Hmmph... this junior is a good seed [Cultivation Management Quest]

[occipitallobe]

Good Seed and Omake Spreadsheet Rules:

Firstly, if you have questions about Good Seeds and the like please read here. If that doesn't answer your question please ping me in thread, or on Discord.

If you write a new Good Seed, or write an omake, please update the spreadsheet if you have access.

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This is mandatory. If a Good Seed does not record their omake by pinging collabs (or just requesting access and editing things themselves - this is the preferred option), I won't give out awards. If a new Good Seed is not recorded here, they won't advance. By doing this it makes the whole thing manageable for me - it's gotten pretty unwieldy!

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Omake Writer Instructions:

There are four fields you need to fill out.

Omake Link, which is just a link to your first omake for the turn. This makes it easier for me to read them as I do the update - without this it's tough to know off the bat which omake were written this turn, and to properly

Requested Bonus, which is your requested bonus for your omake. You can leave it up to me if you like. You can see more info in the Good Seed infopost here.

Cultivation Aims. For those following unorthodox paths - higher than 9th Heavenstage or later than 7th Dao Pillar paths. Please put in what you are aiming for before you break through. I have left it as 'default'. If you do not edit it, I'll go with that.

Turn Notes - Do you want to do something specific? Enter a Secret Realm? Help the Clan out in some way? If you have something specific you want to accomplish on this turn, put it in turn notes so I can adjust your Fate around it.

All other fields are for QM use to record character information to properly run the flow of the game.

 

[Swordomatic]

Year 260

The voyage was long, and they of the Golden Devil Clan were regarded with thinly-disguised disgust and ire. As the 302nd and 501st Legions made their long-awaited voyage back into the Desert that they now held total hegemony over, there was much cheer and celebration despite their frigid treatment - and the lack of wine and good food to trade for, given that more villages closed their larders to them on the way out than had going in.

Still, the good mood in the air was infectious and impossible to stamp out, and so the Legionnaires of the Silverine Bracers pat themselves upon the back for another job well done, and the Legionnaires of the Dawn's Fist exulted in another job well done, even if their job scope was comparatively limited for the bulk of them. Fighting the Insidious Poison Maze was a matter of extended grinding attrition, of breaking the vines and tendrils against their shields and spears and alloyed skin, and they excelled at that, but there was no getting around the fact that, by and large, their presence at the Poison Crushing Siege meant little in the grand scheme of things. This was no Thousand Song Siege.

But it was still better than what the Righteous Powers had managed, for it was in their sector alone that a Bramble Tower fell, and it was by their Experts alone that the Bear Enslavement Elder Bearking was rescued from certain doom, along with the first successful mass breakout of prisoners from the Experiment City in living memory. To be able to save lives from the verifiable worst place in the Region was no small victory, and the fact that no one else seemed to recognise it did nothing to diminish that accomplishment!

As one of those who was saved, as one who can personally verify that Chunwang is, in fact, the worst and the inferno they left in its wake has certainly made it better, Saria Duca did little to participate in those revelries. These were young men and women, Legionnaires cast from bronze and quenched in war, born to a Clan that was both triumphant and swelling with wealth and influence. A better place than the Clan she knew, a Clan that was frenetic with enemies on two fronts and a Clan that could do little but spend blood for time and favour, but a different place nevertheless. It would be some time, perhaps even a long time, before she ever got used to the new Clan, the new state of affairs. The fact that they only need to point their shields and spears in one direction, because their backs are against a wall in the right way for once.

There were other things at work influencing her trepidation, of course. She was a Duca, even if only by adoption and law, and that name had a great deal of sway now that Destasia Duca was not merely a Legate, but the Chartoularios Tou Kanikleiou, the Elder of Disciples, and had both vastly more resources and the ear of the Grand Elder to push her sometimes-unethical ideas. Ideas that often bore fruit, ideas that were little different to the Clan's normal methods of spending blood except in the how and the result, but they were unusual ideas being proffered to a Clan that took pride in tradition.

And so people were in awe of her but also guarded, because she was a Duca. Because her skin was silver and her hair tinged with blue. Because she survived Chunwang for something like twenty years, and that either made her someone not to cross or someone who might snap. And so people gave her a wide berth, and that suited her just fine. Because Saria Duca was used to being alone and passed over, and honestly the solitude was almost comforting at this point. It gave her berth to cultivate, and more importantly it gave her room to think and process.

Because it was not just the fact that she looked unlike the vast majority of the Clan, unusual even by the standards of unusual talents because her skin was not bronzed and her hair not golden, save for a scant few like the Silver King. It was because of what that same Silver King had said, and what her eyes had put proof of when they had returned, when she saw just who was manning the guard station for the combined camps of the 302nd and 501st Legions.

The same light skin. Striking gold eyes. Brilliant red hair streaked with a flash of sharp silver. She was an unusual talent even by the standards of unusual talents as well, but the main thing that struck out at her was how much she looked like Riala. Because no matter how much she avoids bringing up the topic and no matter how much she gives implied threats of ultraviolence to anyone who might push the topic, she always was and always would be a scion of the Theodoroi. And the redheaded girl in front of her, the one whose Aretaphilla Myia's casual amiability proved beyond the shadow of a doubt - and was later confirmed by a simple question - to be the true Centurion XXI, the role she filled for the duration of their breakout from the Experiment City.

Because of course she would just be filling Riala's shoes again. Just because her older sister had been dead for eighty years did not mean she did not cast her shadow everywhere.

The sudden flash of anger threw off the silver-skinned Centurion for a moment, one she quickly quashed with guilty alarm. She did not mean to be so bitter, but sometimes the urges of her Blood were difficult to control. She thought she had gotten a decent grasp upon them after that encounter with the Beetle in the Man-As-Mountain Array about thirty years ago, but sometimes she still felt it. The rage, the indignation, the absolute pride in her ability to kill. Because why wouldn't she be able to defeat every upstart in this pathetic world?

She shook her head again, clapped her cheeks enough to sting. Beneath a moon-kissed sky, a fair distance from the camp's mess tent but still within the boundaries of the walls, Saria stood up and began collecting her things, pulling them into a storage ring; the only thing her father left her, when she was married into - she would say off to - the illustrious House Duca.

Imperator's hairy legs, just looking at it had brought a deluge of memories back to the forefront of her mind. Now she had the strongest urge to spit on it, and that was no way to treat and impossibly old relic that had been given to her without strings attached. The number of people who were just given a storage ring can be counted on a standard Centurion-level census of a Legion, but that is only because the Grand Elder killed a Nascent Soul some two hundred years ago. It was otherwise the sole domain of the wealthy and the influential, or the children of such.

The Theodoroi were both, once. And the old man's obsession with becoming both again had ruined more lives than he could ever make up for.

Another flash of anger, but this one Saria allowed to reach the forefront. She did not scream, did not shout indignation at the Heavens for all they deserved it. She simply pivoted upon a heel, then struck a nearby stone mound hard enough to shatter it into five chunks, two of them further disintegrating into sand.

As quickly as it had come to her, the strength left her again, and Saria could barely stay on her feet. Stupid, using strength on something as frivolous as that. She was not like most Centurions, not able to casually exert power like the demigods they were. She had to husband her strength, conserve it until she could identify specific points, then bring it out in one explosive wave because she could not sustain anything else, nothing for the duration and nothing at a lower modulated standard.

She was Saria Duca. An Expert of the Golden Devil Clan. And she was essentially a missile, a bomb, unleashed once and then expended for the rest of the day. An oddity of the Clan, an aberration of the blood, it was why she was a curiosity of the Duca. It was why she was abandoned by the Theodoros. It was why she was a prize of the Old Worm, may he rot and wiggle in hell.

She was of the Clan, now and forever. Duty was her calling card and she would die to see it through. And she would stand by the strictures of the Clan now and forever. No pact with unrepentant evil. Death to the enemies of the Imperator.

But she would never, ever be Saria Theodoros again. That girl died a hundred years ago.

And the woman that survives today knows nothing about and cares nothing for a silver-skinned junior who is the splitting image of a dead woman, except for all the parts that she inherited from her father. A comrade, a companion, someone who could have been more than that, until he was taken away from her. By a dead woman.

Standing with empty hands but for a ring on her finger, Saria looked briefly into the mess tent, saw the young Katha Theodoros seated at the head of the bench in a place of honour, surrounded by officers and looking out of her depth. She is taken in hand by another Centurion, this one young in the way that all talented cultivators are, and make a face that is between disgust and irritation, rousing another wave of belly laughter.

She could be there. Surrounded by warmth and kin, offered good food, given a sense of belonging.

She clenched her fist, and turned to walk the other way. Not because of the young woman, who otherwise seemed like a capable and empathetic young woman, but because of everything she represented.

Unfair? Perhaps. But fairness was a choice. And she was not gracious enough to make that choice right now. She might make it in the future. She might know. Who knows?

The only thing Saria Duca knew for sure was that she was filled with surprises.

----

Katha Theodoros 22 - A Study in Silver Steel

----

"Katha. You are, as ever, full of surprises."

The pale Centurion fidgeted in her seat, an eye on her grandfather's expression. He had asked to see her the moment the DI returned from the Poison Crushing Siege, and the tone of the message did not tolerate dilly-dallying. She had hurried home, and now there was tea in front of her and nothing made sense. It was several long minutes before Katha realised that her teacup was still on the table, while Tormenos had already begun nursing his.

Katha reached for it quickly, her grandfather keeping an eye on her the entire time. She did not drink it, merely hold it before her. It was easier now, but she still needed to concentrate on sitting down, lest she wreck the furniture.

Chuffing, though whether with a grumble or with mirth she still could not tell, Tormenos took a long pull of tea before setting his cup down. "Your injuries have healed? Remarkable. Such wounds often take a lifetime to recover from. And here you are, better than ever."

Katha nodded, her motions a blur, untempered by her mind as it raced a mile a minute on other matters. Tormenos frowned, which only sent her head spinning harder. This was not how she envisioned spending her first day home.

"...Tell me, are you having trouble moving? Too fast, too strong? Do you have to modulate your weight now, and has your tolerance for Water Qi suffered?"

Katha blinked. Holding her breath, she nodded again, this time a slowly measured motion. "...Yeah, all of that and more. You know what's going on, grandfather?"

"Bits and pieces," the old man admitted as he stroked his beard. Then he stood, his loose attire no longer obscuring the whipcord power contained within those lean sinews from Katha's eyes. "When you've finished your tea, Katha, meet me on the outskirts of the estate. You wish to put your new body to the test, and I have not fought a peer from this household since your mother died."

"Grandfather, do you have ways of overcoming a Core Elder's defenses?"

Tormenos stopped in his tracks. He looked over his shoulder, an eyebrow raised at Katha. Then, he chuckled, low and impressed. "Your bloodline concentration must be incredible, my dear. Yes, I think I can manage. The real question, Katha, is whether you are ready."

Halfway through a sip, Katha looked up at him. She swallowed, but though her tongue was warmed by the chai her throat remained dry. "Ready for what, grandfather?"

"There are many tales of Legionnaires who can fight on even footing with a Centurion. Speed, stamina, toughness, these aspirants commanded all these qualities in equal measure. You, my granddaughter, may be one of these. May," he added with emphasis, as Katha's jaw began to fall open. "This will be as much an assessment as it will be an instruction."

The words left her mouth before her brain could process.

"What if I beat you, though?"

Quickly, Katha covered her mouth with one hand, but the deed was done. Her grandfather laughed, a greater chuckle this time.

"If you can beat an Expert in the Great Circle, then you will be the most powerful Junior this Clan has produced in thousands of years. But talk is cheap. Finish your tea, then come. I will put you through your paces, because no one else in this family can."

The old man left without another word. Now it was just Katha and her tea, rapidly going from piping hot to lukewarm. Contemplating going up against her stern taskmaster of a grandfather, one who had softened for decades after ascension but was still distant and cold at times.

She sighed, hard. "I should have just gone to Chunwang."

----

Tormenos Theodoros is an Expert in the Great Circle.

Looking at him, one would not think this. Though his hair has not yet gone white, he carried himself with the weight of ages. His shoulders were slumped, his backed was slouched, his features stony and his brow always set in a frown. Add that his build was lean and whip-like and one could easily mistake him for being a powerless old man, one stiff breeze away from being knocked over. And despite being of the generation of Rina Callista, Aretaphilla Myia or the late Elder Xiao Yi, he looked, felt, and acted like a significantly older individual than any of them.

But make no mistake. He is and remains a tremendous talent despite his inability to advance. Despite his appearance, he stands shy of three hundred, yet he already stands in the Great Circle of Foundation Establishment. Were he more able to confront the Dao, he would have crossed into Core Formation long ago, and House Theodoros would not be in such dire straits. But he is and remains a Centurion of the 3rd Legion, even if he has largely retired from warfare.

The man that stood before Katha Theodoros was no scarecrow, no stick-limbed effigy. His chiton has fallen loose of his shoulders, baring his upper chest to the world and revealing toned bronze muscles. He bore no weapon, carried no shield, though he freely invited her to use whatever she preferred. The panoply he once carried into battle remains within his study upon a stand, well cared for but not often used.

But there was excitement rattling within Katha's bones despite the obvious lopsided nature of this match. Was it the blood within her veins, now aching as a battle against a true opponent awaited them? Was it her own desire to put her body to its utmost limit, to determine the extents of her capabilities?

Was she basic enough to still desire the approval of her grandfather? Did it matter in the end, considering he is as far beyond her as most Disciples are behind her?

Katha's gaze was forward, yet her attention was primarily on her feet, moulding the Qi that kept her from sinking into the ground.

Then, her grandfather spoke. One word, carefully crafted before being unleashed into the world.

"Begin."

No sooner did he speak did she move, the impressions of footsteps pressed into the ground seemingly before she even reached it. The world blew right past her into a single point, and it all happened in the time for her to go from one thought to the next.

A hundred hesitations struck her at once, like a solid bronze wall. What if she swung too hard? What if he had misjudged her abilities? She did not want to hurt him. This is a spar, not a battle. She should have left the Hornsword aside and used a blunt stick. These thoughts and more sapped the strength from her strike, leaving it sluggish.

Not that it mattered. Tormenos Theodoros had already stepped out the way, a clawed hand reaching leisurely out at the top of her head.

Katha recoiled instinctively, throwing herself back so hard she nearly struck her head into the ground. Instinct reacted before thought could, plunging one arm into the ground and pushing her off, until she flipped back onto her feet. She sank into the ground halfway up her shins, deep furrows in the sandy loam.

Tormenos was right in front of her, clawed hand under his shoulder primed to thrust.

A flash. Katha saw fire. Five points of light, drowned out in the daytime. Five points of heat, unmistakable despite the noontime haze.

He pressed forward. Her head snapped back.

One thought flowed into the next. A third. Katha blinked as gravity embraced her and she sank into the ground.

She blinked. Her chin was still cool, not burning. When she looked around, she found her grandfather's clawed hand still extended, but not at all making contact.

Tormenos exhaled and the five flames extinguished themselves. He turned to her, extending a hand - flat, this time, a helpful gesture. She took it, and he wrenched her from the earth. As she pat herself clean, clumps of dirt falling off her body and leaving her clothes stained brown, her grandfather spoke.

"You've likely heard Yangchen talk about my exploits by now. Do you know how?"

Katha nodded automatically. "A fire art of some sort, which you have mastered beyond the shadow of a doubt."

"Correct, but only partially."

Katha turned to him, an eyebrow raised. "You can use the other elements?"

Tormenos held up a hand, and he breathed sharply, yet shallowly. Ice coalesced around his digits, until they became frigid claws. He relaxed his hand, letting the ice dissolve into motes of Qi, then flexed again and turned them to stone. And he did it again for wood, his nails gaining a wooden texture momentarily, before he balled his fist and sheathed it in black iron.

Finally, her grandfather exhaled. Patriarch of the House, he was not winded, but still he seemed exhausted. "Only partially. I am most proficient with fire, and passable with water and metal. Wood and earth are difficult to demonstrate in proper combat. But all this, Katha, are the same art. The Element Crucible Fist. Once, one of House Theodoros' most impressive Body Arts."

Katha's eyes widened in shock, seeing for the first time one of her family's ancestral techniques. And this gave her pause, because not once did she ever see this taught in the past, not even after she became a Cultivator. She caught the salient word in her grandfather's spiel and latched on immediately. "Once?"

Tormenos nodded gravely. "It is not an art easily taught, and there has not been a teacher well suited to passing it on in… Long enough. Do you know the name of our Last Elder, Nagaeon?" Katha nodded. "He utilised this art to great effect for six hundred years. It was said that he once killed a Fifth Sea Hunter with a single finger, driven straight through the Dantian." A pause, one that grew pregnantly large before he finally delivered. "Your mother mastered it too, far better than I ever could. She would have taught it to you and your brother, I suspect."

Katha nodded. "Will you teach it to us now?"

"Of course. But another time. You, Katha, have more foundational issues to rectify before that."

Katha nodded. "I move too quickly for myself. It's difficult to keep up with my own actions in the heat of combat, let alone my enemy's."

"The fact that you weigh twenty times what you used to is concerning as well, but you seem to know how to mitigate that already. A feature of the True Blood of Iron, I'm sure." Tormenos nodded, then he began walking away, back to his original starting point a dozen paces away. "In my studies of our family's history, Katha, I have discovered and reflected upon a great deal about the practices of our family. Our ancestors did things in a certain way, and seeing you now I understand why. If the mind is unable to keep up with the body, then the only way to learn is by beating lessons until they become muscle memory."

Katha's face paled. Quickly, she held the Hornsword up, but Tormenos was already before her. Before the gale in his wake struck her in the face, he had already smashed his fist into the side of the nascent chitin blade and sent it spiralling, sticking blade-first into the ground.

"If you cannot think fast enough in a fight, Katha," her grandfather said to her, right in her face, "Then you must stop thinking of the fight."

"W-Wait, but muscle memory often does the wrong thing, just faster!"

"Your training and experiences up to now should have ingrained some of the right instinct into your body by now, and for the rest there is me." Tormenos raised a fist, cocked over his shoulder. "Now, I'm going to punch you in the face from the right. Do not think. React."

Katha opened her mouth to protest. Tormenos' fist flashed. He struck her hard, crashing heavily against her gut instead. Katha's mouth remained open, though slowly one of her eyebrows crawled upwards. Tormenos' gaze remained unceasingly against hers, though beads of sweat began to form on his forehead.

"...You said you were going to punch me in the face," Katha said in a small betrayed voice.

"...I was lying," her grandfather said to her, with enough shame to be sheepish. "But my, the True Blood of Iron is a marvel indeed. You endured an attack in Foundation Establishment like it was nothing."

"Uh… Thank you. I guess?"

"We will rectify this." Drawing his fist back again, Katha's eyes widened when she saw the ice coating his fingertips. "I understand you rust, now?"

"I'd rather not! It's a bitch to clean!"

"Then I suggest you learn to dodge. And rapidly."

That, it must be said, would eventually come to pass. But it would be easier said than done.

----

"And here you go, dearie, some of the bounty from the mission to Chunwang." The administrator gave her a wizened smile, grandmotherly and comforting. She was an Expert like her but so much older, and she had not fought a war in a long time. "Welcome back to the Clan."

"A-Ah, thank you…" Counting the Contribution Points, Saria's eyes narrowed, her brow furrowed. "Ahm, excuse me? This is… This is a bit much, don't you think? I didn't do much at Chunwang besides get captured." She stammered as she looked up at her, unable to keep eye contact for long. "A-And I never took the mission to Chunwang!"

"Don't mind it so much," the administrator said with a wave of the hand. "There was a bounty posted for Old Worm, and Legate Myia confirmed you claimed the kill. She also stated you shared partial credit for the injuries dealt to Old Ironbone, impressive indeed! This is a fair allotment of resources," the old woman said with a gentle smile, "And well deserved. Take some time off, dear. This is a good opportunity."

Saria nodded dumbly as she thanked the administrator and headed another way out of the Dawn Fortress, considering the windfall that had been given to her. Considering the circumstances of torture, for most the resources would be spent on healing and recuperating.

But she didn't need that. Recovery was a matter of months for her, not years, horrific torture or not. By the time Saria had reported her return at the Dawn Fortress and been reinstated as a Centurion and Cultivator of the Imperial Optimatoi, she had already recovered from the ministrations of the Old Worm. Some months of good food, decent rest, marching and simmering anger were suitable remedies for decades of torture and carefully managed malnutrition, it seemed.

Saria wouldn't know. She was frail, not sickly. An invisible distinction for some, an important one for her. Ever since she entered Foundation Establishment at least she healed quickly, she simply lacked strength. But for a Clan of strong men and women, lacking it was the same thing as sickness, depending on the people you asked.

Still, as Saria passed through the gates of the fortress itself, she shook the dark thoughts from her mind. She was on the footsteps of the Dawn Fortress now, and past the gates there would be stalls with food and inns for rest. She could take the time to adjust back to life in the desert, be updated on recent affairs again, let herself become an actual person again.

How long has it been since she was with family? Did she even let them know she was back yet? Did they know already? Would they care that much? No doubt Lady Destasia was interested in her unique physiology, but was she interested right this instant? The answer was likely not, considering she saw all the hub-bub and rumours floating around about turtle ore and whatnot. Such materials were not lightly used, and they were invariably one of Lady Destasia's ideas. She had ever so many ideas, and she always had more, because she was always thinking.

Then suddenly, it struck her. Insight, comprehension, a daydream some would call it. Suddenly, it all clicked into place in her mind.

Saria stood there on the great sandstone steps for several seconds, blinking as she poured over her options in her mind and the revelations and insights she found in Chunwang, though she had not the mental capacity to process them at the time. Then, promptly, she turned about on the spot and marched right back into the Dawn Fortress, looking for a terminal for the Contribution Points Board.

Looking for the reports of one an Explorer named Absyrtus. Someone who, in time, would become a great name in the Clan.

But Saria knew little of that. She was no Diviner, no smug scion of the Time Shatter Sect. For now, Absyrtus was but an Explorer. A capable Explorer who was also a skilled cartographer. And he had drawn and posted a map that Saria had some interest in.

What Contribution Points she had on hand, Saria quickly spent on travelling resources. She would be fine eating dirt for a few days. Soon she could set off for an interesting spot in the Blighted Lands.

----

"So have you been literally eating dirt for the past few days, or do you just look that ugly now?"

Contact with water has become one of many concerns Katha has now, though fate had the mercy to only extend that to Qi-rich water. If it did not attract spirits, it did not draw the ire of the True Blood of Iron, and so she did not rust and start bleeding. Convenient, considering she was currently taking a piping hot bath, the steam fogging the bathroom. Opening a single eye, her arms spread out to rest on the rim of the bathtub, Katha raised an eyebrow at the copper-haired woman smirking in her direction.

Appearance is only skin deep. He might sound like an actual girl now, and he might have the sort of curves people associate with her now, but Rathos is and remains her twin brother. Even if he's currently cultivating with a Yin attribute, and likely would for the next couple hundred years.

"...Okay, gotta say. Don't actually have a comeback for that one. Nicely done." She opened her other eye, returning his smirk with her own grin. "Grandpa told me about it already. How'd it feel, literally cleaving Heavenly Lightning apart for… what, a day straight?"

"Thanks." Her brother leaned casually against the doorframe, one arm hugging tight under his chest - it was more modest than what Katha was familiar with, but he was also a lot more petite than she knew, which made for an interesting interaction in crafting silhouettes. But she held off on mentioning that; some things were definitely still alien to his experience, and so she would lay off those more sensitive topics. After all, she had centuries to go, and good insult material was not that easy to find. "It was painful, obviously… But it was also exhilarating." His voice was now notably higher, and rang like chimes or the splash of springwater. "I could have chanced it without a Treasure, but after ascending in the Tenth… Well, I hedged my bets. Rest is history."

"I'll bet." Katha closed her eyes again, exhaling as she dipped further into the bathwater. "Man, but that reminds me that I should start preparing already… Five Element Tribulation's going to be a bitch, I just know it."

"There's a non-zero chance a beetle will show up and handle it for you," Rathos pointed out.

"And a non-zero chance that a Jingshen Archer will shoot me in the chest!" Katha replied.

"Hey, you said it, not me."

They shared a small laugh, echoing in the bath. It was just good to know that her brother was not dead of lightning overdose, and had risen into the Second Realm. Never did sit well with her that Rathos was advancing more slowly than her.

"...So why're you talking to me in the bath? I'm literally taking a bath." Katha glanced back at Rathos, gesturing at herself with an errant wave of her palms. "As you can see, I'm buck naked. If there's anything else, we can talk about it after I get all the sand grandpa kicked into my mouth out."

Rathos' expression evened, the mirth leaving him somewhat. "I heard about what happened at the Poison Crushing Siege. You almost died, didn't you?"

"Yep. Every twenty years, like clockwork. It's like you don't know me, dude."

"Legate Aretaphilla Myia told me about the spiritual parasite she kicked out of you when she got back from Chunwang." The words hang as surely in front of her like the Heavenly decree that started the Great Era. "When you're done showering, come find me."

Katha closed her eyes once more, waiting testily as she heard Rathos' footsteps - lighter than they were, but no less measured - disappear down the corridor.

…Then rush back, a hail of thumps on the floorboards. "But don't hog all the hot water, you dick, I want to take a bath later too."

"Too late," Katha said with a sigh, as the aches left her body and she sank deeper into the water until her mouth was below the waterline.

"You are a dick, you know that?"

Katha replied, the words coming out as gurgles as bubbles erupted from the water. But they sounded something like 'It's why I'm so ugly, princess.'

That a physical battle did not break out between siblings is testament to the extents that they have matured. Or, at least, their consideration for collateral damage… Or at least, their understanding at what their collateral damage could do to their house.

They did only have the one, after all. Property prices were still insane in the core territories around the Dawn Fortress, even with all the growth.

----

Three hours later, dressed in light clothing and her hair tied up in a bun, Katha told her brother everything.

The mission to topple the Bramble Tower. Her adventure beneath the Insidious Poison Maze. Her encounter with the corpse-beetle and the pool of iron. The subsequent battle in the mind, whatever she could recall of it. Everything, she told him, down to the last detail.

She would tell their father and grandfather later. They all deserved to know. But Rathos deserved to know first, and with the privacy to process it alone.

When it was all said and done, she was alive. She was better than alive, actually. Awakening the True Blood of Iron had revitalised a great many projects, from what she heard. Katha had already received offers for her blood, though she had not answered them yet. But it was no easy thing, no force-fed power like the Beetle had given her. What she had, she fought and scrapped for, nearly dying in the process. And no one would have been the wiser, had she fallen short of the finishing line.

So when Rathos slapped her, snapping like the crack of thunder, Katha did nothing.

"You're an idiot," he said to her, glaring at her with a face that was just familiar enough that its feminine qualities continued to throw her off. It would be a while before she got used to this face, or his new voice. He nursed his hand under an armpit, where it was likely an angry red and throbbing with pain.

"What's new?" She asked with an airy shrug.

"Nothing, and you didn't go in without a plan like with Yuan, so at least there's that." He did not treat the matter with the same amusement she did, but Rathos carried himself with a lot more restraint and understanding than he used to. "Still, you do know that even for the Clan, half of all cripples never recover, right? And that recovery rate isn't improved by doing foolhardy idiocy?"

"I'm aware," Katha replied. "But, seeing as my Legate is the Silver King, I have learned to arbitrarily ignore facts until they suit me."

The look that Rathos gave her could have cowed armies.

"...You sure you don't want to be a King?"

"Oh yeah, definitely. That's not the sort of single track mindset I could commit to." Katha shook her head and shuddered her voice. "I met Rina Callista too. She's, uh… She's something. Her clumsiness is only skin deep."

"...And she scares you?"

Katha began to shake her head, but then stopped herself. Slowly, then, she nodded. "She, herself, is agreeable, respectable, indomitable and, dare I say it… Adorable. But she's, by all accounts, a paragon." She took another shuddering breath. "If that's what a paragon of the Single Pillar Path is like, then I don't want to walk it."

"I'll… take your word for it, then."

They sat in silence for a little longer, letting those words process just a bit more. Then, Rathos leapt to his feet, correcting his balance slightly before he pulled a scroll from a drawer. "By the way, fun fact! I was looking into mom's history before when I was preparing for my Tribulation, and I found some really interesting stuff about her!"

"Oh?" Riala Theodoros' death was a formative experience for the two of them, a singular tragedy that set each twin on a different path, but it was also something that had happened seventy three years ago. Any pain she felt at being reminded of her loss was now only a twinge, if that. They have long since broken from their mother's shadow. "So what did you find?"

"Did you know mom ascended at the 11th Heavenstage?"

That caught her attention. "Wait, what? But she ascended before she turned a hundred!"

Rathos nodded. "And that's not even the meat of it. She was delaying Tribulation for a long while. Did you know that mom could have become a Single Pillar King if she felt like it?"

"What?!"

----

"It is true," Tormenos Theodoros said with a proud nod, his hands clasped over one another over the hilt of the Hornsword plunged into the dirt, Katha groaning on the ground around it as he spoke. "Your mother was an incredible talent, who reached the 10th Heavenstage in only twenty years, and then the 11th only twenty later. She could have gone further, but refused, instead applying her efforts to the Clan and House." As he looked back on happier days, Tormenos chuckled mirthfully, joy lines wrinkling on the edge of his eyes for once. "Did you know that your mother met your father when she gave him a powerful cultivation resource in exchange for friendship?"

Katha groaned, which Tormenos took to mean 'yes'.

"I had flown into a rage when she told me! The Five Foundation Concentrate Pill is not something one can simply find or make so easily! But your mother simply laughed me off, and what was I to refuse her? She was already preparing for Tribulation, and our family struggles with the Lightning. To push her to go any further would be to risk her life even more. Two keystones is enough, she thought, and at the time I agreed." Closing his eyes, Tormenos nodded once firmly. "She would ascend to Foundation Building eighty ears after she started, spending the preceding forty years sharing whatever treasures she found with friends and family. She met your father then, and tried to aid your aunt with powerful resources." Tormenos shook his head and sighed ruefully. "To little avail. She was too weak to make use of most of them, and could only cultivate with their least vapours."

Katha, finally picking herself up from the ground, looked her grandfather with a quizzical look, one eyebrow raised sharply. "I have an aunt?"

"Once, perhaps. But I doubt Saria would care to recognise me as her father anymore, or your mother as sister." Turning his back, Tormenos walked several paces as he looked up at one of the trees in the estate, a tree with pink petals. "I had kept an eye on her even after she was married off, but she vanished forty years ago, a casualty of the Hong Xuan Expedition. No sign of her body, or of her bronze. I only pray that she died painlessly."

"Saria… Saria Duca? With silver skin?" Katha asked, and immediately Tormenos whirled about, eyes wide and bugging out. "There was a prisoner by that name when the Legatus raided the Experiment City. She's alive, we even brought her home."

"Saria… Saria was taken to Chunwang?"

"And she seemed fine," Katha said with a shrug. She cupped her chin, eyes narrowed in thought. "That… probably explains why she was with Legate Aretaphilla on the way back. Why does she have silver skin, though?"

"...Sit, child. I will tell you about the shameful actions I performed in the name of this family."

----

Her hunch had proven true. The Blighted Lands, the victims of generations of Cannibal predation, had already begun to recover and were becoming verdant and wealthy territories, with generations of mortals who no longer feared the day they would be eaten as snacks by uncaring immortals. That was a victory as far as Saria was concerned, but it was not why she was here. She was here because she had identified a spot suitable to her Tribulation, and found that she was more than ready to take on the lightning. It was unexpected, but her Cultivation had jumped leaps and bounds after her struggles in Chunwang.

It was something the Old Worm was good for, she considered in retrospect. He had a great many resources. It was easy enough to snag a few. Wilem even let her have first pick, which was oddly gracious of the man.

The Blighted Lands were a place previously ruined, who were later able to recover given an opportunity to breathe. Similarly, she had spent the first eighty years as a Junior fighting for every scrap, inch and iota, constantly wounded and forever blind in the massive shadow that her sister cast over her. Riala took to Cultivation with incredible ease, some saying that she could have become a King if she was of a mind for it. Meanwhile, it was a miracle that Saria hit the 9th Heavenstage when she did, and she had no stomach for the Keystones after that arduous experience.

But ever since she rose into Foundation Establishment, she has flourished. Escaping the frailty of her youth, though she was still weaker than the standard. Her encounter with that ancestor in the Qiguai Secret Realm, however aggravating it had been at the time, allowed her to bring the bloodline lingering within her to the forefront, the reason she had been so frail; when the ancestor told her that she had inherited the Blood of Mithril, it was unbelievable at the time. It was something Riala did not have. It was something she could call her own.

It was the beginning of her recovery. There were few better places to signify her rebirth, and those were all currently being ransacked by Sorrowful Blacksmiths.

And she had some small hope, too, that she could put everything behind her if she could just face Tribulation. When she emerged from Qiguai, it was in the hopes that she could stand as equals with her perfect genius of a sister for once. And when she emerged from Qiguai, just a handful of years before the Trials, Riala had been dead for almost a decade. To a lesson, of all things. A lesson by Old Gold.

There was no closure for such a death. No moving on. Just eternal questions that will never be answered, because the only person who could answer them is dead.

The only way Saria will ever be satisfied, will ever accept that she has caught up with Riala Theodoros, is by doing what so many believed she would do, and become a Core Elder. Riala would have been the first Core Elder of the Theodoroi in over a thousand years. Saria would simply join the august ranks of the Duca who have made the leap, amongst that number lady Destasia Duca. But it was impressive, whether or not she was the first or the most recent.

Riala Theodoros died an Expert. But everyone knew - or at least, Saria knew - that she would be the one to change the fortunes of the Theodoroi.

…Maybe if she had lived. Maybe if she had become the Elder. Maybe if Riala had more time, they could have reconciled. Saria would never bear the Theodoros name again, but they might have still been sisters. The reason that she could not bear to face Katha, interact with her, introduce herself to her niece was not spite or distaste. She had a strong disdain for House Theodoros, but the people within it are not the same thing. Her father? Certainly. Tormenos Theodoros is someone she could never forgive.

But Katha? Rathos? Riala's children with Shu Enya, someone she once called friend and companion? There is nothing there to forgive. But there is everything there she wants to forget.

Someday, she will be strong enough to face her. She will take her niece under her wing, and teach her everything she can about the Blood of Iron. She will share her burden, and teach her how to better manage the True Blood of Iron - if she has not figured out a way already by then, not become an Expert and made it wholly her own.

Someday. Not today. The anger and disdain and pride that flowed through the Mithril, that made her feel such things, that made her superior in the moments she could bear its weight, did not give her backbone in the ways that mattered. How quaint. She could kill a monster, inspire people with the power of revenge and threaten the life of a Single Pillar King - an Indomitable Thirteen! - for petty reasons. But she could not own up to her own mistakes and reconcile.

