Katha Theodoros 7 - A Passing Grade
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First Turn 12 Omake Here]
In the distance, Thousand Song City burned.
Orange flames, crimson flames, silver and more threatened to consume the city. Day in and day out, as night dragged long and turned back into day, between the ringing of bloodsteel on gravebronze and the screams of the dying and dead, were the pitter-patters of the fire brigades desperately trying to keep the city intact enough
to turn to rubble.
It would be a battle for the ages. The place where a hundred heroes were born and slain every single day, where great names would climb the rungs of legend with their feats. Names like Rina Callista would resound forever as the Thousand Song Siege added only to their myth. Names such as Aretaphilla Myia would be catapulted into that same realm as they sang a song powerful enough to save the City of Songs. Names such as Aris, as Paulus, as Aliki and Zeno and Wei Feng, each would make their mark in saving a city that should have fallen.
That was not Katha's battle.
Her battle was here, upon sweaty plains beneath a blazing sun far from a city on fire, fighting a band of Blood Path monsters scoring for an easy meal. A dozen of them, all told, against her unit of ten. The only ones standing between them and a fleeing party of a hundred mortals seeking refuge.
Her men were out there, three groups of three, three ghostly hoplites fighting back-to-back against monsters who outnumbered them and who surpassed their cultivation. It was simply the way of things; pound for pound, the Blood Path were stronger, faster, savage monsters to the core.
Although there was no difference within small realms, by and large the Blood Path climbed those ranks faster. Where the
Optimatoi flagged, the Blood Path
soared. Not for nothing were they a threat, even in spite of their infighting and of the many curses Heaven inlaid upon their very Path.
And Katha Theodoros, an untempered fledgling who had strength but not the talent to use it, now found herself fighting three of them at once. Out of position -
dragged out, even, by the strange enchantment layered upon their leader's rope dart - and isolated from her men, hunted by this band's leader and her favoured lackeys.
The woman simply sneered as she spun her rope dart lazily about, letting her cultivation hang over her like a cloying bloody aura. One of the men with her had spikes jutting out his spine and forming a crown of thorns about his head, his breath stinking with noticeable heat even in the desert. And the last man had simply
vanished from sight, the only hint of his presence being a crimson haze that might actually be poison.
Both men were only, by her reckoning, in the Sixth or Seventh Heavenstages, simple enough to manage even if she was green. But the woman bore a single Dao Pillar. She stood the First Stage of Foundation Establishment, and so in her first battle, Katha was already outmatched.
When the old woman told her to lead a patrol and get some sunshine, she thought it would be a good way to get to know the men and maybe, just maybe, get away from the constant lectures and lessons and charts and
coin counting. Her head had hurt then, but now it was
screaming.
Then, the woman licked her overly full and bright red lips, her complexion grey as the grave, her figure too full to be lithe and too round to be muscular. "Mm… Know that I, Anshan, am as merciful as I am beautiful! Surrender yourself, split your head and spill your blood, and I'll let
half of your men leave! I'll even let them choose if they want to surrender their hands
or their feet in exchange for safety!"
It was not an offer even worth considering. Katha spat on the sand and drew a line with her father's sword. "I don't deal with monsters, you pig-faced whore! Wherever you came from and whatever you hoped before the Blood Path took you,
this is where I sign your death warrant! One way or another, you will
not threaten those people again!"
Anshan laughed, and she licked her lips again with the full extent of a long sinuous tongue. She spun her rope dart faster as she tilted with her head and her two lackeys began to move. "Then I look forward to wearing your pretty face,
Devil, once I'm done eating your heart!"
----
When she first joined the Legions and passed boot camp, Katha ruefully wondered how long it would take her to attain any sort of rank.
Apparently, it took a little over ten years. Very little of which was actually spent with the Legions. It was almost funny how things turned out.
But instead she was getting grilled by the Centurion and all the other Principales on the outskirts of One-Boat, One-River Pass.
"Twelfth Heavenstage, huh? This young?" Primus Pilus Yangchen of the 427th Legion tilted her head at Katha as she inspected her like a prime-grade slab of meat, which made Katha try to resist the urge to fidget. Scrutiny was hard to deal with, and she's had to deal with a lot of it since she got back from the mountains. "Imperator, my grandson's twice your age and he hasn't even hit half that."
"Being fair, Centurion," a Principales said next to him, one of the other five crowding around her like an art exhibit, "Yi Ping's an idiot."
