D.E.M.O.N.S: Getting Summoned Weekly isn't so Bad

The piece that brought it all together was the sword and scabbard on her back. The scabbard itself was a work of art, showing off a snowy landscape with golden wind that wound itself between the incredibly detailed brushwork of the trees and icy rivers that dotted the landscape. When Bing drew the sword and gave it a few practice swings, Kat could see the golden cap and guard surrounding a green leather handle. The blade itself was devastatingly thin, and had stylised wind etchings swirling towards the point.

After a quick adjustment of the rather plain blue belt, and a few more swings of the sword, Bing returned it to her sheath and started to stretch, taking very little care with how it emphasised her ass, or the fact Sue could see down Bing’s shirt. “Blue lace… nice,” said Sue with a grin.

“Oh? She’s got the lace set on today?” chimed in Lian, “That’s a surprise. I didn’t think Bing would break something like that out just for a fight against her brother. I guess she’s got someone to impress now though,” Lian finished off her sentence by shooting Sue a look and wiggling her eyebrows.

“Eugh, don’t you pair start now. I’m about to go, show off the ridiculous routine our parents forced us to learn as our entrance, and then lose to my brother. The only question is, how much effort I’m going to put into the fight afterwards,” grumbled Bing.

“Well that really depends, how mad are you at your brother right now?” asked Lian with a cheeky grin.

“Hmm… not that mad? He hasn’t done anything to annoy me in at least a week and I plan on starting my part of the show from this box instead of the entrance like I’m meant to, so that will piss him off in a big way…” mumbled Bing.

“You could use that,” pointed out Sue, “Keep him angry and not thinking straight and then go looking for an opening? I imagine as his sister you have plenty of ways to make Feng angry,”

“That’s… not impossible…” said Bing slowly, “… I suppose the only thing that would make me unsure is it would still take a lot of qi and I’m not really doing myself any favours in a matchup against Bodeir. If I’m not treating it like a fight to the death, I don’t think I could take him down. That means I probably lose… then I get a bunch of people who will yell at me for taking Feng out of the competition with a cheap trick, and losing to Bodeir afterwards,”

.....

“Why would it be different if this was a fight to the death?” asked Kat.

“You really don’t know?” asked Bing with narrowed eyes as she bent to the side, continuing her stretching. Kat shrugged and so Bing continued, “I’d go for the eyes or the neck Kat. I might not be able to beat him in a tournament setting, but a fast moving, qi infused spike of vibrating air straight into his eye socket and brain? That can kill a lot of people, and with us both at the same Rank, he’d die,”

“Woah… that’s… um… yeah that’s a bit deadly,” said Kat trying not to expose too much of her shock. It just made sense really. Bing was trained for combat, and sometimes that combat needed to be deadly. The eyes were weak points for cultivators and most spirit beasts. Qi did wonders to improve the body, and the eyes were no exception… but it was a multiplicative effect. The eye of a cultivator might be a hundred times tougher then a normal eye… but it was still an eye. Much weaker than bone or steel.

“Does that bother you?” asked Bing, pausing her movements, “that I’m able to talk so casually about potentially killing someone?”

*Well… I don’t know how to answer that. This is a very different world, and I’ve killed at this point as well… might just be something to do with the fact that I’m a demon but… hmm… perhaps I should just share that story about Grumpy maybe?*

With a wave of affirmation from Lily’s end of the link, Kat started to speak, “Not really? I mean, it is a bit distasteful in the abstract, and as someone currently contracted to keep Bodeir alive, I can’t say I’m pleased to hear that sort of talk,” Bing winced, having somewhat forgotten Kat wasn’t just here as her friend, but as Bodeir’s bodyguard. Admitting to being able to kill the person she trying to protect really wasn’t the best look, “but I have come to terms with death, and killing.

“I suppose I should tell you about a girl I call Grumpy. I don’t know her name, she didn’t provide it. I was on another Contract to rescue someone from a sect, and during the breakout I lead the main defender, Grumpy, off on a wild goose chase through the woods. She was unhappy, just having been woken up and forced to chase me… all in an attempt to delay me until the sect patriarch arrived, or if she was skilled enough, take me out herself.

“I tried to reason with her, offered her an out… explained the difference in combat strength… and she refused. Wanted a warrior’s death, that if she walked away her punishment would be much worse then the risk of death. She was quite insistent about it… so… in one strike, we traded blows. She cut down to my bones with her halberd and I punched straight through her ribs and hit her heart with enough force to cause it to explode. Then, instead of cursing my name, or complaining, she said she regretted she wasn’t stronger, and hoped for a better life when she reincarnated,”

“Huh… that… yea I know some people like that,” said Bing. “I can say that, from what I know of those sorts of people, she genuinely would have held no ill will against you for killing her. In fact, if she had any hatred in her heart, it was probably for her sect patriarch or direct superior that forced her to chase after you instead. Those types of cultivators are weird… and often weirdly powerful to. She just got unlucky,”

“I can’t say it bothers me much either Bing,” said Sue from the side, “I haven’t killed anyone yet, unlike Kat, but I have been mentally prepared for it for a long time. A lot of demons revel in the violence, and there were classes about how to deal with bloodlust, just as there were classes to deal with guilt. Some of them are more disturbing then the idea of killing someone…”

“How?” asked Lily.

Sue turned her gaze to Lily, fixing the Memphis with a dead stare. “I had one teacher that talked about the number of sentients on any given world we might visit, then demonstrated just how many die to all sorts of random things. She went into rather gruesome detail about all the ways someone could possibly find themselves dead… and essentially said ‘so really unless you’re aiming for genocide you won’t make a noticeable difference on the population’ and I had never felt so small. This was a class for ten year olds,”

“What the fuck?” whispered Kat. She might’ve been fine with killing… but to teach young demons that weren’t even ten that sort of thing just felt wrong to her. Children shouldn’t need to be ok with death. *In a way, it’s weird demons are so cool with death considering it’s probably quite rare to see a death in the hub, both due to medical skill and because old age is a rare event.*

“I know I was forced to butcher a bunny when I was eight. Had to hold it down and slit its neck, Lian did it too, though we were both alone with our teacher for the experience,” added in Bing.

*Are we the weird one’s Lily? Coming from such a non-violent country?*

[I mean… even just on Earth… if we’re talking statistics? Yes. Yes we are the weird ones.]

*Well… damn.*

“You don’t have to answer Bing, Lian… but have you guys killed a human?” asked Kat, her words being translated to the equivalent for ‘sentient’ instead of specifically ‘human’.

Lian and Bing shared a look. “That bunny killing class?” Kat nodded as Bing spoke, “The graduation test was killing a convicted rapist,”

“Murderer for me,” added Lian.

*Cultivators are weird.*