To be a Cultivator is to crash head-first into the natural limitations of humanity, to endure the pain of frustration--to commit the literal life's work of an ordinary mortal to make small, incremental gains--all while racing an ever ticking clock that would never go away, that always said 'Your efforts will be as dust eventually, but maybe if you push
just a little bit higher.
Some said that the Greater Stages of a Realm existed as a trap for the genius--oh sure, those rare paragons who could achieve them and continue to advance often stood as towering figures, unmatched by anyone in their realm, often capable of shifting the flow of history by their will and strength alone. True experts.
How many of these geniuses though simply rose to power, sought even more, and were snuffed out while seeking the right lucky chances to turn them into the central character of their age? In the end, while those who could surmount Great Realms were rare--those who could do so
and survive the consequences of doing so were less common still.
It was the will of heaven--some would say. To teach humility to the genius. "Sure, you can surpass everyone else,
all you have to do is restrain yourself, to remain a weakling when all the world is rising to surpass you, when all the world will see your talent--and seek to crush it before it can blossom in truth."
And yet..
The world did not reward
humility. It never had, and it never would. Victory was in the hands of those who
seized strength. Who were willing to do whatever it took to climb above all others. It was a
duty, to remind the world when they thought otherwise.
Indomitable Thirteen, was it? "Heroes of the Generation"?
How quaint, to see a lucky confluence of fate treated as something they did on purpose.
Perhaps a lesson was in order...
*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*
The years came and went. Time continued to flow, and Rina found herself... Frustrated.
She had dedicated herself to the act of working hard, of refining her spirit and ideals to the point where they would shine, all the while seeking the Thirteenth Heavenstage, that she might begin making final preparations for her Tribulation. She had even entertained some ideas of breaking through in time to provide aid to the Clan in the wars to come--as the scavengers at the borders saw weakness and began seeking the treasures of the sands.
But her progress had slowed--without the resources of the Secret Realms to call upon, and without the great opportunity that was the Hundred Year Trials to sharpen her skills and focus her will over time--she found herself lost on how to progress the foundation of her Path. The broad strokes she had well in hand, and they were accepted by the increasing order of her thoughts.
But the underlying connections? The tissue that drew each aspect of the philosophy together into a cohesive whole instead of a jumble of related ideas? She meditated on it, she pushed herself--but very little felt
right. Her Cultivation had slowed to a crawl--and with the terrible calamity wrought upon the Elders in the Trials, no time could be spared to seek advice from the most senior--only others still condensing their own ideals together.
She was, in a word.
Stuck. For the first time, she found herself standing utterly still, with the idea that there was something she
had to be doing, but not being able to articulate what it was.
She was
missing something, and had no idea where to even begin to look for it. Was it something in her head? Some innate property of her thoughts that barred her from condensing a truly perfect series of Laws together?
The sustained focus she had been blessed with in the Hundred Year Trials was nowhere to be found. The missions on the Contribution Board suitable to Qi Condensation was--to be entirely blunt--unable to provide the necessary stimulation to generate new insights. Muqin Guo was as lost as she was, and encouraged her to just set it all aside as a youthful lark and commence her breakthrough as she was--she would assuredly be an expert among Foundation Establishment even with the broad base she already had--she could easily just construct her path the way everyone else does--bit by bit over the course of the Great Realm.
But would she be regretting that in the future? To enter the realm of the
merely gifted would still put her head and shoulders above most others. Truthfully, even her ancestor Athenia probably hadn't gone beyond the Tenth Heavenstage herself . If she could just
match that Cultivation, she would be a peerless champion of the Clan.
For all that she doubted though, for all that she continued eyeing the next Realm... Something always caused her to hesitate--would it be a betrayal of her heart to simply
give up because going around a strong obstacle was easier than punching through it to seek the treasure within? Would she simply find her path utterly barred from her own hypocrisy? To attain modest power today in exchange for never reaching the peak? Being
unworthy of the investment already placed within her?
So she continued to push at the gates of her limits, grinding away at her Cultivation bit by bit. If it simply meant that she needed to push herself with more difficult missions? Then so be it.
Today should be fairly routine--banditry as it usually was in the aftermath of the Trials, extended as it was by the absence of the usual Legates keeping track of things. A small band had been gaining some notoriety after someone got lucky and broke through to Foundation Establishment. The rabble was nothing to be concerned about--a scattering of first through fifth heavenstage--barely enough to mar her skin even if she had stood still and let them.
Since she wasn't inclined to do so...
She blinked, and bore witness to the field, snapped limbs, blood staining the sand, a handful still not quite being dead--but rapidly reaching that point.
It was funny in a way. When Cultivators waged war in
earnest, it was shockingly
clean in some senses. A mortal striking at another mortal? The body will generally remain intact. They break but
remain recognizable, and it's all the more horrifying for it. Cultivators though? Much stronger than mortals even at the earlier stages--a blow from a strong cultivator to a weaker one? They may as well liquify into a single red mess when struck.
