Savage Webs, page 27
part #2 of Apocalypse Cultivation Series
“What I mean is very simple. Since you are hiding what you are now, and I know, and you are not joining my sect like you are for the spider woman, you will be desiring my silence. In this case, my silence is not free.”
“I…see. Thank you, Big Sis Yarissa.” Mentally, he cursed, Fuck! Why does this have to be so difficult! Stop being so fucking greedy, snake lady!
She chuckled. Her cigarette disappeared and she suddenly had a beautiful sword in her hand. She gently tested the edge of the weapon. “I can tell you are less than pleased, probably cursing me in your mind. But don’t think me too rude. You should be flattered. I would not care if I were not intrigued. Despite your low level now, I believe you have potential. This could be of great value to me later.”
“I…understand,” said Jake. The situation was unfair, but everything in the Murim world was. Might made right, and nobody sugar-coated it in this world. In this world, even being in the same sect as another cultivator was not always protection against theft or worse. “What sect are you a part of, Big Sis?”
“My sect is the Sea of Stars. If you ever visit the sect in the future and I am finished with this awful duty, I will make sure you are not killed for trespassing.”
“Thank you, Big Sis.”
She smiled at him and put the sword away. “It is good you have manners. If you could find some way to cover your ghastly face, I would have even more faith in your eventual elevation.” Yarissa cleared her throat. “Now then, as the local representative of the Murim Council of Elders, and as an elder of the Sea of Stars sect, I am granting you permission to enter the portal to the Fighting Time Dead City.
“You are probably still going to die even with your protection, or be possessed, but maybe you will be fortunate. The city varies with how active its…residents are.”
Out the corner of Jake’s eye, he could see Slim watching from a temple. The other man wasn’t even trying to hide his disapproval. Jake waved. Slim gave him the finger.
Yarissa had brought her cigarette back and lit it. “You can go whenever you want. Be careful, young cultivator. If you die, I will never be able to collect on that favor.”
What a pity that would be, Jake thought, but it didn’t carry much heat. For a powerful cultivator from another sect, member of the Murim Council of Elders or not, Yarissa had been pretty fair and level-headed so far. Jake had heard many stories from Slim over the years of encounters like this one that had ended very, very badly.
With a stiff nod, Jake walked toward the portal. He was starting to feel some nerves, and in his experience, the best medicine for fear was action.
Here goes nothing.
Chapter 35
Jake stepped through the portal and was taken aback. What he was seeing was not anything like what he'd been expecting at all. Instead of some ancient stone city, or pagodas, like where he'd just come from, he was seeing …modern buildings. The area around him, other than its obvious age and disrepair, was like something he might see back on Earth.
It really was old, though. The walls, the very stone seemed to give off a hushed feeling, a sense of weight and time. There were vines and signs of decay everywhere. Vegetation had grown through the pavement, actual pavement, and asphalt. Roads, real roads.
Jake turned slowly, taking it all in. And when he was about halfway through his turn, his breath caught in his throat. He could only stare because he actually recognized the building he was looking at!
No fucking way, he said to himself, but he was sure. There was no mistaking the Alamo. He turned again and realized that yes, somehow, he was either in San Antonio or a city that somehow looked exactly like San Antonio.
Jake had spent a few months in San Antonio before and he’d visited all the touristy spots more than once. He was very familiar with the spot in which he was standing.
There were so many implications of what he was witnessing, he had to drop most of them to ponder later. Now was not the time. But once he’d realized that he was either in a city he was familiar with or a copy of it, he had also realized that getting around would be a lot easier for him now.
Now that the shock of recognizing where he was wore off a bit, he focused on how the place made him feel. Even with the amulet on, he still felt weird. Cold, like he was in deep water. In fact, when he moved, it felt a little bit like he was wading through water, like the entire world was covered in a knee-deep layer of thick liquid. He couldn’t see anything except fog, though.
