Path of the Berserker

I STARED AT the Lady Silver Light with utter incomprehension in my mind and uncertainty in my heart.

Here was a woman I’d spent intimate time with.

We’d fought together.

Killed an Awakened Reaper Beast together.

And after baring her soul to me, we had made sweet love together as well.

But now I wasn’t sure what was going on inside Silver Light’s head.

More importantly.

How the hell could I have missed that she was Hein’s sister?

My brain struggled to catch up.

Thinking back, the Junior Magistrate Jian Yi had found to officiate our duel did mention the Dong family when referring to Hein. But honestly, I couldn’t care less about that asshole, much less his family name at the time. And the only time that Fia had ever mentioned her family name was Dong, was when she focused on a dong of a very different variety.

Namely my own.

I laughed inwardly at my own stupid joke.

This was insane. What the hell were the odds of this?

Hein screws my sister and I end up screwing his?

Perhaps there was some poetic justice in that—a cosmic joke aligned by the heavens.

But right now, this was anything but funny.

I studied Fia and her entourage. She was impressive-looking all by herself, hovering like some silver-haired goddess with her three jian blades forming a triangle behind her, but seeing her backed up by a dozen skilled cultivators that looked every bit like ninjas set her on a whole different level. Even if I didn’t already like the girl I would have been impressed.

But now her allure was even more appealing.

She wasn’t just a strong cultivator and warrior, she was a leader.

Out in public like this, however, I couldn’t let on that we had any kind of prior relationship at all, much less an intimate one. I expected Fia to put on her usual upper-class façade of arrogance and indifference in return. It was something we had wordlessly agreed upon when we departed last, but now the circumstances had changed.

I wasn’t sure if Fia’s anger was an act, or very, very real.

I hid my own emotions with a stoned-faced mask of [Indifference] as I casually rested my axe on my shoulder.

“I don’t care who you are,” I said. “Or how many titles you have. To defend my people, I’ll face you in the ring. No matter what.”

I waited for a reaction.

My staunch defiance was something that would always melt her heart in the past.

A trait she adored in me.

And then I sensed it.

Deep inside her roiling anger, a fine rivulet of lemonade.

She still desired me, that was for sure.

But the anger was still very real also.

Silver Light curled her lip at me. “Do not be so presumptuous, Terran. Lui Wi!”

The Dharmian man answered quickly with a bow. “Yes, my lady!”

“How do we know if this lowly Terran scum is truly fit to rebut our claim? I am qualified for the Gold Bracket. I doubt this fool has even seen the inside of a stadium from the stands, much less from the ring.”

The Demon in me would have been quick to rebuff her, but the Struggler pulled enough self-control to hold my tongue. Fia knew how strong I was, as well as my identity as the Iron Bull. So what was she after with this accusation then?

“Our Warden is the Iron Bull,” Jian Yi suddenly answered. “You can verify his rankings from official records.”

Lui Wi smirked. “I would not trust your word alone. We have made our own preparations to determine your Warden’s eligibility to defend your sect in the courts.”

“What?”

Lui Wi clapped his hands and an old man dressed in the beige and off-white robes stepped from out of the crowd—the colors of the empire. The man was an official of some kind and as he approached me, I could guess just what he was here for.

“Max Chun,” the man said my name with an official tone. “Will you subject yourself to an evaluation to determine your cultivation level and aspect?”

“Wait a moment!” Jian Yi shouted before I could even answer and then dragged me to the side by the elbow. “We need to be careful here, Chun.”

“Why? What is this? Another trap?”

“It could be.” Jian Yi’s eyes shifted between the government official and the barrister. “If you aren’t within a tier or two of her level, then you would not be able to defend us against the writ. Only cultivators of equal ranking are allowed to settle disputes in courts of battle. We’d have to hire someone of her ranking to represent us. And we can’t afford that. Do you think you’re at her cultivation level?”

Silver Light had already told me her cultivation level—6th Tier Core Realm. She knew I had to be somewhat equal, but officially I was only 2nd Tier Core Realm from my last evaluation on the books. But that was back when I had a fake core. Now I had only a sliver of core material to flavor my Frenzy using my [Devil’s Shadow] technique.

And my true core level was perhaps only 1st Tier from having only recently ascended.

“Shit,” I said. “I think we may be screwed here.”

“Huh?”

I couldn’t explain it all to her, but it would be far worse to reject the testing.

I looked Silver Light in the eye and tried to discern where she was going with this.

No dice.

Her poker face was as strong as mine.

“I will undergo testing,” I said and cycled my Frenzy using the [Devil’s Shadow] technique, accenting it with Qi so the official could detect its strength. “Go ahead.”

The old man adjusted a pair of spectacles on the end of his nose as he stepped close and stared at my stomach, focusing on the position of my Dantian, two finger widths below the navel. He studied me a moment more and then turned to the barrister.

“He is Low Tier Core Realm between 1st and 2nd Tier, Lightning aspect.”

Silver Light’s eyes widened with shock. She no doubt expected me to be of much higher Tier for what she had seen me do out in the field, killing that Awakened Reaper Beast with her. But my Berserker path gave me potency a Realm ahead of Qi cultivation it seemed.

The barrister’s eyes also widened, but more so with delight.

“Ah ha!” he said. “You are not fit to defend this writ. The Lady Silver Light is 6th Tier Core Realm of metal aspect. She out classes you in every way. Unless you can produce an equal-ranked challenger, you must subject yourself to our claim or settle. Which shall it be?”

I looked to Jian Yi, but she merely shook her head, lost for words.

Anger seethed within me as I started up at Silver Light.

What was her game here?

