Deadtired

The question had been overheard. Not by an Inner Disciple. No, then he'd just have earned himself a few pointers. The question was overheard by one of the sect's elders.

The Elders of the Sect of the Jade Throne were notoriously busy. They were not the sorts to lock themselves away for closed-door cultivation for a decade or more, but were rather more active with their self-improvement and education. They were also notorious busy-bodies and gossips, which he later learned was why they might only be the second greatest in regards to their closeness to the Jade Throne itself.

The elder had seen a small runt of a man. Kai Wen had always been thin, but in those days before he'd truly begun his journey of cultivation, he'd been sickly thin and underfed. Worse, he'd grown into a gangly sort of teen.

The elder was unimpressed by the sight of him, and more unimpressed with his words. He had taken the time to teach Kai Wen the error of his ways. It had been an education like none other.

Kai Wen had spent six months in the sect's infirmary, given a small cot in the back and occasionally tended to by apprentice healers while he willed himself to rebuild his core and spark his cultivation once more.

He'd succeeded, and two decades later, as a rising inner disciple, he'd killed that very same elder.

Right now, however, he was brought back to that moment, the one where the elder was looking down upon him as though he were someone who had yet to even grasp the capacity to understand.

Ahead of him, standing casually as though unbothered by the chaos all around, was Harold.

Kai Wen had read the Jade Throne's proclamations about this particular undead. It was a flowery warning. This singular being, skeletal in appearance, was a font of power, ancient magics, cursed artefacts, and heretical teachings.

Reading between the lines, Kai Wen understood that even the Jade Sect was worried about this creature. He'd been sent to replace the last cultivator to play chamberlain for the Mantis Queen, and to observe the goddess's attempts to ferret out the undead and destroy him once and for all.

When Kai Wen had been given the assignment, he'd been both excited and wary. The Mantis Queen was a true Goddess, and yet she had a mortal form. She'd killed sixty-two of the last seventy chamberlains sent her way-the others having fled or having died by the scythes of her offspring... one died of indigestion.

He was stronger than all of those, however. He trusted in his skills, and in his ability to smile and play nice, to placate and soften and undermine.

That was how he'd grown to be the man he was today.

When he'd seen the Mantis Queen, he'd been impressed by her power, and disgusted by how poorly she used it. So much potential left to waste.

So much potential he could use in a much grander way... for the glory of the Jade Throne, of course.

Alas, the Mantis Queen had her own base sort of cunning, and the moment never came.

Today, he regretted not making the attempt, because before him was Harold, and Harold was schooling the Mantis Queen the same way that he'd once been taught by that sect elder all those years ago.

"Let's summon up a different perspective on godhood, shall we?" Harold asked.

The skeleton's face was set in the smile all beings carried into death, and yet Kai Wen had the impression that there was a depth of maliciousness behind those missing eyes that even the emperor-blessed be his throne-would baulk at.

A rift tore itself open in the centre of the room and a being of light covered in fractal wings folded itself out of the rift. A divine being, there was no mistaking it. The sort of monster that one would have to defeat while defying the heavens themselves.

It unfolded its many wings and its manyfold eyes took in the room. All the plants that lich had summoned previously flowered and grew.

Kai Wen's cultivator companions screamed as the tiny thorns holding onto them and making this battle far more difficult already grew to be as long as the curved swords of the Imperial Guard.

Kai Wen scanned the room. Those who had come with the heretical undead were rallying at the far end of the room. Two mantises, spawn of the Queen, no doubt, were locked in a battle with some of the Queen's other spawn. They were coming out ahead, but that was likely due to the plants grasping at the other mantises and the assistance of small implings and infernal beings.

A cultivator in the garb of that bumpkin sect, the Ashen Forest, was spewing poisonous gas at the cadre of cultivators who made this lesser throne their home. She was quick, and he'd admit that she had the talent and skill to be a member of the inner sect of a few of the greater sects, though only just.

Again, she was assisted by the heretic, his plants whipping out to pull good and proper cultivators back and holding them in place for her to apply her vile venoms.