He tried taking a few more steps faster than before. Yes, it definitely took effort to move. And he could feel the thick death energy in the air. Jake had no reason to doubt his instinct that he had at least some natural protection to this place. However, he had a feeling that if he was not wearing a protective charm, he would have just as hard a time thinking right now as he would if he tried running.
Jake started to wonder if he should have spent more points in the Eternal Struggle Reward System, getting a better defensive object. Or maybe he should have chosen the more narrowly focused defensive ring.
Oh, well, he thought to himself, what's done is done.
He just stood there for a while, trying to take in the feel and sensations of the Fighting Time Dead City…San Antonio. Nothing moved that he could see. There was no sky, and it didn’t feel like he was in a massive underground space either. It felt like the darkness went on forever. He was actually reminded a little of the feeling he’d gotten at first in the challenge portal back in the Web Burrows.
Strangely enough, despite being a dead city, he could actually see signs of vegetation here and there. There weren’t many, but the occasional tree had burst through the pavement. Vines had crumbled concrete. Some of this vegetation had obviously died long ago, but others seemed to inexplicably thriving.
Jake decided that it would be a good rule of thumb to stay away from any plants that could grow in a mostly lightless place, full of a death energy so thick it would instantly kill a mortal human.
From where he stood, Jake saw something extremely interesting. In the distance, a building had been modified, and there was new construction. It took a minute for Jake to figure out what he was seeing, but he eventually realized that it was tomb.
I wonder how many important people have been buried in this place over the last few thousand places? he wondered. It sort of make sense why a sect or prestigious family would do such a thing. All but the most powerful cultivators could probably not tolerate coming to the Dead City and just bumbling around. Anyone who came to the Dead City would be coming with a purpose. The odds of randomly coming across too many tombs, much less being motivated to rob them was probably not very likely.
Jake realized he’d been standing there a minute, just staring at the distant tomb. What Yarissa had told him about the ghosts that inhabited this place still made him nervous. He decided to move.
Luckily, he had his bearings now. It was still extremely strange that he was in some version of San Antonio. In fact, if he were dwell on it too much now, it would cause nothing good for his mental state. But at least he knew where to go.
Jake started out leaving the square where he was currently at and heading for the highway. He had a suspicion that in a dead city like this, the highway would either be the safest place to go–or the most dangerous. He was hoping that before he actually got there, he'd be able to figure out which of the two it was.
As it turned out. He wasn't even halfway there before he had to duck into an alleyway.
Dangerous, definitely dangerous. In the distance, he could see a massive ghost, like a huge apparition of translucent malevolence. Even from this far away, it radiated anger and destruction. The thing was aimlessly walking on the highway. Further away, there was another one.
Holy shit, thought Jake. He felt a chill when he wondered if those things could sense him. The death energy was so thick in the Dead City that even powerful cultivators shouldn’t be able to do much more than metaphorically see their hand in front of their face, but knowing that intellectually was a cold comfort.
If one of the things on the highway were to discover Jake was here, he’d be dead for sure.
He poked out his head a bit later and watched in sick fascination as the mega ghosts ambled around. They sort of looked like human babies, animal chimera, and demons all mixed together, slowly changing. Maybe the highway was where the truly powerful spirits went to endlessly walk in circles. Jake could only guess. The only thing he knew for sure was that it was a place he did not want to be.
After all, even though his amulet protected him from the ambient death energy, it did not protect him from the residents of this place.
Since the highways were so dangerous, he decided to head south so he wouldn’t have to risk crossing under or through any normal mega ghost hangouts.
Jake moved slowly, cautiously. A few times, he thought he spotted movement from windows, maybe a ghostly face here or there. He remembered hearing that most of the ghosts were asleep. He was counting on it.
He wasn’t sure where he was going, or even exactly what he was looking for. Finding fortune in this place was going to require a little bit of luck. Even if he felt secure enough to just drop down and try breaking through to a Reforged Body in the middle of the street–and he wasn’t, at all–it was not an ideal place energy-wise.
