The Fourth Fall - Chapter 34 preview

True to Wu Ying's projections, the hunt itself for the first four hours had been monotonous. The cultivators had ridden out with great fanfare, promising to bring back meat and edibles, but had soon encountered the unforgiving reality of their environment. After over a week of constant hunts, the majority of the wildlife in the surroundings had either been killed and consumed or fled for further and safer environs.

With such a pallid reality facing them, the hunters and the beaters had pushed ahead, faster than ever. The horses were given only the most minimal of rests, the cultivators intent on finding fairer hunting grounds. Conversations between the hunters were sparse, the unrelenting pace making conversation difficult, especially as tempers grew short at their failures.

Riding near the back, seated on a placid mare that followed the herd with little prodding, Wu Ying watched the growing discontent with well-concealed amusement. He offered no commentary on the matter, not even when the group chose to forego their packed meals and a longer stop with the intention of making better time. After all, he rather enjoyed eating the steamed buns and sliced and fried pancakes that were doled out and eaten whilst riding.

Only once did he bestir himself, when soon after lunch was complete, when a scout returned with news.

"A village, sir. In the distance. It's at the extreme of our sensing range, and if we continue on our present course, we will miss it entirely. If we turn, south and west a little more..." the scout explained, sketching in the air with his finger, glowing lights offering a crude map for the personages to read and decide upon.

"What say you, Lord Shi?" the leader of the Cai, Guerilla General Woo asked. He was the strongest, the only member of the Cai general staff to have been sent on this hunting trip. Wu Ying knew there had been quite the agitation among the ranks, none of the Colonels or Generals wanting to be forced to miss the event. The disruption in their aura was quite apparent, even a day later.

For all the rumors of the man, the woman, the figure before him was a disappointment. His aura was well contained, no trace of the supposed blood sense leaking from it. Though he lacked the stature of the Rock of the Wei, there was a solidity to General Woo, a firmness to his cultivation that spoke of his nature as a Nascent Soul cultivator. And it was quite clear, that certain rumors of his giving up his humanity had been over-exaggerated. He was still human, still mortal, still male. If powerful.

No surprise that Wu Ying’s presence had been requested here, by the Sect Head, to counterbalance the other. Even if their opponents did not know it.

"Let us check out this village. Strange, that none of our scouts have mentioned it before," Lord Shi Mu said. He turned around, searching the crowd in an attempt to find Wu Ying. The wind cultivator smiled a little, head lowered as he ducked beneath others while he let the wind carry the conversation on.

Of course, Wu Ying knew what they spoke of. It had taken the village days before they had chosen to leave, days to choose what to do and then get ready. They had been gone now, for a few days and so he saw no issue with the hunting party heading in that direction. Sure, the villagers were slow, the path they had used obvious. But what point would there be in this hunting party, going out of their way and spending an extra night or two to track them down?

Little enough, at least in Wu Ying's opinion. More to the point, he could not always hide the village, using his winds to gently guide the hunters away. Startling game or otherwise creating distractions well before the scouts could head in the same direction. Even he had not expected the guards to have ranged such a distance, to have driven away the spirit and demonic beasts such that they had to travel further.

"Lead us," Lord Shi commanded the scout.

Whistles were blown, horns howled and the group shifted. Scouts and the leading edges of the hunting group turned, and they moved on. The beaters had been called back long ago, staying just ahead of the main group. At some point, they would go out again with the scouts, hopefully to startle or drive monsters away, maybe even get ahead of them. Of course, the fact that they were with the main group and not ahead, driving them back was a little unusual, but needs must in terms of logistics in this case.

Anyway, as cultivators, their ability to cover ground in short and quick bursts when they needed it was well known. Alterations on common hunting methods for mortals - even if they were well documented and repeated - was simple enough for the group.

It was going well, even for Wu Ying. He drew more than a few looks, as he flickered and reappeared, again and again as his senses caught the scent of wild spirit herbs. Even if the scouts and the hunting parties had been through these lands, none of them were gatherers. Or, the few that had some minor learning, had only taken the most obvious of spirit herbs.

They weren't digging under the earth, to take spirit herbs that had gone dormant, hibernating away the drought. They weren't extracting herbs that were on the verge of dying, their chi and leaves and flowers withered away to be placed in a more palatable environment inside their World Spirit Rings. They were not digging into the trees, tearing their way through dying forests to see what lay beneath, to extract the sap and the heart root.

In the end, they were not Wild Gatherers. In time, the other cultivators braved Wu Ying's wrath, chose to speak with him and ask about his sudden departures and return. They looked at what he gathered, some - the apothecarists, the knowledgeable - even going so far as to request the herbs and items he gathered

"Apologies. You can, of course, keep note of what I've gathered. Though this is a minor item, barely worth picking. A spirit-class herb." Wu Ying shrugged. "But the actual trade must be done by Honored Elder Yang."

