Demon Wolf

“I saw Wolf Hillman,” Esme’s callingjade echoed, an instant before five more names began flashing.

She, along with six other dispatchers, delivered the news of Wolf’s fourth sighting, delighting Marie, who licked her lips and smiled.

Looking at the map divided into hexagonal zones, obsession and yearning burned in her gaze. He’s five sectors away. If he draws one sector closer, I’ll dispatch five hundred disciples to form an inescapable net.

She had the authority to declare priority targets, and Earth Pavilion’s sole core disciple certainly sounded like one. Even without Marie’s personal investment.

“Please come a little closer and enter our web, oh my pretty little butterfly.” She moved the horse-shaped wooden piece yet another sector nearer, onto the hex labeled seventy-three. Then she caressed the figurine.

She initially wanted to use the king figure. However, she did not wish to represent the object of her passion with the most impotent game piece, which depended on the queen and an army of women to protect them. A wild stallion matched her fantasies better.

While Marie fantasized, Wolf stored his callingjade back into his holdingring, unaware of the disturbance he had caused among the Brilliant Gate’s disciples.

Jakob’s not here, either. He sighed. A slight pang of guilt stabbed his conscience, and Wolf hoped the boy was lucky enough to survive the initial culling.

According to my calculations, I should reach the Brilliant Gate’s treasury in three to four hours. My goal is to rob and destroy their hub, which should help Earth Pavilion disciples. Wolf felt no belonging to Earth Pavilion. He did not consider himself a genuine member, but he still believed he owed them. He also considered the weight of the unreciprocated favor would one day hamper his growth.

Besides, during this week, they must have mapped Corpsewood’s outer ring, noting dangerous Monster Beasts, which likely have some useful treasures on them. Guilt weighed Wolf’s mind. He helped strangers while his family suffered, birthing an urge to make his own benefits or the goal of returning home the driving force behind his actions. Aiding others came as an accidental byproduct of his homecoming plans; often stretching plausibility to the limit.

All this, just to ease his guilty conscience. “I have no reason to feel guilty. I really have considered entering the Demon World and repeating Lonely Eagle’s feat of raiding demons before returning home. I just never expected someone would entrap me here.”

Wolf frowned. Is this really a good time for introspection?

“As good as any. The remorse those thoughts fill me with is weighing me so much I awoke from my torpor early.” Wolf finally realized his silent monologue had become a dialog.

His second Mental Aspect had awakened, voicing those doubts. When he focused, the Mental Aspect did nothing, saw nothing but black, but it could add a parallel track of thought.

“I’m still heavily damaged, but I need someone to talk to. And in this foreign world, I trust two people; myself and Silver.”

How’s Silver? Wolf wondered.

“I don’t know. I’m a long way from moving about and checking her state. I guess she’s starving. Now, stick to the subject. Mandy said I must focus on important topics and deal with them, regardless how painful it gets.

“Be honest. I wanted this to happen. I wanted to become a Swordsaint. I know that the key to success rests in the trinity of refinement. One needs a powerful soul, otherwise they will die to soul decay. One needs surging Robur, otherwise they die to old age, or burn ridiculous amounts of V— Qi to extend longevity. One needs overflowing Qi, otherwise they will reach a point where they lack energy to move their powerful body.”

Wolf nodded. I knew I needed this place. I need the mechanism these people call cultivation. Otherwise, I would have wasted away eventually, my mind still nimble, trapped in a healthy, yet immobile body.

“That’s why I don’t resent him. That’s why I made so many excuses defending him these past months. Joy and remorse dulled the edge of my wrath. I feel guilty about Sky, because I will miss her childhood. I feel guilty about Anna, she might die of old age before I return. But that’s about it. Deep down, I’m glad I got stuck here. I want to reach the peak, even if it costs me Sky’s childhood. Even if it means I never see Anna again.”

Wolf’s throat clenched at the thought. He tripped on his foot and tumbled, something he believed impossible ever since he took his first controlled falls people called steps. This admission was like a lightning strike, shaking and singeing his core.

