River of Fate: Emerald Alchemist, page 39
A couple of them were staunch supporters of the alchemists’ guild.
The ghost cultivator sects, who claimed to have some ability with soul magic and controlling ghosts, weren’t pure soul cultivators. Their abilities were in curses and blood magic, as well as controlling puppets, not direct soul damage like that talisman.
She had one protective item that might have worked against it, but she hadn’t been able to get to it in time. Now, she pulled it out of her spatial ring.
A circlet of leaves that had been woven together in an interlocking band appeared in her hand. It was about the size of her hand, just large enough to be worn on her head. The leaves shone with a deep green and peaceful energy, bringing a breath of mint and spring to the room that was filled with Renzer’s fiery aura.
It was too small for Verse’s head, so she quickly slipped it onto his wrist instead, where it settled like a bracelet. His eyes were open, looking fiercely across the room at Renzer, and his hand was still raised where he’d blocked the talisman, but he was unmoving.
A wave of relaxing energy began to emanate from the circlet and swiftly covered him, but there was no immediate effect.
An instant later, she hardened her will and blinked the tears away.
Then she stepped to the side around Verse and turned her attention to Renzer, who was still trying to cycle his cultivation to clear out the poison he’d inflicted on himself. Her expression blazed with fury.
Only a moment had passed since he threw the talisman, and he was looking at Verse with a dark smirk like he’d won, which he transferred to her as soon as she stepped into view.
“I suppose that’ll have to do,” he said with a bitter laugh. “There aren’t a lot of people who can say they’ve killed an Imperial Knight.”
His aura filled the room, making it feel like she was surrounded by towering oaks that were ready to crash down on her head at any moment, but she stepped forward, letting her Ocean Barrier take the weight of it.
“We’ll count this as my win,” he said with a smirk as his confidence returned. His complexion was also clearing up, making it obvious that the antidote was working. “I also know the extent of that artifact you have. I might not be able to kill you through it, but you can’t do a thing to me either. In another minute or two, my cultivation will recover and I’ll be gone.”
Vesana ran through the items she had, but nearly all of them were for defense. Her family had been willing to protect her, but not to give her weapons to attack others.
Nonetheless, she pulled out a shining white gemstone and held it in her fist as she glared at Renzer. A brilliant white flame began to burn along the surface, which quickly flowed across her entire body, making it look like she was surrounded by starlight.
Her cultivation technique was called the White Star Horizon, and was one of the best that her family had access to. It was capable of taking her all the way to the Dao Echo realm. Like most alchemist techniques, it was Fire based, but it had a strong affinity for other elements as well.
Even in the capital, it was a rare technique, and at least a grade higher than the one Renzer was so proud of.
Unlike most techniques, which used blades or other weapons, the White Star Horizon needed a spherical object to act as a Fire focus. The aura it created around her was an intense layer of flames, one that could burn through most other techniques.
To complement that, she focused on mobility and martial techniques that used her hands and feet, as well as long distance spells. It was a strange fighting style for an alchemist, who rarely got so physical, but she had long ago become comfortable with it.
As soon as the aura blazed to life around her, she darted forward, her leg flashing out as she kicked at Renzer. The air ignited in an arc of burning white light and tiny pinpricks of light like stars appeared in its wake.
Renzer snorted as he waved his hand. The image of a giant oak with burning branches appeared in front of him, directly in the path of her attack. Her kick exploded against the side of the tree.
The burning points of light flew in every direction as a sharp pain stabbed through her foot and shin. Crackling heat from the tree swept down as a twisting column of smoke flew toward her head.
It held a heat that was at least three times greater than hers, and it was accompanied by the same crushing weight that was part of the rest of Renzer’s aura. Vesana staggered backwards as Renzer’s technique shattered on the blue shield above her.
Streaks of white fire began to swirl around her and then gathered into a star in her hand.
Without hesitating, she hurled it at him.
Renzer waved his hand at her like he was dismissing a fly, and a wave of smoky heat shattered her technique into shards of loose energy, which were crushed by the weight of his aura in the room.
“Now you know the real difference between us,” he said mockingly as he continued to cycle the antidote. “Without your family to protect you, you’re nothing special. At least you’ll learn one lesson today.”
Instead of paying any more attention to her, he turned to look at the strange talisman seal that Verse had used on the walls.
“I don’t know what technique he used to seal the room,” he added, “but it’s barely at the Primal Spirit level. It won’t take me long to break through it. And you have no way to stop me.”
He was pleased with himself and his mood was improving by the moment. Watching the satisfaction on his face made Vesana curl her hands into fists.
Renzer turned toward the wall closest to him as he began studying the seal, but he was still watching her out of the corner of his eye, making sure she didn’t do anything else.
He reached out with a hand that was still partially frozen from the poison, which had three fingers twisted and dark. It didn’t stop him as he sent a streak of smoky flame into the sigil on the wall, which shuddered under the attack.
Tiny cracks appeared on the green symbol.