The lich's maid was all over. Darting to one fight to the other, but always moving with the careful grace of a royal courtesan. Somehow, the maid left the area behind them cleaner than any battlefield ought to be.

And then there was himself and the Mantis Queen. This entire time Kai Wen had been throwing simple but powerful attacks towards the lich. None made it, but they did a good job of keeping the area clear of his grasping roots and evil plants.

The Mantis Queen was throwing powerful attacks forwards, slicing the air, firing blasts of chi that would shatter the core of great elders, and forcing her will upon reality.

Enough that were she to let loose in the hall of the Jade Throne, she might even succeed in ruffling some of the great banners and injuring some of the lesser guards of the emperor. A truly astounding amount of power.

And it was all for naught.

The angelic being opened a ring of mouths and screamed.

Kai Wen folded his chi into a shield and pulled himself in close to the Mantis Queen's side, closer than he'd ever want to be. But his instinct proved correct when the attack scoured the floor and the stone clean but failed to penetrate the Mantis Queen's hastily erected shield.

The celestial's outcry dwindled into a haunting echo, the battlefield held its breath in its absence.

Kai Wen noticed that some of the nearest cultivators were pulped. Others were drooling on the ground, unable to process the divine sight unshielded.

Harold tugged his coat. He hadn't moved a step from the start of the fight, and it didn't seem as if the magics he'd wrought had cost him anything. "I think it's time to call our lesson to an end... ho hohoh! Get it? Because conjuration is a call! It's actually a very complex bit of magic, you know? Rather efficient if you know what you're doing, but the basic principle involves burrowing a hole into another plane, then making a call. After that, you must merely open the way, which is the most magic-intensive part of the process, though surprisingly the least complex!"

Kai Wen grit his teeth. The elder he'd once been beaten by had carefully explained his techniques as well, not that he could appreciate it then, and he didn't appreciate it any more now.

"My Queen, we must destroy this being!" he hissed.

"Yes," the Mantis Queen said. Her mandibles moved, then she turned to eye him. "I need more power," she said.

"From one of your artefacts?" he asked.

She had several that would empower a cultivator to great heights.

She continued to look at him, and there was a hunger in her eyes. He remembered how most of the other chamberlains had died.

"F-from one of your artefacts... right, my Queen?" he asked.

It was the last thing he ever asked. As his head was chewed upon, he reflected that maybe he had never been all that good about learning lessons.

* * *

previous chapter next chapter chapter list

Chapter Thirty — Quaint Queen

Chapter Thirty — Quaint Queen

I winced when the Mantis Queen turned her attention onto the human next to her and clamped her mandibles around his head. The cultivator flinched as well, but it was far too little, far too late, his life energy was being slurped up by the Queen already.

"You know, your employee retention rates are going to be abysmal if you continuously eat your hardest workers," I pointed out.

The Mantis Queen hissed, which of course sent little giblets of the cultivator flying all over. "You are powerful," she admitted. "But this is my home!"

She might have had a point.

There was a saying once, a very long time ago now, about never fighting a wizard in their tower. It was a rather sensible kind of saying, the sort that I believe came about because of a harrowing and likely very costly experience for someone.

A powerful caster was at their most powerful within their home, and while I had been toying with the Mantis queen thus far, there was the real possibility that she was, in fact, a stronger enemy than I was giving her credit for.

Underestimating a foe was a terrible sin.

"Do you know what day it is?" I asked.

The Mantis Queen stared. "Is this more of your painful word playing?"

"It's Sunmonday!" I cackled. "Oh, wait, no! Let me start over. Hey there, you look a little hungry, would you like somefiend to eat?"

The Mantis Queen hissed all the harder, even as a second rent in reality was opened and a tiny fiend was flung out of the void towards the Mantis Queen. She smacked it aside with a scythe-arm and squirmed unhappily. "Why must you be so... you?!"

"It's who I'm best at being," I said. A slight glance around me to take in the situation showed that things were... actually, not all that bad. Cinder was looking a little singed, which really only suited her. Her foes were mostly incapacitated or were not prime material for a new batch of undead.

My attention was pulled back for a moment as the Mantis Queen screeched. Not a magical attack, just a frustrated scream. "Why are you not taking this seriously?!"

