Depthless Hunger-Chapters 449-452

"Then exactly where did the disease come from?"

"Well, it seemed to spread from outside the wall. These things happen from time to time, ever since... you know how it's been." The wheedling voice was likely the heir to the Verdant River sect, overruled by Yul Wei Ren and disrespected by nearly everyone.

"What happens if you let this mess stop immortality production?" The cold voice was presumably the one they called the Poison Prince, then. Despite being outside his sect's region, he definitely seemed to be the one in control of the conversation.

Omilaena crept up to the door to the third floor, further analyzing all the presences. When she peered through a crack, she pinpointed the guards and took a look at the two: the heir to the Verdant River sect looked like every young fop she'd ever seen, while the Poison Prince was a much trimmer figure. Definitely pissed, too.

"We're wasting time here," the Poison Prince said. "Xir Xan Khan was right: this is just a distraction for the enemy to hit your vaults again."

That sounded bad to Omilaena, and it got worse when the other man responded: "He's paranoid. How could our enemies hide this long in the swamps? I'm telling you, it's just some tree disease, so if we let the alchemists take care of it, production can begin again."

"Can it? It seems like those miserable rebels have destroyed your supply lines."

Their entire plan had involved separating their opponents, and Kai was carrying more than his share of the burden by starting a war, but there was an unexpected wrinkle. This Xir Xan Khan - Zin Nim's ostensible fiance - had apparently not been taken in. Even if his theory was wrong, did that mean he was searching the swamps?

Unless he had a massive force or unprecedented sensory skills, it was unlikely that he'd find the Krysali camp. But Zin Nim had no idea that she was at risk, in fact she was probably waiting to create a distraction for either of them if something went wrong. If there was another major faction of their enemies bearing down on her...

Then, just to make things worse, the Poison Prince happened to glance in her direction and see her through the hole in the door.

Him looking at that exact angle at that moment was unlikely, a hundred to one chance, but now that it had happened the odds were one to one. The Poison Prince began yelling in the same moment Omilaena moved. If he had shouted for the guards to form a barrier or retreat, it might have helped them, but instead he ordered an attack.

In the time it took him to do that, Omilaena burst through the door, exhaling a cloud of poison. It swept over the nearest guards, killing them instantly and threatening the others. All of the guards with the Poison Prince began to use anti-poison techniques, which didn't help them when her needles went through their eyes.

It took Omilaena only a few seconds to radically shift the odds and wipe out most of her opponents, but that was all the time she had, because the Poison Prince managed to retaliate. He only had around 1000 Power, but that included Sky Soul stage cultivation, so his beams of poisoned qi shot forth as a major threat. Omilaena had no choice but to dodge backward, twisting between them while keeping her distance from the others.

If he had been assisted by capable allies, or even a room of living guards, Omilaena might have been sorely pressed. But the other cultivators were too weak, and when the last young master attacked, he made the wrong decision.

When he thrust out both hands in some sort of formation, he summoned a massive column of water, yes. The currents of it blew through the nearby walls and shattered windows. But the main wave that struck Omilaena was met by her left hand as she drew on all her ice qi.

The ice swept from her like a knife, freezing through the laughable attempt at a water attack. In an instant the waters were neutralized and the young master was staring at his frozen hands. When he cried out in pain, all the cultivators looked shocked.

And in that moment, Omilaena unleashed another flurry of needles.

She was more precise this time, using ice needles on the poison cultivators and poison on the Verdant River sect. All of them went down, dead or dying, except for the Poison Prince. Ignoring the young master, Omilaena threw herself at him with a grin on her face.

He actually managed to hold her off for several blows as he summoned curved purple blades that hovered around him. His strength was a little lower than hers, but she couldn't take him lightly. Each blade seemed to carry a different poison, and while they weren't a huge threat to her, she wanted to take them all for later study. If only she could neutralize him for experiments...

Omilaena made a bid to get a syringe into him and realized that she'd overstepped. One of the swords sliced at her neck and actually bit into her skin. It was a bad wound, sending her staggering back and flooding her own poison to resist the invading venom.

Worse, she realized, the leaf necklace had been broken and her illusion was disappearing. She wasn't sure what the Poison Prince knew about her, but his eyes narrowed, then widened.

When he began to move, she threw her full speed into a half-phase and intercepted his escape. But in the same moment her needle left her hand, his body transformed into purple light and shot away. She was left panting for breath and holding the injury to her shoulder.

