“I hope,” the man cut in, “that you’re not implying that the king is mad?” He stepped toward the city lord, only stopping once he was a foot away. “The kingdom is preparing for war, my dear city lord. War is expensive, both in money and lives. We cull to strengthen ourselves, to strengthen our kingdom. Everyone must contribute.”
The city lord gulped. His sword arm bulged, and his hand clenched and relaxed repeatedly before he finally calmed himself. He closed his eyes. “Just choose and be gone.”
“Splendid,” the man said. He looked over the cultivators, carefully inspecting them. His eyes lingered on Cha Ming and the many protectors, but ultimately the man looked away. Cha Ming suspected it wasn’t worth his effort to pick on the strong.
“For the sake of fairness, we will be picking randomly,” the lead blood master said, his voice reaching the entire crowd. “If any of you try to resist, we will find and execute all your relatives, your friends, and anyone who lives within a city block of you. If a hundred resist, we will cull the entire city.” He lifted a finger, and a thousand crimson lights appeared. They shuffled around and shot out to those assembled. True to his word, they all struck random targets.
“Everyone hit by a light, step out,” the lead blood master said. A quarter of the men and women who had been selected did so, pale and frightened, but many lingered.
“I said STEP OUT!”
Most of the others walked out reluctantly. Those who didn’t were glared at by their neighbors until they eventually accepted their fate and moved, if only for the sake of those they knew and loved.
If you’re willing to fight with me, Cha Ming sent to the city lord, we can kill every last one of them. No one will ever never know what happened to them. The thousand men and women who had stepped out were led into a circle by the blood masters. He recognized a few of the cultivators, but fortunately, none of them were his close acquaintances. Still, that didn’t make it an easy pill to swallow. He’d tampered with their memories, after all. He owed them.
You mustn’t, the city lord said. They have ways of knowing. The Spirit Temple will investigate us, and the entire city will suffer. Though his words urged restraint, his body thought otherwise. His hand clutched his sword, ready to draw it and behead someone at the drop of a pin. Being the city lord in such a situation had to be a difficult burden for anyone to bear.
“That concludes our selection,” the blood master said.
The crowd sighed in relief. As he turned toward the group of blood masters, however, a voice cut in. It was the man from the Spirit Temple.
“Wait,” the man said. He lifted a bony white finger and pointed toward Cha Ming. As Cha Ming put up a hand to his chest in surprise, the man waved him away impatiently. “Not you, her.”
Cha Ming looked back and realized he was pointing at Mo Ling, the city lord’s daughter. “She is proper stock for the Spirit Temple. We will take her as well.”
Cha Ming’s muscles tensed. Potential plans buzzed through his mind, but they were interrupted by the humming and burning of a black sword, a sword he’d just forged.
“You will not take my daughter,” the city lord said, his voice filled with rage. The air around the man burned brightly as he pushed out toward the man from the Spirit Temple, who simply smirked from beneath his deep hood.
Suddenly, there was a blur of red. The lead blood master, who had only been a few feet away, slashed out with a blade of blood so quickly that Cha Ming couldn’t even react. As a marrow-refining cultivator, the man’s physical speed was far faster than what even core-formation cultivators were capable of. The city lord’s arm dropped to the ground.
The blood master, ignoring the city lord’s whimpers, bent down to pick up the black-and-red blade. “Good sword,” he said, placing it into his storage ring. He pushed past Cha Ming and grabbed Mo Ling by the shoulder and dragged her toward the crowd in the distance.
You need to relax, Cha Ming told himself. His body was tense, and he wanted nothing more than to bash their skulls in. If you do something now, the whole city might be destroyed. But if you wait until they leave the city, there could be many reasons for their disappearance.
Or perhaps he could drag them back to their so-called “monastery.” There, he’d kill them all and rescue the captives. As he pondered this, however, his hairs raised on end. He sensed movement from the blood masters. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the blade of blood rise. Then, faster than he could react, it slashed across the entire crowd, spilling blood onto the stones. Their blood formed a whirlpool that flowed into a bloodred stone the lead blood master held. Out of all those taken, only Mo Ling, who’d been set off to the side, still lived.”
“What have you done,” Mo Zhen growled. He was kneeling, still holding the bloody stump where his arm used to be.
“There were too many of them to cull at the monastery,” the chief blood master said nonchalantly. “Now be a good city lord and raise many more strong cultivators. If the harvest isn’t good next time, you and your entire city will be culled.”
“You monster,” Mo Zhen spat.
“Yes,” the chief blood master said. “I suppose I am.” He floated up in the air, holding the struggling Mo Ling in his arms. The others all hopped on flying swords and flew out of the city after him.
“It wasn’t supposed to be this way,” Mo Zhen said, his tears splattering against the stones of Central Square. He ignored the stump of an arm that lay off to his side as he beat the ground repeatedly with his remaining fist. His
