PAULUS 20
Paulus 20
The pursuit of immortality is a sickness of the mind.
It is the prescribed fate of every creation to live and then to die. To complete the tasks set before them in this world and then, when their forms grow weak and their usefulness is expended, to lay down their burdens and commit this world to their descendants. Each and every one of us are the products of this design, this never ending cycle. We must take the burdens and knowledge of those who came before and, through an abundance of youthful energy, reduce the burden as much as we can and add to the knowledge so that those who come next can reduce it even further. This endless evolution is the perfection of life itself reflected in the body and soul of every being, from the smallest cell to the full and cognizant creature.
With this truth borne in hand, the only conclusion we can come to is that Cultivators are a cancer. To consume and grow recklessly beyond the bounds of design could indeed be framed as a natural conclusion to the design itself, but not when such advancements come at the expense of other, healthy beings. Countless lines of progress perish needlessly as the cancer spreads and takes from its neighbours. Entire regions are consumed to fuel just one more step towards that foolhardy goal of simply perpetuating their meaningless existence beyond the limits set out for it from creation.
And for all the destruction brought about by its rampant malignance the Cultivator has the audacity to fail in its pursuit more often than not. Oft the renegade perishes even without outside influence, simply by doing something even more terribly foolish like trying to consume beyond its capacity to digest, consigning all the power it collected to nothingness as they are rent asunder by forces they cannot contain.
Is it any wonder then that the heavens strike against those on the path? Does the body not strike harshly against malign influence in itself? Does a man not cling to the physician's robes, begging for the slightest sliver of hope in excising rot within himself when his own body fails to remove it alone?
To cultivate in itself is to stand against the will of heaven and to cast aside harmony. Any reasonable man would simply lay his head upon the and smite it with another instead of bearing this blight within. Doubly so for those invading from the outside like yourself.
…
All of this is true. None of it is false.
I come to say to you, so what? So what if heaven cries out as you take more than your due? So what if a few or many suffer for your advancement?
Eat and grow strong.
Consume and grow fat and bloated upon the riches the heavens denied you.
Bathe yourself in offal, drown in a tide of blood, ascend to the heavens on a sea of destruction and step even beyond those heights until none can constrain you.
This is the first step. Take what is before you and eat.
"No."
-------------------------
I woke to the taste of blood in my mouth, all of it thankfully mine. It sounded like a strange thing to be thankful for but after the past few days of madness it was something that I was going to be conscious of for a long time. I'd never forget the sensation of my own will being brushed aside like dust. The tide of RED reduced me to an observer in my own body pretty much immediately.
The blood in my mouth is mine.
I coughed and spat on the dusty earth. My body was wrung dry of every drop of qi beyond the absolute minimum needed to keep me going and the sensation was terrible. I felt weak, sore. The inside of my mouth felt like a wasteland, complete with its own collection of wounds and dry cracks. The only thing I could taste was the blood. Hell it was the only thing I could smell, even my skin crawled with the slick, sticky feeling of spilled blood. For a while there had been more of it than air.
A calloused hand grabbed me by the arm and forcibly tugged me to my feet. I couldn't even feel the jolt of panic at the sudden event anymore, whatever fuelled that in my body was as dried up and wrung out as the rest of me. I distantly noted that the person was wearing gravebronze before they dragged me outside. At least it wasn't the Jingshen. A medico must have shown up and gotten a few of us on our feet.
The light was too bright, the sound of my own breathing was too loud, the cuffs were too tight around my wrists. I haven't felt this bad since I was mortal. I clung to the Legionnaire like a lifeline as he frog-marched me through the twisting passageways between buildings before depositing me in an open courtyard. Heat baked me from above and below. The sandstone beneath me had been cooking for who knows how long in the desert heat and between it and the orb of flame high in the sky I was sweating out the last bits of my strength in seconds. I was a cultivator and a fighter too, but without qi the experience quickly became closer to painful than merely unpleasant and a few seconds was all it took for me to decide to try and crawl to a shadier spot. I tried my best to fight through the mindfog and get my beari-
A slab of bloody meat fell in front of me, and suddenly I was as awake as ever.
