Cultivating Chaos 6 -ch 2-

Surprisingly, the situation deescalated instantly.

A rather harried looking woman came in, looked deeply surprised to find the men where they were, and just about rushed Ash and company out of the store.

Pushing them right out the door with a handful of what Ash was fairly certain was currency, all the clothes on them, and several bags quickly stuffed with all the clothes the girls had been trying on, and onto the street.

As if she just couldn’t wait to get the group gone and deal with the three men and their weapons on her own.

“That was an inside job, wasn’t it,” Ash blurted out as the door clicked behind them from an unlocked, to a locked position. “She really didn’t want us to be there. At all.”

“Oh definitely an inside job, haha,” Locke declared and then took in a deep breath. Only to laugh again. “I don’t care though! I got everything I wanted! Everything!

“She literally threw in all the clothes we had set aside to try on and had tried on. All of it, from all of us. Just scooped it all up and whatever was there, was going with us.”

“Don’t forget everything you stole,” Ash added with absolute certainty. He didn’t doubt for one second that Locke most certainly stole things from the store. He knew his dearest trickster far too well. More than likely she would’ve found things that weren’t going to be sold, damaged, or otherwise, and took it.

“I… ah… uhm… yes? Ooopsie doo?” Locke admitted with a wince. “I may have found everything that they were going to destroy that they couldn’t sell or return and just… took it. It’s not like it matters, they would have thrown it away.

“Better us than the dumpster.

“Especially since I already fixed all the problems that they were being thrown away for anyways! I just skipped digging it out of the trash. I don’t think I did anything wrong.

“And now that I know what I’m looking for, I plan on doing the same wherever we go.

“It’s not like I wasn’t constantly digging through the trash for things back in our own realms. I found some great things that only took me fixing them up a bit.

“Especially furniture. That was an easy one.”

“Oooh, I’m sorry, I didn’t think we’d get kicked out because of me,” apologized Xiuying. She’d been forced to quickly change into a rather snug sun-dress the showed her off perfectly and a light short sleeved coat thing.

With a shake of her head, she quietly took up Ash’s arm, drew it into herself, and grabbed it with her free hand.

“It’s fine. It told us many things,” Ash said, dismissing it. “Your Fortune works here, but it’s quite possibly limited. Perhaps the lack of Qi here will limit it, too.”

“I can’t even imagine remaining here without your chain,” Hui murmured. “Also, I want to rename it. Bond of Sheng. At least formally. It goes to the Knights and Brides both, doesn’t it?”

Frowning, Ash turned his thoughts inward to himself.

His middle Dantian.

There were almost no Brides here at all.

The ones that were, looked to be stone, bronze, or silver statues.

Statues that looked so new that the chains to them were hadn’t been there long.

Grasping one attached to a silver statue, Ash put his attention to it.

It was a fresh Bride.

She had been inducted only several weeks ago and had been flooded with attention, gifts, items, care, and kindless since joining. So much so that she had no idea what was going on anymore.

Just that her Sisters loved her, that on another realm she has Brothers who would protect her, and somewhere, out there, was Lord Sheng who kept her so fully stuffed with Qi that she felt somewhat sick at times.

That she had to actively generate Qi if only to push it at him, so he would stop sending her ever more of his pure Qi.

In the moment he became aware of her, of Sisui, she became aware of him.

There was an echoing squeak in her mind as his Dao quite literally was put before her in it’s entirety.

“Lord Sheng!” Sisui whimpered as the chains became a blinding gold color to her. Her Qi-Sea was forcibly expanded in the next moment, her meridians blown out wide, and her middle Dantian popped open.

In a flash she had gone from a below average talent that would need a great deal of help, to a talent with the means to begin considering scraping at the heavens.

“I had no idea, Lord Sheng!” cried Sisui. “It’s glorious. The Sheng… the Sheng is glorious.”

There was a weird pop and the statue was gone.

When Ash went to look for it, he found Sisui buried at the bottom of it. Trying to help keep Locke upright, it seemed. Her entire body wedged underneath the other woman and attempting to hold up the one who held everything else up.