But as our eyes met, I saw something different now.

There was concern there, uncertainty.

“Well?” Lui Wi said, placing his hands on his hips. “Will you hide behind your people and send 100 of them to their deaths? Or will you be a true Warden and die on their behalf? Speak!”

“Chun, don’t do anything stupid!” Yu Li called out from the crowd.

But the uneasiness in her heart mirrored everyone else’s.

People were afraid.

“I choose neither!” I shouted. “I’ll face her, even as a 1st Tier.”

Lui Wi laughed. “You cannot! You are not fit. This is the law!”

“Wait.”

Silence fell as all eyes turned to Silver Light who had just spoken.

Slowly she descended from the air, her Qi causing a stir of dust as her feet touched the ground.

“I will give this Insignificant One time to reach 5th Tier,” she said in an obnoxious and condescending tone fit for a royal. “As Lightning is strong against metal, he can face me as a Tier lower.”

Lui Wi looked to Silver Light with dismay. “My lady! You can’t be serious!”

She glared back at him. “Do you question my judgement? Or do you forget that it is you who serve our family and not the other way around?”

“A thousand apologies, my lady.” Lui Wi bowed deeply, but the glare of contempt never left his gaze. “However, I represent the interests of the entire clan, not merely your family. I thus must advise you that allowing this Terran extra time is not in the interest of the greater Silver Leaf Clan.”

“Your advice is acknowledged,” Silver Light said without even looking at him. “But I will not be denied the opportunity to put to death the man responsible for disrespecting my family… with my own hands.”

She said it coldly, and I honestly couldn’t tell if she meant it or not.

Only the trace of lemonade in her heart told me that something bigger was at play here.

“I look forward to it,” I said with smile.

“I will give you one year,” she said.

“A year?” Lui Wi balked. “My Lady! This is far too generous. Even six months would be far more than he should be allowed to—”

“I will not be denied my vengeance,” Silver Light said, cutting him off. “I will give him a year.” She stepped towards me with a slow swaggering gait, her shapely hips swaying from side to side. As she stopped just a few feet from me, she looked me up and down, pure desire in her heart and hunger in her eyes. “If you are not able to advance in that time, then you and your clan will face the full consequences. Are we agreed?”

I smiled inwardly. She did all this to buy me some time.

Fia was still my girl after all.

I smiled at her in return. “Agreed.”

She held out her palm and with a burst of luminous Qi, a thin silver quill that resembled a knitting needle materialized, extruding itself from her hand.

“Something to remember our agreement by,” she said and with a flick of her wrist, she sent the needle flying straight for my face.

I reacted with a burst of Frenzy, catching it with just inches to spare.

She grinned. “A first test. Seems you have passed. I look forward to our duel in one year from now, Iron Bull.”

As she spun on her heel and called for the entourage to depart, I felt along the length of the silver quill she had thrown and found the engravings I expected. I waited for her to re-enter the sedan carriage, before finally looking down to read her secret message to me.

‘We need to meet. Immediately. You know where.’

“Nine hells that was intense,” Jian Yi said, releasing a held breath. “Thank the heavens she gave you some time. But will a year be enough?”

I didn’t know the answer. I had blown through my Foundation Realm training in only two months, but that came from taking some serious risks. Even dying at one point. And I knew the realms of ascension were not linear in their progression. It would take me perhaps ten times the amount of Frenzy per Tier to ascend now.

Still, there was no other solution.

If I wanted to defend my people, I’d have to either advance or die.

“It’ll be fine,” I said with the confidence of [Struggler’s Resolve]. “Just means I need to work even harder.”

“We’ll help you however we can,” Yu Li said with Gui Zu by her side as she approached me, the big man clapping my shoulder.

“Sparring sessions will be on the house,” he said with a crooked-toothed grin. “And you will need them. The Lady Silver Light was second only to her mother within the Dong Family when it came to skill. To be honest, you’ll probably need to be trained by someone far more skilled than I to defeat her.”

It was easy to forget that Gui Zu was once part of the Silver Leaf Sect himself, an initiate to Young Master Hein. He if anyone would have seen just how powerful and skillful Silver Light was.

“Thanks, Gui Zu,” I said giving them all a bow. “And I appreciate the support, everyone. I will do my best. I will not fail you.”

But I honestly had no idea what facing Silver Light would truly be like.

Were I to face her with the full use of my Berserker techniques, then it would be an even match for sure. But in the ring, I couldn’t cut loose. I’d need to hone my martial skills to beat her. And when it came to that, I was still relying on the techniques of a very basic beginner’s axe manual.

The thought caused something to twitch inside of me.

A yearning.

Far beyond all my ambitions to advance the sect and protect my people came a deeper and more selfish urge. The desire to progress. To grow stronger and more skilled. To become the cultivating behemoth I needed to be, to not only defeat the entire Dong family, but the very princess herself to free the Earth. I’d get there one day. And this was but another stepping-stone along my path.

Still, something else nagged at my soul, quenching the enthusiasm of my Flame.

Why the hell did it have to be her?

Fia of all people.

Could I truly bring myselfto fight her?

My heart sunk and stomach soured at the thought, the Struggler taking control.

As I watched the caravan departing in the distance a new impetus filled me.

I glanced at the words Fia had written.

There was more to this, and I had to find out what.

My meeting with Fia was far from over.

“I need to head out to the gate, guys,” I told my sect. “Have to meet with my old handler crew.”

They looked back at me puzzled.

“Now?” Jian Yi asked.

“I need to ensure I have free passage to the wild,” I said with a grin. “My training to reach 5th Tier of the Core Realm, starts today.”