The Mook Maker

There were many things that could stand in the way of man’s ambitions. 

 

To most, the harshest were other men, equals in cunning and strength in a world of mindless beasts.

 

 Tao Wen, the Elder of the Tao Clan, feared no man. He didn’t need to.

 

There were very few who would challenge the true master of the Art, like him, and even fewer could contest with the Path of Seven Swords. 

 

Yet, now, there were two opponents which stood in the path of Tao Wen’s ambition - time and distance - and as much as Tao Wen struggled to admit such a weakness, both the time and the distance were adversaries he could not beat at the moment. 

 

True, he knew a technique which would easily allow him to outrun even a racing horse, but even a true master of the Art like Tao Wen couldn’t reliably maintain such a pace for seven days straight without rest, which he would have to do should he opt to reach the last known location of Jin Empire’s armies in the shortest time he thought remotely achievable.

 

Of course, should he do so anyway, bringing his power to its very limit, he would have exhausted himself just before the inevitable confrontation with the other Clans and their respective Elders. 

 

It would make him appear weak, and unfitting for the position of the Grand General he wanted to claim as his rightful title. Some would even claim deception or treason should he show up alone, without soldiers and all the Disciples they brought with them on Jia Guo’s stupid expedition. 

 

Hence, Tao Wen decided he would have to exhibit patience and moderation, resorting to travel by a more conventional method - on horseback - and conserving his strength for the more important challenge ahead while the lowly creatures carried him to his destination.  

 

Unfortunately, there was only so much what could be done about this method of travel. 

 

Animals could trot, not to mention gallop, for only so long, with generous time to rest required in between, necessitating breaks in the journey unless a fresh replacement mount was provided at regular intervals. 

 

Even though Hanulbeol barbarians did think of having the relay stations along the major route which would the supply fresh horses to the messengers, most of those had been already abandoned and sacked, providing very little help to Tao Wen’s group, except from perhaps a roof above one’s head instead of the need to make and break camp in the wilderness. 

 

It was the main reason they stopped here - the ruins of an abandoned messenger post - after passing the nearby town earlier today. 

The whole waystation was silent and desolate.  The stables here lay empty, and the stationed soldiers left a long time ago, emptying the storage on their way out, but the outpost itself was  relatively intact with its own watchtower standing sentinel. 

 

Tao Wen couldn’t remember whether this was the place where his own men seized the supply and spare horses on their way, or whether the Hanulbeol savages deserted their post long before that. 

 

It didn’t matter right now. 

 

Even an abandoned and sacked post provided more comfort than a campsite in the wilderness at the side of the road would, not to mention it was considerably more defensible against attacks. 

 

With this pace, Tao Wen calculated he would reach the army - his army - in ten days, even after giving his men an unreasonably generous amount of rest. 

 

There was always the option to speed up if they didn’t spare the horses, but for the time being, there was no reason to do so. 

 

The Elder would have to concede defeat in face of time and distance. Not defeat, a minor setback, he corrected himself. 

 

Still, he cursed Jia Guo’s soul for getting himself killed so far away from the core of his own armies. 

 

While it spoke volumes about the late General’s competence, or rather lack thereof, and could be used as an argument for Tao Wen to seize command, it was also a major inconvenience he had to endure until he could take his rightful place in the army’s leadership. 

 

Tao Wen had dreaded to think what would happen should the other Elders get hold of the relics before he could intervene, but he dismissed the concern for the time being. He found it unlikely that the siege would be lifted before he arrived.  

 

It was, after all, the main reason Jia Guo went on this mad, and ultimately pointless, trip was because he didn’t believe his army would take the city in time and there were easier ways to get a relic, supposedly stolen from the vault and carried out by the defenders.

 

He was wrong regarding the relic, of course. What the now deceased general had sensed were the strange, yet ultimately pitifully weak demons lurking down to the south-east, a spiritual taint, not the Scroll. The fool couldn’t tell the difference. 

