Bai Lang
Bai Lang was just beginning to relax again when the bat arrived. The sight of a bat suddenly flying down to join them was surprising enough that he didn't react right away. It landed next to Fang Shilong as he played his pipa. Bai Lang stared at it, befuddled. It was big and fluffy looking, with symmetrical blue stripes of fur through it. It looked cute honestly.
"A bat?" Fang Shilong froze, staring at the small creature. She stared back at him. After a moment, it opened its mouth. And it sang out a tune. The same one that Shilong had been playing.
The man that had finished restringing his bow stared at the bat, raising his hands up to take an arrow in hand. Bai Lang raised a hand, stopping him. "Hold on. Shilong, play another few notes."
"Um…" Fang Shilong hesitated, then strung a few notes. The bat seemed to brighten. It opened its mouth and mimicked the same notes.
"You're kidding!" The man with the bow lowered it, walking over with a goofy grin on his scarred face. "Do some more!"
Shilong looked over at Bai Lang, who nodded. He played a bit more, the tune low and calming, the stringed instrument played with confidence. The bat, after a moment, began to sing. It was beautiful, the sound of its voice echoing the pluck of the strings, the bat somehow sending out notes of melodic sounds.
"Look at that," Sancho cleaned his knife and turned away from the monkey he had finished cutting up, walking over to watch the show. "Shilong, you never told us you were a princess!"
Shilong smirked, but seemed just as mystified at the sight of the bat singing along with his playing. Bai Lang stood up and walked over to join them, kneeling down to watch the bat. It looked around with an odd lack of fear as Bai Lang, Sancho, Shilong, and the archer, watched her sing.
It was fascinating, like nothing he'd ever seen before. Bai Lang wondered, for a moment, if he could capitalize on this. A singing bat would be a good way to draw in a crowd. People with money loved novelty after all!
"Bai Lang," Slick's voice drew him out of his contemplation. Bai Lang turned to see Slick looking nervous and confused next to the fire. "Something weird about-"
There was a flash of movement, a black blur near the forest floor zipping towards Slick's feet. A small object. So when it hit Slick and sent him flipping, Bai Lang's jaw dropped.
"GAAAAAAAH!" Slick screamed as he spun through the air before crashing into the floor. The black blur zipped back into his face, Slick's body sliding along the forest floor to crash into a box behind him.
"Wha-" The archer guy (What was his name?) lifted his bow and aimed at the black blur as it landed on the unconcious Slick's chest. He froze. "A beetle?"
It was. A big one, almost as big as some of the rats they'd killed, with a pair of shiny black horns, a midnight-black carapace, and… eyes. Bai Lang hadn't ever noticed a beetle's eyes before. These ones burned.
Archer guy fired his bow at the beetle. Bai Lang's eyes widened in horror. The beetle was on top of Slick! That arrow would cut straight through the beetle and kill Slick!
Before he could even scream, there was a beam of light from the canopy above, and the arrow was cut in half.
Bai Lang opened his mouth, trying to figure out-
There was a sound behind him. It started low. Then it struck.
A piercing unholy scream like a demon filled the air, hitting Bai Lang with physical force that sent him stumbling forward. With his eyes squeezed shut in pain. He felt someone fall next to him, his eyes opening a bit and landing on Sancho screaming soundlessly in pain.
Something hit him the chest, sending him flying back into the archer and onto the floor. Bai Lang tried to hold out his. Fang Shilong waved his pipa around blindly, trying to hit something brown with blue stripes. The bat. It kept making that unholy sound even as it dodged Shilong's wild attacks. It stopped the sound for just one moment.
There was a sound like a firework going off, and then Shilong's head snapped back from an invisible force hitting him, sending him into the dirt.
Archer pushed Bai Lang off of him, standing up with a loud shout. A beam of light smacked into his right foot. Archer screamed, raising his foot and hopping up and down in pain, before another beam of light hit him in the other foot. Archer fell over in time for that beetle to hit him in the face, knocking him out.
Bai Lang, the only conscious one of his group, struggled to stand as a bat, a moth, and a beetle landed in front of him. He stared, trying to comprehend what was happening.
The beetle chittered at him briefly. There was a blur of speed, and a final impact, before he passed out.
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Xiaobo
"I cannot believe that worked," Fu Zhi whispered, sounding flummoxed.
"I knew it would," I lied. "Like I said. Intelligence means you can end up outsmarting yourself."
"I still don't understand, Master." Cass said.
"It's an old school concept. Intelligent life can come up with plans, can learn, understand, and grow. But they also don't go for instincts when they sometimes should. They try to comprehend and experience things. I have some horror stories I can share about that."
