Chapter 72

  The Tales Woven (II)

  Do I have any experience interrogating people?

  Yeah. There was that one time I interrogated Jim about his date with Donna. It did not go well.

  Though I have no actual experience trying to squeeze info out of the perps, I did spend a considerable number of hours wolfing down the procedural cop shows. An unhealthily considerable number of hours. Honestly, I'm kind of ashamed.

  But it seems that all of it is finally being paid off!

  ... am I really going to use 'tactics' I saw in TV shows on an actual, real, live person?

  Yeah, I really am.

  "Jiang Dong," I said, pouring myself a small cup of water. Not because I was thirsty, but because I always imagined myself as one of those guys pouring a glass of scotch or whiskey as he interrogates people. "187 years old. Peak of the Spirit Manifestation Realm. Do you know him?"

  "... I--I don't, I don't know." Wow. I am good! Just a pair of lousy sentences and I've already got a man squirming! Maybe I should have become a cop? Nah. I'd have a career of constantly clashing with my superiors because they'd never believe my amazing theories.

  "Really? You don't?" I turned around and smiled, walking over to the chair pressed against the cupboard and pulling it out, sitting down, cross-legged, and staring straightly at the man who was avoiding my gaze. "That's odd. I was certain you knew him."

  "Y-you're, yeah, you're mistaken. Is that why you did this? I, I will overlook it and not report it if you just let me go--"

  "--ah, come on, Dong," Yes, I was going to call him Dong. I may be mature, but my sense of humor stopped maturing at around the age of nine. "This is the part of being caught when you try to bargain for your future. You know? Promise you'll tell me all I want to know, but in turn I have to spare your life. Or cackle like a madman and throw yourself at me in a desperate bid to die, as you're unwilling to divulge any info about your true home.

  "Anything cool besides whimpering out a half-cooked denial." I took a sip of water in the coolest way I could think of... and then had to use every one of my muscles not to gag.

  Oh my God, it's so disgusting!

  It's not only strangely lukewarm, but it also has, like, I don't know, a texture?! I can't even describe it, but water is not supposed to have this kind of a texture! At least not the water I put in my mouth!

  I professionally put the cup down out of my sight and strained myself to just stare in silence, hoping my professionally inquisitive glare will be enough to rattle him further.

  "Heh. Throw myself at you? Despite how pathetic you are, I am now just a mortal. Though, I suppose there's a higher chance of you being incapable of killing a mortal than of you somehow figuring this all out. So, who told you? Who is behind all of this?"

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  Hey, look, it worked! While I'm not happy about being shat on, at least we're getting somewhere.

  "What was the message?"

  "Huh?"

  "The message that the Firebird delivered," I said. "What was in it?"

  "Wouldn't you like to know?"

  "Uhm, I would. That's why I'm asking you."

  "And you think I'll just tell you?"

  "... I can always bring that kid back in. Would you like that?" Huh? Look at that shudder. He's terrified! I mean, of course he is--I am terrified, and I'm technically that monster's 'Master'.

  "Who the hell is that kid?! What kind of a monster are you hiding on your peak, Elder Lu?!"

  "Wouldn't you like to know?" I said with a grin, almost subconsciously reaching for that cup of water yet again before stopping myself just in time, gagging for a second. "But I'll tell you this: of the two of us, only I ask questions. At least, ask them politely enough."

  "Just kill me," he said, closing his eyes. "You are all too late, anyway. Your sword shall burn, and with it the mountains shall crumble. It cannot be avoided."

  ... well, if that ain't foreboding.

  Was I going to kill him? No. Not in the slightest.

  Look, I am desperately aware that I won't be able to avoid it forever, but dammit, I'll avoid it for as long as I possibly can. It's a good thing that I got a 14-year-old to offload all this garbage to.

  Hmm.

  I really hope nobody is reading my mind at times like these. I do not come off well.

  "What makes you certain it will fall?" I asked. "Elder Zhang is either dead or captured. You are here with me. We are aware of most of the rest of you. We know that the entire war is caused by your sect master, who had gone perfectly mad after his breakthrough. The only thing we don't know, really," I said as his expression grew more and more horrified with each revelation. "Is why you all still obey him. Overlooking an occasional transgression of the strongest person in your sect? I can understand that, in a 'see no evil, hear no evil' sort of a thing.

  "But consciously participating in those transgressions? Sacrificing your life for a monster that will forget your name a day after your death, if he ever knew it at all? I don't understand that."

  "Then you don't understand loyalty!" he barked. "Or honor! What the hell do you know of Sect Master?! You dare call him a monster?! Hah! For whatever he is, at the very least he's not a Demonic Cultivator."

  I frown at the words, heartbeat quickening for a moment.

  They know? How?

  "... how do you know that?"

  "Wait, you know too? Ha ha ha! You know, and you dare lecture me about transgressions? HA HA HA!"

  "How do you know?" I ignored his laughter and pressed. It's one thing if nobody knows, but if they are already aware... no, wait, do they know about Light, too?

  "How can we not know? An entire coalition of Holy Lands came together to stop the rise of the Demonic Sect, bleeding and dying by the thousands. Yet, at the heart of the sect, they didn't find the one person they were desperate to find--the inheritor. The monster had run off," shit. So, they know about Light. This is bad. "And not a week later, the Sect Master of this godforsaken hellhole just so happens to break through to the Void Transformation Realm?

  "You call my Sect Master a monster? Yours, you absolute scum, is a literal monster! You're all following an inheritor of the Demonic Arts, a creature the entire worlds have loathed for tens of thousands of years!"

  ... ah. So they don't know about Light.

  Rather, they don't even know that he's a Demonic Cultivator, they just... guessed. Because it was easier than accepting there was somebody more talented than their Sect Master.

  Chances are that it's just a story the old monster tells them to 'excuse' his shortcomings. A pure shot in the dark that just happened to land at the valley of truth... or, at least, thereabouts.

  "Next thing you'll tell me is the reason you guys wanted to start a war is because you wanted to, justly, of course, kill the inheritor of the Demonic Arts."

  "Ha ha ha, you've finally got it! Now you understand! Understand how foolish your endeavors are! Your little sect will burn, and you will all burn with it! Ha ha ha!"

  Goddamn, this guy loved to laugh.

  More to the point though... aren't we kind of screwed?