Chapter 31 - The Rage Queen Descends

Stillness settled over the den of the Rage Queen as the trio awaited the arrival of the beast that might be their doom.

In the rain, Ao Wen sat patiently with her legs folded next to the bodies of the two cubs they'd slain. Outwardly, she was calm. Inwardly, she was seething with rage. Feng Xi had almost been injured because she couldn't keep the enemies away from her. Tang Jin had been injured in Feng Xi's place. She'd done it again. Again. The same mistake.

When she was Jun Biyu, she became arrogant when she held the power of Dragon Fang. After months, she'd completed the first form of the Obsidian Night Scorpion Saber Art and had successfully torn a stone pillar in half with two strikes of her saber. What were Wind Howl Coyotes fleshy bodies compared to a stone pillar? She'd been arrogant and she'd nearly died fighting those coyotes. She still didn't know if Jun Ben and Jun Xiang had survived the disaster.

Now, she'd done it again. She was riding on the high of her breakthrough, of her victory over what were likely half starved Blood Rage Cougars fleeing the Rage Queen and she felt like they could fight when outnumbered two to one because they were "just cubs." It was Tang Jin's first hunt and she wasn't an experienced enough hunter to really teach him despite her months off training with Teacher Xie. Reality was far harsher than Teacher Xie. Feng Xi had become a second stage cultivator, one of less than fifty out of fifty thousand people living in Turning Leaf town. That didn't make her a powerful warrior like her father. The fact that she'd been on minor hunts in the outer woods with her father didn't make her a veteran hunter either.

Now, she waited for the Rage Queen to come and punish her arrogance. She'd done everything she could do to protect the others. Tang Jin lay hidden under a pile of bones, waiting for a moment to begin his hit and run campaign of diverting the beast's attention. He was fast. Faster than her. If he had to just run he could. Feng Xi sat atop a boulder, out of reach of the Rage Queen's powerful paws. She would be safe long enough for the fight to end. Whatever it cost, she'd protect the woman she loved.

Right now, even if it meant losing herself in a previous incarnation's life, if it meant she'd grow strong enough to protect Xi she'd dive back into the memories of her inner world. The only problem was that she couldn't guarantee that she wouldn't be stuck there for nine days again. They couldn't afford that. Since she couldn't do that, she sat, seething, circulating her martial energy and feeling the fury in her heart resonating with the strange bone-like orb near her heart that responded to her draconic energy. Clearly, this was a piece of her that knew what rage really was, yearning to rampage at anything that threatened her friend and her love.

Finally, as the skies began to darken above the still drizzling rain clouds a murderous aura began to flow into the den. A low red fog began to fill the den bringing with it the coppery scent of blood and a red haze that colored Ao Wen's vision. Standing up, she drew her saber and looked out at the woods the aura was emanating from. "Wild Fang," she whispered to the shark fin tipped saber, finally knowing the name it needed. "Today, we rampage together," she told her new partner.

On the boulder, Feng Xi frowned at the changing emotional states of Ao Wen and even Tang Jin. In fact, Tang Jin's eyes had become even more clouded than Ao Wen's as his Mountain Lion bloodline responded to the call of the Rage Queen to rampage. Setting her fingers to strings, Feng Xi filled the air with a strong martial tempo. Again, she used March Yue Feng, hoping the strength of the Unshakable Yue Army would help to resist the effects of the Rage Queen's murderous aura.

Clarity returned to Tang Jin's eyes and his heart beat slowed to match the pace of Feng Xi's playing. He managed to hold himself back from rushing into battle, biding his time as he had been told. Ao Wen on the other hand shrugged off the help. She wanted the rage, wanted to rampage, wanted to let loose her frustration and self blame in violence. The core at the center of her chest helped her keep the rage leashed if only barely.

Step by step the aura intensified as the Rage Queen approached. The bones on the ground began to rattle, the remnant spirits that clung to them quaking in fear at the Rage Queen's approach. Just when Feng Xi began to worry that she couldn't resist the increasing aura if it grew much stronger, the powerful cougar strode out of the tree line.

The Rage Queen stood two meters tall at the shoulder and was over three meters long. Her tail swished back and forth like a lash, cracking the air as it moved from side to side. Red light spilled from her eyes and blood dripped from her monstrous fangs.

"ROAR!!!" The Rage Queen announced her outrage at the sight of her slain cubs, shaking the walls of the den and sending loose stones tumbling to the ground.

Pulling martial energy from deep within her dantien, Ao Wen stomped forward, cracking the earth in challenge and letting out an answering "ROAR!!!"

