The Bandit, Liu Mang, Joins The Golden Devils!
His head throbbed dully, a remnant of a most inglorious attempt to join the Flood Dragons a couple days back. While trying and failing to block the light from filtering past the window and his fingers to sear his brain, Liu Mang rose from his bed in slight stupor, rubbing his parched throat and hand searching for a glass of water he'd long learned to keep beside his resting zones to deal with the early morning heat.
Even with the headache and the stretching, Liu's mind wandered to the moment he was unceremoniously thrown in front of the Clan Leader, Grand Elder Manuel Konstantinos, and inducted into the Golden Devils. The crotchety old man spoke at length about some sort of Bronze blood, how it was extremely weak within him and thus only was given a small portion of their physiology, or something like that. How it was necessary to be protected by the many, many arrays that they've come to develop.
And how the Clan Leader offered to infuse some into him.
Liu was perturbed to accept the deal, much to the surprise of the two Nascent Souls.
"After all, if I heard these bells that only happen every 100 years, doesn't it mean I've got enough to join already?"
His excuse was flimsy, for the moment, but Manuel stroked his beard in thought, while Madam Yao started to stomp her way to him in an effort to make him see reason. A stringy arm stopped her, as if an ant was stopping an elephant, and she backed off petulantly as the clan Leader addressed his question.
"Possibly. Suppose we should test it."
All of a sudden, various lines that were on the wall started shining, pulsing bright for a moment. Two. Three.
And then they died down, and as swiftly as the light came so did the shadows return.
"So, does that mean I've got enough of the clan's blood in me to come and go?" Liu questioned in discomfort, as the light-show had brought back the headache in full force.
"But of course." Manuel smirked at the new Golden Devil.
"After all, you're still alive, are you not?"
… … …
As much as he appreciated the joke after the fact, his eyes turned into pinpricks at the proclamation and Liu found it much harder to focus on the following hours upon hours of paperwork and oaths.
It probably didn't help that Madam Yao found the whole turn of events a total riot, and was laughing at him from the side.
But once the papers were signed in blood and the oaths were sworn upon his soul, the poor, poor young Liu was once more hefted up on Madam Yao's firm shoulder, she and Manuel jumped out of the building and raced in minutes towards two great towers… and a giant bronze gate, spanning a third of the mountainside, that Liu was forced to crane his neck to try and fail to see the top of.
Not that being on a shoulder helped matters, even as he valiantly but fruitlessly tried and failed to wiggle himself off.
This drew a chuckle out of Yao, as she drawled to him.
"Might not wanna get off the ride just yet, there's one last jump ya know!"
Liu went stiller than dead, even as he knew deep inside what she meant he had to make sure.
"… going up?"
The Draconic grin was back in full force.
"Going up!"
*insert Goofy scream as they're both catapulted up to the top of the gate in one leap*
Having saluted a couple of the guards and wardens places to maintain the wall, Madam Yao finally released her grip on Liu Mang. It hadn't been a single second passed that he dropped on the wall's bronze floor tried to regain a minimum semblance of dignity by shuffling clothes and stretching a bit.
Judging by the nearest chuckles, and a loud one belonging to whom-shall-not-be-named, he failed.
Sighing softly, Liu combed the last of his hair out of his face, before walking beside the she-Devil.
"Soooooo…" "Soooooooooooo…"
He wasn't gonna give her the satisfaction.
He wasn't.
"Why are we up here, exactly?"
She smiled as the question, slamming her arm around his shoulder and leading him to the other end of the wall.
"Well, you see, you just went and joined one of the best places ever, and it wouldn't do you any good to just be thrown into the training pits without seeing both a tad of what you fight for, and the kind of people that'll now stand at your side."
Having already tried and failed multiple times to dislodge himself of his newest predicament today, Liu gave it one small try before just letting himself be dragged to the other side of the wall.
"So, what, a demonstration of sorts? Not gonna lie, I… woah."
He couldn't help the exclamation that rose from his surprise.
After all, it wasn't every day one got to see verdant farmlands such as these in the middle of the desert. Madam Yao released him then, and he used the opportunity to dash to the desert edge of the wall and back, incredulous.
"How?"
Yao gave a shrug.
"Don't know the exact details, myself. Something about the mountains just makes the land in the middle extremely good for cultivation, and the wall keeps the one side that wasn't quite closed enough to keep the Qi in."
The adrenaline from the jump still hasn't worn off, so the excitement just added to the mystique this impressionable Liu was feeling.
"And is that where I'll be training then?"
Just beyond the lands of flowing green and yellow rose a bronze-golden palace, eclipsing the majority of the other buildings beside it, under which one could make many people leaving and entering in a wild rush.
Along with the occasional one that would then dash straight over them, and Liu had to force himself not to stare at.
"Why indeed, you have a good eye."
While he couldn't help the shiver, he would not give them the satisfaction.
"Elder." Liu turned and bowed, as the Grand Elder made his way to the duo.