If she had tried to kill him from the beginning... it wasn't certain that she could have finished him, but the probability would have been better. She'd gotten overconfident, fighting opponents weaker than her and forgetting that she had often been able to punch up against opponents somewhat stronger. Now he'd gotten away, potentially carrying information or to bring reinforcements.

"Shit." Omilaena looked around her at the devastated room and reconsidered. Part of her wanted to rush to Zin Nim and make sure that she was alright, but she realized that was foolish emotion talking.

She was the only one of them inside the innermost barrier and this was their best chance. If she didn't take everything, all of this was pointless. The most she could justify was sending a warning via the seeds... Omilaena tried to use one of the seeds bonded to Zin Nim and received no response, which she tried not to consider too ominous. Instead she used one of her remaining seeds for Kai.

"What?" His illusory form seemed to be in the middle of a battlefield, his arm wrapped around a cultivator's neck. The man's flailing didn't particularly distract him.

"I'm in, but they have someone else tracking Zin Nim. It's her old fiance. Maybe it's nothing, but he might be able to find her."

Kai's gaze, so calm in the middle of a battle, immediately became deadly serious. "Anything else?"

"That's all I know. Verdant River heir is dead, Poison Prince got away. I should have some great treasures for you, but we have to make it through this."

"Right." The illusory Kai jerked to the side and disappeared, so she would have to leave it to him.

For her part, Omilaena needed to seize their primary objective. She went back down to the second floor and shattered the barriers on the vault with a swing of an ice knife. Just as she'd hoped, there were bottles and pills everywhere, labeled as immortality elixir and almost glowing with power. There was something strange about them, but she only checked for traps before dumping everything into her spatial satchel.

If her estimates were right, that was enough for all three of them to become immortal with a large boost of extra power. That was nice, but as far as Omilaena was concerned, it was just another step on their path. What really mattered was seizing the Loam of the Gods.

So she left the alchemical workhouse, ignoring the screams of the confused workers, and moved on the central barrier. Its qi held up for three strikes, but it couldn't stand against her either. Omilaena started to walk through the destroyed gate... and then she saw the bodies.

Hundreds upon hundreds of them, stacked in piles. Others had been processed in ways that might have turned a weaker woman's stomach and the results were obviously being plowed into the soil. In a finished section of corpse soil, she saw small trees with dark red fruit that resonated in the same strange way as the immortality elixir she'd just stolen.

Omilaena methodically and unemotionally checked every detail of the scene, just to confirm the truth she'd realized immediately: the bodies were being used as a raw material to create one of the main ingredients for the immortality elixir. That was a bit morbid, but honestly not shocking - draining life to support life was a common principle. Based on the number of bodies they used versus relatively small amount of elixir, the process must involve a lot of loss.

None of that particularly concerned her, since she'd examine the elixir for problems later. Maybe the others, and Kai especially, didn't need to know about the source of the immortality. She was more interested in why they needed to burn so many lives on this when the Loam of the Gods was supposed to grow anything instantly.

She had all but one of her goals now, so Omilaena advanced toward the very center. So many barriers, so many circles... at the center of the center of the center, she finally reached a small garden. It seemed to glow with an aura of perfection, yet something was wrong. Omilaena bent down and touched the soil, letting some run through her fingers.

"Fuck!" Omilaena gripped the sides of her head as she realized the truth. "Fuuuuck."

Chapter 450: Duel of Fiancés

Zae Zin Nim sat alone, and for once she didn't cultivate. Not while her spouses were out risking their lives.

In theory, so much was within their grasp... immortality elixirs and perhaps even the Loam of the Gods. They had been preparing for this attack for weeks, yet she doubted that everything could go according to plan. Omilaena was deep within the enemy fortifications, and Kai was on the battlefield, but if either needed her help, she would rush to them anyway.

How long had elapsed, precisely? Normally she could lose hours in cultivation, but now the minutes seemed to crawl by. It was possible that they would return to her soon and all her concern would be for nothing, but maybe...

She reached into her spatial bracelet and removed one of the chakra seeds, just to reassure herself. If they wanted to contact her, they easily could with a bonded seed.

Or should have. The seeds felt unusually dead, suppressed. When she tried to activate one, she felt no familiar response.

