The Copper cultivator started to trash-talk. Roland used the time to size up the op force.

  Reaper’s Insight.

  Zhang Yun’s outfit wasn’t armored but was of Epic quality and let him absorb Fire-attuned damage and store it for future use. It currently held six hundred points in storage that he could unleash all at once as pure fire damage.

  Roland could see that he also had a hardened aura Technique that could stop a hundred and twelve points of physical damage and fifty-six Concept-attuned damage. Zhang appeared to be unarmed, but his wrist bracers (Epic Quality) had suspicious metal bulges over the forearms that concealed half a dozen weapons in a specialized storage device.

  “Today is an unfortunate day for you, Classer,” Zhang said as Roland made his threat assessment. “You have harmed the interests of my Faction. Imagine my surprise when someone told me that you had left your Crucible World and ventured into the Dread Lands. And you were headed to the very Pylon where the fates placed me, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to honor the Empire.”

  Something about Zhang’s posture and the nasty smile on his face reminded Roland of Yang Marcus. And that made him smirk right back.

  I’d never assume that every ethnic Chinese Cultivator I meet is my enemy, but I think this guy and Yang work for the same Sect or NGO or whatever. That Middle Kingdom place, I guess.

  “So, are you here to challenge me to a duel? A peak Copper versus Tin 2?” Roland asked casually. “Are your friends here to serve as witnesses?”

  A Copper challenging a Tin to a duel was not illegal but carried a significant loss of face. Roland had learned that at the Chapel. Certain cultivator rules were universal, no matter what cultures were involved. The System’s work, Roland guessed.

  As he spoke, he watched Zhang’s ‘friends.’ Hirelings, more likely.

  Natasha Ivanova (Human Ascendant)

  Tin 10 Cultivator (Body Cultivation Pattern, Adequate Configuration)

  Health 358 Endurance 330 Mana 282

  The woman wore mismatched pieces of armor, all of Uncommon Quality: a lamellar chest piece, a crested helmet that looked like something out of Sparta or Rome, and chain mail leggings. She was taller than Zhang and had a wide-shouldered, heavily muscled build. Her cultivation wasn’t the best, however.

  She held a Rare battle axe in both hands; its edge shone with putrid-looking green light. A Poison Technique. A hit would drain all his Energy Pools by twenty-four points per second for ten seconds.

  Maybe she was an adventurer down on her luck, eking out a living as a low-rent mercenary. Her expressionless face and flat and uncaring gaze revealed little about her. She looked at Roland the way he imagined a farmwoman would look at the chicken she’d picked for dinner.

  She bears the Mark of a kin-slayer, Raven said. Killed her own children. She is mine, Roland. Her end will make for a tasty dish.

  Go crazy, Roland replied, glancing at the third cultivator.

  Lee Cheuk (Human Ascendant)

  Tin 5 Cultivator (Basic Cultivation Pattern, Excellent Configuration)

  Health 138 Endurance 142 Mana 140

  The last guy wore a suit made from furs, leather and bones from a variety of beasts or monsters. A quick glance classified the ensemble as a Rare set; it projected an ablative energy barrier with a Durability of three hundred. His weapon was an uncommon spear that had a fiery aura around it.

  “This isn’t a duel,” Zhang said. “We are here to dispose of a pest, that is all.”

  Lee Cheuk nodded nervously and kept glancing around, as if expecting Roland to have his own pet Ninja. Or maybe he’d just realized that he was the weakest guy in the fight, including the little black bird on Roland’s shoulder.

  Speaking of pet Ninjas, Roland still had no idea where Hatsuko was. Even using Reaper’s Insight hadn’t pierced her stealth.

  Show me, he asked Raven, and the bird did.

  Shinobi Genin Iwamoto Hatsuko (Human Ascendant)

  Copper 10 Cultivator (Three-Dantian, Seven-Chakra Pattern, Magnificent Configuration)

  Health 1,212 Endurance 1,322 Mana 1,635

  Her stats were different than when he had met her at the Chapel. Either she’d leveled up, or she’d previously hidden her status with some Ninja trick. Her Pattern info intrigued Roland (what the hell was a Chakra, for one?), but he filed it away under ‘irrelevant crap.’