"That which you have pointed to is the Eight-Hundred and Eighty-Hundred Technique Cultivation Palace. It aids in the finding and teaching of combat techniques that would support our Formation arts as our apprentices and fellow cultivators rise through the Qi Condensation and Formation Establishment Realms. Through it one can increase their power and knowledge, their skills in battle, and grow stronger for the Clan."
The elder stared at the building that had cost him almost too much for a couple seconds longer than necessary, before turning to walk towards the mountainside
"Now, come. It is about time."
Liu pulled his shoulders up and squared out, and followed slowly behind the two nascent soul cultivators with a pep in his step, wanting to see what lay in store. There was none of the talking and joking of before, though, even as he tried and failed to start a conversation. And the more they walked along the bronze wall, the more he could see those that he walked past acting respectful and even a couple that were crying in mourning, which in turn cooled his expectations as to what was coming next.
But even then Liu wasn't ready for the sight that they came to.
A loose circle of guards blocked the way of a raging, bawling teen, no older than he and yet clearly wanting to go past the ones holding him tightly… and behind which lay a bleeding man.
The body was thin, almost a corpse, and covered in deep cuts that wouldn't stop bleeding. A gaunt face riddled with tears of blood, empty sockets where once eyes laid. One could see bone behind the meat, with the right angle, and the blood flowed freely. Green and bronze hues turned muddy from the flow of blood.
Liu tried to scream, to ask, to get an explanation as to what in the damned hells he was seeing… but no words would come out.
He looked up from the corpse only to see Manuel standing right in front of him, once again having popped so close that he filled his entire view with no sound whatsoever, and the old bastard placed a single finger over his lips.
Liu really, really wanted to try and bite it.
"Hush, boy. Listen, and learn."
… … …
It had been hours, and indeed Liu listened, and learned some of what was going on.
Liu had been surprised to discover that what had appeared to be a corpse being showcased for punishment was actually someone still alive. His name was Heraclius. The child earlier was his nephew or somesuch.
And apparently, he was whose blood would fortify Liu's bloodline, as well as something about strengthening the wall. As time passed, numerous were the men and women that came by to say goodbye. Some had cried. Some had laughed. But everyone had paid their respects, as if bleeding over the wall was an act to be respected.
But many more yet just stuck around, standing or leaning around, a couple were even playing Gambit in a nook.
Until the body started shining hues of bronze and verdant gold, and all came to surround the circle.
To pay their last respects.
The wall hummed, and from it rose a mote of light.
And from the light came the voices.
"Yours… nay, ours, is the Blood of Bronze, the greatest, the Imperial Optimatoi! Of us is asked the greatest of tasks, the greatest demands, the greatest tributes. We are the ones that shall stand where others fall, and we shall succeed where others would fail. To live is to give service to the Clan, whom in turn protects us, shelters us, and helps us grow."
The voices grew tempestuous. Like the eye of the storm, or the darkness in the abyss, Liu couldn't help but be drawn in it, seek shelter within from the unending pressure outside. Even as his body faltered and dropped to his knees, even as sweat poured down and his headaches returned. Even as some of the bronze flowed around him, through him, and stayed within.
As if it had found purpose once more.
… … …
To Liu's whole being, there was only the bronze light.
Within it, stood tall the wisps of men long gone that shall return should danger come to Dawn Fortress.
The Wall's Guardians.
"The Golden Devils were there, the first boots on the war front when the Jin Empire faced the Abyssals, or Legions scouring the enemy from the face of the Seas at every turn. We were there, when the thrice-damned Rite of Karmic Purification came first to claim our lives, our future, and later even with the Heavens' support it has failed."
They spoke, and Liu listened.
He could see through the light, as the soldiers stomped along with the voices.
And how some of them would nod towards Grand Elder Manuel.
"In thanks of the sacrifices of our Ancestors, we stand tall, the Bronze blood that flows through us all a reward for the ages to come! In thanks of the sacrifice of the generations that came before, shall live generations that shall come to be after us! The greatness of the Best Men lies deep in your blood. Grasp it! And never let go."
The winds died.
The pressure ceased.
And the world came once more to be.
"That, is what means to be a Golden Devil." An old hand patted Liu's head, even as the last flakes that made the martyr's greenish-bronze body flowed into the greater cracks that laid where the body once was. And when the last bit of light when through, so too did the cracks close, and the last vestiges of the glow die in turn.
One last whisper echoed in the wind.
"And don't let anyone else tell you otherwise."
… … …
It was torturous, coming down on the other side of the wall by his own force, Madam Yao and Grand Elder Konstantinos having left to take care of much more important business than showing a new cultivator the reins. But landing upon softest grass and clean breeze rather than coarse sands and biting winds, Liu Mang was sure of it.
At the end… the only way you could claim that which was yours, and protect it and those that would stand with you…
… was by growing stronger.
As a Golden Devil.
(Word Count: 2130)
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