The ones who were still here were the ones who were
not hit directly, either with Muqin Guo or her shield, but those caught up in the wind of her attacks. The ones who were struck head on?
Gone, save for splashes of blood here and there.
It was a funny thing, being as strong as she was for her realm. Even in great numbers, peers beneath her weren't her match.
But she never expected these ones to be her match in the first place--that job came to their chieftain. She turned her gaze over to him--clad in a hooded white robe, a standard desert nomad's attire. He tilted his head to the side slightly, something twinkling in his eyes.
Was that...
Amusement?
"Indomitable Thirteen indeed" He clapped his hands once. "I will admit, I had thought the stories overblown, but I see they're not entirely undeserved." He chuckled, shaking his head.
Rina frowned, and gestured with her blade to him. "Only you remain." She declared, as sternly as she could. "Your crimes have not reached the point where death is the only penalty. If you come quietly, you may yet get away with a century as a laborer."
He snorted. "Qi Condensation threatening me?" He raised his head, weatherbeaten features smirking. "You may have helped kill Core Formation before, you may have beaten a few arrogant pups."
Rina's expression hardened--his features were not those of a bandit who got lucky... She raised her shield.
It was all that saved her life, as a javelin the size of
her slammed into it, spirit steel being no match for the force put to bear. She was flung backwards, arm
creaking worryingly--but she forcefully stabilized herself and anchored herself back into the ground with the back of her heels.
By the time her attention shifted to assess it--she found a dripping spearhead of venom glistening, puncturing through the shield, stopping only inches from her face.
"You even survived my Tiger's Claw Ballista!" He laughed, lowering his hood finally. "I must say, I am
impressed." He sneered. "But
impressed doesn't change reality child."
"Who
are you?" Rina asked, her hand blurring as she chopped the javelin off her shield--it was still punctured, but she could use it as a weapon still... The Cultivator before her pressed his hands together and bowed his head--a typical warrior's salute. "I am an agent of Heaven's Will, here to issue a
reminder to you savages." A flick of his wrist, and within his hands grew a staff of living wood, a string of magic beast gut tied below it--a behemoth of a bow. "A genius that is dead is not a genius anymore."
Rina snorted, and settled into a fighting posture. "Bold words for a bandit--I suppose the fact that this place is subject to a major reconstruction project is
just a coincidence, isn't it?" The other Cultivator had the
gall to look bashful at that. "Well, I suppose nobody said that Heaven's Will and personal profit can't work together well. I was hoping to bag one of you--but the Golden Child? Having the
arrogance to come at me alone?" He laughed. "Well, that's just an added bonus."
His bow came up, an arrow fired--Rina called up Muqin Guo to deflect--and the Cauldron rocked backwards as the arrow struck--and burst into a cloud of acrid smoke. Her eyes stung as she held her breath, pushing through the mess and going forward--only to see the man before her tapping his foot against the ground, with two more of those
hellish javelins bursting in from afar. She dove through them, as they crashed into the ground just behind you, sands dissolving under the weight of their venom.
But she felt something hard and metallic beneath her--and flared her Essence in reaction.
The explosion sent her flying backwards, her front part charred and the enchantments of her gear flaring in response. She coughed up a dollop of blood, and stabilized herself in midair--but her instincts
screamed at her, and she lashed off to the side with Muqin Guo, the levitation function pulling her aside.
Rightly so, as a barrage of tiny darts filled the sky in the place she once was.
"Oh! Is this that Blood of Bronze you beasts are so proud of?" He laughs. "You're actually still alive!" He brings his bow up for a minute, and meets Rina's gaze confidently. He takes her measure there, lining up a shot...
And then lowering his bow. "Ahh, tricky!" He waved a finger, and the sands began to billow around him, concealing his movements.
"Congratulations! You just survived the opening act!" He laughed. "As a reward... I won't kill you here and there--it just won't have the right
bite to it... So I'll challenge you to a game! A hunt!"
The sands faded, and he was gone.
"Just you, and me, and the desert. No more, no less. If you can catch me? You win! I'll be your slave for hundred years. You don't even have to fight me!" His voice faded on the wind.
"But... It's just you and me--and I won't tolerate interruptions. So a little incentive--I heard you're a bit of a heroine type, right? Some goody-two-shoes who always does the right thing... So, it's numbers. I've set up a series of explosives in Needle Hill--that little village that's working on picking apart that big thing for metal, you know?" He gave a moment for that to sink in, as Rina's eyes widened.
That was almost six thousand people
"I see you get it! Yeah, that's my card in the game. If you leave, if you run away, if you
call for help. If I so much as
Smell another Cultivator... They're all dead, every last one of them. If I just kill you here? I'll leave them be."
This was...
"Unforgivable?" He scoffed. "We're
cultivators! Anything is acceptable in the service of our Dao!"
The sands begin to swirl--this time around the whole area.