“Uh,” Ash said as he looked to the other statues. He suddenly didn’t want to look at them too closely or risk suddenly giving a Bride too much.

He had already been told he had accidentally thrown more than a few of them into their Black Day the moment they joined.

“Errr… Sisui is fine, before you ask,” interjected Locke. “She uhm… she’s fine. Don’t worry about it. She’s from Liu’s realm.”

At the periphery of his Middle Dantian was a horde of statues that existed there in this space, yet not part of the space. That they were part of the whole, but were the perimeter.

Knights of Sheng that were part of the Sheng momentum, but had to be at the edge of it due to their very nature. All of them pledged and would be just as golden, if not for who they were.

Ash disliked that.

A great deal.

“The Bond of Sheng is fine,” he continued after inspecting his Middle Dantian. He wasn’t going to check his lower Dantian as it would just be a giant concrete whirpool that reached the ceiling.

Looking back to the pillar he paused.

He could feel Ren and Liu.

His Realm Lords.

They weren’t part of the pillar, but part of the Dao.

The whole.

As he put his focus on the two of them, they in turn became aware of him.

Ren, the beautiful once Qi-Lord of the prison briefly fluttered about like a buttefly in his senses, then threw a colossal wave of Qi at him. One that was easily four or five times the size of his own personal Qi-Sea.

It was filled to the brim with yearning, care, concern, and a wish to make him happy and see him succeed.

As well as a dinner that she had been promised.

Liu was the opposite yet same.

Unwavering determination to see him succeed in all things while remaining a stoic and unmoving boulder. That regardless of anything, Liu would remain and be there for Ash and his glory.

Unable to do much with the Qi she had thrown at him, Ash redirected it back to her and Liu.

Which went nowhere other than his Middle Dantian.

Somewhere Qi normally wasn’t.

There was a boom, followed by a crackling noise that made Ash wince.

The bottom of his Middle Dantian broke in two places and two silver pillars rose up out of the ground. They were only a third of the size of his own, but they were brilliantly gleaming as they came upward.

Ash got the impression that if he looked to his Lower Dantian, they would be there as well.

There was another crack and he suddenly felt Ren’s Dao crumble. Crumble and reform in an instant.

To be the most beautiful and perfect Bride of Sheng was the new Dao, where the old had been to be the most beautiful woman. A shifting that seemed to correlate with the fact that she was now part of his Middle Dantian.

Ren was now set upon a course to become the penultimate Bride of the Brides.

Well that’s fucked.

“It’s what she wanted, actually. I peeked in on her as it happened, just to make sure she was alright. She leveraged the moment to make this happen herself. It wasn’t something you did to her,” Locke assured him. Ash realized that at the moment, time had slowed down around him. “She seems quite happy about the fact. Mei and Jia will find it annoying, yet also amusing.

“To be sure, the Brides need a leader they can look up to in each realm. Liu for one and Ren for the other works quite well. It’ll allow us to shuffle personnel around and learn more of themselves from each.

“Liu’s Dao is unchanged. She is the echo of momentum. The counter-point. A beat that holds the first in time, where as Ren is the ever changing fluttering to be ‘the best’. It’ll work as its two sides of the same coin.

“Just-just stop looking inward. Your awareness of things changes so much in the Middle Dantian. An entire crop of Brides that weren’t due to pledge, just pledged, as Sisui exploded with power. I don’t understand it but her talent is now comparable to Chunhua’s. Somehow.”

Looking outward, Ash found a group of fifty brand new statues.

Even as he put his gaze to them, his chains lashed out to them and before he could control himself, he responded to their Qi-Sea’s being empty.

And filled them up.

Every statue flashed from whatever their starting point was to a brilliant golden color.

Realizing Locke was absolutely right, Ash jerked himself out of his viewing and back into his own body.

“He just… he literally… he threw an entire batch of Brides into their Black Day by looking at them,” grumbled Locke. “All their Dantian’s and Meridian’s exploded. Just… blew up. They should all be dead but they’re not. I don’t even understand it anymore.”

