This Venerable Demon is Grossly Unqualified

Su Li hadn’t known what to expect, when she was awoken by a knock at her door. It was barred, of course. As were the windows. No disciple too poor to afford protective formations slept with their windows open. Not that her shutters were sturdy enough to keep out a determined mortal, let alone her fellow disciples, their slats ill-fit and half rotted.

She rolled out of bed, grabbing her father’s sword. She drew it silently, positioning it behind the cover of the door, ready to thrust. She hated that she’d practiced this. In one smooth motion, she threw the bar aside, cracked the door, and stepped back just far enough to avoid any sudden attack.

“What?” Su Li cringed as she spoke. The word just snuck out, in her bleary confusion.

Fang Xiao was quite possibly the last person she expected to see standing at her door in the middle of the morning. He looked perfectly groomed, despite the early hour, his silly impractical hairstyle as flawless as ever.

“Get dressed. Elder Hu needs you.”

Su Li flushed, at the reminder she was only wearing her inner robes. Her stomach fluttered, first in fear, then in excitement. Elder Hu wouldn’t be in danger. She was the last person he’d need if he was. But whatever was going on, she was important enough an inner disciple had come to fetch her. She slammed the door and quickly threw on her robes.

She relaxed, as she opened the door fully and saw that Fang Xiao wasn’t alone in the clearing at the center of her residence block. Despite the late hour, disciples gathered in twos and threes in yards and doorways, chattering like old drunks. Fang Xiao had a good reputation, but the only true safety in the outer sect was in numbers. It was in the dark corners and secluded groves that bad things happened to the naive.

Something had happened. But why was Fang Xiao, of all people, here for her?

“Someone killed an outer disciple and staged the body to look like one of Elder Fan’s victims.” The chatter quieted, as every ear in the courtyard began listening in. “Elder Hu has ordered that every outer disciple who might have seen something be interrogated. He’s begun interviewing everyone who lives near training ground six, or was seen by another disciple near the area in the late hours of last night.”

What? But she hadn't- “As his disciple, you should be there to assist him.” Fang Xiao continued. “Walk with me, I’ll explain further on the way.”

Her mind raced. It was safe, probably. Fang Xiao had invoked her master’s name, in front of a dozen witnesses. If anything happened to her, there would be no way for him to escape responsibility for it.

She followed him into the dim morning sunlight, heading towards the training grounds at a light jog.

“I haven’t spoken to him since I informed him about the killing. But he's begun deputizing disciples who were present at the scene to handle organizing the outer sect.”

Su Li was confused. Why was Fang Xiao inserting himself in this? Was he hoping to curry favor with Elder Hu? Elder Hu had never mentioned so much as knowing who he was, they’d only ever discussed him in passing, after the embarrassment she’d made of herself at his party.

“But, why did you come to get me?”

“Elder Hu and I share some common interests.”

“What interests?”

“Ask him. If he hasn’t told you, that’s his business. I simply wish to see a killer brought to justice, and so I am supporting Elder Hu’s efforts in what small ways I can.”

Ah, she saw his meaning now. He wasn’t merely currying Elder Hu’s favor, he thought he already had it. Of course Elder Hu had other students. If he was teaching her, surely he was also teaching someone more talented. Fang Xiao just didn’t want it publicly acknowledged, for whatever reason.

No. No, that was the wrong way to think about it. She’d cast her own insecurities onto Elder Hu too many times. He’d answered every doubt she presented to him with a warmth and care that was completely unlike his public reputation. Elder Hu had told her that she was worth teaching. To wallow in pity at her lacking talent would be to spit upon his judgment and benevolence.

If Fang Xiao too had proved himself worthy, then she would simply have to prove herself worthier.

“So, who died?” Su Li asked blithely. She’d broken down crying, the first time a member of her class of initiates had been butchered on a hunting trip. “And why is there any doubt about who killed them? If it happened at the training grounds, how did they escape the sect master’s eyes?”

“Those are more questions for Elder Hu. I might be better informed than your neighbors, but Sect Master Meng only deigned to speak with the elders, when he put in an appearance.”