I sat before a Ludus board - currently repurposed as a normal table - across from a familiar face. Chiseled features, strong jaw, muscles that looked like they had their own squad numbers, and a body riddled with scars from countless battles. Oman Jeru, Squad Captain of the 5th, watched me expressionlessly. His helmet sat on the ground beside him leaving his face uncovered and exposing a myriad of new lacerations across his face and neck. He observed my reaction to the meat quietly for half a minute before shaking his head and chuckling sadly.
"Paulus. You're not looking too hot." He began. His usual booming voice was subdued, pensive. "Though after the last few days I'd be more concerned if you came out smelling like roses."
He gestured towards my chin with a wince. "You've got a bit of blood there."
"It's mine." I rasped.
"Hmm." he mused, trailing off into silence.
I took the chance to take a better look around. We were still in one of the pop-up fortresses; A place built out of nothing in a handful of days by the Legion whenever we needed a place to crash on a campaign. It was just barely large enough to handle a cohort and their required baggage with walls just high enough to stop a non-flier from seeing our defensive positions and thick enough to stop or at least mitigate a surprise bombardment. Nevertheless it had the basic requirements of the Clan and the more popular desirables. Array Pillars, Beast Pens, Prison, and of course boards for Ludus.
We sat before one of the larger 'fixed' boards, in one of the small areas set aside for simple entertainments and martial training. Six more Legionnaires stood at attention around the space, watching me intently with their hands on their spears. They were covered in blood from the days of chaos we'd just left behind and clearly wired to attack at the slightest misstep.
"They're calling it the Blood Mist, you know." Oman continued, drawing my straying attention back to him. " Communications are still a bit out of order but it turns out that our little crisis was much more widespread than a few bases. I'm talking millions fallen to the blood path, and that's just the Devils. It may be even more widespread than that."
"Why are you telling me this?"
"I want you to understand your situation, Paulus. The Devils have taken a real blow this time and certain things will be looked at differently." He wiped a hand across his face with a sigh, taking an extra moment to scrape some dried blood from his beard. "You are a capable cultivator, I would not wish to see a bright light such as yourself snuffed out now."
"Is that a threat?"
"Yes." Oman said plainly.
He gestured to the slab of meat on the board between us. It was about the size of my head and was jagged and uneven around the edges. Fresh blood spread out in a pool around it before they slipped into the shallow furrows on the boards surface. It flowed steadily and quickly from the hunk of flesh in a crude mockery of a formation and for a moment I just watched it separate into individual streams and join together at junctions like a perversion of an array system.
"The previous man did not recognize his situation quickly enough and tried something very unwise. These are his remains, or what's left of them at least."
He reached down and slowly, deliberately, tore off a hunk of bloody flesh from the slab and held it up to the light.
Then he popped it in his mouth.
Oman the traitor watched my reaction calmly as he messily chewed, fluids dripping from his lips to run down into his already well stained beard.
"Partake." He demanded.
"Eat shit." I replied.
If he was offended at my retort he didn't show it, instead calmly and slowly finishing what was in his mouth and swallowing. His wounds began to close at a slow but visible rate and it was clear he'd be in top form by the end of his meal. Still, he didn't reach for another piece, instead choosing to watch me closely.
"I thought you would be smarter than this, Paulus."
"And I thought you wouldn't turn at the drop of a hat."
He did frown then, regarding me with a bit more hostility. "My affliction was not exactly by choice, you know that! You know exactly what we had to endure out here."
I only glared at him in reply, and he chuckled.
"Locking yourself up in the cells was a stroke of genius. Perhaps I should start bringing array cuffs with me as well hmm? Well, too little too late now. While you, Centurion, used your last means to secure your own self, the rest of us were not so fortunate."
