A/n: Managed to bang out the first part of this.
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Ninth Prince 4: Poses and Posers, Part 1
Why was there a man with an altar strapped to his back just walking around the desert?
That was the question the Ninth Prince was currently asking himself, along with a few other such questions, such as 'Why was there a man with an altar strapped to his back at all?', 'How heavy is that altar?', and 'Why is that man holding a sword longer and thicker than he is?', just to name a few.
The Ninth Prince was doing his daily patrol of the territory around Laogai Village, the village he owned. Technically. Most matters of day-to-day running of the town were handled by one Zhu Bhujie, the previous mayor of the village, while the Ninth Prince mainly just cultivated, went on adventures, and patrolled the territory to deal with any nefarious rapscallions that might be lurking in the desert, just waiting to strike the poor, unprotected mortals that surely cowered in their quaint little hamlets.
But! Little did these rapscallions know that
these mortals were not unprotected! For they had THE NINTH PRINCE to protect them! And by the power of
GREAT JUSTICE, the Ninth Prince would smite any evildoers who wished to harm the poor, innocent mortals of Laogai Village!
CUE DRAMATIC POSE!
Of course, the Ninth Prince wouldn't actually strike a dramatic pose, not with a fellow cultivator (for who else would be so mad as to carry an
altar around on their back?) so close by. The Ninth Prince only truly got to let loose his emotions when alone, or when the only people around were vile villains that he would soon slay.
Truly, the Ninth Prince lived a pitiful life.
But the Ninth Prince could bemoan his existence in his designated brooding time, which was, in fact, tomorrow, not today. For now, the Ninth Prince had a job to do, namely figuring out what exactly this mysterious stranger was doing in his territory.
The Ninth Prince, riding Ulo, moved up to the stranger, traversing the desert dunes with the ease of long practice, and pointed his spear at said stranger. "Halt, and state your pur-"
That was as far as the Ninth Prince got, before his enhanced sense picked up the distinctive smell of death, pain, and above all,
blood, emanating from the stranger. "
Blood Path." the Ninth Prince hissed out, with a sudden surge of fury, blood boiling with righteous rage. Behind him, Raj's minions began moving into formation, Kha, Li, and Ya started charging up powerful venom shots, and Ulo's scales clicked as they locked together, ready for battle.
"You won't be preying on any mortals today, foul fiend, not if the Ninth Prince has anything to say about it!"
What happened after that statement was completely out of the Ninth Prince's expectations. Instead of the normal fear, anger, or even condescending laughter that normally followed when a Blood Path member was exposed to the Ninth Prince's declarations, this particular wretched rapscallion just cradled his head in his hands and sighed. "...
Every damn time."
What.
"What."
Apparently taking the Ninth Prince's statement as an invitation to continue, the potentially vile villain (frankly, at this point it was kind of unclear) threw his hands up, still holding his giant sword mind you, and began to rant. "
Every damn time I go out for a walk, some random do-gooder stops me, sees that I practice Blood Path, which, fair play, I
do practice Blood Path, and assumes I kill mortals! Just because I use Blood Path doesn't mean I don't have standards! I'm sorry, but if you call yourself a Blood Path user, and kill those weaker than you for Cultivation, then you aren't valid."
That was a
surprisingly reasonable rationale from a Blood Path us-
Oh, wait, he was still talking.
"I mean, you don't see the disciples of the
Magic Oak Sect getting asked if
they kill mortals, and we basically practice the same style of Blood Path! Kind of. Magic acorns that let you get the power of people who've also eaten magic acorns if you kill them and a devil altar that gives you Cultivation if you give it the corpses of being as strong or stronger than you are basically the same thing, right? Right."
"Speaking of" And for the first time in this little rant of his, the Blood Path user spoke not to past ghosts and old foes, but to the Ninth Prince. "You seem around my Cultivation level. So, apologies, but I'm going to have to kill you."
In the face of what was looking to be a battle to the death with someone of equal Cultivation to him, a Blood Path warrior who no doubtedly had multiple ways to punch above his power level, there was only one thing the Ninth Prince could do.
As his eyes burned with a green fire and his spear began to drip corrosive acid, the Ninth Prince began to laugh, cackling like a maniac before brandishing your spear and bellowing with a voice like thunder. "WELL, VILE VILLAIN, IF YOU WISH TO MAKE A CORPSE OUT OF THE NINTH PRINCE, THEN YOU WILL BE SEVERELY DISAPPOINTED!
CUE DRAMATIC POSE!"
And then, once again, this Blood Path user surprised him. With the same volume and tone as the Ninth Prince, but with a solemn air about him, as if participating in an ancient ritual, he spoke. "
MAY THE BEST SHOWMAN WIN."
The Ninth Prince just stood in place, paralyzed, as finally,
finally, someone had accepted the challenge he had been offering for the better part of 60 years.
For a moment, all was silent, the only noise being the slow shifting of the dunes. That silence was soon broken by the Blood Path user. "The pose-off. I did not think anyone else alive knew of that ancient contest. You may call me Zheng. If we are to have such a duel, then the least you must know about me is my name."
Zheng's words snapped the Ninth Prince out of his trance, and he began to smile. "WELL THEN HONORED RIVAL, I do believe that the challenged chooses the edition?"
Zheng merely smiled, before pulling out a book about as large as Kha, Li, and Ya, from
somewhere on his person. Which was incredibly strange, since Zheng was not wearing a shirt, on account of the altar fused to his back, and those pants were
much too tight to hide even a spirit stone, let alone something as large as this.