Alas, that would have to be someday. Someday not today. Today, in the Blighted Lands, she has a mission.

Today, Saria Duca climbs a mountain range. Today, Saria Duca faces the Heavens.

And she will kill it. Live or die, she will kill the lightning.

Because she is an instrument of war, a sublime engine of destruction. And she must destroy the enemies of the Imperator.

----

By the time Tormenos finished his story, Katha had been lost for words for a long time. She had an aunt, all this time, and she knew nothing of her. Saria Theodoros, married off to the Duca decades before she was born, because the family could not afford to prepare two scions - not least because one of them, Riala, was a genius who stood head and shoulders above the rest of her generation, to say nothing of her own little sister.

But Katha could understand why. She had to, if she wanted to give fair judgement. Saria Theodoros was born sickly, weak and constantly on the verge of death, her Qi reserves perpetually anaemic and all means of building up a body suited to cultivation were often wasted despite efforts. Her mother had even given a great many resources to her own sister, each more than enough to elevate a Disciple to the 9th Heavenstage in a matter of years, and yet Saria could do little more than take in the fumes.

Where her mother's rise was meteoric, her aunt's wallowed. She remained in Riala's shadow for all that time, and though her sister loved her dearly she also could not understand the struggles that Saria went through, because she never experienced them. And Tormenos, the hard, heartless man that he was back then, had closed his heart to feeling and made the rational, thoughtless decision. To abandon kin, to focus on kin. Because focusing on the proven talent would be a better way to restore the ailing house.

Except then her mother died during a lesson, at the hands of a Nascent Soul trying to teach about the dangers of resisting a Nascent Soul. Then her aunt finally reached the Expert Stage, ventured into the depths of the Qiguai Secret Realm, and emerged with a supreme body that surpassed all her previous abilities. But by then, it was too late to make amends.

For a long time, the two of them sat in silence, neither not sure what to say. One was too shocked, the other too guilty. What more was there to address? How could she speak to a man who had given up his own daughter, because she was too costly?

Even if it was eminently understandable under the circumstances. Even if he had acknowledged his mistakes. Even if the onus was not on her to give judgement. What could she say? What could she possibly do, besides leave the old man to stew in his regret?

Katha stood, her path clear. Tormenos looked up and called out to her before she could leave. "There's more, child. About this family. I have pieced together some of the secrets behind the Blood of Iron?"

Katha turned back to her grandfather, did her best to suppress the complex cocktail of emotions she felt towards the man right now. "What did you find?" She asked, perhaps sharper than she intended.

"Your abilities. The blood flows strongly in you, too strongly. The Blood of Iron is, quite literally, too powerful for you to handle right now. The only way for you to accustom yourself to your new speed and power is to rise to Foundation. Only then will you have the cognitive acceleration needed to master the True Blood of Iron." Katha nodded once, then began to walk away again. "Wait. I understand you seek to face Five Element Tribulation. If you wish to at least gain a degree of control, then you must learn to engrave good instincts into your body."

"That's not new information," Katha told him, her words sharper this time, tinged with iron.

"No. But getting beaten up by an old man is not going to help you. Not anymore." A lull. Tormenos was wondering if he should say this. "I have no wish to kill you, and you will not ingrain that valuable instinct without a fear of death. Go to the Beast-Raising Forest. Fight the monsters there until it becomes second nature. Then after that, find the next set of greater terrors and best them as well, again and again, until combat becomes truly thoughtless."

"...Thank you. I will take that into consideration."

Tormenos nodded. "And if you ever meet your aunt again… If you care to mention me, tell her that I am sorry. And I am prepared to make amends, in whatever way she desires."

Katha nodded. It was between her and the old man. She opened the door and stepped through it, ready to confront a forest of beasts.

----

Upon this blighted peak in a blighted land, Saria raised her fist to the sky and extended a single finger, ready to confront the greatest beast of all.

It would be foolhardy to some - really, to all who would care to witness - that she would invite Tribulation without so much as a warbanner to empower herself. No talismans to attract away lightning. No arrays to capture the vital force and deflect the killing intent. All she had were spirit stones and her fists, clad in silver and clenched tight. Save for a particular finger.

The tension, building up within her ever since she emerged from Chunwang, released in an abrupt, explosive snap. The skies above suddenly gathered stormclouds of great and fearsome quantity, pitch black and streaked with white lightning. Heavenly spite gathered, ready to strike her down for her temerity, and she returned the favour by raising her second fist and extending that same finger upwards.

It did little, not even rousing further hatred from the sky. But Saria believed that the gesture was apt. Here, with no witnesses, no audience, no one but herself and that which took so much from her, she had little reason to be polite and kind. She could bare her teeth and strike the earth, unearth the meager bounty that this pathetic pile of turtlebone and death had to offer.

With one hand, strike the earth. With the other, defy the Heavens.

"Come on then!" She bellowed skyward, her face a rictus grin filled with hatred. "I'll bet you were waiting for Riala, too! Well, tough luck! She's dead! But you can give me her share, I don't care! I'll fuck you up either way, you thoughtless ball of--"

White death, flawless and firm, struck from the sky, a firmament spear of heat and force. Certain death, punishment for insolence, the judgement of lightning was instant and conclusive.

A white arm, flawless and firm, struck back at the sky, a limb forged by history and struggle. Certain death, the price of insolence, the judgement of lightning was turned aside by the single extended fist.

No. Not turned. Grasped.

"--You thoughtless ball of scum," she finished, the anger bleeding with every minute.

As the lightning writhed and rasped and struggled against entrapment like a living being, laughter bubbled up from deep within her, dark and spiteful. All her life, she had been considered an impossibility, a silver devil. Weak amongst the strong, frail amongst the enduring. So many had said that she was an unlikely monster.

How little they knew. How true they were.

Today, she was exactly an unlikely monster. One that had not walked bestride the earth for too long, now returned after immortal solitude.

She clenched, the lightning died to nothing, and the sky screamed again as the vital force flowed up her arm and into her dantian, filling her with certainty, with defiance, with absolute ironclad will. As the seven pillars within quavered not with trepidation but with anticipation, the skies above rumbled and unleashed their fury again with tenfold force.

She struck back against those, again and again, feeling and knowing that each strike gave her more stability, more foundation, simply more. The mountain around her and beneath her fell to bits, seared to dust and less by the heat and hate of Heavenly spite, yet the ground beneath her feet remained firm and unyielding, emboldened by her own defiance.

The peak came apart, blasted to bits by a bolt she herself threw aside with carefully considered dismissiveness. Another came, and she split it apart with a single straight blow. A third, and she simply let it flow through her, absorbed so thoroughly that not an iota reached the ground beneath her.

Again and again, it came. Again and again, she turned it aside. Tempered, emboldened, empowered, Saria shed more and more of the girl she once was. The anger, the spite, the resentment, more and more were stripped from her by the force of lightning. All of it seemed so small, so petty before the being she would become, the throne she would soon claim. The resentment, the absence, the yawning loss, it was so small. It mattered so little compared to the primordial truth, what she had known all this time yet was too small to grasp. A truth she would soon understand in its totality.

The final bolt fell, a column of burnished white death ten men wide. It struck her, blasted the mountain to cinders, and in the aftermath she stood. Naked. Unmarked. Enlightened to the truth.

And it was so simple. Because only one thing mattered.

And this, Saria roared to the Heavens, her flesh cast from silversteel. From this day forth, she would be Saria Theodoros. She would be Saria Duca. She would be Saria Silverlord. She would be all these and more, for she could contain multitudes.

"Death to the Enemies of the Imperator," she said simply, last and first of the Mithril-Blooded. And this she would deliver, in vast and measured quantities.


(Total Wordcount: 9188 Words)

 

[Insane-Not-Crazy]

TURN 14, OMAKE 4 [Auspicious Nine]
Auspicious Nine 19: Look Above and See Grandeur​

Auspicious Nine made fire come alive from his hands. Around his hands, a warm golden flame burned, fueled by a steady from his internal energies by the Woodflame Token around his neck. The artifact converted Nine's innate Wood-aligned energy into powerful Fire energy. From the cupped bowl of his hands where tongues of flame licked the air above grained wooden skin, fluttering forms separated themselves the roiling mass off heat to fly jerkily into the air like primitive lifeforms ascending out of a primordial sea. Sticky sap-like sweat beaded Nine's forehead as he brought his full concentration on the genesis at hand.

One, then two and finally three flickering figures ascended from Auspicious Nine's hands to circle the crown of his head. The trio resembled birds formed from flame, winging round and round in an orbit of Nine. Mind you, these were not independent existences spawned by some generative act of Nine but constructs of energy maintained and moved by his will.

"Hah," he gasped out staring at the flying forms, while still devoting a tremendous amount of focus to supporting his creations, "Look at that. Aren't you the most beautiful things ever?"

"I don't see what you're so impressed about? You just performed a simple qi manipulation exercise a wet-nosed Qi Condensation brat just out of Induction could do on command. You're killing me over here, Nine my boy. I thought you were an Expert not some half-arsed hack," a mocking gravelly voice interrupted Auspicious Nine's appreciation of his accomplishment.

Just like that the absolute attention had committed to his task wavered and awareness of his surroundings bled back into his consciousness. The jostling of the auroch-pulled wagon he was in or the heat from the blazing orb of the noontime sun above were acceptable distractions but less so was the presence of the massive frame stretched out across from Auspicious Nine in the wagon bed. Thickly bearded with crazy hair and dressed in furs and leather, Nine's companion resembled a wild hermit who had wandered in from the desert wastes. Alas for Nine, he was not so fortunate. With hair the color of verdigris, deeply bronzed skin and sapphire blue eyes, the hefty fellow who had so rudely injected himself into Nine's affairs was no vagabond picked up by chance but a Centurion, an optio in truth, of the 353rd Legion of the Golden Devil Clan.

Smoothing away the disgruntled expression that threatened to dominate his visage and pasting a fake smile in its place, Auspicious Nine responded to the earlier comment. "While that may appear true on the surface, Centurion Augustine, I encourage you to look deeper. Examine the form and appearance of my creations closely."

Following up his prompt, Auspicious Nine directed all three fiery birds to stop their revolutions and hover in a line above the prone figure of Augustine. The other man hmphed, the blast of his exhalation causing the birds to move jerkily mid air as though caught in a tempest before Nine clamped down his will to settle them back in order.

Augustine examined Auspicious Nine's creations and evidently what he found did not impress him much. "They look pretty and that's just about it. What exactly am I supposed to be impressed by here?" he said with a grumpy tone.

Rolling his eyes at the predictably obtuse response, Auspicious Nine directed Augustine towards the highlight of his efforts. "Look at the detailing of their construction. Examine the colors of their plumage, inspect the accuracy of the physiology. Don't you see how lifelike I made them. Each one is a distinct bird, but I've captured their essence perfectly using just the medium of flame for everyone of them whether it is the Darting Blue-Throated Hummingbird, the Screaming Scarlet Sparrow or the Golden Crested Cardinal."

Augustine turned his head to see the look of tired pride on Auspicious Nine's face and grunted in disappointment. "Like I said before, they're pretty and that's all there is to it. They have almost no combat function I can think off or even mundane utility. It took you an inordinate amount of concentration to create them so you would be dead on a battlefield before completing just one and as far as I can tell maintaining the detailing you're so proud of requires enough attention that you're pretty much useless in any engagement. I'm not your commander but I'd hope that even the lazy fellows in charge of the 1313th Legion would have their Centurions focusing on something more useful when the Hundred-Year Trials are coming up."

The indignation Auspicious Nine felt at that remark broke the concentration he needed to maintain to technique and the birds puffed out of existence in a ripple of heat. Doubly aggravated from losing focus, Nine let the flames in his hands die and responded to Augustine's disparagement of his efforts. "The precision and attention to detail is useful and very relevant to certain combat techniques I employ, I'll have you."

Patting the saber belted to his side, he continued speaking, "A saber in the hands of a properly trained user is not just an edge to sunder opposition with but a brush with which to wield artistry against foes."

"I'll believe it when I see it," Augustine said, shrugging as he sat up, "But I don't have time to continue this conversation. We're close to our destination and I have to see to my troops."

Like that the other man easily leapt out of the wagon with an easy grace that belied his massive form and jogged ahead. Auspicious Nine tracked his motion up the long body of the caravan sent forth from the camp of the Defiant Slayers of Giants. The wagon he and Augustine had been located in was the tail of a long snake of marching legionaries and Spirit Beast powered transport carrying food, Spirit Stones and other supplies as trade goods. The benefits of rank had afforded the two of them the luxury of being exempted from marching in formation while being barked at by officers.

As Auspicious Nine watched Augustine inspect the troops under his command, he again repeated the observation that the legionaries had made better time in the last twenty four hours than past projections for Legion movements would have accounted for before the Jingshen war. The Millennium Oasis Formation truly deserved its elevation to the rank of mandatory education for all legionaries in the manner of the three prior Great Formations. Ferenike of the Indomitable Thirteen had not just made a mark for herself in the Miracle at Pleuron, but her legacy would forever more be embedded in the core strength of the Clan from Aspirant to Elder. That was a goal worth aspiring for, to produce a work of innovation and research that transformed the operational doctrine and capacity of the Clan.

Auspicious Nine sighed as he reviewed his own research projects at varying stages of completion and concluded that such an accomplishment was as yet far off. Nothing he had achieved so far was on track to winning anything close to the recognition that was his goal. The breeding of different breeds of insect Spirit Beasts as consumables had stalled out with only minor success. He was not breaking any new ground in his investigation of the Clan's bloodline although he was gaining a decent reputation for his monographs on mutations to the Blood of Bronze. Likewise brief dabbling in the Philotectes variant of the Kataphraktoi Formation had revealed that its workings were wholly derivative and offered little more room for improvement than had already been squeezed out. If he wanted to make his mark and expand the frontiers of knowledge, he needed novelty and grandeur. That burning desire and his own innate curiosity were what had set him on accompanying this caravan towards their destination. Learning from experiences outside the norm might just be the lever he needed.

As these thoughts run through his mind, Auspicious Nine lifted his gaze from examining the caravan's activities and looked to the horizon ahead. He and the rest of the caravan were in the area classified as the Foothills of the Colossus Footsteps Path and they had headed south from the 353rd Legion's base, skirting around the earliest rises of the mountainous range while keeping the perils of Nascent's Fall to their east. The secrets of traversing that cursed battlefield from the past had not yet been revealed to him but someday, Nine promised himself, he would firsthand witness the memorial to the deaths of no less than five Nascent Souls. That was for another time though so the caravan had continued south, picking up speed once they broke out of the lower lying areas of the western mountain range. Though Augustine had stated that the caravan was just now nearing its destination, that location had in fact been in sight for much longer. The desert Organ Meat Desert might have crests and valleys among its dunes made the terrain not perfectly level but the commanding stature of what they were headed to was little affected by that. The Whirlwind Tree was visible with the naked eye for miles around so high did its trunk reach up, bearing aloft a verdant canopy of branches and leaves. Taking in the majestic presence of the Spirit Tree, Nine was ever more convinced that having an arboreal heritage was much better than any Spirit Beast lineage.

The caravan made its way towards its destination which in truth was not the Whirlwind Tree itself. Instead as evening fell they settled down outside the oasis in the shadow of the magical tree and the settlement built around that body of water. Four Winds Whirlpool Oasis Town was a bit of a mouthful for a name but it was certainly an accurate. Auspicious Nine felt the tug of gently blowing wind all around as the caravan settled down for the night. The town was built in a broad arc on the southern hemisphere of the oasis with the towering slightly off-center Whirlwind Tree to the north. The caravan had actually come past the Spirit Tree to reach the town and Nine was hungry to build upon the brief inspection he'd been permitted on the way to Four Winds Town. He'd wanted to depart the caravan immediately once they had gotten close enough to the subject of his interest but Augustine had insisted that Nine stay with the caravan all the way to the town and would only release the treeman to his inquiries after he Augustine was done meeting with the leaders of the town.

A younger Auspicious Nine would have been anxious at being denied to satisfy his curiosity while opportunity was so close at hand, but the older more experienced scientist that he was now contented himself by diverting the drive of interest towards other ends available to him. Walking along the shore of the oasis, he channeled qi through the meridians surrounding his eyes and by the light of the full moon saw almost as clear as day with poor color perception. He looked over the Four Winds Whirlpool Oasis and quickly spotted the unique features that gave it its name. All across the broad expanse of the waters, whirlpools sprung into existence, some very short-lived but others continuing for as long as he observed.

"They say that the Whirlwind Tree gathers the winds from the four corners of the Organ Meat Desert to itself, stealing away secrets spoken where the air moves," a quiet voice spoke up from behind Auspicious Nine.

Having sensed the approaching presence well before hand, Auspicious Nine was not surprised by the interruption to his contemplation and instead replied to his unseen companion. "The Whirlwind Tree is known to be a powerful wind manipulator even for an entity in Core Formation. Its reach is considered unmatched beneath Nascent Soul in the desert but I truly doubt that it can command the wind over all the desert. It would certainly be an exciting hypothesis to test out though."

The person at his back laughed at his words, clear dulcet tones ringing out into the night. They came closer and finally stood beside Auspicious Nine on the borders to the oasis. Nine glanced at her, seeing a young dark skinned woman wearing loose white robes and a scarf around her face.

"Forgive, I haven't introduced my self," she said, inclining her head towards Auspicious Nine, red eyes gleaming in the dark, "I bid you welcome, Golden Devil. I am Adwoa Mansa, apprentice Speaker for the Four Winds Whirlpool Oasis town. And who might you be if I may ask?"

Returning her politeness, Auspicious Nine dipped his head towards the woman and replied, "I am Auspicious Nine of the Golden Devils Clan, Centurion of the 1313th Legion."

"Oh, that's interesting. The 1313th Legion you say? We don't usually get visitors from your Clan that aren't with the 353rd," Adwoa remarked, tilting her head to look up at Auspicious Nine, "But then again you aren't exactly the usual sort are you? I don't ever think I've met someone who looked to part plant."

Auspicious Nine chuckled at the openness of her fascination and responded candidly. "Don't worry about it. I wouldn't expect you to meet too many people like me in the desert. As far as I know there are only a dozen persons quite like me, all siblings to me and progeny of the great hero Jin Muyi."

Adwoa leaned forward with increased interest at the mention of Auspicious Nine's parentage. "Do you men Jin Muyi of the Indomitable Thirteen, the one who sacrificed his life to defeat the calamity that came down from the mountains? That Jin Muyi?"

"Yes, that Jin Muyi, fallen Elder of the Golden Devil Clan," Auspicious Nine said evenly.

"Huh," Adwoa rocked back and forth on her heels, "I didn't know he had children though I guess that explains the plantlike nature. His transformation and feats were legendary even in our little corner of the world."

"I didn't think you were so isolated," Auspicious Nine said to her, "I know your oasis to be a major stop for those heading south to the Hong Xuan Clan or just traveling this part of the Foothills."

Adwoa wrinkled her nose. "Oh sure we get a lot of traffic but it's nothing exciting. The only really interesting people who come by are either Golden Devils like yourselves or Ice Maidens from the Ice-Qi Caverns to the west. The Maidens are pretty but not exactly the best conversationalists if you know what I mean."

Thinking back to his last foray into the home of the Ice Maidens of Hu Lin City, Auspicious Nine had to disagree. "I don't know about that. I've found them to be very passionate in their engagement. Perhaps it's because you aren't reaching them on a level that excites their interest."

Adwoa looked askance at Auspicious Nine's characterization of the famously cold women-only sect. "If you say so. They really only show up to trade and meet the Whirlwind Tree because of the past they made a while back."

Cocking his head in curiosity, Auspicious Nine thought back to his reading on the Whirlwind Tree and couldn't recall the pact between the two influences that Adwoa mentioned. "What pact is this that you're talking about?"

Adopting a lecturer's pose, Adwoa answered him. "It goes back to the last time someone actually tried to invade on foot and your Clan called on the agreement with the Whirlwind Tree to raise up sandstorms to impede the armies. The Great Protector did as asked but was opposed by weather magics from the armies who knew of the arrangement. To fulfill its obligations, it sent the then Speaker to make a request of the Mistress of the Ice-Qi Caverns to allow it draw on the geomancy of her territory in exchange for favorable terms on the oasis water and other reagents. The Mistress agreed and the Whirlwind was able to overpower the invaders' defenses with a truly massive tempest."

The information Adwoa gave him allowed Auspicious Nine to place the event she described in the history of the Golden Devil Clan.

"Interesting," he muttered, "That invasion and the response from the Whirlwind Tree is recorded but not the pact. I suppose you would know the truth of it as junior Speaker."

Adwoa relaxed her posture and stretched up her arms in a yawn. "Learning the history of the position is about the only interesting thing about the role apart from communing with the Whirlwind Tree. Everything else is just managing the people in the town."

"Surely it can't be all that bad," Auspicious Nine questioned, poking at Adwoa with his aura, "Four Winds Whirlpool Oasis Town is where the disciples of the Whirlwind Tree settled after they earned its favor and it taught them the ways of manipulating the wind. You yourself aren't doing to bad. 5th Heavenstage is an achievement better than most who cultivate."

Adwoa turned to look blankly at Auspicious Nine. "Is the Expert telling me to be proud of being a dinky 5th Heavenstage cultivator? How old were you when you overcome your Heavenly Tribulation?"

Auspicious Nine answered truthfully, "Just shy of six decades if you want to know."

"Six decades to reach Foundation Establishment and he praises 5th Heavenstage?" Adwoa barked out a laugh and kicked at loose dirt at her feet, "It must be blessed to have such a powerful father and a powerful backing in your Clan."

The air stirred around Adwoa, blowing mightily against Auspicious Nine before dying down as suddenly as it had risen up. Adwoa sighed, looking up towards the great boughs of the Whirlwind Tree. "The Great Protector is generous to those who it deems friends. It taught my ancestors our way of cultivation and even expanded the oasis that was here before when we were nomads, unable to settle down because of our distant heritage from another of the Nine Seas. But it's still a tree even if one at the peak of the third great realm. What works for a Spirit Tree doesn't quite get the same outcome in humans. My mother is the Speaker and her mother before that in an unbroken chain all the way to the very first Speaker. In all my family's service as Speaker, ascending to Foundation Establishment is a feat of great figures and none have ever reached the late stage of that great realm. I'm jealous that what is a fervent prayer for me came so easily to you."

Auspicious Nine might have become older and wiser with lived experience in the Legions but dealing tactfully with the emotional entanglements of others was not something covered in the curriculum and advancement track.

"I happen to be a quite accomplished alchemist if I dare say so of myself and have quite a number of cultivation aids that should prove helpful to your ambitions," Auspicious Nine offered, happy to help, "Fair warning though, these are mostly experimental recipes that might have unforeseen side effects including death, paralysis, and insanity among others but I'm almost certain you have nothing to worry about."

Adwoa eyed the bright smile with which Auspicious Nine earnestly made his offer and snorted, "Yeah right. I'll pass. I can't do much improving if I'm dead. You're really bad at this you know that, right? You have to work on your sales pitch if you want anyone to buy what you're selling."

Auspicious Nine shrugged. "It works well enough within the Legions so I must be doing something right."

Adwoa looked at him disbelieving, drawling. "Sure, I'd pay to see that."

Turning away from Adwoa towards the never still waters of the waters, Auspicious Nine put a question to her that his observation and reading had generated, desiring to know if his supposition was supported by the experience of the closest dwellers to the oasis. "Why is it whirlpools rather than waterspouts? The latter seems more the province of the Whirlwind Tree than the former."

Adwoa squatted and dipped her finger in the oasis, twirling it about before responding. "Funny enough, I asked the Whirlwind Tree that once and the reply I got was something about fluid currents. The Great Protector is named for its manipulation of the winds but it is not limited to just that."

Standing up she shook out her finger. "It's a good thing to. All that swirling means that outside of the Simmering Soup Sect we are the largest suppliers of Thousand-Year Cauldron-Water. The tributes you Golden Devils bring go directly to the Whirlwind Tree but the oasis waters means we can survive off the additional material your Clan and others bring for trade."

"To be honest, apart from wanting an audience with the Whirlwind Tree, getting a batch of Thousand-Year Cauldron-Water from the tap was great motivation to make the trip," Auspicious Nine admitted, "It makes the best potion base for water-soluble recipes and I am in need of quite the quantity to perfect certain alchemical watercolor paints. The price needed to acquire the amounts I require from retailers would be ruinous so it was all the more encouragement to come."

"I didn't take you for a painter, not with that blade at your side," Adwoa remarked, "What do you paint?"

Auspicious Nine was all too happy to share about his newfound obsession with the combining the Dao of Painting and the sword style he practiced. From there the conversation flowed fast and free between the two as the hours went by. The night was late when they called a halt to their talk, the caravan having long before concluded its introduction with the leadership of the oasis settlement to let excited legionaries on break enjoy the comforts available in the trade town before being rounded up by their officers back to the caravan's camp.

"Well met Auspicious Nine of the Golden Devil Clan, our meeting has been both entertaining and enlightening for me," Adwoa said just before her departure, "We shall meet again tomorrow and perhaps I will guide you to your audience with the Great Protector."

After watching Adwoa leave for her home, Auspicious Nine made his way back to the caravan where Augustine found him running through practice drills with his saber.

"Where have you been all night?" the older Centurion asked watching with an appreciative eye towards Auspicious Nine's movements, "I thought you were going to badger me to let you go poke the big tree but I didn't see much of you."

"Research about my subject takes many forms, including sociological inquiry," Auspicious Nine answered him, taking a breather in his practice, "A subject's relationship with its environment provides insight into its nature. The Whirlwind Tree is a powerful yet sessile lifeform, one that appears to have taken steps to mitigate its weaknesses. Its spiritual awakening has seen it appreciate the value of having a community serve its interests, one that works to both parties benefit as far as I can tell. Self-aware Spirit Flora are a rare thing, particularly ones capable of creating and maintaining such complex relationships as the Whirlwind Tree has demonstrated with the Golden Devil Clan and the Four Winds Whirlpool Oasis Town. That is valuable knowledge I didn't have clearly before tonight."

Excitement seeped into Auspicious Nine's voice as he poured out his observations and half formed thoughts, "Even setting aside the Whirlwind Tree itself, the inhabitants of the oasis are simply fascinating. Did you know that they descend from a group of exiles who came to the Third Sea from another land in the Nine Seas when such travel was still possible? They all practice the cultivation method passed down to them by the Whirlwind Tree and while they don't have easy advancement, almost everyone shows some affinity with the method."

An eager light filled Auspicious Nine's eyes as he continued speaking. "There are of course questions to be answered from what has been learned. For example, does the Whirlwind Tree take steps to mitigate threat to itself from nearby residents by suppressing their cultivation in some way or do they have a lingering vestige of an elemental bloodline foreign to the Third Sea like suppose? How soon can the tree be expected to try for Nascent Soul and what would it need to succeed?"

A look of relish danced across the treeman's face. "This has already been a productive trip and tomorrow promises yet more gain."

"Sounds like you're getting what you wanted out of this trip so perhaps there will be less grumbling on the way back," Augustine said, having little actual interest in Auspicious Nine's intellectual pursuits but found himself drawn to the other Expert's swordsmanship, and cracked his knuckles as he made Nine an offer, "It looks like you're having an easy time with those drills. What do you say we put some real sweat into your practice and have a spar, you and I?"

Grinning broadly, Auspicious Nine sank into a low guard and waved Augustine forward with his free hand, "I thought you'd never ask. Allow me to demonstrate the Gui Hua Dao Fa in full flourish."

***

The next day, Auspicious Nine mildly put out that the previous night's spar had heavily favored Augustine. He did however take quiet satisfaction in the fact that Augustine had not left their bout without injury much like himself but Augustine lacked the benefit of a recuperative technique as effective as the [Verdant Bough Regrowth]. Comparing the condition of the two Experts as they met with the current Speaker of the town, it would have been easy to think that Augustine had rather had the worst of the fight from the bandages and bruises he sported.

The Speaker, who introduced herself as Yaa Mansa to Auspicious Nine on this first meeting with the treeman, scowled at the two Centurions. "I like my nights quiet and peaceful, not filled with the raucous impoliteness of two of my guests creating a disturbance at my front door."

Auspicious Nine could not help but interrupt to correct her. "Pardon me, madam but we did not fight on your door step but beyond your town's borders within our own camp."

The withering glare Yaa sent Auspicious Nine would have felled a lesser man but Nine was proof against the attacks of propriety. More interesting was that the force of the glare was backed by an aura stronger than Nine's own. If Adwoa was to be taken at her word, then her mother was no simple woman.

"I would like to think that our most kind overlords in the Golden Devil Clan would know the expectations of a good host from their responsible guests, but perhaps I expect too much," Yaa said slowly looking both men in the eye, "Centurion Augustine, I believe we are going to have a fruitful negotiation in this latest trade exchange."

Augustine winced at that last statement but kept any comments to himself.

"Centurion Auspicious Nine, I believe you have already met my daughter," Yaa said indicating towards Adwoa standing nearby, suppressing a snicker at her mother's treatment of the two senior cultivators, "She will guide you to commune with our town's Great Protector. Please try not to be as impolite with our patron as you have been with me."

Yaa quickly dismissed Auspicious Nine after that, ducking into a private chamber followed by Augustine presumably for the negotiations that she had mentioned. Bouncing on her feet, Adwoa was visibly eager to escort Auspicious Nine to the Whirlwind Tree.

"Come on follow me," she said darting off towards the looming giant in the north.

However fast she moved, Adwoa was never going to outpace an Expert like Auspicious Nine even one with so little progress in his great realm so the treeman quickly caught up with the young woman. Walking past squads of legionaries unloading the tribute that the caravan had brought, Nine asked Adwoa a question, "Are you the only one escorting me? No one else is to join us?"

Adwoa hummed as she moved, pausing to reply to Auspicious Nine, "Who else would be needed? The Great Protector is the strongest being hereabouts so any trouble you could cause to it would likely be beyond our means to deal with. Besides, its our patron not our god. We appreciate its assistance but don't think its sacred."

Auspicious Nine took the opportunity of the walk to ask Adwoa questions that had come up after their discussion the previous night, but mostly he observed her and how the wind behaved around her. There was always a wind in and around Four Winds but the air around Adwoa was intermittently calm and fiercely moving as she traveled, never impeding her movement even at its greatest strength.

Traveling at Adwoa's pace meant they they had enough time to tide over Auspicious Nine's insatiable appetite for more information when they reached the Whirlwind Tree which dominated the horizon like a living mountain. The roots of the Spirit Tree were the first portions Nine made contact with, massive supports that rose up from the ground in a spiraling pattern towards a trunk that continued the twisting shape all the way up to the far off crown. Bending his head back to look above, Nine saw misty wisps that resembled low hanging clouds circling just below the distant ceiling of the canopy.

"This is a glorious vision," Auspicious Nine whispered as he touched the nearest root that rose as high over his head. The thrum of energy he felt beneath his touch in the bark and wood was incredibly powerful, almost overwhelming to his spirit from the contact.

"As much as I hate to interrupt the moment you're having, I unfortunately don't have all day," Adwoa said, poking Auspicious Nine in the side when he seemed overcome by the presence of the Spirit Tree, "The rite of communion is actually very simple so let's get to the fun part."

"Sorry about that, I just got swept away in the potency I could sense," Auspicious Nine apologized, "It's unsurprisingly difficult to get Core Formation subjects at full strength for close up examination."

"I'm surprised you were even able to get any at all," Adwoa said in surprise, "I would imagine that most of them aren't fixed in place like the Great Protector."

Auspicious Nine flashed her a smile. "I have my ways. But you were saying something about the rite of communion?"

Adwoa reached down to her belt and took out a stoppered copper flask. "So the Great Protector can communicate on a human level but it tends to keep its focused awareness far ranging unless something important draws near. Important in this case means a peer or superior or interesting materials nearby. The first two we don't have handy and the tribute is back at the town but we do have tradition on our side. Generations of Speakers have spilled their blood for the Whirlwind Tree and performed the rituals. My blood might not be as alluring as Spirit Stones, Beast Cores or whatever else is in the tribute this time, but it is known and accepted. Watch."

Removing the stopper, Adwoa poured out the contents of the flask, blood that must have been preserved somehow in the flask, on the nearest root and placed her palm on the pool that formed. She closed her eyes and began to hum again the tune from when they'd left the town. Auspicious Nine observed intently as qi pulsed out through her hand into the pooled blood and then into the tree beneath to the beat of the hummed tune. She did not need to do this for long before there was a response and one of the questions Nine had been pondering ever since the Whirlwind Tree came into view and even more as he had gotten as close as he was now. Why did the Whirlwind Tree lack the spiritual aura expected with cultivation as advanced as it should have? Its physical presence was incredible but until he'd touched the root, the arboreal titan might as well have been the sand beneath his feet to his spirit.

Now, as the Whirlwind Tree answered Adwoa's call a vast weight pressed down on Auspicious Nine's spirit making him feel oh so small. For a moment, it seemed as though all the weight of the atmosphere was concentrated on his form, pressing down with so much pressure that he was about to pop out of existence. Then the weight lifted, although the sense of incredible power lingered just to the side. The leaves in the canopy rustled like a forest in a storm and the trunk creaked and groaned as though bearing a terrible weight.

The wind swirled around Adwoa and Auspicious Nine and she opened her eyes, smiling weakly at Nine. "Allow me to introduce you to the Great Protector of Four Winds Whirlpool Oasis Town, the Whirlwind Tree."

A voice came on the winds, a roaring thunder and a quiet whisper at once. "Speak, daughter of the oath, scion of the bronze pact. I am here and l hear your address."

"Greetings, Great Elder," Auspicious Nine replied to the wind, "I am Auspicious Nine, Centurion of the Golden Devil Clan. I seek knowledge and instruction from the abundance of your wisdom. Would you grant me the boon of your life's story, to learn from your experience and perhaps touch upon enlightenment from your accomplishments."

The wind laughed and roots nearby wriggled sluggishly, shaking the earth. Adwoa stared wide-eyed at Auspicious Nine, not expecting that request from him.

"Why should I tell you the tale of my sprouting, scion of bronze? The pact between your lords and I is sealed and honored, strength provided in peace for strength raised in war. Your request is beyond that which was sworn. What do you offer for the answers you seek?" The wind asked in a medley of voices, male and female, young and old.

Auspicious Nine lifted his voice to the chorus, "I offer three things. First, I pledge to bring to you the bodies of seven peer cultivators from a foreign Sea to nourish your roots in the decades to come and let you drink of the strength of a living Sea. Second, I pledge my skill in poison and disease to the best of my ability against an enemy of yours, so long as it does not work against my Clan's interests. Last, I offer myself, my blood and my story as one born of human and plant to help you in your advancement."

