BOOK 12: CHAPTER 38: UP

“Uncle Sen!” shouted a little girl as she ran up to him.

“How does she always know where to find you?” asked Falling Leaf, giving him a baffled look.

Sen shook his head as he watched the girl race toward him.

“I honestly have no idea,” he said as he squatted down to scoop the girl up. “Hello, Yue Shui.”

“Hi!” she said, while giving Falling Leaf a shy smile.

The girl’s ability to walk directly to wherever he happened to be standing at any given time had gone beyond Sen’s capacity to write it off a pure luck. It was starting to feel as decidedly unnatural as Ai’s tyrannical control over birds. I guess it’s not really just birds, thought Sen. More like anything with wings. As long as she doesn’t start commanding bats

, I guess it’s not the worst thing. Then, he remembered his daughter was spending time with a dragon and, suddenly, bats didn’t seem so bad to him. Granted, it was a dragon he knew, but he still didn’t feel particularly good about that turn of events.

Just because the dragon had helped him out all those years ago, it didn’t mean he was well-intentioned now. Although, the ancient thing had managed to convince Auntie Caihong that it meant well, and she was not a soft touch. Before his thoughts could spiral any farther down that overused mental path, Shui distracted him.

“Up!” she shouted excitedly.

Sen didn’t remember Ai being excited about flying when she’d been this small. Then again, he hadn’t done as much flying back then. They’d been mostly stationary at Fu Ruolan’s during that period, and then again at the sect. He mentally checked the sigh that tried to come automatically. The sect was a fact that he just needed to accept, no matter how much it galled him. Still, Shui’s fascination with being up high was one of those things that he felt torn about. Denying her that small adventure felt petty to him. She was arguably safer on a qi platform with him than she was anywhere else. The father in him, however, recognized all of the potential catastrophes that could happen if she didn’t learn some caution regarding heights.

He decided that was a problem for another day. There were no spirit beasts within range of his spiritual sense that couldn’t be easily handled by the cultivators and army. After so much training and practice together, they were getting remarkably efficient at it. With the addition of Song Lan to the cultivator ranks and Xu Xiao Dan to his personal service, it was very rare that he needed to do anything other than drive spirit beasts into the open. He formed a qi platform beneath him. Falling Leaf shook her head when he glanced at her, so he took Yue Shui up into the air. She let out a happy little noise and squirmed relentlessly as she tried to look at everything.

The army had paused its march so everyone could eat. They weren’t setting up camp, just lighting a few big fires to make gallons of tea for everyone. The soldiers would eat dried rations, while the cultivators would eat or cultivate or project arrogance. He wasn’t entirely sure. As long as they didn’t actively start trouble, he was content not to monitor them too closely. The residual heat from the recently scorched forests around them was enough to keep everyone warm. It came with the side benefit of melting most of the snow from the roads. That had kept their travel speed to a pace Sen found glacially slow, but the generals assured him it was quite good.

He had become more vigilant as they drew closer to Emperor’s Bay, though. He figured that they only had a few more days' march to reach it. While he’d be happy to see a place that still had people alive in it, that very proximity increased the danger. If the city hadn’t already come under attack, it was only a matter of time until it did. There was still a frighteningly large part of the country covered by the wilds where another army of spirit beasts could be biding their time. He didn’t think that there actually was such an army. His theory was that they had thrown the bulk of their forces in this region at the capital.

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It seemed the only reasonable explanation for the sheer numbers that the human and cultivator defenders had faced there. Either that, or every sect had vastly underestimated how many core-equivalent and nascent-soul equivalent spirit beasts existed in the world. Sen was willing to give a little credence to that idea. There very likely were more of those in the world than most cultivators believed, but not that many more. Not on this side of the Mountains of Sorrow, at any rate. If a spirit beast lived long enough and consumed the right things at the right times, they could rise that far. But none of those things were a given.

He suspected the percentage of spirit beasts that rose that high was, maybe, a little better than human cultivators. That was only because they didn’t face the tribulations that killed so many aspiring cultivators. Sua Xing Xing had periodically updated him on the deaths in his own sect from those attempting and failing to advance. He had very specifically not asked for any names. Sen wasn’t close with most of the people who had joined his sect, but there was always the possibility that he’d recognize a name. It wouldn’t cripple him to learn that someone he knew died, but also knew that such knowledge had weight. Let enough of it accumulate, and it would become a problem.

The main reason he didn’t think the spirit beast numbers were much higher was simple. As violent as the Jianghu could be, it was nothing compared to the violence that happened every single day in the wilds. Spirit beasts were territorial. Even if the Beast King had been unnaturally suppressing some of that, it would have been impossible to suppress all of it. Plus, the leader of the spirit beasts had been doing his own culls of the population. It probably balanced out, mostly. The real advantages the spirit beasts had were momentum and having struck first. There would probably never be a full accounting of how many humans and cultivators died in that first year while humanity stumbled to get its footing.

We’re still stumbling, he thought. Sen was not at all certain what kind of reception they were going to get at Emperor’s Bay. Some people there would likely welcome them. If there was still a mortal government in place, they would probably welcome the presence of a human army. Some of the smaller sects, such as the Wandering Winds Sect and the Celestial Arch Sect, would probably view him favorably. Even so, there was always the Soaring Skies Sect to worry about. He had exposed that they had missed demonic cultivators in their own compound. That revelation might not have left their reputation entirely in shambles, but it would be far from recovered. Then again, he thought, they might not be the threat I’m imagining.

He'd been a younger and much weaker cultivator when he’d last been in the city. Then, he truly had been lucky to escape with his life. He’d been at nearly as much risk from vengeful sect cultivators as he’d been from the cabal of demonic cultivators. It was entirely possible that those old fears had exaggerated his estimation of their strength. All the same, he wasn’t looking forward to the possibility of killing more cultivators just to prove to them that he could. He was even less happy about the possibility of killing mortal authorities who refused to acknowledge his rule. The bloody images his imagination conjured to accompany that concern were intense enough that he missed it the first few times Yue Shui tried to get his attention.

“Uncle Sen,” she said while tugging at his robe. “Uncle Sen.”

“Yes, Shui?” he finally asked.

“What’s that?” she asked while pointing in the direction of Emperor’s Bay.

Sen was pretty sure that was her favorite question, as she asked it so often. He looked where she was pointing, and it was an effort not to tense up. He saw cultivators flying toward them. There was something off about them, though. He cocked his head and focused a little more. Unless he was hallucinating, those fools appeared to be riding on swords.

“Those are cultivators. Riding on swords,” he said dryly.

“Why are they riding swords?” asked the girl as she squinted at them.

Sen was surprised she’d even seen them approaching. She probably couldn’t even tell they were people yet.

“Why, indeed, little one? Why, indeed?”