Chapter 1 : The Loss Of Stone Palace
Turning, he surveyed the destruction all around. What had once been an impressive complex built of intricately carved solid stone blocks, was now a pile of rubble. It would have been an absurd yet awe inspiring display of raw destructive power, if it wasn’t for the many, many dead bodies lay strewn about like so much discarded straw. They lay where they had fallen, most with horrendous wounds and in pools of dark, dried blood. Some had clearly been less fortunate than others, sporting wounds that appeared to be from wild aninals rather than rival cultivators. Claws left ragged tears, chunks had been bitten out of some while others had been savaged so badly, their identities were forever lost.
Almost all the bodies wore the simple tunics favoured by the Shigong monks. A few however, mainly parts of bodies rather than whole ones, wore a different style of clothing. Tight fitting martial robes of black and dark red. A headless torso with mostly intact robes had the distinctive symbol of Obsidian Hall emblazoned across his muscular back.
Frowning Feng Jianyu stood up from his inspection of the unknown man and looked around. The Shigong had been decimated. The buildings had been mostly destroyed and they had found no evidence of any survivors. He wanted to hope that maybe a few monks had managed to escape the massacre, but he didn’t believe they would find survivors. Nevertheless, he set a handful of his men to search the ruined buildings and surrounding area just in case.
They had received news of a distress signal from Stone Palace while they had been in the area tracking down rumours of a new breed of Fierce Corpse. But by the time they had flown to the location, the devastation had been wrought. And it had been several days past, judging from the state of the corpses.
Hand tightening around the hilt of the saber at his hip, Jianyu cursed the Sui for what felt like the hundredth time just that day. His team had been sent to scout out the area along the Sui boarder. Primarily they had been following up on leads about the strange new Fierce Corpses. Unlike other Fierce Corpses, these ones were active during the day and didn’t appear to be limited to a local area as most were.
No, these ones roamed freely during the day, and while weak, were still a significant threat to the mortal population. But the most disturbing aspect to them, was just how numerous they had become in a short span of time. And it wasn’t just a nest that had expanded, incidents had been reported from all across the Liu territory, and the territories of the other sects. How had a new breed of monster simultaneously appeared in unrelated locations?
Jianyu and his squad had been sent on an extended mission to hunt down the truth of these new monsters. His secondary objective was to assess the status of the Sui’s border in the area and exactly how far they had advanced. Neither mission had turned out to be simple, and the latest incident had only proved their worst case scenario when it came to the Sui.
Stone Palace was only the most recent sect to fall before the ambitions of Zhengqing-zun, the Sui’s current leader. As several other small isolated sects and martial clans had already been destroyed or swallowed up by the aggressive expansion of the Sui’s boarders.
Calling over several of his men, he handed out new orders. The Sui situation had to take presidence, they were far more dangerous than the Fierce Corpse problem, which while a strange mystery, could be contained by even low level disciples while the investigation continued. But this situation with Stone Palace needed to be handled right away and with care. The Sui board was obviously active, and with how far they were from Obsidian Hall, the Sui’s headquarters, there had to be a forward base nearby.
Jinayu’s mission had just changed.
Sighing, he sent off several messengers with the latest reports on both issues and his decision to shift focus to the Sui presence in the area. He had several leads on the fierce corpse issue but he knew his sworn brothers, Zhou Jinhai and Liu Li-Tai, would be more than capable of continuing the investigation on his behalf.
With that dealt with, he turned his attention back to the devastation and set off towards the remains of the Shigong’s central hall. He had a lot to do and very little time to do it.
