279 Whispers of Taint
I’m Da Wei, yet not Da Wei. The distinction mattered. Always. I’m Da Wei’s Hell Soul, the shadow cut from his essence, given form and thought. Where he carried restraint, I carried hunger. Where he carried mercy, I carried wrath. Right now, that wrath stirred as I looked through Ye Yong’s eyes, our mission pulling us into the heart of Northshire.
The Night Blades had abandoned their painted masks and wandering costumes. Gone were the garbs of a traveling troupe; tonight, they were clad in black, moving like shades against the moonlit plains. It should have been a clean infiltration, swift and silent, yet the moment we set foot near the country’s border, I knew something was wrong.
“Halt,” Ye Yong commanded sharply. Her tone carried authority, and the Night Blades froze mid-step. She narrowed her gaze, her senses straining. Then she saw it: a faint ripple in the air, a translucent shimmer nearly invisible even to Divine Sense.
“Stay there,” she ordered, holding out a hand to bar the others. “Don’t step through.”
Testing it herself, she drew back to rejoin them, only to find her steps circling her back inside. Her lips pressed into a thin line as she muttered, “No wonder… they don’t have walls.”
I extended my own Divine Sense, merging with hers, and the truth became clear. A barrier encompassed Northshire, vast and subtle, stretched over the entire country like an unseen dome. It wasn’t a mere ward; it was a trap, waiting for intruders too careless to notice.
“Don’t come in!” Ye Yong shouted to her subordinates. “There’s a barrier technique at work—”
She never finished. The sharp clang of metal echoed in the night. Bells rang, iron against iron, reverberating through the grasslands. Alarms.
The Night Blades dropped low into the tall grass, pressed against the earth as if it could swallow them whole. Ye Yong, calm despite the sudden shift, hissed, “Retreat. I’ll contact you through the array later.”
They obeyed instantly, scattering like shadows into the night. Wise. They understood better than to argue when the air itself sang with danger.
I gave Ye Yong my approval, my voice dripping into her thoughts. “A sound decision. We don’t know what Northshire has hidden, and with this barrier already impeding us, it’s better you move alone.”
She didn’t waste breath responding. Her legs carried her swiftly, her figure weaving into the landscape. But she wasn’t unseen for long. Torches ignited in the distance, golden fire swaying in the dark. The pounding of hooves followed, horses charging with urgency, riders galloping directly toward the place she had crossed.
Ye Yong frowned. “Impossible… this area is too exposed. Even with an alarm system, they shouldn’t be here so quickly. There’s no outpost nearby.”
“Or perhaps you’ve been misled,” I told her. “How else could they muster soldiers this fast?”
Her jaw tightened, but she kept moving. That was when I spoke again, my grin feral even within the cage of her soul. “Let me handle this.”
Ye Yong hesitated, but then yielded. “Fine,” she murmured inwardly, her voice calm yet laced with wary trust.
Permission was all I needed. I sank deeper, immersing myself in her existence until her heartbeat thundered in my chest and her breath filled my lungs. Power thrummed at my fingertips, eager, violent, and alive. I stomped against the ground, leaving a deep crack as I came to a full stop. Then, with a sudden pivot, I reversed course, running straight toward the thunder of hooves.
Ye Yong’s voice echoed inside, exasperated. “What are you doing?”
I laughed, teeth bared in delight. “Oh, of course… to kill demons! You see, I don’t run from demons. They run from me.”
I unleashed Zealot’s Stride, further empowered by Divine Speed, my body blurring across the grassland. The night wind roared in my ears as I closed the distance in a heartbeat. Ahead, twelve soldiers rode in formation, their torches whipping wildly, but I could feel a thirteenth, someone hiding in plain sight.
My hand dipped to Ye Yong’s waist, where daggers lay strapped and waiting. With a flick of my wrist, I sent them flying, each infused with Thunderous Smite. The air cracked with lightning as the daggers tore through flesh and steel, and nine of the soldiers toppled from their saddles, lifeless before they hit the ground.
