Katha Theodoros 14 - The Rising Blood and the Silver Archer
Long ago, the stories go, the Sea Conquering Army ventured from lands unknown into the Nine Seas of the Turtle World. A song on their lips and a fire in their hearts, the blessing of the Earl of Bronze flowing forevermore in their veins alongside an ironclad oath of loyalty everlasting, the Sea Conquering Army ventured, valley to valley, sea to sea, battle to battle. They marched, they fought, and they brought order to a lawless land. By the Imperator's sign, the Army went forth and tamed the Turtle World, and their glory continued forevermore.
The stories ended in tragedy, as stories often do. The Heavens frowned upon the
Optimatoi and levied great curses against their bloodline. Order became slaughter as hatred became byword and bylaw, the natural order as ordained by the Heavenly Daos to resist the Bronzeblooded Conquerors with all their lives and all their sorrows. Fortunes faltered and failure followed, karmic balance upended entirely by Heavenly decree and brought back to zero in the worst possible way. And lightning, ruinous lightning, killed the Bronzeblooded by the thousands as they tried to rise to ever greater heights of Cultivation, as Heavenly Intent turned from Temperance to Torture, then Termination down to the very last mote.
By inches, by measures, by oceans of blood, the Sea Conquering Army was pushed back. Now all that remains lies in a desert on the most misbegotten part of a misbegotten corpse of a misbegotten child of the Turtle Emperor, who was turned to soup through the machinations of a singularly talented and driven individual, a madman by any measure of the term. A madman… Or the only sane man in a mad world. That debate will last forever, but Heaven has made its stance abundantly clear, and his own legacies seem to prove that statement true.
But the Soup Chef's red broth notwithstanding, the Sea Conquering Army was, is, and always will be more than its remnants. And in this strange realm between worlds, the Qiguai Secret Realm, fate is less ordained than Heaven intends, yet it flows strongly and increasingly true. All who brave it have ways of tugging upon its strings, intentionally or not, and when one is tangled in enough of the threads of fate, serendipity becomes direction and coincidence does not become exclusive with or even complimentary to stated intention, but one and the same.
Simply put: want something enough, and the Qiguai Secret Realm will offer it.
Power, treasures, wealth overflowing, all of it is available at the aspirant's fingertips, if only they were cunning enough to see past its glamours and comprehend its true form, and capable enough to snatch it from between the breaths of a living, breathing fate. Fail, however, and you die. Every trial, every moment, even the act of breathing is a test. Anything is possible in the Qiguai Secret Realm - but probability, one must realise, is a bitch.
Every second you remain within the Secret Realm, the spectre of death is present. Infinitesimally unlikely, from one moment to the next, but one can only roll the dice so many times before one catches nothing but snake eyes, forever and ever and ever. And when the dice came due, trouble ensued.
So as Katha hit the ground rolling, her limbs trembling as she recovers from the first of the Secret Realm's many probabilistic trials, she realises that while fortune might favour the bold, it is also a fickle mistress who considers the rise before the fall the absolute height of comedy. And she has risen so, so, so very highly indeed.
She cannot stay. Not for long. It will only be a matter of time before chance compounds upon itself and she finds herself the butt of the joke. Even if she is standing upon an island ensconced within a bubble of probability that gleams with more green than she has ever seen and could ever expect. The fullness and lushness of the life that springs around her is, frankly, breathtaking, and she has never been able to cycle Qi so easily and so
effortlessly before. As she walks, she takes in a breath, then picks up her pace, from a jog to a run to a sprint and beyond, without so much as the weight of her body becoming evident besides the weight of her footfalls and the impression she leaves upon the grass she trods upon.
She heard laughter, and realised only a second later that it is coming from her. This is something to fight for.
This is what the world once was, what it could be, what it
should be. A place so ablaze with life that one can simply run for the hell of it without having to count spirit stones and contribution points, where death does not literally await around every corner.
Even as the ground fell apart right before her into a depthless pit, revealing roots far too brilliant a green to ever be the roots of a tree. Even as a jade boar, hewn from stone and radiating power from the cracks in its body smashed out from its burrow beneath, limpid tongue tasting at the air, snarling an earsplitting squeal as it swung its massive tusks around at her, daring death and craving manflesh.
Its emergence was abrupt, sudden and all too expected, an automatic reaction against an interloper in this bubble of reality and a Golden Devil besides, and Katha cannot help but roar with joy as she dived at it, the Hornsword drawn forth, her blood screaming to be heard, screaming to shed yet more blood.
BORN IN BATTLE, BRED FOR WAR
BREAK THEM UPON THE OATH OF IRON
The first swing, she matches the Jade Boar, tusk to blade, and with her first breath she recited the Canticle of Asterion. The Hornsword sang, her Blood racing, and its edge makes merry contact. The Jade Boar stood in the height of Qi Condensation, its body birthed in the heartblood of the mountain and imbued with the essence of the deeps, its tusks had been tempered against the crystal lodes of the great abyss. And it is nothing against the least fragment of a Nascent Soul's body.
The Hornsword lanced out, a singular thrust of epic proportion. The Jade Tusk apart before the peerless onslaught and Katha
twisted and
dived through the air, momentum shifting as she rolled right past the charging beast of the earth, one of its mighty teeth-swords tossed aside as it faltered in the first exchange. The Canticle of Africanus on her lips, she rotated counter to its motion like a buzzsaw, the Hornsword following, and with the second swing she split open the side of the beast. Liquid jade, molten green and brimming with lifelight, spills from the deep gash, and when her feet next make contact the jade beast is listing.
One foot touches the ground, her momentum leaving her skidding for a meter, then two. Iron is heavy, and though speed is her birthright it and agility are nothing alike. Waist moving, plunging a knife-faced hand into the loamy soil of the underbush up to her forearm, the Young Ironblood arrests herself just so, enough for her other foot to
kick. One blow, the soil spilled like the rippling water's edge. The second, and she was off, as the Jade Boar shook its head and reared for a second charge with its remaining tusk. Another challenge, it roared, another exchange to test the mettle of this interloper. And her blood
sang as it yearned for another opportunity to cut loose and
slaughter.
UPON THE IMPERATOR'S SIGN WE CONQUER
GLORY IN DEATH, DEATH THROUGH GLORY
This time Katha went
high, spinning head over heel as she held the Hornsword close. The Boar snorted, a thunderous wave of foliage followed, as it remained upon the earth and dared her to challenge it as she fell. Like an iron star she descended, and with the last of her breaths she declared the Canticle of Theodora. Qi blazed along the edge of the Hornsword as she faced the earthen beast's remaining tusk not with her weapon, but with the mailed fist of the Theodoroi.
DEATH IS YOUR BIRTHRIGHT, CHILD OF IRON
ISSUE IT AND RECEIVE IT IN EQUAL MEASURE
Her fist clashed against the tusk, hardened jade against imbued flesh. The shock travelled up her arm, arresting her momentum, the impact jarring her joints and rattling her skull. The tusk cracked, cracks trailing across its form from where the Scion struck it, yet the Boar continued and stomped upon the earth, The ground split open, foliage parting like the sea to reveal a cavern beneath. Gravity will soon drag her back into its embrace, within the next two or three seconds, and in that instant the boar will win this clash and deal a blow.
But it will never live to see that clash.
THE JUDGEMENT IS DEATH, DAMNATION, DESTRUCTION
DESTROY THE ENEMIES OF THE IMPERATOR
Clasped firmly within her other hand, the Hornsword swung down, and blazing like an iron star it split the Boar's head apart. The Jade Boar died instantly, its matter in pieces, molten jade oozing like lifeblood. Another hop, another twist and she remained on the surface as its body returned to the earth it had emerged from, a stark reminder of what this place had in store for aspirants like her.
Her blood, satisfied by the kill, began to cool, and as Katha metaphorically caught her breath and processed, the rising tension of the Oath of Iron gradually forgotten as it sank back beneath her subconscious, she turned to look back at the tusk the beast had left behind, the one she cut upon the edge of the Hornsword. There was something to be said about being suddenly attacked by a living golem monster out of nowhere. Something profound, even.
