Chapter 9: The Mercenary's Price
The bandits' trail was not hard to follow. They were confident, moving with the brisk pace of men returning to a known sanctuary, not worried about pursuit from dead merchants. Their boot prints cut through the soft earth, their passage disturbing the forest's hum.
Xiao Feng followed like a ghost. The beast-agility in his limbs made him silent. The boar's stubborn vitality gave him endurance. The spatial dislocation he'd absorbed lent his movements a slight, unnerving fluidity—he seemed to slide between spaces, leaving less disturbance than the wind.
He learned their rhythm. Four men. One lighter on his feet, the scout. Two heavier, probably carrying loot. One with a slight limp in his left leg.
After two hours, the forest thinned. The scent of woodsmoke and unwashed humanity tainted the air. Ahead, through the trees, he saw a stockade wall made of sharpened, iron-hard darkwood logs. The Ironwood Outpost. It squatted in a clearing like a festering wound, ringed by a ditch filled with sharpened stakes. The gate was open, guarded by two slouching men in mismatched armor, their eyes constantly scanning the tree line.
The bandits walked straight in, exchanging coarse greetings with the guards. One guard clapped the limping man on the back, laughing at a joke Xiao Feng couldn't hear.
He circled the outpost at a distance, studying it. It was more than a simple camp. It had watchtowers. A stable. The sounds of a smithy clanging, the shouts of men gambling, the sharp cry of a woman who wasn't laughing. It pulsed with a low, chaotic energy—greed, violence, desperation, and a crude, hard joy. It was a living organism of concentrated, human-scale tribulation.
He couldn't just walk in. He looked like a starved, half-drowned rat. They'd kill him for his boots, if he had any worth taking.
He needed an entry fee. An identity. A reason to be tolerated.
He looked down at the crude knife he'd taken from the dead merchant. It was worth less than nothing here. He looked at the Spirit-Tusk Boar tusks slung over his shoulder. They had a low-grade spiritual sheen, valuable as alchemy ingredients or for crafting low-tier spirit tools. They were a ticket.
But walking in with just tusks would mark him as prey. He needed to show a tooth.
He retreated into the forest, finding a muddy patch near a game trail. He dirtied his face and arms further, smeared the boar's blood on his tattered trousers. He snapped the smaller boar tusk in half, keeping the larger one whole. He took a deep breath, summoning not the calm void, but the feral chaos he'd absorbed—the boar's rage, the rat's malice, the Bloom's corrosive hatred. He let it swirl in his eyes, tighten his posture into a defensive, animalistic crouch. He didn't hide his Qi; he let it leak out, a thin, unsettling aura of multiple, conflicting beast-attributes.
He was no longer Xiao Feng, the fugitive. He was a feral kid who'd killed something in the woods and brought back a trophy.
He walked out of the trees and towards the open gate, his steps deliberate, his gaze fixed ahead, unblinking.
The two guards straightened up, hands going to their weapons. "Halt. What's your business, pup?"
Xiao Feng didn't speak. He slowly unslung the large boar tusk and held it up. The spiritual sheen caught the afternoon light.
The guards exchanged a glance. The one on the left, a man with a scar splitting his lip, sneered. "Spirit-Tusk. Not bad. Hand it over for the entry toll."
Xiao Feng's grip tightened. He let a sliver of the boar's rage-color his Qi, making the air around his hand waver with heat and brute force. He shook his head once, a sharp, animal negation.
The scarred guard's eyes narrowed. He felt the unstable, bestial energy. This wasn't a normal Qi Gathering kid. This was something… touched.
The other guard, wiser, put a hand on his companion's arm. "Easy, Korg. Kid's got the look of a wildling. Let Guildmaster Vex deal with him." He nodded to Xiao Feng. "Go on in. But cause trouble, and you're ditch-fodder."
Xiao Feng walked past them, the weight of their stares on his back. He'd passed the first test. He was strange enough to be given a wide berth.
Inside, the outpost was a cramped maze of muddy lanes and rough timber buildings. The air stank of ale, sweat, forge-smoke, and blood. Men and a few hard-eyed women clad in leather and dented metal moved with purposeful swaggers. Cultivators, but of the lowest, roughest sort. Most were at Qi Gathering stages three to six, their foundations messy, their auras tinged with the violence of their profession.
He saw the four bandits from the trail unloading their stolen goods from a cart in front of a building marked by a sign with a rusted sword and coin: The Guild Hall.
He didn't approach. He needed a quieter transaction first.
He found a shack with a counter open to the lane. A grizzled old man with one milky eye sat behind it, surrounded by jars of dubious herbs, animal parts, and dusty crystals. A tanner.
Xiao Feng placed the large boar tusk on the counter. The old man picked it up, his good eye assessing. He glanced at Xiao Feng, noting the feral energy, the silence.
"Fresh kill. Spirit's still angry in it," the old man grunted. "Ten copper spirit coins. Or one low-grade spirit stone."
It was a low price. The tusk was worth three stones at least in a proper market. But this was not a proper market. This was a den of thieves.
Xiao Feng met his eye. He slowly placed the broken half-tusk next to the whole one. Then, he focused. He pushed a thread of the Festering Bloom's corrosive Rot-Dao into the broken edge of the tusk. Not enough to destroy it, but enough to make the fracture line gleam with a faint, sickly green phosphorescence.
The old man recoiled slightly. "What in the blighted hells…?"
Xiao Feng pointed at the green glow, then at his own eyes, then made a slow, deliberate cutting motion across his throat. The story was clear: the boar had been touched by something corrupt. The fight had been strange, deadly. The tusk was tainted, but powerfully so.
The old man's fear turned to calculating greed. Tainted spirit-materials were dangerous, but valuable to certain unsavory alchemists or poison-makers. The story added a macabre value.
