Six!

  The first thought that came to Ishin’s mind was the name of the woman who had likely killed his mother—Master Seven.

  Ishin’s eyes narrowed at the man as he ground his teeth.

  Is he one of them?

  His inner beast growled in a shared desire for revenge.

  Ishin opened his third eye to assess the man. What he saw was a light-aspected chakra at the sixth layer. While at a greater cultivation stage than anyone in their group, the margin wasn’t so great that it guaranteed their loss in a fight. However, their exhaustion and injuries were another matter entirely.

  “What kind of name is Six?” Lei asked.

  Six gave a helpless shrug. “What can I say? It’s what I’m called.” He continued fidgeting with whatever was in his hand as he spoke. “Makes as much sense as any other name when you think about it.”

  “No, it doesn’t,” Tan Chen countered.

  “Are you a member of the Hidden Ring?” Ishin demanded. Between the heat, his exhaustion, and his need for revenge, he couldn’t help himself.

  Confused eyes looked back at him. “No.” Six blinked. “At least I don’t think I am.” His gaze drifted off to the trees. “Would I know if I was?”

  “Hidden Ring?” Wei Long asked, his arrow still pointed at Six. “What’s that?”

  “It’s…” Ishin was already regretting his outburst.

  He couldn’t tell if Six recognized the name of the group, but it now felt foolish to assume he was a member. From his brief experience with the assassins on Tyrant’s Rest, it seemed that numerically inferior members were stronger, with Master Seven being equal to his mother in power. Unless Six was a master at suppressing his cultivation, he couldn’t be one of them. But Ishin had let the name slip—a name he hadn’t even shared with Rhee or Lei yet.

  “Never mind,” Ishin finished.

  Fortunately, no one pressed him on the issue.

  “What do you want?” Rhee asked.

  “Friendship. Or perhaps, alliedship? What’s the better word?”

  “You want to be friends?” Lei asked, smiling.

  “He wants allies,” Ishin corrected. He wasn’t naive enough to trust this stranger, especially not after their first encounter with another candidate on the island. “Why?”

  Six’s attention remained focused on what Ishin could now see was a metal coin moving across his fingers. “Strength. Survival. Medicine.”

  “Medicine?” Tan Chen asked.

  “Medicine.”

  Everyone quieted at that, trying to make sense of the strange man before them.

  “Are you referring to the cultivation pills?” Rhee asked after a moment.

  Six flipped the coin into the air and snatched it as it fell. “Precisely!”

  Is he alright?

  Ishin scanned the surrounding treeline in case Six was just a distraction. His concern proved warranted when his third eye detected a faint pale-blue chakra thirty feet to the group’s right.

  Shifting to face the hidden presence, Ishin called out, “Whoever is hiding in the trees, show yourself!”

  His words immediately caused his allies to heighten their guards. Wei Long aimed his arrow in the direction Ishin looked, while even Lei’s budding smile vanished.

  “Keep your eyes on him still,” Tan Chen advised, her focus remaining on Six.

  “I’ll check the other side,” Rhee announced, watching the group’s flank.

  “Who’s over there?” Lei asked, his attention still on Six.

  “Not sure,” Ishin answered. “Come out!” he commanded again.

  “Don’t attack!” an anxious female voice replied from within the forest. “Sorry! Wait. Just don’t attack.”

  A short woman with snow-white hair tied into a bun emerged. Her robes were stained with dirt, and the occasional twig or leaf clung to them, but they appeared in better shape than Six’s. The woman herself was quite attractive, Ishin noted, but she looked worn and tired, with dark bags beneath her eyes and a bruise clear across the right side of her jaw.

  As she stepped forward, her arms were raised, her expression nervous. “Sorry about that. Didn’t mean to scare you or anything. Please don’t attack.”

  Sixth layer too. Her chakra… It’s an aspect I don’t recognize. Not water. Feels almost colder.

  “Why were you hiding?” Wei Long demanded.

  “I was just…” She licked her lips nervously. “I wanted to make sure that Six was safe.”

  If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  “Safe?” Wei Long clearly didn’t buy it. “From what?”

  “Um, uh—in case, you know, you attacked,” she answered.

  Ishin continued to scan the area. “Are there any others?”

  “No! No others,” the woman replied instantly. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have hidden. We’ve just been attacked before when trying to recruit, so I thought this would be safer.”

  “She’s right,” Six chimed in. “Last time, Wen Mei got punched in the face for her trouble. It’s hard to be nice. People here are so aggressive.”

  “Is that your name? Wen Mei?” Ishin asked.

  “Yes.” She lowered her arms and offered a bow. “It’s nice to meet you.”

  “You’re from the Wen Clan,” Wei Long muttered. To Ishin’s confusion, he lowered his bow.

  “What are you doing?” Ishin demanded.

  “She’s from the Wen Clan,” Wei Long repeated. “We shouldn’t fight her.”

  Ishin didn’t understand what Wei Long was thinking.

  “It doesn’t matter. Don’t let your guard down,” he snapped.

  “I promise we don’t want to fight,” Wen Mei insisted. “Just talk.”

  “Then speak.”

  “Uh, right,” Wen Mei said, rubbing the back of her head. “Six and I are members of a group called the Collective Liberation Alliance. We, uh, were wondering if you’d like to join us?”

