Chapter 907: Inner Conflict


    The days ticked by with the tensions between the two groups slowly lowering. Xiang and Yang no longer went out of there way to by petty and... well the thieves under Ron didn’t really change much. His subordinates seemed to calm down as the days went by, and nobody wasining but they were... it felt so wrong to call thieves professionals... but they WERE.


    On the job they made almost no noise, idle conversation was basically non-existent when they camped for the night. They followed what few orders Ron had for them without question and in a timely manner. Kat knew that many organisations would go to great lengths for such subordinates. Something to note though, was it certainly wasn’t all fear.


    During one of the quieter days, which really should have been a warning, a massive bird swooped down on the group, trying to take them out. Kat prepared herself, but it was a wasted effort. Ron threw a knife so quickly there was a small sonic boom, it sailed straight through the beast’s eye and into the brain. Instead of a graceful dive and clean kill for it...


    The bird smashed into two trees, the trees gave up first, splintering even as the bird continued into the ground and then dug arge trench with its beak. Wings bent and broken at odd angles. Kat couldn’t help but be a little surprised. *Could I fight someone like that?*


    [Yes... but... not while protecting anyone else. You’re fast... very fast... but while you could avoid something small like that... you’d have to be pretty close move anyone else out of the way...]


    *Good thing we didn’t have to fight these guys then...*


    [Yeah... I don’t know what Rank that bird was? Is? Whatever I don’t know how strong it is but that was a deadly throw. No hesitation. I guess if you can throw something that fast you don’t need to worry too much about the air currents but... damn.]


    .....


    *Yeah. Impressive but... that could have been us.*


    [Indeed. I... certainly don’t feel quite as safe just hanging out in the air as I was a day ago... but with enough distance I would be able to dodge. Probably.]


    *I’d really rather you didn’t ever feel the need to dodge THAT.*


    Kat tried not to show any unease at the... aggressive defence from Ron. It helped that a momentter the thieves started to expertly get to work plucking the bird and preparing it to be cooked. Ron gathered everyone around and put on a big cookout. For Ron it was a great way to reinforce two things. His strength, and hispassion. Perhaps not the best way to showpassion but he did share the spiced bird with everyone once it was done cooking.


    This meant that after a week of travel together, when the thieves offered, or rather, Ron made the offer for them, to carry Kat’s group during the night asionally to speed things up... the offer was taken mostly. Kat didn’t need carrying, insisting she’d be fine, and there was no way Kat was giving the job of keeping Lily safe to anyone else. Still, Kat it turned out Kat could keep up without any troubles at all. Though it was a little disheartening for Xiang and Yang. They moved faster being carried.


    Yang dealt with it by reminder herself that this was all for Xuena. A bit of a hit to her pride as a cultivator perhaps, but Yang had stood together with Xuena for longer then she’d been a cultivator. For a friend like that... well... a bit of damage to her pride was a cheap price. For Xiang though... it was a much deeper wound.


    He was finding himself constantly in need of others and it was grating to him. He’d set out with vengeance in mind... and needed a demon to help himplete it. Xiang had insisted Kat barely counted as help. She was sworn to his service after all. What a joke. He just hadn’t wanted to admit that his quest was foolish. That he needed someone else to doplete it for him.


    The fact that he couldn’t remember how things ended. That apparently there was some demon, that clearly wasn’t Kat, that finished things up in the sect. The fact that said ‘demon’ was likely him... or something inside him... it was a bitter pill to swallow. How do you hold your head up when you don’t even know your own mind? Things didn’t get better from there.


    Yang had saved him from the spiders. Reasonable, even expected. He was weak, bound, and poisoned. The worst part was what came after. Xuena was needed to heal him. More people. More strangers he was forced to work with because he was too weak to do it himself. It was one thing to rely on friends but... to cultivate is meant to be a lonely road. To cultivate is to grasp a chance to stand alone at the top. Xiang felt like the only reason he hadn’t fallen off the damned mountain was because strangers ahead of him had tied their own climbing ropes around his waist. Preventing his fall.


    Even his quest to get Xuena back. To repay the debt he’d taken on. Sure they’d never asked for this sort of payment... but Xiang knew it would be a heart demon had he not. He’d set out. To look for a way. To look for a chance. He found it too... in Kat. Again. Xiang was happy at the time, a nice force multiyer, a familiar face. But not really a friend. So he tried, he tried to be as friendly as possible. He tried to make it so that he wasn’t just some weakling clinging to the demon. He wasn’t taking on more debt to clear those he already had. Like a drunken man gambling away his life savings. Getting a loan. And then doing it again.


    Xiang bit back tears as he thought about the swamp after that. A disaster. If Kat wasn’t there he’d be dead. Yang would be dead. Even if he had nine lives... he’d have lost them all. The snake, the poison on both himself and Yang. The understanding that they needed to ASK someone what to do. Then, the stupid insistence they sell the snake. It got them attacked by a band of high-ss thieves.


    Only by the grace of some twisted god and Kat’s strength did they manage to get out of that one alive. He’d seen the bird after all. Dropped in a single throw. Xiang wasn’t stupid. He tasted the bird as they ate. Felt the Qi from its flesh infusing him. That damned bird had been stronger than him. It wasn’t even a contest. Ron simply reacted. A minor inconvenience, a bit of food for the night.


    Now, now they couldn’t even run. They were clearly taking too long for Ron’s taste and now Xiang found himself to be dead weight. Sure he was passed around between the thieves, letting them stay fresh enough to make it through the night and then without sleep the next day... but Kat ran, she watched at night when asked. Yang was at least doing some of the cooking. Am I even worthy of seeking to get stronger?


    Xiang didn’t know anymore. It was a weight that was threatening to crush him. To turn into a heart demon. To stifle his cultivation, possibly forever. Xiang wouldn’t let it solidify. He couldn’t let it solidify into a concrete belief... but the fact he was currently a bigger burden then a sack of rice wasn’t helping matter. At least the rice could feed them in the future. At least the rice could be stored away during transit. At least the rice had a firm purpose.


    What did it mean to be the strongest? Xiang was beginning to think he’d been an idiot for a long, long time. He wanted to punch mountains and sneeze rivers. He wanted a kick to be a new localndmark. He wanted to look down on everyone and know that he could take them all on. At once. These notions of strength were seeming sillier and sillier every minute.


    Kat was strong. She didn’t unt it though. Kat listened, she deferred. Kat used as little strength as it seemed possible for every situation. Sometimes that required a lot, normally a little strength of hers was overkill. Even when Kat actively tried to be intimidating she didn’t really go for it. She didn’t say ‘I am a killer demon with demonic mes’. Kat had pulled out a TINY bit of fire, and simply asked. ‘Do you know’?


    It was as much a challenge as it was a question. Xiang DID know but he felt way too much of that knowing came from seeing Kat in action. He wasn’t sure that just looking at the fire, he’d be powerful enough to tell what a threat it was. It made him think, that in addition to being an idiot... perhaps he was blind as well. In that moment though... his mind was thrown back in time.


    An old gnarled woman. One eye missing and legs shrivelled up like prunes, rocking on a chair in one of the smaller, but nicest houses in town. A cultivator. She must have been, Xiang now knew. She’dughed when he exined his dream to be strong. “Ha! A boy like you? It’ll never happen. You are blind and stupid boy. Give up now, or hope that one day someone rips your eyes out. Perhaps then you can see,”


    Xiang felt something change in that moment. He might still be an idiot. He might not truly realise what the future has in store for him... but perhaps... perhaps the fact that he can see now just how big the world truly is... he might not be quite so blind anymore.