Author's Notes
In a village...
Meanwhile, in another village...
Chapter 13 – Monks
"You said he was a hermit and that he preferred to be alone. I imagine his kind heeded his wish."
"Yes. Besides, where he is is uninteresting to my people. There's no reason to have anyone around."
"We'll use that tactic when we arrive."
"Yes."
The merman takes her in his arms again, with the young woman blushing intensely while the jiaoren could hear her accelerated heartbeat, understanding that they were reactions that he should not expect from the human who said that they were only friends.
In fact, he had been a little confused by her statement as he had seen her reactions, only to later believe that he had misinterpreted the signals she was showing to her touch or proximity. But now, in his arms, it was clear that the reactions were in contradiction with her speech, making him pensive.
Hundreds of kilometers away, in a village close to the capital, soldiers were invading houses and looting what they wanted in addition to collecting the tax rate, which was excessive for the humble conditions of the village.
Those who could not pay the exorbitant amount for the reality of that place were caught and thrown into wagons, with the entire family being thrown together with the debtor, giving rise to cries of despair, pain and supplication that permeated the air, with the soldiers laughing cruelly because they amused themselves with the despair of those who were imprisoned while the others found themselves impotent against the weapons and training of the army at the same time that the tax inspector also had fun, without neglecting to supervise the tax collection and make reports.
In some debtor families that had both girls and boys, the soldiers would enter and rape them before throwing them onto the wagons, with them struggling to keep their clothes on while the rest kept the population subdued, with everyone being forced to their knees while they prayed for help while many watched in a mixture of helplessness and despair as the soldiers shifted control so that they could all have fun raping the young villagers.
Some village members tried to fight off capture only to be viciously killed by having their limbs tied to horses and forced to run in different directions, dismembering them for all to see or being impaled alive multiple times and those who did not watch were brutalized, not sparing even children to watch the brutal and cruel spectacle because the victims were used as examples for those who dared to react while satisfying some soldiers who were sadistic.
The houses of those who were thrown into carts to be enslaved for debts were burned after being looted and when they had livestock, they were also taken and would belong to the imperial court.
Then, everyone observes a person entering the village covered with a hood that was shabby to varying degrees, but which still managed to hide the face of its owner, in addition to being visible the fact that he turned his head to the sides, observing the surroundings and then, looking at the crowd of soldiers in the center of the village, and then walking towards them.
The leader of the soldiers approaches and asks sharply, "Are you from this village?"
"No. I'm just a hiker."
"Then get out. We're doing our job."
From one of the surrounding houses, a woman is dragged out by her hair, her clothes disheveled, while crying while screams of pain and despair can be heard, as well as requests for clemency to stop because it hurts and because of the voices, the majority comprised young people and it was possible to make out the voices of some children in pleading, making the newcomer clench his fists as his fury increased exponentially.
Other voices join the same clamor as male voices were audible, with him seeing a boy who couldn't walk due to a limp while holding his trousers precariously while being dragged by two burly men who had wicked smiles on their faces, with him being brutally thrown onto the wagon, just as he was with all the other victims.
"Does your work insist on raping and looting? As well as enslaving those who cannot pay the abusive taxes?" the hooded man asks as he looks at the carts that have railings where several people are piled up, with these groups containing babies, pregnant women, women and men.
"It is our hobby with those who do not comply with the rules and pay taxes. If not paying taxes, they need punishment through enslavement of him and his family and everything they own must be handed over to the imperial court. Those are the orders we have. Get out of here, stranger, or we'll enslave you too."
"I see... I'd like to see them try." the man speaks while a smile that was a mixture of arrogance and sadism was visible under the shabby hood.
The person in charge smiles to himself and says, "Apparently, stupidity is on the rise. We will do your done. Men!"
Those who were free crowded around him while the rest continued throwing people into carts, looting, raping or burning.
"Please do the honors." he speaks sarcastically while bowing ironically with a smirk, making the imperial guards furious.
"Bastard! Who do you think you are?"
The commander of the group of soldiers advances towards his opponent to attack him by raising his sword while he smirks arrogantly because he didn't see any weapon in the newcomer's hands that could block his attack.
However, before he can hit the cold and sharp blade against the walker, he is violently struck by his opponent's fist that discharged part of his fury and revolt in that blow by condensing the power within him to potentiate the attack. The movement was precise and fast to human eyes, making the commander unable to detect his opponent's fist, thus preventing any defense on his part.
The blow was so strong and equally brutal that he flew away, ascent several meters into the air under everyone's appalled gaze, then the body fell violently among the smoldering rubble, spurting blood in all directions as the body was shattered and the quantity of which was sufficient to make a sizable crimson sticky puddle on the spot.
After several minutes, some soldiers snap out of the stupor they've met with the bizarre scene and exclaim desperately, "Sir!"
All the soldiers screamed and the others stopped what they were doing to join those who were there, with everyone withdrawing their swords while some used spears and, taken by fury, advanced against the stranger, with him seeing out of the corner of his eye that many soldiers were trying to flee with the tax inspector.
He removes the cape, revealing that it is a monk who places beads made from skull fragments around his neck and begins to make seals, causing matrices to appear around their stunned faces as he speaks:
"I am called Kongming. I despise evil and am sworn to cleanse the world of injustice."
