Gleam [Karma Cultivator Isekai] - Chapter 103: Friends

As soon as Nimea left the room, Quinn crumpled to the ground like a puppet whose strings had been cut. Strands of ropey red energy curled off her back and neck, rising into the air and dissipating.

Chance stared at the hand on the ground, watching the blood pool at his feet and stain his shoes. He reached down for it, then paused. His fingers twitched and he squeezed his hand into a fist, retracting it.

“Are you going to attack again?” Chance asked softly.

Quinn let out a pained groan and writhed on the ground, trying to pick at something at her back. A thin sliver of metal pushed out from between her shoulder blades and clattered onto the ground. As soon as it came free, Quinn slumped forward.

“No. I have no reason to fight you any further.”

“Nimea was forcing you to fight me, right?”

Quinn didn’t reply. She stared at the metal like she were looking into a mirror. Chance turned away from her, looking through the smoke to try to get a glimpse at Bella. He hadn’t heard anything from either her or Ocie, so everything was still fine. It probably wouldn’t be long before more cultivators arrived, though.

“Then you’ve got two options,” Chance said. “Stay here or leave. If you’ve got any designs on the power that drew you here, I won’t let you pass until my friend is finished cultivating.”

Quinn looked up at Chance for the first time since Nimea had left. “You’d let me stay?”

“It was pretty obvious that you weren’t fully in control of your actions. It would be wrong of me to hold you accountable for that, but I’m not going to put my own team at risk either.”

Quinn nodded. “I understand. I – I don’t know what else I can do. I’ll stay.”

Chance inclined his head. He listened closely for a minute, trying to see if he could hear anyone else coming. All that reached his ears was the crackle of the fire surrounding Bella. He turned back, sitting down in front of it.

Several minutes passed. Quinn dragged herself over to the wall and sat with her back to it, staring at the ground with a blank, lost expression. Chance pulled a healing pill out of one of his vials and flicked it over to her.

Quinn caught it, looking up at him with a surprised expression.

“What is this?” Quinn asked suspiciously.

“A healing pill.”

“Why?”

“Why not? You’re injured.”

“We’re enemies.”

“We were enemies,” Chance corrected. “I don’t hate the sword. You even tried to talk Nimea out of attacking me. What happened was her fault, not yours.”

Quinn looked down at the pill in her hands. A bitter smile flickered across her face and she put it into her mouth, swallowing. She seemed mildly surprised to find that her wounds actually started to seal over a moment later.

“It’s wasted,” Quinn said.

“Kindness is never wasted.”

“I’ll be dead soon anyway,” Quinn said with a laugh. “As soon as I leave the Ancient Realm, I’ll return to our home sect. Nimea will have me killed if I’m lucky. More likely, I’ll end up being made into an example.”

Chance’s lips pressed thin.

Perhaps letting her live wasn’t the right move, but killing her felt… I don’t know. Wrong. Not because she deserved to live, but killing someone that much weaker than me felt like it would impact my Karma. Like it wasn’t my place to deal with her.

“I’m sorry,” Chance said. “Maybe I shouldn’t have let her live.”

“If you hadn’t let her live, I doubt you would have let me live either. I’ll take a few days of freedom over having to continue living as a servant to her. At least I’ll die my own woman.”

“There’s no way you could find another way out?” Chance asked.

Quinn shrugged. “I could camp the exit portals, I suppose. Wait for someone else to use them, then try to jump into their portal together with them. It’s a better shot than nothing.”

Something rumbled outside the mansion. Chance and Quinn both paused, looking up toward the source of the noise. They remained silent for several moments, listening intently. There was no more noise.

Chance slipped to his feet and his urumi slithered into his grip.

“You can’t hold all the cultivators off, you know,” Quinn warned. “There was a lot of power here. It’s got to have summoned a ton of powerful people. Now that Nimea’s gone, all bets are off. You should take your friend and run before someone stronger than us comes along.”

The advice was sound. Chance couldn’t argue with it – but Bella wasn’t going to get another break like this out of nowhere anytime soon. They’d already agreed that there were certain risks that they had to take if they wanted to get stronger, and it wasn’t like there were any cultivators here yet.

“You’re free to leave,” Chance said. “I won’t keep you here. We won’t be giving this treasure up for free, though. If someone wants it, they’ll have to take it from us.”

Quinn shook her head in disbelief. She opened her mouth to say something, but was interrupted by a heavy footfall from the tunnel that Nimea had retreated through. They both froze, turning toward it.

Another footfall echoed through the darkness. A second and third followed after it, each echoing ominously.

Chance tensed, readying his Essence.

Maybe they’ll be willing to share. The offer’s still on the table for people that don’t try to kill us first.

Nimea’s head poked through the hole. Chance blinked in surprise. After everything, he hadn’t thought she’d actually come back. She’d struck him as entitled, not completely stupid. Then the head was followed – not by a body, but by a muscled arm.

Lin ducked into the room, a languid grin on his face as he swung Nimea’s head by his side. Quinn’s eyes traced her former master’s head as it made slow arcs through the air, blood dripping from its neck and splattering across Lin’s pants.

“My friend,” Lin said, extending his arms and dropping Nimea’s head on the ground before him. “You let your prey escape. I caught it for you. I hope you don’t mind that I took some liberties first. I tried to speak, but she was annoying.”