"...Huh," was all she managed.
She looked at it, then back to the ravine, then back again. "Well, that happened."
There was more to it, she knew; the Qiguai Secret Realm was a place of… well, a lot of things. That included incredible danger and endless possibility, a short-lived island that resided between Seas. It directed you on your personal journey in pursuit of what you sought out, and that included stopping you when you were about to run past wherever you were supposed to begin your search.
…Like with a giant monster, actually. Huh. Well, that was one way to deal with not knowing where the hell to start. Thank you, Qiguai, for showing the way… By trying to kill her.
From atop the ravine, Katha looked down and saw nothing but darkness below. She doubled back, a handful of steps, and looked into the Jade Boar's burrow which was similarly depthless. She hemmed and hawed, wondering which was the direction and which was the warning. Which was the easy way and which was the hard way. Which got her answers and which was just the consequence of fighting a giant monster boar in the middle of its habitat, which was also otherwise filled with similarly monstrous creatures that were all but certain to be sizing her up right now and wondering if this aspirant was also good for eating.
Around her, the Secret Realm quavered as it awaited an answer. But ultimately, time was not on her side, and she could not just spend an afternoon thinking about what she could do and what she would do to resolve something as simple as a metaphorical coin toss.
"...You know what?" Katha grunted as she brandished the Hornsword. One flick, a quick diagonal slice, and she flicked it clean of the Boar's molten jadeblood. A second for good measure, and then she presented it towards the sky. "I actually don't give a shit. I'll let fate decide."
With a light toss, the Hornsword tumbled into the air for a moment, before a freak gust of wind sent it spiralling down the ravine the Boar's corpse fell into.
Well, that settled that. Qiguai had made its decision. Right or wrong, it was time to move on, and not a second too soon.
Craning her head this way and that, Katha hopped into the ravine, and as darkness overtook her she closed her eyes and opened up to the Qi around her. And for a single fleeting moment, the vastness of the world bubble she resided in became clear to her, before it became overwhelming.
And the ground received her with open arms as she landed like a meteor landing feet first into hell.
----
The bow shimmered as it was drawn from the back, inlaid arrays springing to life as an icy cold blue web over its glassy body as they became flush with Qi once more. The string, woven from the silk of a Nascent Seer Spider and nearly impossible to perceive, vibrated intently as it was pulled, tested time and time again by an intensely meticulous archer. Arrows were withdrawn from the quiver, not to be fired but to be inspected. An archer that does not ensure the quality of his arrows was an archer that does not deserve his arrows.
Each arrowhead was inscribed with the name of an ancestral Elder, their sagas hewn in their entirety upon the arrow's spirit stone shaft. Sagas of enduring like stone, sagas of striking force, sagas of flowing water and fluid adaptation. Ten such arrows were available to him, acquired at great cost and never to be unleashed thoughtlessly.
Then, he withdrew another hundred, each of their heads of burnished black spirit steel. Into each of them a hundredth of an Elder's wil has been poured, a pittance for an Elder but an investment for any archer, acquired through moderate cost and some favour. These were affordable enough, but never to be used on their own, and normally considered folly to use in bulk by any other archer.
Last were simple arrows, heads of inlaid steel and fine wood, hand-carved and of negligible expense. The diligent archer makes his own ammunition, such that he will remain an unrelenting storm. He had enough of these to unleash en masse, without regard for position or defense. These will be the bread and butter of the battle to come.
Tools inspected, they are returned to the quiver, the hundred arrows stored, the ten conserved.
All preparations complete.
Now the Hunt can begin.
----
"Now listen here, grasshopper, sooner or later you're going to find yourself in need of a landing strategy. In general you'll only start regularly needing it come Foundation Establishment, but it is something that is better to get figured out sooner rather than later. You don't want to start thinking about your landing strategy right before you hit the ground, you hear?"
"Centurion Yangchen, the hell am I supposed to figure out an--OW!"
"That's what we're here to figure out, now listen up! There are three pillars to any good landing strategy: Direction, Impact, and Recovery! There's not much you can do about Direction right now, so focus on Impact and Recovery! Here, let me demonstrate:"
Inhale, exhale.
As she fell towards the underearth, Katha Theodoros recounted the Saga of Theosphene. Embattled in the clouds atop a lonely peak, hunted by dragons. With every rising dawn she dared the beasts approach, cloaking the peaks with clouds until they struck the mountain face, and with every setting sun she struck the mountain with fists like thunderclaps.
For three days she did so, the roar of her blows forcing the beasts awake, until maddened by fatigue the dragons each struck at once. At once the dragons struck the dread Theosphene, and with this mighty blow the mountain shattered. And so Theosphene survived to return to the Clan, as she rode the mountain's lonely peak to its base, faster than the dragons could chase.
Katha had not three days, nor was she hunted by dragons. But with Theosphene's memory in mind she committed to her wisdom. With her fists she struck the walls three times, and as rocks rained down with her she sought to make herself a bed of stone. Another application of Earth Qi and she bound them together, a makeshift shield to gird her descent. And then she closed her eyes and cleared her mind, as the Qi that suffused the world bubble became clear as day for her to see.
The moment before she hit the ground, Katha struck the earth.
The rock barrier beneath her struck the ground a hair sooner. Impact dissipated, ablative force blunting the blow. Impact was satisfied where Direction could not be found, and Katha found herself alive at the bottom of an almost-depthless ravine in ankle deep water, in the dark but for the faint beam of light that marked the sky.
Katha focused as she cycled her Qi once more, made fortunate by the abundance of the world bubble, and with a brief application imbued her bracers to glow with amber hues. Stones continued to rain from above for seconds more, but she ignored all but the worst of the gravel rain. The only thing that mattered right now was looking for her sword, and the search concluded quickly as Katha stepped upon the tale of a well-camouflaged Rockodile.
Another stone-hewn beast marked her next trial, and Katha readied to face it. But the challenge was over before it had even begun, for the Hornsword was already plunged through its head, severing the brain stem - or what passed for it in such an elemental creature - and left its jaw permanently open in a cheshire rictus grin. As Katha went to collect her blade, however, the gleam of light reflected off its tongue just so, which caught her eye and her attention in the same.
A closer look, and Katha boggled. For in the Rockodile's mouth was a jagged triangular shard of Celestial Bronze inlaid with red as long as her shin, one that smelled strongly of iron and blood. Without thinking she picked at it, and her Qi connected with it as if it was the most natural thing in the world, her blood singing in harmony alongside a forgotten family legacy.
It was no mere Celestial Bronze, but Bronze that had been aspected with the Theodoroi… With her. And as she held it up to the sky, as much to catch its silhouette as to memorise its scent, she found herself drawn. Not to the shard, but in a different direction. Deeper into the ravine… What promised to be a cavern, even, deep under the earth of the world bubble.
She kept the bronze shard on her belt immediately, and then Katha collected the Hornsword with a hefty pull. As she withdrew the blade, the slain Rockodile hissed like a deflating balloon, blood oozing from its throat and its gaping holes. What would have made her gag normally scarcely even drew Katha's attention, for here and now she had better direction and a goal too clear to diverge from.
but why
The objective was now clear for one such as her. Find where the shard lead to and retrieve it to rediscover her family's lost legacies.
But Why
The falling star of the Theodoroi will be halted, its descent even reversed, if she can find the truth and return it to the Clan. The Archgetes might even reward her, if the gift was anything like the Ascension Blood, something that could imbue each Aspirant with Bronze of a greater potency. If such a thing existed, then it must be reacquired, by order of the Imperator.
But Why
Orders were orders, and the legacies must be--
JUDGE
For the first time since she stepped onto the world bubble, Katha gasped as she breathed deeply and finally returned to her senses.
Immediately she grabbed the handle of the Hornsword tightly in both hands and thought back to the reason why she even came here. Not to find old family legacies, but for answers. Not even answers about old family legacies, simply… Answers. Answers to questions she does not even know how to articulate yet.