Instantly Zae Zin Nim was on her feet, trying to pinpoint the source. It was nothing overt, instead an incredibly subtle aura, like some sort of widespread field of effect. It wasn't unheard of for large sects to be able to produce such things, but this felt too specific and planned. Whatever it was, it meant something bad.

"Stay low and prepare!" She called out to the Krysali, mostly so they would stay out of her way, and leapt away from the ship. Most of the camp was hiding in the swamp while she and a few others waited in a drier area, but she jumped further to one of the nearby hills.

Nothing in sight, and the suppression hadn't changed. Clearly it was a very wide range technique, weakened in order to cover a large area. That meant their location wasn't being targeted specifically, and they might even have simply been covered by some conflict between sects, but she couldn't bet on that.

Before she could find any answers, she was followed by a number of Krysali, including Nirka and Cragrila.

"What's going on?" Nirka asked. "Did you get a message?"

"I can't, and that's the problem." Zae Zin Nim had no time for her questions and continued extending her senses, trying to find something that could be the source of all this. Yet the region remained as isolated as always...

Until suddenly a Sky Soul broke into her range, speeding toward her.

The streak of purple light transformed into a lean man as it reached the hill, and Zae Zin Nim was prepared to attack the instant his greater flight ended, but he didn't act immediately. Instead he drew himself upright, his hands slipped into his expensive sleeves, and looked at her. Technically she had never seen him before, and he wore no insignia, so it could have been any of the young masters.

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But she knew it was him. Xir Xan Khan, the man she had been assigned to marry.

"When I tracked down the source, I never would have imagined this," he said in a low voice. "Zae Zin Nim?"

.

..

.

Kai shot toward the ground, briefly summoning Thunderbird's Wings again in order to produce a shockwave in the middle of the enemy. A formation of Verdant River cultivators was scattered by the impact, and the Redtree rebels let out a cheer, but Kai was already exploding onward as quickly as he could.

Omilaena's message had been speculative, yet a cold feeling had begun to sink into his stomach as soon as he heard the words. They had weakened and drawn away so many of their opponents, which might come back to bite them now. There was nothing stopping Omilaena from stealing immortality and the Loam, but there were more forces threatening everyone else.

The heir to the Coiling Island sect was strong, though not as strong as Zae Zin Nim. If it was the two of them fighting on even terms, Kai would bet on his wife every time. Yet he couldn't escape the feeling that something was wrong and she needed him.

That meant leaving the Redtree rebels. He had taken a path through their battles so that he could eliminate some Earth Souls and break apart some formations, but as he left them behind they would lose his support. In theory they didn't need him, and could retreat if necessary, but even if his departure meant their loss, this was more important to him.

He pushed himself even harder, screaming through the air. Black wings extended from his back, beginning to crackle with thunder. Kai had never traveled this fast before... and he had no idea if it would be enough.

.

..

.

Even though she shouldn't have been afraid of him, Zae Zin Nim still hesitated. This man represented her father, her potential marriage, and everything she had feared. She had over 100 Power on him and confidence in her abilities, and yet when she saw the icy way he looked down on her...

"You must be Xir Xan Khan," she made herself say. "Heir to the Coiling Island sect."

"So it is you. Rogue daughter of the great Brightwind sect." Xir Xan Khan shook his head slowly. "Your father was furious, you know, and expected me to call off the arrangement. But I'd rather have a woman with a spine than these limp courtesans."

"If you like my spine, then listen when I tell you to leave."

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"Are you part of all this business? So many threats to the Masterful Crown clan... I had suspected they might be connected, but I never imagined that you could be involved."

She remained silent, preparing herself.

"Come now, there's no need to fight. Return with me and explain whatever schemes you're involved in and they will be forgiven. My own sect is making an arrangement with the Verdant River sect, so we'll soon have more immortality elixir than we need. With the two of us together, everything can return to normal, as if you never left."

Zae Zin Nim set her feet and raised her palms to fight.

"Really?" Xir Xan Khan shook his head as if disappointed. "Come now, don't be obstinate."

Without warning a great power welled up in him, coiling around his body and expanding to cover the entire area. She anticipated the presence technique and braced herself against it, but many of the Krysali were knocked over backward or frozen in place. Nirka had dropped to hands and knees while Cragrila fell to one knee.

And yet Zae Zin Nim stood. She felt the presence technique like a flood, but it couldn't bind her. As she had feared, the raw qi of a Sky Soul made it difficult to resist with her own qi, but the Pure Yin Shroud wrapped around her tightly. That raw strength could take her through the pressure, if she chose her moment.

