Cut to the Heart: Chapter 1

A new story idea based on a crossover with a full cultivation setting! Hope you all enjoy

Cut to the Heart

Commissioned by Lordmcdeath

Chapter 1: (un)Fortunate Encounters

“Child, rise.” The ghost drifted closer to the girl lying on the floor of the cavern. “Please, child. Let me help you.”

She had fallen from above, landing on the hard stone in a crumpled heap. The first was perhaps more relevant, considering the ceiling of the cave was low and the ghost certainly didn’t keep any girls up there, or boys.

Still, his reliquary had been lost here for too long to pass on a chance like this. The ghost tried again. “Child, open your eyes.”

She didn’t move. The ghost sighed. “Truly, none under heaven have been so disfavored as I.” A human stumbled across this grotto after untold centuries, and she was already dead. “If I was truly dead, at least I would be able to lodge a formal complaint against the venerable weavers of fate for this disgrace, but I was too skilled in life for what a fool I was.”

Age remained the great educator, and the ghost had passed many years going over the mistakes that left his spirit trapped inside the elegant jade necklace that now sat on the grotto’s central pillar. He had hoped to convince the girl to take it and carry him beyond these walls. Stepping between spaces indicated a cultivator of some skill, and surely he could bargain his knowledge in return for freedom.

“Alas.” He drifted down to the girl, poking her with one spectral slipper. “I cannot even move your corpse before it begins to rot…”

The ghost paused.

“What’s this?”

Her chest still moved. The ghost bent low, holding one hand over her mouth. A sliver of breath turned to mist as it passed through his spectral form. He flickered. Could it be he was not so disfavored by Heaven after all?

“Child, do you yet live?” He snapped his fingers, though it lacked the tactile satisfaction such a gesture would bring mortal hands.

Her eyes continued to stare up at the ceiling of the cave. There was nothing behind them, surely.

“Well,” he said. “Let it not be said that this Ouyang Jingfeng would let such a fortunate encounter slip away.” Yes, it was less fortunate she was a woman, but such things could be dealt with easily enough. He might even be able to heal her arm, if her meridians were not unduly damaged by whatever had rent her spirit.

With a nod, Ouyang Jingfeng folded his essence up and poured it down the girl’s throat.

He encountered resistance, but it didn’t feel like another soul. Instead, he felt as though he was trudging through flooded fields, trying to push his spirit through blocked canals instead of the well-maintained channels that a cultivator should have.

Life was never easy, it seemed, not even in death.

Ouyang Jingfeng would not be damned by half measures. With a spiritual grunt, he disconnected what remained of his soul from his reliquary. At once, he began to fray at the edges from the press of ambient Qi, but he was already mostly sheltered within the girl’s body.

It was the work of a few moments to clear her channels so that his Qi could flow freely, and then he began to settle into his new vessel.

“There we go.” He pushed himself upright, looking into a nearby pool. “This is not so bad. Though, I should progress my cultivation quickly.” The girl’s wide lips curved into an unfamiliar expression. “If I must be stuck within this duckling, I should turn her into a swan as—”

The body stopped responding.

[QUERY: INTENTION]

A wave of pure intent washed through him, blotting out all other thought. When Ouyang Jingfeng returned to his senses, he found his spirit in another’s grip. With haste born from a history of mistakes, he tried to uncouple his essence from the body.

He could not.

It clung tight to him. Already, he could feel this thing’s grip firming on his being, cinching around him like scarves of silk. Ouyang Jingfeng realized that there would be no escape. Only one option remained.

‘Forgive this short-sighted one, great elder.’ He bowed and scraped, twisting his essence into as small a shape as possible. ‘This pitiful one only wished to heal the vessel, a thousand pardons for every transgression. Please, allow me to make amends for this unconscionable mistake.’

The situation was bad, but Ouyang Jingfeng had survived worse. All he had to do was placate whatever cultivator had trapped him. His could still offer knowledge of many lost techniques, and from there, once a beneficial relationship was formed, he could begin his plans to—

[STATEMENT: REJECTION]

Again, all thoughts were blasted from Ouyang Jingfeng’s head. The grip on him tightened, and cut.

Ouyang Jingfeng let out a keening scream that sent the stone trembling.

But he was not killed.

Instead, the thing that held him in its grip cut him apart, dissecting and cataloging his spirit, dividing it into smaller and smaller pieces, so as not to miss anything at all. He was treated to a slow, excruciating dismemberment, not from malice, but from cruel detachment.

It found his souls, pausing on Jingfeng’s po soul before quickly locating them all.

‘Please no,’ he begged.

Then his souls were ripped from him, leaving only Qi behind. Without will, it blew away in the wind.

