Unintended Cultivator-Chapter 12Book 11: : Steps
No one spoke. No one moved. The only person in the room other than Sen who seemed even remotely relaxed was General Mo. He looked calm, and there was a quiet sense of satisfaction radiating from the man. Sen wondered what kind of bad blood had been between the Mo and Li. He supposed that Mo would probably explain if he asked, but Sen decided that it wasn’t really his business. It wasn’t like knowing would change anything. He’d wanted to gauge the state of things in the army, but the entire matter had gotten much bloodier than he’d originally intended. He hated to acknowledge it, but he’d been the primary cause of that.
There had been other, less drastic ways to handle the situation. It wasn’t as though there was anyone in the room who could have stopped him. At the same time, he’d listened as one general tried to arrange the assassination of another. Was there any practical end to something like that other than death? He didn’t think there was. He supposed that he didn’t have to let General Mo kill General Li. However, he had the sneaking suspicion that one of them was going to end up responsible for the other’s death, regardless of anything he did or didn’t do.
Now, they were all waiting for him to say something. He let them wait. Almost everyone in the room had gotten far too comfortable with the idea of their own power, and that it insulated them from repercussions. Part of him wondered if that applied to him as well. Yes, he thought. It probably does. Unfortunately, he didn’t have the luxury of acting otherwise. He could afford to be kind to the poor and helpless because the powerful didn’t think they mattered. They’d see it as a whim or eccentricity on his part. He couldn’t afford for the people in positions of power to believe that there was any crack in his resolve.
With them, he had to be everything they expected a tyrant to be. Cold. Decisive. Ruthless. He couldn’t be personally in charge of everything, which meant he had to place some authority into others’ hands. That included the hands of people he didn’t know and maybe even the hands of some people he didn’t entirely trust. To do that and not have it turn into a disaster on him, they had to believe that he would kill them for acting outside of his expectations. And, if they did it anyway, he had to follow through. He thought that General Kang had gotten that message pretty clearly. The man still wore an expression of disbelieving horror and fear, although it appeared he was starting to get himself under control again. Sen couldn’t suppress his sigh of frustration at everything, only to see half the people in the room flinch.
“This kingdom is on the very edge of collapse,” said Sen.
His voice set off another wave of flinches that he chose to ignore.
“In fact,” he continued, “it’s a kingdom in name only. Countless people have died. Dozens and dozens of villages and towns have been destroyed. As of now, this city is one of only two places that I am confident remain firmly under human control within our borders. Other cities still stand, but they do not stand unscathed. And given the utter failure of the kingdom and the army to protect them, I could hardly fault them for declaring themselves independent.”
Sen felt a moment of remorse when he saw Jing cringe at his words. As the king, it had ultimately been his responsibility to protect the people. Jing knew as well as Sen did that he’d had no realistic hope of achieving that goal, but it was the kind of failure that could drown a conscientious man with guilt. Sen also knew he was only telling part of the story. Dealing with spirit beasts had always been the domain of cultivators. It was a responsibility that they had equally failed to fulfill. Master Feng might have been particularly well suited to discover what the spirit beasts had been planning, but he wasn’t the only one who could have done it. He was just the only one who had bothered. freeweɓnovel.cѳm
From the looks of shock and despair around the room, including the faces of the generals, it was clear that what everyone was hearing was new. That was a relief. Sen had tried very hard to keep the worst of the information contained to himself and to Jing. People knew that there had been attacks across the country, but they hadn’t been provided the details. Some of that secrecy had been in preparation for this moment, but mostly it had been to avoid shattering the meager hope the people in the city had scraped together through sheer determination. Sen knew that hope was a terrible, double-edged blade at the best of times. Still, depriving people of hope might be the very thing that pushed humanity into its final destruction. Sen looked around the room again, meeting eyes, before he spoke again.
If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
“I will not hold the people in this room wholly responsible for this state of affairs. You could not be expected to fight spirit beasts and win. Not with the kind of numbers they have attacked with. But make no mistake. You are not blameless. Based on what I’ve seen in this room alone, it’s clear that this nation’s generals are, with few exceptions, more interested in their own power than fulfilling their duties. That. Ends. Now. The first step in surviving this war is securing our borders. That means that the armies will march. They will help me and the other cultivators purge this nation of spirit beasts. We will restore this kingdom to order.”
“Lord Lu,” said a hard-faced man from Mo’s camp.
Sen looked at the officer, who paled a little but didn’t drop his gaze.
“Yes?” asked Sen in a neutral tone.
“Can we do this? Is it even possible?”
From someone in General Kang’s group, Sen might have read those questions as an early attempt to undermine the very idea of marching the armies. He didn’t think that this man was trying to do that. He looked like he wanted to believe that the war could be survived, even won, but didn’t quite dare hope that it was true. This man was looking for something to cling to in a world that no longer made any sense to him. Sen took a breath before he answered.
“Yes. It can be done. It will not be easy. It will not be bloodless,” he said, turning his gaze to stare at Kang and his cohorts, “but it can be done. You fear the spirit beasts, as you should. They are powerful and dangerous. However, as I showed you all… As your men learned on the very walls of this city… They are not invincible. They can be brought down with courage, steel, and qi. If we are brave and the heavens favor us, we can win.”
“I… Thank you, Lord Lu,” the man choked out, tears shining in his eyes.
Sen inclined his head to the man. Kang, clearly thinking the chastisements were over, stepped forward.
“Lord Lu,” he said. “Armies do not march in the—"
“Be silent,” snapped Sen, “Or I will finish what I started with your assassin.”
Kang’s eyes went wide. It wasn’t clear if the man was stunned that Sen had openly exposed his treachery or that he’d been so clearly dismissed. Kang’s eyes moved, almost of their own volition, to where General Mo was standing. Mo’s posture hadn’t changed, but Sen doubted he’d sleep comfortably again after seeing someone look at him with eyes that cold. Sen carried on like he hadn’t noticed.
“The armies will march when I am ready for them to march,” said Sen. “It is your responsibility to ensure that they are properly prepared and outfitted for that march.”
“Lord Lu?” asked a respectful General Mo, his eyes never leaving the increasingly nervous Kang.
“Yes?”
“Do you mean to march all of the soldiers?”
“No. The capital must be defended. I will not empty it of soldiers and cultivators just to come back to find it in ruins.”
“You said that securing the kingdom is the first step. That means that you see a next step. What is that step, if I can ask?” asked Jing.
Sen would have preferred to keep this information to himself for a time. Unfortunately, he had no idea just how far and wide Master Feng and Uncle Kho had gone to proclaim him the tyrant over – Sen had to suppress another sigh at the thought—everybody on the continent. It would be obvious to everyone soon enough, so he decided he might as well just come out with it now. After all, the people in this room who survived a year would become the core leaders who operated beneath him.
“Humanity cannot survive divided. It simply can’t. No single nation has the resources or power necessary to defeat the spirit beasts.”
Sen didn’t personally know that to be true, but his teachers had assured him that it was absolutely the case. Mo had finally turned to look at Sen directly. He could see in the old general’s eyes that he’d understood the implication. Mo just didn’t look like he quite believed that Sen meant to follow through on it. For everyone who hadn’t understood, Sen made his intentions clear.
“We will unite all of the nations on this side of the Mountains of Sorrow. We will drive the spirit beasts out of their wilds. We will cut them down. We will drive them into the sea. We will do whatever we must until they are no longer a threat here.”
“And then?” asked Mo in a hushed whisper that straddled awe and fear.
“We will cross the Mountains of Sorrow. We will take the continent. We will find the Beast King, and we will end him.”