“He is Ashley Sheng. There is no need to question it beyond that. He is Lord Sheng. Those Brides will be blessed going forward, I’m certain of it,” Hui stated with absolute conviction. “Watch. They will all become Bridal Party leaders and commanders. We will need to give them special medals and designations.”

“Anyways,” Ash hissed, sighed, and shook his head. “This was all the wrong direction. We need to find a place to stay. Let’s go see what we can find.”

The girls casually put their bags away into what was likely their storage devices and they all turned to look to him. None of them seeming to remember that storage devices likely didn’t exist here and if anyone had been watching, this would be an issue.

Since arriving, Ash had been bothered by the fact that all his chains, the Bonds of Sheng, led into the ground.

He hadn’t even noticed it at first, but they were under him. Under him and leading into the earth itself.

Wherever the exit to this realm was, it was on the other side of the world.

Far removed from where the entry point had been.

***

“It would seem we won’t be staying here either,” Ash said with a heavy sigh after they exited the hotel. Then shrugged. “Guess we’re sleeping in the Hall, the Bridal Manse, or the Castle, tonight. I was genuinely hoping that we could spend the night on this world. I wanted to show you television and a number of other things.

“It would have been… been… very… uh—”

Ash’s words slowly fell away as he felt the momentum of their surroundings starting to turn.

It wasn’t quite spinning against him, but it wasn’t moving with him either.

Such a thing wouldn’t be occurring unless someone had picked him or his group out in particular.

“Siu my dear, an invisble shield?” Ash asked in kingdom. “Locke, would you mind getting Chunhua dressed and ready in case I need something blown up?

“Tala and Moira as well, but that’s something I’d like to avoid given how noteworthy they are.”

“Hm?” Hui asked, her attention moving away from Ash and to their surroundings. “The two in the vehicle. There’s also one in the store across the way. Also, there is a thing very high above us.”

Tilting his head, Ash looked upward.

High above them and distantly to the side was a helicopter. The side of it was facing them and Ash got the impression that it had one of those fancy super high end cameras pointed at them.

“Well, it seems we’ve caught the eye of a government agency,” Ash remarked as Siu melded herself into his left side. Pressing into him, wraping an arm around his middle, and literally pressing her cheek to his shoulder.

He began to throw a continuous stream of sexualized thoughts at her, about her, and for her. All the things he’d done to her, wanted to do to her, and would do to her in the future.

The pink bubble that was her shield would be invisible to everyone else but he knew he was able to see it at all times.

Right now it looked quite solid and firm as Siu fed off his directed thoughts.

“Yessssssssssssss, think of me,” she whispered and rubbed her face against him.

Hui walked up to the car she’d indicated that had two men in it, both of them watching Ash and his group.

She bent down at the waist and thumped her hand against the glass with a gentle hand motion.

It sounded as if she’d punched it.

“You, you are watching us. Explain to me why you’re moving against our momentum,” she demanded. “Explain it or I will make you explain it. Or should I go to the one in the store over there?”

The two men looked shocked and unsure of how to proceed.

“Yes? Should I go to the store?” Hui asked in a way that reminded him of how she had once spoken to him. Before she’d become a master of life and death. Her hand came up and she grasped the top of the car, a sedan, and she pushed. Causing the whole thing to rock off the ground and onto two wheels. “Answer me. If you do not I’ll get my answers elsewhere!”

In response, one of the men drew a gun and leveled it at Hui.

Fucking hell!

“Hui! Th—”

Before Ash could say anything, Hui had punched a hand through the side window, grasped the gun, and jerked it away from the man.

Holding it in her hand she peered at it, then flicked a hand and vanished it into her storage.

The second man was now fumbling at his side, likely attempting to draw his own weapon.

Chunhua appeared out of thin air, her left hand coming up in a grasping motion.

The white-eyed, stunningly pretty, and extremely well built sorceress was dressed in tight jeans, a snug blouse that really made it obvious how great her figure was, and her long brown hair was pulled back in a tighty pony-tail.