More than just death energy was necessary for a good place to cultivate a Reforged Body, especially since Jake was going to try changing his monster race at the same time. He’d thought a lot about the gross puddle he’d lain in back in Georgia when he’d transformed into Shadow Ghoul. He needed something like that. Maybe he could find a gross puddle in the Dead City.
Luckily, he was getting near the River Walk.
Jake angled his path to interact with the river. He still felt conflicted about evolving his monster race. Being a Shadow Ghoul had served him well. It definitely had its down sides, though. Not only how he looked either.
But he had a feeling that anything he transformed into now would be more powerful. More importantly, it would probably help him have a stronger Reforged Body transformation ability. However, he’d also been thinking a lot about how he’d cultivated Conophta’s monster core. The energy cocktail of different monsters he’d cultivated even before that point had been weird. But now he really had no idea what he’d turn into, even with all the new ghoul and vampire cores he’d gotten on Earth.
With how big and bulky Conophta had been, Jake could only assume that his own new form might be bigger too. Maybe he’d even end up being bovine. Cow-Jake. It was kind of freaky to think about. He’d sort of made his peace with it, though. As long as he was never a zombie again and could actually use his mind, he could deal with it. And maybe becoming some huge, hulking thing wouldn’t be quite so bad.
The River Walk in San Antonio was basically a sidewalk that ran by the river, peppered by bistros and such back on Earth. The river was right up ahead now.
Before he got there, Jake was curious about some of the buildings he was passing. He struggled against the death energy current, moving to a door that was slightly ajar.
When he opened it, a chill as deep as darkest winter washed over his body like a freezing wave of the sea.
GET OUT
A voice full of pain and power rushed through his spirit, chilling his soul and making him feel the ache of the grave down to his toes. Every fiber of his being screamed that this was not a place for him, not the land where the living were welcomed.
He carefully backed up, bowed, and slowly shut the door. Hatred remained on his skin, but he knew with supernatural certainty that he had taken the correct action, escaping with his life...and his soul.
Jake was shaking as he took another step back, staring at the door. Holy shit holy shit holy shit.
The danger of the Dead City had just impressed itself on him in a very real way. Should I just leave? The encounter he’d just had…it made his stomach drop. Asleep or not, the residents of this place were not to be trifled with.
Jake suddenly felt like a baby mouse dropped in a world full of vipers.
His mind was growing heavy with fear. Jake tried to focus on the mission. He had come here for something, something important. Running away was not an option, at least he didn’t think so, but he couldn’t remember why.
He slowly moved toward the River Walk. Now he could hear whispers in his mind, sliding over his defenses like corpse fingers across thin ice, looking for a way in. Probing, pushing, hungry.
Get it together, Jake. He did a breathing exercise, ignoring the dust and mustiness of the air. The effort helped and he felt his spirit growing more settled again. His thoughts turned a little more clear. As wary as he’d been before, he knew now it wasn’t enough. Jake strained to push his senses outward, trying to “see” just a little farther out into the fog of death energy.
His efforts didn’t really accomplish much.
At the River Walk, Jake lowered himself down a wall and found himself on the path by the river. Back on earth, the San Antonio River was never really clear, beautiful water, but in the Dead City, it was more like a sludge. Jake eyed it thoughtfully, thinking of the puddle back in Georgia again. He had a half-baked idea to try cultivating in the river, submerging himself under water again.
Suddenly, something large broke the surface in the middle of the river, something long and sinuous with spikes. The moment it was out of the water, a wave of death and hunger rolled over Jake that was so thick, he almost fell to his knees.
Instead, he slowly backed up to the wall and focused on making his energy as small and unnoticeable as possible. The scales slowed down a bit, so Jake also used his mysterious ability to hide in the shadows. He completely erased his presence, although doing so in this place was taxing and exhausting to the extreme.