Thus was the fortune of Ouyang Jingfeng

~~*

Taylor woke on hard stone.

She blinked, more in surprise than anything. Two fingers sought the back of her head only to find unblemished skin.

Then she realized she’d used her missing arm. Healed.

“Pass—” Taylor broke down coughing, hands slapping against the damp stone. She spat. “Passenger? Are you there?”

A thrum of acknowledgement rushed through her, deeper than she’d ever felt. Before, she hadn’t been able to parse the connection to her passenger. It had been too big, too far away.

Now it felt almost close.

“What happened?”

No sooner asked than she felt the knowledge slot into place. Contessa had shot her, and she’d fallen through a door to here, wherever here was. A ghost—well, her ‘memories’ called it a cognizant energy construct, but she could read ghost into that, thank you very much—tried to possess her, and her passenger had ripped it apart, and then used the pieces to patch up her soul before using the rest of the energy to fix her body, since it was more mutable during the whole soul surgery process.

“So, I’m dead.”

Her passenger rejected that, vehemently.

Taylor shook her head. She’d known, even at the end, that it probably wasn’t her anymore. When she’d been killed, she’d just been an echo running off of a memory stored in an alien supercomputer. That she’d needed a whole new soul to get put back together, well, what more confirmation did a girl need?

The thought lingered, even as Taylor ignored the chiming protests from the back of her mind.

She felt pretty good, for a dead woman.

Energy filled the air, so thick she could breathe it in, letting it ripple through her body. She felt so, so alive. The irony tasted thick on the back of her tongue.

“It’s okay, Passenger,” she said. “Since when have I let a little death slow me down?”

So long as her body could move, Taylor would keep walking. She’d forgotten how to do anything else.

“Do you know anything about this…” She waved a hand through the air. “This stuff?” Even now, she could feel her Passenger, Queen Administrator, pulling it into her through her skin. Heat rushed through her with each breath.

Like an eager puppy, QA started pouring information into her head. For a second, she wondered if this was what Contessa felt like, this seamless transfer of information.

Energy, created by the world. The ghost had some memories encoded in its souls; some had been saved, while the rest had been chopped up into bits for the soul surgery. Only the best, most Taylor pieces had been used to fix her.

The thought brought no comfort.

Slowly, Taylor picked her way through the cave, ignoring the necklace draped over a broken stone pedestal. The slick stone felt like it was grabbing onto her feet with each step as she climbed further up, through a narrowing crevasse.

She couldn’t sense bugs anymore; instead, she felt the flow of this Qi around her, the breath of wind and life that must have filtered down from above. With each breath, she sucked in more of it. With each gulp she swallowed, she felt more alive.

Maybe, if she gathered enough, she could even convince herself.

She came to a stop at the bottom of a collapsed staircase, wood and cloth lying on the ground in a rotting heap. Above, she saw a lip of stone and a flicker of sunlight.

Making the jump felt almost easy. Three times her height, in a single bound. She hauled herself up onto the ledge, eyeing the narrow gap that allowed a trickle of sunlight.

Taylor inhaled more Qi.

Surely it wasn’t as simple as that. Maybe she was skipping some important step, but Taylor couldn’t find it in herself to care. The rushing of energy through her veins—meridians? The word felt both alien and familiar—drowned out even the beat of her heart in her ears.

She pressed herself into the gap. She didn’t fit, but since when had she let little things like physics stop her? With a grunt, Taylor pushed harder. She flooded her muscles with Qi. If she could defeat a fire dragon with insect control, she could push through a pile of loose stone.

QA eagerly funneled more Qi into her even as Taylor pushed. Her feet scrabbled for leverage. More and more energy, just enough to feel the pile of stone around the entrance start to shift before collapsing back into place.

“C’mon, dammit.” She heaved again.

She needed more, but she was full of Qi. She pushed it through her body as fast as she could, but she still couldn’t fit any more. The pressure inside of her built until her vision started to darken. It wasn’t enough.

She tried to force more Qi into her body, QA helping, but there just wasn’t space. She pushed and pushed, Qi spinning faster and faster.

And then the Qi collapsed. It turned dense, and thick.

A shudder ran through her entire body. She went from feeling full to empty, gasping for more breath, drinking in Qi until it condensed in depths of her stomach into liquid light. It was so much more, more than twice as much power.

Taylor pushed and the stone gave way.

She popped out of the abandoned mine in a tumble of limbs and stone. The rest of the pile collapsed around her, leaving her half buried and staring at the sky.

“Still blue,” she murmured.

