There was something awful about watching acid freeze and corrode flesh. The demonized hawk certainly thought it was awful. It screamed and thrashed wildly. Tian had to wedge himself into the widening wound to avoid being thrown away. He didn’t want to leave the stomach just yet. The acid was doing wonderful work for him. He’d let it work on the muscles and other organs for him first.

  It was awful to hear the hawk scream. It had been awful to watch the centipedes thrash in agony as well. Each of them a tyrant, a venomous hunter with fangs longer than Tian’s legs. Each dying in the belly of a bird, no different from an earthworm. Now the bird’s stomach was eating the rest of its body. Awful to think about. It had also eaten him. Tormented him beyond words. He could feel the memory of the pain pressing up against his focus, pulling him back down. Trying to make him fall even now. Tian pushed past it. He would soar.

  Tian tried to push the wound open a bit more with his legs, slipped and was flung through the gap. Sometimes, soaring starts with a dive.

  It was dark and hot as hell. The fire qi prickled like needles against his skin and the corrupted flesh tried to taint him. It was as horrible as expected. He could barely move, pressed by the force of the emptying acid up against a wall of muscles. The acid had dug in here as well. His knife was gone- utterly dissolved. No matter. He had hands. He had two new fingers. He set to pulling the weakened flesh apart. And he wasn’t working alone.

  Heavy thuds echoed through the flesh of the bird. He was starting to hear other noises, noises from outside. Were they on the ground, or fighting in the air still? The bird was thrashing around a lot, but he was practically wedged into the wall and long since lost any sense of which way was up.

  There was a sudden feeling of weightlessness. Two questions were quickly answered. That up was that way, and that they had been fighting in the air. It seemed they were now falling. He tried to claw his way deeper into the meat of the bird. The memory of falling a long way into the acid lake that felt stone hard on impact was quite fresh. The bird was falling a lot further than he had, and the ground beneath was actual sand and rock. It suddenly jerked upward and the downward momentum slowed. Then the demon’s fall sped up again and they landed with a shake that rattled Tian’s brain.

  Seems the bird wasn’t dead yet. Tian’s lungs were starting to burn. However long it had been, he couldn’t go much longer without air. He sped up the digging. It was like trying to pull through sheets woven from steel fibers. The muscle and fascia were immune to his prodding. Only the stomach acid had an effect. Tian could only help it along, trying to make gaps for it to seep into.

  “Taste my sword, beast!” A voice bellowed from outside the bird. There was a ripping sound, but nothing penetrated. Tian grinned. It sounded like one of his brothers was working not too far from him. He gathered his little strength and climbed up. The pressure of the acid was decreasing, which wasn’t good for Tian.

  It was getting harder to move. Were the attacks landing around here? He had no real way to tell. He just dug. Every handful of rotted flesh he tore away was a handspan deeper the acid could penetrate. The bigger the hole, the more stomach acid would fill it. Tian had turned into a brutal parasite. Having fed on the bird’s stomach, he now burned his way out.

  “Holy Sword Art, Fourth Form! CUT!” There was the most extraordinary noise, then the bird fell over. The muscles twitched violently, spasming. They would have crushed Tian if so much of them hadn’t rotted away around him. The pressure on his body dropped massively. He kept digging. Some vital essence was leaching out of the bird. It was rotting even faster now. He dug and dug and-

  “Careful, Brother! Something is crawling out of it!”

  “Don’t worry, I’ll- wait!”

  Tian waved his hands frantically through the hole, before ripping it wider and tumbling out.

  He blinked in the light, trying to see what was going on.

  “A demon! A human form demon!”

  “Use your damned eyes! Does a demon have storage rings?”

  “Ehh. I don’t actually know, Senior Brother.”

  Tian rubbed his eyes furiously.

  “Honestly, Junior, I don’t know either. Hey-”

  Tian gave up on the rubbing and bowed. “West Town Outer Court Disciple Tian Zihao greets the Seniors. May I ask the Martial Uncles if I have reached Resupply Depot Number Four?”

  “Ah. Yes, you have.”

  “My thanks, Martial Uncle. Might I ask you to direct me towards Quartermaster Wu?”

  “She’s a little preoccupied. Wipe your eyes, junior.”

  Tian felt a cloth hit his face. He grabbed a canteen from his storage ring, wet the cloth and wiped his face clean. He looked around, and saw true slaughter.

  The Martial Uncles in front of him wore the uniforms of the Inner Court. No longer elegant and beautiful, their robes were torn and their faces marred by blood and smoke. Both were wounded. They weren’t alone. The battlefield was covered in venomous insects and mutated beasts, while in the sky, black robed sorcerers riding clouds of hornets did battle with cultivators on flying swords.

  The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  Tian looked around quickly. He couldn’t do anything about the battle in the sky, but the animals on the ground were Earthly realm. There were Earthly Realm heretics running around too. What he couldn’t kill, he could wound or distract. His strong brothers and sisters could finish the job for him.

  “Sorry, you are the delivery boy? And you got eaten by the demonized hawk?”

  “Being eaten by a hawk isn’t on the list of acceptable reasons not to complete the mission. Besides, if I can’t manage minor matters like delivering a package, my brothers will all look down on me.”

  Tian bowed at the True Disciples again, pulled out his spare rope dart and charged into the melee.

  “Think he knows he’s naked?” The elder True Disciple asked.