Bronze colored draconic energy clashed with the blood red Rage Queen's aura, stunning both Feng Xi and Tang Jin as she successfully repelled the Rage Queen's aura with her own roar!

"What is she?" Tang Jin breathed from his hiding place. Suddenly he was very glad he'd never made her truly angry!

"COME!" Ao Wen shouted in challenge, beginning to rush towards the massive cougar, Wild Fang trailing behind her.

The Rage Queen met the challenge with a charge of her own, tearing over the ground with her massive paws, leaving a spray of dirt and deep furrows in the earth in her wake.

Suddenly, Ao Wen stopped her charge, rooting her feet to the earth and swinging Wild Fang in a flat arc towards the Rage Queen's shoulder. She had no illusions about opening with a Rending Pincer but she borrowed the form of the first strike to cleave to the shoulder bone before the blade bit and stopped, spilling hot blood in the cold rain and earning a cry of pain from the giant cougar.

Recovering Wild Fang, Ao Wen was barely able to position the blade along her body in time to absorb some of the impact of the swipe from the Rage Queen's other paw. The blow still sent Ao Wen flying through the air, only stopping when she crashed into the boulder Feng Xi sat atop with her zither. Ao Wen's martial aura offered too little protection and her head bounced against the stone, casting a black cloud over her vision as blood flowed down the side of her face.

"Xi, bind it!" Tang Jin cried, rushing from cover to get the Rage Queen's attention. He knew, knew without a shadow of a doubt, that he couldn't survive a blow like the one Ao Wen had taken. It didn't matter. If he didn't move now, the stunned Ao Wen was doomed.

Feng Xi shoved her own anxiety about Ao Wen behind a wall in her mind and played a complex binding. It was the first time she'd tried to bind multiple points but since becoming an Understudy she found it much easier to create two independent manifestations of her desires. This time she stretched further playing four complex chords rapidly to anchor all four of the Rage Queen's limbs. "Now!" She yelled at Tang Jin.

The bindings were too weak to last more than a moment but a moment was all he needed to unleash a strike from Blinding Light that left four long body wounds along the Rage Queen's left flank.

Enraged, the massive cougar turned towards the fleeing Tang Jin, snapping the threads of energy binding her limbs!

"I'M STILL HERE!" Ao Wen roared as she charged towards the cougar's wounded shoulder swinging in an overhand arc straight at the beast's head. The Rage Queen lifted her massive paw to block and bat away the approaching saber only to fail as the injury inflicted by Ao Wen's first strike halted her front leg halfway through the motion. The Rage Queen realized her mistake too late to twist completely out of the blade's path, bellowing in anger and pain as the shark fin tip of Wild Fang tore along the Rage Queen's face, binding one eye in the process.

The wound wasn't enough for the engaged Ao Wen who followed up with a rising strike to the inside of the shoulder joint on the same limb she'd already injured, cleaving deeply before Wild Fang again stopped on bone.

Seeing an opportunity, Tang Jin darted in at the opposite flank leaving another set of bloody gashes along the flank. This time though, he pressed the advantage aiming a follow-up strike at the beast's rear leg. A moment later his world spun, Blinding Light falling from his loose grip, his head bleeding from the impact of the Rage Queen's powerful tail!

"Jin!" Feng Xi shouted, hands dancing over strings as she used threads of her energy to pull Tang Jin and Binding Light away from the wildly snapping tail.

Ao Wen bellowed in rage, her vision tinged red and shrinking till the Rage Queen was all she could see. Her aura flared as she drew deeper on her energy than she ever had before. Pain flared in her meridians as earth energy surged like a sandstorm flowing through her veins, tearing away at her body from the inside as she drew even deeper.

Wild Fang swung again and again, knocking aside the Rage Queen's other paw and cutting deeply into her flesh, severing the tendons and leaving the limb hanging uselessly.

Desperately, the Rage Queen pounced forward, jaws open wide to tear into Ao Wen's flesh. Eyes blazing bronze, Ao Wen stepped forward into the Rage Queen's attack, her left arm leaving Wild Fang to block the cougar's jaw. Flesh twisted and deformed, Ao Wen's left hand turning into a dragon's claw, earthen bronze scales covering her forearm. The Rage Queen's teeth crunched down on Ao Wen's arm, breaking bones with crushing force but failing to penetrate the scales covering her forearm.

With the sacrifice of her arm, Ao Wen positioned the shark fin tip of her saber under the beast's exposed neck before stabbing upward into the Rage Queen's brain. For a moment, both Ao Wen and the Rage Queen stood locked in place, the red glow dissipating from the cougar's eyes as it died. Then, both woman and beast collapsed to the ground, one dead, the other battered but victorious!