Once more, Taylor rose. She felt the energy flowing through her. Before, it was light and airy. It went where she wanted it to. Now it felt thick as syrup. She could make it move, but if she stopped forcing the Qi to do so, it would stop and thicken inside of her until…

Something unpleasant would happen, she could tell.

QA eagerly showed her how to keep this new, liquid Qi flowing through her properly. The method…didn’t quite fit, more knowledge gleaned from the ghost that didn’t match her body. But the Qi had to move.

Just like her body.

“Is this what it was like for you, Passenger?” she asked. “I just waved my hands, and you did all the work.” She received the equivalent of a shrug.

Taylor snorted. “It’s not that hard, little human, just keep circulating.” Slowly, splitting her focus, she started down the slope.

She didn’t know where she was, she didn’t know where she was going, but at the foot of the mountains she saw a trail, and that seemed like as good a starting point as any.

If she kept going forward, kept following each way that led onto another way, maybe she’d find a path worth taking.

This path, for its part, led onto a wider road carved deep with wheel ruts. The road led onto what looked like a small village; she walked past flooded rice fields with green sprouts shooting out over the water, and stood aside to let an ox pulling a cart pass. The man on the back had a warm and serviceable vest. The road ran through the town flanked by well-maintained buildings with painted eaves and bright window frames. While small, it looked like a village doing well for itself.

Taylor noticed a complete lack of glass and telephone poles with a grimace. She’d spent three days in a woman’s shelter without running water or electricity once, and wasn’t eager to do it again.

She slowly walked to a larger square where dirt turned briefly into cobbled stone. A larger house sat along one side of the square, the rest looked like small shops. From the corner of her eye, she saw a trio of well-dressed men sitting at a wine shop laughing so loud their voices echoed across the square.

One man with a sword on his hip called for another bottle, and the shopkeep hurried out. She paid less attention to the conversation and more to the sight of a young-looking waitress hiding inside.

Then she realized that she could feel the men with her power.

Everyone else she passed, she could barely feel. It was like Qi rushed through them without leaving a trace. The three at the wineshop had denser Qi, like hers.

Two of them did; the last, the leader, felt even more…solid to her senses. She couldn’t parse it, but she knew he was the most dangerous.

And they paid for the wine.

Taylor sighed. The locals seemed fine with the situation, even as it grated on her. What should she do, pick a fight? Take control of them, maybe? Even as she thought that, her passenger gave an apologetic notice that they didn’t have the energy for that. She’d spent so much power before dying, and while QA could probably do that, the three solid people would take more energy than Taylor’s passenger could readily spare.

It also explained why QA was so eager to feed Taylor more Qi. The thicker her Qi, the more energy QA could siphon off to refill her own reserves.

She kept walking.

That resolve lasted until she reached the table.

A hand reached out, grabbing her wrist. “What little bird is this?” One of the men grinned up at her. “I requested entertainment hours ago, but late is better than never.”

His two friends laughed. Taylor knew that sound very well. She turned.

“I’m not your little bird,” she told him. “Go back to your wine, sponge.”

That got a hoot from the leader. “You found a bird with a sharp beak, little brother.”

The first man flushed. “Birds should sing prettier songs.” His grip tightened.

Taylor placed one hand over her trapped fist and twisted out of his grip. She took a few steps back, leaving him blinking at his empty hand.

“I’m sure you’ve never made a woman sing,” Taylor told him.

This time, it was the third who laughed. “She has you there, Zheng,” he said. “Please, honorable lady, pay no mind to my crass brothers, I promise that some of us are more than capable of music.” He pulled a flute from the sling at his side. “Please, join us! I will write you a ballad as an apology.”

Zheng glowered.

“I’m fine, thank you.” Taylor took another step back. “Enjoy your wine.”

“Wait!” Zheng stood. “I do not recognize your dress, declare yourself, sister.”

“I’m not your sister,” Taylor replied.

The three men exchanged looks at that. Clearly the wrong answer.

Zheng, however, looked pleased. “A demonic cultivator. As I suspected.”

Taylor raised an eyebrow. “Excuse you?”

He flared his presence, Qi flowing through his body in a way that sang of violence. “Know that you stand before three members of the Bladed Peak Sect.”

Taylor blinked, taking in the flow of his Qi. “What are you doing?” Her earlier technique for circulating her Qi had been…a resting state. The Qi needed to move always, but Zheng’s method was much more direct. Again, it didn’t quite fit her, but…

The one with the flute sighed. “He is giving you one chance to come with us peacefully, sister. It would be best for you if you did.”

Taylor continued to frown at Zheng. She felt like she was on the verge of understanding, and then—

With a click, it slotted into place. She understood what he was doing.