  While her three partners faced Roland, she had sneaked around him, getting set for a backstab. The trick had worked once before, when she messed him up under the eyes of another Copper Cultivator who didn’t notice a thing. This time, however, Roland watched her without needing to look in her direction, thanks to his Art and Raven’s help.

  The Shinobi was wearing a suit of Uncommon Leather armor and a round metal helmet of the same quality. Only her short straight sword was of Epic Quality.

  It looked like she’d fallen on hard times since Roland’s rough exit from the Chapel. Maybe she had to run for her life when they found out what she had done to him.

  Could be that there is some justice in this world, he thought as Executioner’s Gun appeared in his hand. The time for talking was over.

  Zhang unleashed his full killing intent, mixed into an aura attack, while his hired henchmen charged forward, Techniques activating.

  At the same time, Hatsuko dashed toward Roland’s back. A Life-based Technique wrapped her sword with killing energies. Life seemed like an odd Affinity for an assassin, until you thought about it for a bit.

  The coordinated attack might be considered overkill, coming from two peak Coppers and two high Tins against a lone Dual-Path and his pet.

  Hatsuko must have warned them that appearances could be deceiving.

  Case in point: Zhang’s Technique, some kind of paralyzing aura projection, did nothing against Roland.

  When his aura and Zhang’s met, he discovered that the cultivator’s Willpower was ninety-nine, sixteen points higher than Roland’s. Despite the difference, Roland’s Pattern flared up through his aura and rejected the Technique’s influence. The failure caused a backlash that staggered the Copper cultivator for half a second – a good deal of time at the reaction times involved.

  The Slavic woman swung her axe, creating a ghostly blade that flew towards Roland, only to be intercepted by a Death Tendril from his Art.

  Roland fired over his shoulder, targeting the Ninja through his Crushing All-Knowing Presence of the Reaper.

  Hatsuko was moving with blinding speed, but Deadshot (and the deeds she was guilty of) generated a double critical hit. He’d aimed at her head, but she managed to partially dodge; the slug struck her shoulder. The hit should have inflicted over three hundred points of damage, but some defensive Technique cut it down by half.

  Roland was fighting above his weight class. Luckily, he had a few cards to play.

  The Shinobi’s charge faltered for a mere fraction of a second. That was long enough. A Copper-ranked Emperor Cobra Revenant appeared behind her and tangled up her legs in its coils as it sank its fangs on her unwounded arm.

  While that happened, Raven exploded into motion. He took the Slavic woman in the face, beak extended like a charging knight’s lance. Bird and Cultivator went rolling onto the ground to the sound of caws, fluttering wings, and cries of pain.

  Death Tendrils! Reaper’s Touch! Spirit Weapon!

  Four limbs struck at Lee Cheuk before the cultivator could cross half the distance between them. His spear caught one of them and dispelled it in a flaming explosion. That left three tendrils. One grabbed one of Lee’s arms, the other took him by the throat, and the last one drove a spiked tendril right into his crotch, landing a critical hit for a hundred and ninety physical and a four hundred and ninety Death damage.

  The unfortunate Tin Cultivator’s energy shield wasn’t enough to absorb the hit. His body spun away from the impact, leaving one of his legs behind. Roland didn’t have time to make a wish as he threw the dismembered limb away.

  Instead, he turned toward Zhang Yun, who was prepping a high-power Technique. A spinning energy disk had appeared in front of the cultivator’s gesturing hands.

  Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  Revenant Victim!

  Two Btsan Warriors appeared behind Zhang, spears in hand. The cultivator had to delay his Technique to defend himself from the furry critters, killing one straightaway with a snap kick that took the Minion’s Health from three-sixty to zero.

  Roland closed in with I’m the Juggernaut. The crash only inflicted a little over a hundred damage after accounting for Zhang’s hardened aura Technique, but Roland didn’t let up, naginata and tentacles striking multiple times per second. He enhanced the attacks with Reaper’s Touch for good measure.