"What the hell is going on," Katha breathed, short on breath and on time at the same time, a truly winning combination in the Qiguai Secret Realm. Yet her blood sang with purpose and clamoured for direction, just like how it yearned to destroy the Jade Boar, let her remember and deploy Techniques she had no knowledge of practicing or recounting the saga of an Ancestor whose name she's seen before but whose story she has no recollection of ever finding, let alone attempting to
emulate.
There was something about this place that was doing… something, with her bloodline. Her variant on the Blood of Bronze resonated strongly with it, and synchronised well with the Bronze Shard. It was giving her strength and knowledge, realising genetic memory she had no right to know, and it was turning her into something she was
not: An unthinking soldier, not a measured judge.
It was tempting, oh
so tempting, to simply take the Bronze Shard in hand and throw it somewhere no one could ever find it, but that would be foolish. Further judgement, now that she was capable of considering things on their own merits again, indicated that this is part of it. And if she truly can find some sign about what the hell is going on with her… Then fine.
"But I will not be an unthinking soldier," Katha said through gritted teeth. "I am
not simply a weapon."
There was no response. Of course not. She was just talking to herself.
Katha remained silent from that point on, the only sound that of treading water as she followed the direction of the Celestial Bronze Shard.
----
The world is full of wonders both fleeting and eternal, and this momentary world is no exception. But it was one thing to understand it, even see the fullness of nature's bounty on the surface of this worldlet. It was another to bear witness to the expanse that lay before her.
Lit by the ephemeral light of numerous spirit crystals, the lights that shone about the space turned the face of the lake before her into a literal sea of stars. And a sea of stars it was, for the water was boundless and seemed to reach towards the horizon and beyond. The water was even littered with islands, spires of jagged stone and towering crystal, mounds that teemed with luminous moss and capped mushrooms the size of trees. This was so close, yet so unlike the world of the surface, and yet it was no less rich with life. It was enough to draw one's breath, to seize it for all time to be preserved in a box between nowhere and forever.
It was, in a word, unbelievable. It was of a sort that Katha had never seen before and likely will never see again. And it would be a memory she would cherish, even as she lost her childhood innocence and the world of her mind's eye became as drab and grey as she would become.
It was simple enough, finding a mushroom stalk large enough and hollowing it out to serve as a makeshift boat, then finding another whose shaft was long and narrow enough to become a paddle. Where the Bronze Shard lead her, she followed. And as she followed, the smell of iron in the air grew stronger, until she could almost taste it, on her tongue and in her mouth. Not the smell of blood as she knew it, though the feeling was similar, but the taste she could never mistake.
Deeper into the lake she ventured, past misty fogs and stardust glamor. And as she followed, the stone formations grew more jagged, the mushroom trees more ravaged, the crystal lodes ever and ever bigger. The Qi in the air intensified as well, until she felt it suffocating in a way, too dense for a parched soul like hers to appreciate. Continual cycling alleviated the pressure, for all that it was wasteful, but this was a land of both plenty and moments, and she had ironically few of those to spare. Yet the Shard took her along a circuitous route, darting from island to island in an eclectic cycle.
It seemed like it took forever, but also refreshingly soon, when the Shard's directions became constant and she finally saw the island at the heart of the underworld lake, a gentle mound of stone where no moss grew and massive grey-cast crystal lode had grown, so large that it had become a pillar reaching up to the roof of the cavern, so high that Katha found she could not capture its totality in her field of vision. The wonders never ceased, and it was upon its shores that she found something. Even in spire of the acuity of her vision, she could hardly identify it, yet it was clear as day what she saw, a truth verified by both blood and instinct.
Upon that shore, clad in armour that was both weathered yet intact, surrounded by the bones of creatures far grander than any could comprehend, was the body of an ancestor of the Clan.
Her ancestor. A senior scion of the Theodoroi, in whose veins flowed a blood all too similar to the kind that flowed in hers. Who would be able to answer her questions.
'Report as ordered,' her blood whispered, a voice that pounded in her ears.
'Finish the mission.'
This time, she listened, for there was nothing to lose and everything to gain. Her tree-boat beached upon the shore upon a shallow tide, and as she stepped onto the pebble-laden beach she found that the ancestor did not lay down. Rather, his corpse died kneeling, and as she circled around it found that his back remained unmarked. He died standing, never taking a step back.
Katha held out a palm and cut it lightly against the edge of the Hornsword. Then, she reached out slowly with a trembling hand, ready to paint a sigil she had no memory of learning upon the armour's chest and learning the secret that it seemed to promise to tell.
That, then, was when she realised that the cavern had become deadly quiet. No mere silence, as what had passed in the minutes or hours before, but the tension-filled space that built and built before battle.
She stopped herself, a handspan from her ancestor's body, unable to explain why but for the crawling concern that suddenly flushed her veins.
And then an arrow struck the corpse of a dead elder of the Theodoroi, before detonating with great force.
Around her, the water surrounding the island for one
li in every direction froze abruptly. Her tree-boat burst as the fluids within the stalk-fibers swelled and tore apart the structure of the fungal wood. Stones were crushed by the sudden expansion of liquid to ice, even the towering crystal spire pillar cracked then shattered by the sudden shift of phase.
And around her neck, beneath her armour, Katha winced as the Amulet of Water's Rebuke, a gift her brother had given her the day she left for the Yuan Clan more than thirty years ago, burned hot for an instant against her smallclothes before dying out entirely.
It did not take even a second before she realised that it burned out saving her from a more cruel fate, of dying abruptly like her boat as all the water in her body and blood froze and killed her through a combination of crushing force and bloodloss.
Immediately and by her hand, the Hornsword flashed, the air whipping in its wake before it struck the rocky ice slush that had glued her feet to the pebble-laden beach. One strike and she was free, two and she swept stones into the air, three and the debris became a cloud of expanding dust and vapour dense enough to obscure her. Then she threw herself aside, right as a second arrow struck the beach and transmuted a patch of ice and ground slush large enough to lay in into solid stone, before detonating into a shower of shards in every direction.
It was barely enough that she had one bracer held over her face, shielding Katha from the worst of the shotgun blast. But enough got through to scratch, though not cut, her cheeks.
Sniper, her instincts snapped.
Coward, her blood seethed.
That direction, both agreed, and Katha struck the beach once more, this time with open palms. With Qi and technique she threw up a wall of stone and ice to protect and obfuscate. Not a moment too soon; the air whistled as three arrows shot through the air from parts unknown, two embedded into the wall and the third caught by it as it was in the midst of formation, only an arm's length from hitting Katha in the neck. The margins were narrow and getting narrower; an instant later and she would be bleeding from a throat wound.
But with danger came opportunity, and Katha punched the wall, launching a fist-sized lode of ice-capped stone right back where the sniper shot the arrow from. Then she struck it again and again, a flurry of blows that unleashed a flurry of stones at the foe's position. The cavern rumbled as stones skipped across the face of the lake at ruinous speed, shattering and shaving off pieces that turned into flecks of stone travelling at lethal speed.
In truth, none of them would meet their target, but none were meant to. The stones had blanketed a large area and threw up large amounts of concealing smoke, more than enough to escape with. The circuitous route the Shard had taken her had given her a mental map of the cavern's lake, and with it she could chart an escape route. If the sniper proved canny, they could follow the trail of her smoke. But such direction would be difficult to track and that would buy her time.
Yet, she cursed her luck, for it had finally turned on her. There was no time left to find the ancestor's answer. And with its loss, she may never know the truth of her family's legacy.
But you may still find the answer you need
She recanted the Canticle of Augustus and leapt across the water, trading efficiency for speed and distance, trusting in both memory and her senses to guide her where eyes cannot. Arrows suddenly filled the air in great quantities in all directions; where vision fails, volume will permit. And this archer has many arrows to spare.
The expanse of the cavern's lake makes this a poor place to make a stand. Katha disengaged, and prepared to make her stand in a more claustrophobic environ.
----
The Arrow of Regressive State was deployed correctly, from surprise and on target, yet the girl survived. The Arrow of Earthen Storm missed, and the fragments failed to connect. He had failed the maxim all archers lived by, but that was more than acceptable to him. The Creed of the Sniper was irrelevant in the here and now. This was not a foe that could die to a well placed arrow from nowhere.