The wind slumped for a few moments and then rose back up, this time whispering into Auspicious Nine's ear. "I accept your offerings. Send the daughter away and we shall speak."

Auspicious Nine turned to a thoroughly intrigued Adwoa who had been listening with great interest. "It looks like I have a deal but the audience is for one and you've been asked to leave. I will meet you back in the town when I am done and tell you as much as I am permitted to share. Centurion Augustine should not need me for anything but if he asks inform him that I am engaged in an audience with the Great Protector."

Adwoa looked disappointed but accepted being sent away.

"I'll hold you to that promise when you come back," she said as she left back towards Four Winds.

Auspicious Nine turned his focus back to the upcoming events and found a comfortable seat on a low lying ridge of root, "Great Elder, I am ready to begin."

The wind rustled over Auspicious Nine and began to speak, "These words are for you and you alone. None who has not paid the price of my history may receive them from you. Swear it now."

The normally disagreeable Auspicious Nine who would have protested being asked to keep knowledge thought it better to refrain from asking to be given liberty to disseminate the history and likely vulnerabilities of a being who could squash him like a bug. Wisely, he swallowed his tongue and swore, feeling a weight on his spirit that instinctively told him that his oath had consequence. Accepting his pledge, the Whirlwind Tree began to speak telling of its first moments of awareness in a time when the eastern deserts did not know the rule of the Bronze-Blooded. Auspicious Nine listened attentively, drinking deep of the experience of ages past. He would be there through days and nights, relying on the resilience of his tempered body to remain without flagging. When at last, he left, he was the better informed for it if not yet the wiser. Time would prove if wisdom would come eventually.

AN: (6300 words). Almost done here. Just one more to go. This story really run away from me though. This was supposed to be a brief stopover but here we are.

 

[Fluffy_serpent]

Sǐzhě rìjì 1​

---

hou siren was currently very happy,no that was an understatement,ecstatic would fit more with his current mood,he always heard the stories of cultivators who did amazing things and most importantly...they fought with super-strong people,from what little he remembers one legend says that a super-strong old man cut down a mountain easily,how amazing, all those stories made him want to escape from the village to fight with people as strong as they say that old man was...but, if he left, sister Yi would be sad and old chi too...besides the small detail that since he slapped that guy that everyone called young master and then there was a super cool fight with all his companions...they didn't leave him without supervision almost never after that...he still wonders why.

anyway, time is running out and I have to go to the master now....

I hope he's super-strong and makes me super-strong to have super-cool and fun fights.

---

words:100

 

[Insane-Not-Crazy]

TURN 14, OMAKE 5 [Auspicious Nine]
Auspicious Nine 20: Break Them Down and Build Them Back Up​

"You are useless at the Gui Hua Dao Fa," Hitokiri Battousai declared to his erstwhile disciple as he supervised the treeman's practise of chops against a training block.

"Did you say something, sensei?"Auspicious Nine asked having being focused on his drills so much so that he'd missed what his teacher had said to him.

Battousai sighed and called his student away from the training equipment, "Come, sit with me. We must talk about your future with the sword."

Master and disciple retreated from the small training area installed in Battousai's home in the Dawn Fortress and the two sat in seiza across a low table in the living room of the main building. The gray-haired but youthful faced Battousai placed his hands on his lap, his hakama as immaculate as ever. He studied the young man across him, whose features and personality had become ingrained in his memory after decades of on and off mentorship. Dressed in loose clothes in blue and gold, Auspicious Nine filled out his frame with lean muscle carved out from long hours of sword practice, the calluses on his hands bearing testimony to his dedication to the wielding of the saber.

"You are useless at the Gui Hua Dao Fa," Battousai repeated his statement.

Whatever Auspicious Nine had been prepared to hear, such criticism was not at the top of his expectations. He furrowed his brow and protested Battousai's evaluation, "Sensei, surely that can't be true. You've been remarking that I've been making good progress in learning the style. Why would you reverse your mind now?"

Battousai nodded at Auspicious Nine's words. "True I did say that you were making good progress and indeed you have but that is not the problem."

Seeing the confusion written all over Auspicious Nine's face, he explained his reasoning, "When you came to me, you asked to learn how to use the saber properly and I helped you build a solid foundation in how to use the weapon called the General of Weapons. You proved adept in its handling but even then I could see the problem. All your progress since has not addressed that issue in the slightest."

Battousai pointed to Auspicious Nine's chest and then his head. "Learning how to use a weapon is simple enough, just practice long enough with a competent teacher or technique manual and you'll muddle your way through. Transcending use requires more than technical ability. It requires absolute conviction, and boundless desire to comprehend the mysteries of the weapon and carve mastery into the very essence of the self. That is something you cannot do. Your heart is already sworn to another path, one of endless questioning and your mind is never on only one thing but always chasing down trails your curiosity sets you on. There is no space in your being for the saber to reign yet it must rule over all you are if you wish to achieve the peak of that tyrannical blade. Your Saber Soul is a stunted and starved thing. Your problem is increased a magnitude more with the particular path you have chosen to use in your ascent."

The Elder of the Flood Dragon Gang run his fingers over the surface of the table, carving characters into it with his will, "鬼 画 刀 法. The Ghost Painting Saber Technique is truly an incredible saber style but you will never move beyond mere use in its forms."

Battousai pointed to each character in turn and continued speaking, "Do you recall the words that girl told you when I took you to your father's estate and made your kowtow to ask permission to receive the complete saber manual?"

Auspicious Nine clearly remembered that incident. Shame burned in him that all he had needed to do was bow down nine times begging and he could have saved himself cold tiring nights spying on Gui Hua. Why hadn't the only claimed progeny of Jin Muyi made that clear the first time he'd come asking? He could have saved so much time if only he'd known.

"The Saber as a Brush. The Ghosts as Ink. The World as Canvas," Auspicious Nine recited from memory the words Gui Hua had spoken.

"Saber as brush," Battousai explained, "The sword style you are attempting to learn is one that demands enlightenment not just into the Dao of the Sabre but that also of Painting. You cannot accommodate the first. How then will you take up the second?"

Seeing the challenge in Auspicious Nine's eyes, Battousai headed him off. "Before you protest, recall your narration of how you performed in your Clan's war with the Jingshen. Yes, you told me how you used the forms of the Gui Hua Dao Fa but in every engagement I heard from you the saber was just that. A saber, a blade and no more. Have you even begun using the foundational technique of Figure Painting? How many Ghost Tattoos have you acquired?"

"But master Battousai," Auspicious Nine interjected, "I have been practicing my understanding of the Dao of Painting to take up the techniques. I have made great strides in using it through flame and in time I'll surely get to the saber painting techniques."

Battousai shook his head assuredly. "If not now then never. See how you make excuses for ignoring the spine of the saber style you wish to employ. I understand why you sought out this saber style. It is a connection to your heritage that was worth exploring but you have gained as much from it as you are ever going to get without making radical changes to your way."

Auspicious Nine swallowed his first response and considered his teacher's words. There was a reason why he'd come to the sword master's door seeking instruction and he would be foolish to ignore. Technically, Battousai was wrong that he didn't use the qi techniques of the Gui Hua Dao Fa. He could project a blade strike even better than he had as a Junior but such an attack was not a core technique of the Gui Hua Dao Fa but one pretty much any sword style intended for cultivators learned. As for the actual techniques of the Gui Hua Dao Fa, he had learned to use them but they were clumsy in his hands and the every attempt at forming a Ghost Tattoo by suppression had either resulted in completely destroyed Lost Souls or miserable vestiges that barely lasted a moon cycle. He was stubborn but not resistant to wisdom when it was shown clearly.

"I am forced to agree with your assessment now, master," Auspicious Nine admitted feeling oddly grieved at admitting that his path with Jin Muyi's legacy went no further.

"I'd hoped you would come to the realization yourself sooner but you seemed resolute on getting by with qi-less skill," Battousai said, striking through the characters he had written with just a look, "But that stubbornness showed me a way forward."

The swordsman smiled at the eagerness Auspicious Nine showed at his last words, "You can be surprisingly blinkered when you obsess on a project but that focus will be needed if we are to generate a new personal style for you."

"Truly," Auspicious Nine wondered, "How would that work? I thought you said that I could not commit to the saber."

"It was the Gui Hua Dao Fa that gave me the idea," Battousai replied, "If Saber and Painting could be merged, then we need only subordinate the Saber to your personal Dao."

Reaching into his sleeve, Battousai pulled out a jade slip and pushed it towards Auspicious Nine. "What you have learned of the Gui Hua Dao Fa is a good enough foundation to begin diverging into your unique pursuits. You might be a questor for knowledge at the root of it all but like everyone you have a bias and that is for alchemy and the biological art. You've talked my ear off long enough about your breeding projects and pill refining exploits to let me be fairly certain about this. However adapting that interest into a focus on internal alchemy allows us to begin building upon a clear foundation. In that slip are extracts from a number of saber styles designed to work with the concepts of alchemy whether Flame use or medicinal consumables. If you wish to use Flame as a medium better to pair it with a mindset closer to your strengths."

"I cannot thank you enough for this gift, sensei," Auspicious Nine received the jade slip with bright eyes, eager to start rummaging though it.

Battousai rapped the table to refocus his disciple's attention. "In addition, there is a unique opportunity available from your impending trip into the Qiguai Realmgate. Records of Jin Muyi tell that as a Junior he entered that same secret realm and found a fragment of a legendary axe, the infamous Hell-Sender. I used my privilege as a guest Elder of a trusted ally to gain access to certain documents about your progenitor's transformation. Traces of the weapon-spirit's influence were found in Jin Muyi when he awakened as something more than human. It might come to nothing but I will provide you with divination talismans that should direct you to any other remaining fragments of that weapon if there is indeed a link. An ingrained affinity from a weapon-spirit would be worth knowing about even if not built upon."

Fixing Auspicious Nine with a piercing stare, Battousai asked the treeman, "Are you ready to begin a lonely treacherous path that makes no guarantees of leading you to the prize you seek?"

Auspicious Nine did not have to think about. He bowed deeply touching his forehead to the table. "I am ready, master. Please, teach me."

"Good," Battousai said smiling, "First thing we have to do is get you a proper saber. Strength Purity's Sword Bazaar would be the best but that's neither needed nor necessary. I'm sure we can find something useful in the desert."

Battousai continued laying out his plans for his disciple, Auspicious Nine listening intently and offering his opinion as needed. Master and student talked though the afternoon into the night and when finally Auspicious Nine left Battousai's compound, he had a rough road map of what he needed to do to bend the saber to his purposes. There were no assurances but it promised to be informative and what more could an irrepressible inquisitive like Nine want.

AN: (1800 words) I'm done, rushed but finished.

 

[SeptimusMagisto]

Lipp Galanis in: At the Threshold​

The House of Galanis prepares for an uncertain future. For two hundred years the family's fortunes rose alongside those of the Clan. But Doris Galanis, the family's matriarch and the pillar of its strength, doesn't expect to make it past the next Hundred Year Trials. Barring another miracle, no member of the family could rise to take her place in Core Formation. So she's determined to use her power and influence while they still exist, to make strong the foundations of the House and raise up a new generation that can match and surpass her. The younger cultivators who show potential find their path smoothed, the House treasure vaults opened, and their elders' schedules cleared when they need instruction. As part of this policy of largess, the House has sponsored five Qi Condensation juniors to enter the Qiguai Secret Realm. It was meant to be six, but one of the potentials did not survive the Blood Mist.

Lipp Galanis is the first among equals. Some thirty five years ago he looked like an uncertain bet, lacking in focus or ferocity. But today he stands in the ninth Heavenstage, and well on his way to the tenth. Even in the burgeoning Great Era it's the kind of achievement that demands recognition. He also gained some clout by building wings that work on simple muscle power, pulling prolonged flight into the Qi Condensation realm and making sure that none of them will go splat on some rocks.

Ales Galanis is Lipp's brother, older by nearly two decades and far more orthodox in his approach to cultivation and life in general. Instead of selling wildly overpriced soup or befriending a giant turtle he just hunted down the enemies of the Clan, guarded Clan property, and ran errands for his elders. For most of his life he's been slightly above average, but alchemical products and expensive acupuncture opened his meridians in only one year. Now he feels the need to prove himself within the secret realm, demonstrating that he can advance on his own merits.

Clelia Galanis is from another branch of the family, one that stayed behind rather than take a chance on former Blood Blood Cannibal lands. She and her twin sister Valeria cultivated as a pair, growing in lockstep. Since Valeria succumbed to the wounds inflicted by a blood-crazed teacher, Clelia suddenly began making great strides. It's as if she's inherited something - or possibly lost a burden.

Rufus Mamercus is a scion of a client family. In his veins, and his alone, his family's temperamental Raw Iron Blood became transmuted to true Blood of Steel. No one knows the reason, but Rufus has dedicated his life to finding out. He travels into the secret realm to seek the power and resources he needs to continue his investigations.

Tullia Carbo is a talented first generation cultivator. Like many in her position, she has become a client of her centurion, trading personal loyalty for support. Her power is nothing special, but she's mastered a number of unorthodox techniques. Long range Demonic Tunes, augury, elemental spirit binding, and enhancement of the senses have been combined into something she calls "echo-gnomics" and uses to find underground deposits. Lipp's older sister snapped her up before anyone else could notice her value.

On the eve of the entry, the five huddle in their tent, prepared for trouble. Despite the Qiguai Clan's vaunted neutrality, the prevailing wisdom among Golden Devils is that the days spent waiting can be as dangerous as the ones spent inside the realm. So the Galanis expedition cut its arrival as close as possible - a risky strategy in its own way, but one that means they only need to spend one night sleeping in shifts.

The preparations have been already made, checked and re-checked several times over. But anxiety drives the expeditions members to go over their gear yet again. Tulia polishes her cymbals and gently cleans the inside of her ears with cotton. Ales checks the fit of the many throwing knives concealed within his sleeves. Lipp goes over each wing, looking for a hint of loose thread or weaknesses in the frame. If there were flaws left to find, the work would be almost meditative. But there aren't, so it engenders a heavy silence that grows heavier by the moment until it has to be broken.

It's Ales who breaks it, as he's the one most used to the camaraderie of a Legion at march.

"I wish I could be there to watch your backs."

The one to reply is Lipp, in his capacity as the unofficial leader and the official archive trawler.

"We can enter together, but whether we stay together is up to the Secret Realm. Trying to force the issue can go badly. There is a story of a group that went in tied by threads. The spacial anomalies tore half of them apart. I would say there is a nine in ten chance that we will be separated."

Lipp has expressed that sentiment before, but never put a number to it. He can sense the gazes of the others as they abandon their make work tasks and focus on him, so he proceeds with the rest of the explanation.

"You send your intention out into the cosmos and its echoes come back to you. You face challenges and if you surmount them your goal will await at the end of your path. This is true everywhere, but it's more true in the Qiguai realm. Swordsmen stumble across sword techniques and smiths across abandoned anvils. Rarely is it the other way around. And all of us seek different things, inside the secret realm and outside of it."

There is just a trace of guilt in Lipp's voice at so blatant an admission that following his own aspirations takes precedence, but he's in good company. Most of the Clan's most celebrated seniors also walked this path alone.

"So the realm will respond to one's Dao?" asks Tulia.

Lipp prepares to answer, but Clelia beats him to it.

"Dao, techniques, and heritage. Aptitude and attitude. Everything we are and everything we want to be," she intones, as if reading out of a textbook.

Tulia looks contemplative, as if deciding if she feels comfortable being judged by so vast an entity. Then all at once the indecision is gone from her face, replaced by a mischievous grin.

"Then why don't we make things simple? Don't make the realm guess. If it needs to know who we are and what we're looking for, let's just tell it, here and now. Let's sing it as we would a joyful song."

It's easy for her to say that. Out of everyone here her path is the most defined. The others are still finding their goals or their methods. Tulia has found hers. She need only advance on her path. Even so, when say her piece, Rufus beats her to it.

"Fine, then," he says. "My priority is my family. We could be more than what we are. And we will be. My children won't share my parents' burden, and my nieces and nephews won't share theirs'. I will find out what makes my blood different, even if it means cramming all of the Clan's Blood Arts into my thick head. But if I can find something to point me in the right direction, I will be grateful."

"Be careful not to go too far," Clelia warns, her eyes narrowed with mild suspicion.

"I may toe the line, but I promise to never cross it."

"Fine. Then let me say my piece."

Clelia stands up and eyes her companions one by one before launching into her speech.

"I don't know who I am. I was a twin. That was before some stupid boy went looking for power and found a Blood legacy string enough to drive the continent mad. Before I watched a man who was like an uncle to me tear out my sister's neck. Now I don't know who I am, but I know ehat I want. And that's to comb every grain of sand in the desert to find Blood legacies and destroy them before someone can misuse them. I owe that much to my sister."

"You want to find things? So do I," Tulia states the obvious. "Though my reasons are more prosaic. Everything the Clan needs to survive comes from under the sands. Whether it's spirit stones, aquifier, or even copper and tin, we need to find things and dig them up. That's why I learned to understand the earth, finding the slightest irregularity. One day I will use these skills to find a Supreme Grade spirit stone and hand it to Old Gold so that he can stay ahead of the Clan's enemies."

This is why everyone finds Tulia just a bit insufferable. She has a clear goal abd a well-defined path to getting there. How can anyone not be jealous of that?

By unspoken agreement Ales stands up next, leaving Lipp for last.

"I want to be the Clan's sword and shield. To fight its enemies, alone and in formation. To one day lead a century. To die doing something important. This is ehat I am."

He purses his lips slightly before continuing.

"I do have a personal interest in learning more about our family. So much has been lost to the ages. We still call ourselves the Wardens of the Grey Forest, but we don't remember where that forest was or what it looked like. If there is a chance of stumbling over some record of House Galanis, I will gladly take it.

That just leaves Lipp. Before having his eyes opened by Despair, he would have simply said he would restore the Turtle Child. Now he'll have to find a different way to follow through on that same impulse. He has ideas, but he's never quite put them into words. Maybe now is the time.

"I want to be the opposite of what Soup Chef was."

The idea solidifies in Lipp's mind and he continues, staying moments ahead if his own tongue.

"Soup Chef destroyed a future world, just to get more powerful. And even before that he consumed and destroyed everything he came in contact with, leaving only pain and curses in his wake. At every step he made the world poorer and darker just to fuel his own rise. And then he died somewhere, and the only thing of worth he left behind was an old cooking pot.

I don't want to be like him. And I don't want to be someone who strips a region to the bedrock to rise to Spirit Severing and then runs away. Whether I live for thousands of years or just one more day, I will use that time to enrich the world. I will repair, heal, and grow. I will be the kind of cultivator who plants spiritual herbs they will never harvest. I mean, I will literally do that. I have the seed packets right here," Lipp slaps his backpack. "I will see and make brand new winders And I will leave behind a legacy not measured in spirit stones in cultivation years, but in new possibilities."

With the admissions made, the air inside of the tent feels thick with potential, as if before a thunderstorm. They all sort of knew these things about each other, but hearing them proclaimed out loud feels a bit different. And no one is quite sure what to do next. It's already too late to change anything, and too early to wish each other luck.

In Lipp's case, his mind drifts to other nearby tents and the people within them. Each one with their own stories and goals and training and techniques. A day from now they would be pouring into the Secret Realm, tugging it in a thousand directions and weaving the threads of their destinies into a rich tapestry. And from there Lipp's mind drifts to the idea of making a tapestry. He knows how and it helps to have a mortal art to practice while cultivating. He begins imagining the tiny details and loses track of his surroundings until someone asks him a question.

"Sorry, what?"

"What ate our chances of staying together?" Ales repeats. "Approximately."

"We would need to find a legacy of our family that can both help and hinder Blood Arts, buried underground. I doubt our destinies have enough weight to make that happen, even put together."

"How about the chances that we'll all come back?"

"Better than even. A lot can go wrong, but we know the most common hazards, we have emergency treasures, and we have wings. That gives us some safety margin."

"And our chance of achieving our goals?"

Lipp feels a tinge of Despair as he mentally calculates the odds. Most of these dreams would require a Foundation at the very least, and only one in a hundred cultivators make it that far. Even accounting for higher than average abilities, chances are that most of them will fall short if their goals.

But.

"Achieving a dream is a fine thing, but it's important just to have one. Without a dream, nothing else can happen."

There is a certainty in those words that Lipp hasn't felt since having his mind and soul scoured. It will take more thought, but he thinks he's found his Pillar.

----------
A/n: 2243 words.

 

[Fluffy_serpent]

The first death, death of the heart​

He was currently confused, he didn't know whether to feel sad, angry or what.

the first thing he remembers of the day is waking up, confused as to why he is in a cave...that worry was almost immediately alleviated by remembering that since he started cultivating it was not unusual for him to fall asleep cultivating or faint after overexerting himself fighting the master.

ignoring that,he quickly heads towards town after all,for even though the fact that he had started walking the path of a cultivator didn't mean he would no longer help out in town,after all he vowed to be different from all those stories that say cultivators quickly forget that they were once mortal and quickly abuse their new pow-

When he reached the door, something interrupted his reflection (something he had never done before, but which, according to his teacher in cultivation, is a good thing and something he should start doing).

ignoring the innumerable signs that give the beginning of what really happened, he makes excuses like that it must be a surprise party to deceive himself.

with visible desperation he searches the whole town for someone, anyone.

first he enters a house, Mrs. Chen's house, desperately shouting her name all over the house...there is no sign of her.

He enters a second house, the house of Mrs. Feng and little Jie, calling out to them...nothing back.

then there is a third, a fourth, a fifth, a forest, a sixth.... in a process that seems endless and at the same time instantaneous this continues and the more time passes, the slower and less he can evade reality...when he arrives in front of big sister Yi's house he can no longer evade reality, the strength leaves his legs, his eyes become watery and while he whispers names in a childish attempt to magically appear, memories of all the precious moments he had in his short 12 years begin to come back...

---

chi yung is seen teaching a little huo how to walk and talk.
"come on you can do it little huo"

to which Mrs. Chen comes up to him and chuckles "jujuju, who knew that the tough yung would become so soft with a baby".

to which an embarrassed chi yung quickly turns around and tries to excuse himself.
in the distraction the little huo slips away and climbs up to the top.

when they both look for huo after their little pranks, they quickly realize he's gone and in terror run to look for him.

once they finally have him in their arms, chi says with a chuckle, "seriously, it's like he's looking for danger".

after that comment they both burst out laughing, which is followed by a little huo joining in with his innocent little giggles.

---

huo and other children can be seen being guided by Yi yuung and other adults in the city.

Yi yuung was giving them warnings about walking in the city,when she notices that huo is not there,to which she with the most innocent voice she can do asks the children "little ones,couldn't you tell cute big sister Yi where huo went this time?"

to which in what seems like almost unanimous agreement they all point in one direction....en where you could see a bunch of children in a circle.

Yi in panic remembering what usually happens when huo is left alone runs with the children to the circle...where what she feared the most was happening

in the middle was huo fighting with all the children who came in groups to fight him...and in the distance a little farther away you see a young man who looks like he got punched in the face shouting "attack him, make him pay for not recognizing the tai amount, whoever hits him the hardest gets a gold coin!"


and although he was doing very well...actually being a bit too brutal, there were still too many of them and he was inevitably overwhelmed by the superior number .

Luckily even though he was stubborn he still knew when a fight was lost and when to retreat...so when he saw Yi and the children he quickly slunk towards them, while laughing and sneering, he ran as fast as he could to where they had left the horses.....
Yi and the others had no choice but to also run and escape since it seemed that as (to Yi's despair) became usual, every time huo went to a city he ended up angering someone of a higher status.

after that incident huo was punished by not being allowed to leave his room or do anything for a whole week.

---

you can see huo and a little boy who was little jie.

huo was somewhat embarrassed with a hand on the back of his head while laughing, in front of him was little jie, his eyes shining with admiration and idolizing huo "big brother huo, when I am old enough you will teach me to cultivate, won't you?"

Huo didn't know how to answer such a question, after all he was just about to start cultivating, so he just gave a chuckle.

which the little boy obviously took as a yes, to which he practically jumped with excitement and said "that's a yes? obviously it's a yes jie", then jie took a second to think and as if he had been enlightened said "we'll be an invincible duo big brother...I can't wait to tell mom".

after saying that, the little boy ran off as fast as he could to his house.
behind huo laughed as he shook his head.

---

as countless memories flashed through his head, much like what they say it's like to be on the verge of death, huo siren for the first time felt like his name 活死人 (dead in life)....

hehehe,how indicated,after all he is someone who was born with death,he lived in what many say looking for death...and a part of him died that day,with the disappearance of everyone he loved..the only thing left for him was to find the reason for the disappearance (and probable death of all the people) and seek an honorable death to hopefully reunite with them in the next life....

But out of nowhere came a memory, one that he had forgotten, one that he considered unimportant, but one that would make all the difference at this moment for him.

---

a chi yung can be seen with a blank stare next to huo

when out of nowhere he begins to speak "you know something, huo, death is inevitable, it will eventually catch up with everyone.

puzzled by that depressing comment huo looks at chi strangely..while thinking of an argument to break the old man's comment,after all,the discussion is just a battle of minds..one that is much more boring than fighting,but still a battle...to which he came up with something,after all,it is said that cultivators can attain immortality..to which making an innocent face he asked " what about cultivators?"


"hehe, ah, yes they, you know I may be a mortal and for many of them I may be a child, but age does not determine experience..and something I have realized is that cultivators are just people like us, they can be bad or good, talented or not, cruel or kind..but in the end they are just people who fear death like everyone else, but decided to escape it, gaining time, some gain more some less, but in the end they will end up succumbing.

After all, death is the perfect hunter, it is the most patient, the most skillful, the one who set the most traps, the one who has the most information ...

hou more intrigued by what the old man says, he asks with genuine interest, "What's up with that, old man?"

"hehe nothing small,just the hesitations of an old man,but in conclusion remember in the face of death we are all equally vulnerable,so don't be a coward and do what you want to do,who knows you might be the prey that managed to beat the hunter or not ...but then you can at least say that you died with no regrets."​

---

that little memory, normally unimportant, made a big change, as the old man said, death is a hunter...and if everyone is its potential prey...it means that living is a battle and it is not said that whoever retires from a battle without even trying once.

---

words:1400

this is the first chapter of the "deaths" series.

 

[Quest]

Honestly just me creating something random out of an old half finished omake. Hopefully its a fun read!

Xiao Yingzi Extra 7
[Turn X]
[The Scorpion's Luck]​

As the desert sun set and the cool air of the night began pervading the sands, a single sting bearing tail rose between the dunes. It flickered through the air, sensitive to the surrounding atmosphere and made certain that the local conditions were perfect for it to rise. Then, while shaking its body clean the Sand Striding Scorpion rose from the earth to hunt once more.

After surveying the horizons with its eyes, it began to move. Its motion was careful and precise - though the Sand-Striding Scorpion was infamous for its speed, that was in a sprint that cost energy and energy was something to horde in the desert. Having already digested the prey it had caught the previous night, it began to seek a new meal.

It was moving towards an oasis that it had investigated five nights before, when it had been fortunate enough to come across a spirit stone mine that had been unearthed by the sands. That discovery had given it enough of a bounty to go without hunting for several nights, nights that it had used to great effect by scouting out potential prey for the future.

The oasis was home to a small clan of Sand Otters. They had a well hidden camp set right in front of the waters with all but one entrance blocked by dunes. The scorpion likely wouldn't have spotted the camp if it weren't for a young master stepping outside because of a talented outsider's challenge, just as the scorpion had been passing by.

The young master likely believed that he had escaped without consequence but heaven had pulled upon its thread of karma and sent the scorpion there as deliverance. The camp may have protected them before, but now that it knew they existed however, it had become a death trap. The only way to escape if it came from the entrance was by fleeing into the water.

That option wasn't even worth considering.

Being Sand Otters and not Water Otters, they wouldn't actually go into the water - because that would make them Mud Otters and as all living beasts knew, Mud Otters were scum. They would likely rather be eaten than be subjected to that dishonor which was fine for the scorpion. It was looking forward to having enough food for a few days.

As it began to arrive at the camp, it slipped into the sands with its tail trailing just above the ground. As soon as it passed the gate entrance, a guard otter noticed its presence and the scorpion struck out with a paralytic poison. As it fell to the ground with a thunk, the Sand-Striding Scorpion rose up into the surface and began to stride.

Before the other guards had even a moment to react, the scorpion was beyond them, its stinger striking like lightning. The guards stumbled, poison coursing through their veins and they all fell like puppets with their strings cut. The scorpion ignored their struggling bodies, instead taking that moment to admire the beauty of the full moon in the sky.

Alas, that perfect moment ended.

Four Sand Otters rose from the largest sand dune and looked upon him. One of them was visibly old, the Otter Patriarch who stepped forward to challenge him. Behind him were his son and his son's wife, both holding tight their shivering boy - the very same young master whose presence had revealed the entire camp to the scorpion.

The Patriarch looked at what the scorpion had wrought and then turned to him, giving him a grimace. The scorpion chittered back in glee. It understood very well that if it had slain the guards, the patriarch would have been free to flee but now they had to stay and fight, because honor demanded that they never abandon their retainers.

The Patriarch stepped forward, raising its flippers in challenge. The scorpion dipped its body in acceptance of the duel and then they faced each other, waiting for the other to strike. The otter's body flexed with power and the scorpion moved its stinger in anticipation. Then, in an unspoken signal they both moved to attack.

The scorpion leapt forward, confident in its speed but it was surprised to find the old otter anticipating its movements. It wasn't as if it was faster, but it had clearly fought many other scorpions and could adapt quickly to the arachnid's movements, pushing its tail aside with light energy-efficient movements.

However if the otter was a grandfather, then the scorpion was his great-grandfather, knowing exactly how to deal with this type of fighting. Though the otter tried to close in to deal a blow, the scorpion carefully kept it at a distance with its flexible tail and whenever it got too close, used its pincers to force it back.

Finally, the Patriarch began to tire its aged body and lower lifespan coming to bite it. It threw itself towards the Sand-Striding Scorpion, burning what remained of its lifespan to take his foe with him but the amoral arachnid simply tutted with a pincer and jumped back, using its speed to create an impassable distance between them.

Though the otter struggled, the scorpion simply stepped back from any blows while sending mocking chitters in return. Finally the Patriarch stopped and then, dropping to a knee, he coughed out blood. Wiping its mouth with a flipper, it looked at the scorpion and then glanced with concern at his family, before meeting the eyes of his opponent once more.

The scorpion glanced at the mother and father, both of whom stepped forward flippers at the ready and then at the former young master who was reluctantly fleeing. Then, he glanced at the patriarch and shook his head, before chittering back a compromise. The patriarch closed its eyes, before looking up at the heavens. Then, taking a breath, he looked down and nodded.

It was decided then.

The scorpion would spare the young master, as a gesture of respect to a worthy opponent. Holding up a flipper, the sand otter growled a challenge. To kill him in battle or not to kill him at all. The scorpion lowered its body in respect and then it leapt forward, pincers out to strike. Just as the otter attempted to block them, its stinger struck out and injected a poison that slew it instantly.

It stood there for a moment as the body fell to the ground and there was a cry of fury from the otter father, but just for a moment the scorpion ignored it. Rare was the master so skilled so it took a moment to honor it. Though the eternal battle of predator and prey was as heaven ordained, this did not mean there was no honor between them.

The scorpion would remember the Sand Otter Patriarch.

Casually blocking the father's killing blow, he struck the otter with the back of his stinger pushing him back unharmed. The message was clear. Though it was not agreed, the scorpion would give them a chance to relent and retreat. The father looked back with a defiant gaze, a side look to the fallen guards clearly stating its goals.

The scorpion struck out with a pincer to block a blow from the wife and then lowered its body in respect. In a single swift motion, it struck them on the backs of their heads with its pincer and then their bodies fell to ground, mere corpses without their noble souls. Once more, it took a moment to pay its respect and admire the moon that was the only witness.

Then it swiftly and carefully slew all of the guards, before turning towards the oasis where the Young Master had fled. The scorpion skittered towards the oasis, wondering why the young master hadn't appeared. There was no way out in that direction, and it doubted a child from such a noble line would dishonor his lineage by not challenging him.

His life had been guaranteed, and so the scorpion would ensure he lived. However, it knew that there would be a reckoning one day. The child's honor would demand it. And so, the cycle of life would continue - one day, he would birth powerful new otters who would undoubtedly hunt down the scorpion in revenge.

It would feed or be food.

But that was for another day.

Out of some strange instinct, it began to pick up its pace and in an instant, the scorpion strode to the oasis banks. There it found a sight that caused it to chitter disapprovingly. There stood a second otter grappling the young master - it stood right in between the sand and the water. The scorpion recognised it instantly.

Mud Scum.

This was the talented outsider who had dared the young master in the first place and now, the mud otter grasped him tight and ignoring his struggling, began to pull him into the water. First, it plotted to kill the young otter's family, then it would kill him. This was understandable, however to dishonor him so just before killing him?

No.

The scorpion closed its pincers tightly in anger, the snapping sound echoing through the air. The Mud Otter's eyes fell upon it and he smirked at it. Taking an exaggerated step back into the water, told the Sand-Striding Scorpion exactly what it was thinking. That if it escaped under the water, the scorpion couldn't touch it.

It wasn't wrong.

The scorpion flexed its pincers, daring it to try. What did it think would be faster? The scorpion's tail or the otter's paws? Though it hesitated, the scoundrel did not relent. Abandoning the notion of dishonoring the young master, he simply snapped his neck and let the body fall to the ground. At that moment, it turned and jumped into the water.

The scorpion flexed.

Its legs tightened with muscle as it channeled all of its qi into its legs.

Then it moved.

In an instant, it was where the sand otter's body was falling and before he could even touch the ground, it stuck his neck with its stinger - injecting a healing poison that would fill it with incredible pain, but keep it alive through the torture. Then, it kept moving, reaching out towards the Mud Otter, who swam towards the center of the oasis and turned to heckle its pursuer.

The scorpion followed him.

Striding over the water, it chased the otter and he froze in shock. That was the moment the scorpion caught the mud scum between its pincers and then leapt out of the oasis, landing on the other side. Then it held the otter up, seeing the fear in his eyes as he realized that he was going to die.

How? His eyes seemed to ask.

The Sand Striding Scorpion chittered in victory. It certainly couldn't have followed him if he chose to dive inside, but so long as he was on the surface well…. It was a scorpion, not an otter and there was nothing saying that a scorpion could not walk on water. As his eyes begged for mercy, the scorpion took a moment to enjoy that helplessness.

Honorable opponents were well and good, but beating scum had its place.