 

Still, it played into the Elder’s hand. Jia Guo was dead. The army has been locked in the siege which they would unlikely win without Tao Wen’s guidance, yet unlikely to lose against an enemy so impotent as the Hanulbeol barbarians. They, so far, fell before the might of the Great Jin Empire, and their capital city only barely delayed the inevitable. 

 

It was only a matter of time. 

 

Would the Emperor be satisfied with the results? 

 

Maybe. 

 

Maybe other Elders, ones with the army, would gladly hand over the command if it meant salvaging the situation they were in, rather than face the wrath of the Emperor upon the return to their homeland after their General managed to get himself killed in a foolish chase. 

 

Tao Wen smirked. 

 

Perhaps his ascension was guaranteed, and time, time was on the Elder’s side after all. 

 

It was, after all, but a test of his patience, and he wouldn’t have reached the status he did if he couldn’t calculate the perfect moment to strike. The ideal moment to strike was always one when the opponent was at his weakest. To let the other Elders flounder in their struggle to take a single city would certainly put their skills as commanders in question, thus lowering their worth in the eyes of the Emperor.

 

Tao Wen already had a plan on how to deal with the city that others surely didn’t think of… 

 

However, when he opted to meditate while his men groomed the horses, to gather his strength and pass the time, and to mull over the tiny details which may still ruffle the situation before his inevitable triumph, he found a strange sensation itching at the edge of his mind, urging him to look closer. 

 

A warning, a premonition perhaps, that took a precedent before his struggles for leadership.

 

With idle curiosity, his mind slipped deeper into the trance, like a leaf carried by water downstream, to explore the sensation that had so rudely demanded his attention. 

 

If the energy of life was the water, and the land was the river bed, then the spring itself was wrong, poisoned, corrupted, like a carcass lying in the stream.

 

The taint, one associated with the strange creatures - the demons, as his men insisted - was getting closer. As much as he dismissed the occurrence as the invariable sign of Hanulbeol weakness, like the weak body succumbing to the plague, it was advancing too quickly, following them too closely, almost like the earth spit a new corruption merely a couple of li behind them. 

 

It was strange. 

 

They left that festering wound upon the land and life itself long behind them.

 

Yet it was there, closer than it was a day ago. 

 

Not a mere inkling of being followed by some cowardly scavenger, but a presence, tangible and noticeable, like the smell of rot carried by the wind.

 

This was the same feeling as the one he had back then, closer to the demon’s den, but that place was beyond the horizon, behind the towering mountains in the distance. The taint, however, wasn’t far away. It was getting closer. It was like they had never left. 

 

He should have burned that place more thoroughly when he had the chance..

 

The commotion in his immediate vicinity brought him back to the here and now, to the eerily coincidental events unfolding inside his camp. 

 

Voices. Shouts. 

 

He opened his eyes. 

 

Horses neighed and snorted nervously, stomping the ground with their hoofs.

 

His followers struggled to calm them down, to no avail. 

 

Tao Wen rose to his feet, and scanned his surroundings, trying to locate the source of the commotion. Wolves, lynxes, even bears could live in their forest, but would any of them dare approach so close to the camp? 

 

One stallion rose on his hind legs, kicked one soldier and ran over another as the incompetent fools attempted to stop the terrified creature from fleeing. 

 

The Elder cursed. It was his personal mount, and it was gone, and those just let it escape would pay for their mistake dearly. 

 

His current retinue was all composed by either the supposedly skilled riders with years of experience handling the animals, or his Disciples, trained well above most common warriors, yet they all acted like fools, fresh recruits, or unpromising novices.

 

Tao Wen didn’t tolerate fools. 

 

“Idiots! You…” 

 

His words soon fell to the deaf ears as yet another of the animals broke its hold and fled, running over the same useless cretin that let Tao Wen’s personal horse to run. 

 

The Elder paid no attention to the screams of the wounded man.

 

The pain his underling experienced would serve as an excellent punishment for the incompetence, he thought.

 

However, as yet another animal yanked out the reins from its handler hands and fled, it was obvious that the situation was getting out of hand and consideration of how to discipline the men was suddenly quite unimportant. 

 

He felt it was necessary to investigate the matter. 