She further displayed techniques to deploy cover, then utilised her strength to both suppress him and unleash concealing smoke. It appeared that Hei'en's grudge had chosen a most promising target. For most, that would be the end of it. They would have to track their target anew.
But the storm of arrows he fired were not intended to kill, like a scattershot net hoping to score a lucky hit. They were purposeful triangulation, deployed by an archer who was more than capable of unleashing vast volleys at a moment's notice. The Clear Compass Bow was more than suitable for such a task in the right hands. Now he knew exactly where she was heading.
To the ravine she had come down from and which he had followed her through. A claustrophobic pathway that was poor territory for an archer.
She would never see him coming.
----
The bottom of the ravine was right before her, and it would only be minutes before she entered it fully. With seconds to spare, Katha dared to heave a sigh of relief.
That was when an arrow, straight and true, struck her dead in the center of the back of her head. And though the Gravebronze held true and the arrow simply bounced off, the impact forced her balance askew and nearly tipped her over into the beach. She threw a hand forward, pushed herself off the ground, then tossed and flipped right back onto her feet.
Then, the next arrow nearly struck her, then another two then another ten. A storm of arrows, a deathly sharp rain that came at her from everywhere. It would be impossible to block all of them, and even with preternatural precision she could not hope to cut them all with the Hornsword.
But she saw the arrow that had been frozen into her wall. It was wooden.
And she commanded fire.
Roaring, Katha Theodoros shouted the Canticle of Africanus and swept her sword wide. A trail of flame followed it and a barrier of fire formed for a moment about her, turning all the arrows aimed at her to ash in an instant. The rain of hot ash that pelted her stung, but were nothing compared to the constant barrage she stood poised to face. Then, she stopped dead on her feet as she looked straight at the one who shot those arrows, down the beach at the edge of the lake.
He donned the traditional robes of the Jingshen Clan, though he wore an archer's bracer and carried two quivers, one on his back and the other by his waist. His dark hair was long, tied up into a loose braid. His expression was grave, his eyes piercing in their depthless grey. He seemed to gaze into infinity and beyond, but right now they were transfixed right upon her. And the glassy bow in his hand was aglow with veins of blue, its drawthread invisible from this distance, and radiated certain death. Just her luck that the Jingshen that would come to kill her would be one of actual martial caliber.
And an archer at that. A Bei most likely. Troubling.
The Jingshen Scion held his fire, now that he was spotted. No more was this a hunt; this was now a battle. Then he bowed shallowly, before declaring his name. "I am Jingshen Bei Wulong, Son of Elder Jingshen Bei Wushan, of the Jingshen Clan. You have done well to survive my attacks so far."
"I am Katha Theodoros, Daughter of Shu Enya, of the Golden Devil Clan," Katha replied in turn. "Let me guess, you're going to kill me because I wronged one of your kinsmen many years ago?"
Wulong nodded, his expression never changing. Katha's eyes narrowed. "A grudge has been declared upon you by my kinsman, and I am honour bound to see it through. Your genius will die by my arrows today, quickly and decisively."
A respectful Jingshen, then. One with manners. One who does not have a tree trunk lodged up their ass. That was nice, but also very annoying; he was actually taking this battle seriously, that meant fewer advantages to exploit. Though her blood sang at the prospect of confronting a true peer, the previous ambush had pressed her already. If he got another chance, he would win and she would be dead.
But he greeted her instead, the moment he was spotted. And the question that remained was why.
Yet, her blood cared not. Another ambush might be ruinous, but he had no such opportunity. He was right there, he was
waiting, and she stood both in the Twelfth and in possession of a legendary sword, within close range of an archer. There was but one recourse; charge. Violently, decisively, and quickly. She would close, and victory would follow suit in similar fashion.
"Then I'll just have to kill you first," Katha responded.
Pensively, Wulong bowed. Then, an arrow was loosed immediately, so quickly that she had not seen his arm move. Yet, so primed by her declaration, she simply cleaved it apart before she recanted the Canticle of Asterion and dove for Wulong. With godspeed easing her passage and the Hornsword held in both hands, it would only be a matter of seconds before she stood in range of Wulong. And once she was in range, it was all over for him.
There was no world where an archer could overcome a swordswoman in melee. Not in the same realm. Not in the domain of a Child of Iron.
Wulong fired again, arrows unleashed at an ever-escalating rate. They flowed in ones, then pairs, then handfuls then by the dozen. Their vectors shifted as the quantities increased, no more were they merely sent in straight lines. His arrows curved from strange directions, approaching from above, from the sides, hidden within the shadows of their forebears. Wood-shafted, iron-headed, adhered with alchemical bonding agents, they were mortal and mundane in all the ways that mattered. Each was well made, but still of mortal artifice.
One by one, they were trivial. By the handful, they were manageable. As an overwhelming storm that filled the air, they were formidable.
Cover, she knew, and as she charged she tumbled through the air, assessing the situation as her body moved almost automatically, driven by fighting instinct and long-dormant genetic memory now awakened. She stood upon a beach, surrounded by water and stone, and she needed a great deal of smoke on short notice.
Steam. Steam would suffice. Boiling heat meant nothing for the duration, and it would by her cover. For that, she needed fire, lots and lots of heat and fire.
One hand extended, as her fingertips scratched the surface she balled her fist and molded her Qi. Her bracer, aged Gravebronze, began to turn from a dulled brown to a molten orange. Where her knuckles and bracers brushed against the water's edge, the lake began to bubble and steam began to rise.
She cocked her elbow, just so. Then, forcefully, she straightened her arm once more, just as she unleashed great quantities of Qi, in wastefully demented quantities, knowing that it was only here of all places that she could afford such expenditure. She struck the beach with a rabbit punch with less than five centimeters of windup, and in doing so punched a crater deep enough to bury a grown man up to the neck.
Water, so displaced by a molten bronze fist, vaporised instantly. Liquid transmuted to gas immediately, thrown about with enormous force. And the torrent of win, thrown about immediately, cooled steam back into water vapour. Soon, a cloud of rapidly expanding steam engulfed Katha Theodoros and the beach she stood upon, and Wulong's target found her concealment, all the while his own skin began to bead with sweat and redden as the ambient temperature climbed several degrees.
Yet he continued to shoot, ironclad discipline carrying the day. Where eyes will not help him, area bombardment will suffice for the second it will take for her to outrace her cover - and close yet more of the crucial distance that stood between him and death. And without vision, density of fire faltered, and Katha accelerated faster.
But even with a storm of fire, all Wulong seemed to do was buy time. For in her hands the Iron Scion carried a sword of Nascent Chitin.
It was large, it was unwieldy, more a cleaver than a sword, one with no crossguard. But that size gave Katha coverage against ranged fire, and in her hands it was light as a feather. Before this peculiar combination of quantities, Wulong's attacks were irrelevant. With the Hornsword in hand, Katha continually fended off the bulk of attacks as she burst through the steam, weaving between breaths as the air was filled with whistling wood and flashing iron amid a pitter-patter of steaming rain.
What shots slipped past her guard glanced off her armour, for she wore the plate of an ancestor and even lessened it was proof against mortal artifice. What shots slipped past that armour cut her skin and slipped right past, never making more than shallow wounds. And as the distance closed with every heartbeat and every breath, as Wulong began to fill her field of vision in totality, Katha tasted victory with certainty.
And the Bei's face did not change, remained transfixed in blank serenity. He merely continued firing arrows, with hands that blurred faster and faster, his posture perfect by every measure.
Twenty meters. Ten. Five.
Two more strides, and Wulong would be dead. His head would stain the beach. His time would be done. The enemy of the Clan would be
done.
Katha leapt, as one body turned to
seven, each one wielding a sword as real as the other, all poised to stab him in the neck.
And then Jingshen Bei Wulong exhaled, his breath a palpable, cold thing. And his bow flashed. And Katha's blood screamed.
No.
She screamed.