Taylor shifted her Qi to match. It flared out of her body, strengthening her so much more efficiently than her clumsy attempts. She could feel how—

Zheng lunged forward.

Taylor rolled sideways.

She came back to her feet only to dodge again. Zheng’s fists popped through the air, chasing. By using the same circulation, she could almost keep up with his speed.

Skill though, was more than Qi, and that she couldn’t copy. Instead, Taylor rushed backwards across the cobble again and again. She rolled, catching a punch on her arm, wincing. The force of the blow pushed her back far enough to dodge the follow-up kick.

Zheng darted across the ground, fists flying out. Taylor retreated to the edge of the square. She could disengage, or worst case, retreat.

A soft melody reached out to snag her thoughts, and Taylor stumbled. On instinct, her arms came up in a crossed guard. A leg hit her, hard enough to make her bones creak. She needed distance.

Then the kick twisted, hooking, throwing her. She rolled across the stone.

Taylor came back to her feet in the middle of the square, between Zheng and his allies behind her. She could feel them with her Qi sense, still sitting at the table. But just because they hadn’t moved didn’t mean they weren’t involved.

The flautist played another phrase, and she felt his intention clearly this time. The sound became the medium for the attack. It stabbed into her, and Taylor staggered.

Zheng closed the distance in a step.

But now that she’d seen the technique twice, her Passenger could fill in the gaps.

Taylor placed two fingers into her mouth and blew. The note cut through the air, sharp and shrill. This time, Zheng stumbled.

“My technique!”

Taylor pulled her leg back and kicked him full in the head.

The blow snapped his chin back, lifted him off the ground. He twisted in midair, but all of that strength meant nothing without something to stand on. She slipped his wild kick, fist cocked.

Then she buried her knuckles in the softest part of Zheng’s throat and slammed him to the ground.

Martial arts or no martial arts, Taylor had more than enough training to end a fight.

Her erstwhile opponent lay gasping on the stone. She raised her fist once more. “Still wanna go?”

The flautist gaped at her, fingers slack on the keys, but the first man placed a hand on the hilt of his sword.

“You should let go of that before you hurt someone,” Taylor told him.

“You should have thought better before laying a hand on junior brother Zheng,” the man replied. “I will demonstrate your folly at present, sister.”

She raised a brow. “And what are you going to do to me from all the way over there?” When he closed the distance, she could whistle again and—

His Qi spiked. “Dawn-Severing Sword, First Cut.”

He drew his blade, faster than she could see, faster than she could move.

And from the sheath came a sword of light.

It swept across the square, leaving a shimmering arc. It blinded her.

The swordsman paused at the end of his swing, his sword just a sword again.

Taylor coughed blood onto the stone.

She staggered back. Two hands pressed against the gaping wound in her stomach. She hadn’t even felt the pain.

“Impressive, sister.” The swordsman lowered his arm, letting his Qi subside. “You still managed to dodge. I intended to cut you in two, but missed the spine. Know that I shall meditate on the lesson your death has taught me.”

Taylor coughed more blood. The muscles in her stomach were severed. She could barely keep upright even as the man continued to speak on his ‘way of the sword’.

Taylor thought about trying to copy that attack, but she couldn’t grasp the full extent of it after seeing it used only once, even with her Passenger’s help. She hadn’t caught how he’d pushed the Qi into his sword, and she didn’t have a sword of her own either. So, it appeared that she would stop here, and die.

But something about that sword strike wouldn’t leave her. It played over in her head, again and again. Something about the unalloyed weight of intention, how it focused to a killer edge.

How had she moved?

The sword stroke came quicker than she could move, but somehow she had dodged like he said. She had moved before the swing. She had moved before the swing because she’d seen his Qi move before the blade. It had to wait for the blade.

The sword had held back the cut.

Her diaphragm spasmed. “It’s flawed,” she said. A bloodied hand fell to her side.

The swordsman stopped. “What?”

“Your sword is flawed.” Her voice came in a sharp rasp. “Why…why are you using a sword to cut?”

Fear bloomed across his face.

Her Qi sharpened, bloomed.

“First cut.”

A flash of white.

The cut moved faster without metal holding it back. The flautist fell in two pieces. The swordsman staggered back, bleeding from a cut that ran from shoulder to shoulder.

Taylor realized he was a lot stronger than her; his Qi itself moved fast enough to protect against her cut. His body was more than just a vessel; his spirit, his Qi, they did things she could not. Even seeing them, she couldn’t understand how he did them.

That just meant her cut needed to be sharper.

One cut took most of her Qi, but there was plenty more in the air. She pulled it into herself, filling that void deep within. She raised her hand once again.

The sword was flawed.

Taylor cut true.