Thankfully, whatever was in the river moved on, dipping below the waves again.
Fuck this, thought Jake. The river is definitely a no go.
He climbed back up to the street and looked back the direction he’d come, where the portal back would be. Jake thought really long and hard about just going back. This was turning out to be more than he’d signed up for. But at the end of the day, he still couldn’t figure out a better way to find a good place to break through a Reforged Body in the Murim world, at least not fast.
All the reasons he’d come here were still true. It would still likely be far better for him if he already had a Reforged Body before he got to the Skull of Secrets sect. Ultimately, his goal was to fulfill his geas to Lady Brima before escaping, hopefully after getting some benefit out of the place. But he also had to actually make it there alive first.
Jake knew he was repeating his own logic back to himself at this point, so he began to wander. He pushed his senses out, tried to stay open to feeling anything weird or good, and stuck to the middle of the road.
Every shadow and shadowed alley could possibly be a death trap, and Jake wasn’t going to tempt fate by just poking into random places like a dumb tourist anymore.
Now that he knew what kind of things were hidden in the buildings, sleeping, his exploration now felt like tip toeing across the face of a terrifying, murderous giant who was already having troubled sleeping.
Now Jake knew for sure how smart he’d been to keep everything he owned on a need-to-know basis. If Yarissa had seen more clearly what all Jake had on him, all the energy and items that the slumbering ghost army could use, she might not have ever let him come to the Dead City.
Jake was in a residential area now. Some of the houses’ architecture looked very old by Earth standards. Of course, with how long this Dead City had been in the Murim world, most of them shouldn’t be standing anymore. Jake didn’t know how this place worked, but it was obvious to him that there were some rules. He could feel it in his bones, and his inner mage, the part of him that remembered his training in his past life, was fascinated.
The mage part of Jake was curious if this place was a naturally occurring phenomenon or artificially created by some incredibly powerful cultivator, or god, or group of either.
Suddenly, Jake spun. He senses had barely given him any warning before something had attacked him with sharp claws. Needle-like teeth penetrated his hand but didn’t try to bite down. It looked like a small banshee or something. Jake tried to shake it off and almost went for his saber but decided against it at the last moment. Bringing out a divine artifact in the Dead City might have very unpleasant consequences.
He could feel his synergy draining quickly as the energy vampire fed on him. The thing was mostly shadow and skeleton, like the freaky flying things in the Harry Potter movies. It chuckled to itself while it slowly killed Jake, draining him of vitality.
Jake reacted on instinct, trying to defend himself. His claw passed right through the thing. His thoughts raced, struggling against the fogged mind, and in desperation, he tried to feed on his attacker. When it worked, he wasn’t sure which of them was more surprised. The attacker was mostly insubstantial, but Jake cycled his cultivation base even as it tried to escape and grabbed on. Then he looked into the dead eyes of his would-be killer and grinned as he tried to outfeed it.
“Gotcha, bitch!” Jake focused, tearing at his attacker’s mind and body in order to save himself, but also started to take more from the ghostly attacker than had been taken from him.
It was a war of survival, a tug of war with nothing but oblivion in the center, and Jake was winning. His enemy tried attacking him directly, but Jake was always ready to dodge or deflect. Finally, with a desperate surge of effort, the dead thing was able to break and escape. Jake was so tired, he couldn’t keep it from completely getting away, but he managed to imbue chi into one claw and rake it as it vanished. Its scream slowly faded in the direction it’d gotten off to, vanishing in an alley.
Jake sat down in the middle of the road. He hadn’t lost anything from the encounter other than a nasty bite mark on his hand; in fact, he’d even gained energy from it. But what he’d gotten was awful. Death energy was caustic anyway, but what Jake had just stolen was extra slimy on top of that. It was going to take him a lot time to purify it unless he incorporated it into his breakthrough, so he saved the energy, aimlessly circulating it outside of his own system.