"You're strong, without question," Xir Xan Khan told her. "But you haven't reached the peak of cultivation, so you still have vulnerabilities. Come back with me and we can take care of that, return you to a path to the true summit of power."

"No." Zae Zin Nim didn't reveal her full capacity yet, instead taking a step forward as if it was difficult for her. "If you have any respect for me, you will leave me alone."

"I can't do that, Zin Nim. Cloudspire is growing more dangerous as sects are absorbed into one another, and I need a true ally. I've refused countless silly girls because I was waiting for you. That should be worth something."

It made him different from some young masters, but did he think that was worth her hand, her body, her life? Zae Zin Nim didn't know how to speak any of the words in her heart, so she remained silent. Her eyes must have changed, because she saw him shift back in disappointment.

"I don't want to suppress you like this," Xir Xan Khan said, "but I will if necessary. You need to stop these wild wanderings, Zin Nim. They won't make you an immortal, and you desperately need the immortality elixirs now."

"What?" She stared at him, for the first time puzzled. It was true that she wanted immortality desperately - that was the reason she had made all these plans - but it had never seemed particularly urgent. She had even considered reaching Sky Soul first, just to be sure she attained a perfected form of immortality.

"You're still young, but for how much longer? You were twenty years old when I first heard of you, so you must be getting closer to thirty now. If you want to maintain eternal youth, you're running out of time. I don't demand a young bride, but don't play these games until you pass the peak of your beauty."

And all at once, Zae Zin Nim realized that he wasn't any different. She leapt to strike.

Surrounded by the Pure Yin Shroud, his presence technique couldn't bind her, and she crossed the distance between them in an instant. She didn't try to use the Coldfire Palm, since that took a moment to form, and instead went back to her most polished palm technique: a pure lethal strike to the inner organs. Her opponent was shocked for a second, and that let her cross the distance, but she didn't have an instant longer.

He had just started to raise defenses when her palm hit his stomach. The impact rang like a bell and sent him hurtling backward, blood welling up in his mouth. Yet as she returned to her ready posture, Zae Zin Nim realized that it hadn't been quite enough.

Xir Xan Khan controlled his path in midair and came to a halt, revealing that he had mastery over two different greater flight techniques. He spat aside the blood and looked at her, fury building in his eyes. She had taken him off guard once, but he was no fool, and he wouldn't make the same mistake twice.

"Fine then," he said, "if I have to show you your errors by force, I will."

Then his presence technique compressed, no longer attempting to bind her and instead infusing his body so that his power exploded. An instant later he launched himself through the air and they clashed in a whirlwind of blows.

Chapter 451: The Truth of the Blackblood Physique

How long had it been since Zae Zin Nim had truly fought another cultivator? She had exterminated some weaker than her, and occasionally challenged herself, but most of her truly serious fights had been against opponents with wild techniques from many sources.

Here, trading blows with Xir Xan Khan, she found herself returning to the movements she had set aside for so long. He wasn't a brute using raw strength, or a fool with flashy but unrefined qi techniques, just a skilled martial artist who would have made her father proud. Strike after strike flowed between them, sleeves wheeling to deflect qi attacks, neither managing to pierce the other's defenses.

His words made anger flare inside her, but she wasn't an impetuous girl anymore and all her emotion was channeled into cold rage. He was shocked at first, then actually seemed pleased that she fought so well. But in the end, no matter his attitude, he wanted to drag her back and make her into the person she had once been.

And she would not allow that to happen.

Their sweeping attacks culminated in each thrusting a palm forward, impacting one another. Zae Zin Nim chose this moment to impart her blow with some of her mana, creating a shockwave of blue fire that repelled her opponent's qi and knocked him backward.

This time he couldn't easily maintain his stance and he skidded back, bumping into one of the fallen Krysali. Xir Xan Khan looked at the man with disgust, then kicked him aside with a swift blow that could well have killed him.

"Hey, stop that!" Nirka staggered toward him, hurling a dagger of crystal, but Xir Xan Khan knocked it aside contemptuously. He retaliated with a qi bolt that would normally have taken her head off, but Cragrila jumped in the way, crystals forming around her arm.

The crystal shield shattered on impact, and both staggered back, but they survived.