  “There really is no need for you to remain hostile,” Six added as he flipped his coin.

  “We’ve already been attacked twice,” Rhee scowled. “One of our friends died. We won’t take that chance again.”

  “That’s why you should join us!” Wen Mei replied with nervous levity. Ishin’s eyes narrowed at her. “Hehe. All we want is for everyone to survive and leave the island together. You know, no more deaths.”

  “How do you plan to accomplish that?” Wei Long asked, bow still lowered. Ishin hated that he wasn’t taking this seriously.

  “By working together. There are seventeen of us. Twenty-two if you join! We plan to collect the pills together and leave as a group.”

  Seventeen of them?

  Ishin did another quick scan of the forest with his third eye. He detected no other cultivators, nor any trace of the dangerous spirit monkeys. There was no qi at all—only emptiness.

  Where are the others?

  “You intend to work together to collect the pills during the Pill Drops?” Wei Long asked, sounding intrigued.

  “That’s right! Join us and we can all get out of here together! The more of us there are, the easier it will be.”

  “An alliance of like-minded martials,” Lei said with a grin. “I like it!”

  Not him too.

  “If there are so many of you, then why haven’t you left the island yet?” Rhee asked. Her eyes shifted between the two. “You’re both at the sixth layer already.”

  Glad someone is asking the right questions.

  “Because we agreed to all leave together,” Wen Mei answered.

  “Friendship and all that,” Six added.

  “All of our members agreed that none of us would progress to the Adept Realm until we all could. There are only so many pills delivered each week, so it’s taken us some time to gather enough.”

  “You’re at the sixth layer of the Initial Realm already,” Ishin pointed out. “Are you all this close?”

  “Some are at the fifth layer still,” Wen Mei shared. “If you join us, we’ll be able to gain more pills and then we can all progress!”

  Ishin didn’t trust her. This feels too good to be true. She doesn’t seem to be lying, but what if this is all a trap? We can’t fight seventeen cultivators at the fifth and sixth layers.

  There was one other part that troubled him. “Tell me this—if your group already contains so many members, why do you need more?”

  Wen Mei’s friendly expression faltered. “What?”

  “We were told there were sixty-seven candidates on the island earlier today by the elders. If your group already has almost a third of everyone present, why would you seek out more members?”

  “For security,” Wen Mei answered earnestly.

  Ishin shook his head. “You say that, but you’ve already claimed your group won’t reach the Adept Realm until all of you can. The more members you gain—especially if they’re at lower layers—the harder that becomes. It doesn’t make sense.”

  This is a trap. I’m convinced of it.

  Should we just kill them now?

  His inner beast growled in agreement.

  When Wen Mei didn’t answer, his suspicion only deepened.

  “This is a trap,” he whispered to Wei Long. The archer looked conflicted.

  “It’s not!” Wen Mei insisted.

  “Then answer my question!”

  “Blood and carnage,” Six mused, evidently unbothered.

  Ishin rolled his eyes. “What does that even mean?”

  “Carnage and blood.”

  “Do we fight?” Rhee asked.

  “We don’t want to fight,” Wen Mei pleaded. “Please! We’re being honest.”

  “Yet you won’t answer my question,” Ishin growled.

  Wen Mei’s expression twisted. Eventually, she sighed in resignation. “Because we’re too weak.”

  Ishin blinked. “What?”

  “Our group is weak,” she repeated, disgust in her tone. “Individually, we aren’t very strong.”

  They’re all at the fifth or sixth layer, and she says they’re weak?

  “That doesn’t make sense,” Rhee pressed. “If there are so many of you at those layers, how can you be too weak?”

  “I…we…ugh.” Wen Mei rubbed her temples. “There are others on the island. Stronger than us.”

  “You mean those monkeys?” Lei asked.

  “Hmm? Yes—both the Vampire Monkeys and the other candidates to join the sect.”

  Vampire Monkeys. Fitting name.

  “There are others stronger than you on the island?” Tan Chen asked, troubled.

  “Some. Yes. During the last Pill Drop, we lost five of our members. We lost another three just two days ago when we were attacked by a dozen Vampire Monkeys.” Her shoulders slumped. “We need more members if we’re ever to make it off the island.”

  They fought a dozen? We barely survived half that many. And if they lost five during the Pill Drop… that must have been a bloodbath. Eight members gone in a week. No wonder she said they’re weak.

  “Who is the biggest threat on the island?” Ishin asked.

  Wen Mei met his gaze with tired eyes. “There are a few others on the island I would call dangerous. Chief among them are Bai Hao and Isho Nel.”

  “They fight alone?” Wei Long asked.

  “Only Bai Hao,” Wen Mei said. “Isho Nel has a small group. There are others too, but those are the strongest threats.”

  “Those and the Vampire Monkeys?” Rhee asked.

  “Yes,” Wen Mei sighed. “There are smaller groups as well, and we’re all forced to fight for survival.” With a strained smile, she finished, “That’s why I want you to join our alliance. So we can all leave alive.”

  Ishin searched her words for deception but found none. To his own surprise, he lowered his spear.

  “Where is the rest of your alliance?”