  “I don’t think he cares. West Town Outer Court, I’ll remember them.” The younger one smiled. Then frowned. “Come on. Let’s show him how his seniors take care of business!”

  Tian flew into the chaos of the battlefield, his backup rope dart feeling odd in his hands. It wasn’t quite the same as the one he first bought, but it was close enough. He flung out the dart and skewered a fat beetle. Yanked it back and with a kick to the rope, he sent the head crashing down on a demonized rat. Recover, shift, crush another rat. Spin, wrap the rope around his shoulders and let the momentum knock some hideous six winged thing out of the sky.

  It felt so easy. His body felt solid as stone but flowed like water. Once he was drawing air again, his fatigue seemed to vanish. It was all so… freeing. And he had some enemies on hand to share his joy.

  Above him, a cultivator threw out a yellow paper talisman which exploded into a dozen head sized fireballs and flew at a sorcerer. “Your head is mine, wretch!”

  “With such pitiful fire? Naive.” The sorcerer’s voice was a soul shivering rasp as he traced a quick blood sigil in the air. The fireballs exploded against it, shattering it after the fire exhausted itself.

  A black needle flew through the remnant flame, aiming for the moment the cultivator would be blinded by the chaos. “Petty tricks.” The cultivator hacked it to one side with his saber, and charged in.

  Tian only saw the bursts of light and heard the shouting. He had his own battle to fight. Mixed in with the insects were heretics. They weren’t there to kill, though. He saw them race for the warehouses. Sabotage or theft, it didn’t matter. He couldn’t let them pass.

  He raced towards them, Light Body, Heavy Hands letting him fly across the hard earth like a vengeful ghost. The rope dart whipped out and caught a running heretic around the neck. Tian stopped sharp and stamped his foot on the rope. The evil cultivator’s neck snapped as his feet flew up but his head stayed put. Tian detangled the rope with a flex of qi and was on to the next bastard before the first hit the dirt.

  The next one ducked before the dart could smash his head in. He spun around and flinched for a moment. Tian tried to capitalize with an upward swing, but bloody experience had taught the heretic not to be too lost in surprise. He jolted to the side and flung a knife at Tian. Tian slipped the throw himself but-

  “Heng!” The cultivator bit the tip of his thumb, and the knife exploded. Tian was knocked off his feet, head ringing. Something was coming for him, he leapt up, smashing out a palm. He buried his little hand in the cultivator’s guts, but got a long cut across the back of his shoulder in trade.

  “You’re dead, brat!”

  “Funny. So are you.” Tian stood, feeling the wound burning as the heretic collapsed in front of him. Blood was pouring out of his mouth, his eyes had gone glassy. Tian stomped his neck to make sure he was really dead, and rushed forward.

  “It wasn’t really funny.” Tian could feel the wound burning. Whether from the cut or from poison, he didn’t know. His newly forged body was incredible, but it seemed he was a long way from being impervious to swords and spears. There were more heretics than he could deal with. He hoped the warehouse had defenders hidden.

  The first heretic reached the door, and went bouncing off. “Formation!”

  “Use the awl!”

  A one-eyed cultivator pulled out a long pick that seemed to drip black ink and stabbed it forward. Tian could see it stopped an inch from the door.

  “Shit! It’ll take time!”

  “Oh sure, no rush. FUCKING MOVE YOU PRICK!” Roared a big man carrying two enormous maces. He swung them in a fury, battering against some invisible barrier surrounding the warehouse.

  Tian charged into their rear, whipping his rope dart around in a humming wheel. The heretics weren’t rookies. He didn’t manage to hit a single one. Worse, he saw them moving, picking up speed to the point where they became blurs.

  It is understandable that, what with everything, Tian forgot he was merely Level Five of the Earthly Realm. Understandable, but on the battlefield, it was unforgivable. There was only one punishment for failing to judge your strength properly.

  The Level Eight and Nine heretics charged forward, waving hatchets and sickles and barbed spears. To survive in the hell called the Southern Wastes took a certain kind of mind. Which of them wasn’t a monster of violence?

  Ancient Crane Mountain had its own violence specialists of course. Something rushed in front of Tian in a bronze blur, sending heads flying as it passed. Out of ten heretics, four survived. The saber returned to the hand of an Inner Court brother. “Good courage, but don’t act the fool! Clean up the rest, I’m busy!”

  “Dare be distracted in front of this Lord? Die!” A sorcerer blew into his fist, and a cloud of poison sprayed out the other side.

  “Piss off!” The Senior Brother formed a seal with his hands and a golden light dissolved the poison mist as the flying saber chopped upwards- directly between the sorcerer’s legs. His screams were pitiable and brief

  Tian was in the mix with the four surviving Heretics. His dart was in constant motion, whipping high and low, striking towards one before suddenly turning and hacking at another. He managed to kill one heretic that way, but they refused to stay at range. Two rushed in, while the third simply fled. Tian frowned, but stayed focused. Killing the ones in front of him was the most important. If they wanted to fight up close, that was just fine with him.

  Open palms lashed out, shattering organs where they landed. He ate kicks to his body, took slashes from long knives, but he would make that trade all day. His refined body could handle the punishment. You cut my flesh, I take your life! That’s what the senior brothers taught, and Tian finally understood.

  It was the junkyard. There was no such thing as walking away clean. It hurt. So what? Deal with your pain when the prey is dead!