In the dead of night at the Sky-Reaching Sect's outer sect courtyard. The moon played a frustrating game of peek-a-boo with the clouds, which casted the disciples' quarters into shifting patches of silver and deep shadow. It was quite an interesting sight if anyone was jobless and insomniac enough to watch it.
All was serene and peaceful till the night was pierced by a shriek of pure, undiluted rage. Shriek? It was more like a squeak but for politeness or because the 'night drowned the voices' everyone had to assume it was a shriek.
"MO TIAN, YOU FUGGING PIECE OF SHI*T! GET OUT HERE THIS INSTANT!"
The bellow came from a disciple nicknamed Lao Shû, whose sharp features and twitching nose did indeed bear an unfortunate resemblance to a very angry rat. He stood in the courtyard before the storage pavilion with his face totally purple with fury.
The door slid open. Out swaggered Mo Tian, flanked by his two Brutes, the dagger-wielder, and a handful of their newly "recruited" cult members, all trying (and failing) to copy Lu Chen's supposed calm, imposing demeanor. Mo Tian moved with a strange new confidence, a kind of swagger that hadn't been there before the bamboo grove incident.
"What's all the ruckus about?" Mo Tian drawled, scanning the gathering crowd of sleep-deprived, curious disciples. "Who let the dogs out?"
A murmur rippled through the onlookers, who were materializing out of the shadows with spiritual popcorn and cushions.
"Did he just call Senior Brother Lao Shû a dog?"
"Oh, you just got here? Mo Tian's lost his marbles! Completely!"
"What did he eat last night? Beast King testicles?"
"I don't know, but it's definitely working!"
"Doesn't he know? Even though Lao Shû looks like a rat, he's still Senior Brother Xu Rang's loyal rat!"
Hearing this, Lao Shû's face darkened several shades. "Mo Tian! Get your ass down here! Senior Brother Xu Rang wants to see you. Now."
Unfortunately for Lao Shû or perhaps fortunately for Mo Tian. Mo Tian had not eaten any Beast King balls. The only thing close to balls was the world-shattering 'Gate of the Falling Immortal' kick he'd received from Lu Chen. Perhaps, it had knocked something else into place. Who knew?
"Xu Rang?" Mo Tian scoffed, his voice carrying in the silent night. "I don't answer to him." He let the words hang, then added with a dismissive smirk, "Neither do I answer to a rat."
The crowd gasped. "Woah. He did NOT just say that."
"Lao Shû's gonna mop the ground with him!"
"Ten contribution points on Lao Shû!"
Lao Shû's already-dark face achieved a color near cosmic black. "I have a new skill I just learned," he hissed, energy beginning to swirl around his palm. "Permit me to show y—"
He didn't finish. He was a rat, after all. He attacked first, a sneaky, venomous Soul-Piercing Rat Palm strike aimed straight for Mo Tian's chest.
What a rat… the crowd thought as one.
Mo Tian, who had learned the hard way what true, humiliating defeat felt like, didn't flinch. He met the sneaky palm with a straightforward, brutally simple Mountain-Sundering Fist.
BOOOOOM!
A burst of wind and dust erupted from the point of impact, sending spectators stumbling back. A single figure shot out of the cloud like a loose ragdoll, sailing through the air before crashing into a tool shed with a symphony of breaking wood.
The dust settled.
Mo Tian stood, fist still extended, slightly dust streaked but otherwise still steady.
In the demolished shed, a pair of legs stuck out of the debris, twitching faintly from time to time. They were clad in the distinct grey robe and trousers of Lao Shû.
Silence.
Then, chaos.
"EH?!"
"Mo Tian is fine?!"
"Then who flew away?!"
"IT WAS LAO SHÛ!!"
"MO TIAN MOBBED THE RAT!"
"And here I wondering where the squeak sound came from...."
The courtyard dissolved into uproar that lasted until dawn.
When the sun rose, the news was delivered to Xu Rang in his lavish inner disciple quarters. He listened, his face a mask of cold frost. When the report finished, he slowly placed his teacup down.
"Trash," he said, his voice quiet and smooth as a silk-wrapped dagger. "You're all trash." He looked at the trembling messenger. "Fine. I'll handle it myself."
After the disciple fled, Xu Rang's perfect composure cracked. He swept a vase of priceless spiritual orchids off its table. It shattered against the wall.
"Lu Chen," he whispered to the empty room, his eyes glacial. "Wherever you are… just don't make it back to the sect. If you do… I won't just break you. I'll unmake you."
Far away, deep in the transition zone between the Grave-Gulper's grove and the Bloodwind Forest, a solitary figure shivered.
"Achoo!"
Lu Chen sneezed violently, causing the carefully arranged giant leaves covering his modesty to rustle. "Am I getting a cold from sleeping naked? Or is someone cursing me behind my back?" He sniffed. "Probably Mo Tian."
(Mo Tian, currently being carried on his Brutes' shoulders in a victory parade back at the sect, would have felt profoundly wronged.)
Lu Chen's journey was…quite rustic. His "Iron Hide" prevented thorns from piercing, but it did little to nothing for dignity. He was a walking salad with legs, that means a vaguely human-shaped bundle of foliage trudging through the silent forest. The lack of animal noise was very eerie but it didn't matter since he was almost to the treeline of the infamous Bloodwind Forest, expecting to reach its edge by noon.
As he moved, his senses, heightened by survival, prickled.
Up ahead, about fifty paces away, another cultivator was crouched behind a thick fallen log. The man was not from the Sky-Reaching Sect. His robes were a dull green and brown, perfect for forest camouflage. He was utterly still, focused intently on something in a small clearing beyond, his back was to Lu Chen.
The expression on the man's profile wasn't one of peaceful foraging or meditation. It was the keen, predatory focus of a hunter. A faint, malicious smile played on his lips.
Lu Chen froze, becoming one with his leafy ensemble. The old parable flashed in his mind: The mantis stalks the cicada, unaware of the oriole behind. Right now, he was the oriole. But he couldn't see the cicada.
He watched. The green-robed cultivator remained motionless for several long minutes. Then, with a fluid, practiced movement, he drew a slender, non-reflective dagger from his boot and began to creep forward, inch by silent inch, toward his unseen target in the clearing.
Lu Chen held his breath. This was trouble. The kind of trouble a broke, naked, leaf-wrapped man with a toad-grudge and a duel to win did not need. He is in no mood to save a pretty damsel in distress unless you pay him of course.
But curiosity, and the System's sudden, silent alert in his mind, held him in place.
[New Optional Quest Detected: 'The Unseen Cicada.']
[Objective: Identify the green-robed cultivator's target.]
[Risk: High. Reward: A Secret.]
The man was almost at the edge of the clearing. He raised his dagger, poised to strike or throw.
Lu Chen had a split second to decide. To slip away unnoticed, or see what was about to happen.
[TO BE CONTINUED…]