From the rocks above the narrows, the old cultivator counted twelve people on the valley road. Their crimson and black robes marked them as a delegation from the domain capital. They were making good progress in the late-morning light, their auras spread openly enough to warn off anything that might trouble them.
He found only two at core formation. The hard-faced woman leading them seemed to be at the peak of the late stage, his own level. Most of the others had not passed foundation establishment. He had killed enough cultivators at the woman's stage to give her little further thought.
His companion came up beside him. Thin and as strong as he was, the man had a face eaten by corruption, with dark miasma seeping from his skin. He looked down at the woman and smiled through blackened teeth.
"I'd like a taste of her before you make her into a puppet."
The old man turned to face him. "Are you asking, or telling me?"
The smile lingered. The old man felt disgust, but no fear.
"She is mine," he said. "Your disciples let my last puppet burn himself to ash. You can leave me this one."
The thin man's cultivation flared. The old man held his eyes until the pressure subsided.
"Keep her." His companion turned back toward the road. "There are others. Why should I fight you and your disgusting puppets over one woman?"
The old man watched the two core formation cultivators approach. Either would give him a body worth refining, provided it remained whole. He needed the meridians before they cooled and stiffened, the marrow undamaged. No market would sell him such a corpse.
The boy from the ruined clan had seemed promising too, with all that hatred already in him. Instead he had burned out before he was ready, leaving a scorched shell of no use to anyone. The old man regretted the waste. Dead material was easier to work with; it did not overreach.
His companion shifted beside him. "And the beast?"
The old man pointed down the slope. Beyond the pines, the Blood Devouring Mosquito hunched over the ox carcasses. It was as large as an ox itself, its dry grey wings folded while its long proboscis drew the remaining blood from one of them. The ground where it had fed was bare and dead.
A month and four oxen to bring it out of its territory. Now it fed within reach of the road.
Its power was still unsteady. It had only just risen to Beast King, and the old man could feel the unsettled aura even from the rocks. Below, the delegation continued toward the narrows.
"Send one of your disciples to draw it down to them."
The thin man glanced at the disciples waiting behind them and pointed to a sickly youth barely at qi condensation.
"You. Go."
The youth picked his way down through the trees. The old man leaned against the cold rock and watched the road.
...
Qin Hualing felt the pressure coming down the slope before anything moved among the trees. It was too strong for a core formation beast.
"Off the road."
The delegates scattered, their qi flaring as they hurried past one another. Qin stayed where she could watch the trees.
A boy broke through them and stumbled onto the road. He was shouting as he ran toward her people, holding out an arm he had cut open to the bone. Blood fell along his path. Behind him, grey wings beat between the trunks.
Qin had seen beasts driven toward travelers before. This one followed the blood straight down to the road, and the boy kept coming, trying to draw it after him.
The mosquito darted out above his head. It was large enough to hide him for a moment, and far quicker than his stumbling run. It could have taken him among the trees. From the way it hovered and let him gain a few more steps, Qin judged it had already fed well and was enjoying the chase.
Then it turned toward the scattered delegates.
Its proboscis dipped into the open wound on the boy's forearm. The beast rose, lifting his arm and then his feet clear of the road. His shout stopped. Blood ran into the proboscis, and his body shrank as Qin watched. When the mosquito pulled free, he dropped onto the stones.
The forearm cut was still visible. The rest of him was whole, drained to a husk.
The wings drew out a high, thin note.
Wei Zhennan stepped in front of the others with his blade drawn. Core formation qi gathered in his arms as he faced the beast. He had put himself where it would reach him first, but Qin could feel how little his gathered strength would do against it.
She stepped past him.
Above the road, an old man stood on an outcrop with a thin, disfigured cultivator beside him. Several disciples crowded behind the pair. They were watching the beast, and neither man moved when Qin looked up. She marked their positions before turning back to the road.
The mosquito came straight at her.
Qin let the restraint on her cultivation fall and met it with one cut.
Pale light crossed the road. The wing note stopped, and the grey body split in midair. Its halves struck the stones on either side of its course. The severed proboscis drove a hand's depth into the road and quivered there, a drop of blood falling from it into the dust.
For a moment no one on the rocks moved.
"Mortal shedding," the thin man said. His voice rose. "At least peak early-stage."
He turned and ran. The old man was still staring down at the pieces of the beast when Qin started up the slope.
The thin man had not taken ten paces before she reached the rocks. Below her, the delegates remained beside the road, watching her go.
...
Qin came down the slope with her cultivation concealed again. Anyone sensing her now would have found only peak late-stage core formation. Behind her, the old man, his companion and their disciples lay dead among the rocks and trees.
She went first to the delegates. All twelve of them were alive and unhurt, though several were still shaking. One man had bent over the grass beside the road and was vomiting. Qin put a hand on his shoulder and waited with him.
These were seasoned cultivators. She had brought them to investigate the Bastion's dead, the demonic trouble at Redstone and the Wang Clan's part in it. There would be hard questions when they arrived. For now, she kept her hand where it was until the man could straighten without swaying.
Wei Zhennan was beside the dead beast. He crouched to examine the proboscis embedded in the road, then rose and stepped around it to the boy.
Qin left the others and walked toward him. The boy's open forearm lay against the stones. Wei turned him over with his boot and bent to study the corruption beneath his skin.
Qin had stood over demonic corpses with men who had killed far more often than these delegates. Most had disliked going close, even when there was nothing left to hurt them. Wei examined this one without hesitation. His attention moved from the wound to the darkened flesh with an ease that held hers.
Then he named the path that had left the corruption, speaking almost to himself. She had not yet placed it.
He straightened and gave her a cupped-fist salute.
Qin looked at him for a moment. The salute was correct, and he waited for her without impatience. She could not yet say what troubled her about him.
"Should we go on, Investigator?" he asked. "Half the day is gone, and it is still a day's road to Redstone."
She glanced toward the others. The sick man was standing with them now, pale but steady.
"We go on."
They returned to the road and picked their way past the beast. Qin took the lead. She left its two halves where they had fallen, with the drained boy beside them and the dead band on the slope above. Wandering beasts would find them soon enough.
Ahead lay Redstone, and the matter she had come to investigate. She meant to find the truth of it.