A hundred arrows, each bearing a blacksteel head and spirit steel body, struck her simultaneously in the center of her chest. They were fired at point blank range, with maximum force and zero deviation. He fired them in the instant of transition, as her sword shifted from guard to guard, ready to strike him in the throat and claim his breath and blood in the same motion. A hundred arrows struck her hard, each an individual hammer blow; together they were overwhelming, the hardest she'd ever been struck. In that moment, she felt more pain than the Beetle's ministrations for a full year.
She never even saw him load a hundred arrows, let alone fire them simultaneously or so precisely.
Her momentum was arrested immediately and her charge broken to bits. Iron was heavy, though not as much as Bronze, yet the momentum she built up was cancelled out entirely with that singular strike. Indeed, she was blown back by force equal to a killing blow from a Great Circle Core Cultivator, an Elder of the Clan who struck hard enough to split the peak from a mountain top. And like a Junior who had been struck by a Core Elder full force in the chest, she was thrown straight back the way she came, every bone in her body broken and every vessel and vein burst from overpressure.
Like a ragdoll she skipped across the beach, until she skidded to a barely controlled stop on her feet, the last concession to her talent that her body could afford to make. And though she tried to stand, her body rebelled, completely unable to exert itself even in spite of the Clan's legendary fortitude.
Blood pooled and dribbled from her ears, nose, mouth and eyes. Her vision wavered and blurred as the world seemed to pound on all of her head at the same time. Her breath seized even as her limbs burned and ached with sharp ripping torment, until she managed to take the deepest breath in her life,
to save her life. As she did so, Elissa's Armour fell to pieces around Katha's body, its enchantment to preserve life and extend vitality already weakened by eons of Theodoroi decay and disuse, then finally expended utterly in the face of a Core Elder equivalent deathblow. The remaining Gravebronze, battered and expended of all residual Qi, was torn apart like a paper lantern in the midst of a sandstorm.
All that remained to protect her modesty were the simple shirt of iron chain she wore underneath, the bloodstained robes beneath that, and bloodsoaked black and red smallclothes riddled with the fragments of an exploded amulet.
She should be dead, said every muscle and every thought Katha could still hear, past the blood and the ringing in her ears. She already
felt like she was dead, said every sane instinct left in her brain. She still had a weapon, cried the Blood of Iron, resolute beyond the point of death. And it had a point; all she felt was pain, but she still had
feeling. The power had left her limbs, but that was illusionary, for the true power of any soldier was in the spirit. She bled, she broke, she stood all but naked. But the Blood still flowed through her veins, not drained outside of them. She was alive. She could fight.
But she was wounded, beyond any reasonable doubt. And in the distance, past ringing ears, leaden limbs and blurry sights, Jingshen Bei Wulong slowly drew one last arrow. This one was not iron-headed, or capped with blacksteel. This arrow was hewn masterfully from a single lode of spirit stone, its head dipped in spirit steel and then inlaid with a runic array of painfully intense power.
Katha laughed bitterly, and it sent a sharp spike of pain through her chest. This was all a miscalculation on her part. She was not the only one who could cut loose in such a place.
"You have tried," Jingshen Bei Wulong said, and despite the great distance his voice carried clearly and powerfully. In his hands, the blue veins on his clear glass bow seemed to intensify their glow tenfold. "That is admirable. Die well, the Genius Theodoros."
----
It is a trivial shot. Four hundred paces away, the air hot and hazy, the red haired genius so small in the distance that his outstretched thumb could cover her entire shot picture. Some might consider such things problematic, even for seasoned archers, but Wulong thought differently. She was stationary, she was wounded, and she was looking right at him.
One arrow, right between the eyes, and Hei'en's grudge is settled. And conclusively so.
Of eight remaining Treasures, Wulong prepared the Arrow of Verdant Consumption. Not suitable for area of effect or the denial of cover, the Wood Qi it drew into itself like a man dying of thirst was wild and overpowering. The slightest scratch would see the victim's wound turning gangrenous and rancid in seconds, then overgrown within the minute, then finally wooden within ten. A slow death, but not an excruciating one. There is nothing to feel as your nerves turn to fiber.
A suitable mercy for a suitable foe.
Then steam. Overpowering heat. Boiling, bubbling, pouring with sweat. Too late, Wulong noticed that her hands were submerged beneath the surf of the beach. And her bracers were still a molten amber orange.
He fired anyways. At this distance, with the range already dialed in and deviation irrelevant, there was no way she could survive. As the arrow flew, steam engulfed both it and its intended target, and then Wulong saw no more.
He drew another arrow from the quiver on his back, twirling in his hands as he charged it with Qi. A second shot, aimed at the ceiling, detonated against a roof of stone and brought a hail of jagged rock down upon Katha Theodoros. His hand had been forced. He had to be thorough.
Then, it was done.
While the rumble of shifting earth echoed down the cavern of the lake, Wulong walked slowly, purposefully towards where the Golden Devil died. Perhaps she would still be twitching, defiantly struggling against death, but there would be nothing left to be done. Fire Qi may well burn out the poison of life, but she had not that sort of strength and fire was not her forte anyhow. He held all the cards, and behooved by caution there was no way she could take him down with her.
Hei'en's grudge is done, a favour fulfilled. Another tally struck in the struggle between Archer and Swordsman.
Wulong stopped in his tracks, a hundred paces from her burial mound. Something had caught his eye. Drawing an arrow quickly, Wulong blew off a pile of stone and unearthed what lay beneath. Then another, then another. Not once did he catch a hint of cloth or metal or her titanic chitin sword.
One final shot, aimed square at the ground. Charged with power, the mound was blown apart, and were his expectations met her body would have been unveiled in chunks as well. But it was not to be.
For there was a hole in the ground, barely large enough to hide in and sealed with a layer of thawing, punctured ice and slush.
Wulong watched. Then, in a rare moment, he smiled. On any other face, it would have lead to a chortle of laughter, perhaps even bellyaching guffaws. On Wulong's, he may as well have doubled over, wheezing for breath.
She managed to get away, despite everything. Clever.
But she was wounded and he was fresh. And he was not so poor an archer that he could not track his quarry. It would only be a matter of time before their third clash.
And he would win. Not an idle boast, but a promise backed by fact.
----
It was the evening by the time Katha emerged from the earth, gasping and cramped all over. It was worth the effort learning a subterranean tunneling technique after all. Gaius would be pleased to hear of one of his Juniors following in his footsteps of ruling the underground, even if her proficiency would never hold a candle to his. In fact, he might quite like that.
"Thank fuck the Ninth Prince mentioned I had good Qi Senses," she muttered quietly to herself. It was cold and it was dark, beneath the dense canopy of a forest overgrown with life. There was hardly room within this clearing but that suited her just fine, for even with 'good' Qi Sense she could barely sense anything around her. Travelling the underground with only her Senses to guide her was akin to sprinting with a magnifying glass. The only reason she had not broken into the cavern again and exposed herself to Wulong's fire was fortune, plain and simple.
She knew, in her heart of hearts, within the depths of her blood and her spirit, that Jingshen Bei Wulong would not have missed a second time. The man was not someone she could overcome in the way she tried. Too much firepower, too many arrows, and far too many unknown capabilities and Treasures upon him. His arrows were imbued with immense power, and he was capable of unleashing both highly complex effects and relatively mundane storms of wood-shafted iron that could punch through stone with ease. And he could fire them seemingly with no warning, no windup and no gap.
How the hell he managed to shoot one hundred arrows in one breath will continue to drive her mad. If it didn't drive her to an early grave later on.
And that, as she tried to dress her wounds and do so quietly, was the crux of the issue that now raged within her.
She wanted to live. Desperately so, in fact, this brush with death is the closest she's ever come - and from someone within the same Realm as her! It was becoming increasingly clear that Jingshen Bei Wulong stood upon at least one Olympian Keystone too, because as much as his danger could be laid at the feet of his many Treasure Arrows and, one could only guess, his Bow, the man did
not carry himself like any normal Ninth Heavenstage Junior. There was no flaw in his posture, no chronic issue with his physiology. One can only assume that he has reached, at least, the Tenth Heavenstage and purged his body of all impurities.