It's incredible how lonely it can be, being surrounded by hundreds of people. It’d begun with two. Xiao Xifeng and Han Yanlin, the pair of disciples I’d found skulking around the body. After I’d split them up and interviewed them separately, I’d put them to work rounding up the rest of the outer sect. They’d taken to bossing their peers around like fishes to water.

Reading between the lines of their testimony, I rather suspected the two were secretly dating. They insisted it was a ‘friendly rivalry’, but friendly rivals sparred maybe once a week, not every other day for hours at a time. If it was an act, it was an incredible one. They all but oozed that special sort of teenage awkwardness, when everyone but the two of you realized that you’re already a couple in all but name.

It was cute, watching the two of them bickering about organizing the stream of disciples flowing in and out of the house I’d commandeered was a bright spot in this long, dreary, morning.

I hadn’t cleared them, I didn’t have sufficient evidence to clear anyone without an airtight alibi at this stage. But they weren’t at the top of my list, and I’d needed someone to do the grunt work.

Once I’d decided that I was going to interview anyone who might have seen anything, the entire world had simply reconfigured itself to make it happen. I’d wandered into one of the little neighborhoods of small cabins where the more established outer disciples lived with two strangers shadowing me. They’d turned out houses, organized people into lines, all with minimal input from me. One disciple had volunteered his house, on account of possessing the luxury of a full dining set. Then two had become four, when Su Li and Fang Xiao had simply shown up, the former still a little bleary from having just been woken up. Four had rapidly become a dozen, as the first four deputized others I’d already spoken with. The small neighborhood had swelled with people, as hundreds of disciples were roused from bed, organized into lines, and one by one called in to speak with me.

This had all been my idea, but now that I was waist deep in the process, I was terrified. I had no idea what I was doing. I’d never investigated anything before, most of my knowledge on the subject came from police dramas and browsing wikipedia. But I didn't need answers, just leads. Something that other elders with their magical investigative techniques could latch on to.

I watched the latest disciple sweat. Literally. The poor man was one of those stress-sweaters.

“I… I think I saw Li Qiao there as well.” He stammered. “He passed by towards the end of the rat’s hour.”

I scratched down another tally mark on my notes. Li Qiao had been seen within a thousand feet of the scene by more than a dozen people. Almost all of them put him as having passed by closer to the rat’s hour though, which encompassed midnight. My tentative timeline suggested the deed had been done two to four hours after that, in the early morning. The constant conversions between the two hour zodiac hours they used here, and the shorter one twenty-fourth of a day hours I was used to was starting to become second nature. I needed to stop doing that. Start thinking entirely in terms of the local clock. The killing had been between the ox’s and the tiger’s hour.

“Did you see anything else abnormal that night?” I asked, the words all but a script at this point. I was trying to move through these as quickly as I could, I’d been at it for almost five western hours already and only completed about eighty of them. I’d already begun pawning disciples who were neither mentioned by previous testimony, nor claimed to be at the scene, off on my helpers for their first interviews.

For all the power of an elder, I could still only talk to one person at a time.

A drop of sweat rolled down… Who was this guy again? Luo Cheng, according to my notes. An outer disciple loosely affiliated with the Beastblood Peak, who hadn’t earned a residence there yet. A drop of sweat rolled down his forehead, as he visibly racked his brain.

“It was quiet. More quiet than normal. There are some birds in the outer sect that sing even at night, but they were all quiet last night.” He finally said.

I notched another tally mark, this one next to ‘Eerie Silence’. That was the fourth disciple to mention an eerie quiet at the scene prior to the killing taking place. It was vague, but significant enough I’d put it in my executive summary for the other elders. I added his name by the phrase, that bit with the birds was more detail than I’d gotten from the others.

“Master Hu.” Su Li said, peaking through the door. I wondered if that was the first time she’d ever addressed me as master in public. “Elder Shi has requested your presence, he says he’s ready to begin preparing the body.”

I very deliberately did not smile. It would have been macabre, and out of character besides. But I desperately needed a break from talking with strangers. It was exhausting, in a way that running for days had not been.

“Thank you for your time, Disciple Luo. You will be notified if I have further questions, you may return to your duties.”

Return to his sleep, more likely.