 

“Tie those horses down, you idiots,” Tao Wen yelled, gesturing towards two of his Disciples which paid no mind to the disaster and stared blankly at the forest. 

 

“Yes, Great One!” 

 

It was his voice that forced them to spring to action, even if it took a few precious moments to do so, and secured at least a few animals, only to let another couple of startled horses flee.

 

His eyes shot towards the structure - this outpost, even if abandoned and empty before their arrival, had stables!  

 

“Lead them inside and close the stable doors! Block the door if you must!” 

 

It was entirely unacceptable! With each of the horses gone, his plans for the glorious return crumbled, and he didn’t even sense the source of their fear. 

 

Tao Wen grabbed one soldier's shoulder, the closest one caught his ire, and pushed him towards the forest.

 

“Go catch them! Bring me my horse!”  

 

“But …but …Great One! There is something in the forest! Demons, the demons must have come back!” the soldier protested,

 

Tao Wen has enough of this insolence already! 

 

He slapped him with enough strength to knock the former cavalryman down to the ground. There was a soft, yet satisfying crack, and sharp whine from the former rider, which somehow both pleased and angered the Elder at the same time. 

 

Tao Wen, mentally scowling at the shameful display, looked away from the man. 

 

The commotion, however, continued. 

 

There was something in the forest, after all. 

 

It wasn’t a hungry lynx, though. This sensation, the permeating wrongness, was there, almost like they had never left that patch of corruption back in the hills. The Elder raised his eyes from his underlings to the treeline even as the chaos in the camp unfurled even further.

 

The few men wailed in pain, wounded either by the kicking horses, or one crippled by the Elder himself. 

 

It distracted Tao Wen even if only briefly. At least they secured the remaining horses.

 

Did a shadow move?

 

“Silence!”  He ordered, his eyes once again shot towards the treeline. 

 

On the first glance, there was nothing out of the ordinary, no sense of movement among the treeline or the narrow grass fields surrounding the isolated outpost that would justify the panic, 

 

Tao Wen deepened his focus, called on his sharper, awakened senses instead of the mundane ones and finally noticed the soft traces of dim, otherworldly aura, lain hidden in the underbrush. 

 

It brought his attention to other traces, farther away, yet considerably more noticeable, moving through the air with the brisk speed of the falcon. 

 

How could he miss those?

 

Then a piercing shriek echoed above the treeline.

 

A terrified scream sounded from his ranks. Only his Disciples managed any sense of cohesion, while his more mundane soldier simply panicked. 

 

At least they drew their weapons, and the captain of the riders gave the order to form a circle, which wasn’t even obeyed properly, as one soldier broke away and ran into woods. 

 

His men, Tao Wen decided, weren’t guilty of incompetence. They were guilty of cowardice. 

 

He would deal with it in due time. 

 

Another shriek, unnatural, somehow more than the mere sound, somehow attempting to pierce the mind rather than one’s ear. 

 

It came from the direction in which the deserter had run. 

 

Tao Wen didn’t recognize the technique, but it was certainly one aimed at overwhelming the mind and the body. 

 

It didn’t work on the Elder, and neither had his Disciples already preparing for battle suffered any adverse effect, so he dismissed it as weak and useless. Another of the rank-and-file riders, however, fled.

 

Tao Wen would kill the deserters as a punishment for treason and cowardice, if the enemies didn’t catch on to them first. 

 

Then he caught on the shifting air which he had seen before, a power that had been used by the black demon beast that had rushed him back in the hills where Jia Guo and his Adepts had fallen. It confirmed what was obvious at this point. 

 

Same beasts, same attempts at invisibility. This time, the demons were biding their time, lurking what they thought was the edge of the Elder’s senses, satisfied with the discord and panic they caused. 

 

Perhaps they thought they had improved. They had not. Weak, and useless.. 

 

It somehow infuriated Tao Wen even more than the simple audacity to approach him, somehow thinking they would win against the master of the Art, with such feeble bodies, and the cowardly, useless technique they clung to.

 

They were more noticeable now. 