"What a pathetic path of cultivation." Xir Xan Khan looked mildly amused as he gathered a more powerful technique, power coiling around his arm, then unleashed it.

Zae Zin Nim met the attack in midair, striking it aside. She had intended to follow up with more attacks to keep him from targeting the others, but Xir Xan Khan reacted with stunning speed and was on her in an instant. Off-balance, she could barely deflect his blows and was forced backward until a knifing hand stabbed out, piercing her defenses.

At the last second, the Coldfire Corona lit up to defend her. It stopped his hand and saved her, but as she skidded back, she still felt a slight ache. The fire had singed his hand, but since his essence had been reforged as a Sky Soul, he wasn't seriously harmed.

"You had an opening to attack me, but instead you defended these vermin?" Xir Xan Khan shook his head sadly. "You've grown weak, Zin Nim. Soft. These people use a worthless bastard offshoot of cultivation. They'll never be worth anything to you, even as fodder."

They stared at one another, within the other cultivator's range and so not daring to attack. Cragrila had been preparing a spear of crystals, but as she realized the gulf between them, she instead backed up. She pulled Nirka with her and tried to get the other Krysali away from the battlefield. Good.

"I could target them at any time I wanted," her old fiance continued, "and you would always be at a disadvantage, overextending yourself to defend the pathetic. A true cultivator fights for himself and would never weaken themselves like this. I'll leave them all alive if you see reason and come with me."

"No." Zae Zin Nim took a deep breath and prepared herself for the next round.

"Well, I won't strike them, even though it would be so easy. But you must see that your time among barbarians has softened your edge."

He leapt at her, now using the spiraling techniques he'd used against the Krysali. Curving purple paths arced around his body like additional limbs, allowing him to strike multiple times at once. It would have been utterly overwhelming to her once, but Zae Zin Nim had seen worse. With just her own limbs she fought back, deflecting each and every strike that came her way.

She realized that he was her equal in martial arts, and her superior in pure qi.

But not her superior.

When she next thrust out her arm, she manifested a true Coldfire Palm, larger than his entire body. His fists and his arcing qi slammed into it, only to not slow it down in the slightest. She caught a split second glimpse of his eyes widening in surprise, then the palm swept over him, driving him through the air and into a crater on the nearest hill.

Given his Heavenly Body enhancement, it wasn't enough to kill him, but his mouth was again filled with blood. As a Sky Soul, he should have been untouchable here, yet now he looked shaken. She realized that up until this point, he had believed that her greater Power was merely a hodgepodge of unrelated abilities that he could overcome with his superior refinement.

As he realized that he was actually outmatched, even slightly, his shock turned to rage.

"Enough!" Xir Xan Khan rose into the air, a column of power rising along with him. This must be a secret technique of his own, and she could feel that he was burning his own life force to generate it. But the rise in his power made him truly formidable, and then he descended on her.

Each time he struck, a great wall of his qi arced around, slamming into her like a mountain. It took all her strength, reinforced by the Pure Yin Shroud, for her not to be staggered by each impact. For several seconds Zae Zin Nim was driven backward by the raw force of his assault.

And yet, gradually, she began to fight back. First she managed to deflect one of the massive qi arcs, then she met another with her palm and held firm. This was exactly the sort of large assault that Brightwind techniques were designed to pierce through, and her martial arts were now reinforced by mana and qi as well.

Xir Xan Khan looked at her in astonishment, slowly lowering to the ground as he needed to focus more and more of his qi on precise attacks. She pressed in, getting inside the effective range of the hammering qi arcs, getting closer with every exchanged blow.

Then she thrust out a palm, and at the last second saw his eyes change.

He might have been shocked by her strength, yes, but he was no arrogant fool who believed no one could be stronger than him. Instead he had let her get close, then at the last second switched back to his internal martial arts. Their palms met and their qi shot through one another.

Both cultivators staggered back, coughing up blood as the internal strike pierced through all other defenses. A weaker woman might have been defeated in that moment, but the Blackblood Physique protected Zae Zin Nim from a mortal blow. And she had dealt her opponent a real injury too, so the battle was still close.

To her surprise, she saw the man looking at her in something like disgust. She realized that her mouthful of blood had been pitch black and now stained her robes.

"So it's true." Xir Xan Khan remained in a defensive position, but he watched her with a new look in his eyes. "You never purified the Blackblood Physique, you held on to it. This is a serious deviation, Zin Nim. If you had truly purified yourself, you would have a pristine body, maybe even the strength to beat me."

