Depthless Hunger

Chapter 396: Toward the Manticore Vault

Omilaena had always hated tribes.

They went by different names, depending on whether you were on Rosemount, Cloudspire, or Deadwaste. Sometimes they were called sects, sometimes guilds, sometimes even stranger names, but they were all essentially tribes. Bands of people grouping together for their own benefit, pretending that they cared about some abstract concept and would support one another.

"Thank you so much for doing this," Feida said. "It's nice to have another tribeswoman."

Case in point.

As they walked into the tent, Omilaena kept a fake smile on her face, as if she really cared about the Manticore tribe. They all had the same name and same tattoos, but the way they tore one another apart was proof of just how little their kinship meant. Feida pretended they shared some bond due to their sex - sisterhood as just another tribe - but would have betrayed her instantly, if she could get away with it.

"I'm surprised you want me to do this," Omilaena said as she set up the needles and mana ink. "I've only done a few tests."

"Anyone with your strength obviously has the capacity." Feida pulled off her robes as she lay down on the table, exposing her back. "Besides, some of those old tattoo practitioners tend to.... take liberties."

Omilaena was tempted to get handsy herself, just out of irritation, but restrained herself. She needed the full cooperation of the Manticore tribe, at least until she had everything she needed. So she just gave a sisterly smile, picked up her needles, and got to work.

Tattoos spread across Feida's back, more delicate than the male tattoos Omilaena had worked on - sometime she'd need to ask about whether that was personal reference or necessity. Mana didn't tend to be gendered, but you could never tell. Her job for today was simple: expand the black tattoo on the woman's back to connect with the serpents that stretched from her arms to torso.

That was the other reason Omilaena was endlessly thinking about tribes and how much she hated them: she wasn't really doing this for herself, but for Kai. The tribal factions wanted him to serve as a leader, and that seemed like the politically easiest choice, but he was skeptical about their cultivation tattoos. Rightly so, from what she'd seen so far, since they seemed limited in various ways.

If she was here, working for the sake of others, did that mean she was just part of her own tribe? She'd become more bonded to Kai and Zae Zin Nim than she expected, and they had carried her when she was depressed and falling behind. But now she couldn't help but fear being left behind again, growing complacent and stumbling into all the problems she'd worried about before.

For several minutes Omilaena wiped her mind free of everything but the work. She gathered the mana into her needle, surrounded it with a layer of qi, then pushed it down into the skin. Bit by bit she drew an image into the other woman's back, new whorls of color that merged her two tattoos.

The work gave her some distance from her negative thoughts. Where had all of that come from? She had been entirely happy for months, even in the Pureflower sect. It made her think back to old fears that she was too ruined to remain in a stable relationship, even one that had been almost perfect so far. Would she really endure so long for those two, then throw it away?

"If Kai joins the tribe," Feida spoke up, "will you join too?"

"Can't say." Omilaena pushed the next needle in more aggressively than necessary. "Would that force me to get a big manticore tattoo?"

"It isn't required, but it binds the tribe together. And the added power is nothing to scoff at."

"So I'm coming to understand. Tell me more."

This was just standard manipulation, pretending to be friendly to draw out more information. Omilaena was happy to do that, and focused on gaining intelligence for the rest of the tattooing session. She'd already mastered the basics, which any idiot could manage, and was rapidly gaining a stronger understanding of the fundamental principles.

The difficulty, she thought, was that the cultivators themselves didn't fully understand what they were doing. All cultivators inherited techniques from previous generations, but most comprehended them - the Manticore tribe was in decline, just copying what generations before them had done. Because the ink creation and tattooing processes could be done by rote, they didn't need to fully understand in order to acquire power.

When she finished the work, Feida went to a mirror to admire the new tattoos, while Omilaena took a look at the woman's soul.

Name: Ahn Xi Feida

Total Power: 749

Cultivation: Earth Soul 1% (419)

Manticore Tattoo (+125)

Physique Level: E-0 (80)

Serpentskin Tattoo (+60)

Soul Level: 6 (36)

One of the Earth Souls kept bungling forward, tripping through one of the threads. He didn't die, but Omilaena felt the qi snap and power lit up within the central building.

"Fuck." Omilaena gestured to the others to back up. "You just warned them we're coming."

Kai and Zae Zin Nim definitely wouldn't have made a mistake like that. Either she was too used to them or she was just bad at working in teams in general. Omilaena spun needles in both of her hands and waited for the inevitable.

A head poked up from the central building and Omilaena hit him in the eye with her first needle. Just a Qi Condensation cultivator, basically a rounding error in a battle like this. She had barely pulled her hand back when the real threat struck.

Ragged robes exploded from the house, streaking straight toward her. Omilaena dodged to the side on instinct and realized that there were threads of qi flying out from the figure, trying to catch her. She ducked aside and sliced through one of the threads that got too close, only for the thread to wrap around her knife, binding it.

Too bad for him. Omilaena let go of the that knife in the same motion she formed another and hurled it directly at the cultivator's face. He jerked backward, barely buying himself enough time to reach up and grab it out of the air. When his hand closed around the knife, however, he snapped it in half.

There were other mercenaries emerging from the house, but all of Omilaena's attention fell on the Sky Soul. As he stopped moving so rapidly, she realized that where most cultivators wore ornate silk robes, he wore a tattered cloak. He could definitely have afforded better, and it was so torn at the bottom edges that it seemed like a statement.

"I am Jackal Thirteen," the man said. "Did they hire a mercenary to oppose me?"

"Not a mercenary," Omilaena said with a shrug. This one wasn't going to be deceived with a little cleavage, so she got a good look at his soul before he could shroud it again.

Name: Jackal Thirteen

Total Power: 1253

Cultivation: Sky Soul (910)

Demonic Threads (+94)

Physique Level: D-0 (200)

Soul Level: 7 (49)

>

With over 1250 power, this Jackal tribe mercenary actually had the edge over her, meaning she would need real strategy to punch up against him. Omilaena found herself smiling as she readied her knives for the fight.

"Enough!" Before they could act again, a voice rang out over the courtyard. For some reason the Manticore tribesmen actually stopped their attack, turning to stare.

An elderly man emerged from the front door of the complex, thin and wizened, but not bent. He wore Manticore tribe robes and an elaborate hairpiece that must have marked him as some sort of authority. His movements were stiff, at minimum severe arthritis, and his skin looked unhealthy in the low light.

"Patriarch?" Feida took a step forward, eyes wide. "We heard you were near death."

So this was the dying Manticore patriarch? His power was hidden by a strange sort of shroud, but he seemed in better health than reports had indicated. Was this more complicated than Omilaena had thought, or was she even on the wrong side, part of some rebel tribe? Not that she cared, but things had suddenly gotten more interesting.

"Are you well, patriarch?" Feida took a step closer, trying to peer at his face in the shadows of the building.

The old man coughed into one hand, a rough hacking sound. Something about the movement struck Omilaena as deeply wrong on a level she couldn't pin down and she called "Look out!" on instinct.

Too late. Feida started to move back, but the patriarch lunged out, his hand passing through her throat. It tore her flesh like wet paper and she dropped with a spray of blood. Only in the moment of the attack could Omilaena see the glinting of a new sort of threads, subtle lines of qi that led back to Jackal Thirteen. He grinned, and the other mercenaries all began to attack.

In the moment she had left, Omilaena looked back to the patriarch, and this time managed to see his soul.

"Well, shit," she said.