Ultimate Villain's Return as a Doctor in the Cultivation World-Chapter 200- The Public Display of Alpha Male

Chapter 200: Chapter 200- The Public Display of Alpha Male

He pressed his mouth together.

"step back," the guard said. Not unkind. The flat, functional authority of someone executing an assignment.

He tried to walk forward.

The guard’s hand came to his chest.

Core Formation strength applied to a mortal chest was the specific, absolute, categorical difference between ’cultivator’ and ’mortal’ made physical in a flat, effortless, non-violent demonstration. He did not go forward. He went backward — not a throw, not a strike, the specific, non-aggressive, comprehensive redirect of a force differential applied to someone who had no counter-force available.

He stumbled.

He went down.

One knee, then the other, the involuntary, forward-pitch of a man who had received a redirect and had insufficient reserves to manage the pitch, and then his hands on the path outside the gate and the specific, granular, familiar sensation of the territory’s ground under his palms.

He coughed.

The cough of a man who had been on cold grass all night and had had a nosebleed and whose respiratory system was filing its own comprehensive report.

He looked up.

The gate.

The compound behind it.

The guard women at their posts, watching him with the flat, present, professional attention of women who had their assignment and were executing it and were done with the relevant action.

He knelt on the path.

He looked at the compound — at the cedar structures, at the cultivation circles beginning in the eastern clearing, at the specific, familiar, eleven-years-built reality of the place he had built a watchtower for — and the burning thing in his chest from last night was still there, and the copper taste was still there at the back of his tongue, and he was outside the gate and his wife’s order had put him there.

"I will kill you, you bastard," he said.

His voice was not loud.

It was the specific, low, completely unperformed voice of a man who had arrived at the end of all his volumes and was speaking from the place that was below volume.

He was looking at the compound as he said it.

Then he looked up.

The watchtower.

He had built it.

Three months, eleven years ago. The tower at the compound’s highest point, with the best view of the territory. He had said, when he was building it: ’you should be able to see everything from here. You should be able to see everything that is yours.’

She had laughed.

He had looked up at her face on the day it was finished and she had laughed the specific, warm, private laugh that was not the Chief’s laugh but the wife’s laugh and he had looked at her face and had thought: ’this is the right work. This is the correct thing to have built.’

He looked at the tower now.

At the top of it.

At what was at the top of it.

She was bent at the tower’s railing.

Not the compound wall. The tower — the specific, elevated, visible-from-the-territory-boundary tower that he had built, that sat above everything, that had been designed to see and be seen.

She was bent over the railing.

Her hands on the wood.

Naked.

The morning light — the specific, early, golden, full morning light of a sky past its first grey — on every part of her, the specific, warm, unambiguous, full-detail morning light that made no accommodations for distance.

He could see everything from here.

Cang was behind her.

He was holding her hair.

Not the root-grip — the gathered-fist grip, both hands in the full, dense, dark mass of it, pulling it back so that her head was back and her throat was up and her face was tilted toward the morning sky.

Her chest.

He saw her chest from this distance and his brain filed the image with the same, specific, awful, automatic clarity it had been filing everything since last night.

Dripping.

The specific, warm, heavy drip of milk from both of her, the advanced-cultivator response to extended dual cultivation energy transfer at sufficient volume — the body beginning the preliminary processes of gestation, the specific, biological, irreversible evidence of the ’[Target: Impregnated]’ notification that Cang had filed last night — the milk coming down from the weight and the swing of them as the tower’s rhythm moved through both of them.

Cang’s hands.

One still in her hair.

The other at her breast — not the caress, the specific, functional grip of someone milking — the flat, thumb-and-forefinger, deliberate, rhythmic compression of the specific, full, warm weight, the milk running over his hand, dripping from his fingers, catching the morning light as it fell.

PAAH. PAAH. PAAH.

From this distance he could hear it.

The flat, rhythmic, wet sound of the tower receiving the weight of two bodies and the specific, acoustic announcement of the pace.

His wife’s voice:

"—’AAAHN~!!!’—’Senior’—’HAANN~!!!’—milk it—’AHN~!!!’—pull it—’AAAHN~!!!’—yes—’HAANN~!!!’—’yes’—"

Cang looked at him.

From the top of the tower he had built.

Over the railing he had built.

Above the wood he had cut and carried and assembled over three months eleven years ago when he had wanted to give his wife the best view of everything that was hers.

Cang looked at him from the tower.

Not the sidelong acknowledgment. The full, direct, front-facing, morning-light eye contact of a man who had planned for this specific morning and was executing the plan with the flat, unhurried, professional satisfaction of someone whose results were arriving on schedule.

The smirk.

The specific, small, one-corner, dry-amusement smirk of a man who had said, without words, in the specific language of standing at the top of a man’s watchtower with his wife’s hair in his hands while she dripped milk on the wood: ’I have the view from here.’

PAAH PAAH PAAH.

"—’AAAHNN~!!! HAANN~!!!’—’milk me’—’AHN~!!!’—milk me I want—’HAANN~!!!’—’AAAHNNNN~~~~~!!!’—"

He stood on the path outside the gate.

He looked at the tower.

He heard his wife.

"I WILL KILL YOU—"

The shout arrived.

Not the low, present, below-volume sentence from earlier. The full, absolute, everything-remaining shout of a man who had found the last thing he had and was using it completely.

"—YOU BASTARD—"

The guard moved.

He did not see the guard move. He saw the spear.

Not the throw. The specific, arriving, point-first reality of a spear that had been thrown from the gate post — not the full, war-throw, the specific, flat, functional, dismissal-throw of a Core Formation guard managing a situation — and he had enough time to see it coming and not enough time to do anything about it because he was mortal and it was already there.

The impact.

The specific, full, real, permanent impact of a thing arriving in a place that did not accommodate it.

He went down.

Not the stumble. Not the knees-first, hands-catching fall. The full, complete, absolute down — the grass rising toward his face and the morning light tilting and the specific, warm, immediate, comprehensive sensation of something irreversible.

The grass was cool.

He was on his back.

He looked up.

The sky above him — the specific, pale, early-morning sky of the compound’s territory, the same sky he had looked at on the morning after he built the tower when he had stood at its top with his wife and she had said: ’I can see everything from here.’ The same sky. The same pale gold at the horizon.

He heard her voice.

"—’AAAHN~!!!’—"

The tower.

His wife’s voice from the tower he had built.

"—’HAANN~!!! AHN~!!! AAAHNNNN~~~~~!!!’—"