Chapter 13: Return

'It's never a good look when children run from the sight of you.'

Eric cut quite the terrifying figure as he emerged from the southern forest into the outskirts of the village. His hair was disheveled, his uniform mostly gone and the corpse of the giant Primeval Boar was being dragged behind him by its one remaining tusk. The sight of children running away made him feel like a stereotypical villain.

The villagers mostly looked at him as if he was a ghost or monster of some sort, which was to be expected. He had last been seen walking into the southern forest eight days prior, with no cultivation to speak of. Most had assumed he had gone to kill himself or run away to the mortal lands at the base of the mountain. Making the sight of his inhuman strength beyond striking.

He had a fierce look in his eye now, almost predatory in nature. The onlookers could tell that he had been through hell and back in his absence.

As he headed to the village square he caught sight of Ying Yue running towards him, a sight that immediately softened his eyes.

She stopped a few meters away from him before holding her nose and saying, "I knew you were adverse to clothing, but I didn't know you were allergic to them." The smell of the dead Primeval Boar was much worse than it was in life.

Although the meat cooked well and there was apparently a method to remove the scent from the non edible parts, Eric seriously wondered how people still had an appetite after smelling these things.

Her joke caught the surrounding villagers off-guard, even as they distanced themselves from her. None had ever seen her run, joke or be anything other than poised and indifferent before now. Too many weird things were happening at the moment that the residents of this sleepy mountain side village were on the verge of losing their sanity.

"I fear that it may be the clothing that finds itself repulsed by yours truly, my lady."

Eric chuckled as he let go of the boar's tusk and formally bowed towards her. An action that almost got a blush out of her.

'Almost.'

Ying Yue had seemed to gain her composure, due to the unwanted attention, just in time to defend herself against his sarcasm. She now spoke in a much more sober tone, "Surely, you jest, Ah Xing."

Eric shrugged before gesturing for her to walk with him away from the Primeval Boar and its, frankly rude, smell. This caused the crowd of onlookers to part, maintaining a ten meter distance at all times. It felt like he was in a bubble floating up through the ocean.

The duo didn't have to walk too far before they where out of range of the worst of the smell, since the wind decided to be merciful. The rapidly growing crowd still made it difficult to hold a decent conversation, unfortunately. Not to mention the sea of faces' obvious confusion of what to stare at; the witch, the aberration or the monster.

Eric could feel something he hadn't previously, now that he was a cultivator. As he walked next to Ying Yue, he felt a slight pulling sensation, like the primal essence in his body was trying to leave in the direction of her body. It was subtle, but he could see why most of the rumors about her had started.

After a few minutes of walking the locals seemed to unanimously decide that the sight of the second Primeval Boar corpse to arrive in their territory in recent memory was the most interesting and thus began to make way towards it.

While not completely out of the weeds, the shift in attention did allow Ying Yue to relax slightly. She walked a few paces ahead of Eric before turning to face him, playfully walking backwards before saying, "Now, you simply must tell me wha-"

"What's all this then!?" A loud, crude and familiar voice reverberated in the village square, causing Ying Yue's eyes to ice over in a look of pure indifference as she turned towards the large oaf. His imposing frame pushed through the crowd that had gathered and was followed by his usual pack of muscular woodsmen.

The spindly Xiao Shu stalked in his shadow as usual, his bony fingers pointing in the faces of those not far enough for his liking. "Make way! Make- I said move it old man!" His nasally voice was remarkably unpleasant to the ears.

Pen Yushui finally burst from the parted crowd and stood before Ying Yue and Eric. His routine look of disapproval and anger seemed to find trouble in deciding what to burn a hole into with his eyes first, causing them to dart back and forth between his normal target and the dead Primeval Boar. "Was this your doing witch?" The tone in his voice made it hard to tell if he was more shocked or angry.

There was a bit more confidence mixed in as well, doubtlessly acquired from his recent advancement from Strength Training to Flesh Training.

Ying Yue turned her head and raised her chin in a dismissive way before saying, "Just as we find ourselves removed from the stench of one beast we find ourselves confronted with the odor of another..." She leveled her gaze until she made eye contact with the burly young man. "Surnamed Pen, to what displeasure do you burden yourself upon our persons?"

What Eric now knew to be primal essence shot out out of Pen Yushui's nose like a jet stream, causing his already wide nose to flare even wider. His flat face seemed to be riddled with protruding veins as it turned an unhealthy shade of reddish-purple, "Don't think for a second that I fear you anymore leech! Now that I've reached the Flesh Training realm you can't drain me from a distance anymore", a cocky grin flashed on his face in direct contrast to his strained eyebrows, "meaning you have nothing to harm me with!"

