Time passed by quickly for Aretaphila, training and refining her flesh as what had once been days became weeks became months and finally
years. After the young Myia had learned the power of
dodging the Centurion that had been her trainer had started her on basic qi circulation exercises - the technique necessary to turn the shaped metal that her body had become into a true facsimile of flesh. Metal as malleable as any muscle. Though The manifestations of her Clear Summer Bell's Constitution had been a distinct subset of the Blood of Bronze, it still fell under the same classification as that of her clansmen. Having advanced to the Copper Skin stage of her physique almost immediately upon awakening, Aretaphila knew she was more talented than most of her peers, though rumors of those who had surpassed her still reached her ears.
It didn't matter, not really, but something in the Myia girl's soul
howled at the gap between her and the very best Aspirants.
Falling behind may have been tied to her initial choice of focus - The technique slips of the
Clear Note, Brown Note rather than the single word offered by the Grand Elder. But she could not feel regret overmuch. One thing that Aretaphila had learned was that she had until the 9th Heavenstage to learn whether her choice in focus had been correct or not. Upon reaching 3rd Heavenstage within five years of Cultivation, she felt vindicated. As the echoing song of the Clear Note reverberated through her body, the dozens of acupoints scattered upon Aretaphila's body trembled under the results of her training, freeing up the channels to allow her to truly
breathe for the first time since awakening. The pain had been sharp and acute, a ringing high pitch that had torn through and cleared through the filth in her body.
Reaching 4th Heavenstage in slightly under a decade was no mean feat, even if Aretaphila was still not the greatest seed of her generation, she could still see where others faltered where she kept advancing. If she kept to her current pace, her objective of breaking through to 10th or higher Heavenstage before leaving Qi Condensation would come to fruition after all! And so she practiced, cultivated, and worked for the Clan.
Yet one day, in the midst of doing chores to gather Contribution Points, she had been taken aside and assigned to a larger group of her Clansmen to exterminate some bandits four days travel from the Dawn Fortress. None were expected to exceed Early Foundation Building, and it was with the joy of familiarity that a well known, expressionless face greeted her at the Fortress gates on the morning of departure.
"Aspirant," The
Centurion greeted her, his aura having swelled with the power of a new Dao Pillar.
"It's been a while. Congratulations," Aretaphila answered, saluting her one-time teacher as she approached him, joined by older Golden Devils at the 7th and 9th Heavensent Stage respectively.
The older of them, a man with golden mane and barely noticeable Bronzemark glanced at the younger woman with an air of suspicion, "Will this really be alright, Sir?"
Morning sunlight reflected off jadelike patina as the Foundation Establishment officer turned to reply, "Reports indicate that there are only a few hundred of the bandits, the majority not even breaking past 3rd Heavenstage." The
Centurion paused, "Do you feel yourself unequal to the task, Aspirant?"
"No, sir." Aretaphila replied seriously.
"You've advanced your skill in that Art of yours, then?" She nods, and then he continues, "Aspirant Myia possess Arts effective at playing support roles in a wider battlefield of peers and near-peers. The purpose of this mission is to give you all experience in your expected roles once you reunite with your
Conteburnium." A familiar bronze stave materializes in his hands, pointing at the 7th stage, "Legionnaire," He levels it at the 9th stage, his skin dusky, "
Venator," Aretaphila blinks in recognition of the term, and then the cursed weapon is facing her once again, "
Aeneator," The stave leveled out at the older man's side, "Each of you have advanced at different speeds compared to your peers, but once each of you have been determined skilled enough you shall be organized back among those of you who have met the minimum expected level of skill in your roles. Those shall be your
true peers, at which point you will be folded into the Legion structure as a formal
Conteburnium."
The
Centurion turns about to face the road leading out into the barbarian lands, barely trained by the civilization that the Golden Devils had brought to it. "Now then, Aspirants,
FOR-WARD!"