He gestured to the Legionnaires standing by the walls, and I noticed for the first time how much of that blood on their armour was dripping from their own chins. A young man I knew - used to know - spared me a crimson grin as he watched me digest my situation anew. "Behold the newest crop of cannibals. Converted against their will and abandoned by their Centurion in their time of need. Now their fate is to be cut down by their old friends, or to resist and live another day."
He hefted the slab of meat on the board again and proffered it in my direction.
"All can be forgiven, Centurion. You can lead these young cultivators again and perhaps secure a bit of leniency with a simple act. Eat."
Oman held the offering as patiently as a mountain altar. He held it out at my eye level, completely still between us even as blood and viler things dripped from it and back down to the board. His gaze was fixed on mine, unwavering, betraying nothing of his thoughts as he waited for my decision.
…
He was about a meter away huh?
I twisted, whipping my legs around from underneath me to slam them into the low stone table. Even without qi reinforcement the stone broke before my legs did, courtesy of my advanced cultivation. Blood splashed upwards, flashing into Oman's eyes as they widened at my actions. He hissed in annoyance and dropped the slab of flesh, reaching for his weapon.
He never was good at adapting in combat.
"You basta-" He roared
I lunged forward, scrambling over the ruin of the Ludus board before diving past him, flicking the chain of my cuffs over his head. His roar got stoppered in his chest as the chain pulled taut against his neck and he scrambled for his weapon. I pressed my feet into his back and forced my hands and his body away with every bit of force I could muster. Even after my ordeal and weak on qi, it must have been a significant amount because something went *crack* and he dropped his retrieved shortsword immediately to reach for the chain instead. It wouldn't be enough. I had him. Come on you son of a-
A kick to my ribs drove the air from me and another from the other side robbed me of what little strength I could muster. Damn too slow. Blows rained down on me and even though I tried to keep choking the man, I was glad when the resistance eventually went slack and I could pull my hands back to protect my head.
"W-wait-" a voice rasped. A few abused ribs finally broke and I just about avoided it penetrating my lungs thanks to the unnatural body transformation from practising the Singing Copper Kettle. A blow landed on my helmetless head and I felt a tooth snap and then shatter.
"STOP!". The blows stopped immediately as a wave of bloody power rolled out from Oman. His cultivation was still weaker than mine by a good margin, somewhere around 8th heavenstage, but it was still higher than it had been before this mess. The growth rate of cannibals was insane.
I peered out from between my fingers at Oman, finding him chewing on some more meat and rubbing at his throat.
"This is what I was talking about." He began, but I got the feeling he wasn't talking to me. "This passion. This drive. We'll need men like him to shield us from Old Gold. Every single one we convert to our cause will give us more bargaining power. Once we get enough, enough to make him really feel the loss, then we can make our case." The traitor Legionnaires shuddered at the mention of the Archegates' Dao Name and stepped away from me, though more than a few regarded me with hatred…or hunger. Oman regarded me with a mixture of anger and wariness, from further away than before I noticed.
"Bravo, Centurion. If it wasn't for those cuffs of yours I'd be dead, though I suppose if you hadn't had them on you couldn't use them as a weapon. Sadly for you that quick thinking of yours has also left you terribly, terribly vulnerable." he continued with a melancholic grin, "I can be patient."
He signalled the legionnaires by the sides and two of them came forward to lift me into a standing position. "Put him back in the cells. Get some of the engineers to work on the arrays. I want him bathing in Blood Mist by sundown."
Calloused hands tore me from the ground again, and pain shot through my body like lightning. None of them were interested in sparing me the torture.
"You should have taken my offer Paulus. My other methods will not be so kind."
I flipped him off.
-----------------
-----------------
Paulus 20 - Paulus and the Blood Resistance Part 1
Wordcount: 2582 words
This isn't actually what I'd planned to put out next but a lot of time has passed and needs must. These are basically the events following the Blood Mist and leading up to Paulus' Turn 13 fate. I hope to write up the rest of them soon (should be around two more) and actually complete one of my man's arcs again.
I have no idea where I was in my plans but LST never fails so.
Omake Reward: LST
Mission: Turtlebone Mountain Mine
@no. @ReaderOfFate
The pursuit of immortality is a sickness of the mind.