He smiled as he raised his hand and attacked it again, making the cracks bigger. Just as he was raising his hand for a third blow, however, a strange green reflection swept across his hand.
Then a massive claw covered in green flames swept through the air and slammed into his chest, hurling him across the room to slam into the far wall.
“She might not be able to stop you, but I can.” Verse’s voice rang out as he stepped forward.
His voice was angry and emerald flames surged around him like armor, highlighting the appearance of strange silver scars all across his body that almost looked like scales.
Vesana felt his hand on her shoulder as he stepped around her. The circlet she’d placed on his wrist glowed against her white aura, shining with such brilliance that it felt like an entire forest had come to life.
Chapter twenty-seven
Crushing Renzer
Verse pulled back his hand and looked at Renzer across the room. As soon as he’d broken down the soul dagger, he’d instantly become aware of his surroundings again, as well as everything that was happening.
Throwing Renzer across the room was about to be the least of the man’s problems.
“Impossible.” Renzer’s eyes widened as he struggled to breathe under the emerald claw that was still pinning him to the wall. He stared at Verse across the room. “You should be dead!”
“That is not for you to decide,” he said as he walked toward Renzer. “And don’t worry about the seal on the walls. It will last long enough.”
As he stepped forward, he let the silver scales on his body disappear, until there was only golden skin and emerald flame visible. They were an instinctive reaction, but not one he needed to show off.
He also noticed the green bracelet on his wrist, which had to have come from Vesana. There was a cool and pleasant green energy rising from it, which had been helpful in speeding up his recovery. It made it easier to break apart the soul talisman.
He slipped the bracelet off as he passed it back to Vesana with a nod and then he focused on Renzer.
Verse blurred as he leapt forward.
Renzer was able to handle a regular Aligned realm cultivator and oppress them with his aura, but he was still poisoned and at a huge disadvantage against Verse, who could fight a Primal Spirit cultivator blow for blow.
A wave of emerald flame covered Verse’s fist as he slammed it into Renzer’s face. The branch manager’s body rang like a bell as he was embedded halfway into the wall.
Verse grabbed his neck with one hand and ripped him back out. Then he hurled him across the room. He followed after him with a quick step as Renzer struck the ward on the far wall, which let out a boom like it was a massive drum.
Renzer wasn’t a Primal Spirit cultivator for nothing, however.
As he was flying backward, streams of smoky red energy circled around him as he struggled to shape his aura into a new technique. Using an aura alone for techniques was rare, but it was better than trying to use his unstable cultivation.
As soon as he struck the wall, he unleashed it.
A field of burning oaks spread across the room, making it seem like Verse was plunged into a raging forest fire. The smell of smoky ash and the tang of hot oak was accompanied by another wave of Primal Spirit pressure that tried to crush him to the floor.
It looked like the room in front of him had been swapped out with a forest, and the upper half of all the trees here was blazing, their branches alight with swelling waves of flame that soared into the air.
The sky above was a wash of orange and red as it mixed with clouds of smoke, and it was slowly spiraling into a vast firestorm, which was concentrated on Verse.
In reality, he could still sense the room around him, but the overlay of spiritual energy gave it an odd doubling, one that made it feel like the firestorm and forest were just as real as the desk that was still faintly visible.
Renzer was slumped against the wall where he’d struck it, but he ignored his injuries as he focused on the firestorm, trying to make it spiral faster around Verse. Bit by bit, he increased the pressure.
But with each moment, his complexion was getting a little worse. He was trying to delay until the antidote had time to work, but his expenditure of energy meant the poison was once again getting the upper hand.
Verse focused on the Dao of Fire as he studied the forest around him, sensing the waves of heat with some curiosity. It wasn’t every day that he got to study the aura of a Primal Spirit cultivator who used Fire.
Except for some of the sects that focused on Fire, the Alchemists’ Guild was the only place it was possible to find this many Fire cultivators gathered together. Everyone here used Fire and Wood in one form or another, making it a sort of holy land for those two elements.
If someone asked where they could find the best cultivation techniques for those daos, if the guild wasn’t the number one place in the empire, it would at least be in the top three.
After a moment, however, Verse shook his head.
Renzer’s version of the dao was different from his. They both had a connection to the primary element of Fire itself. It was interesting, but it was too far away from his own path to be that useful to him.
It also didn’t match up to the memories he had of the Jade Scripture Sect. The masters there had developed many elemental paths, all of them attuned to the greater dao of the heavens.
Compared to those, Renzer’s aura technique was mediocre at best.
Verse looked up toward the firestorm that was crashing down toward him. Then he took a deep breath as he gathered his bloodline energy and the crimson light of the sunset. When he breathed out, a torrent of emerald and crimson flame roared upward to meet the firestorm.
With his bloodline energy radiating outward, it created an aura of his own.
The two types of flames crashed against one another, and in the midst of it Verse continued forward. Streamers of flame rained down around him and massive oaks tried to collapse on him, but he knocked them aside with a flick of his hand as he continued on toward Renzer.