It's true. Think about how in movies people go out into darkness when they should really not. Happens in real life all the time. Intelligent life's greatest strength and weakness. Our curiosity, our thirst for knowledge, for profit. If they had thought things through, they would have attacked Cass. In which case, the plan was for Fu Zhi to intercept them with a few beams of light, hopefully stopping any damage from being done.
"We should kill them," Fu Zhi said off to the right. She was staring down at the guy I'd pegged as the leader.
I thought about that. In this life, I'd killed ants and snakes. Nothing else. I didn't want to become a murderer. And yet, these guys were exactly that. Murderers. They had killed spirit beasts, sapient if weak beings.
"No… we leave the humans to human authorities. For now. If they just disappear, others will follow. If humans find them, they'll arrest, charge, and execute them, all to create an example," I said, coming up with an excuse quickly. "For now, let's see if they have something we can use."
I flew over to the wagons. As I did, Cass called out to me. "Master, can I have this thing?"
I looked back at her. She was poking at the stringed instrument that the guy had been playing.
"Sure. We could use more blues music. Maybe some rock and roll," I chuckled, looking back inside the wagon.
Goddamn. That was rough. The dead animals smelled like hell. In my previous life, I had been around freshly slaughtered animals, even took care of it myself, but never in the numbers these guys had gone for. It seemed so wasteful.
I flew over to the next wagon, the one I had been most interested in. I ignored the herbs I could smell. Instead, I looked at the box that exuded power. Not a huge amount of it, but enough to be noticeable.
I smacked my horns on the lock, shattering it, then flipped it open.
"Cores." I said to Fu Zhi and Cass as they joined me. They were weak, relatively speaking, but still immensely valuable. I poked at one, trying to think. "We should split them between us."
Fu Zhi stopped staring at the cores to stare at me instead. "S-Should you not take them all for yourself? If not fully, then a majority?"
I knew what she was talking about. Sects flowed upwards when it came to resources. The strong, the leadership, more often got the most valuable things. It made sense. Give strength to the strong, give value to what has value.
Except…
"The sect we are spun off from, the Ever Pursuing Arrow," I whispered as I snapped the box open, letting the cores spill out. "They were kind." I rolled the cores between us, evenly spreading them out based on power as best as I could. "They shared with each other. They gave me, a beetle, everything I needed. Food, resources, and a home. I couldn't give them anything back."
I contemplated the cores now laid before me. "They died. And it wasn't because they were weak. It was because others were cruel. I believe their way of life is worth continuing. So we share between each other. We teach each other, trade ideas, give each other strength. Got it?"
"Yes, Master." I hesitated when I realized that two voices said that. Fu Zhi was looking at me, her antennae waving quickly, while Cass had a fanged smile on her face.
I gestured to the cores. "Eat."
We did so, each swallowing a core. Cores are, as far as Si Chou told me, the center of a Spirit Beast, all the Qi they ever gathered in a single point within them, creating a dense 'core' of pure crystalized energy.
He didn't seem to know much beyond that. I was certain there must have been more to it, but it was enough for now.
Fu Zhi chewed up her portion slowly. Cass hesitated.
"Master… is this right? This is from Spirit Beasts like us. Should we really be eating them to grow stronger?"
I thought on that. "Remember what I told you at the grave of my master?"
Fu Zhi stopped eating, looking between with earnest curiosity.
Cass nodded. "The dead don't have our problems."
"Yes. When they leave their bodies, everything they leave behind is for us to deal with. I believe they deserve respect. But these cores are former possessions of their owners. If either of you died and you asked me to leave your cores within you, to bury you with them, I would respect your wishes. These ones, however, we will never know what they wanted. So what we'll do, is respect their strength, add it to our own, and use it to protect the forest they lived in. Understand?"
Fu Zhi started eating again. Cass groaned. "Death is complicated, Master."
"No. Death is simple. The consequences are complicated. That's the nice thing about Death, it's a very wise being, staying out of the complications that follow it."
"Death is a being?" Fu Zhi asked.
I finished my portion of spirit cores, feeling them slowly settle within me, bit by bit. If they had been stronger, they would have caused me some issues. As it was, I'd need to rest for the day.
"Sure. Death can be a pale human woman who guides us to the next life with a kind smile, a powerful and dangerous wolf who hunts the foolish and arrogant, a whimsical skeleton beneath a hood holding the universe together. Death is a lot of beings, all worthy of respect."
Fu Zhi nodded.
Once we were all done, I looked around. Four wagons of materials, five knocked out poachers... this needed a human touch.
"Okay… time to see Jinhai."
"Who is Jinhai?" Fu Zhi asked.
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