22: Chapter 22 The Black Kiln Behind the Animal Hide

He did not give an order immediately. His fingertips pressed against the edge of the loose stones once more, and fine powder fell into the cracks of the grass, the sound swallowed by the wind.

The Speedrun Youth crouched lower, half his face pressed against the damp earth, his eyes scanning the paddock's wooden stakes, black cloth, animal skins, and lamplight inch by inch.

His fingers tapped the muddy surface six times, traced two arcs, and finally placed a broken blade of grass horizontally beneath the darkest patch of black cloth.

"Two entrances in the front yard: beasts enter on the left, waste is removed on the right."

His voice was pressed down until it was almost just a breathy whisper. "The one carrying the lamp takes seventy breaths to complete a circuit; the one polishing his blade is lazy, lifting his head every thirty breaths. The one near the wooden stakes is responsible for listening to the cages; don't touch the cages yet."

The Sect Protection Elder smelled of a mixture of night dew and medicinal herbs; the back of his blade was wrapped in black cloth, causing even his silhouette to sink into the tree shadows.

He watched the lines drawn by the Speedrun Youth, his eyebrows twitching slightly.

"What about the back?"

The Speedrun Youth pushed the broken grass half an inch deeper. "The paddock isn't a single block. The front section holds low-level Yao Beasts, the middle has a medicine shed, and behind the shed is a stone house. Further back are separate iron houses; there are fewer lights, but the guards are denser. A normal beast-taming ground wouldn't pile up manpower at the very back."

The Life-Skill Player tightened the cloth bag against his chest; the bottles and jars clinked softly, which he pressed down with his palm.

He smelled a fishy, sweet scent drifting on the wind, his nostrils wrinkling. "The medicinal scent is wrong. Beast-Repellent Powder, Blood-Inducing Powder, and the smell of fermenting blood feed."

The Dark Souls Youth gripped his broken wooden sword, his knees pressed to the mud as he inched forward half a foot.

The edge of that broken wooden sword was pitted and uneven, stained with dried scabs of old blood, looking like a bone spat out by a battlefield.

"I'll take the first one." He stared at the guard near the wooden stakes. "When he turns his head to look at the cages, there's a blind spot of half a body length on his left. I can sneak past."

The Life-Skill Player immediately pinched some scent-masking powder from a paper packet and pressed it onto the Dark Souls Youth's cuffs and soles. "This stuff isn't an invisibility talisman, so don't treat yourself like air. If the opponent has a keen nose, you will become air."

The Dark Souls Youth's lips twitched. "Don't worry, I've died before; my experience is richer than his."

Sect Master Di Kun glanced at him but didn't respond. He raised his hand, his index finger cutting horizontally, then pressing downward.

The Dark Souls Youth rolled out, keeping close to the ground.

The grass blades were crushed flat by his shoulders and back, then slowly sprang back.

The night wind blew from the direction of the paddock; the air-dried animal skins swayed gently on the wooden stakes, their shadows obscuring half of his figure.

The Red Snake Sect Cultivator near the wooden stakes was tilting his ear to listen to the movement in the cages, his fingers pressing against the short blade at his waist, his boot sole scuffing the edge of a bloodstain.

The thing in the cage scraped the iron plate with its claws again.

The scratching sound dragged on, and the guard tilted his head and cursed, "Make any more noise, and I'll bleed you first thing tomorrow morning."

The Dark Souls Youth had already snuck to the edge of his vision, his whole body crouching in a patch of grass shadow, his broken wooden sword held horizontally across his chest, the tip pressed against the mud to suppress the last bit of sound from his body sliding.

Sect Master Di Kun moved.

He darted out from behind the loose stones; his old sword remained sheathed. His left hand first clamped onto the guard's jaw, his palm pushing upward, while his right hand slid a short blade from his sleeve, slicing into the area below the throat bone.

The guard's eyes widened abruptly, the sound that hadn't yet left his throat blocked back by Sect Master Di Kun's palm. Blood gushed out along the blade, dripping into the old bloodstain beneath the wooden stake without splashing far.

Sect Master Di Kun dragged the corpse into a grass ditch; the Dark Souls Youth reached out to catch the ankles, and the two worked together to press the body into the black mud.

The animal skins on the wooden stakes were still swaying, and when the lamplight shone over, only a small patch of trampled grass remained on the ground.

The lamp-carrying Cultivator walked halfway and suddenly stopped.