Trees and ash covered everything, but it might as well have been an illusion. Between one moment and the next, he closed the distance to Renzer.
The branch manager tried to fight, covering his fists with a flaming aura that felt the same as the burning oak trees. His aura wrapped heavily around him, reinforcing his punches. The air rippled as it ignited.
Unfortunately for him, his movements were much too slow.
It was a quick and vicious fight, but it was over in half a dozen blows.
Verse slid to the side and twisted Renzer’s arm, cracking the bone, before he grabbed him by the neck and slammed him into the ward again, this time face first. Renzer’s teeth exploded from his face as his nose was flattened.
The alchemist wasn’t a body cultivator and his physical strength was low, near the absolute minimum for someone at the Primal Spirit realm. Now that he was weakened by the poison, it was like dealing with a chicken.
Verse’s anger was still raging from the soul talisman and he slammed Renzer into the wall a few more times for good measure, until his face looked like a swollen red pancake.
Then with a series of quick stabs into Renzer’s meridians, he sealed off the flow of the branch manager’s spiritual energy with jade essence, preventing it from cycling through his dantian, and tossed him onto the floor at the center of the room.
Each of the points he touched glowed with a jade sigil. They were similar to the ward on the walls, but more precise and much smaller.
Around them, the illusion of a burning oak forest disappeared, leaving the room untouched except for a faint trail of smoky energy in the air, which made it seem like a forest fire had just been blown out.
At the same time, Renzer’s face turned pale. The ashen streaks of the poison began to return, although very slowly. Without his cultivation to cycle the antidote through his body, it wasn’t working as well.
Across the room, Vesana’s eyes were wide with surprise as she watched the fight, but she quickly shook it off as soon as the aura disappeared.
“Don’t kill him please!” she said quickly as she walked across the room toward them. “I know he deserves it, but it would complicate things. I promise, his punishment from the guild will be much worse than death. I will also make sure that he pays for attacking you.”
Surrounded by her blue artifact shield, she was calm and full of confidence now, even as she glared daggers at Renzer.
Verse looked over at her, but then he nodded once, before he turned his attention back to the branch manager on the floor. He didn’t like the idea of leaving Renzer alive, but he also didn’t mind the idea of him suffering a lot more at the hands of the guild.
Given how confident Vesana was, they had to have some way to make his life miserable and keep him from ever seeing the sun again.
“Tell me something,” he said to Renzer as he leaned down and picked him up with one hand. “Were you the one who sent the sect after me?”
The alchemist hung there limply. All sense of authority that he’d held had been crushed by their exchange. A slight widening of his eyes and the increasing strain on his face told the truth of it.
The silent answer made Verse’s grip increase until Renzer began to thrash around. With a grimace, Verse tossed him back onto the floor, where he landed with a dull thud.
“If it makes things easier for you, I won’t kill him,” Verse said to Vesana. “But he owes us some information about the sect, and I have an idea for how to make him talk.”
He studied Renzer’s condition and then he reached down and poked him in a couple of spots, releasing the jade essence seal in those areas. It wasn’t enough to fully release the restriction on Renzer’s energy, but it was enough that the antidote began to cycle through his body again.
The ashen color once again began to recede from Renzer’s features as he gasped for air.
Verse pulled out a few bottles and pills with crimson markings from his spatial ring, letting them float in the air as he indicated them. When Vesana saw them, her look of shock made him laugh.
“These are all poisons I took from the sect assassins who tried to kill me,” he explained to her, well aware that Renzer was listening in. “There are some similarities to the poison he used on himself. It’s not exactly the same, but it should be proof enough of his connection to the sect if the guild is looking for more evidence.”
At that point, Vesana interrupted him and he had to explain the full story about the sect targeting him. He gave her all of the details about Corpsewind and the attacks inside of town, but he waved away the questions about how he’d survived.
He didn’t plan to reveal all of his secrets to her, and especially not in front of Renzer. Fortunately, Vesana didn’t press for answers. Before long, she was glaring down at the branch manager even more intensely.
“Colluding with a criminal sect in order to assassinate an Imperial Knight is a damning sentence,” she said as she shook her head in disgust. “It’s just as severe as working with the sect to kidnap alchemists as soul slaves. That’s two charges you won’t be able to escape from now. Once the sect enforcers arrive, you’ll be handed over to them. They’ll know how to get the most information out of you.
“After all that the guild gave you, all the opportunities and resources,” she added, “you betrayed us so easily. Then you took the coward’s route...poisoning yourself and trying to place all the blame on the guild. If you hadn’t done that, maybe you could have escaped here, but you plotted so much that you brought about your own destruction.
“Did you think about what those heritage alchemists are going through right now? Did you ask what was going to happen to them?”
She shook her head again as she turned to the bottles that were floating near Verse. Then she looked at the walls that were lined with treasures and other rich materials.
“All you cared about was gathering money for yourself, so let’s start your punishment with that.”
She reached down and pulled the spatial ring off Renzer’s hand. Then she tossed it to Verse, who caught it reflexively.