Then it snapped the otter's neck before swallowing him whole. It needed to replenish its energy after that whole fiasco and it might as well start with the creature that had forced it to expend most of that power. Digestion would slow it down a bit, but the only danger in this hidden oasis was the young master who would lie as he was for at least a day.

The Sand Striding Scorpion decided to relax for the night. It had a good battle, some great food and as it looked into the moon reflected on the oasis, it also knew that it had a great view. Ah, what it wouldn't give for a female right now to spend this with. Alas, it wasn't as if heaven would present him with a scorpion colony.

It would have to just make do with an almost perfect evening.

| | | | | | | | | |​

Despite the limited resources in the desert, it still has a surprisingly rich ecosystem that called to mind the strength and adaptability of life. As can be seen by the name of the long winding road that is the lifeblood of trade and movement within these sands, one of the more common types of beasts seen in the desert are the scorpions. Both as monstrous threats and loyal beasts of burden, they were very well understood by the clan.

Perhaps that was why Elder Duca had chosen to create a Scorpion Ranch.

The logic of creating a strike team made from high-speed monstrous cavalry was sound. It made the clan's stiffened joints and slowed reaction times irrelevant, instead turning the bloodline into an asset by allowing them to bear the advanced strength and speed of those beasts beyond what the usual righteous cultivator could. The idea had even been applied by their ancestors as seen by the nearly extinct bronze-blooded steeds in the Dawn Fortress.

The advantage of scorpions here was that they did not suffer from the curses of the clans like the horses did and with the large variety of scorpion species in the desert, a talented breeder would likely be able to create the perfect blend of traits required for whatever role they required. As a part of that, Elder Duca had placed bounties out on all known species and many of them were already being claimed. Still, the project wasn't truly moving forward and the species that were absolutely required for the project were the ones still unfulfilled.

The reason for that was simple.

The very same bloodline that made the scorpion cavalry an excellent idea, also made capturing the better scorpion species a nightmare. And Elder Duca was only hoping for the fastest and strongest scorpion species, with some more attention also placed on those with unique abilities. Barring a few stories of exceptional luck, bravery or cleverness, the only bounties caught so far of that category was by bored legates and by Destacia Duca herself after she had gotten annoyed by waiting for others to catch them for her.

Xiao Yingzi hoped that perhaps this was a situation she could take advantage of. With the advantage of being untouched by the blood of bronze and her own supernal skill, she might be able to keep up with these sorts of targets where her allies could not and with her Soul Farseer, she would be able to track them from a distance. This was why she was now in the middle of the desert, seeking the Sand-Striding Scorpion that was said to bounce through the sand as if it was a man-sized grasshopper.

What she hadn't expected was the creature to massacre a colony of Sand Otters (And what seemed like a Mud Otter, good riddance) and then flop over, belly exposed after having its fill. It was practically presenting itself to her and Xiao Yingzi wasn't one to ignore any opportunities that presented itself. The otters would be useful for extra spirit stones, but the bounty for capturing the scorpion alive was far more worthwhile. Smiling at her luck, she moved it to capture the scorpion and bring it to the scorpion farm where Legate Duca would undoubtedly use it to create the perfect race of scorpion cavalry.

 

[Quest]

Just for fun.

Xiao Yingzi Extra 8
[Turn X]
[Good End]​

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Warning: The Six Calamities​

By order of Her Imperial Majesty Yingzi Typhaon, this document shall be made available to all Threefold Juniors who have recently forged a living world and have become legionnaires, capable of carrying and protecting the citizens of our great nation. There are many things that our juniors need to beware of when navigating the Endless Lotus Fields. Of course, the Bug War continues on and there are many dangers far afield but there are several calamities closer to the heartlands that a young legionnaire must also beware of. Listed below are the Six Calamities that may tempt, suborn or destroy an unaware junior.

The Holy Star: Once said to be a great hero, this calamity went mad and began to oppose even the righteous rule of the Imperator. Unwilling to face her might directly, the entity fled to the edge of imperial territory and walks its borders to this day. Though she may save the lives of those in need, do not be fooled for a great madness still lurks within! Should any legionnaire encounter this entity, turn back immediately and listen not to anything that they may say. All those who have spoken to her have fallen prey to her beguiling words have always been turned against the Imperium, twisted by the world-enchanting Holy Star.

The Song Spire: A world spear seven lotuses long, forged from the sonorous flesh of a corrupt legate to be a weapon worthy of the hands of the Imperator. It eventually rebelled from her will and disappeared, instead appearing before talented legionnaires of the Imperium and turning them against their leaders. Should the weapon appear before you, flee immediately and do not attempt to recover it. Its seductive song will suborn your will and even if you prove strong enough to resist, it will shatter your soul, consuming you in the process. Simply retreat and report its location to your superiors.

The Thinking Man: A man sitting in place on a barren lotus, deep in thought. He is power incarnate, a being who has ascended to the limits of cultivation. It is said that he remains still because he can grow no more, but his mind still seeks out a way beyond his current limitations. Should any hints of an existence-redefining talent or any echoes of a greater power appear, his gaze unerringly turns in their direction in the hopes of a path forward. Though he holds many secrets in his mind and is willing to share them, do not approach him for despite his well-wishes he shall eventually consume your very being to fuel his own ascension.

The Endless Graveyard: A monument to a lost world, formed from the remains of one of the Imperator's closest companions. Bug, beast and man are all drawn here seeking knowledge or salvation. All it contains are the ghosts of the past, empowered beyond reckoning. Even the ghosts of Law Creation Aspirants are empowered enough to be able to challenge experienced Centurions and even should you avoid them, the world seeks to trap you in memory, replaying events of the past until you become one of the very ghosts that guard the place.

The Bronze Abyss: A void made of hungry bronze, an endless variety of creatures thrive within this strange ecosystem. Almost every eon, it seems to grow larger and larger by consuming the worlds around it and incorporating it into its design. Do not wander within, no matter what insights you might seek. Your unique laws will be absorbed by the creatures within and your soul will be made fuel for their growth. Should interest remain in the future, there are specially trained centurions dedicated to thinning it and pushing it back, lest it consume the Imperium.

The Final Destination: A strange realm of unknown origins, it is so named because all those who enter there perish. They find their fates twisted into oblivion as all of existence turns against them, conspiring towards their death. Undodgeable blows start to miss, the surest of steps begin to stumble and even objects forged from dead worlds find themselves in positions that cause you harm. All of this happens through the strangest of coincidences, as if directed by some cosmic will. Even if escaping this location is possible, this ill luck follows you until your life comes to an end.

 

[TehChron]

Man if only the Spire was the worst she could get lol

 

[Kaboomatic]

Ninth Prince and Constantine Nikeodemos Collab - Misunderstandings and Mortal Peril​

There was nothing quite better than being a wounded veteran, Constantine had discovered. Sure, the actual process of being run through was rather unpleasant, but once that was done with, there was naught to do but reap the fruits of taking such a blow in service to the Clan and House. Sweetening the story, of course, was yet another bounty harvested from a secret realm. The Nikeodemos's favored scion had successfully proven his success in the Yuan Realm was no fluke by returning once more with a massive leap in cultivation and a grand tale of battle with the perfidious Jingshen, ending the last hidden reservations some of his family might have held and leading to a general celebration.


House Nikeodemos was a reserved, proud, and solemn one by character, not prone towards grandiosity or excess under normal circumstances. But Constantine's breakaway success served as an undeniable indication that the drought of fortune that'd seemed to hang over the lineage since their defilement of the Mausoleum had been broken, and combined with much more modest but still substantial gains by other scions of the new generation a general mood of euphoria had overtaken the family. Celebrations grew common, boasts of deeds undertaken in the past, present, and certain to occur in the future echoes through the halls of their manor. And at the center of all this was the hero of the day, none other than Constantine Nikeodemos himself, luxuriating in the fruits of his efforts.


Once a semi-pitied outsider to the massive dynasty's social dynamic, he had now been thrust into its apex … and in truth, Constantine discovered he quite liked it.


With a glass of wine and an easy laugh at hand, the specter of dread that'd haunted the scion ever since the very moment the power of his bloodline had been revealed was banished at last. Sitting there, enjoying a party thrown in the sake of his glory, Constantine found his opinions on the nature of being a 'cultivation genius' changing. Perhaps being a lauded hero wasn't such an odious task - all he needed was a gimmick, an acute sense of danger, and enough deniability to iron out all the awkward bits to make a good story when returning home. And in exchange, he'd be treated like this for the rest of his life? With a scoff, he downed the rest of his glass and sat back with a satisfied smile. He had it all worked out from here, the scion concluded.


If Constantine were a little more self-aware, he might've refrained from taunting the Heavens with such hubristic vigor, for the fates enjoy nothing more than flipping someone's life on end at the moment they least expect. So when the slip of paper found itself into his palm, the scion spared only a moment to glance around in confusion before unfurling it.


Come speak to me in my office. - Sertorius


"Huh," the scion guilelessly said. "I wonder what he wants?"


***


Sertorius Nikeodemos was nothing if not an imposing figure. The current sole Core Formation Elder of the house, he was a figure of legend to the younger generations. Once, Constantine had trembled in fear of his grandfather, viewing him as one of the ancient statues in the Mausoleum having come to life and stepped off its pedestal, a figure of legendary past walking around in the present and changing fate in his wake. He could've counted the times he spoke to the old man with a single hand, and each of those occasions had done nothing but reinforce the impression.


But time and growth stripped much of the awe from the scion, and now his cocky young eyes perceived a powerful elder sitting at an unadorned desk, going over documents and all the other work that went into running one of the Clan's most powerful noble houses. Constantine was intelligent enough to ditch the drink and maintain a solemn bearing before entering his grandfather' study, but nonetheless it remained obvious from where exactly he'd just been summoned from, and in the back of his mind he couldn't help but note the sharp difference between his grandfather's studious work and his own hedonistic pursuits. Still, it was with long practice that the scion schooled such thoughts from his face as he sat down in the chair awaiting him. He'd dealt with his own father's disapproval before. This was merely upping the stakes.


"Grandfather," Constantine greeted, before falling silent as Sertorius slowly set his work down and turned to face his grandson, the most promising specimen from his latest batch of progeny. Truthfully speaking, Constantine was expecting some kind of praise or reward from his mercurial grandfather, who'd remained aloof from the otherwise profuse gratitude expressed by his family at his stunning growth. Yet, as the silence stretched on, he couldn't help but feel a little uneasy at the thought he may have missed something important.


Finally, Sertorius broke the silence, gesturing towards the bandages wrapped around Constantine's chest concealing the wound he'd taken in the Quigui realm.


"You were wounded." He stated, his expression just as schooled as his grandson's, leaving the boy only to wonder at what might the patriarch be thinking.


"Aha, well, yes." Constantine admitted, giving a short chuckle. "I ran into the Jingshen whilst in the Quigui Realm, and put myself in a little too much danger trying to bail out a junior." Lesson learnt, don't open up with a pickup line. The scion internally cringed, remembering that particular incident. Fresh off his latest powerup, he'd gotten a little too confident when seeing an opportunity to save a younger Clan member from a particularly attractive Jingshen, who'd apparently been using a very powerful spear - something he'd only learned after being impaled with it. No matter how hot the broad might be.


What Sertorius thought of this story, he didn't show. Instead, after letting the silence continue on until it became almost uncomfortable again, he turned and opened a compartment on his desk, pulling out some kind of talisman. Constantine leaned forward with interest, already wondering what this relic might do. Even the seemingly innocuous ones had proven extremely useful - such as the item he'd thought broken until it'd let him cultivate at such an accelerated pace in the secret realms.


"Er, what is that for?" He eventually spoke up when his grandfather continued to fiddle with it instead of handing it over.


"It heals." Sertorius laconically replied, before pointing it at Constantine. The scion had only a moment to realize with horror his prized war wound was about to be removed before he was struck with agonizing pain, his flesh reknitting together in seconds. Doubling over, Constantine barely managed to avoid screaming aloud in pain, nearly falling off his chair in shock. His grandfather frowned in disappointment at the reaction, before shaking his head and standing up. It was clear this matter would require a personal touch.


"Shit!" Constantine finally managed to hiss out with a grimace as the twisting, unsettling agony finally ceased. Glancing up at the desk with a grimace, however, he blinked in confusion to see its occupant suddenly missing - before the scion was hit with a wave of pressure from his left.


"You've grown too quickly and easily." Sertorius coldly diagnosed, leaning over his grandson as he yelped in shock, this time actually being knocked off the chair. "It's left you soft. Fragile." In that moment, staring up at his grandfather from the floor, Constantine suddenly realized that the old man might've been more perceptive than he'd assumed. Before he could offer some kind of answer, however, a hand was clasped around his shirt and he yanked to his feet. "You are going to serve as my aide for the 217th." Sertorius commanded, his face seemingly carved from stone. "There, you will learn much that will be needed for when you take my place. But more importantly, there you will have the weakness ironed from you. No matter how long it takes." … Constantine couldn't tell whether that was a threat or a promise.


With Sertorius Nikeodemos, the difference was largely moot.


------------


Paperwork, as the Ninth Prince had rapidly and disastrously found, sucked.


Well, that wasn't entirely accurate.


Paperwork, in small doses and for needed tasks, was entirely bearable. Fun, almost. The Ninth Prince had been doing the standard paperwork necessary for a member of the Imperial Optimatoi since his induction into the clan itself, and for the most part, it was incredibly easy. Part of that was actually due to the nature of the filing and forms he needed to do. Paperwork was the only method to 'cash in' his various rewards and accolades, and so the Ninth Prince soon grew quite familiar with this aspect of Clan life.


The implication here was that the Ninth Prince had a lot of rewards and accolades, if that wasn't clear to the imaginary reader within the Ninth Prince's head.


Even the paperwork that came with being a Legate was relatively light work. All the Ninth Prince really had to do was read the various forms that his subcommanders and lieutenants sent him, make sure embezzlement was within the accepted thresholds, and sign off on them. Being at the top of the pyramid meant that most of the work was done by those directly below you, and all you needed to worry about was the people you directly managed. It was quite the effective organizational schema.


Now all the Ninth Prince needed to do was get some other Legate's buy-in, and his pyramid schema could be spread to the entire clan! Multi-Legate Management would be the new big thing, he was sure of it.


But the Ninth Prince digressed. Of course, he was allowed to, considering that this was all within his thoughts, privy to no hypothetical observers. And even if such hypothetical observers hypothetically existed, these hypothetical entities would have, hypothetically, already known what they were hypothetically getting into when they opened this hypothetical chapter of the Ninth Prince's hypothetical memoirs.


Hypothetically, of course.


…Anyways.


The issue currently at hand was that the Ninth Prince's legion had been gutted thoroughly and mercilessly by traitors within their midst. Those foul fiends and vile villains had been tempted by the Blood Mist that had ravaged the region, and turned their iniquitous designs on their former comrades! The loyalists of the Hydra managed to fight these heretics off, but at great cost to the 99th Legion itself. The Hydra was but a shadow of its former self.


And this was where the Ninth Prince's paperwork problems came in.


The Clan, being the Clan, had thousands of precedents for lost and broken legions, and even more for what to do once such a legion tried to reconstitute itself. Somehow, all of those precedents involved a truly monumental amount of paperwork. Privately, the Ninth Prince believed that this was a way to punish the Legates that'd sat around and watched as their legions died. If so, then forcing this onto him (Well, probably. The Ninth Prince didn't actually have any proof that the council had forced this onto him, but really, what else could it be? The normal course of how things worked? Please.) was massively unfair on the part of the Council; after all, the Ninth Prince was dead when his legion went to war against itself. This wasn't his fault in the slightest!


And yet, here he was. Literally and figuratively buried under a mountain of forms; requisition requests, bereavement pay, supply files, personnel dossiers, letters from other Legates who were trying to poach his remaining legionnaires, and a whole host of other things.


The Ninth Prince managed well enough (he was the Ninth Prince after all), filling out requisitions, personally delivering bereavement pay to sobbing families, completing supply files, updating personnel dossiers, and sending incredibly polite letters back to the Legates that were trying to step in on his turf that basically said 'Fuk u I'm the Ninth Prince, fight me 1v1 mate u wont, thats wut i thot bitch'.


Those last ones were admittedly quite fun.


But the issue at hand was something that couldn't be solved with politely worded inflammatory challenge letters. Because the paperwork kept on piling up and the requests kept on coming in, and even that wasn't the actual problem at hand.


It would be so easy for a lesser mind to get bogged down in the minutia of paperwork and filing forms and forget about the bigger picture. Of course, the Ninth Prince was no lesser mind. He wasn't even a regular mind. He was a greater mind, one of the largest brains in the clan, and definitely in the top 3 of most intelligent foundation establishment cultivators in the Optimatoi.


Not that anyone was counting of course.


(The Ninth Prince was totally counting.)


As such, the Ninth Prince kept his eyes on the true problem; the fact that the Hydra was severely understrength, truly gutted, completely and utterly broken beyond most forms of repair due to the shameless treachery of those that the Ninth Prince had once thought true and loyal members of the c-


Wow, that was… oddly depressing. The Ninth Prince really needed to stop pontificating for dramatic effect, all it did was make him unintentionally sad.


Also there was no point in being dramatic if nobody was around to appreciate it, but that was beside the point.


The point being that the Ninth Prince needed to start actually recruiting again. Like seriously, this was completely unacceptable, the Hydra was down to around a single Fang's worth of troops. And considering that a Fang was about a hundred legionnaires all together, that wasn't very good.


The Hydra had been actually reverse decimated. And not the silly form of decimation, where it meant 'kill a lot of people'. No, the Ninth Prince meant the Optimatoi punishment of killing a tenth of the soldiers in a legion to make an example of them. But instead of that, the Hydra got reverse decimated, which meant that one in ten of the soldiers of the legion survived.


…Wow, that was once more enormously depressing. Seriously, the Ninth Prince needed to chill a bit. This was getting out of hand.


Anyways, the point at hand was that the Ninth Prince needed to go on a recruiting drive. But nothing too major at first, just a small personal little effort, enough to make a proper command structure. It'd be fun, and the Ninth Prince should probably talk with more of the promising juniors of the clan, keep them out of Aretaphila's grubby Single Pillar mitts.


Seriously, she was taking everyone and it was annoying. The Ninth Prince wanted to take Katha and Rathos as minions slaves legionnaires, and he didn't even have a chance to try. And Rina had that Zenos guy, and…


The Ninth Prince was feeling left out, alright? Were you happy now, imaginary person within the Ninth Prince's head?


Good. Or if you aren't, fuck you, he was the Ninth Prince. 1v1 him mate, come on, you won't. That's what he thought, bitch.


…ANYWAYS


That whole recruitment thing seemed like a good plan. The only issue was figuring out who said promising juniors were, but that was easy enough. All the Ninth Prince really had to do was tap into the Legate gossip network. It'd cost him a few favors, but he could probably get a good list of the juniors with the most talent and luck, and figure out how to poach them from their respective Legates.


…Look it's fine when he doe-


Actually, no. Not even as a joke. That sort of nepotism and selfishness flew in the face of everything the Ninth Prince's Dao stood for.


So, no poaching. Or at least, not unless the junior in question actively begged him to take them on as a legionnaire. But the odds of that ever happening were so slim as to be laughable.


After all, what sort of rising star would want to leave their current legion?


-----------------------------------------


The Ninth Prince took an appreciative sip of alcohol as he stared over the Nikeodemos estate. Sharp, tangy, and with just a pinch of neurotoxin. Just the way he liked it. "Good wine." He praised, setting down his glass and looking over at Sertorius.


The two of them went way back, not as sworn brothers or anything, but they were of a similar generation. The Ninth Prince sent a few trade deals Sertorius' way, Sertorius warned the Ninth Prince of minor beast tides heading towards Liaogai, it was a good time all around. Sertorius had the connections and the Ninth Prince had the adventuring hero power. They worked well together.


And so, naturally, when the Ninth Prince wanted some help figuring out who to recruit into his legion command staff, he went to the Nikeodemos Patriarch. That being said… "You wouldn't believe how much paperwork goes into reconstituting a legion. It's about twelve times as much as a Legate's decennial upkeep paperwork, and I've barely been at this for five years! Between you and me, I feel like the council is trying to punish me for being dead."


There wasn't much actual recruitment talk going around. For the most part, the Ninth Prince was just complaining about paperwork.


"Mmm." Sertorius hummed in a vaguely sympathetic tone, taking a sip from his own clear glass of water. The Nikeodemos patriarch was a stark contrast to the Ninth Prince: reserved in demeanor, dress, and word to the same extent his companion was extravagant. "It can be a hassle." With a snap of his fingers, he called over his grandson, who was obediently waiting off to the side, clasping a pitcher of the estate's wine - the good stuff, too. Constantine shuffered forward, trying not to openly wince at the bruises which dotted his body, and refilled the glass the Ninth Prince had been using. Noting his grandson, the patriarch leaned forward in his seat.


"Have you looked into getting an aide?" He suggested, his voice as level as ever. "Having somebody you trust to handle the minor things can cut down on the workload meaningfully if not significantly, and it can also be used as an encouragement to draw in a promising recruit due to the attached prestige to your own station." Constantine shuffled uncomfortably at the attention drawn to him as he returned to his original position, but despite himself he couldn't help but listen in with curiosity. The Ninth Prince's voice was giving him the strangest sense of deja vu - he could've sworn he'd heard the man before, but he was extremely certain he would've remembered encountering someone so … aggressively memorable.


The Ninth Prince hummed noncommittally, lost deep in the recesses of his own enormous brain. An aide, huh? Well, that would honestly work wonders for his workload, and it meant that he could drop every boring part of his job onto a single person and forget about it. The only real problem was who to pick, the Ninth Prince didn't really have anyone in mind. Hells, that was why he visited Sertorius in the first place, to get junior recommendations. He picked up his glass and took another sip. Mmmm, neurotoxin. "I'm not opposed to the idea, and it'd be an easy way to reduce my workload. The only real issue is finding an aide like that."


The Ninth Prince put down his glass again. "Do you have any recommendations?"


Sertorius nodded solemnly, picking up a folder that'd been laying on the dining table since the Prince had arrived and handing it over. Opening it up, he found in neat script a list of names, with their locations, brief descriptions, and other relevant information included on the side.


"I find it wise to keep a thumb on the pulse of promising prospects," the patriarch revealed with another sip of his drink - which the Ninth Prince suspected him to have boiled beforehand, just to get the right state of utterly tasteless. "But it is also wise to do good friends good favors."


Meanwhile, the patriarch's own aide had perked up at the mention of the Prince's open position - and more crucially, desire to have someone handle the boring parts of leading a legion. As it turned out, his grandfather didn't follow the advice he gave, and preferred to handle nearly every bit of his own legion's administration himself, leaving Constantine with plenty of time to work on the training regimens he'd devised.


So much time.


Seeing a lifeline being tossed to the hellish pit he'd found himself in, the scion wasted no time trying to seize it with both hands, and carefully maneuvered around Sertorius's back before attempting to convey his intention to the Ninth Prince through silent gestures. Conveying his exact intention through trying to wave his arms was a little tricky, but Constantine figured it'd be pretty obvious that he wanted to try and join the Prince's own legion - anything to get him out from under grandfather.


The Ninth Prince, keen eyed as ever and with a long history of interpretive dance under his metaphorical snakeskin belt (well, lizardskin technically. As if the Ninth Prince would ever buy products made with snake corpses), noticed that young fellow by Sertorius's side - Constantine? Yeah that seemed about right - signaling desperately for the Ninth Prince to get him out from under his grandfather's thumb.


…Huh.


Weird.


The Nikeodemos patriarch raised an eyebrow at the Prince's reaction, before turning around and looking at his grandson, now the very picture of the disciplined, filial aide.


"... Do you have something to say, Constantine?" He asked, still not raising or changing his tone in any way, but still sending a sliver of fear down his grandson's spine.


"I was just, uh, thinking that perhaps the Ninth Prince would be interested in recruiting me into his legion." Constantine BS'd with long practice. "I've heard many stories of his and the Hydra's exploits, and would consider it an honor to participate!"


Sertorius wasn't fooled for a second.


The Ninth Prince was delighted. Finally, a junior he could recruit! Someone who would fully and one hundred percent be onboard with the ludicrous danger that he was almost certain to hurl himself into. Naturally, as part of their job description, his aide would be expected to jump into that danger right beside the Ninth Prince, and it seemed like Constantine was exactly the man for the job.


And then it clicked in the Ninth Prince's enormous brain. That was why Constantine wanted out of his grandfather's legion, out of a cushy posting in which he wouldn't see that much comparative danger. Constantine was bored, bored of the mundane life of training and parties that surely awaited him under Sertorius' command.


Truly, the Ninth Prince had found a kindred spirit here today.


And, of course, what else could the Ninth Prince do but assist this fellow adrenaline junkie (the Ninth Prince was honest about his few flaws) before him? "Well, I certainly wouldn't be against it. Young Constantine here seems quite competent, ready and willing to hurl himself into the deepest of danger with nothing more than a scream of excitement. It'd be a pleasure to have him as my Aide." The Ninth Prince said to Sertorius, surreptitiously winking at Constantine when the old man's back was turned, signifying his intent to help Constantine get out of a life of tedium and into a death defying adventure.


Said scion started sweating a little when the Prince began vividly illustrating what kind of adventures he intended to have him get up to, but relaxed when the man gave him one of the most unsubtle winks he'd ever seen, glad that he'd found a kindred spirit with the renowned cultivator. No wonder his legion had torn itself apart in his absence, without the Prince's skilled hand at the helm to lead his band of bloodthirsty maniacs! Surely he'd appreciate having someone as cogent and reserved as Constantine to work alongside him from now on.


"Is that so." Sertorius replied in his characteristically unamused cadence, before pausing as an evil idea flickered behind his stolid facade.


"Of course! The very thought already has my heart racing." Constantine lied through his teeth. "It's just that I'm worried about my posting as your aide giving people the impression I'm c-coddled," at that line even the scion's impressive chutzpah cracked and he nearly choked on the words, but through sheer force of will carried on. "And I want to establish a reputation in my own right."


"Hmm." Sertorius hummed again, openly considering the idea. "It is good to let the young spread their own wings at times …"


"Exactly!" The Ninth Prince interjected once more, visibly excited. "You know how I first forged my legend, scaring off a Great Circle Core Formation Cultivator while I was still in Qi Condensation. And while it was incredibly, ludicrously dangerous, that danger was what cemented my reputation as the Ninth Prince."


The Ninth Prince's voice grew serious as he looked Sertorius dead in the eyes. "Sertorius. I promise you this. I will take Constantine into the most dangerous parts of the Virtuous Flipper Region in service of the Clan. We won't take anything but the most risky missions or the most death-defying tasks. I'll bring your grandson home to you either in a hero's laurels or in a funeral casket."


"There's no corner of the Region we won't go into, no foe we won't face, no trial we won't overcome!" The Ninth Prince was really getting into it now, going into full on GREAT JUSTICE mode. "We'll be pushed to our absolute limits and we'll break through our barriers or die in the attempt. I will forge your grandson into a legend worthy of the Council, a candidate to become the next Archegetes!"


"He has the potential after all, you've told me yourself! All he needs is a brutal training regimen and an even more brutal crucible to test himself in!" The Ninth Prince was standing up now, one foot on the table and arm reaching for the sky. "Your grandson will reach either the heights of glory or the depths of death!"


And then abruptly, the Ninth Prince was sitting in his seat once more, calmly and cooly sipping his wine, as if that hotblooded speech hadn't meant anything to him. "That is, if you're willing to entrust him to me of course."


Constantine looked upon the Ninth Prince with open respect now. That was some of the finest bullshitting he'd ever seen! Normally you want to tone things down lest people think you're full of it, but the Prince spoke with such passion that the scion was nearly believing it himself! An absolutely fine performance, perhaps he would be learning more from the man than how to do his paperwork.


Sertorius, meanwhile, was using his impressive reserves of willpower and centuries of experience at maintaining a poker face not to burst out into full, gut-busting laughter. Instead, he merely took a sip of his boiled water as if the Prince had just commented on the weather before placidly nodding in agreement, his wry grin successfully disguised.


"Then I shall concede to my grandson's desire," he said with the quiet dignity expected of his station.


Constantine - in a similar display of restraint and self-control - managed to avoid bursting out loud into a cheer, and instead offered his grandfather a respectful nod before thanking him for the privilege. Internally, he beamed: at long last, he'd finally escaped the hell of his own creation, and could finally enjoy the quiet, peaceful backline administrative position he'd craved in the first place.


Yes, Constantine determined, smug and self-satisfied, it was all smooth sailing from here.


---------------------------------


"-AND STANDING HERE TODAY, MY JUNIORS-NAY, MY BROTHERS AND SISTERS IN ARMS, KNOW THAT WHATEVER HAPPENS, WE WILL BE REMEMBERED!"


They had seen the abyss and it was staring back into their souls. Death, darkness, curses, torment, the gates to a hell made by men worse than demons. The message was clear to all who looked on the Poison Maze of the Noble Knowledge Sect: Abandon All Hope, Ye Who Enter Here.


"I WILL NOT LIE TO YOU, THIS WILL BE DANGEROUS. IT MAY EVEN BE DEADLY. SOME OF US WILL NOT RETURN ALIVE, AND NONE OF US WILL RETURN UNCHANGED."


The boundary from which the Maze was separated from the rest of the world was both ephemeral yet as clear as glass, a tangible energy in the air that separated the world as ordained by Heaven from the abomination created by malice.


"THE TREK AHEAD OF US IS LONG AND ARDUOUS, AND AT POINTS WE WILL FALTER! AT POINTS, WE WILL FALL! THE ENTIRE WORLD WILL SEEM AGAINST US! AND YET, I ASK OF YOU. WHY DOES THAT MATTER?!"


Vague, serpentine suggestions seem to writhe in the distance, although eyesight seemed to grow less reliable mere feet past the walls of the Siege. Were their undead serpents twisting through the ground and into the air, awaiting a moment of unawareness to strike, or was it just their frightened gazes latching onto patterns where there were none?


"THOUGH THE WORLD MAY STAND AGAINST US, THOUGH WE MAY PLUNGE HEADFIRST INTO THE ABYSS WITH NO HOPE OF RETURN, THOUGH WE WILL BURN AND BREAK AND PERHAPS DIE, KNOW THAT WE ARE HEROES, ONE AND ALL!"


The local cultivators showed none of the complicated emotions that usually came with a Golden Devil deployment, instead, upon hearing what the Hydra intended to do, merely looked upon them with pity or simply blank apathy, worn down to nubs by their exhausting and traumatizing duty.


"KNOW THAT, NO MATTER WHAT, WE WILL KEEP PUSHING FORWARDS! WE WILL SEE WHAT THIS MOST VILE OF SECTS HAS TO THROW AT US AND WE WILL LAUGH IN THE FACES OF THEIR STUNNED CULTISTS AS IT FAILS TO IMPEDE OUR ADVANCE!"


Bodies littered the No Man's Land between the two lines, some seemingly as fresh as yesterday, and others decayed to the point they could've laid there for decades. The cleaning bone and rotting flesh was almost as awful and poignant a barrier as the Maze itself, and seemed to taunt the besigers with the fate that awaited any trespassers.


"THEIR CORPSES AND THEIR CURSES WILL SHATTER AGAINST OUR BLOWS! THEIR FATE-TWISTING AND THEIR HEX-ARTS WILL DO LESS THAN NOTHING! WE WILL STAND TALL AND PROUD AGAINST THEIR MOST VILE OF POISONS!"


The Poison Crushing Siege was hell, plain and simply. It was a nightmare, brought to life and grounded in awful reality through the crackle of abyssal energy and rotting stench of the dead. And it was a hell to which the legion intended to plunge.


"THE POISON MAZE IS A HELL MADE BY DEMONS, AND WE ARE THE HEROES THAT WILL CONQUER ITS DEPTHS! WE BRAVE THIS ABYSS, NOT FOR OURSELVES, BUT FOR THOSE TRAPPED WITHIN ITS DEPTHS, THOSE WHOSE SOULS ARE CRYING OUT FOR RESCUE!"


The full force of the 99th Legion, the Hydra Legion of the Golden Devil Clan, was arrayed behind the Ninth Prince, adorned in full panoply. They numbered barely a hundred, but each of them was either a veteran of the Blood Mist Heresy, or a junior hand-picked by the Ninth Prince to join this Crucible.


"WE WILL MARCH ONTO CHUNWANG, AND CLEANSE OURSELVES OF SIN, PURGING IT LIKE WE SHALL PURGE THE DENIZENS OF THIS HELLISH PLACE!"


The bulk of the Hydra was made of those veterans, the scant remainders of the original legion that had stayed loyal and survived the Blood Mist Heresy. They had failed once, with their Legate dead and their legion broken and corrupted, and they would not fail again. There were only two options. Glory or Death.


"WE SHALL MAKE OUR BANNER KNOWN ACROSS THE REGION, UNTIL THERE IS NO CULTIVATOR ALIVE WHO DOESN'T KNOW OF THE HYDRA!"


But there were new recruits, handpicked scions of the clan, heirs to ancient legacies and bearers of powerful Arts, all hungry with the desire to prove themselves on the grandest of stages.


"WE WILL FIGHT SO FURIOUSLY AND FANATICALLY THAT IT WILL TAKE SEVEN MORTAL WOUNDS TO DOWN A SINGLE LEGIONNAIRE!"


Seven-Deaths Li, so named for his Sevenfold Rebirth Art, fidgeted impatiently with his shields as the Ninth Prince gave his speech, bits of earth falling off of the young man like pebbles heralding a landslide. He smiled, relishing the chance to prove himself through carnage.


"OUR WAR DRUMS WILL RESOUND SO LOUDLY THAT WE WILL ROUT THE ENEMY BEFORE THEY EVEN SEE US ON THE HORIZON!"


Alexandria Meduchos hummed under her breath, the melodious notes causing those around her to perk up, jolts of energy pushed into their bodies. Around her feet, the grass withered and died, the music draining the lifeforce from the vegetation and using it to bolster her allies.


"WE WILL SHATTER THEIR CITIES, BREAK THEIR LABORATORIES, TURN THEIR DARK FORGES INTO NOTHING MORE THAN RUBBLE!"


Perses of the Parhelion simply smiled, enormous forge-hammer spinning within his grasp in a mesmerizing rhythm. On his back, he carried a sack filled to the brim with trinkets and all manner of scrap, and at his command, it began to dance around him, a whirling dervish of pointed metal death.


"WE WILL BE A TRIBULATION ON OUR FOES, STRIKING AS HARD AND AS FAST AS THE LIGHTNING THAT RAINS FROM THE HEAVENS!"


Ralia Katona hefted her twin bone axes with a savage smile, beast-hide armor glowing with arcane symbols passed down through the Katona line for thousands of years. With a flex of her fingers, lightning began to crackle around her weapons, the power of the storm released from the beast cores within.


