Unintended Cultivator

Book 10: Chapter 31: Summoned

The paper gave off a vague crinkling noise as Sen’s fist crushed it. He wasn’t running out of time anymore. He was just out of time, plain and simple. The message from Jing had been a little vague, no doubt as a security precaution. That didn’t stop Sen from deciphering the salient details. Master Feng had visited the sects in the capital, as well as the royal palace, to announce the new order of things. The reception that news got had been mixed at best. Some of the sects chose to accept the new state of affairs, or at least made the wise decision to not openly defy Fate’s Razor. Feng Bai was not among those who decided to accommodate the conversion to dictatorship. No one knew exactly how the altercation started, but everyone knew how it had ended.

Feng Bai had been dropped in front of the Steel Gryphon Sect compound from very high up with most of the bones in his body broken. That was followed by Master Feng descending from on high like a god of wrath, ruthlessly crushing every bit of opposition in the sect, seizing their most valuable treasures and, for all intents and purposes, disbanding the sect entirely. That gave Sen pause. The last he knew, Tang Ehuang, an elder of the Steel Gryphon Sect, was being held in a qi-suppressing cell at the Steel Gryphon compound. If the sect was all but gone, it stood to reason that she might have escaped. She would want revenge on Sen. For that matter, if Feng Bai hadn’t been looking for his head before, he was probably committed to that end now. That’s just terrific, he thought tiredly. Like there weren’t already enough people out there with a burning desire to end my life.

Of course, the good news didn’t end there. Most of the noble houses weren’t actively opposing the change in leadership, but they were making moves that couldn’t be mistaken for anything but a prelude to insurrection. Jing was interfering with their plans as much as possible, apparently with a lot of support from Grandmother Lu, but there was only so much they could do without simply declaring war. Sen had worried that this was going to be the end result. Those noble houses had been in power so long that they simply couldn’t fathom a world where they would cease to exist, even after Sen had personally crushed one of the Great Houses of the kingdom. Those fools would rather damn us all than accept that they just aren’t as important as they imagine themselves to be

That was assuming that they didn’t try to cut some kind of a deal with the spirit beasts. Sen knew that any such deal would only end in their destruction. After all, the Beast King didn’t want some human beings dead. He wanted them all dead. There was no middle ground to be found with someone who thought that way. Humanity could either achieve total victory, or they could all enter Diyu. Of course, if the possibility of your personal destruction was unable to enter your worldview, trying to make such a deal would make perfect sense. Worse, the spirit beast forces would likely welcome such attempts with joyous, open arms, and simply move those nobles to the end of the line for destruction.

As for Jing himself, Sen couldn’t gauge his reaction to this news. He might well be happy about it. Sen knew that the last several months had not been kind to the king. The prospect of dumping all that responsibility onto someone else, anyone else really, probably held a lot of appeal. But Jing was also a conscientious man who took his duties to the kingdom and his house very seriously. Being told that he wasn’t in charge anymore and that his cultivator friend was about to seize power must have been a bitter medicine to swallow. Sen knew a lot about bitter medicine. He didn’t expect that he’d get a particularly warm reception from the king. Even so, Jing had requested Sen’s presence as soon as possible.

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It wasn’t because the man was eager to relinquish his rule but because they had gotten reports of large numbers of spirit beasts moving toward the capital. They expected that a massive assault on the capital was imminent. That meant that Sen had to go or this whole putting him in charge fiasco would mean nothing at all. If he let the capital fall, his credibility would disintegrate. He had to be there. He had to keep that city intact. It wasn’t because the city itself was especially useful. It wasn’t. It was nothing but a drain on the rest of the kingdom, especially in these trying times. In purely practical terms, it would probably be a benefit if the spirit beasts removed it as a consideration.

Unfortunately, war was not a purely practical exercise. The capital was a symbol of the kingdom and even of humanity itself on this part of the continent. As long as it stood, there would be something that humanity could rally around. Its continued existence would be a way to sustain morale for the soldiers, cultivators, and the mortals who stood behind them. More to the point for Sen, letting the city fall would mean letting an unconscionable number of people die. There would be no avoiding the deaths of mortals in this war. It had already happened more times than Sen even wanted to consider. It would keep happening as the war dragged on.

Even so, there had to be limits. Letting those people die with the sole purpose of simplifying Sen’s plan moving forward was where he found that limit. Even if he wanted to do it, he couldn’t make himself do it. Maybe, if there was absolutely no other choice, he could learn to live with something like that. That wasn’t the situation. He thought that the city probably could be saved, so he would do everything he could to save it. Besides, there was no way to evacuate all of the people living there and nowhere to evacuate them to. They weren’t like him. They couldn’t go out into the wilds and survive. Even among the cultivators, very few would possess the necessary skills to do that for any length of time.

Sen closed his eyes and took a few moments to compose himself. This day had been hunting him for a while now. He’d known it would catch up to him eventually. He’d just hoped that they’d have more time. He’d wanted them to be more prepared.

“If war only appeared when people were prepared,” he whispered, “it wouldn’t happen so often.”

“Patriarch?” said a clearly anxious Sua Xing Xing.

She had seen the message before he had. Her mind was more than adequate to the task of gleaning the major points. She’d been a sect cultivator for a very long time. It was probable she’d gotten more out of the message than he had with all of her experience interpreting doublespeak and innuendo. In other words, she likely had a very good idea of what was going to happen in the immediate future. Based on her vaguely sick expression, she wasn’t looking forward to any of it. Nor should she, thought Sen. I’m about to make her life very hard.

“I’ll be leaving for the capital,” said Sen.

“When?”

He wanted to tell her he’d be leaving in a leisurely month or so. That would suit his wants and needs much better than the truth. But the truth was all he had to work with at the moment.

“Tomorrow.”