He raised the lamp to shine toward the wooden stakes, the fragmented light leaking from the gaps in the lamp cover sweeping across the grass blades and illuminating the edge of Sect Master Di Kun's cuff.

The Life-Skill Player flicked his finger, and Confusion Powder scattered with the wind, the powder hitting the lamp-carrying Cultivator's nose.

The man rubbed his nose, his gaze shifting toward the other side of the grass, "What is that smell?"

The Sect Protection Elder had already circled behind him.

The blade's light was half-swallowed by the black cloth, the remaining half passing through the lamplight's shadow and slicing open his neck.

The lamp-carrying Cultivator's fingers loosened, and the lantern fell. Sect Master Di Kun reached out to catch the handle, letting the lamplight sway twice before steadily hanging it back in its original place.

The third guard polishing his blade under the low shed heard the light chain clink and looked up.

"Old Three?"

No one answered.

He stood up, but before his blade was even half-drawn, the Dark Souls Youth pounced from the grass ditch behind the low shed, his broken wooden sword pressing horizontally across the guard's mouth, using his own body weight to flip backward.

The guard's back slammed into the grass ditch; just as his throat bulged, Sect Master Di Kun's short blade was already pressing against the side of his neck.

The blade sank into flesh.

The muddy water in the grass ditch was pressed into a dark ripple; the whetstone beside the low shed rolled twice, hitting a wooden leg and making a slight sound.

The iron cages in the paddock quieted down; a few Yao Beasts pressed themselves into the darkness, panting, their fishy, hot breath puffing out in waves from the cage gaps.

Sect Master Di Kun crouched beside the third corpse, quickly feeling for a waist token and clothing.

Two sets of outer robes were still relatively intact, though the cuffs were stained with blood.

He threw one set to the Sect Protection Elder and the other to the Dark Souls Youth.

"Put them on; no need to wear them properly."

The Life-Skill Player fished out a half-folded piece of paper from the lamp-carrying Cultivator's chest; the edges were stained with medicine, and it contained lines recording the Zi hour, Chou hour, front yard food replacement, and middle yard medicine addition.

He handed the paper to Sect Master Di Kun. "Half a night-watch record. It's been torn; the second half is gone."

Sect Master Di Kun took the record, glanced at it through the gap in the lamp, and tucked it into his chest.

There were three waist tokens in total; two were carved with the Red Snake emblem, and the other was only carved with the character for "Night."

He handed the "Night" token to the Speedrun Youth.

"You take the lead, act like a patrol."

The Speedrun Youth hung the token at his waist and let his shoulders slump; all at once, he lost the air of a Disciple, looking instead like a minor steward who had been working the night shift until his soul was gone.

He lowered his voice, "This shift is truly unlucky."

The Life-Skill Player nearly laughed out loud, then pressed his lips together.

The five of them entered the front yard along the gap in the black cloth on the right.

Behind the black cloth, the smell became suddenly much thicker.

Iron cages were pressed into the mud in rows, the bottoms covered in rotten grass and broken bones. Yao Wolves curled in the corners, their eyelids showing red lines; Demon Rats were huddled in a group by the wooden trough, grinding their sharp teeth against each other; deeper inside, several black-skinned Tusked Beasts rammed against the iron bars, veins bulging on their backs, their skin looking as if it had been soaked in medicinal juice, giving off a greasy black sheen.

A Tusked Beast heard footsteps and lunged toward the edge of the cage; its tusks struck the iron bars with a dull thud.

The iron bars bent slightly, and the iron nails fixing it to the ground were also loosened, the mud cracking open a two-finger-wide gap.

The Speedrun Youth stopped immediately, carrying the lamp taken from the guard, and mimicking the movements of the man from before, tapped the edge of the cage with the handle of his whip, "Behave."

A low growl rolled from the Tusked Beast's throat, red threads darting wildly in its eyes, but in the end, it shrank back into the cage, its claws grinding a trail of sparks against the iron plate.

The Life-Skill Player crouched beside the feeding trough and used a bone shard to pick up a pinch of the residue.

The residue was dark red, mixed with grayish-black powder, and smelled of blood and spice.

He pinched a bit of the grime on the iron chain and rubbed it between his fingertips.

"Mixed Beast-Taming Powder, Blood-Inducing feed, and there's also herbal ash in there to dull the Yao Beasts' sense of pain."

His voice turned cold. "Fed like this for a long time, the Yao Beasts won't fear death; they'll only chase the scent of blood. Those abnormal things in the beast tides most likely come out of places like this."