"He got hit in the head when he was three, Draco," another Principales commented blandly.
"Yeah, I know. That's why he's an idiot, Herk, I know you're an idiot too but could you try to keep up? You're Tesserarius now!"
"Wow. Fuck you, dude."
The other four Principales of Yanchen's Century kept their mouths shut and their lips drawn, carefully watching their Centurion's reaction. Katha did as well, wondering just what was about to happen.
Yangchen rolled her eyes and clicked her tongue. This seemed to horrify the Principales, though Katha did not know why. "Optio Arkodas?"
A bear of a man - literally, his arms and shoulders were overflowing with fur and his neck was thicker than an entire slab of pork - appeared out of nowhere, grabbed Principales Draco and Herakles each by the shoulder, then hurled them out of the crowd of officers that had surrounded Katha.
...Well, that explained things.
"Thank you." After Optio Arkodas growled back an acknowledgement, Primus Pilus Yangchen looked back at Katha and then she realised she was holding her breath again. She exhaled a bit too hard, which must have sounded like a sigh of relief. Which it might have been. Dammit. "The hell did the old man feed you, kid?"
"...Old man, Centurion?" There were a lot of old men in Katha's life, and many more surrounding it. "I-I'm sorry?"
"Tormenos, child. Skinny, goatee, constantly walks like he's got a chip on his shoulder or balls for a wheelbarrow?"
Katha blinked. The Centurion didn't look a day over thirty. Some wrinkles here and there mostly around the eyes, a bit of a green patina, and her hair was curiously feathered but it wasn't, like, grey or anything. Well, it was a bit, but not grey from age.
It never once occurred to Katha that maybe her grandfather's Blood of Bronze was, perhaps, not very good. Perhaps that was why he was so obsessed with the Blood of Bronze.
Ah, she should probably come back to the moment. What was the question again? "A-Ah… The usual, I suppose? Rice, grains, occasional meats and fortifying soups..." She shuddered. "Ginko nuts."
Yangchen nodded. "Well, he must be overjoyed to have you around. I'll level with you, Principales; you're not going to be sticking around in the 427th very long. You're a rising star, and the Clan can't get enough of them. You're just here to learn the ropes and pick up some experience in Legion life before you get kicked up the chain. With any luck," said Yangchen with a sigh, "You might make Centurion in ten years."
Katha nearly choked on her own spit. Centurion?! In ten years?! Most never reached it before they were a hundred! The number who hit it before they were fifty might be more than what two hands can count, but only because the records stretched back that far! She wasn't even forty and she was already in consideration? "Centurion Yangchen, that seems… It's insane! I've barely even started!"
Yangchen turned to her three remaining Principales, each of them exchanging looks. Then, she looked back at Katha. "And where would you rather be?"
Katha nearly stumbled over her words, but she refused to be cowed like this. Not now, not ever. "In the line, as part of the Formation! I can't learn to lead one if I haven't even fought as part of one, right?"
"You can do both," Yangchen replied curtly. "And flatly, I don't need another body in the shieldwall. I have plenty of hands for that. I need a Principales to stand in for Signifer Arkios while he's being treated for…" The Centurion sniffed. "Binghai, did Arkios lose one leg or one arm?"
"One each, actually," replied a man with a vertical gash that perfectly split his face into halves, bald-headed so one could see the blow that seems to have literally cut him in half. "Apparently he's going to try and grow a tree on one and eat a fish to heal the other. Jury's out on what he expects is actually going to happen."
"Huh. Alright, all the best to him," Yangchan scoffed. "Anyways, Principales Theodoros, that's what I need, and that's your job. You can refuse, and I'll send you back to the Dawn Fortress right now, no questions asked. I'll even get you a written commendation to be a Wandering Cultivator." Binghai and the others whistled, and even Katha knew what that meant; total freedom to adventure and cultivate, while still pulling Legion pay. An ideal appointment, if not for the fact that it was often used as a to demonstrate a lack of faith in your ability to command without offending old and powerful clan elders. "But you know, and I know, that you want this a lot more than you're scared of fucking it up."
"Which you are," Binghai said, neither gruffly nor with a grin, merely a simple fact stated flatly. "And you will. And we will have to deal with it. Together."