The survivors recoiled in shock, but hesitation was death. I drew Ye Yong’s short sword, the blade humming as I invoked Flash Step. In an instant, I was before the strongest of them, his aura slightly higher than the rest. His head parted cleanly from his body, spinning into the dark as his horse stumbled beneath him.
One soldier broke, spurring his horse into a desperate gallop away from the carnage, while another lowered his spear and charged at me with suicidal fury. I met the attack with Stagger, sending a wave of force that rattled the beast beneath him. The horse panicked, stumbling into a clumsy sidestep. In that moment, I caught the spear by its shaft, ripped it from his hands, and kicked his head clean off his shoulders.
Their cultivation was Fourth Realm, decent enough for common soldiers, but to me they were nothing. I hurled the spear after the fleeing rider, this time charged with Searing Smite. Fire roared along its length as it pierced the man through the chest. He toppled sideways, lifeless, while his horse thundered onward.
I would not allow it. My stride reignited, empowered by Zealot’s Stride and Divine Speed, capped with a burst of Flash Step. In a blink, I was upon the galloping beast. My short sword flared with Divine Smite, descending in a holy arc.
The horse twisted unnaturally, its form melting and stretching into grotesque flesh. A demon reared up where the beast had been, clawed hands swinging wildly at me. I severed one arm in a clean stroke, its ichor spraying across the field. The demon shrieked in its infernal tongue, voice guttural and furious. “H-how are you doing this?”
“That,” I murmured to myself, amused, “is what it means to punish demons.”
I eased back, relinquishing control. Ye Yong’s hands tightened on the hilt of her short sword before she lowered it, her breath shallow and uneven. Her grimace spoke volumes. The bloody mess I left behind was not the sort of work she would have done. Still, she didn’t dwell on it. The mission came first. She dragged a surviving horse from the edge of the carnage, mounted quickly, and spurred it into a frantic gallop.
Even so, I could feel her spirit quivering. This was not her first time facing a demon, but the implications weighed heavier than the sight alone. The way the demon killed the soldier, the strange resurrection through chains, and the ease with which it tried to masquerade in a human form… This wasn’t random. This stank of design.
Her voice, tight but thoughtful, reached me. “This place is getting more and more mysterious.”
She wasn’t wrong. The Night Blades had prepared. They had gathered intelligence, conducted their own investigations, and entered Northshire confident they knew what they were dealing with. Yet everything so far from this barrier, these soldiers, and this sudden demonic interference suggested their information had been tampered with, if not deliberately fabricated. They had walked into a web, blindfolded.
“Stabilize your qi,” I told her. Her pulse was too fast, her circulation uneven. If she didn’t calm herself, the chaos would eat away at her strength when she needed it most.
She inhaled sharply, centering her breathing, smoothing the turbulence. Her cultivation steadied, though her jaw remained clenched. Then, without hesitation, she pushed the horse harder, urging it into a reckless pace. Its muscles strained, its breath foamed at the bit, but she didn’t care. If it died beneath her, so be it. All that mattered was distance from the scene.
Her fingers brushed the bangle at her wrist. The faint glow of the embedded communication array pulsed as she spoke. “Status report.”
The replies came swiftly. Her subordinates had retreated without issue, regrouped, and established camp far from the border. “We are waiting for orders,” one of them said.
“Standby and lie low,” Ye Yong ordered curtly. “Do nothing until further notice.”
She closed the array, her mind already spinning with the implications. Then she asked me quietly, “Can you override the barrier surrounding the country?”
I smiled within her, though the gesture was unseen. “I’d know if I tried.”
“We should find Lu Gao and Yuen Fu first. Wandering blindly is asking to be cut apart. If they’re here, then at least we’ll have a clearer path forward.”
Her reasoning was sound. Still, I could feel the tension behind her words. She wasn’t saying it simply for strategy’s sake. She needed allies, and familiar presences in a land that pressed on her like a vice.