With an idle flick of her hand, the weapon shot across from the man’s holster and arrived in Chunhua’s hand, which also was stored.

“Hold on, wait a moment,” Ash asked in kingdom. He kept his words steady even as his group began preparing themselves. “Let’s just… have a quick chat with them, alright? They only drew a weapon when Hui felt like they were disrespecting her.”

As casually as Ash could manage given Siu was plastered against his side, he strode over to the car and peered into the occupants.

“Hello in there,” Ash said in English. “It seems you’re aware of my group and I. Maybe we should speak before my friend with the white-eyes decides the helicopter that’s watching us needs to pulled in much closer.”

He had already noticed Chunhua gazing at the helicopter and forming what looked a lot like a spell made of air.

“I assure you that we’re merely tourists passing through your realm on our way back to our own,” Ash declared, deciding to take the situation in hand. There was no reason not to be upfront with them if they had already discovered them.

For all he knew, they had a way of tracking them.

Given that the chains passed through the planet it seemed, they’d need a way to travel on this world. Likely a long way or distance, too. There was the distinct likelhood that he’d need help to get where he was going and that would likely need to be from a government entity of some sort.

The two men were just staring at Ash, open mouthed, unmoving, and unblinking.

As if they’d been mentally locked into their own heads and weren’t able to posit a thought.

“Hm, maybe we do need the helicopter to come over,” muttered Ash, then stood up and looked to Hui. He smiled and continued in Kingdom. “Is there anyone else watching other than the one in the shop across the way? I feel like there’s more according to my Dao but I can’t tell if they’re on the way here, or are here.”

“Just the one in the shop. If there’s more coming, that’s fine, too,” Hui stated with a fierce smile. She flexed her hands and they immediately began to glow. One golden and the other black.

“If we can, I’d prefer talking to them. They’re not cultivators. These are like… like… just… servants of the sect leader,” Ash tried, wanting to convey to them that these people were barely worth their time. “We just need to talk to someone with a bit of power rather than the servants.”

“Is that what this is?” Chunhua asked, sounding rather curious. “That would make sense. Should I bring the flying thing over? I’ve already taken control of it’s movements.”

“I… yeah, bring it over. Just makes sure you keep it in the air. They can fall if those spinning blades stop,” Ash advised her, glancing over at the helicopter.

With a soft pull with her hand and a smile Chunhua watched the helicopter.

Swiftly, it began descending and heading straight for them.

“We want to talk!” shouted the man who came out of the store across the way. His hands held up in a plaintative gesture. “We would love to talk. We apologize for not responding to your question. Visitors from other places aren’t well known. At all.”

“Oh? Alright. You can let the helicopter go, Chu,” advised Ash. “Make sure it can fly away on it’s own power though. We don’t want it coming down.”

“Poo, I wanted to see it up close,” Chunhua lamented and seemed to release whatever hold she had on it.

Ash glanced to it and watched as it immediately dove off and away to the side.

The pilot clearly wanted to be gone and immediately.

“Ah… thank you for that,” the man said, slowly crossing the street to Ash. He slowly reached down to the gun at his side and drew it out of his holster. Holding it up he let it dangle between his thumb and forefinger.

It vanished.

“Got it. I’m going to shoot a Bride and see how it goes. I can always remove the bullet and then have Rou fix her if it’s stronger than the Bride,” Locke offered. “Though I think by and large it won’t be an issue. I do think that a gun would be usable against anyone below the Mortal Rank one class. The body grows considerably stronger with Qi seeping into the skin and bones by that point.

“We’ll find out in just a few minutes though! Exciting, exciting.”

Ash really didn’t know what to say to the idea that Locke was going to shoot a Bride.

The man who had come out of the store was staring at his hand.

Or perhaps, the pistol that was no longer there.

“Great,” Ash said. “Do we speak somewhere around here? It would be wonderful if we could get some food. I haven’t eaten this week and I could go with a snack. Do you perhaps have pizza in this world? I’d kill for pizza.”

“I… sure. We-we could do pizza,” the man murmured, looking back to Ash.