Yangchen pointed at him with her quill, and the single gesture would have started a fire on Binghai's shoulder had he simply not caught the Qi and snuffed it out with a pinch. "Zip it, we only get them because I'm too nice to you lazy bastards. But he's right," she added, taking on a gentler, more matronly tone as she addressed Katha once more, even while the rest of her Principales began making a racket. "You're going to fail, and you're going to fuck up, and you're going to give me trouble that I wouldn't have with a more experienced officer. And that's fine. Within reason," Yangchen added. "You get any of your men killed for no good reason and I'll personally draw and quarter you in the Theodoroi fashion."
"...I wasn't aware there was a Theodoroi way to draw and quarter someone," Katha said in a small voice.
The Centurion snorted. "Then pray you never find out, because it's pretty messed up. But every mistake you make here is a mistake you won't make once you wear my laurels, whether you care to or not." Then, she sighed, and clasped her hands together on her desk. "It will be hard. I'm going to stretch you to your fucking limit. Every minute you aren't dealing with the men will be spent here where I'll drill military strategy into your head until you are spilling with the wisdom of Old Alexios every time you shake it. But by the time we're done here at One-Boat, One-River Pass, you will be ready."
Katha nodded. It would be a good trial, getting to know the men and mastering military command. Finally, she felt like she was in her element. "And if I want to be better than that, Centurion?"
Yangchen barked a laugh, which sounded more like a squawk. "Then you will listen to your fellow Principales, because they've been stuck with me longer than you've been alive. More than that, though, you will listen to your troops, because they have been in the dirt getting wrecked by Cannibals for over a decade at this point, and they have gotten very good at managing it."
"Even if they're stupid two thirds of the time," Binghai noted, again without malice or joy. Simply stating facts. Katha was beginning to wonder if he really was just trying to be helpful in his own way.
"Yeah, they're idiots," Yangchen groused. "But hell, now they're your idiots too. One last thing, Principales; I don't much care if you want to do your duty to the Clan. I just have two ground rules: do it on your own time, and no kids. I'm not dealing with the Chirurgeon."
Katha tilted her head, which made Centurion Yangchen chortle. "Duty… to the Clan, Centurion? Like, dying?"
Shaking her head, Yangchen straightened her expression shortly thereafter. "Right, you're still young. Well, if any of these horny bastards try anything, remind them that it's basically cradle robbery."
Katha's cheeks dusted red. "A-Ah."
"Yeah," Yangchen nodded. "They're disgusting. Is there anything else you'd like to ask, Principales Theodoros?"
"N-Nothing at the moment."
"Then welcome to the 427th, Signifer. Today is the day we hand out the men's pay. That's your job, by the way."
Katha stifled a groan. This was just a test. She'll just have to deal with it, one leg at a time. Or however it went.
----
The first man she killed had eyes like rings of coal.
It was a strange thought to have, but Katha saw them starkly as she stabbed between them, the pitter-patter of soil falling around her blunting the heat-shock of blood iron flame. The claw on his hand that dribbled with poison now dangled off them by the barest of grips, barely holding on and soon to fall.
By the time it did hit the ground, less than a breath later, Katha had stabbed him five more times and turned his head into a mush of bone and meat. Twisting on the ball of her feet, tearing blades of grass free by the heaviness of her footfall and the friction of her sandals, Katha launched the almost-headless corpse of the first lackey at the second like a long, unwieldy spear. The scaled man unleashed another gout of flame, belching a wall of brown and silver blood-fire that already began to turn their former companion to ash.
Another two seconds, Katha's keen eye surmised, and the whole thing would be carbonic ash. Worthless for anything but concealment. What a frightfully powerful flame.
But he had not opened the fight with it for a reason. Her gamble paid off.
The cloud of ash his friend's corpse had become coated the scaled man's body and scalded his eyes with white hot ash, and as he clawed at them Katha was already on her. A knee to the belly knocked the wind out of him and denied further desperate breath attacks. An elbow to the back, bolstered by Qi, shattered his spine and numerous back spikes. Throwing him to the ground, Katha brandished her father's xiphos and ripped his heart apart with five precisely-aimed stabs.
In the span of a minute or less, Katha cared not for time right now, she had evened the playing field against a Foundation Establishment senior. For her first actual battle, considering she had not even drawn the Hornsword to do it, this would be commendable. Considering the circumstances, Katha judged she had been too slow.
It was only by hairs that Katha avoided the next rope dart strike, and even then it had proven irrelevant. It struck at the space that she had filled just a moment ago and tugged at her as if it had bitten into flesh and metal. With mad laughter Anshan dragged Katha off the ground and into the air, before bashing her face into the dirt once more.