  Zhang was no slouch, however. A pair of butterfly swords appeared in his hands. He moved like greased lightning, faster and more skilled than Roland. Out of five attacks in the first flurry, Zhang blocked four of them. The single hit dropped Zhang’s health by another two hundred points, and Roland’s Death-infused aura burned his enemy for another hundred-plus.

  At the same time, Zhang slashed at Roland three times in between blocking attacks. Roland dodged all of them with tiny movements that put his body just out of reach of the Cultivator’s deadly attacks. The near-misses were nerve-wracking but otherwise harmless.

  The entire exchange took eight-tenths of a second.

  Undeterred, Zhang exploded into a giant fireball as he unleashed the six hundred points of Fire-attuned damage stored in his tunic.

  A sudden urge to be anywhere but next to Zhang saved Roland’s life. Reaper’s Dash sent him off in a tangent, moving so fast that it looked like he teleported. Even so, over four hundred points of Fire damage got through. His Art and body armor brought the pain down to a mere three hundred and change.

  Vital Energy!

  Much of the life force he’d taken from his victims was spent repairing the burned tissue. Pain Tolerance kept him moving.

  His restored Health was the main reason that Hatsuko’s running slash didn’t one-shot him.

  Roland had just emerged from Reaper’s Dash when the Ninja struck. She was faster than Zhang and so much faster than Roland that his dodging Techniques barely managed to turn a critical into a normal hit. And that was enough to bring him down to twenty percent of his hit points.

  The two Coppers closed in on him, Techniques blazing.

  What should have been obvious from the start became impossible to ignore. Roland didn’t have the stats or skill to fight two well-trained peak Coppers.

  Time to play another card.

  Oya’s Wrath.

  Twin pillars of near-solid blue-white lightning came down from the sky, and never mind that they were indoors. Zhang Yun and Iwamoto Hatsuko took one hit apiece. The damage was significant (two hundred for Hatsuko, three hundred for Zhang), but the important thing was the Stun Debuff.

  The description said he had five seconds, modified by the target’s overall power. Roland acted like he had two or less.

  Second number one: grab Zhang and look him in the eye.

  Judgment Gaze! Reaper’s Gaze!

  The cultivator screamed in agony as his Health plummeted. The damage Reaper’s Gaze inflicted on Roland was healed instantly by his Vital Energy. That broken Bloodline power kept saving the day.

  The combination of the two gaze attacks and Roland’s deadly aura were too much for the Cultivator. Zhang died screaming by the end of the first second.

  Only thing was, Hatsuko recovered after one-point-oh-one seconds and struck Roland in the back.

  Roland saw it coming and let it happen. He recognized the energy infusing the assassin’s desperate attack.

  Hatsuko used her Dantian-shattering Technique, screaming its name – Kyushu Sappo – as she struck.

  This time she went all out, infusing the hit with enough energy to obliterate Roland’s Middle Dantian and send deadly energies coursing through his entire Meridian and Pattern network. His nervous system would burn out as a mere side effect; his Tin body would explode into chunks.

  The deadliest attack in the assassin’s arsenal landed squarely on the Gold-ranked Core Shell protecting Roland’s Dantian. The ensuing result very much resembled what happens when someone smashes a champagne bottle against the side of a battleship.

  Hatsuko screamed like the damned as her hand and arm burst into flying shards of bone and bloody gobbets of flesh. The scream continued as her Dantians, Meridians and the seven Chakras she had bound into her Pattern burned out one by one like so many firecrackers.

  Some last-ditch Passive Technique went off, saving Hatsuko from insta-death. It did her no favors. The unconscious woman who landed sixty feet away from Roland was alive – barely – but no longer a Cultivator.

  Sometimes Karma comes knocking early, Roland thought, turning towards his bird’s fight.

  Raven had eaten both of Natasha Ivanova’s eyes and about half of her face. The horribly mutilated woman was down to a tenth of her original Health.

  She flailed drunkenly around with her axe as Raven flittered in and out, timing his attacks perfectly.