It is the prescribed fate of every creation to live and then to die. To complete the tasks set before them in this world and then, when their forms grow weak and their usefulness is expended, to lay down their burdens and commit this world to their descendants. Each and every one of us are the products of this design, this never ending cycle. We must take the burdens and knowledge of those who came before and, through an abundance of youthful energy, reduce the burden as much as we can and add to the knowledge so that those who come next can reduce it even further. This endless evolution is the perfection of life itself reflected in the body and soul of every being, from the smallest cell to the full and cognizant creature.
With this truth borne in hand, the only conclusion we can come to is that Cultivators are a cancer. To consume and grow recklessly beyond the bounds of design could indeed be framed as a natural conclusion to the design itself, but not when such advancements come at the expense of other, healthy beings. Countless lines of progress perish needlessly as the cancer spreads and takes from its neighbours. Entire regions are consumed to fuel just one more step towards that foolhardy goal of simply perpetuating their meaningless existence beyond the limits set out for it from creation.
And for all the destruction brought about by its rampant malignance the Cultivator has the audacity to fail in its pursuit more often than not. Oft the renegade perishes even without outside influence, simply by doing something even more terribly foolish like trying to consume beyond its capacity to digest, consigning all the power it collected to nothingness as they are rent asunder by forces they cannot contain.
Is it any wonder then that the heavens strike against those on the path? Does the body not strike harshly against malign influence in itself? Does a man not cling to the physician's robes, begging for the slightest sliver of hope in excising rot within himself when his own body fails to remove it alone?
To cultivate in itself is to stand against the will of heaven and to cast aside harmony. Any reasonable man would simply lay his head upon the and smite it with another instead of bearing this blight within. Doubly so for those invading from the outside like yourself.
…
All of this is true. None of it is false.
I come to say to you, so what? So what if heaven cries out as you take more than your due? So what if a few or many suffer for your advancement?
Eat and grow strong.
Consume and grow fat and bloated upon the riches the heavens denied you.
Bathe yourself in offal, drown in a tide of blood, ascend to the heavens on a sea of destruction and step even beyond those heights until none can constrain you.
This is the first step. Take what is before you and eat.
"No."
-------------------------
I woke to the taste of blood in my mouth, all of it thankfully mine. It sounded like a strange thing to be thankful for but after the past few days of madness it was something that I was going to be conscious of for a long time. I'd never forget the sensation of my own will being brushed aside like dust. The tide of RED reduced me to an observer in my own body pretty much immediately.
The blood in my mouth is mine.
I coughed and spat on the dusty earth. My body was wrung dry of every drop of qi beyond the absolute minimum needed to keep me going and the sensation was terrible. I felt weak, sore. The inside of my mouth felt like a wasteland, complete with its own collection of wounds and dry cracks. The only thing I could taste was the blood. Hell it was the only thing I could smell, even my skin crawled with the slick, sticky feeling of spilled blood. For a while there had been more of it than air.
A calloused hand grabbed me by the arm and forcibly tugged me to my feet. I couldn't even feel the jolt of panic at the sudden event anymore, whatever fuelled that in my body was as dried up and wrung out as the rest of me. I distantly noted that the person was wearing gravebronze before they dragged me outside. At least it wasn't the Jingshen. A medico must have shown up and gotten a few of us on our feet.
The light was too bright, the sound of my own breathing was too loud, the cuffs were too tight around my wrists. I haven't felt this bad since I was mortal. I clung to the Legionnaire like a lifeline as he frog-marched me through the twisting passageways between buildings before depositing me in an open courtyard. Heat baked me from above and below. The sandstone beneath me had been cooking for who knows how long in the desert heat and between it and the orb of flame high in the sky I was sweating out the last bits of my strength in seconds. I was a cultivator and a fighter too, but without qi the experience quickly became closer to painful than merely unpleasant and a few seconds was all it took for me to decide to try and crawl to a shadier spot. I tried my best to fight through the mindfog and get my beari-
A slab of bloody meat fell in front of me, and suddenly I was as awake as ever.