And considering that each of those arrows
does need to still be charged with Qi to prime them for use, because ultimately each of them was still a Treasure and still needed Qi to deploy, and he did so with both mocking ease and seemingly zero loss in stamina, one can only assume that he
also has the sort of perfected Qi Control that can only be achieved by purging his
Meridians of all impurities. Which meant that either he was a monster who was already naturally gifted before he took the Tenth, or she is actually fighting someone standing in the Eleventh.
Which still stood short of her in the Twelfth, who had purged her soul, or at least the connection between body and soul, of all impurities. But the Twelfth provided relatively marginal gains for physical prowess, and she did not make use of Demonic Tunes or other Soul Techniques. Which meant that the gap that stood between each of them in baseline alone was meager, not as decisive as a Small Realm gap would normally be.
Add his multitudes of Treasures and clear proficiency with them, as compared to her relatively bare panoply - which, it had to be said, was now stripped to the bone with the loss of the Amulet and her Armour - and she was now definitionally fighting an uphill battle.
So, she had two options:
Try to run from an Archer who is trying to kill her and has been tracking her from the very beginning of the Secret Realm Contest, with the same supreme physiology and thus stamina
and speed, who is
not wounded, and who is an undeniably exceptional marksman. And thus, die horribly the moment he could lay eyes on her.
Or she could try to fight an Archer who had pressured her into retreat once already and who had decisively beaten her the second time. But this time on prepared ground, using the one advantage she might have over him in order to get close and force the Archer to fight outside of his expertise for a change. Which will still most likely end with her painful death, but did not put her fate in the hands of her enemy's failures.
She sighed, then stood up as she looked around with closed eyes, within a forest that would become too dark to see at night.
A choice between certain death and likely death wa no choice at all, was it?
----
"I'm going to the Qiguai Secret Realm."
Her father was healthier than he had been in a long time. Yet, they both knew that his lifespan was more than half done, and even if he survived to reach the next Trial he was unlikely to make it far past that. Short of facing Tribulation Lightning, the next time the Fifth Sea descended would be the last time he picked up his swords.
But his face, when he heard what she had planned to do, put his crippled, dying state to shame. All the colour drained from his face, all the light from his eyes. The despair that gripped him was as complete as the day that he learned he lost his wife.
Katha tensed, expecting pleads or scoldings, but Shu Enya offered neither. Instead he sighed heavily as he sat down on the bench that faced the family's herb garden, and with his hand patted the seat next to him. She joined him at once, and listened attentively as she waited for him to begin.
They sat there for long, empty minutes, simply letting time pass them by. Long enough that Katha considered simply leaving, excusing herself with Cultivation if need be.
"...I am not going to forbid you," he finally said. "Far be it for me to stand in your way. But I have to ask you the question you least want to answer."
"And you're going to hear the answer you hate the most," Katha responded evenly. "I don't know why. Answers, perhaps. Maybe even power. But I need to go."
"Desperately?"
"It is this or dying trying."
"On the eve of invasion?" The Legionnaire asked of the Centurion.
"The Dawn's Fist won't need me for a smash and grab," Katha responded promptly.
"Knowing full well that you will die?"
Katha smiled thinly. "That was true of Yuan, too."
Shu Enya sighed heavily and shook his head. "Then it seems you've more of your mother in you than would be reasonable. Just promise me these two things, Katha: Don't be too stubborn to run away to live, and don't be so stupid as to engage your foes in debate before battle. You are in enough danger, surrounded by enough foes. On the eve of invasion, you cannot
afford any frivolities like that."
"I'll do my best to live up to your expectations, father."
Another heavy sigh. He knew his children too well to take their bullshit. "Then make sure you come back alive. That is an order, young lady."
Katha nodded. Then, a small smirk. "You know that I outrank you, right?"
"...Pull rank on me again and I'll break your legs. I don't care what Heavenstage you're in."
"Yessir."
----
When Wulong emerged from the ravine fully intent on hunting down a fleeing Golden Devil, he found his quarry waiting for him. But she did not do so in person, nor was she anywhere that the Jingshen Scion could see. Exposing so much as an arm or a leg was asking to get shot by an archer as dedicated as Wulong. But she wanted to engage him on her terms, and there was little hope of her keeping an eye on Wulong while Wulong remained unaware of her. Even were she fresh, she was a soldier, a swordswoman. He was an archer.
It might not be immediately clear to some, but bronze-clad swordswomen don't tend to be particularly subtle compared to bowmen capable of shooting rabbits from distances most people - most
cultivators - would consider insane. The only way to keep him around was to let him know
she was around.
And there was only one way to do that without exposing herself.
Wulong saw the Hornsword nailed to the side of a towering tree, and the hand that had darted to his quiver returned to his side. Then, he shook his head. "The battlefield is no place for debate, Katha Theodoros," he said boldly to the forest. "A child of a Clan as pragmatic as the Golden Devils should know that well."
"I always found that to be a matter of perspective," Katha's voice responded, and with no clear point of origin Wulong could not shoot her anyways. So he returned the bow to his back, the bowstring slung around his chest. "What
is a battlefield, Jingshen Bei Wulong? Must it be an open plain, or a dense forest, or a vast valley or an underground lake? A battlefield can be anywhere that lives are won or lost. A stateroom could be a battlefield."
Wulong snorted. "Irrelevant. We are not diplomats, and this is not a stateroom. And you don't have the silver tongue or the disgusting deception of a statesman."
"Of course not. I say what I mean and leave games for the board room. But I
do have a question for you. Well, a few."
"And you have until as long as it takes for me to find you," Wulong responded assertively. Even as they spoke, his eyes continued to scan the treeline. The sun was setting and it was already evening, and his keen eagle eyes would soon become worthless. His eyes narrowed as he realised what Katha's plan was. "So out with it."
"You're not like any Jingshen I've ever met. But I'm assuming you know a snot-nosed little shit who is surrounded by lackeys, looks down on everyone else and uses their wealth as a virtuous cudgel."
"You will have to be more specific, Golden Devil." A small smirk. "You've described nigh-on the entire Core Clan."
"And here I was hoping you'd defend them," Katha said with a sigh. "Any cousins who visited the Yuan Mountains during the last rotation?"
"Plenty. Most failed to return. One wants you to die."
"So why are you doing his dirty work for him? Whatever he thinks I've done to wrong him, it has nothing to do with you."
"Because I am betrothed to his sister," Wulong responded coldly. "I am honour bound by blood to see this through. To kill the genius Katha Theodoros."
"...Of all the Jingshen that came here to kill me, it had to be the one with a sense of responsibility."
"Such that it is," Wulong said simply. "Why do you care? The result is the same. For honour, for vengeance or for wealth, I am here to kill you."
"Because I cannot judge you for doing right by family," Katha said in reply. "From your perspective, you are satisfying a blood debt, however misplaced it might be. I can't fault you for that."
"Does that change anything?"
She laughed. "Not even a little, and I would expect nothing less from the sick world we live in. Do you care that your cousin wants me dead purely to satisfy his raging jealousy?"
"Not even a little."
Katha laughed. She was afraid of this. "Then we are at an impasse."
"Nothing has changed. Battle is inevitable." Wulong shook his head. The sun had now fully set beneath the horizon, or whatever passed for one on this fragile world bubble. "But I will inform you of this, Katha Theodoros, out of respect for your ability to survive so long. The bow on my back is the Clear Compass Bow, and the arrows it fires fly as true as the compass points north. It," he continued, "Is not the source of my archery prowess. In most respects, it is simply a powerful bow, one that allows me to reach targets that I would otherwise fail to reach with poorer tools. So far, I have only utilised its true power twice."
Katha's blood ran cold. All that, then, was Wulong alone? The unrelenting storm of arrows?
"That," Wulong continued, his tone evenly measured even as he continued to pace, "Is the ability to delay the firing of an arrow by a set interval, one that must be predetermined by the archer and cannot be modified once indicated. The first invocation was when I unleashed all one hundred Hundredth Core Arrows I had at my disposal against you, simultaneously, without warning. On their own, each arrow is formidable but manageable, for they only contain one percent of a Great Circle Elder's killing blow. In the hands of normal, even talented archers, these arrows are formidable but not game changing, for it is impossible to concentrate even more than a dozen payloads to reach the target at the same point, at the same time, no matter how quickly one can shoot. But in my hands, that which is impossible merely becomes difficult, merely demanding a very strict timetable and extremely precise timekeeping skills. What would otherwise be an attack only slightly stronger than what I can manage becomes a force equivalent to a Great Circle Core Elder's decisive strike."