The days that followed proved harder than even she anticipated. Every attempt to move deeper into Northshire brought attention, and not the kind we wanted. Foreigners were not just mistrusted here; they were treated like open threats.
The first incident came at a village market. Ye Yong only approached to purchase dried rations, but the moment she opened her mouth, the shopkeeper slammed the wooden counter shut.
“Not selling to outsiders,” the man snapped, eyes narrowed.
“I’ll pay double,” Ye Yong replied evenly.
“Triple won’t matter,” the shopkeeper hissed. “Take your cursed breath elsewhere.”
Children playing nearby stopped, staring at her. Their mother rushed forward, grabbing them by the wrists. “Don’t look. Don’t breathe her air.” Her gaze met Ye Yong’s with raw contempt. “You people bring calamity with your steps. Leave before steel chases you out.”
Ye Yong said nothing, only turned her back. Her silence was not weakness but calculation. Still, I could sense her qi ripple with restrained anger.
The next encounter came with farmers on the road. She tried asking for directions to the nearest river crossing, her tone polite. The man she approached lifted his hoe like a spear.
“You’ve no place here,” he barked.
“I only asked a question,” Ye Yong said.
“Ask the graves when you fill them. That’s where your kind ends up.” His wife spat at the ground between them. “Demon-blooded wanderer.”
Even merchants who normally bowed to profit recoiled. When Ye Yong placed a small silver coin on a counter, the merchant didn’t just refuse. He picked up the coin with a rag and flung it into the mud.
“Your silver’s tainted,” he said sharply. “Do you think we’ll eat death for your sake? Go back where you came from!”
And worst of all were the patrols. Clad in dark lacquered armor, their eyes cold as winter, they treated her less as a passerby and more as quarry. One officer spoke without preamble, his hand resting on his saber.
“You’re not of Northshire. Speak your name.”
“I am a traveler—” Ye Yong began.
“Lies.” His tone cut her words apart. “Your presence here is enough proof of guilt. Run if you wish. It makes no difference to us.”
Ye Yong’s hand hovered near her sword hilt, but she swallowed the urge. To fight would only draw the entire countryside down on her. She turned, her voice low. “This country is worse than a prison. No walls, yet tighter than any cage.”
I could only agree.
The mounting hostility left Ye Yong with no choice but to flee each time suspicion gathered like a storm cloud. Her horse had long since been abandoned. She took to the backroads and woodland paths, avoiding patrols, sleeping in ditches and under the cover of hollowed trees.
She adapted quickly. The proud stance of the Night Blade commander melted into the weary shuffle of a vagabond. Her once-polished armor was hidden beneath layers of dirt-stained cloth scavenged from roadside washing lines. She even cut her hair unevenly with a dagger, disguising the shine that marked her out. To the casual eye, she was nothing more than a beggar wandering the countryside.
It worked. The glares from villagers turned from suspicion to dismissal, and patrols, while still harsh, no longer lingered on her shadow. Ye Yong ate whatever scraps she could scavenge, her qi dampened, her cultivation presence buried deep. The adaptation grated on her pride, but it kept her alive.
“Better this than a blade in the back,” I murmured from within, watching her knuckles whiten whenever she passed through another guarded checkpoint. “We don’t know what manner of forces are at play and how vast their reach is.”
She answered me in a whisper, “I’ll endure. For now.”
Several nights passed before the silence of the wilderness gave way to hushed rumors in a roadside tavern where she slipped in unnoticed among the drunks.
“…they say assassins are moving against the Duke…” one man muttered over his cup.
“…no, against the ruler himself. The whole capital’s tightening its guard. A great calamity, they whisper…”
“What calamity?”
“The kind that reeks of the Unholy Taint. Mark me, nothing good comes from meddling with that filth.”
The words pierced both of us at once. Ye Yong’s eyes sharpened, and I felt her heartbeat rise. She slipped back into the night, her rags flapping in the wind, determination firming her steps. The decision was immediate. “The capital,” she said under her breath, her gaze fixed southward. “Whatever this conspiracy is, it begins there.”
And with that, her path was set.