From a matrix sprouts golden arrows that fly quickly against the soldiers, with some blocking with their weapons while several were summarily pierced at the same time as from the other matrices, golden beams appear that attack the soldiers, cutting the weapons as if they were made of paper and, however, chains appear that immobilize them only to be sliced by golden blades that fly against the soldiers, killing and shredding the bodies of those who had survived the beams.
The fierce attacks generated a rain of blood in the place at the same time that body parts appeared flying that collided with a containment barrier erected by Kongming so that the pieces of bodies and blood did not spread too much, thus concentrating the red puddle on the spot.
A soldier who displayed a crazed countenance manages to advance despite having his ear severed and an eye pierced by the arrow that did not stick in his brain because it hit his face from the side. He managed to pass through the barrier because it was weak.
After all, it was created only to block pieces of bodies and blood. The monk did not pour power into her unlike the matrices he created.
Therefore, the soldier managed to fragment it by using his body weight to break it along with a weapon that had a silver outline, showing that it was not an ordinary weapon.
The fact that one person managed to break out of the assassin formation left the monk dumbfounded. Even so, he managed to dodge the soldier's arms, who then used his body to throw him to the side, making him fall, and then use the silver-edged dagger to hit him sideways, ending up catching only the upper part of the thigh because Kongming managed to dodge the attack that was aimed at his abdomen.
Putting spiritual power in his fist, he furiously strikes the soldier's skull, piercing the bone and shattering the brain, thus ceasing life in that body.
The monk stands up and uses spiritual power to reduce the damage from the wound, allowing him to move his leg, then tear a piece of his tunic to create a bandage that wraps around his thigh and comments as he looks at the lifeless body next to him beside him, "You were the first to escape with your life from the master murder matrix I've developed and honed over the years."
The supervisor who supervised the payment of taxes and some soldiers who had tried to escape earlier were trapped in an imprisonment matrix that appeared from under their feet.
Seeing that they had the monk's attention and after watching the bloody and brutal scene of the others' deaths, they begged for mercy while crying until they heard Kongming's cold voice, "Your victims begged for mercy and you did not give it to them. Why do I need to show mercy? My aim in life is to kill evil and abolish injustice. You are evil and I must eradicate you just like those bastards who died in my killer master matrix."
To their despair, a new matrix appears on the ground and from it appear golden spears that impale them alive from the bottom up, making them agonize until they die.
So, the monk walks calmly through the village, with everyone looking stupefied at him, who advances on the houses and kills the other soldiers who were raping his victims, and then goes to the carts, breaking the locks to free the people and after finishing save them, the bald monk says, "Leave here because the imperial court will send soldiers to find out what happened and when they find out what happened, I don't believe that even those who paid the taxes will get away with it. Take what you can take and run away from here. Find another place because staying here will be a death sentence by torture or you will become slaves. Get back what you gave in tax and leave. It's your choice."
He shrugs and goes to the soldiers, removing a piece of bone from their skull, cleaning the fragments afterwards, and then placing them as beads on his necklace, with one of the people asking fearfully, "You are a monk, but kills?"
"Yes. I kill and eat meat. As for the other rules, I follow them."
Everyone is dumbfounded as Kongming continues on his way out of the village after collecting the skull fragments of those he has killed.
A few kilometers away, another monk was walking along a path in the center of a village. He wore a hood and had a wig that was perfectly placed to trick people.
The kind of shabby cloak hid his real clothes while he ate a skewer that for the others was made of meat when in fact it was made of a vegetable. This ruse was used purely to trick people when he passed by some of them, making them think he was just an ordinary hiker and not a monk.
After all, he knew that monks were hunted alive or executed by order of the imperial court and despite knowing that with his powers, it would be impossible to capture him, he wanted to avoid conflicts and the risk of killing his aggressors.
After all, he had made his vows and made a point of keeping them.
When the monks needed to leave their respective temples, which were hidden and difficult to locate, they used these tricks to go unnoticed because even though most had powers, they preferred not to use them, limiting them to using them only as a last resort.
As the monk walked down a dirt path in the center of the village, he glanced discreetly at a sapphire locket around his neck and under his robe, as he remarked to himself, "Still no reaction. Apparently, it will be hard to find her" he sighs, "Even so, I need to persevere in my task. I need to find her as soon as possible. I think I should go further south. I've had enough years looking in the wrong region."
So, he finishes the skewer and keeps the wood in a kind of cloth bundle that he had tied on his back and that was on top of his worn cloak.
Near the exit of that village, the monk sees the despair of a woman at the door of a house when a healer left regretfully, shaking his head and moved by pity, the monk approaches and gently asks the woman after the healer leaves, " What happened?"
"My daughter is sick. The healer doesn't know how to cure her."
"Can I look at her? I know a little about medicine and I've traveled a lot."
"Yes please."
The anguished woman leads him through the humble house to a room where she sees a young woman lying down. She was sweating profusely as she demonstrated difficulty in breathing. He sits in a simple chair next to the bed and after putting his hand on his forehead, he realizes that the young woman was very feverish, and then he takes her wrist and concentrates.
Then, her hands shine and he passes them over her body, going through it without touching her, and then settling on her chest.
Then, the monk finishes examining and speaks when the young woman coughs heavily at the same time that she is breathing hard.
"She has compromised lungs. Can you get three pots of clear water and a spoon? I'll prepare some medicine."
The lady consents and runs to get what he asked for while he took a small clay pot that contained some herbs that served only as a tonic.
After all, he would heal her otherwise.