“You’re even faster than I rember.”
Sen looked up at the face of a devil he’d truly hoped was dead. He was tensed for another attack, but it seed that the devil wasn’t as brave without the elent of surprise. Maybe that shouldn’t have been a surprise. It was clear that evil thing hadn’t co away from their last fight unscathed. His face and chest were hideously scarred. Part of a horn was missing. Even the way he stood suggested so lingering damage to one of his legs. Still, the presence of the devil did explain how Changpu had accomplished his transformation. What it didn’t explain was how these two had ever managed to find each other. Then again, Sen supposed that the answer to that question wasn’t all that relevant. They had found each other, and now he needed to decide how best to deal with this problem.
Also, the pure shock of seeing Changpu and what had beco of him was starting to wear off. In its place, anger was surging again. Sen turned a stony glare on the creature calling itself Changpu and let just a tiny bit of his killing intent loose. Both the devil and Changpu took a step away from him.
“Why did you kill those scouts?” demanded Sen. “They had nothing to do with you or with this.”
“Isn’t it obvious?” asked Changpu, who looked to be trying very hard to inject confidence into his voice. “To lure you out. You never would have co alone if you’d been thinking at all. But everyone knows about your temper. If I could make you angry, I could get you to do sothing stupid. Besides, anything that hampers you is a good thing.”
“By the thousand hells, you ignorant fool. You didn’t hamper . You hampered our hopes of defeating the spirit beasts!”
“Our? Do I look like a human being anymore? I can never go back. The humans would never accept , but the spirit beasts? Oh, I think they just—”
“They’ll kill you on sight,” said Sen before he delivered the cold truth. “Which is precisely what you deserve.”
Changpu laughed again. The bitterness in that laugh was so pure it was painful to hear.
“I don’t care,” he said. “They can do what they want to , once you’re dead.”
“You don’t really believe you can defeat , do you?”
“Alone? Maybe not. But I’m not alone, am I? And I’m certainly not bound by honor to give you a fair fight. Sothing you should appreciate, since I hear you don’t think much of cultivators and their honor.”
Sen took a breath. The devil and Changpu didn’t feel like cultivators or like spirit beasts. It wasn’t clear to his senses how powerful they were, but he rembered fighting the devil. Even if he had hobbled it in that earlier fight, that had been luck more than skill. All things being equal, he thought that there was a better than average chance that he would have lost. Of course, that was then, and this was now. He was fairly certain that he could at least equal the devil’s strength, but he didn’t have the qi to spare for a long fight. And, sowhere ahead, he was certain the spirit beasts had laid a trap for him. He would need his strength for that fight. Changpu was right. He’d let his anger make him stupid. Again.
Would it have infuriated him to let these two escape? Yes, it would have. Without question. But this wasn’t part of the war. Not in a aningful way. He’d co after the killer to assuage his own guilt and claim personal vengeance. Sothing that could have been done so other ti. Especially now that he knew who was targeting him. If this ploy hadn’t worked, they would have devised another. It was very clear that Changpu wasn’t going to suddenly discover that he cared what happened to humanity. The devil was no doubt just looking for revenge for what had happened the last ti, but revenge was a powerful motivator. There would have been another opportunity. Even if he didn’t know any of that, though, he couldn’t escape the facts. This could have waited, he thought.
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Instead, Sen had gone running off by himself. He’d just assud that this would be fast and easy. The consequences of that ill-considered choice were now in front of him, and those consequences would force a more difficult choice on him. Should he spend his limited qi freely in an attempt to end the fight quickly? Or should he conserve his qi for the fight ahead and rely on his sword and spear skills to take the other two? Both options had advantages and disadvantages. If he ended the fight quickly, it limited the risks of being affected by devilish qi again. He rembered all too well what a torturous experience purging his body of that had been like. It wasn’t the sort of thing sane people were eager to experience a second ti. But it would an knowingly leaving himself weaker for the fight ahead.
If he decided to rely on his weapon skills and just bolstered them with the occasional qi technique, he could reserve most of his qi for later. Unfortunately, that ant getting close. Close enough that the devil and possibly even Changpu could leave devilish qi in his body. If it were only a little, he could cope with purging that. But if it were another deep wound with a large dose of that foreign qi, he might end up stalling the army for days. He could order them to keep marching, but he suspected they’d find a reason to disregard that order. Of course, he was quite good with those weapons. He was also far stronger and faster than he’d been the last ti he fought the devil. If he just didn’t get hit, it wouldn’t be a problem.
He had to check a sigh at that thought. It sounded good in theory, but avoiding any injuries from two strong opponents wouldn’t be remotely easy. If you wanted an easy life, you should have been born a noble, Sen told himself. He’d realized that the choice wasn’t a real choice. This minor quest for vengeance was his personal affair. The priority had to be keeping the army moving and being prepared to fight the spirit beasts. That ant he needed to save as much qi as he reasonably could.
“This is beautiful. The great and powerful Lu Sen, driven to hesitation by fear,” said a gleeful Changpu.
“Fear?” asked Lu Sen. “Has that devil damaged your mind as much as he’s damaged your body? I wasn’t hesitating. I was deciding.”
“Deciding what?”
“The thod I’ll use to kill you both,” said Sen as he affected in a bored tone.
He was more worried about this fight than he wanted to let on. Based on the way Changpu froze at those words, though, it seed that Sen’s concerns hadn’t bled through.
“Don’t listen to him,” growled the devil. “He’s weak right now. He’s alone. If we act quickly, his allies will find nothing but his cooling corpse.”
Sen held out a hand and summoned his best spear. It wasn’t on the sa level as the swords Master Feng had made for him. He just hadn’t had the ti, materials, or opportunity to have a better one made. Part of him kept hoping that so enemy would show up with a better spear, but that had beco increasingly less likely at every step of his advancent. Even so, a spear was the better choice for this situation. It would let him keep them at a distance, which would reduce the chance of being afflicted with devilish qi. He’d draw the jian when he needed them. Sen planted the butt of the spear on the ground and let a tiny bit of lighting qi and his killing intent rge inside of the weapon. He’d used Heavens’ Rebuke so often that he could manifest it with a relatively low investnt of qi. Black lightning crackled to life around the spear.
“If you believe that, devil, you’ve clearly forgotten how our last battle went.”
The devil eyed the lightning warily. Changpu stared at it with open-mouthed horror. Sen had forgotten that the man had never actually seen this technique in use before. He swung the haft up into his left hand, so he’d be using it with both hands. The way that Uncle Kho had taught him. It had been a while since he’d last used a spear. It felt right in his hands, but it also felt strange in a way that Sen couldn’t even articulate to himself. Figuring out what caused that would have to wait.
“Now, let us begin the lesson,” said Sen.
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