I looted travel rations from the store Poppy and her subordinate rested in, eating and waiting for dawn to break over the city.

  Tie — Poppy’s last subordinate — woke first. His eyes snapped open. Then he convulsed unnaturally. After a moment, he stopped, his head snapping toward me. One of the two oil lamps that lit the store room had gone out, casting us in uneven and dim orange light.

  Dirt streaked across Tie’s face, giving him an uncanny appearance, wet eyes shimmering in the dark. He wore messy robes, the left shoulder cut to pieces, and his hair was disheveled.

  The first words out of his mouth startled me.

  “We have to keep moving, Sai.”

  He stared at me unnervingly, holding perfectly still, like a statue rather than a human. Then he started swaying. He blinked, a look of confusion coming over his face. I never gave him my name. But he wasn’t even real. Maybe the Scenario was loading him with memories.

  “Where are we?” He asked.

  “We took shelter in a manor, Tie. You were heavily injured when the wall fell.”

  I was partially guessing.

  But he nodded in acknowledgment.

  “Yes, Senior Brother. But we — we need to run.” Tie said, throwing himself to his feet. The more time passed from waking, the more real he seemed. He slowly gained the diminutive nature of a cultivator addressing their superior. He was pale as a ghost as he cast a glance between me and Poppy.

  I threw out a hand to forestall him.

  “Wait. Let her rest and recover.”

  “Where are the others?” Tie asked.

  “Dead.” I said.

  He slumped back down, sliding against the cold stone wall with a grimace. He was weaponless; whether he had lost it during his flight from the wall or when fighting beside Poppy, I didn’t know.

  When Poppy woke, her eyes fluttered. Then she threw herself to her feet in a panic, half staggering before looking around. I steadied her with a hand on her shoulder.

  “How much time did we lose?” Poppy asked. Her eyes glazed over as she called up her System — and the remaining timer for the Scenario with it. “Eight hours!? Sai!”

  Poppy looked to me with frustrated on her face.

  “You needed a full nights rest. Especially to recover from your injuries. The medicine I fed you saps too much vitality otherwise. Now eat.” I said, throwing her a ration from the storage room. She caught it before tearing open cloth and paper and biting down without so much as smelling it.

  “We've lost a lot of time.” Poppy said as soon as she finished eating. “We barely have two days left.”

  “I’ve been thinking.” I said. “We probably have less than that. The goal of the scenario is to survive — not to protect the city or escape it. That implies that something is going to happen at or near the end of the scenario. The sect should have descended to cull the Spiritbeast horde, but they stayed atop the mountain. I think the scenario might end when the sect descends, or… when the sect falls.”

  “You’re saying things are going to get even worse here? Great. Then let’s stop wasting time and hunt now before they do.”

  I stared at Poppy. She had been awake for only a few minutes. She was stretching, now, and looking eagerly to the door. There was blood in her hair she didn’t even have time to wash out.

  And yet, her first thoughts after waking up was hunting for more monsters. And more power.

  She had the proper greed of a cultivator.

  The manor’s roof provided a decent vantage point to scout the city. I could see fighting — or maybe hunting — in distant corners of the town; spiritbeasts versus spiritbeasts and men alike.

  Atop the hill at the towns center, the crowd had gotten smaller — there were still torches in the air and dark clouds overhead. The burning barricades that had been holding back the sea of monsters were gone — but so was most of the sea of monsters. I could see cultivators outside the mob at the top of the hill.

  The spiritbeast that was leading the horde must have decided to bide its time before breaking through; the cost must have been too much. Even still, piles of corpses of men and beasts sat at the edge of the mob outside the walls of the sect.

  Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

  I climbed down the pillar I had ascended to the roof, falling to the ground next to Tie and Poppy.

  Tie was carrying a spear we looted from the inventory of the manner; it wasn’t a high quality one, but it was enough.

  “The spiritbeast horde is no longer fully congregated at the top of the hill.” I said. “There’s straggling packs like the monkeys from yesterday. The nearest are that way.” I said, pointing into the distance.

  “How many?”

  “Just three. Some type of boar.” I said. “Too far for [Appraisal] to activate.”

  Poppy spun around and started walking.

  “Let’s go.” Poppy called back over her shoulder without stopping.

  We crossed out of the manor’s estate and into the ruined streets of the town. It didn’t take us long to find the spiritbeasts; the three of them were looting food from a stockpile by a cart.

  The three of them paid us no heed as we stopped a street away. The boars featured exaggerated, sharpened tusks, and thin bodies with black stripes.

  [Blade Tusk Boar, Middle First Realm]

  “One for each of us.” Poppy said. “I’ll take the one on the right. Poppy, you take the one in the middle. Sai…”

  Poppy turned to me but hesitated before giving me a command.

  I nodded.

  “I’ll take the one on the left.”

