Chapter 8-245: The Problems with Outsiders, Part Two (1/2)

Looking at all his decisions that had been motivated by anger, hate, jealousy, greed, arrogance, pride, and pure uncaring pragmatism, Kentai Yamamoto could only feel wounded and small, like a child caught doing naughty things before the greatest force of all.

He could justify, he could complain, he could challenge, he could defy... but it did not matter. In the eyes of Heaven, he had done Wrong.

And something made him turn his eyes on his daughter.

She was reeling in pain and anger and hate, her eyes holding a light that... did not belong there. It was not the light of someone with remorse or regret, guilt or shame, but the light of scorn and contempt for daring to be held to account, to be judged by anyone, or anything!

It was not the face of his loving daughter, so eager to get stronger so she could serve her people better.

When they hit Four, and the Golden Orbs they have been growing mature and consume their souls...

That was not what the Cultivators had told them. They were told the second soul was grown so that it could reach out and control the Qi in the world, as their own souls could not, enabling them to touch the powers and abilities only the Powered were able to now, correcting what was luck of birth and the callous hands of Fate and Luck, and make their own path, defying their own fates...

“Cultivators are a form of twisted, native Soulborn... that is, Outsiders, creatures who are not mortal. They are formed incomplete, by the hapless efforts of those practicing Cultivation techniques, and will always be incomplete, for they are not part of the rules of this universe.

“When their Golden Orb matures, it rises up, consuming the mind and soul of their hapless hosts, taking them for their own. They then begin the process of purging the mortal elements from their body, sloughing them off as dark impurities and sludge, remaking their human bodies as something purer, better... not mortal, no longer human.

“Because they are incomplete, they are driven to understand the universe better, to make themselves fit in it... and to change it to fit them, altering mana and chi into Qi, subduing the sapient races who can form more of them and turning them into breeding tools for more Cultivators... and killing the Powered, who are useless in that they cannot form more Cultivators, and whose energies and bodies are the finest tonic, stealing the favor of Creation from them for themselves, to grow ever stronger.”

Kentai felt his blood running cold as he heard that. The missing Powered... were murdered for their power? Turned into pills for cultivation?

“Ignore her, father! She lies!” his daughter snarled, trying to struggle, but she had no strength to do so.

She seemed completely unable to comprehend the fact that he was absolutely certain that anyone who could speak that Word could only lie so obviously that nobody would believe it was the truth.

“These children are all Powered. The Cultivators have been hunting them down, seeking them out to improve their own Levels and incidentally removing future threats. Pragmatic, practical, pursuing power,” Traveler went on. “Furthermore, this man...” a head flew out of the slender Pack on her back, hovered in the air, and a transparent illusion filled in the rest, “was hidden in a secret place in town, and was the strongest Cultivator here. By the accoutrements in his home, he was masquerading as an herbalist for traditional medicine, but below his shop, he had turned at least twenty Powered into pills. Given he was a full Eight, he was probably hunting and ambushing Senior Powered, as they make the best tonics, and using them to advance the members of the Dojo.”

Kentai Yamamoto stared at the half-milky, half-colored face of Elder Dan Konoto, a much respected purveyor of traditional herbal remedies, who had been taking care of people in Darwin for decades... from well before the Cultivators had arrived.

Preying on the Powered...

“I’m going to go out on a limb and guess these two were Lawbound agents of yours?” Two more heads came out of her pack, with the talisman paper pasted to their foreheads that were the sign of the vampires of the East. The talismans blew out of the way, and Kentai stared at the faces of Jihan and Kyroto, two of his juniors at the Light-Sparkling-Water school, and indeed, they had Sworn Pacts as Lawbound with Inkai’s aid.

“If they were Powered, they would have been rendered down into pills. They probably stumbled upon some clue, and were killed for it. He made them useful by turning them into undead servants to help him in his hunting.”

The two had disappeared almost ten years ago, but had not aged a day, their skin as pure and clean as a freshly-washed corpse...

“If you have any doubts, merely look between the dead who had not transformed their bodies first, and those who have. You will notice an absence... of flies.”

Heads snapped around, extremely good eyes staring at the corpses of the fallen.

Indeed, there were opportunistic insects swirling around the fresh corpses, drawn by the odor of death.

But none were coming near those with milky skin.

“There is one more proof. Cultivators will claim they are evolved humans, advancing to a higher stage, overcoming the circumstances of their birth to be something more. That is, of course, a great and bold lie. Cultivators have no more in common with humans and mortals than angels, devils, and demons do.” Faint amusement was in her eyes when she glanced at the kneeling young woman who was glaring death at her. “That is, of course, the Human Tongue.”

“I can speak the Human Tongue!” his daughter immediately cried out in defiance.

“Anyone can LEARN the Human tongue, just like anyone can learn Elvish, Orcish, Draconic, <or the Butterfly tongue of the Daoists.>”

His daughter’s eyes flared wide in shock and alarm at the strange words that came off Traveler’s lips.

“Of course, the key is not being able to speak Human, but to understand it. It is a genetic tongue. It is formed from the heart of Human genetics, their Life Spiral, and resonates in their Akasha, in them... and in their descendants.” Her eyes were dancing so dangerously now, like stars wheeling about a target. “That includes halvyr, of course, as well as hyn and urukhar, dhatun and ogryn. We can learn it very quickly because we can understand it, although nowhere near as quickly as an actual human can, of course.

“A Cultivator has a superb memory and can learn languages quickly. But they still can’t understand Human words they’ve never heard before, only learn them as they would any other language.