BOOK 11: CHAPTER 50: SENTIMENTAL CHOICE

By the time Lai Dongmei landed next to him a minute or two later, Sen was holding his nearly-severed leg in place as the bone, muscle, and connective tissues slowly grew back together. He hazarded a glance up at her. She didn’t look at him immediately. Instead, she surveyed the damage for a long moment. Sen glanced around and tried to evaluate it from the perspective of someone who had just arrived. It didn’t look great. That last exchange of attacks had left several small craters where some of his ice lances had missed. There were several charred patches left as evidence of his fireball. That was to say nothing about the dozens of trees the spirit beast had taken down in its attempt to cut Sen to pieces. He suppressed a wince at the sight of the wide track of exposed earth where his own spinning water technique had ripped away the topsoil.

Yet, even with all of that damage, Sen knew that things could have been so much worse than they were. It was only in hindsight that he could see that the spirit beast had to have been holding back to some extent and possibly for the same reason. After all, if it had managed to succeed in killing him and Lai Dongmei, it wouldn’t have wanted to have to travel somewhere to continue hiding until it recovered. Not when this patch of the wilds was still so close to the city and a good place to launch a future attack from. That idea troubled Sen more than he wanted to admit. He’d thought that this sanctuary area was far enough away from the capital to prevent such problems.

The reality was that the distance would prove trivial to anything or anyone at the nascent soul level. He’d just never flown directly from the capital to this place as a nascent soul cultivator. He’d always been slowed by traveling at speeds that allowed core cultivators to keep pace. He’d also been distracted by the task of slowly destroying the wilds. Sen knew that sentiment had played a role in the decision as well. He’d had peaceful moments in this area. He found it beautiful. Some part of him simply hadn’t wanted to destroy something he associated with beauty and peace. He still didn’t, even knowing the possible threat the proximity of the place created. Sen wondered if he’d ever be able to make such a sentimental decision again, if the circumstances would ever allow for it. That line of thought was cut short when Lai Dongmei looked at him.

“You seem to have dealt with that problem swiftly,” she observed, “if at a cost.”

“It didn’t seem swift at the time,” noted Sen.

“It never does,” murmured Lai Dongmei. “You held back.”

As much as he wanted it to be a question, that last statement had most assuredly not been a question.

“I did,” Sen agreed. “But what makes you say that?”

“There are still trees standing.”

“I suppose that’s fair.”

“That was stupid,” she said in a hard voice.

Sen wanted to get angry, but he couldn’t find the emotional energy to do it. He also had the less-than-sneaking suspicion that she was right. Master Feng would have been incensed that Sen had let the fight drag out as long as it had and taken injuries when he’d had options to end it faster. Whatever his goals, and whether or not they were noble, ultimately came second to surviving the fight. Damage could be fixed. Death could not. He’d jeopardized victory for sentiment. He hadn’t thought it all the way through. The fight hadn’t left him a lot of time to think it through. He’d also been wounded and suffered the backlash from having his auric imposition broken. None of those things had helped, but he still hadn’t thought it through enough.

Yes, moving the herd would have been a challenge. He’d overestimated the threat to the calves, though. If it came right down to it, he could have forced grass to grow to give them something to eat. It wouldn’t have been complicated. Challenging, perhaps, because of the season and the cold, but he’d done far more difficult and complicated things in the past. It would have cost time, and time was being measured in lives these days, but the army ultimately moved when he said it did. The time constraints he felt were ultimately self-imposed.

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That wasn’t to say that the fight and his approach to it had been without value. He’d exposed key weaknesses in his own perception of things and ability to fight under limitations. Whether or not discovering those things was worth the risks he took to learn them was probably a question without a clear answer. Another glance at Lai Dongmei suggested that she thought that the answer was very clear. It hadn’t been worth it.

“It probably was stupid,” he said, only hedging a little.

Lai Dongmei’s mouth twisted in a way that suggested she’d just tasted something sour, but she decided not to pursue it right then. If I’m lucky, thought Sen, she won’t pursue it later, either. He didn’t have high hopes for that. Still, he was physically and mentally exhausted enough to be grateful for any reprieve from that conversation. It seemed that pain wore on nascent soul cultivators that way it did on everyone else. That absurdity of that struck him a moment later as he looked down at his own leg. He very much doubted that most qi-condensing, foundation formation, and even core cultivators could have carried on a coherent conversation while a limb they’d almost lost healed back together. Pain might still wear on him, but it clearly wasn’t wearing on him in the same ways it once did.

“You won. I suppose we’ll just have to take that and be satisfied,” she said, snapping Sen’s attention back to her. “Did you learn anything useful from the spirit beast before you killed it? Does it have allies nearby that we need to contend with?”

“We didn’t talk,” said Sen.

It was only in retrospect that he found that fact odd. The spirit beast had clearly reached a point of sapience. It should have been able to talk, which meant that it had chosen not to talk. The only reason to do that would be to ensure it didn’t accidentally give away any important information. Starting a fight was a good way to avoid a pesky conversation that might have revealed something. Could it have set itself up to serve as a distraction to allow some ally to flee or hide? Sen glared at his still-healing leg. It was going to take at least another hour or two before it would be healed enough to stand on. It’d probably take until the next day before he’d feel confident fighting on it.

“That’s unfortunate,” said Lai Dongmei. “If anything did flee, I doubt we’ll have a chance to catch them.”

“I didn’t sense anything powerful fleeing, but I didn’t sense that thing, either,” said Sen, nodding at the wash of red snow where the spirit beast had last stood. “I’m not even sure how it hid from my spiritual sense.”

“As I recall, you became rather infamous for your ability to do just that.”

“True, but I’ve never come across anything or anyone else that could do it. It’s troubling.”

“That is troubling, but we can hope that it’s a rare talent or technique.”

“I guess that’s all we can do. Not that I’ve ever found hope an effective deterrent to inconvenient, potentially-lethal problems.”

“Hope is a flimsy shield, but it’s the only one available to us at the moment,” said Lai Dongmei before turning her head and nodding at the approaching Grandmother Lu.

Sen craned his neck around so he could see her as well. He was forced to suppress another wince. She did not look happy. He did his best to put on a cheerful smile as she came to a stop and glowered at him. He expected the lecture to start immediately, but she managed to put it aside long enough to ask a question.

“Are those ridiculous healing elixirs you make going to be able to heal you?”

“They are. It’ll take a little time, though.”

“Good,” she said.

“What?” asked Sen. “Why is that good?”

“It means you’ll have to sit there and explain to me just why it is you let that thing nearly kill you.”

Feeling the futility of the action before he even began, Sen walked Grandmother Lu through his line of reasoning. He took great pains to explain the insights he’d gained from the fight and how important those would be moving forward. He was about to launch into an explanation about how he understood that it had been a foolish choice, regardless of what he’d gleaned, but he never got the chance.

“I swear that you forget more and more with each passing day,” said Grandmother Lu, tossing her hands in the air. “Practicality, Sen. Prac. Ti. Cal. I. Ty.”

Sen felt his ability to keep a respectful, attentive expression challenged as Lai Dongmei abruptly turned away and put a hand over her mouth. After a tenuous moment when he feared he’d lose the battle to control his expression, he managed to nod.

“Yes, Grandmother Lu.”

“I swear, if you weren’t injured, I’d beat you senseless.”

That, apparently, was Lai Dongmei’s breaking point.

“I’m going to go sweep the rest of this area for more spirit beasts,” she said in a strained voice before shooting into the air on a qi platform.

Sen couldn’t swear to it, but the wind certainly seemed to be carrying the sound of merry laughter.