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

floor, surrounding the fight cage. The blond Shogun’s eyes glowed bright blue, and his pale eyebrows lowered.

“Peacemakers, execute everyone in the cage.”

The Shoguns Speak and People Die

THE ROBOTS ROLLED FORWARD. One shoved the pile of kokugikon staffers away from the door of the cage, then threw it open, knocking the dead official across the dirt floor. The rest of the robots started bending and folding like Transformers, their arms shifting into a rifle on the left and a buzz saw on the right.

I tried to struggle, but the pressure was too much. I couldn’t move.

Would Dead Man’s Hand work on robots? What if I tried to take that Ylef Shogun hostage like the Bailiff? Would he call off his execution order or would that make this worse? He would probably crush me like a bug, but if I didn’t do anything, my friends were going to die along with the OSS.

I started to reach out with Miasma.

Immediately, the pressure doubled. Something in my nose popped and blood poured down my lip into the dirt. Red droplets leaked out of my skin like sweat.

Warcry let out a low growl, and I turned my face just enough to see that he was covered in blood-sweat, too.

“Enough!” snarled the white tiger shogun, voice echoing through the kokugikon. “I intended to sign that one, Shogun Connor. If you kill him, the Eight-Legged Dragons will expect the Technol’s right to this year’s champion as reimbursement.”

The Peacemaker robots froze.

“Which one?” the Ylef Shogun—Shogun Connor—asked.

“The human with the Burning Hatred Spirit.”

“Fine. Take him with my apologies, Shogun Genkei.”

Warcry sucked in a ragged breath and relaxed as if the pressure had suddenly disappeared. Red fire fwooshed along his head and shoulders.

“It was these Of Smoke and Silk clowns,” Warcry snarled, pointing at the Bailiff. “An unaffiliated gang from Ghost Town, trying to settle a score with me lads. They’ve got that Ylef cove with the hammers and his crew trussed up on the roof, pinned with the other end of this array.” He grabbed Ripper’s broken necklace out of the dirt and held it up. “If you want to execute someone, do us a favor and kill every last one of the bleeders.”

I shut my eyes. So much for not getting executed.

A soft chuckle from my right got my attention. The Bailiff was conscious again.

“If I may be so very insolent, mighty Shoguns—” That slick snake-oil salesman’s voice was just barely straining under the pressure. “—the OSS may have taken the place of the Quintuple Threat, but we did in fact win every riot this morning, including this last one here. This little ragtag outfit was disqualified the second their flaming pal broke into the cage and interfered with our fight. We’re your rightful riot bracket champs. That is, if the rules the wise Shoguns set forth still apply.”

I wished I could punch that jerk in his brush teeth.

“The Jianjiao will now speak,” said a hooded shogun, his quiet hiss ringing through the kokugikon.

Shogun Connor nodded.

The Jianjiao shogun tipped his hood down toward the cage. “Having seen the cunning required to complete this infiltration under the noses of the Technols’ highly advanced security, we choose to sign the winners of the small gang riot, Of Smoke and Silk. Henceforth they are under provisionary Jianjiao affiliation. Any attacks on them will be treated as hostile to our organization at large.”

“Noted,” Shogun Connor said. “You raise a good point, Shogun Drako. This was a failure on the part of the kokugikon security team.” His eyes glowed again. “Peacemakers, restore the honor of the Technol organization. Execute all kokugikon staff.”

The robots turned on the kokugikon staffers and opened fire. Bullets popped, and the noise of buzz saws rang down the hallways to the bathrooms and outside the arena floor, too. There were a few screams, but those cut off in wet gurgles.

And there was a worse sound, too. Cheering. Laughing. Appreciative whistles. A few people even started chanting, “Tech-NOLS! Tech-NOLS! Tech-NOLS!”

This was a million kinds of wrong and evil. I tried to pump tons of Miasma into my muscles, but it felt like a fist clamped down on my Spirit sea. Sweat and blood trickled out of my pores and onto the dirt floor of the cage as I tried to force my Spirit through whatever was holding it.

When the shooting stopped and the saws ran down, I gave up. I went boneless and let my forehead drop to the cage floor. Every puff of air sent dirt skittering away from my nose and mouth.

Security staffers were littered across the arena floor in pools of blood. In the corner, registration people slumped over their table and lay tangled in the chairs they’d tried to get out of when the slaughter started. The dude who’d been checking dragonfly cameras was flat on his back staring up at the lights. The face of the lady with the glasses who’d stopped me and Warcry the day before flashed through my head. They were all dead, murdered for something that wasn’t their fault.

“Peacemakers, shift this mess,” Shogun Connor said. “Tier-eleven Technols report for work draft to your daimyo. We’ve got a championship match in this arena in two hours.”

Just like that the pressure pinning me in place disappeared. I got up and ran to Kest and Rali.

“I’m fine,” she said before I could say anything. “The bleeding was the biggest problem, and I got it stopped.”

The Bailiff, Ripper, and the other two OSS hooligans, now with their array necklaces off, limped past us toward the cage door.

The Bailiff sent me a wink. “We’ll be seeing you, Smart Boy.”

I scowled and tried to reach for some Miasma, but that fist was still clamped down tight on my Spirit sea.

Across the arena floor, I saw the catfish guy from the subway ossuary leaning against the wall at the mouth of the hallway. When he caught my eye, he nodded.

“Who’s that?” Warcry snarled beside me.

“I don’t know, but I need to talk to him,” I said.