Cultivation Nerd-Chapter 340 - Two Truths and One Lie

A thin layer of snow blanketed the fields just outside the Blazing Sun Sect as fresh flakes drifted lazily from the sky. Despite everything the sect had endured, its mountain remained a picturesque sight.

Song Song stood a few yards away, smiling faintly as she studied me. There was a dangerous glint in her eyes. Winter had come, and with no beast sightings so far, she hadn’t gotten her fill of murder or destruction.

“Get ready. I’m about to attack,” she said.

Before I could even respond, her figure blurred. Even now, I couldn’t tell how she always managed to move just fast enough that I couldn’t clearly see her. She claimed it was instinct. Was it really that simple?

In an instant, she was in front of me, a crimson dagger flashing in her hand, ready to take my head in a single swing.

Well, two could play at that game.

I conjured a translucent green axe, taller than I was, shaped like the one Song Song wielded when she used her Core Technique. Twirling it once to mimic her style, I swung it down like a hammer.

Her grin widened. Another dagger formed from her blood, and she met my strike head-on.

The weapons clashed with a sharp, metallic ring. A strange sound, considering neither of us was using metal. Our constructs were pure Qi, yet they rang like forged steel.

The ground beneath her trembled. Song Song could easily handle my strikes, but the earth beneath her feet couldn’t.

“What now?” she asked, smug. “Looks like a standoff to me.”

Her eyes widened a heartbeat later, and she coughed up a mouthful of blood. Miniature jade particles filled her lungs, tearing them apart from the inside.

“How–?” she rasped, staggering.

Her grip faltered, her daggers flickering as her stance broke. My jade particles ripped through her chest, and I stepped in, swinging my axe in a wide, clean arc that bisected her in two.

Her upper half slid off her body, eyes still wide in disbelief, before collapsing into a crimson pool that reformed into a new Song Song. At the same time, her lower half bubbled, reshaping into another identical body.

“Yep. Your clones still can’t sense the small things, like my Qi slipping into their systems,” I said, though she’d already realized it.

Song Song’s clones were essentially remote-controlled, but we’d been working to make them more autonomous to act independently or follow preset behaviors, so she wouldn’t have to micromanage them.

As for the real Song Song? She was either hiding nearby under her Sky Grade Technique… or back at my house, drinking tea with Wu Yan and Fu Yating.

Lately, she’d taken quite an interest in Wu Yan.

“Don’t worry about the original. We’re here to keep you company,” said one of the clones.

Since when could her clones read me this well?

“Hm?” I narrowed my eyes. “Did Song Song imbue you with part of her soul to make you so self-aware?”

“Yes,” replied the clone born from the lower half of her body. She even shook her head, looking genuinely disappointed. “She completely ignored your warnings about a clone uprising if she did this. Totally irresponsible.”

Well, the actual danger wasn’t as high as my instincts suggested. But my mind had been conditioned by too many movies to hate this kind of development.

“Agreed,” said the other clone. “Also, she’s been trying to channel her Sky Grade Technique through us.”

“She wants clone assassins,” the first added.

“That’s stupid,” I frowned. “Even if her clones only hold a small part of her soul, anyone skilled at soul techniques could destroy that fragment. And if they were really good, they might even curse her through it. Soul injuries aren’t easy to heal.”

“Agreed,” they echoed at the same time. They glanced at each other, then one cleared her throat and continued, “She mostly wants to use us to kill people beneath her strength so she doesn’t have to make the trip herself. A technique that only works on the weak. As you’ve said before, Liu Feng, what use is a technique that only works on the weak?”

Did I ever say that?

These clones were still Song Song, but for some reason they lacked her pressure. They were easier to talk to. Perhaps this was what she’d be like without the pursuit of absolute power, a version of her that knew it would die. 𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝔀𝓮𝒃𝙣𝓸𝒗𝒆𝒍.𝙘𝒐𝒎

“Well, what do you say we try to take over the real body?” I asked, half-joking.

“No thanks. We’re born from a Foundation Technique and can never actually reach her Core Formation strength. We can only imitate it at best. She can disable us with a thought,” sighed one of the clones. “And you’d be the first to stab us in the back if we agreed.”

“Absolute traitor,” the other judged me with mock severity.

“Also, I’m pretty sure we’re not truly sentient,” said the first clone. “Our thoughts don’t feel… solid. It’s like we’re dreaming, if you know what I mean.”

“True,” the other added. “It’s hard to come up with well-thought-out plans.”

“Anyway, what have you been up to?” the first clone asked suddenly. “The original knows you’re sneaking around, doing something without telling us. Which means you’re about to try something she would disapprove of… possibly something dangerous.”

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

Ah. So Song Song had noticed I’d been laying groundwork for something. That was… worrying. She had the power to stop me, yet she was letting me move ahead because she trusted me not to do anything stupid.

I stayed silent, looking at the clones, my expression a mixture of confusion.

Song Song was annoyingly stubborn when she wanted to be and selfish enough to crave a perfect victory.

But we had no more cards to play. It was no longer possible to secure a flawless win against the monster that was her father, and the longer we let him move freely, the higher the chance he’d twist the situation to his favor and end up taking over her body.

Anyone could see that soon the great sects were going to gang up on us. We no longer had the strength to protect our resources, nor a Nascent Soul Cultivator to lead us.