"I--called Saliva Dog Archer by some--love nothing better than crushing Geniuses before me." He adds, and Rina feels the entire field around her congeal with
threat.
"Entertain me with your struggles before you die."
And the skies
rained light.
The Golden Child brought her shield up to meet it.
*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*
"This isn't working" Muqin Guo's voice shook through the haze of Rina's attention.
Her armor was tattered, her blade chipped and pitted. Her shield had been discarded long ago, and she had made use of the superb cauldron as a makeshift replacement for it. Her body was covered in barely sealed wounds, seared black in places from glancing blows of poisoned arrows.
Her glasses had lost a lens, and her Essence reserves were perilously low.
"I'm not... Done yet..." Rina hissed out. "I can still fight on."
"You've been chasing him for three days!" The cauldron snapped back. "You haven't so much as caught sight of him since he vanished, let alone laid hands on him. Meanwhile, he's been picking you apart bit by bit. If he wanted you to
die he's had at least a dozen chances.
He is beyond you. Running away is
exactly what you should be doing now."
"I can still do this" Rina shook her head. "If I can get in close enough, use Mother's thread--I can pin him long enough to stop him. By his own words, he'll have to help then."
"Are you even
listening to yourself?" The cauldron lunged forward, bonking Rina in the forehead to get her attention. "You're advocating using your last Life Saving Treasure to win a fight that you
never needed to fight in the first place! This is
precisely the time you're supposed to call for help!"
"... He's going to kill all those people if I do that though..." Rina whispered. "I can't just..."
"You can't let
what happen?" Muqin Guo pressed. "Rina Callista,
you are not a god"
She froze at that, and the Cauldron saw her chance. "You are not some almighty figure, personally responsible for the actions of everyone and everything. Even the Heavens can't claim that level of influence! If it could, there'd never
be Cultivators in the first place! If he decides to murder those people.
That's his sin, not yours!"
"I.." Rina started, but found her tongue seized as she found out that...
She didn't have an answer for that.
What Muqin Guo said
made sense.
"Even if you could get close enough at this point, even if you could land that rope... Are you really going to trust a
Bandit to do what they said they would?" The cauldron concluded. "If you were fresh and uninjured, you could probably kill him in the time you had--but as you are? Replacing your armor and healing back is going to take years! You're not in top form, and you'd be wasting your time even if he got careless enough to let you in range."
"That's..." Rina's mouth closed, and here expression became thoughtful.
"
You're not a god, people are going to be monsters--Cultivators especially so. You and yours are no exception." The Cauldron begins to lower her own mental voice. "You have to just... Do the best you can, and if you fail, you have to be ready to
accept that and just.... Be better in the future. Come back to the problem later if you have to. If you die today, everything you could be--all the promise you have, is going to turn to nothing."
Rina's face fell, she closed her eyes.
And she nodded, weakly as it was.
"Whoaho?" The voice raised up as Rina began to each for a glyph on her gauntlet. She froze. "That's
against the rules" He singsonged. "Six thousand people! I counted before I left, you really want to kill all those people?"
Rina closed her eyes--breathing deeply.
Then opened them, cold as steel.
"If I can't save them..." She says. "I can at least see them avenged."
She pressed the glyph--a
WARNING message propagating through the sky, a beacon for all peak experts associated with the Clan to descend on a trouble spot with all speed.
"Hah!" He scoffed. "Well, just look off to the side there..." The sandstorm faded--and Rina turned her gaze--only to see the horizon filling with a great blast, sickly green clouds mushrooming up in the distance. "Welp, there goes the village, if
only you hadn't been a little perfectionist"
He faded back into view, right up close to Rina--but not so close that she felt like she could retaliate. His bow came up. "The world is larger than you know!" He chuckled, and pulled back on the bowstring. "I am just a bandit, raised from mortal stock until I found my lucky chance. And I just defeated the Golden Child!" His eyes filled with a look of rapture--Muqin Guo began to hover up in protection.
And the atmosphere
Shuddered as a figure slammed into the sand between the two.
"Right, that's enough of that business." He said, cracking his neck. "You the one who sent the beacon out?" He glanced back to Rina. "Huh, Twelfth Heavenstage, you one of those Thirteen?" He looked to the other side, at the rapidly paling bandit. "And you're... Mid Foundation Establishment?" He gave a thumbs up back to Rina. "Good job surviving! Let me show you how the adults do things."
"Senior, I can..." the Archer begins to back off--only to find his head reduced to fine dew in the morning sun as the elder before him suddenly had his fist through where his face used to be.
"Quick, clean, easy." He laughed, and dusted his hands off. "I'll be seeing you to the healers then. Doesn't look too bad by my reckoning, but you never know..."
Rina couldn't tell if she had made a mistake yet or not.
Just like that, the beast who had been tormenting her for three days was gone.
But six thousand people paid the price for her weakness.
And yet...
She was not a god.
Those words felt
right in a way little had in the past twenty years.
Something to ponder over, she supposed...
