54 Peace and Death

Jack walked up to the main gates of the encampment and nodded to the new person in charge of the Undying Flame Mountain disciples, the young man that guarded the rear or the encampment previously.

"You ready, Kong Weilie?" Jack asked as he stopped in front of him.

The young man, Kong Weilie, looked up at Jack's white flag and answered "I am, but why are you carrying an Eternal Rest Mountain servant uniform tied to a stick on your shoulder?"

Jack glanced up at his flag for a second, before looking down at Kong Weilie and saying "It's a custom from where I come from to bring a white flag to a negotiation between hostile forces as a symbol of peace."

Kong Weilie gave it a skeptical glance as he mumbled under his breath "Or they can take it as a symbol of death."

Jack gave him a lopsided smile as he added "Hopefully both."

Kong Weilie shrugged and turned to his two men that stood next to the gates. He gave a signal and the men imbued the gates with their spirit energy. A few seconds later, they started to open on their own.

Once they walked out of the walled-off complex of guard houses, Jack gave the flag to Shi Furui to hold, while he took out a camouflaged cylinder out of his Star Bag and slid it into his left sleeve. He took a few metal balls in his hand and stored them in a pocket that he has sown in on the inside of his robes.

Kong Weilie looked down at Jack's waist for a second, before he looked at the strange item hidden in his sleeve and asked "What are you going to do with that?"

Jack tapped the cylinder with his right hand affectionately as he answered "Protect myself from my enemies, of course."

Kong Weilie gave a snort as he said "You must have something better in that Star Bag of yours." He gave Shi Furui a glance and added "Give him something too. I am not certain in my ability to protect you both with just my saber if things go wrong."

Jack shrugged as he rejected the suggestion "Nah, I'm fine." He looked back at Shi Furui as he continued "You have… what? Eight knives hidden in your uniform?" After Shi Furui nodded his head in confirmation Jack looked back at Kong Weilie with a smile and concluded "See, we might just have to protect you with your single saber."

Kong Weilie gave Jack a bark of laughter in response as he said "Right, two grade four cultivators are going to protect a grade six one."

They continued chatting until they reached the center of the vast no man's land.

Jack stepped up to the front of the group, pushed spirit energy into his lungs and vocal chords, and shouted "Disciple Sister Mai, can we have a talk?!" His voice spread out over the valley and reached the Blooming Life Mountain encampment.

A minute later Shi Furui asked, "You sure that she's there?"

Jack glanced back at him, before turning to look at the silent enemy camp and giving a confident nod.

Another minute passed and Kong Weilie asked "Should you try again?"

Jack shook his head without even looking at Kong Weilie as he said "We must not look desperate."

A few more minutes passed, just as Shi Furui and Kong Weilie started exchanging nervous glances, the gates of the Blooming Life Mountain encampment opened up and two people walked out of them together.

Jack saw the familiar light green-clad figure of Mai Yining walking on the right, while next to her walked a teen in a deep blue robe, with a sword on his hip. He had a strong jaw and a fierce gaze, while he walked like the world belonged to him.

"I don't like the Slaughtering Sword School guy. Keep an eye on him." Jack muttered to his companions as he switched his gaze back to Mai Yining and studied her movements.

On the outside, she looked confident and ready for anything; but as she neared their position Jack saw the uncertainty in her eyes and gave a slight sigh of relief on the inside. She focused her eyes on him and didn't look away.

Mai Yining and her companion stopped at a distance a little less than twenty meters away from Jack's group. The teen started to talk as soon as they stopped advancing "We have come to hear out your terms of surrender, anything less will…"

"Shut up! I didn't ask for you to come, Slaughtering Sword School dog." Jack growled at the teen and turned his eyes back to the surprised Mai Yining.

The teen didn't react to the insult with anything more than a sneer as he said "I will not allow a young lady come out alone to negotiate with three enemies." He paused for a second and added "No matter how pathetic they look."

Jack saw a flash of annoyance in Mai Yining's eyes and struck as he addressed her "Sister Mai, would you please step to the side and talk about this with me?"

"I will not allow you to…" the Slaughtering Sword School teen started, but Mai Yining's eyes flashed with fury and she overrode his voice with her own as she said "Very well, Song Tanda. I will give you a few breaths of time to explain yourself to me."

With that, she turned and covered a few hundred meters in a dozen seconds. She stopped at a distant spot and turned towards them. Jack gave her a lopsided grin and used Moon Step to chase after her, leaving the teen and his two companions to glare at each other.