Mem and Rem, for all of their bickering, were proving to be pretty decent at fighting together. Well, Rem was doing the fighting, Mem was tossing things at their wayward sisters and tugging Rem back and away from some attacks. The other mantises in the room were in a rough state. In fact, most of them were subdued on the ground, entirely unable to fight anymore. Viscous little things.

Alex was daintily hopping around, doing as a maid ought and keeping things clean and ensuring that everyone on our side was well, and the dwarven lads were... near the back, taking turns kicking some impudent young cultivator who looked like he had tried to sneak up on them. Good for the lot of them!

The Mantis Queen herself was... more or less intact. She had brushed past a few blows that should have injured her, and they did leave their mark, but it seemed like eating her second in command had done much to revitalise her.

"Are you certain?" I asked.

The Queen's eyes did the mantis-y equivalent of narrowing. "Certain of what, filthy undead?"

"Are you certain you want me to take this seriously?"

"Yes!" she snapped.

I shrugged my boney shoulders. "Very well, then. It's the least I can do. You will Wish otherwise, however." I raised a hand, and snapped my fingers.

The room went surprisingly quiet.

Cultivators pulled back, some lowering their weapons, and the mantises hissed with aggression, but they were no longer being spurred on to attack.

I cleared my throat. "Everyone, please surrender," I said. "Not that you have very much of a choice."

I noticed Belt at the back touching the side of his head. "What... what were we here for?" he asked.

"The mantises," Orbital next to him said with the confidence of the uninformed. "We're obviously here to clear out the mantis infestation."

Yes, I supposed that was a perfectly sensible explanation for why they were here. There was a spot in the centre of the room where the Mantis Queen should have been. A conspicuous void. Honestly, were she not using so much of my own power to bolster herself, she wouldn't have been as open to this sort of attack.

Not that I cared to explain such a thing to someone who no longer existed.

"Well! It seems like things are well in hand here!" I said as I placed both hands on hips. I released all of my summons, keeping only the plants who were too handy... rooty? No that didn't work. Anyway, the plants were too useful to let go of just yet! "Dear cultivators, please have a seat, Alex will be with you shortly to tie you up. Alex, dear, bring the dead off to the side. I'll raise them in a moment."

Alex bowed, then set off to do just that. Soon the remaining, living cultivators were strung up by long lengths of ribbon that they couldn't seem to fight their way out of. Alex was very creative with that ribbon.

Cinder wandered over while brushing down her dress and trying to compose herself. "It seems like our work here is done done?" she asked, but her brows were knit together. "I... something feels off about this?"

"Oh, don't worry overly much about it," I said. "The mantis problem plaguing your sect will now be taken care of, won't it?"

"Mem's happy," Mem said as she moved over. "And Mem is a little sad too. She's going to miss Mom."

"Mom?" Rem asked. "We didn't fight any sister called Mom, we fought Bif, Bap, Bip, and Bop." she gestured to the mantises they'd fought who were in a heap on the far end of the room. I could practically imagine the little canaries spinning around their heads.

"No, Mem means Mom... Mem thinks? Mem has to have come from somewhere, right?"

"From the nest, obviously," Rem said before she dismissed her sister. She glanced down at her butler's uniform, all torn up and in quite a state, then tugged at a rip with the end of a scythe. It made it worse. "Alex is going to be very annoying."

I tapped my chin as I considered the repercussions of this. Would it come around to bite me? Possibly. But then again, I didn't expect it to be anything I couldn't handle. "Cinder, you'll be most familiar with the cultivators, what do you think we ought to do with them?"

"Hmm hmm, strip them of their equipment and gear first. Some may have valuables that they might try to use to escape. After that... with the threat of the mantises subdued... will there be more of them?"

"I doubt it," I replied.

"In that case, we could use the living cultivators as hostages. The dead... their respective sects might want to keep the bodies for burial."

"Well, that won't do. I'll allow the Ashen Forest to keep the living, but I'll need some assistants to carry the loot around."

"Loot?" Belt asked.

"Of course! There's a small treasure trove of valuables here," I said. I did love me a bit of looting. "Mem!"