"It seemed to work well enough," she said. Somehow the words even sounded confident despite the fact that he was striking at her insecurities.

"But this is less than your true potential. I'm truly concerned for you, Zin Nim. Stop fighting, let me give you something."

He pulled a scroll from his sleeve, or more likely a spatial object within it, and tossed it toward her. Zae Zin Nim immediately suspected a trick and deflected it to the ground with qi to avoid touching it. However, the scroll didn't seem to have any particular power, it was just paper. No sense of poison, either, and her awareness of poison had been greatly increased by Omilaena.

"There's no trick to it," Xir Xan Khan said. "That is the information I was able to acquire about the Blackblood Physique, when I was offered your hand in marriage. You need to get back on the proper path or your body will be ruined."

Still suspicious, Zae Zin Nim waved a hand and extended qi to pick up the scroll. She couldn't discern any traps and her opponent didn't take advantage of her movements. Of course she wasn't going to investigate here, just in case, but he seemed to be speaking in earnest.

"The Blackblood Physique removes impurities from the body just as cultivation removes them from the soul. Yes, the result strengthens a cultivator permanently, but that is only secondary. When it is purged, your body will gain a purity that could never be attained by lesser women. This is what makes women who have gone through the Blackblood Physique into perfect brides. But if you cling to the temporary strength, you will never attain the potential beyond. Your body and blood are at odds, and that conflict will eventually destroy you."

Could he be telling the truth? The words made Zae Zin Nim tremble, but she didn't think he was manipulating her: to him, this was just how the world was. He expected her to be happy that her technique prepared her to be harvested by some man.

Yet he wasn't wrong that she hadn't found the true form of the Blackblood Physique. Perhaps the scroll...

"And this explains the proper path?" Zae Zin Nim asked.

"Yes, even if you escape now, at least you'll be able to purge it yourself." Xir Xan Khan looked slightly relieved, as if she was bending. Which was exactly what she wanted him to think. Even if she took this path, she would offer all that power to Kai and Omilaena, not him.

It seemed almost as if their battle might have stopped. She thought she could win if it persisted, but there was no point in risking so many other lives for nothing. Perhaps it would be possible to delay and receive him until her other allies arrived. Zae Zin Nim lowered her palms slowly and watched her opponent do the same.

Then the cultivators appeared around them and Zae Zin Nim realized her mistake.

The scroll had never been a trap, or even a distraction: Xir Xan Khan was just buying time. He had emphasized fighting alone when in fact he had allies who had been gradually catching up to his pace. While she had been so focused on their duel, they had surrounded the hill and now struck from all sides.

Lines of qi shot out toward her, an attempt at a binding technique that would freeze her cultivation base. Zae Zin Nim whirled faster than ever before, deflecting every one that came her way. She even managed to knock aside the column of qi Xir Xan Khan hurled at her, but in the moment it took to stop that stronger attack, one line of qi slipped through and caught her arm.

Of course the cultivator pulled back, trying to tug her off balance. Using the Pure Yin Shroud, Zae Zin Nim was able to resist him with raw strength, forcing him to dig in his heels. But it was still a limitation, and Xir Xan Khan was prepared to fight her again. In fact, while she struggled he swallowed several medicinal pills and then advanced with a smile.

Beyond the two of them, she realized that more cultivators were chasing down the Krysali. A few like Cragrila could hold their own, since these were just at Nascent Foundation stage, but most of the others were basically helpless.

"Alright, let's try this again," Xir Xan Khan said. "You can either surrender now and save their lives, or you can persist in a futile battle and watch them all die."

"You're a coward," Zae Zin Nim spat.

He snorted. "I'm victorious. I told you, you've grown soft. We all have our allies, but yours are weak and you care far too much for them. Now, be sensible and surrender."

Silence stretched between them... and then was interrupted by a cultivator spitting up a mouthful of blood.

Xir Xan Khan stared in surprise, but Zae Zin Nim saw the source: a dark quill piercing the woman's neck. All around the hill, other cultivators were falling, pierced one after another by the dark quills flying from the shadows in the trees.

One of those shadows swept past her, reaching the cultivator who was trying to keep her bound. By the time Zae Zin Nim turned, she saw Kai's claws tearing deep into the cultivator's body, then he tore the man in half in a shower of blood that rained down over his monstrous features.