"Get to the point," Katha groaned, even as her eyes watched Wulong intently from her spot on a tree deep in the forest, high above the ground. Even as her mind raced to consider
when he could have possibly invoked the Bow's power a second time, when he only fired one other shot and with merely mortal means?
"The second invocation," he concluded, descending into a crouch, "Was just now, to buy time for me to triangulate your position and deal a decisive blow."
Katha's eyes widened when Wulong's eyes met hers. And her blood froze as he jumped and flipped on the spot, aiming the bow with the back of his body, as the runic lettering on the clear glass bow flared to life for a single instant.
She had already dived off the tree and towards the ground, and had her instincts been half an instant shorter, she would be dead and Wulong would have her sword.
The arrow struck the side of the great tree and detonated, engulfing the canopy in a sphere of flame. A wave of fire and force spread the heat across the entire forest, and soon the entire roof of the verdant world was ablaze, painting the underbush below in hues of amber heat and shadowy void. As Katha hit the ground, ready to run Wulong was already upon her. The Hornsword sank right at her feet, missing her toes by hairs, and the man himself was leaping through the air with bow and arrow in hand, a hundred paces away and already ready to reach out to her in a decidedly final fashion.
This is the end, she saw in his eyes, cast in flame light and shadow as they were. But he was wrong.
Katha did not come speak with her hunter, thinking that words alone could overcome him. She had no sword, but she was
Optimatoi, scion of the greatest army this World has ever seen and will ever see. Even broken, she can wage war. Even disarmed, she can bring battle.
For she was Born in Battle and Bred for War, and the Iron Oath is not so easily broken by paltry
death.
The first arrow came, and Katha simply received it head on. It buried itself into her side, and blood began to ooze from the wound, but she paid it and the pain little heed as she continued to chant the Canticle of Leonidas. As Wulong's eyes widened fractionally in the face of such madness she charged, crossing great distances with great strides that swallowed up the earth. He fired a second arrow, and a third, each burying itself up to the feather in her thigh and her shoulder, but Katha would not be slowed, would not be
stopped.
Before he could prepare a fourth, she was already upon him, her fists driving against his left side. Contact, impact, and Wulong felt pain like he knew little else. Crying out, the Scion of the Jingshen lost hold of the Clear Compass Bow. Emboldened, Katha gripped her other fist and made to shatter his face.
But Wulong's feet hit the ground first. Rooted to the earth, he found stability, and with stability he rediscovered his center. With both fists he caught Katha's overhead blow, and despite her initiative the Child of the Bei did not move.
The shock stayed her hand for only a breath, but it was enough. Catchment turned into a grapple, and with both hands Wulong
pulled, until Katha found herself hurtling through the air, heavy iron thrown overhead by a bowman in close combat. Instinctively, she wrapped her legs around Wulong's head and twisted him into the ground with her.
She hit the ground heavily. Pain spiked as the arrows in her body shifted and irritated her wounds further.
Then she struck the earth and cartwheeled back onto her feet, just as Wulong forced himself back onto his. They regarded one another, hands raised and lit by the bonfire above. Katha breathed, inhale and exhale, while Wulong adjusted his posture to favour his right. Her blow had shattered his ribs and continue to pain him. Even the perfected body of the Tenth Heavenstage means nothing in the face of major skeletal trauma.
Silence reigned as he watched her and she watched him. Neither was willing to make the first move, with words or with fists. Katha stood between him and the Clear Compass Bow, and the moment he got his hands back on it, the battle was over. But he was in pain now too, and she could manage it far better.
"You're pretty good for an archer," Katha said, but she had no more energy left to get cocky. "But there's no way you're beating me in a fistfight."
Wulong shook his head. "You are a talent, Katha Theodoros," he said. His breath was ragged, but he showed no sign of pain on his face. "But you are young and untested, and I am forty years your senior. Without your sword, you have crippled yourself as harshly as I am."
"One would think so. But here's a secret, Jingshen Bei Wulong."
Katha brought one foot upon the ground, and with it she crossed into Wulong's guard at the head of a torrent of wind, one of seven separate copies.
"I am not a Sword Cultivator."
Shouting, the Iron Devil struck Wulong with a flurry of blows, breaking his guard and stealing his breath. There was no more strength left in her to mold Qi or unleash techniques, and she could not afford to give him the space to do the same. Overcome Jingshen Bei Wulong here and now, with mortal technique bolstered with Ascendant foundations, or die a failure and a disgrace to the Clan.
And so it went. And so it goes. Bleeding, bloody, as her body screamed with pain she roared for victory. And the Archer who put her into such a state, expending two treasures and making mockery of her talent, was forced back with every blow. Each clash left his limbs just a bit weaker, every grapple broken extended his joints just a bit further, every struggle pushed him beyond his limit and stole more of his breath. Even the great Jingshen Wulong Bei, the Young Silver Archer, was forced to confront one simple truth:
In the face of a Golden Devil, caught in close combat, even in spite of all his preparations and the perfect execution of his plan, he was simply unable to overcome her simple refusal to die. And in that pursuit of survival, she was willing to put everything on the line, even life itself.
If the fight wore on long enough, her victory would be assured. She would successfully turn the tables on him. He would be left at her mercy.
But before the final blow is struck, upon the ground where it lay the Clear Compass Bow flashed. And this, too, was the result of Wulong's meticulous planning.
For as the Iron Scion charged, he had fired four arrows, not three.
And now Katha's foot stood right in the line of fire.
----
White hot pain lanced up Katha's leg as an arrow lodged itself into the back of her ankle. Crying out with more shock than surprise, balance lost and stability broken, she was helpless to stop as Wulong rushed past her and snatched his bow from the ground. She hissed and breathed, molding more Qi within her, forcing more strength into herself. Blood pumped and blood spurted from her wounds, and with wounded legs she dived right at Wulong.
In close range, against a diving target, vision blurred and head concussed from numerous head blows and aching from shattered ribs and a fractured shoulder, everything stood between Wulong and the shot he needed to take. The moment his back hit the ground, it would be his loss. The moment Katha grabbed him or his bow, it would be his loss. The moment he missed his one shot, it would be
his loss.
But fate was on his side that day, for Jingshen Bei Wulong fired.
And his arrow met its mark.
The fifth arrow sank into the center of Katha's chest, shattering the weakest link on her chainmail shirt and sliding between what would demand sagas to be written of. It sank deep, spurred on by the incredible power of the Clear Compass Bow, shattering her sternum and threatening her windpipe. The arrow would not pierce her windpipe, but that would be a small mercy.
For Wulong's arrow had struck true, and ruptured one of Katha's extraordinary meridians.
The Qi that she had cycled suddenly ran wild as her capacity abruptly dropped. What strength she had tried to harness turned against her body, and wracked with pain of the worst kind Katha screamed as she fell onto the ground. Indomitable will drove her anyways, and she swung at Wulong with clawed hands, but now he held all the cards. His quiver held three more arrows, and each was certain to hit a crippled target.
Each shot ran true, whether they flew straight and true or if Wulong deflected them against the trunks of the burning trees around them. Each arrow pierced another of her extraordinary meridians, shaking her cultivation base further as she drifted further and further from immortality and closer and closer towards mortality of both sorts.
Finally, it was done.
And Wulong loomed over her, victorious for the third time. Her Hornsword in his hands.
----
"You have lost. Victory is mine."
Katha nodded. There were no tears, there was no anger. Simply resignation. "Yes… Yes, it is. Congratulations, Wulong. To you go the spoils. Now the blood debt is done."
Wulong chuffed. Then he threw the Hornsword before her.
"Yes," he said, exhausted by the battle. "Yes it is."
She looked up at him, defiantly awaiting the end. She had not the strength to stand. She may never have that strength again. "Explain."
