Screams, such a useless expression of guttural terror, other than piercing the eardrums it doesn’t really do anything.

  This is the second time in as many weeks that Tantra hears screaming where she shouldn’t.

  It’s brief, only lasting a moment before being silenced with a sickening snap, but it’s enough to pull the attention of the procession. Heads turn, so many heads turn, all to face the source of the disturbance

  What graces their eyes is a giant, standing sentry to the three corpses at her feet. Tantra recognizes them as then as the baron York and his wife, alongside their cultivator guard, all

  laying in a pool of their own blood. One of them must be missing a heart, the still-beating organ resting comfortable in the palm of a massive hand.

  Her smile is wide, filled with broad teeth and a strange mania.

  “Well!” the giant says, “that took quite a bit longer than anticipated, this graveyard is huge, seriously, tone it down a little. But I’m finally here! Hello! What a joy and a pleasure it is to meet all you scrumptious morsels.”

  She is met by stunned silence as the crowd processes what she’s done.

  “Not very talkative eh? That’s fine, I don’t judge. Say, you wouldn’t mind if I indulged before we got to the fun would you?”

  More silence.

  “Cool,”

  Tantra gets the singular experience of tearing muscle violating her ears as the giant bites through half of the heart. She chews slowly, luxuriating in the precious organ like it were some rare delicacy. Blood flows down her chin like dribbling magma as she swallows and lets out a contented sigh.

  “Are you mad?” Galar says, genuine confusion laced into his voice, “you’d dare to murder nobility and feast on their hearts in front of the Sentinel?”

  “Okay, firstly, that’s fucking rude,” the giant says, wiping the blood off her bronzed skin, “Secondly, this-” she shakes the half-heart at him “-belonged to the cultivator, I wouldn’t subject myself to feasting on mortal flesh.”

  As though to emphasize her point, she takes the rest of the pulsating organ into her maw, an expression of placid bliss plastered over her features as she chews. There are dozens of cultivators and nobles to witness this madness, and none of them can muster even the presence of mind to do anything but stare.

  The Sentinel stares along with them, seemingly exasperated.

  Tantra steps in front of Synthia, providing what little protection her body might offer from the giant, she…shouldn’t have to worry, the Sentinel is here.

  But she’s just got this feeling.

  Like a dormant instinct, it’s been whispering ever so sweetly the promise of violence ever since the marquis’s death, and now it is screaming. Tantra doesn’t believe in something as banal as fate, or predetermination, but this feels far too coincidental.

  Or maybe she’s connecting dots that don’t exist.

  Either way, she’s not taking chances with this woman of crimson robes and matching locks, Tantra manifests her kanabō in preparation as she widens her stance.

  “She’s got the right idea!” the giant laughs with a mouthful of meat, pointing enthusiastically at Tantra, “cultivators should stand by their own strength! Ready to deliver and suffer violence at any moment, not cower under the skirt of some immortal.”

  “Who’s cowering, knave?” Garlan snarls, “we follow laws, to avoid such base displays of barbarism, but there’s always some idiot who just doesn’t understand. You come to soil my fathers funeral and speak of cowardice like this is the place for such things, no, you will die brutally, just as all the rest of your kind.”

  The giant blinks, then barks a laugh, “damn! Are you the new marquis? You’ve got moxie, I approve, shame I have to kill ya.”

  “What do you mean ‘have too’?” Tantra interrupts, full of false bravado “are you here under somebody's orders?”

  The giant smiles wider than should be possible for a human mouth, “quick on the uptake, quick indeed. I like you girl, a brain is a rare organ to find in a cultivator, if only you had a dao, I'm sure whichever one to grace you with its wisdom would make you positively delicious.”

  “Resai,” the tearing of viscera says, “hurry up and get to the point would you? I tire of all this theater.”

  Multiple dozen heads whip towards the Sentinel as she stands, arms crossed and relaxed.

  “You know her?” Garlan says.

  Then everything is pain.

