A cold wind whistled past his ears and filled him with strength. He had taken a piece of the cold into himself, and the cold wind felt homely in the late evening ride to the Douglass’s place. A sign waved back and forth on rusty iron rings as they galloped to the closed gate.

 

A Fredrick Douglass, a mulatto that Winery Douglass always claimed belonged to Mr. Douglass, met him at the gate. The boy was claimed as Mr. Douglass’s son and for years was treated the same as the natural-born blonde-haired puritan boy Travis. Silas smiled at the lady of the house’s indiscretion. Everyone knew the woman cheated on the poor man, but his pride wouldn’t let him admit it. Then again, rumor has it that plenty of the man’s female house slaves routinely became pregnant. Mulatto children abound from them, often freed at an early age and adopted as wards of the family.

 

Of course, those were only rumors with nothing backing them. Sometimes Silas went to town to hear the local gossip. In this case, things made so much sense.

 

“Hark, friend, this is Douglass farm, and the boss isn’t expecting company from a poor landowner, no offense,” Fredrick said.

 

Silas stared down at the man from his horse. The pistol in the man’s hand wasn’t raised to fire, but it was most likely loaded. Besides that, the man’s eyes were glazed over, and a little drool fell from his mouth. Douglass wasn’t known for being mentally retarded the Mulatto son was, by all accounts, a smart boy who loved to read. It was why his father put him in charge of the gatehouse. There were few visitors, especially during winter, and it had nothing to do with not wanting to see his wife’s indiscretions.

 

“Boss, not Mr. Douglass Eugene. Do thou think he misspoke?” He heard the man cock the pistol back.

 

“We art not expecting company. Go back the way thou came.” Fredrick said.

 

He twitched a finger, and the gun’s barrel crushed in on itself.

 

Fredrick pulled the trigger, and the weapon exploded in his hand. A bloody, mangled hand was his reward, and he cradled his hand before screaming.

 

Eugene did something to shut him up before riding beside Silas. “Thou did not want him as an undead worker or a cultivator. The ladies in town all claim him to be an avid reader.”

 

The man fell over after a few minutes. Silas guessed Eugene put a bubble of air around the man’s head. It didn’t stop field slaves from noticing and running with farming implements in hand. Their eyes were like Fredrick’s. Eugene laughed as they ran, and Silas joined him before they used their techniques to destroy the weapons. Even with their weapons gone, the men still charged.

 

Silas couldn’t help but wonder why the villains behind the brainwashing didn’t put guns in the hands of their minions. He had a few guesses but nothing concrete. Fredrick still had a glassy-eyed stare, even under immense pain. That meant the brainwashing wasn’t easily removed, so why underarm obedient slaves. On the other hand, it could be that the controller was inexperienced with their power and hadn’t tested its upper limits.

 

Unfortunately, his senses weren’t good enough to determine how the brainwashing worked or how to break it. While there were traces of spiritual energy, the mechanics weren’t obvious. He would need to observe the technique to effectively build a way to counter it.

 

Knowing he was dealing with a brainwashing enemy took a few options off the table. He punched, shortening the distance with his Dao before kicking Dotty forward. The mare turned spirit beast leaped over the fence and charged forward with incredible speed. At first, he thought he would fight the brainwashed humans, but Dotty had other ideas.

 

Being a horse that had grown much taller than normal with streamlined features, she ran over the brainwashed men and trampled them. Eugene followed behind while they charged forward.

 

“Shouldn’t we get some backup?” Eugene said.

 

“Good idea, head back and get a posse together. I am going to rip and tear. We can’t let enemies like these get a foothold. We will never root them out if we give them time to set up. My great-grandchildren will have to deal with this if we don’t act decisively.” Silas said.

 

He only saw them on the Douglass farm; they were bound to be set up already. Silas wanted Eugene gone to have all the killing to himself.

 

Eugene looked pensive as the hooves of their mounts crushed bones under steel shod hooves. Dotty’s telekinesis allowed her to knock over enemies far easier and made her trampling all the more devastating.

 

“What about thou?” Eugene said.

 

“They won’t get the chance to brainwash me. Unlike these poor bastards, I am ready for whatever the villains can throw at me. When I see them, I will go for the kill.” Silas said.

 

Eugene looked torn as they rode, like he didn’t want to leave Silas to fight alone. But between the two, they didn’t have the numbers to make sure none of the enemies escaped.

 

“Mayhap thou should go, and I can stay and act as thy vanguard,” Eugene said.   

 

The sun continued its slow descent taxing them for time. “Get back and return soon.” He could feel it in his bones; something was about to happen. The setting sun nearly blinded him as he charged for the plantation home.

 

To him, it felt like he was back in the old wild world. Even when he wanted to do good, he brought the cultivation world with him and fell into his bad old ways. He wanted to trust the Shinigami but couldn’t help plotting to get ultimate power. A part of him wanted to really trust Eugene and the bounts, but he was sure they were only acting obedient under the threat of the Shinigami.