All four take off at a steady march down the road, their cultivation and bodies enabling them to withstand a grueling pace through the Organ Meat Desert, needing only the supplies on their backs. For three days and three nights they march, until they come across a lumpy series of massive dunes, braided together in an uneven chain.
Zha Fei Chang Hills. Territory of the Screaming Sausage Bandits.
---
There is a single moment upon arrival within those myriad dunes that Aretaphila is sure shall remain with her until the end of her days; A singular, overwhelming
stench. The refuse of hundreds,
thousands of a Cultivator's purged impurity, seeped into the very land, tinged with the stink of rotted offal. The young Aspirant always knew that the
Organ Meat Desert had been called as such for a reason, but perhaps there had been some truth to the stories after all?
She shuddered at the sheer, awful
scale of the heights of Cultivation, knowing that the agony undertaken to reach such peaks must be beyond her imagination. And yet.
Aretaphila Myia would still embrace even something as awful as a stench a hundred times more potent than this to make her way into this world. Qi cycles through her few open Meridians, and a low single note rings through the quartet. Two of the older men visibly relax, the stress and fatigue of the journey and destination washed away, while the patina-covered
Centurion merely nods his acknowledgement.
"Three of us shall make camp," The Foundation Establishment Clansmen grinds out before turning to the dusk-skinned 9th Heavenstage, "Search for traces of the targets camp, return after dusk."
Silently, the scout salutes and slowly fades into the sands, his dusky skin taking on the texture of the grains beneath their feet before vanishing entirely.
---
Three days and three nights pass, the four of them penetrating deeper and deeper into the Zha Fei Chang Hills. Each day as the sun climbs higher, the stench of impurity and rot grows greater and greater, and Aretaphila gets more practice in using the Clear Note to clear through the psychological effects of prolonged exposure to the terrain. Beneath the bright dunes of sand that formed the hills, within valleys formed by the twisting wind, is a mass of boiling, pitch-like Impurity. The ancient rot of thousands of years of dead beasts, forever trapped into this single spot, laid to the sun's cruel and merciless gaze. The 4th Heavenstage girl wondered how
anyone could stand to live here for very long, when on the fourth day since their initial arrival the 9th Heavenstage Aspirant returned, telling tale of a windswept ridge less than a day's march away, facing outwards and upwind of the stench of the hidden valleys.
"Numbers?" The
Centurion asked.
"A hundred or so of the barbarians at the lowest Heavenstages, Sir." The prospective Venator answered confidently, "Less than half a dozen past the Meridian Opening Stage."
"Any sign of their leader?"
"No, sir." The dusky skinned cultivator replied.
"Likely in seclusion then." The Late Foundation Establishment mused, "Then we shall have the two of you take point. Aspirant Myia shall take rearguard alongside me while we try and smoke out their leader."
There had been no reports of the bandits being Blood Path, which made their numbers seem strange at first. But Aretaphila could understand, having been in the area for several days. It didn't seem so strange that there was a treasure hidden among these hills of rotting meat capable of awakening a seemingly arbitrary number of Mortals, but whatever resource the bandits relied upon to Awaken was nowhere near sufficient to break through to higher small realms, let alone past the 9th Heavenstage proper.
The team of four trudged through the dunes, eventually coming across the well-hidden fissure in the sandy dunes, a single gaping rock face that was only truly visible if one had been approaching from the Impurity steeped valleys behind them. Little wonder a treasure could have been hidden here; there was no better defense than the environment surrounding it. No need to draw attention with cunningly hidden Arrays or illusion wards or other works of artifice.
Night fell, and the sun no longer reflected off their Bronzesign. With the stars above, the way in was bright enough, the sands muffling their approach, stained only by the blood and swiftly buried bodies of the lower realm sentries for the bandit fortress. It is only a short time before the group is within the mouth of the crevice, marching through the narrow passageway deeper into earth.