  Tantra falls to her knees as something beyond comprehension bears its weight down unto her shoulders, it is a blood hound of many heads, it is an amalgam of flesh all concentrated together in a singular point, it is-

  Too much.

  Blood flows freely from Tantra’s eyes and ears as she joins the chorus of screams.

  “Do not address me so casually boy,” the mouth of a thing that speaks in bubbling blood says, “you may be the marquis, but I am the Sentinel, if I so pleased I could kill you with a wave of my arm, and the emperor wouldn’t even muster the energy to care.”

  Tantra is choking, her lungs aren’t working properly, she can’t brea-

  Then the pressure is gone and the procession takes in big gulps of air in both terror and awe.

  Garlan lays on the floor, kowtowing before the immortal in desperate demonstration of obeisance, not daring to speak for fear that more words would bring about more wrath.

  “Always the imposing one,” the giant-Resai-laughs shakily, “honestly, you say you don’t like theater but then you pull something like that.”

  “It was a demonstration, cannibal.”

  “It certainly was,” Resai coughs, “good gods, how much Qi do you even have?”

  Erin scoffs and ignores the question.

  Tantra picks herself up from the ground slowly, leaning on her kanabō as the after effects wear off. She can still feel her skin cracking as a viscous liquid fills the-

  Tantra shakes her head, focus.

  “Welp,” Resai stretches, “you heard the big scary immortal, no more talk, just violence! C’mon friends, let’s get to the bleeding and the dying!”

  “We aren’t your ‘friends’, monster” Galar growls, manifesting a pair of tonfas in his grip, “and if the Sentinel isn’t willing to end you then it’d be my pleasure to take on the burden.”

  “Them’s fighting words!” Resai lets loose a crazed smile, “c’mon you beautiful bastards, make me bleed!”

  Galar kneels down and-

  A blur is all he is as in just an instant he reaches the giant and punches his tonfas forward, Resai blocks and follows up with a series of blows that Tantra cannot possibly follow.

  Slowly the fighters accelerate until it’s just two blurs in a flurry of violence. She can’t make out features other than the color of their robes, so fast do they move. Tantra takes a thread from her core and sends it to her mind.

  Her perception of the world sharpens, able to make out indistinct shapes exchanging blows rather than blurs, each clash an explosion. But even with her lack of understanding for what’s going on, she can tell Galar’s losing, dramatically.

  The smell of a gaping maw filled with luminous teeth simply overpowering the sweet scent of absolution.

  Blood flies, and Tantra knows it doesn’t belong to the giant.

  Dirt flies as more cultivators join the frey, aiding Galar in a symphony of chaotic blows and-

  Blood and organs fly as one of the fighters explodes into a mess of viscera and gore, Tantra’s eyes widen.

  If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.

  Was that from her fist?!?

  “Tantra,” she hears the grave voice of Ezra say, she turns to see him with a grim expression as he watches the scene.

  What does he see?

  “Take Synthia and go, this is no battlefield for you or your friends, get her somewhere safe and hide, I’ll find you, I promise.”

  “What!” Synthia exclaims, “what kind of preposterous suggestion is that? You’re not fighting that thing Ezra.”

  “Unfortunate then that this isn’t your decision to make,”

  “I am your Lady!”

  “Some things supersede nobility,” Ezra sighs, then gives his attempt at a cheeky smile, “do me a favor my Lady, don’t die, would be a shame to waste all my efforts over the years.”

  “Ezra-”

  But he disappears before Synthia can finish, faster than Tantra’s ever seen him, faster than even Galar and the giant.

  “No,nonono” Synthia clutches at her head, “this can’t be happening!”

  “What in the fuck is going on?!?” Etra exclaims.

  “I don’t know,” Kisrin says, “but I think it’s best if we do as he said”

  “No!” Synthia whirls on the boy, “you will do as I say! And I demand you help him!”

  Tantra, wise sage that she is, can see the direction that’d go by watching the scene in front of her. The giant is just an indistinct mass of crimson violence, her robes matching the color of her long locks, and she hasn’t moved an inch.

