Unintended Cultivator

V13 Chapter 15 – Old Wounds Can Never Heal

It was a nightmare. He knew that. A man could only have the same terrible dream so many times before he recognized it for what it was. Not that it helped at all. Despite bending every last bit of his willpower on dispelling this thing that was half memory and all nightmare, it always played out the same way. The coldly arrogant look in the man’s eyes plagued him, even though the face had become blurrier and blurrier to the point where it was the mere suggestion of something vaguely human. But those eyes, those never faded. There were the blows that sent him crashing through the wall. Then talk that sounded like a murmur. Then, there was the sword, sweeping down.

The pain came after that. The burning at his shoulder where an arm used to be, followed by a terrible coldness spreading through his entire body as the blood poured from the wound. He’d been certain that he would die. Disciples at their level didn’t carry the kind of potent healing pills that could save his life. Not that he’d wanted to be saved then. A cultivator missing an arm wasn’t a cultivator anymore. They were just a freak. Like a two-headed snake. There would be no more cycling. Not with major qi channels severed that way. There would be no more advancement. There would just be the pitying looks from any cultivator willing to acknowledge that they used to know him. No, it would be better to die.

Those old thoughts ran through the mind of the dream him. The part of him that knew it was a nightmare let out an inarticulate scream of impotent rage. He knew what came next. Those same coldly arrogant eyes looking at him like some kind of insect, and the man tossing something to the others. More words that just buzzed in the air without meaning. Then, someone forcing something into his mouth. Pouring water after it to make him swallow the pill. The agony that came after that was worse than the pain of the injury. He’d been healed, but healed imperfectly. The bastard had destroyed his arm. Made sure no one could fix him properly. Darkness folded him in its embrace, and Changpu jerked up from the blankets he’d spread on the cave floor.

Cold sweat covered his body as it always did. He was breathing in sharp, jerking gasps, as he always did when waking from that nightmare. How long ago had it been? Fifteen years? Twenty? He wasn’t sure. He’d tried very hard to drink himself to death for a time, only to discover that his cultivator body was still too robust to actually die from it. It wasn’t too robust to prevent the many blackouts or waking up facedown outside the walls of one city or another. No, it was just good enough to make him live, but not live well. Perhaps, if he could have found alcohol appropriate for core cultivators, that might have been enough. Not that he could ever have afforded enough of it to get the job done.

He'd considered simply walking into the wilds and finding a powerful spirit beast to do him in. Unfortunately, that wasn’t a guarantee. He might actually have survived that only to find himself even more crippled. That thought had shaken him so badly that, on the very rare nights when he didn’t dream of Lu Sen cutting his arm off, he dreamed of that. It’s no wonder I hate sleeping, he thought while angrily swiping the sweat from his brow. What kind of madman would willingly endure those dreams more often than necessary? Of course, those same dreams kept his hatred and his longing for revenge alive and burning bright. Old wounds can never heal when you relive them daily.

That had made them a curse for the longest time. As he’d stagnated, the stories of Lu Sen had spread far and wide. First as a foundation formation cultivator and then, impossible but true, as a core cultivator a mere handful of years later. If the stories were to be believed now, he’d somehow ascended into the ranks of nascent soul cultivators. Changpu had refused to believe those stories at first. There was no way for any cultivator to advance that fast. It was impossible

. He knew that with the same certainty that he knew the sun would rise in the east.Some heavens-kissed geniuses might make the climb to nascent soul cultivator in a thousand years. No one did it in decades. The pure trauma of enduring all of those tribulations would cripple any cultivator if not sear their qi channels to charcoal. Changpu had been through three tribulations, and the mere thought of those was still enough to make his heart race. Lu Sen would have had to endure many more tribulations to reach so close to the peak of the mountain, each one worse than the last. No sane mind could hold up beneath that. Then again, Changpu wasn’t sure that Lu Sen had ever been sane. Nothing he’d done in recent years would suggest his sanity was intact. Not that Changpu was in any position to judge sanity.