  Each time, he took another piece of her. Whatever her Techniques were, they hadn’t hurt Raven much.

  Kin-slayer, Raven had called her. Sounded pretty bad. Roland still had to resist the temptation to put the woman out of her misery. Some ends were too nasty for his taste, even when they were deserved.

  Raven had claimed her, however, and he had other business to conduct.

  * * *

  “Iwamoto Hatsuko,” Roland told the one-armed wreck as she woke up. “We meet again.”

  The Shinobi’s Health was a tiny fraction of its normal maximum, but she was alive. The stump of her arm had stopped bleeding after Roland poured an Uncommon Healing Potion on the wound.

  The eyes that looked up at him were empty and hopeless.

  “How did you find me?” he asked her.

  Hatsuko laughed weakly.

  “I should be asking you that question,” she said.

  “I wasn’t looking for you.”

  “Then Fate is truly fond of her little jokes. Of all the Many Worlds, I chose the Dread Lands. Surely, I thought, neither my former Clan nor the Chapel would find me there.”

  “And then I showed up. Coincidence or fate?” Roland wondered out loud. “I guess only the System knows. But how did you know I was here?”

  The Shinobi coughed before continuing. “When I struck you down, back at the Chapel, I collected an imprint of your aura signature. A Technique of mine will alert me if someone in my collection of signatures is within a continent’s length from me.”

  “That’s a neat trick.”

  “It is good to know where your enemies are. I kept yours mostly out of habit. Never expected that you would show up in my vicinity. I was shocked when I sensed you approaching the Pylon where I’d taken refuge.”

  “I was heading home after I fixed the damage you did. Didn’t have a clue you were here.”

  But maybe somebody did. Raven had guided him to that particular Pylon. Was it the closest one to Petra, or just the one where Raven knew Hatsuko was?

  “How... was I supposed to know that? I thought you were seeking me out.”

  More coughing ensued.

  “I sought allies. Found a disgraced cultivator from the True Middle Kingdom. Mentioning your deeds regarding Yang Marcus convinced him to help me.”

  “Oh. So Yang was working for that kingdom.”

  Raven seemed to know who those guys were, so he would ask the bird later.

  “That’s who Yang worked for. I had word that agents from the Chapel’s Sponsors were about to arrive and investigate certain irregularities. I had a means of escape, and I took it before they arrived. Yang has likely been imprisoned or killed. If he is still alive, he very much wishes he weren’t.”

  “That’s too bad,” he said, only half sarcastically.

  Hearing Yang had been executed by the Chapel was a lot less satisfactory than watching him die. He would still take the W.

  Wu Hao was still around, so he might get to collect his revenge Quest reward sometime.

  Roland watched Hatsuko’s Health as she spoke. It had stabilized and was beginning to tick up. He kept a close eye on her as she spoke. Even with her shredded cultivation, she might have a trick or two left.

  “Fleeing cost me any standing I had in my Clan,” she said. “I am a lone outcast, carried by the waves like so much flotsam, belonging nowhere.”

  “Like a ronin. I’m surprised you didn’t seppuku yourself.”

  “I’m no samurai, to deserve the status of ronin. I did contemplate ending myself but still hoped I could be of service to my Clan. Zhang and I were both down on our luck. We joined forces and attempted to redeem ourselves.”

  “To kill some guy who was just passing through.”

  “Zhang wanted to take your head to curry favor with his Empire. Yang’s downfall has derailed the Middle Kingdom’s plans in your world. As well as my Clan’s. Killing you seemed like a way to gain face with both our superiors.”

  Roland shrugged. All he’d done to deserve all he’d been through was win a few tournaments. If they’d left him alone, they could have all carried on with their little plots.

  And Earth might be in worse shape than it already was. This Middle Kingdom didn’t sound like the good kind of visitors. Neither did Hatsuko’s Clan. Maybe their idiocy had actually helped his world.

  “We hired two mercenaries, both as desperate as we were, and set up this ambush.”

  “I almost feel sorry for you,” Roland told her. “Actually, no, I don’t.”