  Dozens of cultivators, all anchored and a step into connection, and they amount to nothing.

  What could they possibly do but die?

  “Tantra?” Erick says, looking nervously at her, “what do we do?”

  Tantra looks up at the boy, she has to, tall as he’s gotten.

  Erick isn’t a cultivator, not really; If they die and he’s left alone, it’ll be back to the streets for him.

  Tantra’s eyes turn to cold steel, “we leave.”

  “What? No!” Synthia exclaims, walking up to face Tantra with an expression of desperate rage, “Ezra’s still fighting, we won’t leave him-”

  Yorin interrupts the noblewoman with a strike to the neck, then grabs her before she falls. The rest of them stare stunned at the man.

  “What?” he says with a raised brow, “I don’t think we have time to argue.”

  -

  Synthia wasn’t the only noble that ended up under their purview, nor were they the only cultivators to guard them. Many of the anchored are fighting the giant, leaving the esteemed social caste vulnerable; but a few joined in their retreat, either concerned for the wellbeing of their charges or too cowardly to face such a monster.

  Unfortunately for Tantra, one of them was Rimi.

  There’s so much Tantra doesn’t understand. Why’d the Sentinel do nothing? Her whole job is to maintain the peace through the guarantee of a gruesome death to any cultivator who dares to break her laws. It’s purpose, of course, is to protect the nobility, but it extends to the commoners as well.

  It’s what makes Ralth different, one of the four great cities of Rikidan that possess predictable order, where the structure of leadership doesn’t have to take into account the potential visit from a bloodthirsty cultivator.

  If news reaches the city that the Sentinel’s decided to take a vacation then…well, they aren’t the majority, but there are plenty of cultivators who would revel in the bloodshed. Settling perceived grievances or to make their mark in history, even if it would be as a mass murderer.

  Good gods, that doesn’t even touch on what the sects might do.

  Tantra hopes beyond hope that the giant doesn’t survive.

  Then there’s the mystery of the giant, how are they so strong? They aren’t in possession of any strange mutations so they can’t be in integration, or are only half a step unto that path. Which means they’re holding back what what amounts to…thirty eight cultivators?

  All of them anchored.

  While being in connection.

  She knows that the realms aren’t really a measure of strength, theoretically someone who’s only invested in their foundations could reach a level of strength that rivals an immortal, however unlikely that is in practice.

  But there’s always been one rule in cultivation.

  Numbers dominate.

  So for her to be fighting off so many without even being in integration is absurd.

  If someone had told Tantra that was even possible just the day before she would’ve laughed right in their face.

  So, two nigh impossibilities, all on the same day.

  This can’t be a coincidence.

  Tantra knows about all the speculation for why the year of demons happened, that the Sentinel got bored, or that it was some kind of test from the emperor himself.

  Personally she subscribes to the idea that she was bribed, just makes the most sense honestly

  Only one entity in Ralth could possibly bribe a Sentinel.

  But it makes no sense, chaos is anathema to trade, and the Jade Sol holds no titles, so a mass slaughter of the nobility would mean nothing for their influence. In fact, once the emperor’s gaze bears down on the city, being the cause of such chaos could very well lead to her old clan being dismantled.

  So there has to be more.

  Tikor might have been an idiot, but Dozen is no such thing.

  There’s something here that she’s missing.

  But she can contemplate that once they’re out of the graveyard.

  Tantra glances back at the sedated jog the nobles are maintaining with excruciating difficulty. It’s frustrating, without them they could’ve been out of the graveyard already, but they refuse to go any faster.

  Well, maybe refuse isn’t the right word, she’s sure they’d gladly go faster…if they could.

  Sometimes Tantra forgets how truly pathetic the body of a mortal is.

  How could she have been that weak?

  No, she was a child when she advanced, so she was weaker, Tantra shivers.