"THE ENTIRE WORLD IS HERE AT OUR SIDE TODAY, THE SPIRITS OF THOSE LOST TO THE MAZE'S DEPRAVITIES URGING US ONWARDS!"


Xin Shen smiled softly as he tended to his bound spirits. Five elemental spirits, one for each element, stood around the man as he performed last minute adjustments, casting his various sorceries on his contracted elementals and fiddling with their bindings, obsessively finishing his last minute preparations.


"BEARING THE PANOPLY OF OUR ANCESTORS, WE SHALL DO THEM PROUD AS WE STRIDE INTO THE ABYSS WITHOUT HESITATION!"


Peng Zihua, Princess of the 60 Kingdom Alliance, stood tall and confident under the weight of the massive array of talismans and treasures she bore on her person. Each one was the life's work of a single masterful artisan, entire lifetimes spent to gird a single woman and protect her from the dangers within the Poison Maze.


"WE SHALL NEVER BACK DOWN, WE SHALL NEVER SURRENDER, WE WILL KEEP ON GOING NO MATTER WHAT WE FACE WITHIN THIS DEVILISH MAZE!"


And finally, there was Constantine Nikeodemos, the Ninth Prince's new aide, preeminent scion of his mighty dynasty. Festooned with antediluvian artifacts reclaimed from the unfathomably deep mausoleum of House Nikeodemos, his armored figure seemed to radiate assured power. Above his head fluttered the ancient Banner of Nike, flying proudly from a grand pike, which brought strength to all that fought under it's aegis and terror to those that opposed their march. He stood as a walking reminder of the Golden Devil Clan's grand history and the Sea Conquering Army's enduring legacy, ready to bring their wrath against the latest foe foolish enough to cross them.


"IF WE EMERGE IT WILL BE WITH THE PRISONERS WITHIN CHUNWANG OR NOT AT ALL! I SWEAR THIS OATH TO ALL PRESENT, THE HYDRA WILL NOT LEAVE THE POISON MAZE UNTIL OUR WORK IS DONE!"


But under the imposing visage of the Cobalt Helm, Constantine wasn't feeling much like any of this. In fact, if his skin were not flush with the distinctly bronze of a healthy bloodline, it would be a rather deathly pallor. Because in that moment, gazing upon the efficacy of the Poison Crushing Siege, and preparing to plunge into this literal hellscape, something had finally occurred to the young man.


"GLORY OR DEATH!!!!!"


"... I may have made an error in judgment."

 

[Taut_Templar]

The Collab

Glad to be back in the game.

 

[ObsidianNoir]

Qinglong Shu 26 - Infamous

"What do you think of that girl?"

The blonde aspirant glanced at her clan brother, her broom ceasing in its movements. Two Qi Condensation cultivators, at the first Heavenstage, alone in some archives. Romance novels would easily start with such a set up. Now if only the brown haired boy, messy and short hair, was actually attractive in any way. Or smart. The blonde scoffed, shaking her head and shaking her ponytail with it before focusing back on getting this damn place cleaned up.

"Wow, very specific, brother."

Her partner in crime sighed before sending a glare at him.

"You know what I mean, Thea."

"As a matter of fact, I don't." Unimpressed she sent the glare right back by a tenfold. "Do you know how many females exist in this clan, Maleus?"

He at least had the sense to look away in shame. She let out a snort. Yeah, that's right, you misogynistic pig. Women actually were varied enough to need distinguishing. Maleus cleared his throat, looking around as if afraid they were being overheard, then leaned closer to her with his voice being a whisper.

"Qinglong Shu."

Thea raised an eyebrow at that.

"Elder Lang's pet project?"

Someone that was brought to the clan from the outside. It wasn't exactly a rare thing, but it happened unfrequently enough that it took some notice. Especially if that outsider smashed through the stages like a bull would through a wooden fence. What kind of insane person could just casually jump up to Body Purification in a matter of twenty years? Great Era or not, it filled the female aspirant with seething envy. But she felt like this wasn't the focus of his words. He didn't seem angry at all, which was unlike him. Instead his focus seemed to be on…suspicion.

It was his following words that threw her for a loop.

"Do you think she's actually strong?"

She stared at him, silently, for quite a while. He began to fidget after what felt like a minute or two. She blinked slowly, her brain restarting from the insanity she just heard.

"Brother, she is nine stages above us."

"Alright, wrong phrasing," he muttered to the side before licking his lips. "Do you think she…damn it, does she live up to the hype she is getting? B-Besides cultivation, don't look at me like that!"

Thea nodded slowly at his red face.

"Combat aptitude. You are talking about that," she asked in a flat tone. Maleus pointed at her, nodding frantically.

"Yes! That!"

Heavens, he was such an airhead sometimes. It felt like she was his mother with how he needed handholding like this. Putting the broom against the wall, Thea crossed her arms with a shrug.

"Well, guess we both weren't around for it. A hundred sparrings in one day, followed up with fighting them in a Formation? It sounds like something out of a fairy tale."

And utterly insane. What was the point? Sure, the rumors said about how Qinglong Shu wanted to murder her aunt in Foundation Establishment, and wasn't that an entirely different bag of concerns. But to actually work herself to the death like this? Almost unbelievable, an opinion her clan brother shared, as he scoffed at the words.

"Sounds like propaganda. And even if it is true…that is like the only thing she has going for her in terms of actual feats the public knows."
"Isn't she an Azure Dragon now or something?" Thea asked with a raised eyebrow. She faintly recalled the news being spread like that. Inhuman scales, a furious aura that would eat all and a blindfold to protect others from seeing her eyes, for they would spontaneously combust into flames.

Supposedly.

"And how the fuck did she get that? Through fighting? Through blessings? Did she drink some blood? Nobody knows and that's my issue." Maleus pointed down with a frustrated growl. "We don't know how competent she is. Because for a supposed "monstrous" talent, she sure as hell makes it hard to know she is one, what with her tendency to seclude herself from everything that actually matters in the clan!"

"If the 501st recruited her, she has to be competent."

Maleus sent her a flat look.

"First of all, the 501st are a bunch of freaks and you know it. Second of all, as far as I know, despite being a part of them, she never actually participated in any of the missions they were on. Believe me, I asked around. Not that many outsiders within the clan and apparently her tattoo is a dead give away. And yet, nada."

Huh. That was curious. The 501st was understaffed as it was, denhole of debauchery and insanity that it was. Then an idle thought entered her mind as she snapped her fingers.

"Maybe she is Centurion XII."

It wa a long shot at best and Maleus agreed with a roll of his eyes.

"Yeah and I'll eat my shoe. We all know Centurion XII is a puppet construct made out of the flesh and bones of Legate Myia's enemies."

Thea's eyebrows rose high.

"I thought it was a spirit beast that is like eighty percent towards being a human." They both paused, realizing how silly that Centurion was in terms of rumors and concept. Thea shook her head. "Anyway…so you're unimpressed."

"I'm saying I'm skeptical," Maleus emphasized, his hands pressed together. "Lack of feats is suspicious. If she is such a talented monster, why don't I hear anything from her?"

"Some people just focus more on cultivation."

One always cultivated alone after all. Maybe it was a bit cliche, but being separated from the perils of the real world in order to ascend, to advance one's enlightenment…well, it was old fashioned but it clearly showed results. Naturally Maleus disagreed with a glare.

"At the expense of practical experience. So close to the Trials."

She flinched at the mention of that dreaded word. Trials. She knew the stories. The horrors, of an army of enemies hunting them down specifically, blessed by the Heavens themselves. With a shuddering breath, she pressed her lips together.

"Preparation is important."

"Advancing the goals of the clan are also important. What, does she think if she becomes the strongest Qi Condensation Cultivator in history, she can save all of us silly inferiors with her awesome power from Fifth Sea hunters?" He snarled at this point, his frustrations boiling over. "It doesn't matter how strong she is if we fail our missions and fail to advance our foundations, our ambitions!

Thea tightened her hands into fists. Yes, if that was her actual motivation…Thea had to admit, her pride stinging was the least of offenses Qinglong Shu would commit with such a mindset. Yet she didn't know that for sure. Thus, she forced out a calming breath.

"For all you know, she has plenty of practical experience. Just outside the public view."

At her control on her emotions, Maleus seemed to calm down somewhat too. If only a little as his shoulders slumped.

"It just rubs me the wrong way. All that supposed power and she doesn't use it for us. All those missions. If she was really all that great, some of those would've gone a lot better."

"You can't just blame her because she isn't around," Thea said in a soft tone.

"Maybe. But until I see her in action out in the actual battlefield…I say she is overhyped."

The two remained quiet for a while. Then Thea nodded with a sigh.

"Fair enough. At some point all the 'oh she is so talented' rumors lose their appeal if I don't get to see anything. Worst case, she relies on raw Qi to get by with no skill at all."

"Yeah…that uncertainty of what she can actually do gets to me." His features darkened once more. "And it's not like we're gonna hear anything more in the next years. I heard she has become even more of a hermit to prepare for Yuan."

"Isn't one of the missions in Yuan?"

At her confused expression, he sent her a flat look.

"Secret Realm."

Another Secret Realm. Right before the Trials. The risks of crippling were immensely high, for no gain for the clan, at least in the large scale of things. To say that it was a self centered move was the least of things. Thea felt her eyebrow twitch.

"...Okay, I'm starting to share your sense of frustration."

"See?!"

 

[TehChron]

Now all the Ninth Prince needed to do was get some other Legate's buy-in, and his pyramid schema could be spread to the entire clan! Multi-Legate Management would be the new big thing, he was sure of it

Click to shrink...

View: https://youtu.be/KlRxAIYy-WU

"I-I sense a new fraud scheme! ANUSH?!"

 

[ilbgar123]

Hey cool, we've hit 3.3 million words.

Huh, yeah, hadn't considered what Shu would look like from the outside.

 

[LordEdric]

Magnus Centenius
​

Magnus Pt. 27- Breaking Poison Siege, Breaking the Old Goals, Breaking Ground on New Brewery

------------------------------------------------------------

Magnus had been under Chunwang for over month brewing one of the most annoyingly over-complicated poisons he every had to make. Not only did it take thirty-one days to complete, the ingredients were completely random and the poison itself could destroy Magnus' arms while he brewed it.

The sheer number of precautions he needed to prepare before hand added another 3 months to his work just to smuggle all the equipment down to the sewers and set it up. He had to get a special air tight cloak/shirt to protect his arms, then he had to set up non spiritual powered vents that would pump the fumes of the poison from the sewers to the cells where the slaves were.

Next was the most tedious and in his opinion, the most useless part, he had to add the first few ingredients in the cauldron and boil it for days while stirring. Why anyone would design anything that would require almost a whole week of nothing but stirring a pot was beyond him. After a week of mind numbing work, the next dozen items were practically thrown in together while reciting a rather strange chant.

It was proven that the ingredients must be add at the same time as the chant called for it or the poison would explode in the brewer's face. Magnus had tested it before coming to the city and the speed of the chant mattered little as well as the specifics of the ingredients. They just had to fit what was being described in the chant.

One part had asked for a eye from a newt. Magnus had tried to use a eye from the Star Gazing Newt and the eye from a Flaming-eye Newt and they both worked perfectly. How this chaotic mess of a recipe gave the same poison every time was a mystery Magnus had lost many nights of sleep trying to figure out. The only thing he understood was that the mess of different energies made a delicate balance. When it came in contact with other spiritual materials, the balance is destroyed causing both it and what it touches to dissolve into a useless mess.

Any living creatures would produce more spiritual energy then would be eroded by the poison, but non-living things, like the shackles of the slaves in the city for example, would slowly have its spiritual energy broken down until the weak points cracked open, hence the misleading name of Spirit-Shattering Poison.

Magnus refocused on the bubbling cauldron in from of him before he started chanting,

"Round about the cauldron go;
In the poison'd entrails throw.

Toad, that under cold stone
Days and nights has thirty-one
Swelter'd venom sleeping got,
Boil thou first i' the charmed pot."

'Stupid toad had to be tied down and force fed, and had to giving antivenoms to keep it alive long enough, it was so enjoyable to finally throw it in the pot.'

"Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn, and cauldron bubble."

'Why in the name of all that is holy and unholy does it need to rhyme so much? Actually how is it rhyming? I translated it from an ancient scroll the Army brought with it when entering the Third Sea.'

"Fillet of a fenny snake,
In the cauldron boil and bake;
Eye of newt and toe of frog,
Wool of bat and tongue of dog,
Adder's fork and blind-worm's sting,
Lizard's leg and owlet's wing,"

'Most of these make sense like the snake or frog parts, but what does an owlet's wing have to do with any kind of poison? The one I used for my test batches didn't have any spiritual energy at all and the poison still worked. What kind of crazy monster thought these things would make a good poison?'

"For a charm of powerful trouble,
Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.
Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn and cauldron bubble."

'Again with this rhyme, I studied it for months and it still looks like it doesn't do anything, but without the poison fails. I can only guess it is some kind of weird magic thing from the sea we came from.'

"Scale of dragon, tooth of wolf,
Witches' mummy, maw and gulf
Of the ravin'd salt-sea shark,
Root of hemlock digg'd i' the dark,
Liver of blaspheming Jew,
Gall of goat, and slips of yew
Silver'd in the moon's eclipse,
Nose of Turk and Tartar's lips,
Finger of birth-strangled babe"

'Again, a list of ingredients where half make sense and the others seem completely random. It's like the author of this was just looking for things that rhymed with others. Like all those human body parts from Jew, Turk, Tartar, and babe, human body parts are usually only used after they start rotting in poisons, not when they are fresh.'

"Ditch-deliver'd by a drab,
Make the gruel thick and slab:
Add thereto a tiger's chaudron,
For the ingredients of our cauldron.
Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn and cauldron bubble.
Cool it with a baboon's blood,
Then the charm is firm and good."

'Baboon's blood was a pain to find. Not only are there no baboons in the middle of the desert, they are mostly found in the plains near the blood sect lands. I had to pay dozens of men to try before 1 finally succeeded. *sigh* So much wasted money.'

As this final thought passed through Magnus' head, the poison was complete and a wave of gases rushed out of the cauldron and into the vents above him. Soon, every shackle in the city made from spiritual material would begin cracking and would turn to dust within the day.

---------24 Hours Later----------

Magnus could hear the chaos on the streets of the city above him. The yells of challenge mixing with the screams of the injured and dying. He smiled to himself, glad to not be in the middle of the mess as his new puppet stabbed into the leg of a late stage Foundation Expert. The poor target's leg quickly turned black before falling off with the rest of his flesh following soon after.

His new puppet was in the shape of a realistic little orphan girl. Using his new understanding of the Dao, Magnus used Earth and Water Daos to give a body that seemed like it was a human body. The Dao of Fire gave it warmth of a living body, and the Dao of Wind gave it breathe. It also didn't leak any Qi so even cultivators of the Core realm would not see anything wrong with. The puppet was given poisoned blades that would extend from the palms, as well as fangs in the mouth, and the fingers could be shot out with the nails acting like arrowheads.

Magnus would have it run into fights where the former slaves would try to avoid hurting the "girl", and cultivators would either ignore it until too late or try to capture her and still get killed. Few expected a small child to attack them, and fewer still believed a child could hurt them, especially when they can't sense any Qi fluctuations from them. He even prepared a few remotely detonated poison bombs to distract the defenders in case they saw through his plans.

Magnus was feeling a bit too comfortable at he moment, killing several cultivators without any response thanks to the riot and distraction from the single pillars. He even made sure that Lord Ironbone was on the other side of the city, trying to bring back order after the first 2 Foundation experts Magnus had killed had been found.

So the last thing Magnus expected was someone to use the same tactic as him.

His puppet pretended to bump into an expert that had just killed a dozen rioters and stabbed it in the gut with an arm dagger. Magnus quickly realized his mistake when the blade bent and his puppet was smashed with a single punch. The puppet was obviously a Nascent Grade puppet made with materials that Magnus would be luck to find once in a 100 years. It then turned to look right at Magnus and stabbed forward with a hidden blade.

Magnus crossed all six of his arms as well as his chain blades and leaped as far back as he could. He new fighting a Nascent Soul was suicide, but a puppet might be just enough to get away from. The blade of the puppet smashed his blades like a hammer breaking an egg. The blade continued towards Magnus' head like unstoppable death breaking every arm until it hit his fifth arm. In desperation, Magnus was able to twist that arm enough to miss his sixth arm and only scratch his cheek.

Unfortunately for Magnus, the puppet master seemed to also use poisons, and with the resources of a Nascent Soul, he could afford to cover the blades in Mother of Poisons, form a Nascent Spider beast. The only reasons he didn't dissolve into a puddle immediately was that he had trained with poisons for centuries, and that he had replaced his dantian with a spider beast core/dantian hybrid. Still, the poison would kill him in moments so Magnus had to act fast.

He activated all the poison bombs he prepared and luckily one went off near the controller of the puppet causing the puppet to trip. Magnus then allowed himself to fall into the sewage water and get washed away. The Nascent believing that a Core would die quickly from this poison, much less a Foundation realm, moved on to his next target.

Magnus on the other, got out of the water and desperately pulled out a pill he had been saving for nearly 200 years. It was the Poison Absorbing Pill he had invented back when he was a simple 4th Heaven Stage Qi Cultivator. Stuffing it down his throat, Magnus started to cycle his Qi trying to move the effects of the pill straight to his face, hoping he still had a face.

After an eternity and a moment, Magnus could feel his face again as a blinding pain spread from the cut on his cheek. The sheer power of the Nascent Poison had destroyed the nerves in his face, and the wondrous effects his pill had fixed the nerves just in time to blind him from the pain. Between the power of the poison, the conversion power of the pill, and the limit Magnus could absorb as a mere Foundation Building Expert, he could only get a boost of 120 years worth of cultivation. This would be considered a great boon snatch from disaster, but remember, this was a tonic from 2 great realms above him, if Magnus had absorbed it all, it wouldn't be to much to say that he could enter the 9th pillar and maybe even hit Core realm.

Magnus of course didn't have these thoughts as the poison was tearing away at his life while his pill was converting that poison into healing and strengthening Qi. Magnus' body was a battleground of life and death with the life energy of his pill barely holding out. In this swirl of power, Magnus' mind was opened. He could see a new path to the 9th pillar. The change of one of his pillar made way for him to forge a pillar of Life and a pillar of Death.

The Dao gave birth to Yin and Yang, which in turn gave birth to the 4 Elements, with then in turn created life which brought with it Death. Magnus could see the creation of the universe and Poison was just a catalyst that changed how it developed, how quickly, and how the balance is maintained.

-----------------------1 Month Later- Magnus Base---------------------------

Magnus had returned home in several pieces, but like any good researcher, he had back up parts ready. The physical damage was easy to repair. The drain on his spiritual energy from the long brewing period followed by his body nearly being destroyed and finally gaining an epiphany emptied him. Magnus was once again forced to stay at his base, to once again recover from facing someone(a puppet) 2 great realms above him. It had gotten to be a sad habit with him.

In order to stave off the boredom of bed rest, Magnus started work on a large brewery for his base. He had long ago built an entire factory complex to produce the various wine, ales, and spirits to sell under his brand. This brewery was for his personal experimentation and where he would produce limited runs of his greatest creations.

The building was built like a warehouse with and extra 5 levels of underground storage where Magnus could age his drinks safely. It is also covered in dozens of defensive arrays and killing arrays to stop anyone from breaking in and stealing anything. The only building with more defenses is the treasure hall and that was only because there were many guards in that hall.

It was here that Magnus prepared the rewards for that little contest he was suppose to judge. The Sweet Regrets was a wine able to help the drinker face their inner demons in a safe environment. It showed you your most bitter memories like a lucid dream. You can change things in this version of your memory to your will. Letting you face this regret head on, without a tribulation baring down on you.

Magnus himself drank it to face his self-doubt from being always a bit slower and weaker than his twin brother. That little bit of doubt in the back of his was partial way he was so set on catching Minervina. He didn't want to be the one always falling behind again.

The wine helped him realize that everyone had their own path and that trying to be better than someone else only slow him on his own path. That and the fact Minervina only trained to 9th Heaven Stage and he had Trained to 10th. So, he wasn't really behind anyways.

—————————————————

@Kaboomatic @TehChron

Well 2.4K more words for the Omake throne, i wanted to write a bit more, but I ran out muse power before I could come up with more wines

 

[Quest]

Xiao Yingzi 46
[Turn 11]
[Mandatory Research]​

Mandatories:
The informal term for the compulsory legion-wide training sessions which every legionnaire is required to attend. They are to be trained to a minimum standard in all the skills their legion considers important. The frequency of the sessions and the type of instructions varied from legion to legion, but combat and formations are always covered. Despite their need, for certain parts of the legion the sessions remain fairly dreaded. Though it is important given the trials and even just the wars the clan is involved in, many of the non-combat specialists such as crafters, healers, researchers and others of a similar profession often neglect their personal training and find the sessions particularly grueling as they are brought up to standards.

| | | | | | | | | |​

"Titanus Bombastus Maximus." The old centurion read out loud, looking through the assignment orders that he had just been handed. For perhaps understandable reasons, there was a note of utter confusion in his voice. "You were commended by one of Elder Zimisce's personal assistants on your skill in administration. You had your pick of legions and… you chose to come here?"

"The 46th are the 'Best of the Best Men', Centurion Bernardus." Titanus replied politely, as if he didn't notice his senior's bafflement at all. "Why would I not want to serve in a legion with such rich history and disciplined legionnaires?"

Bernardus fixed him with a long stare. "No matter what they tell you, the 46th is a legion full of muscle-bound bronze-heads whose only saving grace was their ability to whip people into shape." Then the man paused, suddenly looking very tired. "And that was with Alcaeus. Under Seneca, we just pretend to be that while he recruits his physicians from our members."

"Both my parents are from this legion, sir." Titanus said, puffing his chest up. "I just want to follow in their footsteps and help return this legion to its former glory."

"I've handled the administration here alone for centuries, save for a few quota boys." Bernardus said, eyes narrowing at him. "You are an administration golden boy, regardless of your parentage. I know you are up to something, boy."

Titanus considered the senior in front of him. Why did he have to be stuck with someone so stubborn? Quelling his annoyance, he finally sighed. "Can I be honest with you, sir?"

Bernadus' eyes gleamed with vindication. "Of course." He said, leaning forward. "You should have begun with that, boy."

"Well, I do wish to follow in the footsteps of my family, sir." He said, causing the man to narrow his eyes once more. He hurriedly continued on with his explanation. "However, I also believe that being part of the transition period of a legion as it adjusts to a new legate will be useful for my future prospects."

"Is that so?" The centurion studied him carefully, and despite everything, Titanus found he could not read his face. Do not falter here, Titanus. He told himself and simply nodded. The old man stared at him before suddenly leaning back and sighing. "Fine, then. You're right, I could use a second pair of competent hands."

Titanus brightened and he bowed. "Thank you for this opportunity, sir." He said. "You will not regret it."

The man fixed him with a stare. "I'd better not." He said, frowning at him again. "I'll be watching you." Then he picked up a stash of paperwork and dropped it in front of him. "Get working, boy and don't even think about messing anything up. I will check your work."

Titanus nodded, bowing once more. "Yes, sir!"

| | | | | | | | | |​

"Titanus, my boy. Do you remember where the forms for the- "

"They are in the bottom-right drawer, sir."

"Thank you, and the special ink-"

"Top-left, sir."

Bernardus paused mid-retrieval before glancing up at Titanus who sat at the desk attached to his own, as suited the administrative centurion's personal assistant. "Oh and we'll need to send a requisition note to the Dawn Fortress for a number of items. Could you please…?"

The Legionary nodded. "May I?" He asked, reaching for the requisition note. At his senior's nod, he quickly scanned through it before tallying it with his own mental list. "Sir, I believe we're running out of pre-mission testaments as well."

The centurion glanced at him, narrowing his eyes at him before nodding. He tossed him a bronze bar that pulsed with his will. "Use that to make any changes and take Maris with you. He needs the experience."

The legionary Maris perked up as his name was heard and turned to the senior he had seated with. As the only other aspirant to join the 46th Legion as an administrative recruit, he had been assigned as a secretary like Titanus had. Quickly taking permission, the legionary rushed up beside him and they made their way to the contribution boards.

They walked together in silence, though Maris kept sneaking glances at him. Titanus waited until they were a few minutes away from the administrative office before he broke it. "Maris, right? So how has the legion been for you so far?"

Maris glanced at him consideringly, before deciding that he was a kindred spirit. "It's been tough, to be honest." He answered, shaking his head. "I think we are the only century specializing in administration in the entire legion. I didn't expect there to be so much work."

Titanus nodded. "The centurion has been keeping me busy as well."

"So it's true then?" Maris asked, looking at him intently. "That you got a commendation from the stratopedarchus office?"

The legionary sighed at that. "So that rumor has made the rounds already, then?"

Maris nodded sheepishly. "I heard from my supervisor. I just don't know why if you could have gone anywhere, you came here."

"Honestly?"

"Honestly."

"It was just to be closer to family." Titanus replied, smiling sheepishly. "Both my parents are centurions in this legion."

Maris blinked. "Two centurions?" He nodded in reply. "Wow, I thought it was amazing for me to have just one in the family."

"Oh?"

"My grandmother. She was first generation. I doubt you'd have heard of her."

Titanus nodded. "I just thought it would be better for my career to stay closer to them." He said, then he looked away in embarrassment.

Maris grinned and clapped him on the back. "Don't worry about it. I'd have done the same if my grandmother wouldn't have thrown me out of the house at the suggestion." He paused for a moment, considering something. "So you would have a lot of knowledge about this legion then, wouldn't you?"

"I suppose so."

"Do you know Minerva Bombastus, then?"

Titanus smiled. "She's my mother."

"Oh damn." Maris looked at him with hope in his eyes. "That's perfect. I was assigned to her mandatory. What kind of training does she run?"

"Ah…" Titanus wasn't quite sure how to answer him. He remembered the kind of training his mother could put someone through too well.

"That bad, huh?" Maris sighed out loud, feeling dejected. "So who are you assigned to?"

"Centurion Victor, he's one of the legate's new physicians."

"That's so lucky." Maris replied, shaking his head in dismay. "I bet none of those guys are half as into training as the rest of this legion."

Titanus looked at his reaction and nodded to himself. "Do you want to trade?" He finally asked, causing the other legionary to turn to him in surprise.

"Seriously?" He asked, incredulous.

"Honestly, I'm probably going to be dealing with her anyway." Titanus admitted. "I might as well help you out."

He gave him a wide smile. "Thanks, Titanus. You are a great guy." He looked away for a second, before turning back with a frown. "How are we actually going to handle it, though? Do you think the centurion will let us trade?"

Titanus laughed at that and shook his head. "Nepotism is heavily discouraged in the legion. Don't even dare bring this up with the centurion. He'd have us flogged."

Maris stopped mid-stride and turned to stare at him. "Then how are you going to handle it?"

"What if we just switch?" Titanus asked, stopping and turning towards him. The more quietly, he clarified. "Without telling anyone."

"We'd still have to fill out the attendance though." Maris pointed out skeptically, though Titanus could tell that the other legionary was willing to be convinced. "How will we exchange the reports? The Centurion handles turning them in personally."

"Just let me handle it." Titanus replied with a smile. "I'm going to be the one to collect them anyway, so I'll make the changes and sneak them into the centurion's desk without him picking up on a thing."

Maris studied him carefully before slowly nodding back.

They both shook hands.

| | | | | | | | | |​

"Senior brother, forgive me." Titanus said, bowing. "But may I have a moment of your time?"

"Titanus." The man who looked up was Euthymius Varus, an aged man who had served under Legate Alcaeus before he had passed. "I remember your father when he first joined the legion. It is good to see you attempt to follow in his footsteps. Tell me, what can I do for you?"

"I have been entrenched in a difficult matter, sir." Titanus said, frowning. "I have been assigned to my mother's mandatories."

The man raised an eyebrow at this. "That must have been some error." He mused, shaking his head at him. "Still, your mother is a skilled centurion. What is the issue?"

Titanus sighed and looked away, causing the man to frown. "I worry about how it would look," He finally admitted. "I don't want my mother to be troubled by accusations of favoritism."

"I could see that being an issue, perhaps." Euthymius agreed, stroking his beard. "But her honor is without question. I doubt anyone will think less of her for it."

Reluctantly, Titanus spoke of the other reason he was worried. "I'm also worried for my own sake."

The senior leaned forward. "Oh?"

"I wish to make it by my own strength as much as I can." He replied, grimacing. "I do not want people to think I was helped."

The senior continued studying him intently. "You're up to something lad, I can see it clear as the desert sun." Euthymius said after a moment. "Still, that's not my business. How about I make you an offer?"

Titanus nodded eagerly. "I'm listening, sir."

"I am willing to take over your mother's century." He smiled as the junior relaxed. "At least officially."

"What do you want me to do for you, senior?" Titanus asked him immediately.

Euthymius smirked. "It is good that you understand that."

Titanus bowed his head in acknowledgement of the compliment.

"I expect you to handle the attendance for both your century and mine." The elder said, looking him in the eye. "And I want you to find who is training in your father's century. I'd like to train with my old friends once more."

Titanus considered that for a moment and then bowed. "I think I know who is handling that, senior." He replied, before hesitating. "But they will make the same offer. I do not mind handling all three reports, but…"

"I will speak to Bernardus." Euthymius replied. "I believe you are already collecting these sorts of reports for him?" Titanus nodded. "Then I'll convince him to make you submit them as well. I trust you'll be able to handle the work in a timely fashion?"

Titanus bowed. "Of course, sir. You can count on me."

Euthymius patted him on the back. "I look forward to seeing how far you can go."

| | | | | | | | | |​

Titanus was in his bunk when he heard the knock on his door. Without waiting for his permission, the door slid open and a pale woman in legionary armor walked in. For a moment, he did wonder if anyone had seen her come in, but thought better of asking that of a centurion. "Welcome Senior Yingzi," He said, getting up to make space for her. "Come in, please have a seat."

She smiled and sat level with him. "Thank you." She said, before glancing at his work. "I see that you've managed to get all the mandatories under your grasp."

"I couldn't have done it without you, ma'am." He replied, bowing his head. "Thank you for allowing me to be a part of your mandatory."

"Like I said, feel free to use mine and Victor's training sessions as bargaining chips." She replied, taking a moment to glance through the information he had. "I believe you are planning to sit them out then?"

He nodded in agreement. "My mother always said that men are either lovers or fighters," He said vehemently. "But I personally consider myself an administrator and quite frankly I want no part of combat training."

"I thought you might say that." The centurion said, pursing her lips. "However, there is a reason we at the legions say: The administrator lives only a hundred years, while the warrior lives a thousand."

He grimaced. "The Trials."

"You were able to escape it this time by the virtue of simply joining the legions a few years after they ended, but that won't work next time."

He ran his hand through his hair as he considered that. "I'll think of something." He replied finally, shaking his head.

"I'd suggest mercenaries." She told him, causing him to look back at her. "The hunters don't normally kill the natives, going out of their way to subdue them and there would be a number of skilled warriors willing to fight simply for the thrill of challenging someone from a living sea."

He nodded contemplatively. "Mercenaries." He repeated before nodding resolutely. "Thank you for the suggestion, ma'am. I shall keep it in mind."

"And also remember the other suggestion of joining up with my legion." She said, causing him to hide a grimace. "I'll need a strong administrative core for whatever plans I settle on."

"I will certainly keep it in mind, ma'am." He replied, though he doubted it would come to pass any time soon. Though she was talented by all metrics, she was still only at the fourth pillar. He had a while before the possibility of her becoming a legate came to pass.

She thankfully left it at that, before moving to the matter that had led her here. "I assume you've gathered what I asked for?"

He nodded and handed her a jade slip. "A list of all legionaries judged impressive from the Office of Disciples. As you requested, I've indicated the ones that aren't quite good seeds, but close to them."

"Well done," She replied, taking it and checking the details inside. "I take it there was no problem with the execution?"

"As you suggested, it was easy to acquire with Centurion Bernardus' will impression." Titanus replied, shaking his head at the thought that it actually worked. Why would they send such information for an old centurion?

Catching the thought from his mind, she smirked. "He had a relationship with one of their administrators a few decades back. I assumed they hadn't updated his permissions."

"I won't ask how you know that." He replied, shaking his head. "If there'll be anything else?"

"That's probably for the best, young legionary." She replied, smiling back at him. " I don't have anything at this time, but I will keep in touch."

He nodded and moved to open the door. After a surreptitious look outside, he made sure that no one was there. "The coast is clear, ma'am-" When he turned back to look at her, she was already gone.

What?

Shaking his head, he closed the door.

Centurions.

 

[Falconis]

Paulus 20

The pursuit of immortality is a sickness of the mind.

It is the prescribed fate of every creation to live and then to die. To complete the tasks set before them in this world and then, when their forms grow weak and their usefulness is expended, to lay down their burdens and commit this world to their descendants. Each and every one of us are the products of this design, this never ending cycle. We must take the burdens and knowledge of those who came before and, through an abundance of youthful energy, reduce the burden as much as we can and add to the knowledge so that those who come next can reduce it even further. This endless evolution is the perfection of life itself reflected in the body and soul of every being, from the smallest cell to the full and cognizant creature.

With this truth borne in hand, the only conclusion we can come to is that Cultivators are a cancer. To consume and grow recklessly beyond the bounds of design could indeed be framed as a natural conclusion to the design itself, but not when such advancements come at the expense of other, healthy beings. Countless lines of progress perish needlessly as the cancer spreads and takes from its neighbours. Entire regions are consumed to fuel just one more step towards that foolhardy goal of simply perpetuating their meaningless existence beyond the limits set out for it from creation.

And for all the destruction brought about by its rampant malignance the Cultivator has the audacity to fail in its pursuit more often than not. Oft the renegade perishes even without outside influence, simply by doing something even more terribly foolish like trying to consume beyond its capacity to digest, consigning all the power it collected to nothingness as they are rent asunder by forces they cannot contain.

Is it any wonder then that the heavens strike against those on the path? Does the body not strike harshly against malign influence in itself? Does a man not cling to the physician's robes, begging for the slightest sliver of hope in excising rot within himself when his own body fails to remove it alone?

To cultivate in itself is to stand against the will of heaven and to cast aside harmony. Any reasonable man would simply lay his head upon the and smite it with another instead of bearing this blight within. Doubly so for those invading from the outside like yourself.

…

All of this is true. None of it is false.


I come to say to you, so what? So what if heaven cries out as you take more than your due? So what if a few or many suffer for your advancement?

Eat and grow strong.

Consume and grow fat and bloated upon the riches the heavens denied you.

Bathe yourself in offal, drown in a tide of blood, ascend to the heavens on a sea of destruction and step even beyond those heights until none can constrain you.


This is the first step. Take what is before you and eat.


"No."