"Surely the Elder is able to make his own decisions..." This from a Wei Elder from the Six Jade Gates sect.

Wu Ying's lips turned up. "Tell me, Elder...?"

"Xi."

"Elder Xi. Do you have a dao companion? Or a companion?"

Affronted, Elder Xi was shaking his head in the negative now. Those faster, or smarter, were already smiling or moving back a little so as not to be hit with the backsplash of what was to come. "No."

"Then, might I make a suggestion on your future relations?" Wu Ying said, but he continued without waiting. "I know many of us, as cultivators, lack the experience that our mortal counterparts do. We are too dedicated to the arts of cultivation to learn the skills necessary to maintain a relationship. But compromise, and being faithful to decisions one made, is very important. Almost intrinsic, I would say."

Too late. Those cultivators already backing off were still struck. Looks of hurt and betrayal flickered across many faces, and even Elder Xi seemed taken aback by Wu Ying's casual attack.

"You... I... just because...!"

"Ah, a beehive!" Wu Ying said, ignoring the man. He moved once again, disappearing from his seat upon his placcid mare. There was a reason he had chosen a creature that was, generously, described as well-tempered. After all, the sudden appearance and disappearance of weight might annoy another horse.

On the other hand, the wind cultivator was also using his travels to track the auras that tried to lock onto him. He was not crossing space using his dao, instead just moved with great speed, utilising his modified Wind Steps technique to cross the space. It allowed those of skill or strength to track him, but also, allowed him to watch them. An important and necessary step, though it only revealed one surprise.

Lord Shi, for all his lack of - visible - progress in his cultivation wielded his aura and spirit senses like a scalpel. If not for Wu Ying's cultivation superiority, he might not even have noticed the man's sensing technique. It utilised a strange mixture of dao and the metal element to do so, an aspect he did not understand truly. A hidden family technique, he would have bet upon.

An annoying one that made the air heavy and that made it move weirdly.

Carefully, Wu Ying placed the bee hive and bees in his storage ring. Then, he wielded the wind, guiding the bees that fought against the pull towards him. He could collect them all, but doing so would be foolish and take too long, so he made do with the majority. The last few, he made sure to leave a trail behind, drawn from the air in his ring and exuded into the surroundings.

Hopefully, they would find him. It would not do to leave the creatures, small and trivial as they might be to some, to live a life without friends and family.

On and on, they rode, till late afternoon arrived. The horses had to be stopped and watered and rested, cultivators with the Wood and Earth affinities or the right techniques pushing chi into weary bodies, reinforcing muscles and washing away exhaustion. The horses fed heavily on dry leaves, on drooping branches and the grain and fruits the team carried. Eventually though, after hours of riding, they came to the village.

No surprises there, what with the scouts and then the lower level cultivators having checked over the area beforehand. The only living creature within the abandoned village, beyond the vermin that always existed, was a tired and old goat that wandered through opened gates, letting mewling baa's from its mouth as it searched for meals.

"Why would they leave it behind?" Elder Shi asked, frowning. Already, guards had grabbed the creature, pulling it to the town center where the Elder's and important personages of the hunting group had gathered.

"Too old to bring with them," Wu Ying said. "It wouldn't last the hike and would slow them down while it struggled."

"Then kill it. Goat, even old goat, is still meat."

A number of the other Elders nodded. While they might not choose to eat it themselves, there were servants and guards that needed feeding. Such a creature could feed a large number, especially when you placed it in soup and shared out the meat and boiled out the bones. The lower class knew how to make meat stretch.

"I'd guess it was a valued member of the family," Wu Ying said, leaning forwards on his seat. "A creature that was both pet and stud. Not something that would be killed that easily." He grimaced. "Or it could be diseased. We should have a Wood cultivator check it over."

"Sentimental creatures." Elder Xi sniffed but gestured.

Energy pulsed, wood chi pouring out of one of the guards into the goat. The creature bucked and bleated before the guard looked up.

"The Honored Elder is right. The creature is old, and riddled with parasites. It probably has a few months left to eat. Normal treatment would see it dead too. It's no wonder the villagers left it behind." The guard sniffed dismissively at the creature.

"Damn. All this, and not a single beast?" General Woo said, looking at the scouts. Wu Ying noticed how the Cai scouts refused to meet their leaders gaze, a step behind to allow others to speak. Even so, they all shook their heads, for there still was nothing that they had located, at least nothing substantial. There were of course hares and shrews and other small game that survived well at these times, but not in the numbers needed to feed multiple armies.