From one moment to the next, Aretaphila feels the air
shift imperceptibly, becoming just a little bit
denser. The qi that had been so thin as to be nonexistant in the air of the desert is here an order of magnitude thicker, and Aretaphila realizes that whatever this place was, it had once been meant to serve as a poor substitute of the meanest of sites in the plains out west. Perhaps it had even been more than this tiny thing, before the curse of poverty that the Heavens inflicted upon the Golden Devil Clan had found this sequestered place, and reduced it even further from its former glory merely to prevent the possibility of the Clan finding a use for the spot.
"Whatever this...
Suan La Tang Temple once was," The
Centurion's hushed whisper reaches the Myia scions ear, "It is no longer usable for us. We get just as much for what we invest into the Receptiveness Determining Ritual."
The young woman thinks back to the effort and skill it must have taken to construct this place, and hide it within a location such as this. All gone to seed because of the march of time and the determination of the Heavens.
Frustrating. What would those people who had build this Temple think, to know that it had become the den of these Screaming Sausage Bandits?
There are no answers forthcoming, and the tunnel widens into a true hall, where a dozen of the bandits mill about, busy with their own tasks or laughing at their games around fires burning merrily within the cool stone halls.
"Aspirants." The
Centurion intones flatly, "
You have your assignments."
There are loud clangs as the elder Qi Condensation Cultivators stomp forward, their heavy metallic footfalls ringing against the flagstones beneath their feet. The 9th Heavenrealm withdraws a bone-like cudgel, the air distorting around it's bulbous head. The 7th Realm however, withdraws a fa more typical Hoplite, the armaments smoothly appearing over his body with a flex of Qi.
The Bandits form up into a mass, giving hoots and hollers as they prepare themselves to strike against the hated Golden Devils.
They never get their chance; one and all blown away by the far more powerful Qi Condensation Cultivators. Scores of bandits are slaughtered as the two sides clash, and those that survive flee deeper into the complex, the pair of bronze-skinned soldiers given chase at a slow, methodical pace. Aretaphila and the
Centurion keep their distance at the rear, anticipating a potential ambush, one that never comes as the hallway opens up into a great arch and from there into a massive hall beneath the earth.
Over a hundred 3rd Heavenstage and below Bandit Cultivators, each one leering at the pair in front hungrily.
With a cry, the mob move as one to overwhelm bronze with a sea of flesh.
Aretaphila
sings. A singular, inhuman note reverberates through the air, the Demonic Tune carried upon the currents of Qi into the ears of her targets. The Brown Note pierces into the systems of these mere bandits, reverberating deeply into their flesh as it resonates with the ample amounts of impurity within their system.
They are all Cultivators, those who recognized on an
instinctual level that those impurities in their body were simply not meant to there. And those bodies treated that filth like it deserved. Shaking, trembling, spasming, in an instant over a hundred Qi Condensation Cultivators fell onto their knees, a prodigious cacophony of wet and disgusting sounds accompanying the sight as their bodies desperately attempted to dislodge the impurity that was now rebelling against their bodies.
Easy pickings for the other two, who's weapons glimmered with bronze and began to lay waste to the environs. Yet, even as they move to strike down their weakened foes their attacks are blocked, at least a dozen Qi Condensation, each at minimum being past the 6th step
Bandits they might be, but their cultivaton strength, especially out in numbers, proved enough to hamstring the fight even as Aretaphila continued her assault on the helpless lower realms The clash lasts for several minutes, the time being bought by the Screaming Sausages enough to cause the Centurion escorting her to grow exasperated.
He strides forward, full on confidence, and them the Bandits begin to
die.
Aretaphila sighs in relief at the sight.
"Why, hello there." An unknown voice calls out, from directly behind the girls neck. Two hands rest upon her shoulders, and before Aretaphil knows what's going on there, she is already whisked away deeper into the darkness of the Temple.
A.N.: @occipitallobe There ya go