If I were the Blood Step Immortal, I’d cut my losses and take Song Song with me when that time came, and then begin the process of taking her body.

The only reason he hadn’t acted yet was likely because his body-snatching technique had conditions we didn’t understand, and no way to uncover them.

“Okay, definitely reporting that look on his face to the original,” said the first clone, breaking me out of my thoughts.

“What are you talking about?” I asked. I was pretty sure I’d kept my expression neutral, but Song Song’s instincts could pick up things nobody else noticed.

The clone stepped closer until our faces were only inches apart, her nose almost brushing mine.

“Yep,” she said. “I can smell the stupid.”

Her breath carried a faint coppery tang like old, dried blood.

I made a mental note to tell Song Song about this; it was a flaw in her technique. The clones looked exactly like her, and their Qi felt similar, but unlike the real Song Song, they couldn’t regenerate on their own. Now added to that weakness is that their breath smelled like blood.

Still, I needed to derail the conversation before they said something that would make her look more closely at me.

So I did something I’d never done with Song Song herself: I reached out and pinched the clone’s cheek, stretching it between my fingers.

“Wow,” I said, genuinely intrigued. “It feels surprisingly realistic.”

Her skin was a bit too elastic, though. I could stretch it far more than a real person’s.

“Hey! Quit it!” the clone snapped, batting my hand away while the other clone burst out laughing.

Naturally, I went for the other cheek next.

“Don’t you dare–”

She stepped back before my hand could reach her, glaring like a cat whose dignity had been assaulted.

…

Time passed, and months piled up as winter took hold. But unlike the previous years, the snow this time was pure, untouched by the blood of humans or monstrous beasts.

I stood atop the outer wall, gazing into the distance with Song Song beside me.

Many thoughts ran through my mind about the uncertain future, even though the sect itself was in surprisingly good spirits. Some still whispered that this peace was the calm before the storm.

Either way, this breathing room gave the sect a chance to recover or for the elders to return to their endless internal squabbles, which they’d only paused because extinction had been looming over their heads.

“What a shame…” Song Song sighed.

The person beside me was probably the only one disappointed by how things had turned out. After finally settling into her role as the elder in charge of warfare, she’d been eager to test new strategies against the monstrous beasts.

“I think it’s a good thing overall,” I said.

“Of course you would,” she muttered. “You and your monk-minded buddies are all the same. How are we supposed to bloody the younger generation and teach them to survive?”

I knew she didn’t actually care about the younger generation, and this was just her excuse to stir up a bit of war.

“By at least letting them live long enough to reach their potential,” I said under my breath, knowing full well she could hear me. “Besides, the other sects will notice the change and probably start exterminating their beasts too.”

“Yeah, yeah.” She waved me off. “That bitch Ye An’s already surpassed me in cultivation, and now this. Things really can’t get any worse for me.”

I chuckled at her plight. She had a twisted sense of right and wrong; what was bad for her often turned out good for everyone else.

“How about I show you something cool to get your mind off things?” I offered.

She turned toward me, her deep blue eyes lighting up, her earlier irritation melting away in an instant.

I extended my hand toward the distant forest and made a grasping motion. The air around us rippled slightly, but nothing happened.

“That’s it? Was this supposed to impress me or something?” Song Song asked, raising a brow. “No offense, but I’ve seen you do better. Sure, your Qi doesn’t seem as drained as before, but still…”

I smiled and formed a hand seal. A black cube expanded outward from us, enclosing us completely. It grew larger and larger, thirty yards across. But somehow, the wall we stood on and the world outside remained unchanged.

Song Song floated upward, scanning the area, before grinning. “Oh, I see it now. The space inside the array is bigger than the outside. You’ve finally become a Level 5 Array Conjurer.”

“Yep,” I nodded, pride flickering in my chest.

It had taken months of work and more frustration than I cared to admit. The breakthrough had been… anticlimactic, really, more like solving a math problem than achieving enlightenment.

“Though my control still isn’t great–”

Before I could finish, Song Song conjured two crimson daggers and hurled them at the walls of the cube. Both struck deep, cracks spider-webbing out from each impact.

“What happens when the barrier breaks?” she asked.

Ask that before you break the barrier!

I wanted to yell, but the words never came out because the space around us suddenly twisted. It felt like we were being sucked through a straw, our bodies stretched thin, spaghettified, until we were spat back out and landing right where we’d been standing atop the wall.

Except now, Song Song was floating an inch above the ground.

I sent her a scalding glare. “I’m never, ever doing something like this around you again!”

“Hey, you had it under control,” she said with a shrug, as if we hadn’t just risked being erased from existence.

“What the hell do you mean? I’d know if I had it under control!” I snapped. “That wasn’t under control at all!”

She just smiled, clapped a hand on my shoulder, and gave me a thumbs up, one of the countless gestures she’d picked up from me.

“Don’t worry,” Song Song said with utter confidence. “I completely trusted you to get us out safely.”

I don’t know what the hell I’d been thinking, showing her something like that.

I’d only wanted to cheer her up a little. Lesson learned, never again.

“I’m never trying to cheer you up again,” I muttered.

“Well, you did a good job,” Song Song laughed, slinging an arm around my shoulders like an old friend. Her chest brushed against my arm.

“Hey, I’m a married man now,” I said, pushing her off.

In response, she just ruffled my hair like I was a puppy.

Now she was in a good mood, while I was the one left annoyed.