pure". Now there were even beasts that refused to attack them? What kind of discrimination was this? Was that why the unicorn had swerved around Song Song?

...No, wait. How the hell was she considered pure? Sure, she was about as interested in justice and romance as she was in a random rock. But that hardly made her a pure person.

My mind immediately wandered toward a dozen possible experiments. I stopped myself before that train of thought could go any further.

Jiang Yeming glanced at me from the corner of her eye. There was a suspicious gleam there.

“What?” I asked.

“Nothing,” she replied a little too quickly.

She hesitated, opened her mouth, then closed it again. Eventually, she couldn't help herself.

“I always assumed you and Song Song...”

“I'm a married man,” I said with a frown.

No matter how friendly Song Song or any other woman might be with me, there had always been a very clear line.

“No, I know you're always loyal to Fu Yating,” Jiang Yeming said. “I just always assumed Song Song forced herself on you at least twice.”

What the fuck? Why would she think that? I came out here to have a fun adventure and deal with some beast that had wandered too close to the Misty Mountains.

When did this conversation become so weird?

“You know what? Never mind. My mistake,” Jiang Yeming said, rubbing her forehead. “I just thought someone like Song Song, whose moral compass is... skewed, might try something once just to see what it felt like, then a second time just to make sure.”

She paused.

“Actually, I'll stop talking now. I feel more uncomfortable with every word that comes out of my mouth.”

“If you felt like that,” I sighed, “you could've just said nothing.”

“Yes, but Ni Shi-” She coughed and abruptly stopped herself.

Ni Shi? Has that stupid toad been spreading rumors again? For a Nascent Soul beast, he really had nothing better to do. He was like one of those neighborhood grandmothers who always had to stick their noses into everyone else's business.

Song Song, meanwhile, paid absolutely no attention to what she undoubtedly considered an incredibly boring conversation. She brought her massive crimson sword crashing down once more, shattering the translucent silver barrier like cheap glass.

Before Song Song could swing again and finally get her pound of flesh, Wu Yan tightened her grip around the unicorn's neck.

Thumb-thick veins bulged beneath its white fur.

Then...

She tore its head clean off. Blood sprayed through the air as flesh split apart like a soaked garbage bag being ripped in two. Even after being severed, the unicorn's lone eye never left me.

Then it burst. Yet somehow, I still felt as though those empty, bloody sockets were staring straight into my soul.

Its mouth slowly opened.

Despite being nothing more than a severed head that Wu Yan had casually tossed aside...

It spoke.

“When the ninth step meets the gate,

A borrowed soul shall claim its due.

The mirror bends, but not to fate;

Its truest face still passes through.

Should stranger's thoughts begin to bloom,

Then shut the gate and turn away.

No borrowed voice may share your room,

Though dawn must yield another day.

When jade is crowned with ageless spring,

One branch shall never bloom again.

Yet still the morning larks shall sing,

As sorrow walks where joy has been.

One hand, untouched by passing years,

Shall hold another, small and bright.

Where one has learned from joy and tears,

One still believes the dawn is light.

The lantern greets the falling night,

Yet finds no end to what it shows.

Each step reveals another sight,

And still the quiet traveler goes.”

Blood streamed from the unicorn's empty eye sockets like crimson tears. Its head rapidly withered, drying into little more than a corpse as every trace of the noble beauty it had possessed moments ago vanished.

“Was that just some really bad poetry?” Song Song snorted, still sounding annoyed that she hadn't gotten to land the finishing blow.

“No.” I shook my head. “That bastard decided to curse me with a divination technique using its dying breath.”

Why me? I was not the one attacking it. Or was this something where it would just attack the plain-looking guy, or just the only male in the vicinity? It was a shame Song San wasn't around, I could have had him test it.

“I could've been the target too,” Jiang Yeming pointed out.

Judging by the complete lack of concern on her face, however, she clearly didn't believe that herself.

I raised an eyebrow. She coughed and looked away.

“How much do you think something like this will affect you?” Jiang Yeming asked with a sigh. “It was probably a Core Technique, and those are generally stronger than Sky Grade techniques, especially when it comes to divination. Those arts don't really improve through practice the way other techniques do.”

She looked toward the shriveled unicorn. “It might even affect someone favored by the heavens.”

“Yeah,” I muttered, staring at the corpse.

The prophecy itself didn't sound particularly deadly. But prophecies rarely announced danger directly.

Still. Why had this bastard decided to read my future? I wasn't the one who attacked it. I certainly wasn't the one who ripped its head off.

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