39 – Eyes Bigger Than Your Stomach

Smoke was at my side in a flash, the stupor of the magic music vanishing in an instant. I rose to my feet, sighed, and dusted the front of my trousers.

So much for a quiet evening in the woods.

I’d been resting my back against the crate and now I was well aware of its presence. I’d have to keep my cargo safe, I was in no mood to make a second trip to Low Moon so quickly. Kiri, meanwhile, had not moved from his seated position.

“Alright,” I said, forcing a sigh. “What’s your story, then? You one of those fucking yokai I’ve been warned to watch for?”

One would think, after over four hundred years of life, it would be hard to be surprised by anything. But, from time to time, Kiri of the Black Music still found something to shock him. A foreigner just... ignoring the thrall of his music, which had once quelled armies and disabled even seasoned cultivators? That was very new indeed.

Of course he had smelled the qi off the foreigner, well before he even saw the campfire. But it had been only a buzz, power at rest, and he’d rarely been impressed by the power of human cultivators.

He raised his shamisen, and it suddenly vanished in a plume of shimmering smoke.

Killing this man, at first, had simply been a matter of sustenance. Swallowing the qi he had sensed, after a bit of a hungry spell. Now, however, it was a point of principle. He simply couldn’t allow anyone to live if they could just... ignore his music. That just would not stand.

“I am indeed Kiri. And you have guessed true, I am a yokai. Though that perhaps... undersells who I am. What I am. You stand before on of the great assassins of the Demon King.”

If the name meant anything to the foreigner, he said nothing on it.

Though Kiri had no eyes to speak of, he did not need him. The world in his mind’s eye was outlined in sharp white lines on a field of endless blackness, including the man before him and his pet beast. The latter had qi, doubtless a spirit beast, but the man...

Well, his qi churned in his breast like a blazing kiln, and the heat around him was getting stronger and stronger. It spoke of some profound self control that the air around him did not ignite.

Odd. Kiri had faced all manner of cultivators, but never one quite like this.

Perhaps this was just how men in the westlands cultivated?

He’d heard stories, certainly, of lone figures who dwelled in towers, their qi focused almost entirely on range as opposed to martial techniques.

“It’s usually much easier to do this with people who don’t fight back, but now that I think about it, it has has been a long time since I enjoyed a bit of exercise. So come on then...” His grin broadened, the power welling up inside of him.

Shadows rose up in a ring around him, plants and grass dying in the presence of that miasma, and from that blackness slithered two oily tentacles tipped with large, toothy maws.

“Show me what you can-”

The hellcat slammed into him like a cannonball, launching him off his feet.

Smoke moved so quickly that even I was taken by surprise, the cat a jet black blur that struck Kiri like a thunderclap. The ground shuddered, Kiri’s slim body shattering and uprooting several oak trees, and he was only halted when he shattered a boulder the size of a trader’s wagon.

“Keep away from Father!” he snarled.

“Smoke-” I warned, but the hellcat was already bounding toward him. I scoffed, brow wrinkling in annoyance, and started after him. I held my right hand outward, coils of flame racing down toward my fingertips until it formed into a broadsword of smoking black steel.

“I’ve had a long damn day, Kiri,” I called into the dark. “Accosted twice, just for going about my business. Believe me when I say that my patience has hit its limit. This is the only chance I’ll tell you to leave”

Laughter answered me, high and mocking.

I sighed. He mentioned serving a ‘Demon King’, and briefly I was reminded of some of Novos’ worst loyalists. Those who took a wicked glee in the cruelty, the warfare. True believers, one might say. Seemed I’d found another breed of true believer.

Smoke was quick, darting from point to point with each impact of his claws kicking up a resounding tremor that had Kiri staggering. His mouth was set in a grimace, angry veins rising from the sides of his neck.

"Annoying creature." He swung his hand in a chop and Smoke deftly dodged it. A feint, I realised all too late, as one of the toothy maws knifed through the air and caught him by the leg. Smoke yelped, teeth digging into stone-hard flesh, and he was flung away, crashing through several trees with a noise like a landslide.

I caught up before the thin man could make a follow-up, and launched a series of swift slashes at him. But he was quick, weaving the blows and contorting his body at inhuman angles.

I could hear Smoke rising from far behind me, a feline snarl rising in his throat. A blow like that would only have winded him, but he was smart enough to keep his distance for now, wait for a proper opening to make a move.

A strike caught me in the chest, sent me skidding. Strong, for someone so scrawny, I actually felt it. More blows came my way, swift and fierce, and I was pushed onto the backfoot, either dodging them or batting them aside with my sword. Tendrils of inky darkness rose up around me, each one harder than steel.

"Come now, foreigner," he hissed, his voice high and mocking. "Surely you won't make this boring for me?"

One of the tendrils whipped my way, the gaping maw aiming at my shoulder. I knew how demons fought. Those who liked a fight, at least. They were sadists to their core, relishing in inflicting pain. I had no doubt this one wanted to drag things out, death by a thousand cuts. How unfortunate he'd picked a poor target for it.

The blazing edge of my sword swept up, slicing the tendril, and the fanged head fell away with a dying shriek. It dissolved away before it could hit the ground, like mist in the morning sun.

Kiri recoiled, eyeless face contorting in confusion. That was a look I always liked to see on wizards. Shock writ large on their faces.

"You want excitement, then, is that it?" I growled. "Fine. I hope you have more than you can stomach. But don’t cry to me when you choke on it."