“Disciple Su.” I continued, rising from my chair. “Work with Fang Xiao to finish interviewing the outer disciples that have already gathered. Be sure to note down any who are alleged to have visited training ground six between midnight and early morning. Also list anyone known to be a friend or enemy of the late Disciple Chang. I don’t think this was personal, but we’ll want to talk to them in more detail later.”

A female disciple in all white met me outside. She was pale, paler even than what was considered beautiful here, blue veins standing out starkly beneath skin the color of glass noodles. From the material of her robes, and the grace of her movements, I suspected she was an inner disciple. Despite her cultivation, she had dark shadows under her eyes, and a sort of reddish-purple tinge around the tips of her fingers. She was no corpse bride, but the overall impression wasn’t exactly one of health either.

It left me wondering, how closely exactly the disciples of Elder Shi toed the line between life and undeath.

“Follow me.” She commanded tersely. I obeyed in silence, happy to have a guide to my destination. She was fast enough that only a few minutes later we were standing once more before the great gate and its undead guardians.

Now, after feeling the weight of what Sect Master Meng was, I could tell the death cultivator standing atop the gate was the same sort of being. Those two were the first time in this new life that I'd stood in the presence of beings that were… more than me. Void-Shattering, the scrolls called it. Some instead used the name of Spirit Venerable, or even Immortal Bone Creation, but the names all meant the same thing. The last realm, before immortality. The names felt trite, compared to the sheer weight those beings exerted on the world. I hated it, hated the way their mere presence left the taste of rot on my tongue, left the very air in my lungs heavy and oppressive.

Was it any wonder that cultivators were so motivated to rip and tear their way to the heavens, after experiencing what it was like to stand in the presence of something that was more than you in such a fundamental way that its mere existence threatened to erase you?

We crossed beneath the old monster, and like the ants we were, it allowed us to pass.

My sword itched, as if it were a fifth limb.

As we passed farther from the death cultivator, the emotions it inspired slowly faded. I wondered how Elder Shi controlled it. If he even controlled it at all.

The inner disciple led me deeper and deeper into the peak. We climbed its surface for a mile, then passed into a cave. For every step we ascended, we also moved one step deeper into the center of the mountain.

Eventually, I was led into what was clearly a mortuary. Amidst stone chambers topped with bodies in various stages of dissection, stood Elder Shi.

His robes were somehow as spotless as ever, vibrantly white even in the yellow light of candles.

“Elder Hu!” He greeted with a joy that felt as genuine as it felt inappropriate. “I’m so pleased you were able to join me, in our humble temple to the oldest of mysteries.”

“Elder Shi. It is an honor to visit your peak.”

He stood before a great stone table, the body of the late Chang De stretched out atop it. His chest had been cracked open, even more of his flesh carved away since I'd last seen him.

“You may leave us, Disciple Hao”

The unsettling woman retreated in silence, leaving us alone with the body.

“I see you’ve already begun your work.”

“Yes, I saw no sense in waiting before beginning the first stages of preservation and infusion. I’ll be passing his body along to lesser refiners later. With no soul remaining, he has no chance of awakening in death, there is little reason to dedicate more than perfunctory effort towards refining his corpse, but less sense still in squandering what potential does remain.”

“I see.” I lied. There was a lot there to chew over later.

“You were right, that he was attacked from behind. The greatest congregation of death qi is present in that wound, the least in the great hole in his chest.”

“The removal of his heart was posthumous then?”

“Almost certainly. But then, you didn’t come for confirmation of the obvious. Hold these retractors for me, please.”

Gingerly, I took the thin steel handles from Elder Shi.

“Pull.” He instructed, as he cut lower with a thin knife. I pulled the abdominal walls even further to the sides, as his other hand dove into what remained of the poor young man’s intestines. The squelching noises his fingers made as they rooted around were the stuff of nightmares.

“The core of his cultivation should have been in his middle dantian, but even at such a modest realm, there should be signs of development in his upper and lower dantians as well. More in the upper, considering how subtle an art the Empty Breath is. I haven’t opened his head up yet, but look here.”

Elder Shi pointed with his free hand, lifting the folds of some structure I didn’t recognize with the back of his knife. Thin black marks like electrical burns stood out starkly against the dark pink flesh.