-------------------------


I woke to the taste of blood in my mouth, all of it thankfully mine. It sounded like a strange thing to be thankful for but after the past few days of madness it was something that I was going to be conscious of for a long time. I'd never forget the sensation of my own will being brushed aside like dust. The tide of RED reduced me to an observer in my own body pretty much immediately.


The blood in my mouth is mine.


I coughed and spat on the dusty earth. My body was wrung dry of every drop of qi beyond the absolute minimum needed to keep me going and the sensation was terrible. I felt weak, sore. The inside of my mouth felt like a wasteland, complete with its own collection of wounds and dry cracks. The only thing I could taste was the blood. Hell it was the only thing I could smell, even my skin crawled with the slick, sticky feeling of spilled blood. For a while there had been more of it than air.


A calloused hand grabbed me by the arm and forcibly tugged me to my feet. I couldn't even feel the jolt of panic at the sudden event anymore, whatever fuelled that in my body was as dried up and wrung out as the rest of me. I distantly noted that the person was wearing gravebronze before they dragged me outside. At least it wasn't the Jingshen. A medico must have shown up and gotten a few of us on our feet.


The light was too bright, the sound of my own breathing was too loud, the cuffs were too tight around my wrists. I haven't felt this bad since I was mortal. I clung to the Legionnaire like a lifeline as he frog-marched me through the twisting passageways between buildings before depositing me in an open courtyard. Heat baked me from above and below. The sandstone beneath me had been cooking for who knows how long in the desert heat and between it and the orb of flame high in the sky I was sweating out the last bits of my strength in seconds. I was a cultivator and a fighter too, but without qi the experience quickly became closer to painful than merely unpleasant and a few seconds was all it took for me to decide to try and crawl to a shadier spot. I tried my best to fight through the mindfog and get my beari-


A slab of bloody meat fell in front of me, and suddenly I was as awake as ever.


I sat before a Ludus board - currently repurposed as a normal table - across from a familiar face. Chiseled features, strong jaw, muscles that looked like they had their own squad numbers, and a body riddled with scars from countless battles. Oman Jeru, Squad Captain of the 5th, watched me expressionlessly. His helmet sat on the ground beside him leaving his face uncovered and exposing a myriad of new lacerations across his face and neck. He observed my reaction to the meat quietly for half a minute before shaking his head and chuckling sadly.


"Paulus. You're not looking too hot." He began. His usual booming voice was subdued, pensive. "Though after the last few days I'd be more concerned if you came out smelling like roses."

He gestured towards my chin with a wince. "You've got a bit of blood there."


"It's mine." I rasped.


"Hmm." he mused, trailing off into silence.


I took the chance to take a better look around. We were still in one of the pop-up fortresses; A place built out of nothing in a handful of days by the Legion whenever we needed a place to crash on a campaign. It was just barely large enough to handle a cohort and their required baggage with walls just high enough to stop a non-flier from seeing our defensive positions and thick enough to stop or at least mitigate a surprise bombardment. Nevertheless it had the basic requirements of the Clan and the more popular desirables. Array Pillars, Beast Pens, Prison, and of course boards for Ludus.


We sat before one of the larger 'fixed' boards, in one of the small areas set aside for simple entertainments and martial training. Six more Legionnaires stood at attention around the space, watching me intently with their hands on their spears. They were covered in blood from the days of chaos we'd just left behind and clearly wired to attack at the slightest misstep.


"They're calling it the Blood Mist, you know." Oman continued, drawing my straying attention back to him. " Communications are still a bit out of order but it turns out that our little crisis was much more widespread than a few bases. I'm talking millions fallen to the blood path, and that's just the Devils. It may be even more widespread than that."


"Why are you telling me this?"


"I want you to understand your situation, Paulus. The Devils have taken a real blow this time and certain things will be looked at differently." He wiped a hand across his face with a sigh, taking an extra moment to scrape some dried blood from his beard. "You are a capable cultivator, I would not wish to see a bright light such as yourself snuffed out now."


"Is that a threat?"


"Yes." Oman said plainly.


He gestured to the slab of meat on the board between us. It was about the size of my head and was jagged and uneven around the edges. Fresh blood spread out in a pool around it before they slipped into the shallow furrows on the boards surface. It flowed steadily and quickly from the hunk of flesh in a crude mockery of a formation and for a moment I just watched it separate into individual streams and join together at junctions like a perversion of an array system.


"The previous man did not recognize his situation quickly enough and tried something very unwise. These are his remains, or what's left of them at least."


He reached down and slowly, deliberately, tore off a hunk of bloody flesh from the slab and held it up to the light.


Then he popped it in his mouth.


Oman the traitor watched my reaction calmly as he messily chewed, fluids dripping from his lips to run down into his already well stained beard.


"Partake." He demanded.


"Eat shit." I replied.


If he was offended at my retort he didn't show it, instead calmly and slowly finishing what was in his mouth and swallowing. His wounds began to close at a slow but visible rate and it was clear he'd be in top form by the end of his meal. Still, he didn't reach for another piece, instead choosing to watch me closely.


"I thought you would be smarter than this, Paulus."


"And I thought you wouldn't turn at the drop of a hat."


He did frown then, regarding me with a bit more hostility. "My affliction was not exactly by choice, you know that! You know exactly what we had to endure out here."


I only glared at him in reply, and he chuckled.


"Locking yourself up in the cells was a stroke of genius. Perhaps I should start bringing array cuffs with me as well hmm? Well, too little too late now. While you, Centurion, used your last means to secure your own self, the rest of us were not so fortunate."


He gestured to the Legionnaires standing by the walls, and I noticed for the first time how much of that blood on their armour was dripping from their own chins. A young man I knew - used to know - spared me a crimson grin as he watched me digest my situation anew. "Behold the newest crop of cannibals. Converted against their will and abandoned by their Centurion in their time of need. Now their fate is to be cut down by their old friends, or to resist and live another day."


He hefted the slab of meat on the board again and proffered it in my direction.


"All can be forgiven, Centurion. You can lead these young cultivators again and perhaps secure a bit of leniency with a simple act. Eat."


Oman held the offering as patiently as a mountain altar. He held it out at my eye level, completely still between us even as blood and viler things dripped from it and back down to the board. His gaze was fixed on mine, unwavering, betraying nothing of his thoughts as he waited for my decision.


…


He was about a meter away huh?


I twisted, whipping my legs around from underneath me to slam them into the low stone table. Even without qi reinforcement the stone broke before my legs did, courtesy of my advanced cultivation. Blood splashed upwards, flashing into Oman's eyes as they widened at my actions. He hissed in annoyance and dropped the slab of flesh, reaching for his weapon.


He never was good at adapting in combat.


"You basta-" He roared


I lunged forward, scrambling over the ruin of the Ludus board before diving past him, flicking the chain of my cuffs over his head. His roar got stoppered in his chest as the chain pulled taut against his neck and he scrambled for his weapon. I pressed my feet into his back and forced my hands and his body away with every bit of force I could muster. Even after my ordeal and weak on qi, it must have been a significant amount because something went *crack* and he dropped his retrieved shortsword immediately to reach for the chain instead. It wouldn't be enough. I had him. Come on you son of a-


A kick to my ribs drove the air from me and another from the other side robbed me of what little strength I could muster. Damn too slow. Blows rained down on me and even though I tried to keep choking the man, I was glad when the resistance eventually went slack and I could pull my hands back to protect my head.


"W-wait-" a voice rasped. A few abused ribs finally broke and I just about avoided it penetrating my lungs thanks to the unnatural body transformation from practising the Singing Copper Kettle. A blow landed on my helmetless head and I felt a tooth snap and then shatter.


"STOP!". The blows stopped immediately as a wave of bloody power rolled out from Oman. His cultivation was still weaker than mine by a good margin, somewhere around 8th heavenstage, but it was still higher than it had been before this mess. The growth rate of cannibals was insane.


I peered out from between my fingers at Oman, finding him chewing on some more meat and rubbing at his throat.


"This is what I was talking about." He began, but I got the feeling he wasn't talking to me. "This passion. This drive. We'll need men like him to shield us from Old Gold. Every single one we convert to our cause will give us more bargaining power. Once we get enough, enough to make him really feel the loss, then we can make our case." The traitor Legionnaires shuddered at the mention of the Archegates' Dao Name and stepped away from me, though more than a few regarded me with hatred…or hunger. Oman regarded me with a mixture of anger and wariness, from further away than before I noticed.


"Bravo, Centurion. If it wasn't for those cuffs of yours I'd be dead, though I suppose if you hadn't had them on you couldn't use them as a weapon. Sadly for you that quick thinking of yours has also left you terribly, terribly vulnerable." he continued with a melancholic grin, "I can be patient."


He signalled the legionnaires by the sides and two of them came forward to lift me into a standing position. "Put him back in the cells. Get some of the engineers to work on the arrays. I want him bathing in Blood Mist by sundown."


Calloused hands tore me from the ground again, and pain shot through my body like lightning. None of them were interested in sparing me the torture.


"You should have taken my offer Paulus. My other methods will not be so kind."


I flipped him off.

-----------------
-----------------
Paulus 20 - Paulus and the Blood Resistance Part 1

Wordcount: 2582 words

This isn't actually what I'd planned to put out next but a lot of time has passed and needs must. These are basically the events following the Blood Mist and leading up to Paulus' Turn 13 fate. I hope to write up the rest of them soon (should be around two more) and actually complete one of my man's arcs again.

I have no idea where I was in my plans but LST never fails so.

Omake Reward: LST
Mission: Turtlebone Mountain Mine

@no. @ReaderOfFate

 

[TehChron]

Aretaphila Myia
Supplemental: The DI Legio​

Among the Legions that have existed under the reign of Archegetes Manuel Konstantinos, few can lay claim to the position of "most radical transformation between Legates" with a weightier body of evidence than the 501st Legion, the Fists of Dawn. In fact, one could even say that no such Legion exists, save for those who were only refounded several centuries after the dissolution of their previous incarnation.

In the final decades of Grand Elder Alexios' stewardship of the Clan, the DI Legio were lead by one Elder Yin Mengyao; a clan cultivator of similar temperament and origin as the current Protastrator, Shen Yu. A man ahead of his time, he saw the Clan's reliance upon a slower operational tempo in order to maintain ease of access to Formations as a strategic weakness, and one that was easily exploited.

To counter this, he threw all his efforts into forming an eclectic mounted cavalry Legion, independently of larger Clan backing. While the lack of institutional support left Legate Mengyao with little option other than to hunt down and recruit the individual talents who would make up the ranks of the force, he eventually managed to put together an understaffed Legion by the 16th Year of Grand Elder Konstantinos' stewardship of the Clan. Unfortunately, while that iteration of the 501st filled a niche that would not receive proper attention until Jin Muyi's own Legion being formed in the prelude to the Cannibal Extermination War, they were ill-suited to the role of formation work that was seen as necessary in the battlefields of the Golden Bee War, denying them opportunities for accolades while they patrolled the newly relinquished Burnished Crags and Uncast Molds. Though it must be noted that during this period, the Legatus Mengyao had encountered a Core Formation Cannibal and managed to save the life a younger Aretaphila Myia.

So events proceeded until the first Centennial Culling of Grand Elder Konstantinos' stewardship, where Legatus Mangyao was notated by surviving Elders to have coordinated the Twin-Eagle Formation that had enabled the efficient concentration of the Clan's Core Formation strength in the lead up to their wholesale slaughter at the 5th Sea Nascent Souls hands. The Legate - like many others - did not survive this event.

Thankfully, even in the Legate's absence the rapid response offered by surviving elements of the 501st were partly responsible for the extreme lack of attrition that our Centurion's experienced during that period. This, along with another notable cause being the concentration of force and losses incurred by the Miracle of Pleuron are widely credited with the Clan's ability to retain its core strengths in time for the Cannibal Annihilation War some twenty years later. This connection is also reportedly why the elements of the 501st - upon its dissolution - found so many of its former members willingly signing on with the 303rd under Jin Muyi. As someone who had been making progress of his own into the concept of cavalry Formations in addition to his own reputation in the aftermath of Pleuron, he seemed a natural successor for their former Legate's aspirations.

The banner of the 501st would be retired for slightly over one hundred years past that point. Up until the end now legendary stand at Thousand Song, where the newly risen Silver King made her boon for such a feat be the simple opportunity to scratch raise her own Legion.

She chose the Banner of the Fists of Dawn, and so began the era of the modern DI Legio.

The first few decades of the revived Legion saw it as something of a joke amongst the Legions, with the various Legates complaining about the waste of resources and talent that a new gimmicky King's vanity project represented on the eve of War with the Jingshen Clan. No one had any officers to spare, save for the obvious spies that mostly formed the ranks of her Primus Pilum. Between that, her pet Auxilia and the mysterious Centurion XXI, there was no reason to disagree with them either.

Up until the moment it was revealed that Aretaphila Myia had recruited Katha Theodoros decades before she had rocked up the ranks of the Heavenstages, followed shortly by recruiting another talent in Aegis Sideros to fill out her command staff. Another hidden talent of the new crop of Juniors. There are rumors that Aretaphila stopped making any obvious moves after stealing a promising Chirurgeon from under the nose of the 454rds Legatus as well, presumably in order to let negative attention die down until the next wave of mass recruitment began or the War with the Jingshen settled into a new status quo.

Instead, the existing DI Legio - barring Legionnaire Theodoros - led the extraction team into the Underworld Spirit Palace, and - absurdly - engaged Junjie Jingshen in battle in the few moments of his life remaining before the Grand Elder came upon him.

That she did so relatively unscathed is besides the point, and the Primus Pilum of the DI Legio acquired a reputation for strength of will and bravery. Since then, the Legion has only continued both these trends of snapping up promising Juniors before another Legion has the opportunity to, as well as being outrageously audacious in deed. The DI joining with an attachment of the 302nd and 99th to infiltrate and raze the City of Experiments most recently.

These days there are very few who openly mock the Fists of Dawn. Once is a miracle. Twice is a coincidence. Three is a pattern, and with that pattern established the DI Legion has grown considerably, though the Legion is still under strength due to the exacting demands that the Legatus is basing their recruitment around.

In a complete departure from the previous iteration of the DI Legio, the 501st under Legate Myia is based around a rapid insertion Heavy Infantry, based around two pillars: The first is the Legatus' peculiar Dao Magic as a Single Pillar King, her most famous ability being to mass raise and reinvigorate individual cultivators to fight several small realms above their normal strength, and in some rare cases enable fighting across Great Realms as well. The second is the utilization of skilled Mekanikos such as her Pilus Auxilia, though there are rumors that she is headhunting a particularly talented Junior to assist the foreign mercenary with more Clan-aligned Arraywork. Through these engineers, the DI Legio focus endlessly on circumventing the natural slowness of the Bronze without resorting to a wholly-cavalry based Legion.

With those two core elements in mind, the DI Legio seem to focus their recruitment methods on eclectic constitutions or rare but circumstantially useful abilities of their own. If any discrepancies in skill can be covered by the Legatus themselves, then it only makes sense to recruit wholly for talent and versatility instead.

In times of peace, it's unknown what the Fists of Dawn have selected as a specific niche, though the Legatus is famously lax for allowing her most promising talents to wander off for the sake of advancing their own cultivation. Ordinarily a terrible idea, but the DI Legio somehow remains sufficiently disciplined as a part of the Clans strength even with its chaotic nature.

Nor can the results be denied, especially given the continued growth of Legionnaires Theodoros and Qinglong.

The Fists of Dawn are currently recruiting. If you think your average Legion is an ill-fit for you, come to our offices at Waycastle Myia to look at the grounds and see if that's where you would like to operate out of. After a short interview process, if you are accepted than the Legatus will proceed to assist you with signing on that very day.

Join now!


A.N.: Just felt like putting together this overview of the DI Legio since everyone else was doing it for their own customized Legions. So hey, I figured, why not me too?

1329 Words.

 

[no.]

Gaius Antonius #80: A Cruel Bestowal​

Gaius slept one hour a day, every day, and for that hour, he liked to have a warm body to keep him company.

The intermittent night terrors of his boyhood, those flights of grim fancy, were nothing but transient shadows. The sensations and visions which assailed the King in his sleep nowadays were of a weightier substance, and more likely to trouble him in the waking world. He found that the presence of another person, be it Scylla, Axia or a lover, grounded his mind and quelled those restless fits.

He awoke, dabbing the sweat from his forehead, and moved quietly so as not to wake the boy who snoozed peacefully beside him. What was this one's name again? He was one of Deimos' men, right? Well, not like it mattered - this was no different than any other duty a Legionnaire might have to perform. It would be many years still before Gaius grew familiar enough with his Legion to know every member's name.

Gracefully sliding out of the fine velvet sheets, he checked his surroundings with a wary pulse of Emanations - not a thing out of place in his quarters, it told him. He washed himself without a word, donned a set of crisp, formal green and white robes and deposited a little auburn pill on the bedside for his companion. With that, he left the bedroom for his personal office, which was just next door. Back to the grind.

Fort Molehill was not an especially lively place, even if the Mountain Bell Sect were a lively people. With most of the forces that would be manning the fort leaving to treat their wounded, refresh their numbers and resupply, it fell to the Stargazers, Gaius' very own CDIV, to handle things, alongside a skeleton crew of Bell disciples. This left them to make what little of their own amusement they could in this cold, austere place when they were not on duty.

Not that there was much in the way of free time for anyone; they were badly short-staffed. The Brotherhood laborers worked round the clock repairing any hint of damage, cooking meals, keeping the place clean, each doing the work of two, sometimes even three chore-boys. The Legionnaires had it no better, doing fourteen, sixteen or even eighteen-hour guard shifts with only the bare minimum of time set aside to take care of themselves and maintain their cultivation.

Morale was… passable. Not ideal, but Devils were hardy folk, and the Stargazers had a very strict recruitment policy. Gaius shuddered at the memory of some of the hazing Penelope put brand new Legionnaires through. He drank from a cup of watered-down wine, just enough to take the edge off without inhibiting focus, and signed off on another spirit stone shipment. Their supply lines, too, were passable, but not great. Good; best not let this fledgling organization get too cozy. If the Stargazers got accustomed to a glut of materiel, they would flounder in its absence.

Gaius reflected with gratitude on the time he had spent with the Theodori family, tutoring their scion, and in turn being taught the arts of strategy and generalship. Most of it really was just getting the right resources to the right places at the right times, and it was maddening to accomplish. Two thousand men under his command, and they all needed to eat. They all needed to cultivate, to maintain and repair their equipment, to sleep, to shit, and to maintain the will to fight. That took a lot.

The booming of artillery arrays interrupted his thoughts, followed closely by the blowing of enchanted horns. The sound, imbued with Earth so as to penetrate through stone, resounded crisply throughout the fortress. This was the fifth time in the past month.

Storming out of his office and into the main room of his Legate quarters, Gaius stripped out of his casual robes. He was immediately swarmed by Brotherhood Aspirants, who brought him his underclothes, then began fastening his armor with well-practiced motions.

Lamellar was lamellar, but this was more ornate than other varieties. Polished in shades of black, bronze, purple and gold, it fit the King's body perfectly, and was inscribed with all manner of arrays on the inside for protection, self-repair and channeling assistance. The armor was donned in a respectable ten seconds, with the purple-plumed helmet to finish it off.

The Centurion helmet's large, colorful crest was designed for soldiers to easily pick them out on the battlefield, and the Legate's taller plume served a similar purpose. It was also, in cases of emergency, a decent qi battery, weaved from the fibers of Foundation-level Spirit Herbs. It could store enough energy to perhaps power two Core-level techniques. The cape, dyed in rich shades of red and purple with gold engravings, carried a similar charge, though this was intended to power the inscribed barrier arrays, which would make the fabric hard enough to defend against a Core's attacks. Gaius, finding this redundant with his Aegis, had done away with the defense to make room for a mobility aid, a kinetic propulsion which could carry him across a battlefield faster, if needed.

In moments, he was outside, standing atop the outer wall of the fortress and looking down upon the battlefield. A massed force of Ma cavalry approached on horseback with their spears lowered, only to be pushed away by a massed wall of Hoplite Formation shields. The Devil forces, now stationary behind their shieldwall, were then bombarded with arrows, which they blocked with yet more shields. Ten Ma died from being struck down by Hoplites. A few Devils died from the bombardment. This repeated several times, without much in the way of variation.

"They'll never break through like this…" Gaius muttered, as the enemy's Experts began to take the field, only to be met by his Centurions. Those battles were less massed warfare and more a series of one-on-one or two-on-two duels, with the occasional Junior casualty on either side from collateral damage. These skirmishes likely wouldn't take the life of any Expert, not unless they went on for tens of minutes. It was more about checking one another's power, so that the massed combat could continue. It was boring, but Gaius wasn't going to complain about that; he'd rather take command of a dull battle than one in which the enemy struck him with an insane, unpredictable gambit.

A spear, flung by an enemy Expert, flew straight and true right at Gaius, who summoned his trusty Aegis to stop it. Flipping the spear around with telekinesis, he fired it back. He didn't catch which enemy had thrown the spear, so he simply launched it at the densest cluster he could see, where the head exploded into shrapnel, killing several of them and wounding others.

He whistled - "That's a nifty weapon. More sophisticated than you'd expect from the Ma."

"More than Ma this time, Sir." One Legionnaire explained with a salute. "There's some Demonic Altar troops reinforcing them. And please get back, the active defenses haven't all been turned on yet."

"And why haven't they? It's already been two minutes." Gaius turned and gave her a pointed look. She bowed and apologized before running off.

By the time additional defensive and artillery arrays lit up and began working, battle had already been underway for nearly three minutes, and damage done by the siege weapons of the enemy sharply declined. What Gaius had come to learn was the signature formation of the Ma Clan - a barrage of arrows which merged into one massive arrow, carrying the inherent properties of its components - struck the heavy stone repeatedly, but failed to do much more than make a lot of noise. The fortress began launching retaliatory fire of its own, the deafening boom of artillery arrays resounding like drumbeats. Explosions and glass spears rained down upon the rear of the Ma force, far enough back that no Devils would be caught in the crossfire, weakening their cohesion and inflicting further casualties.

Inevitably, the battle similarly began to turn against the enemy, now that the element of surprise was lost. Devils first and foremost were masters of siegecraft and heavy infantry, the slow-moving grind of war in which large groups of human beings became blobs of flesh and metal. This sort of measured, large-scale, collectivized killing, where Hoplite Formations scattered apart squads of enemy combatants and men continued raising their shields and thrusting their spears even as half their blood spilled out and turned the dirt beneath their feet into mud, had a brutal, morose dignity all its own. Or at least, it did when you were winning.

It was frustrating, to sit back and watch, not doing anything to help, not even unleashing his Emanations beyond the scope of the fort. But this, too, was an important part of generalship. An Elder was lurking somewhere, commanding this force, waiting to bait him out into the field. The besieged force always held the advantage, assuming relatively equal numbers, so it would be more beneficial to keep this at a battle between Experts and Juniors than to join the field personally and risk being defeated.

As he saw it, it was better to let that mystery Elder initiate combat, so that Gaius could respond. Should the Elder be drawn close to the fort, the entirety of Gaius' Centurions could group together into a Formation and reinforce him, heavily swinging the battle in his favor. And so he waited, standing there on the fortress' outer wall under the violet twilight sky, on high alert, occasionally telling a courier to deliver his orders to a Centurion.

Soldiers who had pledged their allegiance to Gaius died before his eyes, though he noted with pride that the enemy lost two or three to every one of his. Lacking the numbers to sustain such a ratio, they began to fall back. It was a messy retreat, as expected of a mixed force. A few dozen more died, either not realizing they were being abandoned or simply being too blood-drunk to care, but soon they were too far out of reach for anything more than ineffectual potshots from both sides.

The soldiers returned back to the fort to the cheers of their fellows, carrying with them the dead that hadn't been snatched up by the retreating attackers - no sense in wasting good Bronze, and the Ma had rich, thick bone marrow. Plenty of salvage to be had today. The fort gradually came down from high alert and returned to the uneasy, half-switched-on state of all besieged armies. Through it all, Gaius stayed atop the battlement, just in case this was a trick.

"What would you say their game is, Penelope?" Gaius inquired, stroking his chin, as the woman in question presented him with a neat stack of jade slips. The recordings of the battle, as he had been requesting after every battle for the past month. "They'll never break through like that. The besieged force has the advantage, and the bombardment softens them up before they even reach the Hoplites."

"I couldn't say, Sir." The Amazon replied, laconic and stone-faced as ever. "If you were to ask me, these attacks feel perfunctory. A mandatory duty, more than anything else."

"What, so they're not really trying to win? Why, to lower our guard?"

"Perhaps." She shrugged, before handing Gaius the package and snapping into a salute. "Will there be anything else, Sir?"

Honestly, you'd think Penelope detested his company, with the way she acted, but she was just like that in general. Poor thing would never get married if she kept being so dull. Oh well, she was very competent, so Gaius couldn't complain.

"No, that's all for now." He nodded, prompting the Amazon to turn on her heel and depart. "Keep up the good work, Penny." Gaius called out, walking in the opposite direction to return to his quarters.

—-

As Gaius sat there, legs crossed, going through the stack of slips, images of the battle from many different angles flashing through his mind, a few enemy soldiers stood out to him. An archer who used arrows carved in a spiral shape with conical heads, which drilled through the enemy spilling as much blood as possible. A dog-faced man who teleported short distances to strike at enemies' weaknesses and destroy Hoplite formations from within. A tan, hard-nosed woman in simple garb who chopped through blades and sliced apart flesh with her hands and feet.

Hmm, that last one was interesting. Gaius went through the slips again, looking for any from which he could see that particular soldier. On the tall side for a woman, she wore her hair in no particular style, letting it fall all over the place however it wished. This was by design, it seemed - even her hair could become an unpredictable sharp blade, which she used to cut down one of Gaius' men. Every part of her body was a weapon, cutting or bashing with a lethality uncharacteristic of unarmed attacks. The perfect mixture of the raw physicality of a Body Artist and the peerless offense of a Weapon Artist.

There was a haggard look to the woman, her large brown eyes telling a story of one who suppressed her fear through determination and bravado, rather than one who had drilled until she learned to stay in the fight through discipline. Wrapped around her well-honed hands and forearms were bandages, scrawled with arrays, presumably some inscription which hardened them in some way.

Moreover, while this woman was very skilled, there was a roughness to the way she channeled qi. The telltale heat haze caused by inefficient circulation, the little wasteful movements she made every now and then, and the way her eyes flitted about, making sure no comrades would steal the enemies she had killed. This woman was nobody; possibly born from peasantry, or forcibly inducted into the Ma Clan from a conquered lesser power. Her circulation was poor, and she lacked a master of a higher Great Realm to help her improve the nuances of her techniques.

A skilled combatant, but a poor prospect for advancement - that, plus the Blood Path curse, was exactly the combination Gaius had been looking for. Yes, she would do just fine. He watched closely as the steppe woman bounded off, carrying his dead subordinate over her shoulder to finish consuming elsewhere.

"Albinus." Gaius called out over his shoulder. "I have an assignment."

He was there in moments, in a crisp salute - fast as the wind, that Albinus. His Centurion lamellar damaged and caked in barbarian blood,and the officer's normally lively golden curls hung limply from sweat and grime. Despite all that, he was still beautiful, bearing a boyish, disarming charm in his round features and energetic bearing. "You called, Sir?"

Holding the memory of that woman in his mind, turning it end-over-end in his mind until he had all the details just right, Gaius held his arm out with palm up, forming an Aegis projection in his hand. It was, in essence, a statuette, capturing the Ma woman's likeness as closely as possible. "I need this particular soldier, captured alive with her cultivation intact. Can you do this for me?"

It was nice, thought Gaius, to hold a high rank. He could sweep his office for recording devices frequently, and not feel like a paranoid asshole for doing so, because he was actually someone worth spying on. And because he did that, he could conspire in his own office, rather than in the dead of night in some dingy alleyway.

"Of course, Sir. It will be simple. Shall I take any men with me?" Albinus replied, picking up the figure and placing it gently on the ground, then drawing forth a large lump of green clay. Immediately, the clay began to mold itself in the youth's hands, taking the statuette's shape.

Gaius shook his head sternly. "No. I don't want word of this getting out on either side. This will all be off the record, and you'll be given a bonus payment as such."

A youthful, mischievous smile lit up Albinus' face. "Understood, sir. I'll keep it clandestine." The lump of clay finished morphing, forming into an exact replica of Gaius' exact replica, and the King dismissed his Aegis projection in response. "Any deadline?"

"Bring her here within two days if you can." Gaius said after a moment of thought. "We don't know when the next attack will come. We'd best get this business done with as soon as possible."

"Two days? I'll make it happen, Sir." Albinus nodded, saluting again and looking up at Gaius with something in between admiration and mirth. Perhaps he thought Gaius intended to do unsavory things with that woman - that was a reasonable thing to think, really. Thankfully, Albinus was not one to ask questions.

Centurion Albinus Russus, originally of the CCCXXVI Dark Wardens. Gaius watched him walk away, and found himself thankful that he had more than stodgy soldiers amongst his officers. A master of scouting, information gathering, assassination and other clandestine operations, the small, slight Devil was nonetheless a ferocious warrior on the battlefield. A bit immature, owing to the young age at which he had ascended, but that was fine. He didn't keep that pretty little thing around to be a strategist, after all.

After years with his Centurions, Gaius still was not entirely certain who was and was not a spy in Xie Xinya's employ. Obviously at least one was, and almost certainly two, to prevent biased reporting. And there was probably a third, so that if one was caught, there would still be two on the job. Any number beyond that would be pure speculation. However, Gaius was almost certain that Albinus was not a spy, because it would be far too obvious. But what if that was a double-bluff, and Albinus had been sent because he was too suspicious, and thus would be overlooked? But maybe that was in fact the lynchpin of a triple-bluff, Designed to distract Gaius from the real spies?

And there were the shadow demons, lurking on the edges of his vision again. He conjured a bright light in his hand, which failed to banish them, proving that these were the Brain Problems kind of shadow demon, not the real kind. Shit, and he'd been holding it together so well these past few months…

Where'd he put the opium, again?

—-

Bataar Kongordzol was not at peace, in the way most people would describe it. Mostly because she didn't like the taste of organs. It wasn't the taste, but the way they squished between her teeth, ever so slightly more pliant than muscle, which created a sensation which to her was nauseating. She really wasn't sure why - even back when she ate animals, she simply hadn't enjoyed organ meat, so perhaps she was just a picky eater.

But there was no room to be picky among a Blood Path Clan at war. You finished your meals as quickly as possible, or you ran the risk of being interrupted. Commander Longstep, that enigmatic Demonic Altar Elder leading the combined strike force, forbade those under his command from stealing each other's food, but he was known to make exceptions for the truly promising. Bataar was not promising, and so she ate quickly, scarfing down the unpleasant bits first to make way for that which tasted alright.

Bataar missed cooked meals. Only the strong got to cook their meals these days - it was a sign of dominance, that one was confident enough to wait before eating, because no one would dare take their food away. She supposed it wasn't so different in the days of spirit stones, where the wealthy had specialized meditation chambers to ensure cycling efficiency, and the poor cultivated in hidden places where their rivals wouldn't find them.

Judging by the density of the qi in this man's flesh, he was definitely a Sixth Heavenstage. Not bad at all; the effectiveness of the Blood Path fell off sharply for each small realm the victim was below oneself. A meal only one Heavenstage lower was a rare and valuable find. Of course, it was small potatoes next to eating something greater than oneself.

She remembered the look on that Saber Palace reprobate, as she ambushed and finished him off. His rich, Eighth Heavenstage body had catapulted her straight from Five to Seven, into something loosely resembling strength. Or at least, something a bit distanced from weakness. Bataar was stronger than the majority of cultivators now, which meant she could survive on the battlefield, as long as she was smart and careful.

It was funny - the Seventh Heavenstage had been her goal in life, before the Bloody Mist. Reach the Seventh, do well enough to earn herself a comfortable life and a good husband. Have a child who would reach the Ninth and provide for her in her old age. Perhaps her grandchild would reach Foundation, though she likely wouldn't live to see it. Well, here she was, at the level which had once been her ambition.

Except, Qi Condensation amongst the Blood Path was universally miserable. The reasons were simple: any Qi Condensation could kill any other Qi Condensation, in theory. In the first great realm, the sheer durability of the body wouldn't reach a high enough level to invalidate the threat even the lowliest human cultivator could pose. A knife in the right spot, at the right time, and it could all be over. In fact, you had more to fear from those far below you than those on the same level, because those too weak to steadily advance might risk it all for a shot at eating you to jump up several Heavenstages.

Friendship was rare. True, trusting camaraderie, even more rare. You killed the soft parts of yourself, the ones that wanted to love other people, in order to stay vigilant and not be used up by others. By the time you reached Foundation Establishment, you would be a bit more secure, but your formative Qi Condensation Years would have permanently changed you.

In short, reaching the Seventh Heavenstage was not a substantial improvement to her life, not the way it would have been under the previous system. The only way to truly have peace of mind was to ascend, as unlikely as that was for her. And the only way to ascend relatively quickly was to go off to war, and eat a lot or people.

Those pompous bastards in the plains, always looking down on the people of the Ma for their rustic ways, pissed her off to no end. So arrogant, and for what? Because they slept on soft beds in big fancy houses, scorning nature because they thought themselves above it? It didn't feel so bad to eat those pampered princes, who had not once treated them as equals in all the time they were allies.

But those Devils… that was a bit harder to swallow, literally and figuratively. Those folk new what it really meant to be a warrior, to fight for things that really mattered. They were a grim people, certainly, but no more than her own. They didn't even have much stake in the local conflicts.

She supposed that, fighting a different sort of enemy, one whom she held no grudge against, made her more aware of just what she had become a part of. Just what she was doing. There wasn't really a way to dress it up nice and pretty - she was eating human beings. She must have eaten a hundred of them so far. The worst part was that it tasted pretty good, aside from the organ meats.

There was nothing to think about, Bataar thought. If she didn't consume those people, someone else would. A weakling, a sub-Ninth cockroach like her, didn't have the right to decide anything for herself. If it was decided that her way of life was to take the qi of other humans, then she had no say in the matter.

The meal was finished before she knew it, the power of that Devil thrumming through her body, inching her a tiny bit closer to the next milestone. Only bones remained, the truly inedible pieces having been discarded beforehand with practiced motions. But for someone poor like her, this wasn't enough; everything had to be used. She cracked open a femur, preparing to suck out the marrow.

When arms like tightly-coiled steel wrapped around her, it was far too late, and consciousness faded away soon after.