Chapter 452: Duel of Spouses

"Just who is this supposed to b-" Xir Xan Khan was cut off by a roar, then Kai fell on him.

Zae Zin Nim leapt to join him, hoping to finally kill the hateful man, but he responded by sending his columns of qi whirling around him. In her weakened state, they managed to knock her back several paces. Soon the two men were locked in combat, tearing at one another, savage monstrous blows matching refined strikes.

Because Kai could handle himself, Zae Zin Nim flitted around the side of the hill, exterminating all the cultivators who had come to support her enemy. Most of the Krysali were alive, and thankfully Cragrila and Nirka were helping them retreat. Once they were out of the way, she could concentrate fully on her enemy.

As she returned to the battle, however, she couldn't help but stare at the wildly uneven fight.

Xir Xan Khan managed to hold his own despite his injuries, calling up even more columns of purple qi that reinforced his martial arts. He looked like everything she was supposed to want: elegant posture, ornate robes, flawless skin, imperious eyes, sleek hair.

On the other side, Kai was a ragged beast of a man, huge and unnecessarily muscled and hairy. He'd obviously forgotten to shave while he was with the rebels, and instead of whipping around his head elegantly, his hair was a vicious snarl. His hands twisted into claws and his legs were no longer human, creating a grotesque mixture that should have horrified every woman who saw it.

And yet Zae Zin Nim wanted nothing more.

She entered the battle as light as the wind, her palm streaking toward her opponent's back. At the last second Xir Xan Khan managed to turn one of his columns toward her to block the attack, but she pressed on, adding a Coldfire Palm to the strike. The impact sent him tumbling off the hill, crashing through one of the trees.

When it became obvious he wouldn't return immediately, Kai turned to look at her. Maybe a real cultivator would have ignored her in favor of mercilessly killing the enemy without hesitation, but his burning gaze was like a balm for her soul.

"Are you alright?" Kai asked. His voice was deeper, as if something had changed inside him, yet still so clearly her husband.

"Only minor injuries." She stepped closer to him, reaching out, and felt a flood of relief as his hand touched her waist. He couldn't embrace her now, not with an enemy so close, but just that little touch made her feel stable again.

In their short time together, Xir Xan Khan regained control and returned to the hilltop. Despite his injuries, his back was still straight and his eyes flashed coldly. At least they did until he saw the way his opponents were standing, and then Zae Zin Nim saw a flicker of uncertainty.

"Surely not..." he breathed.

"Yes." Zae Zin Nim turned to face him, put an arm around Kai's waist, and glowered. "None of you will ever listen, but I'm not some pure maiden anymore. I have been married for years."

Unlike the others, Xir Xan Khan didn't babble any rage or false pieties, and she saw that he truly understood. More than that, she knew how repulsive the very idea must be to him, how it shocked him to the core of his being. For a moment she almost thought he was going to cough up a mouthful of blood from rage alone, but his surprise resolved into a cold fury.

"You've fallen further than I had imagined." He slowly withdrew his hands and placed them into his sleeves. "But not too far, not yet. Think about everything I said, Zin Nim, and wake up from this madness. If you resolve the Blackblood Physique, you can attain a second purity."

As his body began to transform into light, Kai leapt away from her with shocking speed. His claw lashed out, and she could see Xir Xan Khan's eyes widening in fear as it started to cut him, but then his body dissolved into purple qi. The light streaked away as he retreated, leaving only scraps of silk in Kai's claws.

Then it was over, at least this round. Even the Krysali seemed to know it too, rapidly going through the cultivators to take everything they could before retreating. The flying swords and other items would be a bounty for them, but Zae Zin Nim couldn't find it in herself to care.

When Kai returned to her, his body was shifting back, becoming the scruffy over-sized barbarian she should never have loved. Zae Zin Nim threw herself at his chest and finally relaxed as his arms wrapped around her. For a time they could stay like that... but not forever.

"I don't think we can pull off any deceptions in the future," Kai said. "Now that he's connected us, he'll realize that the rebel cultivators were a distraction, and we have to assume they'll put everything together. Omilaena was spotted too, and Kan Jin Kung remembered us before, so they might even figure out the plan."

"That doesn't matter," Zae Zin Nim pointed out, "if Omilaena stole everything we need. Did she?"