When he reached her, before he could say anything, she slapped him hard enough to make him dizzy for a second. He could have dodged the telegraphed slap, but he decided that he should let her have this one. He tasted blood in his mouth and spat it out to the side.

Mai Yining had a flash of concern in her eyes, but it soon turned into anger as she tried to both yell and whisper at the same time "You lied to me!"

Jack looked her straight into her angry eyes and said "I did not. When I met you I didn't know that you were the daughter of the Blooming Life Mountain Peak Mistress. In fact, if I remember correctly, you lied to me and told me that she was just an Elder."

Of course, Jack investigated all of the persons of interest that he came into contact with through old Long's contacts. He decided to deepen his relationship with Mai Yining exactly because he found out that her mother ruled over one of the Sect's five mountains. After Li Manning told him that only a few maps existed of the surrounding area, he felt certain that a Peak Mistress had to have one that's up to date.

A major reason that he decided to lead his people through the valley between the Undying Flame Mountain and the Blooming Life Mountain was that he had a couple of trump cards in the Young Master and the Young Mistress of the two mountains to use in case of trouble.

He debated if he should take his people to the valley between the Undying Flame Mountain and the Unbreakable Rock Mountain, but he didn't know how much pull Bi Xiongtuo would have outside of the outer disciple circles of his mountain.

Mai Yining looked taken aback for a moment before she hissed "Why did you not tell me when you found out?"

Jack shrugged as he said "I didn't think it important. I guessed that you had your reasons to keep it a secret."

Uncertainty swam in Mai Yining's eyes once more as she looked around for something to grab onto while she talked "Then why are you here? I don't believe that you just ended up here by accident." She finally spotted Shi Furui in the distance and continued as she pointed at him "And why is that animal still alive?"

Jack's eyes turned cold as he declared "I will not kill a friend just because someone wants me to do it." When he saw a hint of shame in her eyes he continued "I apologize for lying to you about that, I ordered him to do it and didn't want you to figure out what I had them do."

Mai Yining's voice had disgust in it as she whispered "You made them to that barbaric thing?"

Jack didn't look away from her horrified gaze as he admitted "Yes. We lowly servants don't have nice meridian diagrams to study so we can improve our cultivation practice faster. We can only do it the old-fashioned way."

Mai Yining covered her mouth with her hand as she argued "There must be a better way than mutilating corpses."

Jack's eyes narrowed as he said "Trust me; they've gone through far worse horrors way before they came to us. They wouldn't have cared about that broken empty husk that they left behind." Jack had to ignore all the images of spirits that flashed through his head when he said that statement, but nothing showed on his face.

Mai Yining's brows furrowed as she asked "What do you mean?"

Jack studied her for a few seconds before he spoke "Before I came to this Sect I had my ribs cracked, got almost suffocated, and missed a bonfire by only a tiny sliver just because I didn't address a cultivator properly. What do you think happens to servants that have to interact with cultivators on a daily basis?"

Mai Yining shook her head as she denied the accusations "That's not true. We do punish servants when they misbehave, but we do not treat them cruelly."

Jack's face turned thunderous as he growled "Other people are not children for you to punish on a whim!" He took a deep breath to calm down when he saw a hint of fright in Mai Yining's eyes and continued "Even you, you damaged the hearing of a few of my men and wanted one executed without even asking about their deeds. And you're one of the better ones; some would have just executed the lot and told me later in passing."

Mai Yining had a horrified look on her face for a second before she found a straw to grab a hold of and stated "You are a cultivator too. You cannot condemn us for what we do when you use the power and status that the position awards you too."

Jack didn't hesitate as he nodded his head and admitted "I am a hypocrite. I have long known this truth about myself. But even after all that I've gone through, I am a man first and a cultivator a distant second." He looked over his shoulder at the Undying Flame Mountain encampment and continued "That's why when the attack started I took all the people that I could and led them through this valley in a desperate bid for safety."

He looked back at Mai Yining with sadness in his eyes as he added "Who would have guessed that you would have betrayed us and left us trapped here."

Mai Yining's eyes beamed out hurt at Jack as she took a step closer to him and raised a hand in an instinctual attempt to touch him. Her hand halted just as it neared his chest, and she retracted it to her own as she whispered "I could not do anything about that. My mother decided that for the safety of all of the people of the Blooming Life Mountain we should work together with the Slaughtering Sword School."