As the rope dart dislodged, her senses screamed for her to
move. She rolled, though the world still spun about her, and again avoided death by hairs as Anshan's knee buried itself where her head once laid.
Katha continued rolling until she found leverage, and launched herself off the ground with a hand. Her sword was still in hand. Her helmet had long come loose. And Anshan, her portly build belying the power of a One-Pillar Cultivator, rose slowly and dangerously to her feet, still spinning her rope dart.
She was toying with her, Katha knew. Her mind worked, trying to find a path forward, a way not to die.
This might be it. Qi Condensation cannot fight Foundation Establishment without help! You are alone, you are far from help, you cannot possibly outrun her!
Death seemed so close. But the beetle's disappointment still echoed in her ears.
Don't you dare have the temerity to die, inferior aspirant, the beetle chittered,
An inferior aspirant as you has no right to throw away such a gift!
So, instead of despair, she found nothing, coldly shining within. It eased her heartbeat, cooled her thoughts, allowed her to think rationally and coldly. Distance would not save her, not as long as the rope dart remained in Anshan's possession. Waiting it out would not save her, for though the scions of Bronze are enduring and tough, she merely condensed Qi where her opponent had long surpassed such need. Her foe was faster and stronger as well.
Yet, Anshan's lips had twisted into mocking rage. Blood Path was a road to power, but it came at the price of mental and emotional stability. All cultivators were mad, or would soon become mad; but Blood Path was cursed by the Heavens. If she struck while the other cultivator monologued, she might have an opening.
She considered the Hornsword, but decided against drawing it. Her second blade would remain sheathed. This was no time to draw. Besides, it would show her hand at a time of utmost secrecy.
She had no chance against a fresh Foundation Establishment Expert. She might be able to outrun a wounded one and form a Formation before she could return. And a Formation with her at the head might scare her off.
It was a shaky plan, but it would have to do.
"Pretty
girl," Anshan had snarled. She stopped twirling her rope dart, dropping its head into the earth. "Such power and desperation, but no skill! You fight like a wallflower! So
delicate--"
Katha rocketed out, sword blazing with Qi. The distance between her and Anshan was a single breath, too short by a hair to strike with surprise. But where her sword came short its Intent would suffice. Its cutting edge extended beyond the physical form, as she
cut--
--And struck nothing but air.
"--And so
naive!"
The Blood Path Expert was beneath her, clods of earth where she had stood. Katha had cut the soil, and as it rained down in clumps Anshan tangled her blade with the rope of her dart. Katha tugged quickly, but she was too weak, and too slow by half.
Anshan cackled madly. Before her eyes, Katha saw space warp, time
disjoint for an instant, before her father's sword shattered in the mere embrace of rope.
Katha caught herself and corrected her balance, but Anshan kicked her square in the chest. Elissa's Armour held, but such momentum could not simply be negated. She landed on the side of a small hill rise, coughing blood.
"
This is the nature of power, little girl red!" Anshan
roared with laughter as Katha freed herself and rose once more to her feet, defiant in the face of certain death. "I offered you terms, and now you face the price of rejection! You're just too slow, too tired, too
weak, and now you're a Sword Cultivator without a
sword! Only a fool tries to fight above their Great Realm, dumbfuck! What can you do without your precious weapon?!"
Rage, long bubbling from her soul and tempered by tension and battle, now came to the fore untempered and unabated, raw and red hot. "What are
you, Anshan?! What do
you know of power?! You
eat people, drink their blood, consume their souls, and for what?! So you can
eat more people?!!" She threw the hilt of her shattered blade on the ground, fists clenched until the bronze of her gauntlets began to grind loudly and sharply. "You're a monster, Anshan! More than that, you're
ugly, body and soul! You gorge, you
feast, all so you can gorge and feast some more! What are your goals? Your plans?!
Your fucking reason to become stronger?!"
Anshan replied with a scornful and haughty laugh, barked with spittle and bile. "Hah! Goals? Plans? What does it matter, when such things need power to be done! What do such high ideals
mean, when they all end at the same point!
Power is all that matters! Becoming
stronger is the only reason you need to be stronger! Come, let this senior teach you a
proper lesson!"
Anshan moved, at first a walk, but then a determined stride. And it was then that Katha finally drew the Hornsword. Larger than her father's xiphos and slightly-curved, hewn from the horn of the beetle who taught her - no,
shaped her into a receptacle that
could be taught. Polished alabaster and streaked with electric blue veins, it cast no shadow and caught no light. It seemed ethereal, its reflections not of light, but of will and resolve.