"Two spirit stones," the old man said, his voice lower.
Xiao Feng held up three fingers.
The old man scowled, then nodded. He slid three dull, pebble-like low-grade spirit stones across the counter. Xiao Feng took them, the cold, inert energy familiar in his palm. He pocketed them and turned away, leaving the tusks.
He had capital.
Now he needed information. He moved to the mouth of a foul-smelling alley beside a tavern called The Gored Stag. He leaned against the wall, watching the flow of traffic, listening. His enhanced hearing picked out conversations from the tavern, from passing groups.
"…heard from a runner from the south… Verdant Dragon Sect's Discipline Hall is on the warpath. Offering bounty for an 'anomaly.' Describes a young male, Qi Gathering stage, possible spatial distortion or corruption attributes."
"How much?"
"Fifty mid-grade spirit stones.Alive for questioning."
"Alive?For that price? Must want him bad."
"They say he ate a chunk of the Festering Bloom and teleported out.Sounds like demon-cultivation to me."
"Fifty stones…that's retirement money."
Xiao Feng's blood ran cold, then settled into a colder, harder resolve. Fifty mid-grade stones. A fortune that would turn every soul in this outpost into a hunter. His description was out. "Spatial distortion." "Corruption attributes." They had pieced it together.
He had less time than he thought.
A new conversation, closer, caught his ear. Two mercenaries were walking past, one bandaging a cut on his arm.
"…Vex just posted it. Escort job. North to the Blackscale Marches. Pay's decent. But the client… gives me the creeps. Robes too clean for this place."
"Who cares?Coin's coin. We leave at dawn. You in or out?"
An escort job. Leaving at dawn. Heading north, away from the Verdant Dragon Sect's sphere of influence. It was a path. A way to move while hidden in a group.
He needed to get on that job.
He pushed off the wall and walked towards the Guild Hall. The building was a large, noisy longhouse. A board near the door was plastered with parchment notices—bounties, job postings, warnings. In the center, freshly pinned, was the one the mercenaries had mentioned.
GUILD-SANCTIONED ESCORT.
Client requires secure passage to Blackscale Marches border.
Duration: 7-10 days.
Hazards: Beast swarms, rogue cultivators, terrain.
Pay: 5 Low-Grade Spirit Stones per guard, upon safe delivery.
Needed: 4 additional guards. Minimum Qi Gathering Stage 4. Apply within to Guildmaster Vex.
Stage Four minimum. He was a shaky, newly-minted Stage Five. It would have to be enough.
He stepped inside. The hall was smoky, loud. At a heavy wooden desk at the far end sat a mountain of a woman. Guildmaster Vex. She had hair shorn to stubble, arms thick with corded muscle and old burns, and eyes the color of flint. Her Qi was a solid, crushing wall of Earth-aligned energy—Foundation Establishment stage, at least. She was the law here.
Xiao Feng approached, the noise seeming to part around his silent, intense presence. Men at nearby tables quieted, watching the feral kid walk up to the guildmaster's desk.
Vex looked up from a ledger. Her flinty eyes scanned him, top to bottom, lingering on his hands, his eyes, the unsettling aura he let simmer.
"You lost, wildling?" Her voice was like two rocks grinding together.
Xiao Feng pointed at the notice on the board behind her.
She didn't even turn. "Stage?"
He held up five fingers.
"Prove it."
He didn't summon a ball of Qi. That was for disciples in courtyards. He thought of the chute. Of the beast-rage, the Rot-Dao, the void. He let it all coalesce for a single second in his palm—a swirling, miniature vortex of darkness, shot through with violet sparks and a sickly green gleam. It emitted no light. It seemed to suck the sound from the immediate area. The men at the nearest table flinched back.
It was not a demonstration of power, but of nature. A display of pure, devouring anomaly.
Vex's eyes narrowed. She saw the corruption, the chaos. She also saw the control. He held that terrifying little orb perfectly stable. That took will.
"What's your name?" she asked.
He was silent for a count of three,then spoke his first word in the outpost, his voice a dry rasp from disuse. "Feng."
Just Feng.A name as spare as he was.
"You're hired, Feng," Vex said, no warmth in her voice. "Dawn. South gate. Be late, you're left. Cause trouble, I break you myself. Your pay is three stones."
Three, not five. The anomaly tax.
He nodded, letting the vortex in his palm dissipate. He turned and walked out, feeling the stares boring into his back. He had bought his passage.
He spent his remaining stones on supplies from a surly provisioner: a waterskin, hard travel bread, a cheap but serviceable wool cloak to cover his distinctive tattered robes, and most importantly, a worn but sharp shortsword in a leather sheath. It was a tool, not a treasure.
He found an empty stall in the stable, paid a copper to sleep there, away from the prying eyes of the tavern. He curled up in the hay, his new sword beside him, listening to the snorts of the horses and the distant revelry.
The fragment pulsed softly, analyzing the new environment.
SOCIAL TRIBULATION ASSESSED: DEN OF PREDATORS. TRUST LEVEL: NEGATIVE. SURVIVAL STRATEGY: UTILITARY ALLIANCE, MAINTAIN THREAT DISPLAY.
He closed his eyes. Dawn would bring a new journey. A new set of dangers. He would be traveling with men who would slit his throat for five stones. Guarding a client who "gave them the creeps."
He would be moving towards the unknown Blackscale Marches, a place his map had no data on.
And somewhere behind him, the disciplined, relentless hunters of the Verdant Dragon Sect were turning over every stone, following his cold trail, their bounty notice spreading like poison.
He slept, not with peace, but with the alert rest of a predator surrounded by other predators. His hunger was a quiet, patient ember now. The wild had its laws. The outpost had its price.
Tomorrow, he would pay it. And he would learn what tribulations the road north had to offer.