—-

The battle didn't end with that brief skirmish - the combined Ma and Demonic Altar forces struck many times over the next day and a half, advancing and retreating, prodding at the fortress from different angles to search for a weakness. There was no monumental military clash, just endlessly fending off these annoying, stinging insects, as every day a few more Stargazers died. With the fortress already understaffed, each loss hurt a great deal, but thankfully none of the Centurions had lost their lives thus far. He really couldn't do with any fewer of those.

Gaius took the field only once, to dispose of a cocky Altar Expert who thought herself strong. Perhaps she was, to have survived the endless deadly competition of being a Blood Path Junior long enough to reach the Twelfth Heavenstage. However, she assumed that a King would be overly reliant on his Dao Magic, easy prey for one who was immune. She was indeed too much for any of his Centurions, or even three at once, but he sent her running with her tail between her legs in just ten minutes.

"I'm ashamed to have needed your help, Sir." A massive man bearing a similarly oversized spear said, bowing as Gaius strode back toward the fort after the conclusion of this latest skirmish. His long blonde hair, bound up in a high ponytail, cascaded about his head like a curtain as he bowed. "You were magnificent."

"Nothing to be ashamed of, Deimos. Lots of strong people out there these days - Experts so strong, it's just not fair to anyone else." Gaius patted his subordinate on the shoulder, then smirked. "Lucky for us, I'm one of the most unfair of all."

"That you are, Sir!" A chipper woman with elegantly spiraling ram horns clutching a scepter of jade and copper exclaimed, giggling with delight. "We haven't gotten to see you fight in so long, you really are incredible~" She pressed herself up against Gaius' arm, entirely lacking in subtlety.

Gaius gently pried the woman off him and patted her on the back. "Thank you, Phoebe. Still, at least one Super Expert has taken the field." Gaius muttered, rolling his neck and crouching down before leaping back up to the top of the rampart. "I'll be sending Scylla out to assist you in future skirmishes, so we don't get caught like that again!" He called down. "I need to be on standby at all times in case an Elder appears from any direction!"

With that exception, Gaius got no substantial action. The last year had been like this; doing paperwork in the morning, training in the afternoon, cultivating until nighttime, often having a dalliance with a subordinate or a Mountain Bell auxiliary a little past midnight, then back to cultivation until dawn, then a second dalliance and his one hour of sleep. At some points in all that he managed to find time to visit the mess hall and scarf down two meals a day. It was, quite simply, survival, nothing more. But Gaius had grown far too used to being bored, so he didn't complain.

It was, however, gratifying to call Scylla back to the fort and make the hellion do some actual work. She needed to actually be on site to participate in battles now, after all. The past year, she'd been prowling around the rivers, acting as a petty queen of the local beasts and mating with other Rainbow Carp. She was… loud in the act, so to speak. Quite a bit slipped into their telepathic bond without her realizing. Watching the giant fish carry around huge piles of bricks, dispel curses and patrol the perimeter instead of getting a free lunch brought Gaius a small bit of sadistic joy for a few days, but that soon faded.

When Albius sent word pertaining to his quarry, it was late - precisely fifty-five hours since the order had been given, though he had indeed been discreet about it. No one had seen or heard a thing, and the Ma Clanswoman's comrades would likely believe she had been a deserter. The Centurion had sent a messenger hawk calling his King down to a forest clearing thirty miles west of Fort Molehill, and Gaius had departed alongside a single ten-man squad of Legionnaires.

—-

Gathering the other ingredients of the experiment was a fairly simple thing - he'd had them caged and hidden away ahead of time, before he ever picked out his primary subject. Wrangling them all into one big cage was trickier, but his men were nothing if not capable, and had thrown drugged meat to them before they approached. With everything gathered, Gaius dismissed them all and set off with only two.

"Sir, with all due respect…" One Legionnaire started, before his comrade elbowed him in the side to shut him up. The two stirred up the air slightly with their movements, no doubt having a silent argument behind Gaius as the three walked.

"What tomfoolery am I doing out in the woods?" Gaius asked with a smirk. "Why am I not bringing an actual group of bodyguards?"

"Er… yes, Sir." The Legionnaire stammered bashfully. "If it's not improper to ask."

"You wouldn't be able to imagine it, even if I put it into words." Gaius said with a little shrug. "This is a small diversion for me, and there's no need to bring along a bunch of soldiers for it."

The men accepted that answer, not that they had any other choice. After driving the wagon a fair distance, so deep into the woods that no evidence of human travel could be found, they entered a clearing. A small watering hole, runoff from a river to the south, in which lush wildflowers, wild grass and weeds flourished. The moon hung high, pouring a river of silver light into the clearing which reflected off the pool; a deeply mystical sort of decor.

In the middle of this clearing was a second cart bearing a second cage, similar in construction to the counterparts driven here by Gaius' men, though it had no horses attached. Hopping out of the cart, Gaius grabbed the cloth covering the cage and pulled it away, revealing the contents: a woman. Clearly of Ma descent, her previous, garbs, simple as they had already been, had been stripped from her and replaced with a plain brown tunic and pants. The steppe woman had been thoroughly searched and all her possessions seized, just as Gaius had wanted, leaving her with no recourse.

The men, naturally, redoubled their confusion and concern - they said nothing, but Gaius could sense it clear as day. There, in that dark forest clearing, Gaius stood with his hands folded behind his back and waited for the girl in the cage to awaken, as his men kept their eyes on everything else. It was an eerie scene, and all three were as quiet as could be.

This looked bad, that he knew more than anything. The thought of what Gaius was doing made unpleasant shapes and colors dance about in the contours of his brain. Ji Shin, that long-necked serpent, was laughing at him, no doubt. Mr. Jovi too, laughing at things yet to come along with however many other pairs of hands were jammed into his destiny, rifling around and yanking him this way and that. Was anything even his choice, or-

Focus. This was neither the time nor the place. He already looked insane in front of these men - that was why he'd brought as few as possible, after all. No need to make it worse.

In fact… better to nip it in the bud right now, just in case. Gaius put on a smile, sickly-sweet and a little unhinged, as he turned to look at the two Legionnaires. "Now boys, we're not gonna have any loose lips, are we?"

The veiled threat was clear, but what the men couldn't have known that rather than threatened violence, it was violence already fulfilled. The Future-Poisoning Dao Strike blasted their minds and wiggled into a crack in causality, becoming an if instead of a now. The condition was set; should those soldiers try to speak of this, their very beings would fracture apart, and they subconsciously understood this.

"Sir, no Sir!" They said in unison, snapping into a salute.

"That's good." Gaius nodded, turning back to the cage, where his chosen subject was beginning to stir.

----

Little by little, over the next hour or two, she came to, becoming aware of her surroundings as the chemical haze wore off. She backed away, getting to her feet and frantically looking around as she took everything in. "What? Who… who are you? What happened?" She demanded, baffled by the situation.

"I think you know who I am, miss." Gaius began, stepping forward into the torchlight. The woman backed away in fear upon recognizing his face, growing even more shocked. "As for what happened, I've had you brought to me, because there's something I need from you."

"From me? I-I don't have anything you could ever want, I swear!" The steppe woman protested, sweat beading on her forehead and heart rate speeding up.

"I disagree, and you'll understand soon. I'm glad I could finally meet you, miss…" He tilted his head. "What is your name?"

"...B-Bataar. Bataar Kongordzol." She stammered, eyes flitting about, looking for some way out of this situation. That was good, she had a strong enough will to not give up hope yet. That made her a good vessel.

"Gaius Antonius." He responded, before turning to the Legionnaires minding the cages. "That'll be all, thanks. Return to your posts and take the horses with you, I'll handle everything from here." The two soldiers did so, untethering the steeds and riding away at a hurried pace, and Gaius watched them go. He waited about ten minutes, Bataar not saying anything or moving at all the whole time, until he was sure enough that no one would see or hear any of this.

Gaius turned back to the cage, and to the frightened but resolute woman inside. Now that she was alone with him, Bataar's mind no doubt began to wonder at just what a man so far above her station would want with her. Admittedly, were he in her position, almost none of the option she would conceive of would be good. He smiled, letting a bit of remorse slip into his tone. "They can't be around, I can't let anyone else hear me. This message is only for you."

This was no different from killing any other Blood Path barbarian, thought Gaius. It was dirty work that needed doing, for the sake of society, and he had a responsibility to understand the power in his grasp. Dead leaves crunched underfoot as he grew closer, and the steppe woman's bravado began to collapse. She backed away from the bars, until she was out of arm's reach. Gaius' fingers delicately wrapped around one of the bars, and he peered within, deep into her big brown eyes.

His lips parted, and wildness emerged. Not loud, fiery brutality, but cold inevitability. The smothering of the unworthy beneath the bootheel of absolute power.

THE FIRST GIFT

耗

IS PASSED ON

In a moment, it was over. The tantalizing knowledge that poured from Gaius' lips, taunting him from the edges of his understanding, subsided. He could not allow himself to understand these gifts himself, for to understand them was a dangerous thing.

A connection was made, in that moment. Some kind of link between two minds, as the forbidden knowledge stored in one was transferred to the other. To teach something you yourself don't know is a surreal feeling indeed, but it passed along quite easily, as if this truth wanted to be known. Something bloomed within Bataar then, a grasping, clinging thing which grew along her insides like creeping ivy. It could not be seen directly, but the shadows it cast from afar told a fragment of a story.

The story of a warrior. Half of the grand truth, which had been shared with Gaius in a deep, forgotten place. To his eyes, it appeared as a bejeweled earring, laying heavy on Bataar's lobe. One of a set of two, held within a velvet box, which Gaius could carry but never wear.

Tears poured from the steppe woman's eyes, but from what emotion they were born, Gaius could not discern. She shook and trembled beneath the weight of what she had just received, scarcely understanding it. "Why? Why me?"

Gaius gave a sad smile, internally cursing himself for sympathizing so much with an enemy. Not that he had any choice; when performing an act of such profound inheritance, a bond would inevitably form. "Because you're strong. You train every day, don't you? You never skip basic training, no matter what."

She silently nodded.

"A fighter with good fundamentals and low quality channels is the perfect candidate for that gift. When I saw you, I knew I had to have you." He looked away in that moment, not wishing to meet the gaze of someone he was so comprehensively hurting, so systematically dehumanizing. There was nothing to be done for this woman, he told himself. The curse of the Blood Path was terminal, dooming one to live as a monster once they set down that road.

Walking over to the other wagon, Gaius grabbed the veiled cage by two of its bars, planted his feet and hoisted it into the air, gently putting it down on the ground. A wet, indignant snarl resounded from within at the sudden jostling, and something heavy hit the bars just as Gaius pulled his hands away, shaking the whole cage a bit.

Approaching Bataar's cage, he did the same, gently carrying it over to the veiled cage. Bataar scrambled to the other side, huddling as far away from the King as she could and not meeting his eyes. "You might just live, if everything goes well. But I need you to do something for me, first." Gaius said, as he eased the cage down to the ground.

The Blood Path artist said nothing, silently stewing, eyes boiling with a veiled resentment that told Gaius she already knew what he was going to say. After a moment with no response, he continued. "I need you to fight, can you do that for me?"

The shift of a leg, the clenching of a fist, and a weary sigh, and a radical transformation occurred. From a woman on the edge of despair, a warrior re-emerged, Bataar's will re–invigorating itself even in this abyss.

"I've been fighting all my life." She said quietly, rising to her feet and entering a cycling rhythm. With fluid, practiced motions, she began to stretch, and for a moment, Gaius saw an entire armory of weapons overlapping with her body. "What's one more?" She added, as she finished her momentary preparations.

"That's good." Gaius smiled, hating himself more in that moment than he had in a long time. "Thank you for making this easier for both of us."

Grabbing the heavy veil over the second cave, he pulled it off in once forceful motion, revealing the contents: Four large, predatory beasts, all kept starved for two weeks, to make them fight without self-preservation. A Thunder Hawk, sharp of beak and talon and cracking with electric sparks. A Lesser Salamander, boiling with volcanic fury. A Steel Auroch, which used to weigh two tons, but now weighed one and a half, thanks to starvation. A Hunting Blade Leopard, bristling with steel blades and drooling in anticipation.

Four Ninth Heavenstage beasts versus one Seventh Heavenstage Cultivator. Not completely insurmountable odds, but extremely slim ones. This Junior had no great treasures, as all her belongings had been stripped from her already. Perhaps she had transcendent techniques, but if she did, none of them had been seen by him or Albinus. More likely, she had been a very skilled combatant but otherwise ordinary, prior to Gaius' gift. Without it, she would be slaughtered here, so her performance would serve to highlight just how impactful the first of the two characters would be.

"These beasts symbolically represent the Four Sacred Beasts of the cardinal directions." Gaius explained, gesturing with his hand and bidding the first of the two cage doors to unlock, then swing inwards. The Hunting Blade Leopard roared and snarled, loudly slamming against the bars of the cage as it tried to break through. The metal dented slightly, but remained stubbornly steadfast throughout the assault.

"The Steel Auroch for the Black Tortoise of the north - implacable. The Hunting Blade Leopard for the White Tiger of the east - vicious. The Thunderhawk for the Vermillion Bird of the south - swift. The Salamander for the Azure Dragon of the west - tyrannical." Gesturing again, he opened the second door, leaving nothing at all in between the Ma Cultivator and these hungry predators. "Overcome the four cardinal directions, and you can go in whichever direction you want."

There was a single breathless moment, before the violence began. It was far too long, the silence far too deep. Something in Gaius' head felt like it was squirming, just behind his third eye. It was the sort of ache which accompanied irreversible change.

The panther was first, of course, charging ahead of the others, steel claws sparking against the floor of the cage. It leapt headlong as Bataar, rolling in midair and swinging its sword-tail. She dodged to the side, but before she could do anything else, the Steel Auroch was already on her, and she had to grab its horns and dig her feet in before she could be gored.

The Thunder Hawk mustered up a bolt of lightning, firing and making both her and the auroch break off their clash. The panther struck again, lashing out in a frenzy of claws, and Bataar knocked them aside with the flats of her hands, sparks flying out with every impact. She barely found enough of a gap to launch a single kick, which landed, but barely phased her much larger opponent.

The Salamander, Which had been charging up a blast of fire, finally unleashed it, making Bataar jump up and grab onto the bars. The Thunder Hawk, blinded by hunger, attempted to pursue, only to be clipped by the attack, which sent it spinning out of the way and struck the bars below Bataar. A hole, some three feet wide, was blasted through the bars, and Gaius repositioned himself in response; the battle would spill out any moment now.

They clashed back and forth, again and again, Bataar evading deadly strikes by inches and using the cramped quarters of the cage against her enemies. Many times they struck each other, and it was only a bit of reprogramming - courtesy of good old Centurion Silvia Lekapena - which kept them from turning on one another. Finally though, she slipped up, as the Thunder Hawk dodged around her thrusting spear-hand to sink its talons into her shoulder and drag her out into the open. It dumped her onto the grass before Bataar's retaliatory strike could find purchase, and soon the four beasts charged out of the cage.

Gaius hopped up on top of the cage, sitting with his legs dangling over the edge, to continue watching the battle. He was more on edge, now that his quarry was outside, but that was ultimately no problem. He could project his Emanations out for thirty miles, at maximum output. A Qi Condensation wasn't running away from him.

The Salamander was the last of the beasts to emerge, predictably. It spat more balls of fire, setting the grass ablaze and making Bataar jump out of the way, where she was set upon by the Thunder Hawk. It savaged her viciously, but the steppe woman parried its attacks aside with surprising speed, only taking a few small gouges on her arms.

The battle continued on like this for quite some time, minute after agonizing minute. When Bataar got a handle on the attacks of one beast, another would find an opening with which to attack, and each was so different from the last. Again and again she was burnt, battered and lacerated, and yet still she hung on, taking only small wounds.

Barbarian. Man-Eater. Beyond salvation. Gaius repeated these reminders to himself as he watched this person, whom he had given such an intimate gift, battle for her life. He couldn't understand how Clansmen in the past could stomach sending criminals and prisoners of war into brutal, rigged coliseum battles; the cruelty was just unpleasant. But then, a coliseum wasn't run by a single person, and diffusion of responsibility was a potent poultice for a guilty conscience.

Little by little though, the balance began to shift. Bataar struck with greater speed and force than before, kicking the Hunting Blade Panther across the face in a blow that resounded like the clashing of blades, putting a brief halt to its assault. Then, she leapt onto the back of the charging Auroch, baiting the Thunder Hawk to blast its erstwhile ally as she leapt above the attack. The bird dove toward its now-airborne prey, firing off another bolt to cover its approach.

Drawing her hand into a tightly-held straight line, Bataar brought it down in a hand-chop, parting the lightning like water. Gaius' eyebrows shot up - now that was interesting. Bataar couldn't have contended directly with those electric bolts a few minutes ago, which meant…

Gritting her teeth, the Ma Clanswoman pushed with all her strength, cleaving through the blast and chopping the Thunder Hawk in two. As she landed, the two halves of the bird fell on either side, followed by a gentle rain of drifting feathers. Bataar turned to her two remaining opponents, panting, injured, drenched in sweat, and yet stronger than ever.

No doubt about it, Bataar's strength was actually increasing as the battle went on, drawing more strength from the First Gift the more she fought. What Gaius had at first written off as a moderate boost in strength now seemed more intriguing. How much could a talentless Seventh Heavenstage get out of that character?

"I can hear it." Bataar said, lowering herself into what Gaius recognized as a wrestling stance. "The drums are pounding…"

"I didn't take you for a wrestler, you're not built like one. But neither am I, I guess." Gaius remarked, resting his head on his fist. The Ma Clan's grappling wasn't quite the same as that of the Golden Devils' focusing more on slamming than choking, but it was no less formidable. How would this woman, with her arsenal of a body, utilize it?

The auroch, shaking off its burns and other wounds, got back to its feet angrier than ever. Notoriously dumb on the best of days, there was nothing on the hungry spirit beast's mind other than to kill and eat the little human in front of it.

Watching Bataar take the charge and then throw that beast over her shoulder made something close to love bloom in Gaius' chest. Perhaps a twisted sort of pride. He couldn't help it, damn it all. To share that Word of Power, it meant something, by definition. A deep intimacy, shot through with irreversible violence. Like reaching into someone's guts and fiddling around until they worked the way you wanted. They had touched one another closely, in that moment of transference.

Gripping it by the horn to hold it still, Bataar brought her elbow down on the auroch's neck like an executioner's axe, and it bit deep. It went halfway through - a certain death, but not a clean one. As the steppe woman ran to fight the remaining two beasts, the horned behemoth took over a minute of agony to expire.

With only two opponents in her way, Bataar, whose strength continued to escalate minute by minute, took control of the battle before Gaius' eyes. It seemed impossible - her stamina was dwindling, and yet the power behind her attacks grew with every exchange. Her steps covered more ground, her reaction grew a little sharper, until she outpaced the leopard in every way.

Another minute, and a decisive moment came - her hand chop shattered the leopard's tail, making it howl in pain and halt its assault. Bataar capitalized on the opening, kicking her enemy into the path of an oncoming fireball, which melted a large chunk of its body and killed it quickly. Just one more.

She stumbled for but a moment as exhaustion threatened to overwhelm her, then began to move again. She juked left, then right, approaching bit by bit as she avoided the blistering onslaught of flames. The ground in a wide cone in front of the salamander became a scorched, desolate mess as it continued to haphazardly fire in vain. With all the stamina she could muster and then some, Bataar made it through.

With a scream of fury and a burst of energy born of pure will to live, Bataar struck again. Drawing her fingers together into a single point, she buried her arm in the Salamander's open mouth before it could fire, heedless of the heat, and pierced her bloodstained hand through the back of its neck. With a loud snap, its spine was severed, and it went slack. Pulling her arm free, Bataar jammed her spear-hand into her enemy's throat for good measure, ripping it out entirely and drenching herself and her surroundings in arterial spray.

It was over. Covered in blood and burns, the Ma woman was still alive, despite the great odds against her. She seemed unaware of her surroundings now, from the way she stared at her own bloodstained hands, and at the destruction all around her. The stray embers from the salamander's corpse drifted up into the leaves of a nearby tree, which caught fire. The flames spread quickly, pouring smoke into the sky, but she didn't seem to notice that either.

Gaius hopped down from atop the cage, letting a thin layer of Emanations wash over his surroundings, so that he might read his test subject more closely. Indeed, Bataar had grown strong, and it became immediately clear why that was. Her qi was alight with an inner fire, like some hidden fuel source was hooked up to it. The amount was the same, in terms of what a Seventh Heavenstage should possess, but the potency of what was there was hard to believe. Just by a rough estimate, it had at least tripled, holding three times more energy per unit than qi was supposed to.

"So that's how the First Gift works." Gaius noted, approaching the shabby woman swiftly. To her, it must have been a sudden appearance, shocking enough to snap her out of that trance and sent her falling backwards. Bataar winced, as she caught herself on a badly cut palm, but was too exhausted to say or do much. "Your body is the same, but your qi potency is so much higher, it's as if you have as much qi as a False Foundation. The limitation, then, would be how much the body can handle channeling at once…" He muttered, pondering the implications of such an ability.

More energy for her level than Lipita, and Lipita's body required the whole of the Bronze's reinforcement to support. More than an Eleventh Heavenstager, who arduously purified their entire meridian network to attain it. If the boost in performance stayed consistent, then a Late Core with this power could produce Early Nascent-scale techniques, if they could survive the strain. An Early Nascent… The might of the conqueror indeed.

He looked down at Bataar, and wondered who she was. What path had led her to where she now knelt at the Empty King's feet? Probably not of a notable line, with her meager talent and the roughness underlying her techniques. Just an ordinary person, caught up in cosmic forces. Manipulated by a cruel tyrant.

Gaius reminded himself once again that this was for the greater good, that she was damned anyway, that these Gifts, if properly understood, could change history. It helped him close his heart to how overwhelmed, how lost Bataar looked.

"You've done well, but I have to break off the deal." He finally spoke, raising a hand wreathed in golden light and crimson fire. One painless strike, destroying the brain and dispersing the soul simultaneously, was the only kindness he could offer right now.

Bataar's eyes went wide in fear, and she tried to scrabble away, only to find her back to a burning tree. The blaze lit up the night, casting flickering shadows all around the scene and belching smoke into the air. Gaius raised his hand, long arm reaching forward like the claw of some ghastly wraith, ready to snatch away her life. "Please. Please, I fought for you with that gift, didn't I? Why do you have to do this to me?" She begged, hair whipping up around her face from the heat and wind.

"I can't give this gift to just anyone, it's too powerful. I needed this test to learn how it worked." Gaius explained, hoping to send the woman to her grave with a bit of peace. He took a step closer. "Empowering the right people at the right time, especially people who will be our enemies one day, is dangerous business. This isn't the right time or place, and you're not the right person."

"Please, please, please…"
Gaius paused for a moment, fingers twitching as he urged himself to move and get it over with. "We're at war. We can't coexist. This was always going to happen."

"I never wanted any of this."

"I'm sorry. You were born under an unlucky star, I'm so sorry."

"You said I might live if I won."

"It was all a wicked lie."

As his fingers closed around Bataar's head, He saw her lips move, near-silently. A tiny whisper, with no strength behind it. Gaius leaned in closer, to listen to the last words of the protege he had had for a single night. "Sorry, I didn't hear that. Could you repeat it, please?"

Bataar inhaled, then spoke a little bit louder, right into Gaius' ear. This time, her voice did not shake at all.

"I hate liars."

A fighting spirit, harder than steel, seemed to manifest from nowhere, snapping shut around him like a trap. The blow which struck him in the solar plexus, driving every ounce of air from his lungs, was more than a punch, it was defiance itself, incarnated in whole into one monumental blow. He flew.

0.35 seconds later, The Seeker regained consciousness. Several trees were smashed to splinters, his body having went clean through them, and a dull ache sang in the center of his chest. She had hit him; moreover, the hit had actually affected him, a King. Preposterous.

How many miles did he run for, alternatively sprinting atop the ground and gliding beneath it? And yet somehow, for all his searching, he couldn't find a trace of Bataar. The initial footprints gave way to nothing, as she had soon switched from running to bounding between treetops. But how was she making no sound, within the mighty detective powers of Tabula Rasa?

Furthermore, this kind of performance was nothing like what she'd shown in the battle! A Qi Condensation, bowling over a King like that? She could have torn those beasts to shreds with power like that. The truth was obvious: she'd tricked Gaius.

In a deadly situation, after being captured and suddenly bolstered by an unknown conceptual power, Bataar had not only adapted incredibly fast, but, rather than fight hard to guarantee her survival, she held back to fool her captor. She'd fought with just enough strength to win, suffering great pain and danger in the process. All for that one moment. That one blow, and the slim chance of escape that would follow.

"Shit, shit, SHIT!" Gaius Gritted his teeth and fruitlessly swung his fists in impotent frustration. He grabbed two fistfuls of bountiful hair and pulled until it nearly ripped out.

Gaius had thought Bataar was the best test subject. Perhaps she had been the worst.

This was fine, Gaius thought, sighing and turning back to return to the fort. He'd picked out a poor Cultivator for this very reason. If it wasn't for the blood path, that barbarian wouldn't have even reached the Seventh Heavenstage. With those bad meridians, she'd never progress far enough to become a major threat; someone would kill her before then. Gaius would do it himself if he could manage it, just to be sure.

He knew now, on some level, what he bore. This was not a power which could empower a large group, not unless one wished to see Armageddon in the combine centuries. The union of both gifts, the Apex of All Life… perhaps it was no exaggeration. He vowed on the spot to never, ever bestow both at once, not even to the lowliest of creatures.

——

At the bottom of a river, hidden beneath a layer of silt and stones, Bataar waited, cloaked in a stony cocoon. The Burial Mound Stone, housed within her body, was the only possession of hers to pass through the hasty check, performed in the wake of her capture. It had saved her life twice before, and perhaps now it would do so again. Once activated, it would form a hard shell around the body of the bearer, making their qi unsensible and putting them into a state of reduced activity.

A cowardly tool, useful only for faking one's death to survive another day. Perfectly suitable for a nobody like her. Bataar felt sick to her stomach every time she called upon the stone, as if to do so was an admission that she had no power in this world at all. That her only role in life was to be blown about by the winds of fate and the machinations of her betters.

For several days, she remained dormant, breathing in tiny, shallow breaths from what little air was trapped within her shell. Her heart beat no more than once every few minutes. Only when she was absolutely, completely certain that no one would be around, did she emerge. Rising from the water as a whole new person, the Conqueror set off to make her way in the world once more.

No more. After a lifetime of waiting, Bataar had found a way out, a way to gain some semblance of agency; of course she would use it. There would be no returning to her post, since that mad Devil would no doubt hunt her down posthaste. She would have to go on the run, deep into Ma territory, or perhaps somewhere else. Rushing things would get her nowhere.

She wrung the water out of her hair, turning to face the rising sun so as to orient herself. The first sunrise of a new life.

—-

Despite all that went into this chapter, it still feels a little bit half-baked. There is so much more I could have added to establish the Stargazers further, or give Bataar a more lengthy introduction, but it was getting long already, and I needed to get this chapter out during the actual turn.

Anyway, some people wanted to know what exactly it was that Gaius dredged up in those damned caves. Well, this is one of the things he obtained. Holding an asset which could greatly influence the course of history, but having nothing but a brief, cryptic description from Ji Shin, Gaius chose to take his Legion to Mountain Bell and defend a fort. This served to bloody them, while also giving him a chance to see for himself what the halves of his Word of Power could do.

Fun fact: I described Gaius as taking the utmost precautions in his experiment: choosing a weak Cultivator, stacking the odds against her, and being ready to kill her immediately if she defeated all of her opponents. Occi had me privately roll a d20 to see what happened, and I rolled a 1.

So now you understand why certain chapters had to be posted this turn: the floors up to 25 to give context to this experiment, and the experiment itself, because this is not the last the Golden Devil clan will see of Bataar. To be clear, she is not an omake character, she is a main story character now.

 

[Alectai]

Ooof

It's ironically appropriate I guess, that despite paranoia level measures he lost his test subject because at the end of the day, he didn't trust the Clan to have his back, but that's a pretty bad look on the whole, and it's gonna suck later.

 

[TehChron]

That's honestly unfortunate

Aretaphila wouldve found the concept distasteful, but still wouldve went along with it because...The world is ugly, and only by overcoming that filth can virtue be found.

Oh well.

 

[adamashield]

While this is a serious chapter, that we learn dark thing for a less grim (to us) future. I still would wish to end this in a lighter tone.

The Brotherhood laborers worked round the clock repairing any hint of damage, cooking meals, keeping the place clean, each doing the work of two, sometimes even three chore-boys.

Click to shrink...

these boys and girls make The Brotherhood proud^^.

 

[Swordomatic]

Cerina Polya Side Story 6/Katha Theodoros 23 - Dinner with a Shepherd

Year 261

Springtime in the Beast-Raising Forest was a raucous and bustling time. Animals darted across through the underbrush, beast hunting beast, or beasts seeking mates, and the trees oversaw it all as they towered hundreds of feet into the sky. Their branches shook with the winds and the whispers of Qi and spirits, leaves rustling constantly in the closest experience the desert had to constant rain. The sunlight was filtered green and blue and red by leaves and blooming flowers as it shone from on high. The wind carried a spice on it, a slightly pungent scent of flower fragrances and any number of oily saps leaking free on this hot and dry day. In the distance to the south, a river could be heard rumbling, mostly parallel to the road as the river headed east.

The soil was loose and sandy, and rose and fell in hills, the grip of the desert impossible to completely escape. Through these hills the roads carved their way and the plant life always encroached. The marks of fresh cut backs and burnings showed that the roads were only kept clear of the crawling bushes and weeds and flowers by the valiant efforts of road wardens and specially designed arrays.

The trees and plants around the westerly heading road thinned, and revealed a valley with a T-shaped confluence of three streams at its lowest point, a rocky island dominated by river birds rising from the middle. An arched bridge went over the righthand, northernmost stream past the confluence, and beyond the rivers the land rose slightly and became particularly hilly. A village sat there beyond the streams, the road leading over the bridge and then down to its main gate and guard house.

The land around the center was being cultivated as farmland and was currently in the process of being tilled and prepared for seeding. The fields that weren't for garden crops were full of orchards populated by much smaller specimens of trees compared to the giants that dominated the scenery. People could be seen bent in the fields or moving amongst (or in) the trees, hats on heads and shiny iron tools in hand. All of the fields were presided over by a large house or a series of buildings arranged in small compounds, their property encircled by walls. A few fields on the southside had flocks of animals grazing and wandering around; sheep, goats, oxen here and there, and many chickens.

At the center of this collection of dwellings, a hundred meters or so beyond the confluence and nestled between many hills was a walled plaza and marketplace. Dozens of footpaths led from the hill houses to the area in front of the main gate, meeting the main road there in a large cobbled area full of people. Inside the walls there stood a fortified building near the back and a few other buildings whose purposes weren't immediately clear.

It was quite busy, being right in the middle of seeding season. Dozens and dozens of people were out and about, the market seeming to have spilled out from inside the walls and beyond the gate, the racket loud enough to be heard by sensitive cultivator ears from all the way up by the bridge.

Far from being an arena filled with monsters that demanded of everyone everyday that they fight for their lives, the Beast-Raising Forest was simply a place of wild, untouched beauty. One that refused to be tamed, but with tolerated co-existence, so long as the ones who did understood their place and did not quail under its modest demands. To know the line and never cross it.

It was not what Katha Theodoros had been promised when she came here to master her instincts against primal nature. She expected the first good fruit she'd get from this place to be carefully plucked from one of the towering trees and fiercely guarded for every juicy bite, not eagerly offered to her by hawkers spotting a new face to offer their wares towards.

It was wild. It was raucous. It was bustling and brimming with life and activity. So totally unlike the desert, then, that it had caught her unawares. By the time she had even found the space to find her footing, in each hand was a fruit basket, she was holding a ham the size of her head under one arm, and the other was carefully balancing yet more produce acquired at reasonable prices.

And the market square had life to spare, as it swarmed the next group of cultivators who ventured into the village, ready to test themselves in the forest.

"What just happened?" Katha asked, half-shocked, half-pleasantly surprised. Rustic kindness like this was rare in the desert. It was nice, all told.

It also felt entirely wrong. She needed to get out and get to fighting, as soon as possible.

One gaggle of small children roved into view, led by an extremely tall Golden Devil who towered over even Katha, with a single closed eye dominating her face. "... there I was down in the pit, beating off this thing's fungoid tendrils as it constricted me," she was gesturing expansively as she talked and entertained the mortal children. "So I grabbed my Ten Color Fire-starter Array," Cerina pulled out a little bronze stick wrapped in copper. Standard issue Legionnaire lighter for pipes, lanterns, and what have you. "And I lit us both on fire," she said, garnering gasps from the children. "It really didn't like that!" She smiled smugly. Her eye scanned over and noticed Katha, focusing on her intently.

"How did you not die to the Throngler!?" One incredulous child asked in the pause, awe tingeing their voice.

"Bronze doesn't burn well you see, but you raise a good point Gao. Do not ever set yourselves on fire to escape a Throngler. Have your buddies drop the antifungals into the pit and keep your masks on so it doesn't get in your mouths and noses. That said, I escaped rather handily after that as it burned to ash, and I got a nifty Plant-Beast core out of it," there were cheers as she finished.

She turned and waved her hands over their heads. "Alright, that's story time for now, you lot go find your parents 'kay?"

"Yes Mistress Polya," "Yeah Big Sis!" "Okay!" They rattled off as they dispersed into the crowd.

In the next moment Cerina made her way through the crowd and walked up to Katha. She grabbed her hand, bowing slightly. "Senior Theodoros, your exploits have helped me amazingly. Do you want to go into the forest together? I think I know spots with frightful beasts for you to fight."

Recognition struck her two seconds too late. She knew the young cultivator in front of her, Cerina Polya who had achieved so much at such a young age in the Mountain Bell campaign. Astonishing work by any metric, her cyclopean eye was said to even be capable of withering Foundation Experts into husks of themselves. She even joined the Silverine Bracers, which means that Legate Callista finally got her star junior for the generation.

None of this registered in time to make a good first impression. Instead, the first word out of her mouth was a short, startled,

"Bwuh?"

The children, looking back at Miss Polya for one last goodbye as children do, burst out in laughter as they played on the grass off the main roads. To her credit, Katha recovered quickly - but that was not to say she recovered well. "I, uh, yes! Thank you, Legionnaire Polya." She blinked many times in rapid succession, wondering just what she agreed to. "Uh, that is to say… Uhm. How do you know why I'm here? Actually, how did you know I was here? A-And I don't think we've ever been introduced!" She extended a hand, fan-shaped and faster than intended, nearly jabbing the willowy junior in the side. "Hello! I am Katha Theodoros! Pleased to make your acquaintance! I've heard a lot about you, Cerina Polya!"

Another pause. Children watching closely, waiting for the punchline to land.