 

Their auras, reeking with the stench of the distant realms beyond this one, revealed their position, while somewhere farther away. Obscured by the greenery, hidden from the mundane senses, a tear had flared with the unseen light of the realms beyond, almost like something tried to pass between the mortal and spiritual realms.

 

It disappeared when he blinked.  

 

Tao Wen drew his blade, taking a defensive stance. 

 

Nothing happened. 

 

More shrieks, a shade in the sky, somewhere on his left, passing above the forested terrain.

 

A flying creature.

 

Movement in the forest. 

 

Tao Wen turned. 

 

The Elder’s blade shot from his hand like the arrow from the bow, carried by the power of the man’s will, and carved a bloody circle through a couple of those black-furred beasts much too reliant upon their ability to hide from mundane eyes, and claimed the life of the winged creature that attempted to flee. 

 

Monster’s bodies disappeared into the ruby mist, leaving nothing behind, not the body, not even the blood, as the sword returned to the risen hand of its master. 

 

The Elder scanned his surroundings once more. 

 

This time, then the rest of the lurkers had charged forward, still hidden behind their weak invisibility, but their attempt to jump the Tao Wen’s Disciples had proven both useless and ineffective, and were also cut down. 

 

What was the point of the technique as the shadow one when one couldn’t face even a Disciple on his own, Tao Wen mused? 

 

The enemy had more tricks up his sleeves as other winged, flying creatures tried to make an approach, sweeping Tao Wen’s surroundings with the sharp, piercing wails that echoed through the mind with the clear intent to overwhelm. 

 

The Disciple collapsed, along with the new soldiers, ones which didn’t flee, as the more and more of the shadowy, black furred demons tried to attack Tao Wen’s back and his flank.

 

They were not a challenge of the Path of the Seven Swords - the blade caught up to them with ease. 

 

A black furred demon made a few feeble, pointless attempts at him, but it was of no concern. 

 

It was where they came from: tears, a hole in reality itself, sickening and unnatural, blinked among the trees, a few more creatures had taken positions at the treeline, not charging. 

 

There was something out there. An attempt to enter the moral realm, a desperate clawing at the edge of reality itself, throbbing under his feet, distracting him from the few stragglers hiding in the shrubbery. 

 

Then, he felt it, a foreboding rumble shaking the thread of the world.

 

Tao Wen jumped up and a mere eye blink later, the earth beneath their feet had erupted into that festering, disgusting wound in the very fabric of reality, swallowing the Disciple standing closest to him.. 

 

The screams of the man echoed on and on, until it died, and the eldritch portal closed itself again.

 

That was it! 

 

Tao Wen understood now. The portals, the rifts, were like the cracks in the wall through which the corruption seeped into the world, and somewhere on the other side, barely noticeable, sat the source, the very root of this foulness that poisoned the land. Peasants may be beneath him, but he did understand that weeds had to be taken out with the root. 

 

Another flying, bat-like monster attempted to dive on him, releasing its mind-shredding scream, only to be silenced by his blade, cutting it down mid-flight. 

 

He caught the sight of another creature, one with much brighter fur, one clearly responsible for those cracks in the air the other demons passed through and: 

 

    Whatever was sending those disgusting demon beasts was at the other end of that tear!

 

There was that presence from before, even if faint, behind this slit, a nebulous, yet distant source of the taint that preoccupied the Elder’s mind earlier only to be dismissed, noticeable when the light-furred demon leaped through the rift.  

The blade carried by the might of the Path had missed narrowly, but it was now more a matter of time. 

 

His Disciples could fend off occasional stragglers. - the demons were very clearly disorganised and low in numbers, relying on their petty tricks to harass him and his men, but this was going to end now. 

 

The Elder would demonstrate what it meant to cross the master of the Path of the Seven Swords! 

 

Tao Wen focused and took a more fluid stance, his hands moving with  perfect precision as his sword, an ancestral blade of the Tao Clan, made a circle around him as he entered the combat trance, preparing to unleash his full might. 

 

More blades, dropped by the more unfortunate soldiers, also rose up from the ground as if carried by the invisible hands, joining the whirling motion, unveiling the full power of the Path of the Seven Swords. 

