Palace of the Grand Master
Inner sect fortress

In the aftermath of the battle, the Grand Master Bo stopped by to tell the four heroes that they did well, and that all the fault for the defeat lay in the Imperial Army. The four heroes were gathered to the Inner sanctum as the Inner Disciples rushed everywhere with mana stones and precious talisman to empower the defenses of the Inner Sect and higher reaches of the mountain.

William was frowning, looking at the preparations, and only half listening to Grand Master Bo’s self congratulatory boasts about how they had managed to preserve the sects own fighters out of the almost total loss of the army.

“When it became clear the Imperial Army was not able to stand against the demons, we took quick action to preserve our own strength. In all honesty, none of our irreplaceable assets were lost, only the mortals of the Imperial Army, and the riff raff who led them.” Grand Master Bo said serenely.

“The true strength of the sect was preserved. You heroes, the masters and most promising adepts were all preserved without a single loss.” The Grand master chuckled. “After all, those with a formed mana core are immune to demonic projections like the fear effect that broke the army. It is only the weak that could not stand against them unaided, and it was only the weak that we left for the demons to feast on.”

William was no soldier. On earth, he had been a budding engineer, in this world, he had been training more as an alchemist who could fight than a true warrior. Still, he was a logical man. He pulled the facts out of the long flowery speeches, he set them in front of him, and converted them into equations and didn’t like the sums he came up with.

“That is worse right? You get that that is worse right?” William asked, stopping Grand Master Bo’s self satisfied ramblings.

The Grand Master actually looked confused. “What is worse child?” The Grand Master said, his respectful tones of address falling away quickly when he felt these summoned heroes began to step outside their assigned place and required obedience.

“We left. All of us who had the capacity to protect the army, hell even the outer disciples, we all left. No one even suggested using our powers to protect them, defend the army from the spiritual attack so it could actually fight. We just, left them.” William’s voice was almost a whisper at the end.

The Grand Master began to protest. “We couldn’t have saved them. They lacked the cultivation to fight off demonic projection, and for us to protect them with out own would have required us to stand among them, to use our power to defend them, rather than attack the enemy. Isn’t that what is important?”

Serena snorted. “I notice the outer disciple servants are all gone. Only inner disciple robes here now. I heard the decorative gates are now pretty functional, all the gates between the outer sect and inner sect are bolted shut and you can feel the mana of the defenses, it is so strong I can almost see the chi being restricted to the mountain slopes not allowed to pass down the mountain even as far as the outer sect. Their walls are half as high, a third as wide, twenty times as long, and I can’t even see their defenses, they are that weak. It’s clear who you think is important.”

Brock turned outward, torn from his internal pain with this observation. “Serena take that back, you can’t suggest the Grand Master would sacrifice his own disciples? These are his own people.”

Andrea slapped the table and shouted. “Wake up Brock. This isn’t a video game, this isn’t a story book. Didn’t you notice when the ‘enlightened sect masters’ pulled out they sent the outer sect disciples to buy time for them, and us, to escape. You saw us flying out on the flying treasures right? Pretty magic clouds, fake dragons, pretty ships, all kinds of ego trip escape vessels filled with inner disciple robes only. A few adepts who didn’t throw their swords away and who had the chi left pulled the flying sword trick to follow us, but the ones who wore outer sect robes got shot down by the Inner Disciples. Those pretty little sky boats never flew back, nobody went back for the outer disciples. They left them there as demon food so we could escape. Now, we are locking them out of the big magical defenses, trapped between our inner walls, and whatever the demons send.”

Brock turned to Grand Master Bo in surprise. “That isn’t true, Grand Master. Explain how they are wrong.”

Grand Master Bo smiled serenely. “Be at peace child. You are a hero, an unparallelled genius. You are a precious treasure in which we invest all our hope, our learning, our training and our trust. You will have every protection as you grow strong enough to end this war, and save this world. Now, the inner disciples are all superior cultivators, they are all gifted students with the potential to become true immortals. The outer sect disciples are good enough to serve, but have not proven themselves strong enough to go farther. They serve the sect as they can, but they lack the gift to become true immortals. If they lack the strength to become true immortals, then at least they can offer a mortals only real gift. They can die for their betters. They will spend themselves to the last man or women to reduce the strength of the enemy, to force them to expend precious resources, and to buy time for your training.”

Brock looked at him in horror. “You are the strongest, we are the strongest. What purpose is there in having this strength if you don’t protect the weak? What ever happened to with great power comes great responsibility?”

Grand Master Bo tucked his hands into his sleeves and rose to glare down at them coldly. “The scythe has no duty to the wheat but to reap it. The strong have the duty to walk the path of ascension, to rise beyond mortality and this base world. The only purpose of this world is to serve that, and the only purpose of the mortals is to breed potential cultivators, and serve those who already walk the path of ascension.”

With a huff, he stalked out of the room. A flick of his chi slammed the door behind him and he stalked off to his private chambers to meditate. How dare they question him? How dare they take him to task over the lives of a few mortals, or a few outer sect disciples. He was a Grand Master, he was lowering himself almost to the dirt even to speak with them. These heroes had best learn the truth of this world soon, before their weakness dragged down their betters to the fate of fools.

Brock whispered to himself. “I thought we were supposed to be heroes. I thought we were supposed to save the world.”

William looked at him in pity. His eyes shone like pits of pain in a face of ebony. “We were not summoned by the peasants. We were summoned by the rich and powerful to save the only part of the world they care about. The part they are standing in. The little people only matter as long as they, and by that I mean we, are useful.”

Serena was thinking. “I remember how it felt. The demonic fear. It was corrupted, but it was basically a mixture of fire and air. It wasn’t really an illusion, it was an emotion. Fire, and then a communication, as in wind. The demonic chi just allowed it to seep in the undefended mana gates, and once it got to the core, the people broke.”

Andrea turned to William. “You are the alchemist; how do we fight it?”

William thought for only a second. “Fog. I make a fog. Water to smother the fire and ground it to earth. I will add herbs to it, strengthen them with earth and wood chi, the power of life to strengthen those the fog touches. I don’t have enough strength to cover that large an area. Maybe a hundred yards.”

Brock snarled. “Forget what you can power, how much fog can you make. How big an area. Can you do a battlefield?”

William shrugged. “A small one, but I can’t power it all.”

Serena smiled. “But we can. We can be heroes, and cover the whole battlefield.”

William nodded. “But if we are using all of our mana to gather the chi to do that, how are we going to fight the demons?”

Andrea slammed her spear down on the table and William jumped. Serena and Brock just smiled. “With this. We stop standing around in pretty robes contemplating our navels and we go cut a bitch.”

William pushed his unneeded glasses reflexively up his nose and questioned. “That is our plan, I make it foggy and we go cut a bitch?”

Serena slammed her hand down upon the spear and shouted. “Cut a bitch!”

Brock slammed his hand down upon the spear and growled “Cut a bitch!”

William nodded, placing his hand down firmly. “I agree. Lets go cut a bitch!”

Somewhere in a cave, where he had been imbuing talisman to raise new undead, Demon Sui shuddered as if fate had just spoken his name.

Meanwhile, in Fort Defiance, a platoon worth of budding demon hunters felt a cold raspy voice laughing in triumphant madness, shuddered, feeling equally terrified and comforted.