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He turned his eyes to “his” left arm and swiftly looked elsewhere. It was grotesque. That was the only word for it. The skin was a mottled gray and had a certain scaly quality to it when seen in direct sunlight. Not that he’d ever let that arm be seen in the light of day. It was always covered, and he’d even secured obscuring talismans, but even that wasn’t always enough. He was sleeping in this cave because a particular perceptive sect cultivator had sensed the devilish nature of the arm. They’d hounded him for days before the ongoing threat of the spirit beasts had finally dragged them back to the city.

They didn’t understand. He hadn’t done this abominable thing and turned himself into an even bigger freak to hurt other cultivators or mortals. Changpu had struck this bargain and damned himself for one reason and one reason alone. He was going to kill Lu Sen. It didn’t happen often, but nascent soul cultivators could fall. It just took time, careful planning, and, in cases like his, for the heavens to turn a blind eye for a few moments. Not that he had high hopes for that last part. No man in history had basked in the adoration of the heavens like Lu Sen. It was the only possible explanation for his rise. But such men also made enemies. One of those enemies had found him somehow. It made a bargain to give him an arm and the power to bring down a demigod.

Changpu’s only tasks had been to train and to wait. The training had been, if not easy, then familiar. He’d always been disciplined, and the sect had only encouraged that in him. True, this training had been different. It had warped his body in ways he didn’t like to think about, but any price was worth it to bring down that demon, Lu Sen. That bastard, thought Changpu. That merciless bastard is worse than any demonic cultivator. He could have just killed me. Staggering over to the cave entrance, he let the seemingly perpetual rain strike his face. It was warm, which struck him as strange, and it didn’t help the way splashing cold water on his face sometimes did.

“Why didn’t you just let me die!” he screamed into the surrounding wilds.

He knew it was stupid. Emperor Lu hadn’t brought his army this far yet, which meant the wilds were still teeming with spirit beasts. That scream could bring them running. Powerful as he might have become, he couldn’t fight an endless horde of spirit beasts. Sometimes, though, he had to scream or go mad from the waiting. So much waiting. Years of it with nothing to show but a demon’s arm, a body he didn’t recognize, and…Power. The devil had kept its word. It had given him enough power that it felt like he could punch through a mountain. But what good was all that power if he never got to use it on Lu Sen?

“You’ll make yourself hoarse shouting like that.”

Changpu whirled to see the massive form of the devil approaching through the rain. It was truly hideous. It was missing most of a horn. What remained of that horn was little more than a jagged stump. Half of its face and a large portion of its exposed chest were scarred, like it had received hideous burns from something. It didn’t even truly walk. One of the devil’s legs worked properly, but the other only seemed strong enough to drag itself along. All of this damage, it had told him, was the end result of its battle with Lu Sen. That had come as a surprise. Battling a literal devil was the kind of story to cement a man as a heroic legend.

Given how many of the stories told about the cultivator known as Judgment Gale were less than complimentary, it seemed like Lu Sen had missed an opportunity. Not that he cared. The less people loved the new emperor, the more likely they were to celebrate Changpu for destroying the man. Still, none of that made dealing with the devil any easier. This creature was as likely to kill him as help him, common enemy or not. It was pure desperation that had led him to strike the bargain in the first place. Even if he succeeded and managed to escape Lu Sen’s army, he suspected that this thing would find him and kill him eventually.

“Why have you come?” asked Changpu, doing his best to keep his tone even.

“The time will soon arrive,” said the devil as it came to a stop and towered over the cultivator.

Changpu felt his heart start to beat faster. It was finally time. He’d finally have his vengeance. Perhaps the heavens didn’t love Lu Sen quite as much as it seemed.

“Why now?”

“He’s grown weary of war and death. Allowed himself to become distracted. And he’s close.”

Changpu frowned as he thought over those words.

“Lu Sen was weary of death when I met him all those years ago. His weariness hasn’t stopped him from becoming a warlord who is very good at killing everyone who opposes him.”

The devil grinned, and the sight of it made Changpu’s bowels try to turn to water.

“He’ll be even more distracted soon. The spirit beasts haven’t simply decided to cede this part of the world to him.”