The Power of Ten

Chapter 8-245: The Problems with Outsiders, Part Two

Looking at all his decisions that had been motivated by anger, hate, jealousy, greed, arrogance, pride, and pure uncaring pragmatism, Kentai Yamamoto could only feel wounded and small, like a child caught doing naughty things before the greatest force of all.

He could justify, he could complain, he could challenge, he could defy... but it did not matter. In the eyes of Heaven, he had done Wrong.

And something made him turn his eyes on his daughter.

She was reeling in pain and anger and hate, her eyes holding a light that... did not belong there. It was not the light of someone with remorse or regret, guilt or shame, but the light of scorn and contempt for daring to be held to account, to be judged by anyone, or anything!

It was not the face of his loving daughter, so eager to get stronger so she could serve her people better.

When they hit Four, and the Golden Orbs they have been growing mature and consume their souls...

That was not what the Cultivators had told them. They were told the second soul was grown so that it could reach out and control the Qi in the world, as their own souls could not, enabling them to touch the powers and abilities only the Powered were able to now, correcting what was luck of birth and the callous hands of Fate and Luck, and make their own path, defying their own fates...

“Cultivators are a form of twisted, native Soulborn... that is, Outsiders, creatures who are not mortal. They are formed incomplete, by the hapless efforts of those practicing Cultivation techniques, and will always be incomplete, for they are not part of the rules of this universe.

“When their Golden Orb matures, it rises up, consuming the mind and soul of their hapless hosts, taking them for their own. They then begin the process of purging the mortal elements from their body, sloughing them off as dark impurities and sludge, remaking their human bodies as something purer, better... not mortal, no longer human.

“Because they are incomplete, they are driven to understand the universe better, to make themselves fit in it... and to change it to fit them, altering mana and chi into Qi, subduing the sapient races who can form more of them and turning them into breeding tools for more Cultivators... and killing the Powered, who are useless in that they cannot form more Cultivators, and whose energies and bodies are the finest tonic, stealing the favor of Creation from them for themselves, to grow ever stronger.”

Kentai felt his blood running cold as he heard that. The missing Powered... were murdered for their power? Turned into pills for cultivation?

“Ignore her, father! She lies!” his daughter snarled, trying to struggle, but she had no strength to do so.

She seemed completely unable to comprehend the fact that he was absolutely certain that anyone who could speak that Word could only lie so obviously that nobody would believe it was the truth.

“These children are all Powered. The Cultivators have been hunting them down, seeking them out to improve their own Levels and incidentally removing future threats. Pragmatic, practical, pursuing power,” Traveler went on. “Furthermore, this man...” a head flew out of the slender Pack on her back, hovered in the air, and a transparent illusion filled in the rest, “was hidden in a secret place in town, and was the strongest Cultivator here. By the accoutrements in his home, he was masquerading as an herbalist for traditional medicine, but below his shop, he had turned at least twenty Powered into pills. Given he was a full Eight, he was probably hunting and ambushing Senior Powered, as they make the best tonics, and using them to advance the members of the Dojo.”

Kentai Yamamoto stared at the half-milky, half-colored face of Elder Dan Konoto, a much respected purveyor of traditional herbal remedies, who had been taking care of people in Darwin for decades... from well before the Cultivators had arrived.

Preying on the Powered...

“I’m going to go out on a limb and guess these two were Lawbound agents of yours?” Two more heads came out of her pack, with the talisman paper pasted to their foreheads that were the sign of the vampires of the East. The talismans blew out of the way, and Kentai stared at the faces of Jihan and Kyroto, two of his juniors at the Light-Sparkling-Water school, and indeed, they had Sworn Pacts as Lawbound with Inkai’s aid.

“If they were Powered, they would have been rendered down into pills. They probably stumbled upon some clue, and were killed for it. He made them useful by turning them into undead servants to help him in his hunting.”josei

The two had disappeared almost ten years ago, but had not aged a day, their skin as pure and clean as a freshly-washed corpse...

“If you have any doubts, merely look between the dead who had not transformed their bodies first, and those who have. You will notice an absence... of flies.”

Heads snapped around, extremely good eyes staring at the corpses of the fallen.

Indeed, there were opportunistic insects swirling around the fresh corpses, drawn by the odor of death.

But none were coming near those with milky skin.

“There is one more proof. Cultivators will claim they are evolved humans, advancing to a higher stage, overcoming the circumstances of their birth to be something more. That is, of course, a great and bold lie. Cultivators have no more in common with humans and mortals than angels, devils, and demons do.” Faint amusement was in her eyes when she glanced at the kneeling young woman who was glaring death at her. “That is, of course, the Human Tongue.”

“I can speak the Human Tongue!” his daughter immediately cried out in defiance.

“Anyone can LEARN the Human tongue, just like anyone can learn Elvish, Orcish, Draconic, <or the Butterfly tongue of the Daoists.>”

His daughter’s eyes flared wide in shock and alarm at the strange words that came off Traveler’s lips.