"Would edition 1138-c be acceptable?" Zheng asked, idly flipping through the enormous book.
Yes, that seemed acceptable. The Ninth Prince was about to tell his opponent this, before a thought struck him. "Wouldn't edition 1138-
b be better? What with the focus on one v one pose-offs and all."
For some reason, Zheng looked incredibly disappointed in him. "Entourage rules, remember? I assume you're using your snakes in this pose-off."
"Ah, yes. That makes sense. Carry on."
"...Unless I'm mistaken,
you need to carry on, specifically with the summoning of the Trial's Eye." Zheng said, in a tone as dry as the desert sands around them.
Ah. Right. That was definitely one of the things that the Ninth Prince needed to do, right alongside not embarrassing himself in front of this very impressive man.
Currently, the Ninth Prince felt like he was failing at both of his required tasks.
Still, that wasn't exactly important right now, what was important was not making even more of a fool of himself. So, in order to do that, the Ninth Prince cut his palm open and slapped it down onto the sands, chanting in a language that should not be as he spilled his blood on the dunes.
The blood flowed outwards, being pushed by an otherworldly force, and formed into a perfect circle made up of eldritch runes.
Then, as the Ninth Prince took his palm away from the sand, the blood turned purple, and the sand inside the circle was gone, replaced by a black void.
Out of that void came an enormous eye, easily the size of the Ninth Prince's torso, covered in orange scales and sporting two large blood red horns.
The eye leaned back, almost like it was stretching, then looked directly at the Ninth Prince before speaking in a booming, resonating voice that came from… somewhere.
"
SO, YOU'RE THE MORTAL WHELP THAT FINALLY GOT ME OUT OF MY NAP, HUH?"
The Ninth Prince confirmed that, yes, he was the so called 'whelp' that called this eye being here, though name calling was rude and he was almost 100, so 'whelp' wasn't even accurate.
The eye ignored basically that entire statement, before looking up and then slowly looking down at the Ninth Prince and speaking again.
"I GOTTA SAY, I WAS EXPECTING SOMEONE A BIT MORE… MUSCULAR."
...Well that was quite rude! The Ninth Prince was in excellent shape, especially for a Qi Gathering cultivator, and assum-
The eye, once again, steamrolled over the Ninth Prince's protests like they didn't even matter, which, to be fair, probably didn't matter to an incredibly old eye being.
"STILL, YOU'LL DO IN A PINCH (SNAKE ARMY'S A NICE TOUCH BY THE WAY), AND THE OTHER ONE ISN'T HALF BAD, EXCEPT FOR THAT ENTIRE ALTAR FUSED TO THE FLESH THING. YOU SHOULD PROBABLY GET THAT CHECKED OUT. IT DOESN'T LOOK HEALTHY."
Zheng looked about as confused as the Ninth Prince felt right now, so it was nice to know that he wasn't alone in wondering exactly what the hell was going on here. "...Thank you? I suppose?"
"ANYWAYS, I'M NOT HERE TO RAMBLE, I'M HERE TO OFFICIATE THE FIRST POSE-OFF IN THIS LITTLE BACKWATER OF A PISS-POOR REGION IN 100,000 YEARS!"
...Wait, really? This being was over 100,000 years old? Even in some sort of stasis, that would mean that this eye being was
at the very least a Spirit Severing cultivator, and someone on that level was apparently just sitting around and judging pose-offs for some reason.
The Ninth Prince supposed he should also be indignant about the whole 'backwater' comment, but frankly, compared to the Fifth Sea, the eye was right, this place really
was a backwater in a piss-poor region.
And then the eye spoke once more, and things started to get interesting.
"NOW, WITHOUT FURTHER ADO, LET'S GET THIS PARTY STARTED!"
The sandy dunes disappeared, being replaced with a featureless black void. The void wasn't featureless for long however, as the eye being somehow snapped its nonexistent fingers and summoned up an entire arena, complete with bleachers, screaming ghostly audience, and vendors selling things labelled 'HOT DOG' and 'COTTON CANDY'.
The entire experience was incredibly surreal.
Still, it was good to see that someone else was just as confused as the Ninth Prince was, as a quick glance over to Zheng quickly showed that the muscular man was just as out of his element amidst all the noise and bustle as the Ninth Prince.
But that noise and bustle wasn't around for much longer, as, less than a minute later, the entire stadium and audience went dead silent, frozen in place and most likely frozen in time by the eye being, who had teleported right into the center of the entire arena.
"NEXT TIME.", the eye said, looking in a direction that the Ninth Prince's eyes couldn't follow, almost as if it was speaking to some sort of invisible audience. Besides the one already present in the stands of course.
"YALL ARE JUST GONNA HAVE TO WAIT FOR A BIT."
...Should he say it? It probably wasn't a good idea, but the Ninth Prince was just dying to know.
And then Zheng asked the question that the Ninth Prince was struggling to ask, and neatly solved that little problem. "...Um, honored judge? Who exactly are you talking to?"
The Ninth Prince sidled back a few steps, so that if the eye smote Zheng down for his impotence, there wouldn't be any gore on his shirt.
Luckily, it looked as if the eye didn't care too much about Zheng's question, rolling in such a way as to convey an offhanded hand wave (heh, puns) without actually having a hand.
"EH, DON'T WORRY ABOUT IT."
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A/N: Imagine the eye's voice as bill cipher, and you'll probably get a good idea of what I was going for.
)