“Lin.” Chance watched the large man warily. The hair on the back of his neck stood on end at the look in Lin’s eyes. Hunger and deep, barely restrained fury smoldered within them. They belonged to a predator, not a human. “I didn’t realize you’d entered the Ancient Realm.”

“I wasn’t originally planning on it, but my conversation with the Shikari got me interested. I found that I couldn’t help myself any longer. I hope you weren’t setting up for a longer hunt. Did I interfere?”

“No,” Chance ground out. “I wasn’t actually planning on killing her.”

“Oh. I see,” Lin said. He rubbed his chin, then looked up at Quinn. “Who’s this?”

“Her former servant,” Chance replied. “An unwilling participant. I’m letting her rest here while she figures out what to do next. Did… you come for the energy source?”

Lin blinked. “There’s an energy source?”

Chance and Quinn exchanged a glance.

Lin looked past Chance, then burst into laughter. “That? No. I don’t care about that. The most interesting part of the Ancient Realm is the Hunt, and that Shikari got me far too worked up. I thought I was doing you a favor by having dinner with them, but it turned out to be a favor for myself instead. It must be Karma.”

Chance studied Lin’s face closely, trying to figure out what the man’s intentions were. Everything he knew about Lin – including his instincts – told him to run screaming, but he was more cordial than Yeo on days that he didn’t get a good breakfast.

“Did you want this?” Lin asked, nudging Nimea’s head with the tip of his foot and looking at Quinn.

Quinn swallowed heavily and scooted back. “I – no. No. I don’t want it.”

“Unfortunate. With how much she screamed, I thought at least someone would have cared. You are Quinn, I presume?”

Quinn gave him a shaky nod.

“She was screaming your name when I killed her,” Lin said.

Quinn’s face went white. “For help?”

“No, no. She was cursing you, I believe,” Linn replied, rubbing his chin with a blood-covered hand. “Curious thing, to waste your final breaths in anger at another. They’re the last traces you leave on this world. Spending them on someone else… so selfless.”

Quinn sent Chance a terrified glance. He didn’t blame her.

I knew Lin was dangerous and insane, but this is way worse than what I thought it was. He seemed pretty normal when I met him the first time, and he was only slightly terrifying the second time around. What in the world happened?

“Lin?” Chance asked. He called on his Essence, directing it to his forehead and opening his third eye. Strands of Karma swam to life around Lin in such a thick web that it was difficult to make out one from the other.

Lin tilted his head to the side. “Yes?”

“What happened at your… dinner with Shae and Jade? Did it go well?”

“It was enjoyable,” Lin said. “Not nearly worth the favor you paid me, though. I thought I might pay it off some by taking care of this girl, but it seems I may have simply inconvenienced you even further.”

Chance flicked through the strands of Karma, searching desperately for a familiar face. Almost as if the Karma detected his desire, the strands shifted and moved out of the way as one came forth.

At first, all Chance could see was red. As he studied it harder, more detail emerged. It was his room in the Dancing Cloud sect. Jade knelt beside Shae. The entire room was covered with blood, and Shae’s arm had been ripped off at the shoulder.

Jade’s eyes were wide with terror and she was screaming something, but there was still some life left in Shae’s eyes. Chance fought the bile that built up in his throat. It didn’t seem like Shae was dead, and Jade appeared safe – physically, at least.

“Nobody died?” Chance asked.

“No, I promised not to kill anyone,” Lin said with a gentle smile. “I am a man of my word. The Shikari did attempt to leave a little early, so we had to have a slight discussion, but I left him with all the information he wanted to report back to his supervisors in Gleam.”

A distant rumble shook the mansion again. Lin glanced up.

“You’ve got other cultivators in the area. Were you planning on sitting here for much longer? I would be curious to see how you find your way out of this one if you do. It would be interesting to see if you survive.”

“Do you happen to know what rank they are?” Chance asked.

“There are several. I noticed multiple Rank Fours and at least one Rank Five.”

Chance chewed his lower lip. Even if Lee wasn’t going to be a threat, cultivators of that strength were a massive problem. If they made it to Bella, there wasn’t going to be much they could do.

“I sense an opportunity,” Lin observed. “Perhaps you need some time. I deal in that sort, and I am eager to settle the scales between us.”

Chance’s stomach clenched, but he nodded. “My friend is trying to cultivate. She’s absorbing the Essence from the treasure that fell through the roof of the mansion.”

“Then I shall help. It is decided,” Lin said, a smile stretching across his face. “That will bring us both peace. Remain here. It will be… difficult for me to notice you while I am working, and it would be unfortunate if something were to happen.”

With that, Lin strode out of the room, only pausing to grab Nimea’s head and take it with him. Once he left, Quinn let out a terrified breath.

“I thought he was going to kill both of us. I’ve changed my mind. I don’t want to die anymore. I’m finding a way out of here. Are you really allied with that monster?”

“Allied might not be the right term,” Chance admitted, unease resting heavily on his shoulders. “I’m not sure getting his attention is such a good thing. I would follow his suggestion if I were you.”

“You think I’m going to disobey someone like that?” Quinn asked with a shudder. “I’ll be right over here, thank you. I just hope this doesn’t take too long. If he doesn’t pop my head like a grape, I want to get out of the Ancient Realm and never come back.”

Chance couldn’t help but agree with her.