  I freed my blade and circled toward the monster. From the corner of my eye, I saw a coat of black climb across Poppy’s fists and forearms. Only when we closed in to within a few feet did the spiritbeasts turn to us; they let out a series of gutteral squeals and barks. The spiritbeast across from me slammed its forehooves into the ground, scraping against the dirt in a naked threat.

  Black coated my blade.

  The boar charged. It swung its head wildly, wielding its long but thin tusks like a blade. My sword met unnaturally sharpened tusk and parted it with ease.

  The monster screamed like I had cut an appendage, a mix of rage and pain, thrashing rather than swinging. The tip of its second tusk caught me. I grunted as the sharpened tip cut hardened flesh, sending blood trickling down my arm. The monster swung its head wildly. I hit the ground, rolling out of range of its sweeping and twitching movements, then waited.

  The beast calmed after a second. Blood leaked from the wound cut into the boar’s tusk. It wasn’t just bone; it was like an additional appendage. I leapt forward, staying low, driving my sword directly toward the Spiritbeast’s head. To my surprise, it thrust its remaining tusk upward, catching my antilight coated blade. The beast screamed again as the anti-light coating erased the tusk at the point of contact, failing to stop me from driving my sword into its head.

  Anti-light made the death silent and clean, not even blood staining my blade as I pulled it free from the creatures head.

  I checked my arm. The cut was shallow. I judged that the wound would heal quickly and looked to the others.

  Poppy was boxing the boar. But she wasn’t struggling. She was slapping away its charges, each blow resonating with an awful noise. She had loose, fast footing, and a look of concentration on her face. I recognized it; the hunger for growth of every cultivator. She was on the edge of understanding something. And she was chasing it.

  She was practicing. She wasn’t in any danger.

  Tie, on the other hand, was holding his boar back at the point of a spear as it circled him.

  “Get back!” He shouted at the Spiritbeast.

  I wonder how long he survived after the wall when this memory was recorded. Or if he survived the wall at all. I lifted my sword and approached the boar from the opposite side. It turned to me and released a cry in warning.

  Tie didn’t hesitate, instantly sinking the spear he held into the boars back. He only managed to cut a few inches deep, opening a ragged gash in the tough hide of the boar. The spiritbeast thrashed and roared in pain and alarm. Its flesh seemed to grip the blade as Tie tried to pull it free, but the beast was thrashing. With it spinning its head back and forth, I couldn’t step close to finish the kill.

  Tie staggered backwards the moment he successfully wrenched the blade free. The boar raced forward, liberated, lowering its head toward me in a charge.

  My blade cut through the boar’s head during its charge, the black of Anti-Light slicing cleanly through flesh and bone, and the monsters charge halted abruptly as its body collapsed, folding on itself in an instant.

  [You reached level 7!]

  Poppy was still fighting her boar. I inspected my blade as the black of Anti-Light dissipated. It was clean from blood, so I sheathed it and watched.

  “We should help.” Tie said, starting to step forward, but I placed a hand on his shoulder. He looked back at me in confusion and consternation.

  “Not yet.” I said.

  Poppy was boxing with the boar. She baited its charge before slapping it away, using her [Skills] in the place of learned cultivation technique. But it seemed she was still building understanding in spite of that. The System wasn’t a crutch for her.

  With every exchange, she became more smooth and fluid. She also scraped off the top layer of the boar’s tusks with each blow, demolishing it. A smile came over her face for just an instant after parrying the boar again. She hit it with enough force that it slid backwards over the ground. She had erased enough of its tusks that blood was leaking from them, spilling onto the ground.

  This time, when the boar charged, Poppy hit it twice. The first hit slapped the boars entire head to the side, far more violently than before.

  The second erupted in sound and force as she managed to copy the more esoteric element of the sword form again; reality seemed to bend around her fist as she punched through the spiritbeast’s head.

  When its corpse hit the ground, Poppy stood over it, staring at it analytically. She still had a smile on her face.

  “Excellent work, Poppy.”

  She almost jumped at my address, turning to me with a visible blush on her face.

  “You watched that? I’m sorry. I was practicing a [Skill.] I didn’t mean to — are you two okay?”

  “We’re fine.” I said with a nod. “It’s alright. Did you make any gains?”

  I released Tie’s shoulder, stepping close and standing over the boar’s head. The blow she struck through it left a wound bigger than her fist.

  “I did.” She said. “But I didn’t expect — normally to level skills up like this, it takes specific training regimens, years of tutoring I — this skill has evolved twice since I got it, Sai. Is this is what it’s like for you?”

  “Power and knowledge are inseparable. The difference between a cultivator who is well learned and one who is not is the distance between heaven and earth.”

  “Who taught you that one?”

  “My dad.” I said.

  “Should we burn them or something?” Poppy asked, kicking the body of the boar. “They’re not going to attract more monsters?”

  “We leave them where they lie. This place isn’t even real.” I said, walking further ahead to where I saw the next pack of monsters.

  “Pardon, seniors.” Tie interjected. “What do you mean this place isn’t real?”