 

Yet, next time a beast opened the slit to pass through, Tao Wen had to send his blades through. 

 

One sword for each enemy that had arrived, and his own personal one, towards the corrupting presence the Elder had felt behind the shifting, festering wound that was the rift.

 

His personal one, an artefact of considerable power inherited by the clan leaders from generation to generation, jetted towards the target, a focusing point that rooted the taint to this world, while others swept the freshly appeared enemies in one brisk movement. 

 

Dozens of demon beasts pouring through the rift were swept aside by the lesser blades, while his relic one screamed towards the heart and the head of the taint. 

 

He could feel it! 

 

His relic blade, cutting dozens and dozens of creatures, then … 

 

Then it was gone! 

 

The surprise ruined his focus. 

 

Tao Wen mustered every portion of his strength to call the blade back, and his senses could feel the artefact weapon returning to him for the very brief moment until the link between him, forged by the countless years of training, and bestowed upon him by his ancestor, was gone.

 

Gone! 

 

It disappeared!

 

It couldn’t be! 

 

His ancestral blade! 

 

Impossible! Tao Wen was the true Master of the Path of Seven Swords, his blade which could travel one, perhaps two li away from him, bringing death to his enemies, besting archers and swordsmen alike, was suddenly gone! 

 

The vital connection between the sharp mind and even sharper blade had been severed in an instant! 

 

A rift opened again, right above him. 

 

Tao Wen rolled to the side, narrowly avoiding the massive creature that dropped it, only to have to dodge yet another lumbering giant not another moment later. 

 

Tao Wen sent the blades towards the nearest demon beast. 

 

It was a bear-like monstrosity with horns, towering above the humans, almost entirely encased within the full-metal armour of scales, chain and plates. 

 

One sword glanced off the metallic shell. 

 

Another was caught by the demon in its hand. The metal blade melded like ice among the fire.

 

The Disciple used the opening to charge. His slash connected, but the sword just clanged helplessly against the thick carapace of metal, and the swordsman hesitated away the precious moment. 

 

A hornet beat like a giant swung his own oversized weapon. However, when the more nimble Disciple tried to dodge, the demon beast grabbed him, 

 

Tao Wen noticed the long sword lying in the grass and flung it against the beast using his Art, but the bear-demon used the body of the Disciple as a shield. 

 

The human’s scream was silenced by the demon soon after, body crushed in the oversized metal arm. 

 

Tao Wen used the opening to close in. 

 

Punch.

 

Punch.

 

Strikes bent steel, and even made the creature stagger, yet it didn’t fell the beast as it quickly gathered itself.

 

The Elder dodged the brutal slash and knocked the weapon from the demon’s grasp and followed up by a punch directly at the creature’s windpipe where the armour didn’t cover it. 

 

The blow didn’t kill the monsters. 

 

Impossible. 

The creature took a step back, staggered, creating an opening.

 

Tao Wen led a kick to the creature's head. His leg was caught by the armoured hand and the world spun as he was thrown into the forest. His body slammed against the bark of a tree with such force he lost his breath. 

 

It would have pulped a lesser man.

 

Most men, even. 

 

Tao Wen, however, wasn’t a lesser man, his body and the Art cultivated through the years of training, and didn't give up so easily.

 

He coughed and rasped, as he got back on his feet, only to witness the death of another Disciple from the hands of the horned metal-bear. Blood splattered all around as the victim was torn apart.

 

Tao Wen wasn’t afraid. 

 

His first instinct was to charge in, channel his power, gather the blades scattered around the fallen soldiers, and tear the enemies apart in the fury of a thousand cuts. 

 

He was a master of the Art, the Elder of his Clan, and he could still fight 

 

However, before he did, the other bloodied remnants of his disciples landed nearby, and space once again tore open to spit forth dozens upon dozens of new demons, in varied shapes and sizes. 

 

Tao Wen turned around and ran. 

 

There were many things that could stand in the way of man’s ambitions, and being dead was one of them. 

 

He decided to fight another day.