“He has qi burns all along his principal lower meridians. Unless he’s been cultivating another primary method, I don’t know what sort of internal technique would have caused that. I think it’s far more likely that his killer absorbed more than just his soul.”

“You think he stole Chang De’s cultivation as well?”

“Perhaps. There was little to be worth stealing in that regard. Anyone capable of performing such a technique could no doubt easily reach the third level of the first realm in short order on their own. What impresses me is the violence and thoroughness of the technique. To rip a soul from its housing while below core formation is remarkable on its own, but those burns suggest that the technique bears similarity to a soul-search or even a furnace absorption. He might have taken memories, a portion of his cultivation base, or even an elemental affinity from the victim.”

He paused, thinking.

“I have no doubt the technique has most deleterious effects on its wielder. To make it function in the hands of a neophyte, it likely requires a most violent manipulation of the attacker’s soul, to say nothing of the dangers of absorbing another soul into their own. But even with such limitations, it is a most remarkable art.”

“I see. Thank you, Elder Shi. This is very useful information.” I lied again. What was I supposed to do with this?

“I usually find the dead more interesting than the living. But I think there is much I could learn from whoever invented that technique. Or even from a disciple with only the most basic understanding of it.”

Was that a request?

“I think that a great many people will be very interested in Chang De’s killer, when we find him.”

Elder Shi nodded.

“True, too true. But, perhaps Elder Liang and our esteemed Sect Master will not dispose of this one so quickly as his late master. I would not object to an opportunity to put my own questions to him, before he meets his end.”

“I will keep that in mind.” I said. “But, might I ask that you in return refrain from spreading the sordid details of this technique farther than necessary? It strikes me as exactly the sort of thing that might inflame fear and greed among those of poor character.”

“Why Elder Hu, you seem to have read my mind. It’s always pleasant to see one’s juniors taking responsibility for the moral probity of the masses. I would hate to see such a temptation placed in the hands of those who might be foolish or desperate enough to use it. But, there is much that could be learned from the principles of soul manipulation that must underpin such a fell art. Why, it makes a man wonder if such principles might be turned towards the cause of waking the dead from their slumbers, before they drink of Lady Meng’s brew, and forever shed their attachments to their last life.”

“I could see the benefits of such an art.” I said mildly, panicking internally. I was out of my depth here. I had no idea what the implications of such a thing would mean for the balance of power in the sect, let alone the moral implications of living on as a death cultivator, rather than reincarnating.

On the other hand, I didn’t want that knowledge getting out either, and alienating Elder Shi, who was apparently old enough to consider me his junior, felt fraught as well.

“Tell me, Elder Hu. What do you think of death?” He asked, withdrawing his hand from Chang De’ stomach. It was once more eerily spotless. “I’ve not had the pleasure to speak with you at length before, but from reputation alone, I’ve no doubt you’ve seen enough of it.”

That was a heavy question, considering who was asking.

“In my youth, I was fond of saying that I intended to live forever, or die trying.” I began, speaking as honestly as I could within the identity of Hu Xin. “I think that’s a sentiment all cultivators can appreciate to some degree. All of us strive for true immortality, even if most of us will one day be forced to accept that we will never achieve it.”

I swallowed.

“I once heard a sage say that death is the last enemy that will be destroyed. I do not agree with him, not entirely. But I do agree that death is an enemy, to be fought to the last, only ever accepted when he comes in the surety of his victory. I’m not convinced that the existence of a death cultivator is preferable to reincarnation. But, were my own lifespan at its end, and someone offered me such a choice, I am not certain I would reject it either. It is an ugly thing, death, such a final conclusion to our lives.”

“An interesting perspective.” Elder Shi said, wiping his thin knife, an implement that looked as much a butcher’s tool as a surgeon’s. Unlike his hands or robes, the little white silk napkin immediately stained a brilliant red, as it drank down Chang De’s blood. “It pleases me, that you are honest that you do not yet see the beauty in my art. There is much I can show you, of the beauty and horror of death, if you would open your eyes to see it.”

“I would be a fool to dismiss the teachings of one as learned as you out of hand.”

“Good. Bring me that saw, then. Let us see if Chang De’s upper dantian suffered the same damage as his lower.”