Unintended Cultivator

V13 Chapter 45 – The Tide You Cannot Stand Against

When Li Qui Yue departed to speak with some of the other people, Sen was left with much to consider. Apparently, this kingdom had strongly encouraged its nobles to treat the commoners with a gentle hand. It wasn’t kindness, but a practicality that even Grandmother Lu would have appreciated. The royal family reasoned that any uprising by the commoners would prove sufficient to convince one of their potentially hostile neighbors to invade. It seemed that the nobility had taken that threat seriously. Regardless of how they might feel in private, they tempered their worst natures in public. That went a long way to explain why the commoners here seemed so well-disposed toward their nobles. Sen would have to make it a policy to keep encouraging that attitude among the nobility.

As for the sects, he did as Li Qui Yue advised and took her words for what they were. The opinions of a violently wrathful former ruler. He had the absolute certainty that, if she had possessed the power, she would have personally seen to the execution of every cultivator in the capital. Nor had she been shy about directing those wrathful looks at the sect elders while she told him of their myriad sins. Even if he was skeptical, it did not paint the sects here in a very good light. They had refused to involve themselves in any attempt to quell or even curb the slaughters being carried out by the spirit beasts. He could guess at some of the reasons. They had probably even sounded like good reasons to the cultivators. Nonetheless, he was not impressed.

Sen was willing to extend some grace to the smaller sects. Their numbers were limited. That was even more true for their foundation formation and core stage cultivators. The exact cultivators who could actually do something useful in battle with the spirit beasts. Withstanding and recovering from any substantial losses to those two groups would have been challenging at best. At worst, it would have been impossible. The three largest sects, who had been snapping up the ablest recruits for centuries now, had no such excuses. They could have absorbed some losses and recovered from them. They could have limited their losses just by delaying the spirit beasts while commoners fled. That alone could have saved the lives of countless mortals. Instead, they did nothing.

No wonder they looked so apprehensive earlier, he thought. It also explains why they were in such a hurry to speak to me. They probably planned to plead their case before Li Qui Yue could poison the well.

What the sect elders didn’t realize was that she had probably saved their lives. By telling him about all of it first, it had given him time to calm down. And he had needed time to calm down. If even half of what she had was true, it was still more than enough to send him into a rage. If those ruthless bastards had just admitted to standing by and letting all those people die? However obliquely they phrased it or massaged the truth, he probably would have killed them on the spot. He was still tempted to kill them on the spot. Something they seemed to intuit based on the extremely nervous looks they were sending him and each other. The question was, how did he want to handle it?

He’d interacted with enough sect cultivators and understood sect politics well enough to know that the guilt rested with the leadership. That’s where the orders had come from. Whatever the junior sect disciples might have felt or thought about those orders, they had little choice but to follow them. Anything short of a full-blown rebellion in the sect would have made defiance a veritable death sentence. Unfortunately, eliminating the entire leadership of sects was in no way a cure-all. Doing that meant depriving himself of very powerful fighters in a time when he very much needed such people.

He had overcome this problem before by only eliminating the patriarchs and matriarchs of sects, but that came with its own problems. He might be able to extract vows to the heavens from most of a sect’s cultivators, but all that assured was compliance. It prevented people from actively working against him. Yet, initiative could create opportunities for victory. People harboring grudges because they felt you murdered their revered leader didn’t generally show much initiative. That had been a lesson he learned the hard way. It was one of the reasons why he didn’t like eliminating patriarchs and matriarchs.

Unfortunately, they were generally the people least likely to provide a vow to the heavens. Without that reassurance, he could never turn his back on them. They had too much perceived incentive to kill him. It wouldn’t get them what they thought it would, but that made exactly no difference in how they would behave. More than one person had suggested trying to come to an agreement with the patriarchs and matriarchs. It was a nice thought, but impractical. They would want concessions he already knew he wasn’t willing to give. They’d want the autonomy to continue behaving as they always had. They demand it, knowing that was exactly what would make him show up one day and kill them all, barring such an agreement.