“Of course, the key is not being able to speak Human, but to understand it. It is a genetic tongue. It is formed from the heart of Human genetics, their Life Spiral, and resonates in their Akasha, in them... and in their descendants.” Her eyes were dancing so dangerously now, like stars wheeling about a target. “That includes halvyr, of course, as well as hyn and urukhar, dhatun and ogryn. We can learn it very quickly because we can understand it, although nowhere near as quickly as an actual human can, of course.

“A Cultivator has a superb memory and can learn languages quickly. But they still can’t understand Human words they’ve never heard before, only learn them as they would any other language.

“Tell me, thing wearing a human’s form, what is a syncho-cyclotron?”

Kentai’s mouth opened, about to answer the question, knowing immediately what it was, even though he had never heard the words before. A mere lifting of a finger stopped him, or anyone else, from saying anything.

“I-I... that is a nonsense term!” his daughter refuted blatantly. “It means nothing!”

“You. One sentence.” One of his guards lit up with a silvery Aura at Traveler’s pointing finger.

“A syncho-cyclotron is a machine used in physics labs,” Tomo began, and was cut off. The Aura moved to the man next to him, Kenso, as her finger pointed. “It is used to accelerate atomic particles to high speeds.” Again, the Aura shifted, point. “They are then fed into a larger cyclotron, to gain even greater speeds,” the last man, Ritsa, admitted.

All of which Kentai knew as well...

“Dirigible.” A lighter-then-air flying ship. “Bibliophage.” Someone who read books incessantly, a 'book-devourer', the origin of the old 'bookworm'... although bookworms were real creatures that ate books now... “LeGrange Point.” The point where gravity between the Earth and its moon cancelled out.

They were all words he’d never heard in Human, but he knew what they were and what they meant, because they were in Human.

It was plain from the face of the thing with his daughter’s face that she did not.

“Last point of proof. No doubt you’ve examined her Alignment Aura through various means at times, if nothing else than to assure yourself that your daughter’s beliefs have not changed.” The scorn in Traveler’s voice was growing. “Blocking such a scan is possible as a One. Borrowing the Aura of another is possible as a Three... and all Cultivators are born at Three, so they can borrow the Aura of their Host for perpetuity.

“You should have asked... why have their Auras not changed at all? They are growing stronger, they should be growing either firmer in their beliefs, or deviating to new ones as they become more powerful and independent, and begin entertaining their own desires. And yet, they stayed... exactly the same.”

Kentai rose to his feet as Traveler raised her hand, and a Light shone forth.

It played over the men behind him, who were dominated by blues, some shades of green and silver. It washed over him, and he was a hard sapphire, set in his ways, but veins of silver running through him, the conscience he had to keep suppressing to be the leader that he was.

It turned on her, and she was a mélange of silver and blue, a dutiful daughter, wanting to do the best for her family and people.

“That’s the aura of a Three.” He compared what he’d seen to the Fives of his guards, and his own Aura, and saw the problem immediately.

Her skin was milky white, flawless as white jade. She was at least a Six Cultivator!

He had seen her only a few days ago, and her skin had not been that color!...

Traveler flicked her hand dismissively. He had seen Dispels Cast many times; the sparkles were harsher and more silver than normal, but there was no mistaking it as it whipped across his daughter, and tore away the blue and silver.

He wanted to vomit as the mixture of ruby and amethyst welled up, strong and harsh, deep and firm, having nothing of empathy, kindness, or duty in it. He had seen such Auras before, from career criminals, murderers, the incredibly ambitious...

He was moving before he could finish thinking, his Sword coming out in a whisper, just a flash of light through her neck, and he cut down the thing wearing his daughter’s face.

For just a second, he saw surprise, and then not regret, but a foiled hunger, a thwarted ambition, and a failure and fear of what was coming as the light went out. The cold perfection of his daughter’s face fell from her neck, and golden-black-crimson blood began to spill forth.

“I imagine you’ve been seeing a lot of strange lightning storms over the past several years?” Traveler asked in a rhetorical tone, as he slowly and grimly sheathed Oil-Cutter, none of that unnatural blood daring to cling to his Blade.

Kentai nodded slowly. They had always assumed it was strange Rituals being carried out by the Aborigines.

“Those were the Lightning Tribulations of the Cultivators breaking Six. The Pills from the Powered are the easiest way for them to endure such things.”

He wanted to say something, but could find no words. This thing that had been his daughter... how long ago had she died, devoured from within? “She... was planning to kill me?” he asked slowly, not doubting what he’d seen, but still not wanting to believe it.

“Killing the father of her host body, a Powered, and consuming your power and refined corpse? You were her key to making Eight!”

He wanted to vomit, he wanted to cry, and yet, he could do none of these things. He could only realize how he had been played, played badly, and he was not the only one...

“Ah, and Elder. You do not know how wonderful it is to finally meet you,” he heard her say. He looked up, followed her gaze, and turned slowly around to see the target of her interest, and stare at his old, good friend and advisor, Elder Inkai...