Death Cultivator by eden Hudson (knowledgeable books to read .txt) 📗

nearly as much enhanced strength as it would’ve a month ago. I was a lot stronger than when I’d first gotten dropped on Van Diemann.

“Grab the prosthetic,” I said.

Rali snatched the broken metal leg out of the dirt, then nodded.

“Let’s go,” he said.

He took off at a jog, slow enough that I could keep up, but fast enough that we were putting ground between us and the shield wall.

Running while packing someone on your shoulders isn’t easy, even when your muscles are reinforced. The dead weight bumps and shifts and messes with your balance. Plus, I kept bumping Rali with Warcry’s leg. But we made it off the main street to the wood houses, then the scavenged shacks.

In the sky behind us, the blue-white light from Kest’s shield wall flashed twice, then shut off.

“Spread out!” the Bailiff yelled. “Search the town! They’re around here somewhere!”

Footsteps ran up on us, but when I looked over my free shoulder, I couldn’t see anyone.

“Kest?” Rali hissed.

“Right behind you,” she said. “I’m still invisible. Why did you guys bring him?”

From the tone of her voice, I figured she meant Warcry.

“They would’ve killed him,” I panted.

“So?”

Rali wheezed a laugh. “You’re showing a distinctly Cold Metal disregard for organic life, Kest.”

“I’ve got a regard for life—our lives,” she argued a little breathlessly. “It doesn’t make sense for Hake to risk them on a jerk who was about to kill him five seconds ago.”

I hit Hungry Ghost again to keep my speed and strength enhancements going at top level while my brain tried to wrestle out some kind of explanation about why I couldn’t just leave Warcry behind. The shouts of the hooligans egging me on to kill him rang in my head, mixed with the noise of Blaise’s buddies howling at him to kick my teeth in.

“They’re out here!” a hooligan’s shout chased us into the flat empty dust land. “This way!’

I looked over my shoulder to see how close he was, but almost tripped over my own two feet. Rali caught me, and with an extra burst of Spirit, I righted my balance, shrugging Warcry higher onto my shoulders.

“See?” Kest insisted. “He’s a liability.”

“We’re not leaving him,” I growled.

“Fine,” she said. “I’ll figure something out. You just focus on running for the Shut-Ins.”

“The what?” Rali and I both snapped at the same time.

“We can’t go home,” Kest said. “We knew that when we went after Hake. Everyone in town knows what we look like and where we live. The Shut-Ins’re the only place they won’t follow us. Not while the night sun’s up.”

“Because of chaos creatures,” I huffed, almost yelling. “Remember those?”

“It’s only like an hour to blue sunrise,” she said. “That’s not long. We might be able to hold them off. Probably. We’re more likely to survive the chaos creatures than—”

Brilliant yellow light sent our shadows stretching out in front of us. Mine, Warcry’s, and Rali’s, anyway. Kest’s didn’t show up.

“The Shogun,” I panted.

“Shut-Ins it is,” Rali said, an inexplicable edge of glee in his voice.

“Pick up the pace,” Kest said, her voice dropping back. “I’ll slow them down.”

Ceramic clunked behind me, then I heard her grunt. Something swished through the air.

Whatever it was hit the ground behind us and shattered, detonating like an atom bomb. Orange light flickered against the Shogun’s yellow, and hot air thumped me in the back like a fist. On my shoulder, Warcry grunted unconsciously.

Kest’s footsteps caught up to us. “That was lucky. For a second, I was worried I’d grabbed the lung poison jar and we were all going to die.”

“Fortune’s on our side,” Rali said. “How else could all this have happened on the night the Shogun’s at his weakest? And after we found the ancient cultivator’s treasures?”

“Less talking, more running,” I said, hitting the speed harder. If tonight was Takiru at his weakest, then I never wanted to see him at his best.

The yellow glow from the Shogun’s light showed us the mouth of the Shut-Ins ahead. Down inside, it looked blacker than the center of the night sun.

Pressure hit then, smashing down from above like a giant hand, so Takiru must’ve gotten in range. It wasn’t as powerful as when he’d been standing right beside me, but with the added weight, my legs folded.

Warcry and I hit the dirt like two tons of bricks in a couple cheap plastic trash bags.

Rali hadn’t gone down, but he had stopped running. He grabbed Warcry and pulled the redhead off my back.

“Speaking of that Spirit Damper,” Rali said in a strained voice.

“I don’t want to leave it,” Kest argued. “What if they steal my design?”

She didn’t sound like she was struggling at all. Maybe since Shogun Takiru hadn’t seen her, he hadn’t known to use his pressure trick on her?

“What if they kill us?” I forced out, trying to fight my way back to my feet.

Kest growled in frustration. Metal scraped.

“Brace yourselves,” she said. “You’re about to lose kishotenketsu.”

That rectangular metal box Kest had been working on appeared in the dirt a few feet in front of me. The lid creaked open on the newly welded hinges.

All at once, my Ki-strength and reinforcement disappeared. The healing burn in my OSS tattoo gave out. But the pressure was gone, too.

I sucked in a huge, whooping lungful of air and stumbled to my feet.

“How long will the effect last?” Rali asked, eyeing the approaching hooligans.

“Given the Shogun’s Spirit Ranking, I’d calculate forty-nine seconds.” I couldn’t see Kest, but I could picture her staring down at her HUD. “But better plan for thirty to be on the safe side.”

“G’off me,” Warcry groaned and shoved Rali away from him.

I tried to grab Warcry’s arm and pull him up, but he knocked my hand away.

“What’re you gonna do?” I snapped. “Hop to safety?”

“I’ll bleedin’ crawl.”

“Twenty seconds,” Kest warned.

Rali’s walking stick sliced through the air and cracked Warcry upside the head. The douchebag’s eyes lost focus, and he went limp.

My eyebrows shot up. “What the heck, dude? Nonviolent?”

“Doesn’t count,” Rali said, hooking Warcry’s left