Anshan saw the blade, and began to run. But by then, Katha's fury had grown painfully, frightfully cold.
"You have nothing to teach me," said the scion of the Theodoroi. She closed her eyes, for there was nothing left to see. "In the end, you're just another Blood Path moron, drunk off their power and too blind to see
why Heaven cursed you so. Your life has been a
waste, and your legacy a poison in the drink of everyone you have ever crossed paths with."
Sneering, Anshan took another step, crossing great distance in a single breath and standing just over an arm's length from Katha. She threw her rope dart once more, wrapping it around the Hornsword just as she had her father's sword. She transmitted a specific frequency along the rope, commanding it to warp space and sunder time to destroy the sword utterly.
But the Hornsword remained unbowed. Hewn from the chitin of a Nascent Soul, it stood proof against such petty blandishments. It remained firmly whole, intact and flawless. Instead the rope dart tore itself to shreds, its own enchantment turned against it. And now Anshan stood, defenseless in the face of a woman just strong enough to threaten her.
So Katha spoke, her face blank, even serene.
"Anshan of the Noble Devil Alliance. For the attempted consumption of one hundred innocent refugees. For the deaths of your countless victims. For the pain you've inflicted on friend and foe alike."
And coldly, with neither feeling nor remorse, offered neither mercy nor pain, but Judgement.
"The Judgement is Death. May your victims know peace with your passage from this Sea."
The Hornsword swung down and struck true. Anshan, held in place a second too long by her own rope dart, was split into halves. She died not long after when her head was parted by a second swing, decapitating her fully.
And as her body fell this way and that and her head did not follow, Katha sheathed the Hornsword and rejoined her men not merely as their Principales, but as a Junior who had struck true above her Great Realm.
The rest of the battle was not even an afterthought.
----
Returning to camp, however, was not.
First they had to collect the bodies of the cultivators that attacked them, for even Qi Condensation bodies had some worth and the
Optimatoi were not known for being particularly wealthy, capable of turning away such resources. This proved troublesome, for Katha had made a mess of two of her enemies, to the groans of her
Conterbernium.
Then, they had to find the refugees they saved. This proved easy enough, but took time, and legionnaires who had their blood raised from a hairy battle that could have gone poorly - after days of trudging through humid and muggy plains, mind - found it hard to treat mortal refugees with much kindness.
Then they actually returned to camp, where Katha quickly split the duties before she left to report to Primus Pilus Yangchen. As luck would have it, she was alone, writing orders.
The laugh she barked when Katha gave her report, however, attracted the other Principales to her tent.
"Seriously? A Foundation Establishment? Already?" Draco was sitting down, doubled over from laughing too hard. "Holy
shit this is amazing! You're a real chosen, Theodoros!"
"It was her first fight," Principales Heraklus murmured while he looked at his hands. "Her first fight and she killed a Foundation Establishment Expert on her own. The fuck am I doing with my life?"
Optio Arkodas, whose beady eyes and broad nose Katha found ever more bear-like by the day, simply snorted and nodded at her before placing a paw-like hand on Heraklus' back in solidarity.
And Binghai looked at her before simply nodding. "No one died, too. Good work, Theodoros."
Katha, worriedly, finally turned to Centurion Yangchen, who was still sighing wistfully about the whole thing. "You even pronounced judgement, eh?" Yangchen asked, smiling.
"...Y-Yes, Centurion. Before I cut her in half."
Yangchen scoffed. "Well, if I had any doubts - and I
didn't - this would have quelled them. You're
definitely making Centurion one of these days. Maybe even sooner."
Katha squeaked. She had only just gotten used to being Signifer and managing pay and giving orders. Being Centurion was still a long,
long road ahead.
"In any case," Yangchen sighed, "You've done good work, which means that it's going to be its own reward. I'm going to need a written report by tonight, plus names for tonight's guard duty. And I'm still waiting on your treatise on the Righteous and Demonic Paths, Signifer."
Katha paled. "Centurion, I've been on patrol for two weeks. Could I get an extension for my essay?"
"Well," Yangchen said, quill raised to her cheek thoughtfully, "Considering you've just done the impossible and killed a cultivator in the Great Realm above your own… No." She returned to her orders, then looked up at her. "Before sunrise, Signifer. Get."
After several more minutes of begging, Katha left the tent, tail between her legs and hands around her head. It would be another sleepless night.
She should have been a Wandering Cultivator after all.
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