Jack looked down at her hand and gave a soft sigh as he asked "What about the safety of everyone else?" He pointed a finger at the distant Undying Flame Mountain encampment and continued "There are over five hundred people trapped behind those walls and their protectors left them. Most of them innocent families of cultivators that have no strength to do harm to anyone. Should they die for your safety?"

Mai Yining's pained eyes looked up into Jack's steely ones as she whispered "I cannot do anything to help them. It took everything I had to prevent the Slaughtering Sword School from just coming out here and killing you."

Jack placed a calming hand on her trembling shoulder and said "You could do exactly that, nothing."

Mai Yining's brows furrowed as she asked "What do you mean?"

Jack took a step closer to her and answered "Just have your forces stay behind the walls of the guard houses when I lead the people out towards freedom. You don't have to do anything else."

Mai Yining's eyes widened as she glanced at the teen from the Slaughtering Sword School before turning back to Jack and asked "What about them? I cannot direct them on what to do. He will chase you down and kill you."

Jack glanced at the teen too and a small smirk formed on his lips as he said "I will take care of him."

Mai Yining had a worried look in her eyes as she asked "Why do you not just surrender to me? I will make sure that as many innocent people as possible get sent to the Blooming Life Mountain's care."

Jack's face turned serious as he looked down into her eyes and said "I would rather die a free man than live the rest of my life as a slave."

As Mai Yining stood stunned by his proclamation, Jack bent down and kissed her forehead. While she still had a dazed look in her eyes he stepped back and glanced at the three waiting people in the center of the valley and said "We should go back or the Sword boy might worry."

Mai Yining's eyes cleared up as she focused on Jack's lips for a second, and then looked up at his eyes with a reluctant gaze. She hesitated for a second, before nodding her head and saying "Yes, we should." She kept looking at Jack for a few more seconds and finally said "Do not die." before she turned and ran back to the center of the valley.

Jack followed a second later, after he grasped a camouflaged cylinder in his right hand.

As he came close to the gathering, he looked at the teen from the Slaughtering Sword School and started shouting at him "Hey you, Sword boy, I heard that every cultivator from the Slaughtering Sword School has to spend a passionate night with an animal every time he breaks through to a higher grade. How many animals have you bedded?"

The teen in question looked at Jack in confusion as he started to say "What…"

"Don't be shy, Sword boy. I'll understand if you weren't able to do it with all of the animals. I hear that it happens more often than people think." Jack interrupted as he moved a few steps closer towards the teen.

The Slaughtering Sword School teen's face turned furious as he growled "Say another word and I will…"

"You'll what? Go find a Kui Ox to prove that you can do it with an animal any time you want?" Jack asked as he took another step towards the teen.

A soft giggle sounded from the side, as Mai Yining held her hands over her mouth while she watched the exchange. Almost at the same moment, her eyes widened in horror as she realized what she had done, the Slaughtering Sword School teen's face switched into a murderous calm as he charged towards Jack while drawing his sword out of its sheath, and Jack started rising his cylinder to his right shoulder.

In a split second, the teen appeared in front of Jack and slashed his sword at his neck.

Jack ignored the incoming sword as he held one end of the cylinder in a reverse grip, his thumb on the open end, and strands of spirit energy exited his clenched fingers and penetrated through the Deep Water Iron to form the Air Blast spell structure right behind the metal ball.

As the sword flashed down towards him, Jack used his left hand to aim the cylinder towards the head of the attacking teen.

Just before the glittering blade reached him, a fiery saber flashed in front of Jack and blocked the strike. Two spirit energies battled for supremacy for a moment, before they exploded into turbulent winds that rustled Jack's hair, but couldn't move his aim.

With a mocking smirk on his lips, Jack unleashed the Air Blast spell and sent the metal ball flying out of the cylinder at almost the speed of sound.

The Slaughtering Sword School teen's forehead caved in and a splash of blood and brain matter exited through the back of his head.

Everything froze as the corpse of the teen collapsed on his back, his eyes staring at the battles in the sky sightlessly.

Jack calmly returned his cylinder back to his Star Bag, turned towards a stunned Mai Yining, gave her a wink, and said "Thanks for the assist, Yining. I'll see you later."

With that, he turned and sprinted with the Moon Step back towards the Undying Flame Mountain encampment. Shi Furui and Kong Weilie followed in his wake after they spent a second to stare at the dead teen.

Their flag of both peace and death lay forgotten in the upturned earth.