Eric wasn't sure when he knew things would go south, or when his body had started to move, but it wasn't the first time he had found himself in this situation. A situation when someone loses their cool due to their own insecurities or whatever underlying irrelevant issues that lead to them suddenly attacking the person they were just talking too. Maybe it was the change in tone, the agressive posture, the slight shaking of his sleeve, or change in breathing... he could never say.

What did matter was that he currently found himself in front of a charging bull of a man, one that was slightly shorter yet much more muscular, as they were trying to harm someone he had befriended.

Pen Yushui had dashed in without any easily discernable warning and was therefore unprepared when his baton was redirected from his target and he found his vision spinning as his body flipped through the air. The only thing he had seen was a flash of brown skin, black hair and grey cloth before the world became a rotating blur.

The large young man landed hard on his back. The speed of his movement, the force of his swinging baton and the weight of his body causing an exaggerated cloud of dust to raise in the air as he left a dent in the stone covered street behind Ying Yue.

Silence.

Shock.

Disbelief.

Pen Yushui's crew, the surrounding villagers that were either already watching or had gone to look at the Primeval Boar... even Ying Yue. They were all stunned speechless as they turned to look at his sprawling figure, before looking at the strange, dark skinned outsider that was currently looking at his own hands in mild shock.

'Seems I've underestimated my growth.'

He had performed that judo throw thousands of times, against people of various sizes and backgrounds. Yet he had never thrown someone several meters into the air, let alone with several flips involved.

'However...'

That wouldn't be enough to stop this guy. Eric had managed to briefly knock the wind from Pen Yushui's lungs, maybe even make him dizzy, but he could tell from the short instant of bodily contact that Pen Yushui's skin was as solid as iron. He walked past Ying Yue, positioning himself between the two while watching Pen Yushui stand back up slowly.

Ying Yue snapped back to attention as Eric's long hair blocked her view, "You know he's not strong enough to beat me, don't you?"

Eric glanced back at her briefly before smiling.

"Of course, I just hate cowards. Forgive this minor indulgence this one time?"

Ying Yue rolled her eyes slightly before letting out an exasperated sigh. "Go ahead, I'd rather not cause a bigger scene than this."

He laughed while looking back at his potential opponent.

Eric could see Pen Yushui's shoulders shaking in anger as Xiao Shu ran to his side yelling, "Big bro! Are you alri-!", before being violently pushed away several meters.

"Shut up! Of course I'm fine! I just... must have tripped or something!" Pen Yushui turned and faced Eric with a murderous look in his eyes. "Don't believe we've had the pleasure of meeting before, stranger. Care to introduce yourself and explain why you would interrupt a fight between two cultivators?"

Eric chuckled mirthlessly while looking at the ironwood baton in his hand.

"An unannounced attack with a hidden weapon against an unprepared opponent hardly qualifies as a 'fight'. Or am I wrong in assuming honor is a respected virtue in this clan?"

Pen Yushui growled while primal essence seeped from his clenched teeth, "How dare-"

"The name's Eric Xing, by the way."

"-you! Huh?" Pen Yushui almost bit his tongue mid speech.

"You asked me to introduce myself before explaining my reason for interfering. I took it upon myself to correct a flaw in your logic before doing so."

Eric's calm demeanor and odd shift of pacing left Pen Yushui without words.

"That being said, Eric will do just fine. I'm not one to stand on ceremony myself. Now, as for why I stepped in; I saw you attack my benefactor in an unfair manner while she was unprepared to retaliate and decided to pay her back for her kindness."

The dust had nearly fully settled as the stunned on lookers started to whisper among themselves. Everyone present at the time knew Pen Yushui was in the wrong, but untold years of stigma had long since put Ying Yue in an unfavorable light. Not to mention the fact that Eric was an outsider that didn't even have a cultivation base a week ago.

Pen Yushui, on the other hand, was in the midst of the most embarrassing moment of his life. He was the clan's current rising star. The youngest ironwood tree cutter in recent memory and a Flesh Training level cultivator before the age of seventeen, a pace mostly unheard of in a non combat oriented clan like this one.

He looked at all of the people murmuring around him and looked behind himself at the giant Primeval Boar in the distance before turning to face Eric yet again, "You had no cultivation base before, I can understand the little trick you pulled to catch me off guard", he gestured over his shoulder with his thumb, "but how did a weakling like you-"

Pen Yushui finally caught sight of the small cloud shaped badge that was hanging onto the outsider's torn uniform for dear life. "-Nine swirls? You have already reached the peak of Strength Training!?"