"I swore to kill the genius, Katha Theodoros. And that is what I have done." With a sigh he slung the Clear Compass Bow around his body once more, his quivers all but expended against her. "As a genius, a rising star of the Golden Devils, you are more than your talent. You are an inspiration. More than that, you are an icon. An icon that will persist past your death." He scoffed. "An icon that will continue to haunt my cousin to the end of his days and irritate him, and thus me, for as long as he lives. That is unacceptable to me. So instead, I have killed the icon, not you."
"...Why?"
"Because it suits me," he replied immediately, without care or concern. "Because you deserve to live for the showing you have made. Because even if you survive this place, even if you reforge your meridians and even if you maintain your position… You will never be a genius again."
Ice, searing cold and icy hot, shot up her spine. Her skin crawled, where it did not ache and burn, even as around them the forest continued to burn from the top down. Her Qi Senses were all but gone right now. She could hardly sense a thing. And with her meridians shattered, she may never find that same acuity again. "What… What the
fuck…"
Wulong nodded. "Cruel, perhaps. But you still have your life, while I consider the debt done. If you desire vengeance, then hunt me in the future and do to me what I have done to you." He scoffed privately. "If I still live, I will gladly receive you. Our next battle will not be like this one."
Even as rage began to bubble within her, Katha cut through the haze of heat and pain and despair and hate, and saw his words for what they were. They were worth following up on. She had to know. "What do you mean, 'if you still live'?"
"There is no point in hiding it anymore, Theodoros. We know war is on the horizon. Within forty years or less, our Clans will be in conflict once more." He shook his head at that. "War. How wasteful. But that is the nature of things; I am no highborn son, nor am I scion to an ancient lineage. I will serve on the frontlines, and I will most likely die. That is the way of things."
Katha frowned. Then, slowly, she rose onto her feet, using the Hornsword as a crutch. "Then… Then I have good news and bad news, depending on how you see it."
Wulong turned around quickly, though measured to mortal standards. He was still wounded as well. "Explain. And do not lie to me."
"I have no reason to. You
did just defeat me, then spare my life. It is just that…" She swallowed. Wulong's blank face was becoming tenser by the second. "...The War you speak of has already begun. It likely began not long after we entered the Secret Realm."
His eyes widened sharply. In a swift motion, Wulong withdrew his bow, and fashioned an arrow from twigs and stone about the forest floor in the blink of an eye. "War," he seethed, and Katha tried to raise her sword, but it was now too heavy for a mortal to lift. Especially a mortal as battered as she was. "War is upon us. War has been upon us since the beginning."
"And because of that, you're going to kill me anyways," Katha said, trying to sound blandly wry but failing to hide the tremor in her voice.
His rage was palpable, his feelings of betrayal misplaced but all too real. "Yes," he replied, and raised his bow to his - and her - eye. "Die quickly, Theodoros. Consider this your final mercy."
The world rumbled, as if in disagreement.
And all at once, a great fissure formed between Wulong and Katha. The crack expanded, until the gap became a void and the void became the stars. Too late, Wulong loosed his arrow, and it careened into nothingness as the boundaries between imaginary worlds became more than merely distance. They were in different bubbles now, and could no longer interact. Before long, they would be too far away to even see one another.
And as their worlds separated, Wulong raised his bow, a silent pledge; a promise to finish the job.
Katha almost did not see it. She was too busy collapsing onto one knee, gasping for breath as the forest burned down around her. Saved in defeat by the most fickle of fortunes.
Perhaps there was something to take from all this after all.
----
----
Departing the Qiguai Realmgate, Jingshen Bei Wulong found himself amongst a much-diminished Jingshen contingent. Taiqi was absent, lost to the vagaries of the Qiguai Secret Realm. He left behind no sign and the place offered no trace. It was expected; the Qiguai Secret Realm was not a place where one expected to return alive.
All those who remained now looked up to him, whether or not they belonged to the Core Clan or not. Soon, Wulong realised why; his injuries were comparatively mild, and already due to heal. Those who survived to return home were not so fortunate.
So he would lead them home, following mountain trails and evading Golden Devil territory, following a route that Wulong had followed in the past by the instruction of his brothers and his father. Rushing home. Rushing to make a difference, a handful of wounded Qi Condensation Juniors in a War of Nascent Souls.
And they did so, as the sky turned red and madness befell the land with bolts of blood red lightning.
----
A/N: This was actually really hard to write.
Katha received three pretty bad rolls in Qiguai and had exactly two LSTs, which combined with my decision to have her stay for the full duration regardless of her LST status to put her into a pretty dire situation, all things considered. That tied into the fate that she received, where she got wrecked by a Jingshen three times and was quite literally saved by sheer fucking chance - which, presumably, represents the fact that if I hadn't written 30k words for her on Turn 12, Katha would straight up just be dead, flat out. Which, interestingly, I do actually have a plan to account for while keeping things in the family because shut up the Theodoroi have taken up too much mental space to simply throw away, but that is neither here nor there.
Ultimately, I got the extremely blessed opportunity to write about a badass Jingshen scion wrecking the (second) luckiest character in the quest so far*, and that is something I am forever grateful for because, honestly, I had no idea what to make Katha's rival about prior to all this, which does just go to show that opportunities can come everywhere and every cloud has a silver lining and blah blah blah, Katha is going into next turn with no LSTs and at Crippled, but dammit it makes for a really good story. Hence why Wulong now exists and how he is my attempt at a non-fucked-in-the-head Jingshen Good Seed. Who, owing to being someone who can kill a 12th HS Good Seed who has 2 Impact three times over, is an 11th HS Good Seed in command of a stupid amount of Impact in his own right.
*The luckiest player Good Seed in the quest so far, but honestly Tisamenos deserves it so I'm not going to take it from him.
But therein lies my problem. He is an 11th HS Good Seed in command of a stupid amount of impact in his own right. Katha is effectively fighting at QC14 and that makes her some level of broken as hell, yet not quite broken enough to utilise Foundation Establishment level nonsense in writing. In addition, the way that events turned out meant that this was not one big fight scene, but it had to be three fight scenes, because Katha lost two LSTs before she gets wrecked at the end, to be saved by literal luck. Add that, honestly, there's still not very much material on what the interior of the Qiguai Secret Realm looks like aside from world bubbles and other weirdness, which actually gives me decision paralysis because that makes far too much possible, plus the fact that I am now obligated to write lots this turn so that Katha does not just actually die again, and things are already riding high on this omake. This is an extremely hype-ass concept to work with and it is fantastic to work with, but it does pose some problems and some very exacting demands.
Katha needs good feats, owing to the fact that she's QC12 and has 2 Impact. Wulong needs good feats, owing to the fact that he canonically kicks her ass three times over. I need to therefore demonstrate high-end QC nonsense three times over, ideally without rehashing the point three times over. This also takes place in the middle of a very major turn featuring a very major war, featuring a pair of characters that exist on opposing ends of the war, who have their own ideas about all of that but are ultimately still members - and, quite literally, family - of each faction involved. And then the cherry on top is that I, being me, have high expectations for what I am capable of, and what I am capable of is occasionally witty and introspective dialogue as well as sick ass fight scenes.
Which brings me to my final, extremely belaboured point. This omake was a whole lot of fun to write, but it was also a whole lot of work to write and has been in discussion and planning for months at this point, featuring stuff that I think is cool coupled with stuff that I know is cool, in moderation. Overall, the conceit of the fight is that of two anime protagonists running into one another, with one of them being the type of anime protag that picks up bullshit superpowers partway into the fight because the author says so and the other one is the type of anime protag who has a cleanly defined power set and is milking it for all that it is worth. Special thanks go to @TehChron, @no., and @Kaboomatic, whom I've talked the ears off of about this over discord. You guys helped me put this titan together. And there's still a part three, oh dear god.
This omake took a week to write and I could have finished one vote for Song of Peace in the time it took to write all this. I could have written three Song of Peace updates for the amount of effort and wordcount that went into this! Hopefully all of this is worth it. And if it isn't, it was fun either way so that doesn't matter. I hope this was as fun to read as it was to write, with much less effort involved on your parts.