The Sect Protection Elder's hand gripping his blade tightened, the edge of the scabbard fraying his outer robe, "The Red Snake Sect is refining Yao Beasts like medicine jars."

Sect Master Di Kun didn't speak. His gaze rested on a dead Tusked Beast.

The corpse had been thrown between two cages, its abdomen bloated, and there was still undried black blood around its mouth.

Sect Master Di Kun crouched down, first using the scabbard of his old sword to pry open the Tusked Beast's mouth; confirming it wouldn't bite back, he drew his short blade and sliced it open from an old wound on its abdomen.

A stench of rot rushed out, and the Life-Skill Player turned his head and held his nose.

Sect Master Di Kun's wrist didn't stop; the tip of his blade pushed aside the semi-coagulated blood clots and fished out a few grains of semi-melted black bone fragments.

As soon as the bone fragments left the corpse's abdomen, the black bone nail in Sect Master Di Kun's chest grew icy cold through his clothes.

He withdrew the bone nail half an inch from his chest and brought the bone fragments close.

Both surfaces had fine black patterns; when brought close, those patterns tightened slightly like insects.

The Dark Souls Youth watched those black patterns, his throat going dry. "Same version of the disgusting thing?"

Sect Master Di Kun wrapped the bone fragments in a corner torn from the night-watch record and pressed the bone nail back into his chest. "Same origin. Keep it for now."

There was a low door at the end of the front yard, leading behind to a medicine shed.

The shelves inside the shed were piled full of paper packets, pottery bottles, and coarse burlap sacks, each seal stamped with the Red Snake Sect's snake-pattern clay seal.

The Life-Skill Player casually opened a packet; the powder was grayish-yellow and immediately gave off a faint, fishy smell upon encountering the night dew.

"Beast-Repellent Powder."

He opened another packet, "Blood-Inducing Powder."

When the third pottery bottle was opened, the red medicinal liquid inside clung to the bottle walls; as the lamplight shone on it, it looked like a layer of congealed blood.

The Life-Skill Player took one look and pressed the stopper back in.

"Mother liquid for the Tide-Inducing medicinal powder. There's too much of it." He looked up at Sect Master Di Kun, "This isn't an amount for taming; it's enough to feed several waves of beast tides."

The Speedrun Youth rummaged to the bottom layer of the shelves and dragged out a wooden box.

The box lid was inscribed with locations like "North Slope," "Waste Forest," and "River Fork," with dates marked beside them.

His fingernail scraped over the ink marks, "These are the deployment points."

Sect Master Di Kun stuffed two of the packets of medicinal powder into the inner pocket of the Red Snake Sect outer robe the Dark Souls Youth was wearing, then took another pottery bottle and handed it to the Life-Skill Player, "Carry as much as you can, don't be greedy."

The Sect Protection Elder walked to the back door of the medicine shed and raised his hand to block it slightly.

The back yard was darker than the front; the lamplight was blocked by iron houses, leaving only a few slanted beams of light on the ground.

Thick chains were nailed around the iron houses, the chain ends buried into the stone foundation, and a fist-sized iron lock hung on the door.

There were no beast roars inside the houses, only very light panting.

Sect Master Di Kun pressed close to the side of the iron house.

A bit of yellow light leaked through the gaps in the iron plating.

The light illuminated several faces; skin clung to bone, lips were cracked and dry, and wrists were marked with festering sores from iron rings.

A person looking like a Mountain Dweller leaned back against the wall, his chest rising and falling very slowly; another Loose Cultivator had tattered robes, his severed leg wrapped in dirty cloth, but his eyes were still open, staring straight at the dark shadows outside the gap.

Those pairs of eyes didn't cry for help.

When they saw living people, they shrank back at first.

The Sect Protection Elder's face darkened in the light from the iron gap; the scent of medicinal herbs was almost completely suppressed by the smell of rust and blood.

His hand pressed onto the iron lock, his knuckles slowly turning white.

Sect Master Di Kun reached out to clamp onto his wrist bone; the force wasn't heavy, but just enough to press that hand away from the iron lock.

Inside the iron house, someone squeezed out a half-breath of sound from their throat, as if afraid of alerting those outside, yet afraid of missing the last chance for survival.

Sect Master Di Kun looked through the gap at those half-dead eyes, his other hand pressing the paper corner containing the bone fragments into his chest.

The night wind blew across the back yard, the iron house walls vibrating gently, and the chains inside swayed along with it, clinking with a faint and piercing sound.