  “I was blackmailed into destroying your cultivation. Yang’s Dongchang masters had discovered my identity. I had no choice but to do what he wanted.”

  Roland summoned his naginata. “There is always a choice.”

  “And so you choose to repay betrayal with death.”

  “If this was a movie, I would forgive you. You would pledge yourself to me and I’d find a way to heal your cultivation. You’d become an ally. Everybody would win.”

  “Sounds... like a beautiful tale.”

  “But you betrayed the Chapel. You were a teacher. You struck one of your students from ambush. You condemned me to a slow death in a world about to fall apart.”

  She inclined her head. “I did.”

  “A betrayer cannot be trusted. If you had the chance to rejoin your Clan, you’d throw me under a bus at the first opportunity. This only ends in one way.”

  “Death,” Raven said as he landed on his shoulder, beak still soaked in Natasha’s blood.

  Hatsuko said nothing, her eyes meeting his until the end.

  The naginata came down. Then he had to kill her again when a rez Technique brought her back to life. The second try took.

  Roland looted everyone afterwards. Although he couldn’t access anyone’s inventory, the System gave him a random inventory slot from the three cultivators he had killed. Only one had anything of worth: a box full of cultivation pills and elixirs from Hatsuko.

  The personal weapons of his attackers were still on the ground or held in their dead hands. Zhang and Hatsuko also had three storage rings between the two of them, and Zhang also had the weapon storage wrist bracers. He took them all, sight unseen.

  You have defeated two Copper-ranked Cultivators. You have gained 378 Unbound Essence.

  You and your Familiar have defeated two Tin-ranked Cultivators. You have gained 87 Essence.

  Four new Revenant Victims have been recruited.

  You have unlocked a World First Achievement: Defeated a Higher-Ranking Cultivator (Mythic). Awards: 15 free Attribute points, 1 Mythic Item Upgrade Token, 200 Essence.

  You have unlocked an Achievement: Defeated a Higher-Ranking Cultivator (Legendary, Top Ten). Awards: 10 free Attribute points, 1 Legendary Item Upgrade Token, 75 Essence.

  Congratulations! Crushing All-Knowing Presence of the Reaper has improved to Beginner 4.

  The following Skills and Techniques have improved: Coup de Grace (Beginner 4), Judgment Gaze (Beginner 4), Gun Proficiency (Beginner 10; new Feat available), Reaper’s Gaze (Beginner 8), Walk Between the Raindrops (Beginner 5; new Feat available.).

  Subtle Sidestep (Technique) has the potential to advance to Apprentice 1! Synergy with Walk Between the Raindrops detected! Synergy with Danse Macabre has been detected! An Art may be formed.

  Once again, punching up paid some great dividends. Even when the only reason Roland hadn’t been slaughtered was a goddess’ gift and the trap his Diamond-ranked doctors had placed in his guts. In an unfair universe, you grabbed what life offered you and hoped some luckier bastard didn’t take it from you.

  There is more to take, Raven said.

  Roland could see globs of Essence still lingering in the bodies.

  Might as well render his enemies into extra Essence. Kind of like the way Native Americans used the whole buffalo, except with people.

  His aura spread out, Death Tendrils touching every corpse and absorbing the rest of their energy. Raven’s kill he left for the bird, who drank the dead woman’s Essence while cawing happily.

  What do you eat? Endings, Raven had said.

  Does that include my ending? Roland wondered but didn’t ask. He had a good idea what the answer would be.

  You have absorbed 492 Unbound Essence. You have absorbed 28 Technique Fragments (assorted Affinities and Attunements). Technique Fragments will remain in your aura for 30 days before dissolving. Study them to gain insights about your Daos and a chance to learn new Techniques.

  You have learned a new Technique: Learn from Your Kills (Epic, You Keep What You Kill Dao).

  Unbound Essence: 2,633

  That’s a nice bonus, Roland thought. Revenge and profit.

  “I’ll do the bookkeeping stuff later,” he told Raven.

  He watched the bodies and the few clothes not worth looting dissolve into ashes. The System was taking its due.

  “I’m ready to go home.”