  There are a few who can’t maintain pace, too old to abuse their muscles and joints to such a simplistic degree of abuse, so they must be carried on the backs of the wielders of Qi.

  Truly the horrors of infirmity.

  It takes much longer than it should for them to reach the northern gates, but reach them they do; and cursed be the malevolent heavens, there’s a surprise waiting for them.

  Tantra stares at the gate, as a dozen or so cultivators that were lounging manifest their weapons and stride towards their group with determined purpose.

  Tantra holds back a sigh.

  There is no such thing as coincidences.

  She musters all the patience and fractured serenity she has left and crafts from it a mask of placid amusement.

  “Hello fellow travellers on the path!” Tantra says with false cheer, infusing her lungs to project her voice further, “we’ve had quite the day, and would rather not engage in pointless bloodshed, so would you be so kind as to move out of the way?”

  A man with a rather large cleaver tilts his head, scrutinizing Tantra with an eerie focus.

  “You’re the kin-killer!” he snaps his fingers, “I saw your last fight, it was deliciously brutal, I’d ask for an autograph but considering the circumstances…” He shrugs, “well, I guess I’ll just have to settle for your head.”

  “Now now,” Tantra says, “coin isn’t worth-”

  She is interrupted by the sound of bones snapping.

  Tantra turns, panicked nobles scrambling away from Rimi, who currently stands over a dead Garlan, neck protruding at an odd angle as nunchucks wrap around his throat.

  What the fuck?

  “Wha-” the words barely leave her mouth before Rimi dashes to Dimis, the boy scrambling away from her in panic.

  Tantra boosts her heart, more than she should, and intercepts Rimi with a swing from her club, sending the woman crashing into a crypt. There is silence for just a moment, then chaos reigns as the cultivators waiting to ambush them charge, engaging in duels or slaughtering nobles.

  Tantra, with her extensive experience in the arena, isn’t fazed by the sudden bombardment of information to her enhanced senses. So the cleaver descending for her skull doesn’t escape her ears.

  She spins, arcing her club and parrying the cleaver then she-

  Rimi gets back up and charges Dimis again. Tantra grits her teeth, pulling more Qi into her heart in an attempt to pass by cleaver, but it proves unsuccessful as he intercepts her with another swing.

  Tantra blocks a series of blows and watches helplessly as Rimi’s nunchucks crack open Dimis’s skull.

  What the fuck is going on?!?

  Tantra grits her teeth as she continues to exchange blows with cleaver, shifting her attention to her friends. They’re in a formation with Synthia and Erick at their centre, inundated by the assault of four cultivators, and what’s about to become five with Rimi’s inclusion. Tantra has to compromise, she borders on her sensory limits with her boosting technique, watching with supernatural clarity as the cleaver falls to meet her.

  She sidesteps and counters with a strike to his knee, hearing a satisfying crunch she-

  Tantra smells the shedding of blood through sharp edges, and it is liquid.

  She barely dodges as a pair of axe like blades-khopeshes-cut through the air, aimed at decapitating her. She turns to see a man with jet black hair and a crazed smile as he prepares to strike her again.

  Tantra almost lets it hit her from her shock at his robes and token.

  The Rivers Scales.

  Today is just full of surprises, and not the good kind because he’s clearly an inner disciple. A corner of her mind nudges her with familiarity but she hasn’t even met an inner disciple from the Serpent’s Fang, let alone The Rivers Scales.

  She pushes that aside as she blocks another blow from his pair of axe-swords, pushing her back slightly.

  She looks over at her friends.

  They aren’t doing well.

  Fuck, she needs to help them.

  Tantra sends a second thread to her right leg and blurs away, the crazed man frowning as she leaves him opponentless. He looks and finds her sending a lesser cultivator flying, protecting the little noble and…a child?

  No, no this won’t do, he was just starting to have fun!

  Soma boosts his legs with liquid Qi and rushes the famed ‘kin-killer’.

  while.

  NOT going to post a patreon until I get a job (coming up soon) and can commission an artist to make an official cover.