“Remember Dad’s words. Truthspeakers must stay true to themselves. If they delude themselves, they may stray. I can’t believe I needed to face my situation as an impartial outsider just to realize how lost I have become.

“I wanted to be here. I want to reach the top of the world. That is the only way to revive Dad and repay his sacrifice, to live happily ever after. That is the only way to live with dignity and ensure my daughter’s safety. There is nothing wrong with pursuing personal goals, even if they come at the expense of my happiness.”

But I want to spend time with Sky.

“Therein lies the curse of manlings. We desire conflicting impossibilities. We seek happiness at the expense of others because our interests never coincide. And given a choice of my daughter and power I chose the latter.”

No, I didn’t!

“I can’t even say that aloud. I swear, it’s like hormones and whatnot turn the one controlling the body into an idiot.”

Wolf bit his lip at the odd thought. As far as he knew, he was the only one with a will detached from his body. I tried to enter the rifts back.

“Oh, really? Big Brother said repeating the same action while expecting a different result is a facet of madness. Even if I somehow returned, I would’ve jumped into another rift in a hundred years. So, it’s a moot point. I desire to be here. I need it.”

The Mental Aspect controlling the body grew speechless. He kept commanding the legs, planting them one before another while running towards Brilliant Gate's camp.. His heart raced, and his head spun from the realization.

“And yet, I didn’t ask myself the most important question,” the second Mental Aspect continued. “Why could Lonely Eagle return, but I can’t? He is my past self, so what’s the difference between us?”

Wolf stumbled and fell, tripping on nothing.

“I’ll leave the nasty questions for when I can move. In about half a year, I will be able to drag myself up the dais and sit on the throne. Until then, this web of illogical coincidences and oddities will have to wait.

“Right, I should try to burn Anima as little as possible.”

Wolf snorted at the notion. I will use it as often as needed. I won’t risk my neck to save myself several days of recovery. I’m nowhere nearly as injured as Dad was. He couldn’t even burn Anima to snap himself out of sleep in the morning.

“I shouldn’t waste it either, unless there’s a genuine emergency. I squandered Anima fighting weaklings, with enough time to spare to consider the moral weight of taking their lives.”

I’m playing it safe. It’s several seconds, a minute at worst, every few hours. Better that than die indignant and lose everything…

Wolf’s Mental Aspects continued arguing, thinking, and trying to find the optimal path towards his desired future by accurately determining his stance and emotions in the present. Like most madmen, Wolf found great solace in having himself to talk to. The dialogue between his parallel trains of thought gave him greater insight than his previous monologues, in which he indulged out of habit.

Four hours passed without incident, when Wolf abruptly frowned.

I’m being watched. He turned to face a towering tree’s lowest branch six meters away.

The bough stood at his two o’clock, thicker than a man, and there was nothing conspicuous about it. And yet, Wolf sensed a glare of intense desire and greed.

Whoever’s hiding there isn’t a good person, and they certainly don’t wish me well.

In the span of time it took for Wolf to blink, he had reached his decision and summoned a disposable ax into his hand.

Before Coralie realized what had happened, the massive chunk of steel appeared before her face, splattered her brain, and reaped her life.

The headless corpse fell to the ground out of thin air, but Wolf remained unfazed. He trusted his senses enough to pinpoint the source of such disgustingly hostile intent focused on him.

“I wonder why manlings are so much easier to detect than Monster Beasts?” His idle Mental Aspect asked while Wolf approached the body.

He fished out the woman’s callingjade and his pupils dilated in surprise. Unlike most other callingjade he had found, this one was full of green names.

Wolf scrolled down, counting one hundred and seventeen names, most of which started with ‘Senior Apprentice Sister’.

I guess I’m close.

 

sleepydad88

In case you were wondering why Wolf took his entrapment as well as he did. :)

In other news, the story is not doing as well as I hoped. Coupled with being jobless for a month now, it stopped being a refuge for me and became a source of stress. If things keep going like this, I believe I will put it on a hiatus for a while. I don't have any details for now.