I sat before a Ludus board - currently repurposed as a normal table - across from a familiar face. Chiseled features, strong jaw, muscles that looked like they had their own squad numbers, and a body riddled with scars from countless battles. Oman Jeru, Squad Captain of the 5th, watched me expressionlessly. His helmet sat on the ground beside him leaving his face uncovered and exposing a myriad of new lacerations across his face and neck. He observed my reaction to the meat quietly for half a minute before shaking his head and chuckling sadly.
"Paulus. You're not looking too hot." He began. His usual booming voice was subdued, pensive. "Though after the last few days I'd be more concerned if you came out smelling like roses."
He gestured towards my chin with a wince. "You've got a bit of blood there."
"It's mine." I rasped.
"Hmm." he mused, trailing off into silence.
I took the chance to take a better look around. We were still in one of the pop-up fortresses; A place built out of nothing in a handful of days by the Legion whenever we needed a place to crash on a campaign. It was just barely large enough to handle a cohort and their required baggage with walls just high enough to stop a non-flier from seeing our defensive positions and thick enough to stop or at least mitigate a surprise bombardment. Nevertheless it had the basic requirements of the Clan and the more popular desirables. Array Pillars, Beast Pens, Prison, and of course boards for Ludus.
We sat before one of the larger 'fixed' boards, in one of the small areas set aside for simple entertainments and martial training. Six more Legionnaires stood at attention around the space, watching me intently with their hands on their spears. They were covered in blood from the days of chaos we'd just left behind and clearly wired to attack at the slightest misstep.
"They're calling it the Blood Mist, you know." Oman continued, drawing my straying attention back to him. " Communications are still a bit out of order but it turns out that our little crisis was much more widespread than a few bases. I'm talking millions fallen to the blood path, and that's just the Devils. It may be even more widespread than that."
"Why are you telling me this?"
"I want you to understand your situation, Paulus. The Devils have taken a real blow this time and certain things will be looked at differently." He wiped a hand across his face with a sigh, taking an extra moment to scrape some dried blood from his beard. "You are a capable cultivator, I would not wish to see a bright light such as yourself snuffed out now."
"Is that a threat?"
"Yes." Oman said plainly.
He gestured to the slab of meat on the board between us. It was about the size of my head and was jagged and uneven around the edges. Fresh blood spread out in a pool around it before they slipped into the shallow furrows on the boards surface. It flowed steadily and quickly from the hunk of flesh in a crude mockery of a formation and for a moment I just watched it separate into individual streams and join together at junctions like a perversion of an array system.
"The previous man did not recognize his situation quickly enough and tried something very unwise. These are his remains, or what's left of them at least."
He reached down and slowly, deliberately, tore off a hunk of bloody flesh from the slab and held it up to the light.
Then he popped it in his mouth.
Oman the traitor watched my reaction calmly as he messily chewed, fluids dripping from his lips to run down into his already well stained beard.
"Partake." He demanded.
"Eat shit." I replied.
If he was offended at my retort he didn't show it, instead calmly and slowly finishing what was in his mouth and swallowing. His wounds began to close at a slow but visible rate and it was clear he'd be in top form by the end of his meal. Still, he didn't reach for another piece, instead choosing to watch me closely.
"I thought you would be smarter than this, Paulus."
"And I thought you wouldn't turn at the drop of a hat."
He did frown then, regarding me with a bit more hostility. "My affliction was not exactly by choice, you know that! You know exactly what we had to endure out here."
I only glared at him in reply, and he chuckled.
"Locking yourself up in the cells was a stroke of genius. Perhaps I should start bringing array cuffs with me as well hmm? Well, too little too late now. While you, Centurion, used your last means to secure your own self, the rest of us were not so fortunate."
He gestured to the Legionnaires standing by the walls, and I noticed for the first time how much of that blood on their armour was dripping from their own chins. A young man I knew - used to know - spared me a crimson grin as he watched me digest my situation anew. "Behold the newest crop of cannibals. Converted against their will and abandoned by their Centurion in their time of need. Now their fate is to be cut down by their old friends, or to resist and live another day."