 

He liked Soifon, and sparing with her was amazing. Silas had sex with his concubines, but he didn’t relate to them, and they weren’t friends. To him, they were a resource to produce children more than they were people. So he tried to treat them well and make them gifts. After he shared some of the cultivation secrets, they started it but hadn’t tried to make any real progress. Instead, they were more concerned with food supply and personal comforts.

 

Silas provided them food, shelter, and protection, and they were happy. None of them were at the level he could speak with them intellectually. That was to be expected; he didn’t steal them for their conversation skills.

 

The sun finally slipped beyond the horizon when he arrived at the manor. The Douglass plantation was huge especially compared to his own land. It must be nice to have a community of people to help build such a nice house. Silas smirked as he held up his storage ring. His secondary objective was to rob the place while he searched for the one responsible for the mind control.

 

 

 

He heard the well’s lid moved and looked over to see a hand with black claws instead of nails move the lid aside. Silas searched his senses but was certain the individual wasn’t of the 3^rd realm. It was prenatal, from what Silas could tell, and it was soaked in the Minor Dao of blood and Grand Dao of hunger.

 

Silas couldn’t see his hand in front of his face in the dark, but his spirit sense saw for him. He could, in a way, see the creature clearly as it moved. But when the monster stood still, it became invisible to his spirit sense. From what he could tell, there were 12 on the farm; one was in the natal realm, while the others were prenatal.

 

That was going strictly by spiritual energy; their abilities and physical strengths were unknown. Silas couldn’t grip them with telekinesis and crush their organs because each had the spiritual energy to throw off his telekinesis.

 

He raised his hand and clenched it. The well wasn’t far away, and he used his Dao of Distance to lessen the strain on his telekinesis. Who cared about crushing the monster’s internal organs with telekinesis when the well was wrapped around with stone to keep people from falling in.

 

The creature struggled to get away as the stones broke from their mortar and slammed into the creature. Dotty joined him with her own strength, and together they crushed the creature before it could make a noise and alert its fellows.

 

Silas felt them turn in his direction, and by the way, they moved, they could smell their fellow’s blood. That was interesting. He hesitated to call them vampires, but if the shoe fits.

 

One jumped from the room, and Silas extended the distance by double and walked Dotty closer to the building. The monster failed to brace for double the fall. Instead, it hit the ground hard and slapped the ground with its behind.

 

Dotty leaned forward, raised her back legs, and kicked with her steel shod hooves. The monster hadn’t adjusted in time and failed to dodge. Its head exploded like a rotten melon dropping its body to the ground.

 

Silas knew they were dealing with a force unprepared for what the two of them could do. The weaker ones were bound to die if caught alone or if they acted too boldly. Other monsters remained inside the mansion, flickering in and out of his spirit sense every time they paused their movement.

 

When they started moving again, they were often in different positions from where they had stopped. So there was a point when they stopped completely and moved that he couldn’t sense.

 

He didn’t know why they didn’t charge him, probably because he was mounted. They were fast but maybe not faster than Dotty in full gallop. They wanted to capture Dotty after he made his way inside and ambushed him there. Hubris was a good excuse; they might not want to share whatever they needed humans for. For some reason, Silas still wanted to call them vampires due to their blood and hunger Dao natures. It fits too well.

 

Beside two groups in the mansion, the monsters occupied separate rooms. He could kill most of them, half of them, then face the room with the three each. Silas stopped the one in the well with rocks, but without Dotty, he didn’t know if his telekinesis would have been enough. He felt trapped in a difficult position with few options. One could ambush him at any moment he was pinpointing how long they were invisible to his senses, and it wasn’t good. There were no lights in the manor either.

 

Silas took out a few posts from his storage ring and quickly threw together a formation to keep them from escaping the manor. He rode around it with Dotty putting the posts in the ground before activating the formation.

 

If one tried to cross, they would receive the equivalent of 10,000 volts of electricity all over their body. While it wasn’t deadly to them, it would likely hurt enough to keep them inside. He also wanted to fight them.

 

The Dao Eye floated above his right shoulder to usher him on. A feeling of battle hunger rose within him that he couldn’t ignore. Hitting sacks of wet sand wasn’t enough; he needed to fight monsters with his bare fists.

 

He shortened the distance with his Dao to replicate Soifon’s flash step. He crossed the 20 meters separating him from the front porch in a single step. When he got better, he would try using the trick with Dotty to cut down on their travel time even more. He could make each step count for 30 meters and take 25 steps before his head hurt and he needed a rest. That was 750 meters, three-fourths of a kilometer. Then, if he ran, he could really get going.

 

In other words, he had a reliable speed technique that wasn’t too costly. He could attack enemies from across the room with his full strength and throw objects with his aura. There were impalement spikes in his ring space along with formation materials. If he finished off the first 6, he had 30 loaded muskets to use when he didn’t care about being loud. He felt prepared enough when he opened the door to the mansion.

I'm still thinking about this story. I made a new one called The First Sage which is completely original. Really All I would have to do with this one to make it original is change a few names. The plot has nothing to do with Bleach really.

Check out the First Sage and support it on Patreon. I'll write more of this story with more support.

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