"Can you heal it?" Lord Shi said to the guard. "You're a Wood cultivator, no? One of the medics that are normally sent?"

The guard nodded, grimacing. "Doing so, it'd kill the creature. But it would not poison the meat in the doing."

"That's all that we can ask for, then." The older man gestured, his slight paunch that showed even under the armour he wore wobbling a little. The horse he sat upon was the most magnificent of the beasts here, large and sturdy and well trained. Even so, his people had led a second such creature to help the first animal relieve itself of its burdens.

Wu Ying turned from the sight, though he had seen - and conducted - such slaughter before. Even so, he could feel the wood energy pouring out from the guard, an energy that was close to medicine as it was poison. It killed parasites, paralyzed muscles and made the goat shudder and let out one last, plaintive bleat.

In the meantime, General Woo was speaking. "Those villagers. I see paddocks. They had a pond here, that is still a quarter filled. The fields are stripped, but the stalks show there was grain planted. And they are... how many days away?"

"Four, we believe." One of the scouts spoke up.

"A village, on foot, four days? Maybe only a day for us."

"You are thinking of locating them and taking their food?" Lord Shi said, surprised.

"Of course. We need food, do we not?"

Lord Shi smiled. "A good idea. But we cannot be away, not for a full two days." He turned his head, passing over the group. "We shall each pick a few of our people. Let them deal with it."

Wu Ying, sat a distance away, felt his grip tighten on the reins. He did not gainsay them yet, though. after all, he was technically of a lower standing them then. Even if he revealed his true cultivation stage, the temporal powers were still, technically, of greater authority.

He could not stop this, not by speaking against it. On the other hand...

"We might want to avoid splitting the group." Wu Ying murmured.

"Why?" Now Lord Shi had turned to stare at Wu Ying, eyes narrowed. "Honored Elder of the Shen?"

"Because there's a creature that might need all of us in that direction," Wu Ying pointed to the east further. "Or perhaps it is a herd. Hard to tell at this distance."

Now everyone was looking at him, the scouts in particular. He did not blame them, they had pride in their work and had not sensed what he did.

"What is it that you sense, Elder Long? And how is it that you can sense them, but not our scouts?" Lord Shi asked.

Wu Ying touched his nose, smiling a little. "I don't sense them. I smell them. The winds can carry a scent from afar, and my technique allows me to filter it. I smell earth and metal, a heavy musk. Concentrated from a single creature, or a herd." He gestured then, commanding the wind to swirl around the grouped scouts.

He waited, before a couple jerked their heads up. No surprise that some of them had similar skillsets and sensing abilities. They just did not have a helpful wind.

"He speaks right! I do smell something. Or... a great many things." One of the scouts, the bolder of the two, a soldier from the Cai said. "But I cannot tell which direction it comes from. This wind is... unnatural."

"Unusual," Wu Ying said. "Not unnatural. It brings note, from afar."

"Ah, so this is how the famed Verdant Gatherer is able to locate such elusive herbs in the wild." Lord Shi smiled, wide. Happy it seemed that he had learnt a great secret and explained away a mystery. "Your Wind Body is well spoken of, and obviously, combined with your knowledge gives you great advantage over our own Gatherers. Serendipitous it seems."

"In a sense," Wu Ying replied. He turned a little, returned General Woo's stare.

The rather handsome general with a rough beard and pronounced nose was looking contemplative, though he smiled as Wu Ying looked at him. "It seems that the Elder has found us our prey, then."

Lord Shi nodded, tightly. "So it seems." Still, the fat man hesitated, then smiled. "Still, no reason to let even a little food away." He pointed to Elder Xi then, and another pair of soldiers. "You can go. Bring extra horses, find the villagers."

"Surely you don't intend to leave the Cai out of this," General Woo said. He too repeated the actions, pointing out a few of his own people. "What Elder Long has found will not need us all. Even if it is a large herd. It won't do to cull them all, after all."

For a moment, Lord Shi's aura rolled with its owner's displeasure. Then, it stilled. Not a twitch of his face, even as he smiled at General Woo. "Of course, of course. The Shen are our allies though, they will not need to send any. Unless Elder Long wishes to go?"

Wu Ying shook his head. "I trust in our allies, the Wei. Anyway, I am sure, my guidance to our prey is required."

"Of course. Of course." Still all smiles, the Lord gestured for the scouts to lead the way in the direction that Wu Ying had indicated. "Then, let us go. To feed our allies."

Wu Ying smiled, waited as the soldiers and cultivators left. He started his horse only when the majority had gone, noting that Lord Shi had not chosen his previous position. Instead, he had hung back. And now, that crafty older man was guiding his horse to his.

And what they had to speak of, Wu Ying was uncertain. He truly was.