He hefted the slab of meat on the board again and proffered it in my direction.
"All can be forgiven, Centurion. You can lead these young cultivators again and perhaps secure a bit of leniency with a simple act. Eat."
Oman held the offering as patiently as a mountain altar. He held it out at my eye level, completely still between us even as blood and viler things dripped from it and back down to the board. His gaze was fixed on mine, unwavering, betraying nothing of his thoughts as he waited for my decision.
…
He was about a meter away huh?
I twisted, whipping my legs around from underneath me to slam them into the low stone table. Even without qi reinforcement the stone broke before my legs did, courtesy of my advanced cultivation. Blood splashed upwards, flashing into Oman's eyes as they widened at my actions. He hissed in annoyance and dropped the slab of flesh, reaching for his weapon.
He never was good at adapting in combat.
"You basta-" He roared
I lunged forward, scrambling over the ruin of the Ludus board before diving past him, flicking the chain of my cuffs over his head. His roar got stoppered in his chest as the chain pulled taut against his neck and he scrambled for his weapon. I pressed my feet into his back and forced my hands and his body away with every bit of force I could muster. Even after my ordeal and weak on qi, it must have been a significant amount because something went *crack* and he dropped his retrieved shortsword immediately to reach for the chain instead. It wouldn't be enough. I had him. Come on you son of a-
A kick to my ribs drove the air from me and another from the other side robbed me of what little strength I could muster. Damn too slow. Blows rained down on me and even though I tried to keep choking the man, I was glad when the resistance eventually went slack and I could pull my hands back to protect my head.
"W-wait-" a voice rasped. A few abused ribs finally broke and I just about avoided it penetrating my lungs thanks to the unnatural body transformation from practising the Singing Copper Kettle. A blow landed on my helmetless head and I felt a tooth snap and then shatter.
"STOP!". The blows stopped immediately as a wave of bloody power rolled out from Oman. His cultivation was still weaker than mine by a good margin, somewhere around 8th heavenstage, but it was still higher than it had been before this mess. The growth rate of cannibals was insane.
I peered out from between my fingers at Oman, finding him chewing on some more meat and rubbing at his throat.
"This is what I was talking about." He began, but I got the feeling he wasn't talking to me. "This passion. This drive. We'll need men like him to shield us from Old Gold. Every single one we convert to our cause will give us more bargaining power. Once we get enough, enough to make him really feel the loss, then we can make our case." The traitor Legionnaires shuddered at the mention of the Archegates' Dao Name and stepped away from me, though more than a few regarded me with hatred…or hunger. Oman regarded me with a mixture of anger and wariness, from further away than before I noticed.
"Bravo, Centurion. If it wasn't for those cuffs of yours I'd be dead, though I suppose if you hadn't had them on you couldn't use them as a weapon. Sadly for you that quick thinking of yours has also left you terribly, terribly vulnerable." he continued with a melancholic grin, "I can be patient."
He signalled the legionnaires by the sides and two of them came forward to lift me into a standing position. "Put him back in the cells. Get some of the engineers to work on the arrays. I want him bathing in Blood Mist by sundown."
Calloused hands tore me from the ground again, and pain shot through my body like lightning. None of them were interested in sparing me the torture.
"You should have taken my offer Paulus. My other methods will not be so kind."
I flipped him off.
-----------------
-----------------
Paulus 20 - Paulus and the Blood Resistance Part 1
Wordcount: 2582 words
This isn't actually what I'd planned to put out next but a lot of time has passed and needs must. These are basically the events following the Blood Mist and leading up to Paulus' Turn 13 fate. I hope to write up the rest of them soon (should be around two more) and actually complete one of my man's arcs again.
I have no idea where I was in my plans but LST never fails so.
Omake Reward: LST
Mission: Turtlebone Mountain Mine
@no. @ReaderOfFate
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