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His reading of history had also taught him that, ultimately, a tyrant couldn’t share power. One could lead, or one could follow. Every attempt to genuinely share power with or even grant concessions to others had led to strife, murder, and more wars. Of course, tyranny usually led to the same things, except when the leader solidified their rule and forged a nation. Sen wasn’t sure he could pull that off, but it was a little late to step off that path now. Establishing a truly friendly base of support in this province would be a good start, though. He could bring in some allies to shore up the existing power structures and begin to fashion a message of his benign imperial rule. Let it spread out from here to the nearby areas. With any luck, tales of how cooperation garnered favor would encourage less friendly provinces to adapt.

But that was a long-term project that someone else would oversee. Probably Lo Meifeng or some of her people, unless he badly missed his guess. He’d need to speak to her soon. It felt like he always needed to speak to everyone soon about something. Right now, though, he had to decide what to do about the local sects. He caught Master Feng’s eyes and then nodded at the hovering cultivators. The elder cultivator walked to them and gestured at Sen. None of them looked happy about that and probably for more reasons than one. Even so, they made their way over to him. His honor guard, who had been scattered around the room, slowly converged and let their killing intent flare a little. He hadn’t asked them to do that, but he supposed it sent the right message. You’re all here on sufferance alone. He let the sect cultivators get as far as bowing before lifting his hand to prevent anyone from speaking.

“I’m sure that you all believe that you have many things to say to me. Before we see if I let you waste my time with that, you will answer a question for me. This question requires only a yes or a no for an answer, so confine yourselves to those choices. Li Qui Yue suggested that, when the spirit beasts began their killing in this nation, all of you simply stood aside and did nothing. So, here is my question. Is that true?”

The three exchanged looks and then glanced out to where Sen’s honor guard stood. They were probably trying to estimate their chances of escaping the room alive if he decided they needed to die. Their chances were, in fact, nonexistent. Something they all seemed to realize after a moment or two. After one final exchange of glances, a tall cultivator stepped forward. The man had shaved his head for some reason. Sen supposed it must have been a personal preference, since most cultivators allowed their hair to grow quite long. The man met his eyes with a certain spark of defiance.

“Yes. We—” started the man.

“I don’t need to hear your excuses. Your sects are dissolved as of now. All who are capable of giving a vow to the heavens will be conscripted into the army. The rest will need to seek their fortunes in their next life. You will remain here while my judgment is communicated to your compounds.”

“You cannot expect this to stand,” said the man.

“Why is that? Because you are so brave? Clearly, you are not. Is it because you are so honorable? Again, it is obvious that your honor has no value. If it did, you would have convinced your patriarchs and matriarchs to act. Since they could not be convinced to send their people out to defy the spirit beast, I will do it for them.”

“My patriarch will come for you,” snarled the man.

Sen gave him a bland look.

“Do you think you are the first to utter such a threat to me? The tenth? The fiftieth? You aren’t. Yet, here I stand. Alive. Unbroken. If he is so eager to die, your patriarch may come and challenge me. Perhaps, he will follow Gao Kangrui’s example and choose the path of sanity. Or,” said Sen with a thoughtful look, “maybe it’s you who truly wishes to challenge me. Do you believe you have the strength and skill to stand against me?”

Sen thought the man might actually do it, but one of the other cultivators put a restraining hand on the man’s arm. The shaved-headed man shot the shorter, stockier man a hard look. If the look had any effect, it wasn’t obvious.

“He will crush you,” said the smaller man. “Do you not feel his strength? Learn to recognize the tide you cannot stand against.”

“He is a child. Unpracticed in his strength.”

Sen watched this exchange with some faint amusement. He’d lost count of how often he’d heard such comments. Less amusing was the knowledge that he had also lost count of the people he’d been forced to kill after hearing such comments.

“You are a fool if you think that. Look at him. Look at his eyes. Do you see fear there? Worry? I’d wager he’s more concerned about what messages he needs to send tomorrow than he is about the prospect of fighting you.”

The tall man looked at Sen and, perhaps for the first time, saw past his own anger to the truth. Sen didn’t want to fight him, but, if pressed, he would take a few moments out of his day to efficiently cut the man down. Then, he would never think of the other cultivator again, because this death would mean nothing. It would be little more than a single drop in the ocean of blood that Sen would spill in the course of his life. The tall cultivator paled as all of that became apparent to him. The man straightened and spoke in a tightly controlled voice.

“No, Lord Lu, I do not wish to challenge you.”

“Very well,” said Sen before turning his gaze to the shorter cultivator. “You, at least, show some promise. Let us hope your leaders demonstrate wisdom equal to their junior.”