"It seemed to be going well last I checked. But they know our location now, and they'll suspect our general strategy. If they start looking for opponents in the swamp regions, we can't evade them all. I couldn't help but transform, so I wonder if they'll even connect the monster attacks..."

"Kai." She tucked her head under his chin and went limp. "I would fight a dozen more battles for you, but I don't have these logistics in me. I need you to handle them."

"Right. Of course." His arms squeezed her a little tighter, realizing that she needed comfort.

Everything was perfect here, in her husband's arms. The only way it could have been better was if her wife was present as well. But, for the first time, Zae Zin Nim couldn't escape the fear that this happiness couldn't last forever.

The blood within her veins pulsed darker every moment.

.

..

.

Kai had left a war and torn across the Southern Rivers to help his wife, so normally he would have been glad to dedicate himself fully to comforting her. But for once he wasn't sure what she needed, since she had receded into the murky emotions he still couldn't decode despite their marriage. Since she mostly wanted proximity, he let her shadow him while he dealt with their new problems.

"We have to assume they'll come for us in force," he told Cragrila. "They have other priorities, so it might not happen immediately, but it'd be stupid to wait here. So pack up the camp, make false trails, and get ready to move everyone via the ship."

"Got it." Despite having just faced an overwhelming cultivator, she seemed to have snapped back - maybe it was just an echo of crystalliers. "What happens if they start sweeping the swamps?"

"We may have everything we need here. We have the option to go straight north, maybe even leave the Southern Rivers entirely."

She nodded and moved off to obey. The Krysali were all getting antsy about staying here so long, now that he paid more attention to them, and they probably wondered when they'd be able to return to Deadwaste. At least Cragrila didn't ask the question now, when they were in the middle of so much tense work.

The one question was whether they needed to go north to find Omilaena, who had yet to respond to any messages. But she had seemed in control when she spoke to him, and there was no sign that the Verdant River sect was moving in force toward the barrier wall. If anything, they seemed to be ignoring it in favor of moving south and east.

He worried a little about the Redtree rebels, since they would get slaughtered if they kept trying to fight against the reinforcements. It was hard to worry too much about them, however, when his wives had even bigger problems potentially hanging over their heads.

As soon as he got a little room to breathe, Kai took Zae Zin Nim to an unoccupied corner of the ship and let her rest for a little while, just stroking her hair while she leaned against him. She seemed content with that, at least for now, and he didn't want to interrupt her with the question he was sure that she wouldn't want to think about.

Or maybe she already was, and that was why she was so quiet.

Still, in that quiet moment, Nirka happened to pass them and she stared more than should have been necessary. Almost like she was surprised to see them just being tender like that. Did she think that they weren't really married and just fucking on the side? When he caught her gaze, she hastily returned to her task.

Eventually he had to prod Zae Zin Nim to focus again. "What we've done so far is probably enough to escape the Verdant River sect," he told her, "but we might be facing much worse. What are the chances that Xir Xan Khan tells your father, and that he comes for us?"

"Oh..." She was silent a moment, then shook her head. "It could happen, but I'm not sure. I think Xir Xan Khan wants to steal me away from my father, not work together with him."

"How confident are you in that?"

"The Brightwind sect and the Coiling Island sect are nervous allies. My marriage would have helped smooth over old tensions, actually. So it could happen, but he would have to go out of his way. Given the way he looked at me, I doubt he'd go to that much trouble."

Kai winced at the dull ache in her voice. "Do you want to talk about that?"

Instead of answering, Zae Zin Nim buried her face in his chest, which was answer enough. Kai held her for a while and hoped that he didn't need to do more.

They had started to leave, abandoning the Krysali camp, when he finally felt someone on the horizon. Of course everyone was alert at first, but it quickly proved to be Omilaena. She was racing toward them on a flying sword, looking so intense that he worried she was being chased. And yet, even as she closed on them, there didn't seem to be anyone after her.

When she arrived, she ignored the Krysali trying to check her and dodged around them in a way that made him confident it was really his wife. Omilaena landed on the deck beside them and opened her mouth, but Zae Zin Nim tugged her into an embrace.

"Uh, okay." Omilaena settled in and cast him a strange glance. "Did something happen?"

"She just ran into someone from her past," Kai said. "How did your mission go? Do we need to run before the Verdant River sect comes after us for stealing their Insanity?"

"Oh, you have no idea." Omilaena took a deep breath. "Turns out we had this all wrong."