"G-Good things, obviously! You're a good person!"

The children cackled. Katha's cheeks burned. What was with her and being on the backfoot of conversation all the time, seriously?

Cerina beamed, incredibly expressive even with her eye closed. It was obvious to her what this Senior wanted, written in the little twitches of her fingers and eyes. She hadn't had a fight in a while and that wasn't right.

So she said as much. "You look like you want to fight something, ergo hunting frightful beasts. I spotted you getting handed that ham by Mr. Liu, its good spitroasted by the way, you're not that hard to recognize from the tapestries," she said as she bowed. "And its great to meet you, I've heard good things about you too!" She seemed completely impervious to any awkwardness, grasping Katha's hand and turning her to lead her back towards the trees to the north.

"Are you ready to go immediately?" The junior asked pleasantly. "I was going to head out today, so I think this is a bit of fortune that Heaven will hate."

There was a lot to take in about the whole situation and about Cerina Polya especially, the one-eyed junior far too familiar with her despite them only just meeting. Yet, there was something indescribable that drew Katha to her, something that was just… right, about all this. Cerina Polya was leading her in the right direction, and she had no reason to doubt her advice. She was a highly capable Legionnaire in her own right, even for one so young - and Katha has been spending far too much time around legitimately old people to be surprised by that. She herself was almost a hundred dammit.

And wasn't that depressing.

Still, Katha put on her biggest smile, and nodded. "Well, I do so enjoy inconveniencing the Heavens," she said. "And today is a good day to be destroying the enemies of the I--" She caught herself, frowning for a fraction. Weird for that to slip out now of all times. "Of the Clan," she completed, far more reasonably. "Not that the beasts here really count. We do raise them."

It was an ineffable feeling, but Katha trusted it for once, her judgement marking it as benign at worst. Cerina Polya couldn't possibly steer her the wrong way.

"All days are good days to be destroying the enemies of the Clan," Cerina agreed happily. She turned slightly, letting go of Katha's hand as if just realizing she still had it in her grip. Her mind caught on the strange connection and filed it away for later examination. I'll figure it out as I talk to her, I imagine. She mused privately. "Would you like to drop off your produce at my house yourself, or would you like me to get a villager to drop it off?" She asked as they neared the edge of the crowd.

Katha began to answer, then her stomach growled. The children fell over again with paroxysms of laughter, now happily watching the two cultivators, innocently unaware of what such actions would do for a more intolerant pair of immortals. The Iron-blooded ignored them, just looking up at Cerina, eyes to eye. "Wanna eat it now?" She asked, not even caring enough to be sheepish right now.

Cerina cackled, showing off very sharp front teeth. "Yes! I know an open-stove we can use!" She said and pointed in the direction of one muscled chef currently working over a large eating area with cooking surfaces ready to go for anyone who wanted to walk up.
It smelled godly.

***​

The thing with the Beast-Raising Forest, obvious after even a moment away from the light and activity of the villages or nomadic camps of Clan sentry cultivators and beast tamers, was that the Forest swallowed your senses. It was dark, starlight and moonlight obscured by the leaves and trunks of the trees and the thick foliage. The leaf litter absorbed sound, and the trunks acted as baffles to break up noises or create strange echoes that confused the ears. The scent of rotting plants and flowery fragrances overpowered pretty much everything else in the area unless it was incredibly recent.

"The best way to track out here, is by getting a feel for what each sign feels like to touch, and to carry your own light," Cerina said quietly to her Senior, who stood beside her as the young Junior walked through a trail of large tracks. Each step of Cerina's landed her in the slight divot left by a massive clawed foot. It was worryingly large, honestly, from what she had measured out with her paces. "Once you can navigate blind, touch can come through when everything else is overwhelmed."

It was dim, though not the true dark the Forest could create as the sun had not set yet. Lanterns hung on their belts and cast spheres of golden light up onto the trees. "Do you see any claw marks on the trees Senior?" Cerina asked, still quiet. Ever since they left the village and got out of sight of it, her register had lowered to the point it was still audible nearby, but didn't carry beyond the next tree or so. Slowly her head rotated in a full circle on her neck, following the little seam near the base of her neck, as she scanned the midline of the trees. They were next to one specimen that spread like a wall next to them, its diameter near fifty feet across.

It was unsettling, to be reminded of her sensory deficiencies in such a stark manner, and the Beast-Raising Forest seemed custom tuned to do such a thing. The darkness beyond the lantern lights was all-encompassing, so depthless that at times Katha wondered if her eyes were even open. The ambience of the fireflies, chirping and squeaking in shrill cries and tones, assaulted her senses entirely. Even smell was being denied to her, the forest a constant barrage of nature's sensations of every sort. Tracking was a proper ordeal, and without Cerina it would have just been outright impossible. It was reassuring to have her as a familiar local or close enough, a pair of eyes that could not lead her astray.

"Can't see a damn thing, sorry," she remarked frankly, a pained smile tearing across her face. "But that's the point, isn't it? If I can't see, rely on the other senses, down the list until I finally get something legible to use it."

She closed her eyes, realising that there was no point seeing anyways, the only thing in her field of vision pale yellow spheres in a sea of black midnight. Katha instead drew the Hornsword and held it outwards, prodding and feeling for the trees and the path as one would a dowsing rod, or a walking stick.

Movement then became slow going, until she found it. An unusual divot in tree bark. She reached out, felt it. Four valleys, evenly spaced, diagonally cut. The itch on her fingers must be the tree sap - or maybe poison. Poisoned tree sap, maybe? Probably not the best idea to tempt fate, with meant no tasting it. Unless…

"I think I found one," Katha called out to her companion. "Cerina, do you have any resistances? Because this cut might be fresh… Or it might just be poison."

The other girl nodded. "I do. Turn out your light. Safety necessity now," she said, her own lantern winking out entirely, leaving her basically invisible beyond a faint coppery shade just on the edge of Katha's lantern. Then she moved closer, motioning to crouch. "Not poisoned, just tastes like shit, at least this deep," she continued, reaching up and finding the mark. Then she hissed. "Pissing boils, that's a Four-Ton Viridian Hopper. False First Pillar, or thereabouts."

She glanced up. "Midline canopy is also getting thicker," she said. Above their heads, basically invisible, was a thickening tangle of vines and bushes and caught up dirt and twigs, which was making it so dark.

"Found some footsteps too," Katha added, hand patting the soil beneath the undergrowth lightly, hand sweeping slowly and in an outwards pattern. There was a clear divot, with crushed plants and sunken dirt. Lots of insects, too, but nothing worth considering. The ants were largely still mortal at this point, barely enlightened, and only the occasional soldier capable of really drawing upon Qi. Even with that, even together, nothing they could bring to bear could hurt her right now. Cerina neither; she stood at the orthodox peak herself. "Seem to be headed deeper in. Unless the Hoppers hop sideways?"

Cerina wiggled a hand. "Up and down, with two exceptions. In any situation they'll hop up and down trees so they can leap down and impale prey. In dense Midline they might hop up and hide in that, and do the same thing. Relatively one track minds but, really fast."

"Mm, you said the midline was thickening, right?" Katha was standing again. The Hornsword was stabbed firmly into the tree, right where the claws had scratched the trunk. A reference point in the woods she could pinpoint in an instant, in theory. More likely, just somewhere she could keep it. As she continued, she stretched her arms over her head and rolled her shoulders. "Any odds that our guy is just waiting for us to figure out where we are fits that criteria and we might be in a trap, so it can spring the trap?"

Cerina was unspooling coils of weighted rope from her pack. "Nigh certain to be close, though he's too big to sit in it. He'll use it as cover as he leaps between trees," she said, voice getting quieter and quieter as she listened. "I'll weaken and tangle it."

The stillness reigned as the two set their backs against the tree.

Then, suddenly, silence. Locally, the cricket-song died, and with it the sounds of nature. Somewhere she could not place, whooshing, wind in an empty place. The crackle-snap of falling dead branches.

Cerina felt it before Katha did. She moved to the side, while the beast landed fully upon the Iron-Blooded, pinning her to the ground in its leathery five-clawed grip. It cried out, a hunter's cry and a pained one at the same time. In its own words, it wondered why prey felt like a boulder, painful to strike and difficult to crush.

Katha, dazed but only slightly, squinted her eyes and frowned deeply. "I think we found it," she said blandly. "Mind withering it? I'd rip its lower jaw off, but uh. I need a hand." It snarled at her, spittle and carrion-breath flying right at her face. "Maybe two," she clarified.

Cobalt light that did not truly illuminate the darkness or banish it blossomed behind the beast's fanned tail. Immediately pinprick coals burned in its muscles, painful needle-like cramps, as its feathers and eyes lost their lusters and color began to fade. The most important things were that it slowed, wild jerks and flutters juddering down into the space of Qi Condensation, and the weighted rope that lashed around its neck and yanked. "NOW!" Cerina shouted as some of its weight came off Katha.

She swung her arms outward like blinds, forcing its claw grip apart, what would normally be difficult without momentum made possible with some grit under the gaze of the Withering Eye. The Hopper, suddenly unstable over resisting prey, swung its tail around to gain distance and recover its balance. It swept high and then low as it hopped off recalcitrant prey, and for an instant its shadow silhouette offered a hint of its true form.

The hooked beak that swung down on Katha's head offered a better look, and one that the Iron-Blooded was far more interested in. She caught it in both hands before it fully registered, and the force and power of her clap jarred the beast. It withdrew immediately, serrated fangs on the reverse side of the beak scraping against but never cutting into Katha's fingertips.

Now Katha was free, she had space, and she leapt quickly onto her feet, which sank up to half her shins in her haste. The sounds of the forest had receded, though they still remained, and the noises of the Hopper beast were far more obvious. She listened for one breath, two, and found that the noises were going upward - and away.

"Cerina, it's running away!" Katha called out.

Cerina was on a wild ride and didn't want to get off as she was bodily yanked clean into the air after the Hopper. Swift application of her With The Wind technique from the 36 Purifying Winds helped her stay in the air with directed bursts of Wind Qi and then arc over the course she expected the Hopper to take. She felt her outstretched hand brush its back feathers before she landed and gripped onto the tree. It roared, a deep chest rumbling bass of displeasure flecked with red blood, before being sharply cut off as its skull rang with the force of a Qi driven dropkick slammed into its beak. Its neck folded, center of gravity swinging back too far out, wild instincts causing it to try and grip but finding itself too weak to hold on and it fell nearly a hundred feet.

The Hopper fell, crashing through the canopy and the understory, back into the forest floor it tried so hard to escape, where a silver-skinned junior made ready to make it miserable. But here, Heaven made its displeasure clear against the Juniors that made light of it. Fate twisted, circumstance permitted.

The Hopper, sailing through the forest, landed on an already-embedded Katha Theodoros. Its weight, its force, and its agonising cry struck the top of her head. Several bones fractured from the impact alone, yet momentum persisted, though it jarred. And Katha sank further into the ground all at once as the soil proved incapable of supporting her weight, until she was now part of the ground up above her waist.

For an ineffable, ephemeral moment, Katha Theodoros wondered what the hell was life.

And then the Hopper fell sideways onto the ground, Cerina Polya following not far behind. And still it was alive, its tail lashing wildly, its clawed foot flexing as it tensed its own foot muscles and stiffened leathery skin to form a makeshift splint for its own injuries.

Twice it had struck an Iron-Blooded of the highest grade - of the First Realm, but still - and it was still alive. Somehow, in the blood that flowed in her veins, Katha felt disappointment and she felt irritation.

"Why won't you die?!" She cried out. And thinking quickly, she snatched at her travelling satchel to remove three camping pegs, forged of cheap copper. Not intended for much beyond anchoring a tent, today they would be her missiles, delivering missives of death - or at least great pain.

One heartbeat. Two. She swung one arm, the force violent enough to wrench her partially out of the hole.

And the copper bounced off the Hopper's Foundation-level skin. Because why would mundane copper, not even reinforced by Qi, pierce the hide of an Expert?

"...Fuck! My pegs!" Katha cried out. The Hopper's tail lashed out and struck down on her head once more. She sank further into the ground, up past her navel. "Fuck! My clothes!"

Cerina, humming under her breath with effort and stress as she wrapped her hand around her buddy's Hornsword while her feet were planted into the tree's bark gave one more good yank. With a spray of wood it came free and she tossed it at Katha. "Sword catch!"

Katha held out a hand, but things moved too quickly, and she had grown disorientated - not concussed, but confused. Her hand was held out in the wrong way, and the Hornsword struck her between the eyes instead. Pommel-first, thankfully, for the other way would be fatal. But an uncomfortable reception nevertheless.

As she saw stars and tried to blink them away, as she bit her tongue and held onto the loud curse instead of releasing it into the world, the Aspirant saw a vision of the Nascent Scion Beetle. It loomed over her, its legs folded in a mundra as they ever were.

"Unworthy Aspirant," it boomed. Its mandibles chittered, like it had not planned to see her again so soon, yet was not surprised it was so. "Why didn't you catch it? Better yet, why didn't you dodge?"

"IMPERATOR'S BALLS!" She snapped, her choler finally raised. Her words, etched in iron, shook the woods and held the Hopper down, though only for an instant. "I'LL KILL YOU! I'LL FUCKING KILL YOU!"

One hand pinched the bridge of her nose, but the other grasped the grip of the Hornsword and swung it hard in the direction of the rising Hopper. As it completed its arc, a crescent of Sword Qi lashed out, at high speed and with murderous intent.

"Shit!" Cerina cried as she flattened and shoved her face into the dirt. "Falling tree!" Her rapidly retreating voice screamed as she scurried away from the landing zone of the tree. Fuck saggy goats. Cerina cussed internally, more curses spinning through her as she lay against the ground. It shook with aftershocks of the tree coming down. The damn thing had luckily fallen through a gap and not caught on anything else, but dust and plant matter covered everything as the midline was ripped to shreds.

Cerina coughed. "Katha! Iron-blooded, you alive!?" She shouted as she stood up and beheld the sixty to seventy-ish feet wide tree that had decided to become a hammer of Heaven on her new friend. She probably wasn't dead but come on, she just met her! What would she do if she got knocked out and had to carry her all the way back. Also she may be invulnerable but she still needed to breathe.

Ugh.

Cerina started beating on and digging through the tree, which was withering under the light of her Eye.

Then, from the ground, the earth suddenly erupted.

A hand, caked in brown and green and chips of wood. It swung down on the earth with a clawed grasp, then it pressed. Katha Theodoros pushed her head free with a loud gasp, and panting she pulled her other arm with the Hornsword in hand free before pulling her torso out of the dirt. As she brought her breathing under control, Katha drew her lantern out and held it up, looking Cerina in her one lidded eye.

"So," she said to the younger-but-no-less-accomplished Disciple. "It's dead, right?"

Cerina looked down at Katha from her gap in the tree and looked around. "Yep, I can see its ass end over there," she pointed out into the darkness, from where the stink of guts and spilled meals wafted. "Minus most of its upper body actually, not sure where that went though," she shrugged and made a popping motion with her hand. "Mighta been splatted by this big fellow," she said and tapped the tree, which was still mostly trapping Katha's legs.

She reached down and grabbed Katha by one wrist and gave her a good tug. The Iron-blooded did not move, at all. Her weight combined with the trees led to a… well. She was quite firmly stuck. Rather like a nail pounded into a board.

"I'm not stuck," the nail in question weakly protested. "I'm just contemplating the universe. And the cosmic truth that binds all."

"Is it that nails go into boards, and not people into trees?" Cerina opined musingly.

"...I hope so. I really do."

"Mhmm, well the Hornsword is in your hand, so I think we can apply the Iron-blooded mantra to this; keep swinging until the problem stops being a problem," Cerina said pleasantly, taking the lantern and stepping away slightly to get out of the blast range. She sat on a rock and then looked up. The sky was revealed in a small slice of stars and moonlight from where the tree had fallen.

"Yes yes, give me a… Wait." Katha placed the Hornsword flat against the ground and turned to Cerina, head tilted. "How do you know that? It's not common knowledge outside of the few Legions who still use Vanguard manuals for infantry doctrine. Last I checked, the Bracers… weren't." She pondered that briefly. "I think. You'd expect Legate Callista to have a problem with the… punishments… But hey it's pretty sound."

Cerina twitched like she'd restrained a blink. "Uhhhhhhh," she scratched her head, puzzled. "No you're right, my Legate doesn't have a copy. Where the fuck did I read that?" She mumbled, tapping her chin. Then she started counting back on her fingers and then paused.

"Huh," she grunted, holding up splayed hands. Then she shrugged. "So, about twenty, twenty five years ago… maybe? Fuck it not too important. I was a freshly cooked noodle, had just graduated and I started looking for anything like me in the archives. Not much an Aspirant can find but…," her expression gets the distant look of memory.

"Paratiritís upon the roads, roaming freely…striking down…, the rest mostly illegible or irrelevant. Except for another reference later in the same codex that went like; Látreis tou sidírou or Lovers of Iron upon the roads, challenging freely and striking down the enemy. Strike and keep striking until the foe falls," and then Cerina shrugged, recital complete. "Weird dialect frankly, really really old, and that was the only reference to Iron anything that I can recall."

"...Raise your swords, resist and bite. In the breach we stand and fight. In blazing daylight we sear the blight. Follow our Eyes, fear not the night." Almost automatically, Katha said it, frowning as she said it. "It was… I think it was an old soldier's song, though not for marching cadence. Might have actually been a children's rhyme. But I remember coming across it, in old texts." Her frown deepened. "It also referenced the Lovers of Iron. I didn't realise a surviving copy of an old Vanguard text was still in the Clan archive."

Cerina was looking at Katha very oddly. "Always with the troops. Always with swords in the groups. Never forget the light. And never ever go out at night," Cerina sing-songed, feeling like a little girl again. "That is an old children's song from home. Everyone knows it… but the other villages are all very different."

"Kinda spooky, frankly, Katha," Cerina said, looking around cautiously.

"...Well, the way the Clan's been for the past thousands of years, I'm not surprised if old Clan legacies are all over the place in the most random of places, with none of the context left to understand how it got that way." With a final huff and a hop, Katha freed her legs and hips from the dirt, then kicked the chunks of the fallen tree into the hole. She looked over at the Hopper's corpse, winced at the work she left. "It's cut to crap, but at least the foot is still around. Might be worth something. C'mon, Cerina. We can talk more about this after we bring this back to the village."

"Righto!" Cerina said with a hup of effort as she got up. She spun in place for a second, glancing up at the stars. Then she pointed off unerringly in what would seem to be a random direction to their left. "Its that way. Frankly more exciting than I expected from a day-run."

"Excellent. Good work today, Cerina." Katha, blinking, then looked around her. The devastation, the blood. Her fucking pegs. "It's a good thing we didn't go deep today… I am not sleeping open canopy in this forest."

"But you're so tough!" Cerina said blithely. She was walking away, grabbing the ass end of the Hopper by the ankle. "Also don't worry about it, I have extra tent pegs."

"Thanks…," With a sigh, Katha pounded her chest twice, knuckles rapping against her sternum. "You're a good person, Cerina, but we should head back now. If it rains, I'm fucked."

"Well hurry up and stop gabbing then! Less thinky, more marchy!" Cerina shouted from fifty meters down the path.

Katha shook her head and began to jog after her. That girl had way too much energy. What does she eat, moonsugar and auroch fire?

***​

Cerina eyed the Spirit Horse's body that was set on a grilling rack spanning the firepit. It looked about done to her, lightly charred and glistening with sauces and cooking oils. The legs and head had been cut free and were placed on other racks standing over the fire. Her senior sat near Cerina, eating her own meal. Cerina had already eaten what was on her plate.

The horse would be the rest. She reached out to the back right leg of the horse and not minding the grease or hot meat, brought it up and bit down on the haunch. Chewing rapidly filled the yard behind Cerina's house as her Qi reinforced teeth guided the entire leg down her gullet. The hoof disappeared between her lips, crunched into powder by a combination of sharp Qi and jaw strength. She reached for the next leg. It met the same fate as the first. The Spirit Horse had been in the Third Heavenstage and in her throat and stomach its flesh became steady flows of Qi that filled her dantian like it was a second stomach. In comparison to her own stores it was not enormous, but there was enough to be pleasantly filling.

Cerina reached for the horse's body and started to lift it up to her mouth.

With unblinking eyes, Katha watched her swallow it whole, chew it thoroughly, even lick her fingers clean. It was like she was a statue cast from iron, a throwback to ancestors from ancient days, but it was not unrelenting duty that drove her, rather mere mortal disbelief. Her own meal was forgotten by this point, juices dripping down her arm and off her elbow. It was not that she wasn't hungry… Cerina's senior just had a lot to think about at the moment. Yes, quite a lot.

…It was a whole spirit horse.

The body disappeared, and was followed by the front legs and head. There was the crunch of bone as the skull disappeared and then something like the crack of stone or glass from within her as she crushed the Beast Core to dust. She sighed happily as she sat back, wiping at her mouth with a napkin. There was no remaining sign of her meal aside from the faint scent of cooked horseflesh. "That should see me sorted for the start of our next run," Cerina said, content and looking towards the trees contemplatively.

"...Sounds good." Katha considered her own haunch of meat, more modestly sized in comparison to the literal entire horse roast, and figured it was less of a priority, given current circumstances. "SO! How far deep are we going this time, and what's the worst you think the Beast-Raising Forest has to offer?"

Cerina was silent for a long moment, and her brow scrunched in thought. The fire snapped in the silence, along with the distant cries of birds. "...we call them moon runs. One lunar month out, one lunar month back. Past the Lands of the Shrikes and into the untamed wilderness beyond that. You can't be harmed by anything below Core Formation," Cerina sighed thoughtfully. "And nothing in here surpasses the Great Circle of Foundation Establishment, by Clan policy anything at that level gets hunted down, and the ecosystem generally can't support them anyway."

She turned to look at Katha directly, tilting her head a little. "If you mean a specific creature, there are stories of the Twelve-Legged Centurion Scorpion, which stands at the Fifth Pillar and is able to threaten Core Formation with its venoms, out west. Directly north of us are the lands of the Great Glacier Bear, which stands at the Sixth Pillar stage, and that thing's movements alter the entire weather pattern of the forest because of its control of ice and cold. And there are stories of other things even deeper in that everything else avoids. I could take you anywhere you want to go, really," she finished with a shrug. Quietly Cerina was… slightly concerned about going too far. Her parents' lessons were wise, not to mention her own experiences fighting Experts. But if she had Katha with her, her senior was frankly a peerless force of death in the First Realm, and she was able to pack away that concern for the time being.

It was a legitimate question, to be sure. Truth be told, a pair of Juniors in Qi Condensation - peak Juniors for sure, Juniors that were the pride of the Clan and the envy of all others - even thinking about going after beasts in Foundation Establishment was the sort of madness that got one cuffed behind the ears by a Centurion. The fact that Katha and Cerina were legitimately considering hunting - hunting! Not even on prepared grounds, but in the wilds! - beasts that were near or at the pinnacle of Foundation, beasts that even Experts were wary of engaging and which could kill dozens of Disciples in minutes of combat was testament to their madness and their prowess. But mostly their madness.

Good sense demanded that they drop this line of thinking, be satisfied with the Hopper foot, sell it at Cerina's village and then go cultivate in a ditch somewhere in quiet solitude with the resources from that hunt, or perhaps find less dangerous prospects.

But unfortunately for Katha's good sense, the calculus had shifted. Because she was not here to sell pelts and reagents to thaumaturges and array smiths. She was here to temper a body that soundly bested everything in the First Realm and a great deal of the Second. And, frankly, the path she had chosen was one of perpetual torment. Why not own it? Why not destroy the enemies of the Imperator push herself to her absolute limits?

An errant thought brushed Katha's mind, made her blink, squint and shake her head. That was odd. Focus, Katha. You're not out of the woods yet. Literally. "Are the woods dark around them too? Because I don't fancy fighting poison capable of killing Core Formation, but I also don't want to fight an ice bear. That's asking to spend the rest of the next day scrubbing rust off myself."

Cerina's expression narrowed. "... ah, vulnerability to cold and water based attacks? I have the standard resistances of the Clan and some experience with Curse techniques courtesy of this," she gestured up at her eye. "The beasts in there are rather varied," she said, some instinct pushing her to prod at Katha's capabilities. "Trends of poison, spores, corrosive gas, water, fire as cyclical burning and sprouting, hypnosis through fragrances and sacred patterns," she rattled off. "That's not all of it, but is there anything big I should know about Senior? I'm frankly more at risk than you are."

Katha frowned. She waved her hand. "Katha's fine, please. And beyond that, not really. You probably guessed it by now, but my physical resistances are top notch. Elemental resistances are suitable as well. I've the standard experiences with some Curses, I'm probably relatively hardened against spiritual attacks and demonic tunes… The only thing that can really hurt me now are attacks imbued with Water Qi. They tear through my new endurance and leave lasting patches of rust, which are…" She sucked on her teeth and looked back at past experiences. Sparring against her grandfather. And before that.

"Unpleasant as fuck?" Cerina piped up snarkily.

"...It's troublesome," Katha nodded. "However, that's also why I should probably figure out a way around that. So really, anything and everything is fine." A pause. She considered the oppressive heat of the woods at night, not helped by the humidity. "And cooler climates would be a nice change of pace from the heat."

Cerina nodded, rubbing her chin with one hand as she propped that elbow on a knee. "Back to your other question. The terrain of the Forest is primarily composed of that Tangle we found the Hopper in, but," she raised two fingers. "The Beasts move around a lot. Its why we are constantly remapping the known Beast territories. And the Forest contains several large rivers that come up from underground, as well as gorges and chasms, and these break up the terrain. This means the ecology of various parts gets broken up into pocket micro-climates surrounded by the Tangle. Some of the pockets are quite open. Each pocket is usually the domain of a big singular Beast, or a powerful species that engages in mutual defense," she said and then waved expansively at the trees.

"We can head out tomorrow morning and go north, it trends cooler as you get closer to the Hard Shells. For now though, do you have any other questions? I must admit I am curious about you," Cerina said, interested and smiling with sharp teeth. She'd found a new friend! And her friend was interested in Beasts! There was a part of her currently running around in ecstatic circles while the rest kept her face still.

Other questions, huh? Katha had a few, some more inappropriate than others. Those needed a different time and place, like four walls and a privacy array. Those questions about the children's rhymes and the odd references to the Iron-Blooded were going to have to be addressed sooner rather than later, but they also needed the right time and place. So those were not an option. That left her… What, exactly?

…Don't ask about the eye, you stupid bint. She's definitely sensitive about it. She's very definitely sensitive about it don't ask about it--

"I was wondering about the eye…solation of the villages from one another," Katha said quickly. A flawless escape from the foot in the mouth that would have led to one foot in the grave. "On the way in, I didn't catch any of the other villages you mentioned before. What's up with that?"

Cerina giggled, one hand hiding her mouth. She wanted to know about her but got embarrassed! Cerina resolved to tease Katha later, but spared her for now. She tapped her chin. "Harmony of capability. Equilibriums. That, to start with. The Clan knows a proper reason, I'm sure, but I don't have access to the theories and knowledge limited to Legates. My own theory comes from this observation; at the edge the towns are bigger, and as you go in they get smaller and smaller while still having largely mortal populations. Then there's a gap and then you start to get nomadic Legionnaire camps of Qi Condensation Aspirants. The numbers and strength of the Beasts encountered also rises.

"Couple all of that with the need of the God-Metal Shrikes to roam far and wide, which incentivizes you to place people efficiently across that territory. You end up left with pockets of people who each oversee one part of the Shrike's territory, care for the Shrike's foodstock in that area, and who are not large enough to impinge greatly upon the other Beasts' territories," Cerina spilled out, words flowing freely.

"Makes sense," Katha nodded. "Beasts don't like organised settlements of Cultivators in their territory - that, or they consider it easy prey. Any long term settlement inside the Beast-Raising Forest will need to either be nomadic, or powerful. And the Forest isn't wealthy enough to sustain a Core Elder like that." She thought on that for a moment, considering. "And I'm assuming the camps stay far from the reigning beast-kings? Unless they have a Centurion minding them, there's no way they can fight them."

"Yeah, exactly," a thought seemed to occur to Cerina, bringing her up short. "We uh… hmm… actually its probably not a problem," she said, waving her aborted thought about sneaking past the Centurions away. Frankly it was deep enough that they'd either beat whatever they hunted, die trying, or flee and the target would run into something else. She laid down and propped her head on one elbow. "We can just operate like a nomadic team, and if anything gets too much I can probably guide us into something else that keeps it from cascading out of control."

Making sure unanticipated variables didn't break something and cleaning up after them when they did was her job. Her wonderful senior's job was destroying the target, enthusiastically and with no remorse, and then being ready to do it all over again as many times as necessary. That said. "I was curious about the story behind that sword, if you care to share?" Cerina asked, clearly looking to where it sat beside Katha.

"Oh, this?" Katha looked over at the Hornsword, planted into the ground as it was. It even still had the rag she used to clean it loosely tied to the pommel, looking like a headwrap or a scarf. "There isn't much to say about it, honestly. When the Nascent Scion Beetle finished instructing me in the Man-As-Mountain Array, it gave me a piece of its horn as well before sending me off. It's indestructible and honestly kinda unwieldy, but also weirdly well balanced. I'm lucky enough to get something this good this early…"

She sighed wistfully then, looking north for a moment. How strange, to be nostalgic for ten years of horrific pain. At least that was just pain. "I doubt he meant for me to use it directly, though. Maybe someday I'll be able to reforge the Hornsword into something else. But, well, Nascent level material. It's not something I'm even close to trying yet."

Surprise sprang across Cerina's face. "Huh… uh…, huh you could take down a tree with that. Several trees all in a," and Cerina swung her arm down like she was swinging a sword, badly. The Beetle would despair at her technique. "Single fwoosh. If nothing else we can introduce a Beast-King to the question of the board and nail!" Cerina said with a cackle.

"Hah, yeah…" Another sigh, less wistful and more pained. "...Next time, I'm buying the good tent pegs. Ones that actually double as throwing darts. Thanks again, Cerina."

"You're welcome!" The energetic girl said brightly. "I'll just put it down as an eye-owe-you," she drawled, toothy smile getting wider and wider as she looked at Katha.

"Oh, no problem!" A few seconds passed. Katha finally took a bite of her meat, chewing thoughtfully for a few seconds more. Cerina continued watching her intently through her lidded gaze.

"...Wait."

Cerina tilted her head. "Something wrong with your meat, Senior?" Cerina asked, clearly guileless.

"O-Oh… Nothing, nothing. Something caught my eye--fuck!"

Cerina nodded wisely, and tilted her head slightly at Katha's odd expression, fighting to keep her own face straight. "Alright then!"

Her infernal little mind was already plotting how to escalate.

***​

The Tangle hung all around the two women as they headed north-westerly. It was brighter up here in the midline at noon than their previous expedition. They were currently climb-walking through it, several dozens of feet above the swampy ground as Cerina led them above the poison swamp they'd nearly stumbled into. She wrinkled her nose at the fetid decay stink mixed with something vaguely like rancid meat sauce. Bugs buzzed and frogs croaked and a whole host of other beings chittered and chirped and rustled around them, thankfully leaving the two cultivators mostly alone.

The mosquitoes and gnats were smart enough to not approach beings that stood too far above them in the First Realm. Cerina was currently trying to lead them across the swamp and find the next wagon sized footprint. The complex three dimensional map in her head had the thing's most likely direction taking it through this swamp, and she figured whatever it was, was too big to care about poisons of this level. She peeked down through the midline again, Katha hanging on to vines behind her, looking for the next bit of churned earth in the swamp.

"Hmmmmm… north-west heading, print size ten feet square, stride length somewhere around eighty feet," she puffed out a breath of frustration. That's what it should be, but the thing seemed to blend with the terrain somehow, mushing up and distorting its footprints and strides, and not disturbing the trees for all its seeming bulk. Her eye snapped open, blasting the understory with withering cobalt that was felt more than seen. The lesser lifeforms beneath her fled or collapsed and started twitching as plants curled and started to fall apart into piles of colorless rot and dust.

"Ahh! Found it Katha!" Cerina said, spotting the stretched oval shaped print in the ridges of mud poking up from the water, lifting her head up and pointing a bit more west. "Seems like its heading more west than I thought. There's a pocket of ridges out that way if I recall," she shrugged. There was a cut of bright sunlight coming down through the trees nearly a kilometer or so in that direction. It'd be as good a place to look as any.

"Sounds good," said the Iron-Blooded back in between grunts, hyper-aware of the vines she grasped and the steps she took. It was a sarcastic refrain most of the time to say that 'the world is too weak', but in her case it quite literally was. When one was something more than a metric ton - and damn Elder Metericos for codifying their system of weights and measurements like this despite living tens of hundreds of thousands of years ago - things shattered if you put too much weight on them.

It took concerted Qi infusion to fortify things and reduce her weight just enough to walk. Hopefully, this problem gets resolved at some point - or at least she gets good enough at it to do it in her literal sleep. She missed her pillow and mattress.

She followed after Cerina in short order, however, getting more proficient with the method of traversal despite the amount of concentration and awareness it still took, not more than a few paces behind the other Legionnaire as they scouted out the ridgeline ahead. It was craggy and stark like rock formations tended to be, found under an exposed stretch of sky that seemed to divide the forest in half. Her gaze lingered on the ridgeline for a second longer than she expected, thoughts niggling on the edge of Katha's mind.

It might have been the way the light reflected off the formation, or perhaps its shape. The fact that, so far in their entire journey, this was the only break in the Beast-Raising Forest's canopy that they had found instead of punching open themselves. It all seemed too convenient, to find this natural structure seemingly on their way to their target.

"Hey, Cerina…" She called out, and the Polya looked back at her with her head tilted. Idly, Katha wondered for a moment if she could even make a quizzical eyebrow, or if it would just look surprised. Strange questions for later. She would never admit to it. "...Does the ridgeline look right to you?"

Cerina's brain clicked with that question, and her head spun back around 180 degrees to check it over again. A long center line, with two smaller ridges coming off it, one at the front and one at the back. And the end of the ridge near the front was about ten feet square when it went into the earth. "All stop. That's not a ridge," she snapped out, freezing still where she was crouched.

What the fuck had they stumbled onto? She wasn't sensing a bit of Qi from the ridge, even fifty or so meters away. Her head tilted one way and the other, bobbing slightly like an owl as she tried to get a better grasp of this thing. …several thousand tons… more than a hundred feet from end to end… head not visible, buried?... unclear threat capabilities.

Well that made the decision easy.

"Back up," she said again. "I'm not sure what that is," she said ominously, pointing behind her towards a tree about a hundred meters away from the probable king, with solid branches to take shelter in. Katha followed obediently, slipping into cover ahead of her guide. She took care to mind her step carefully; no sense risking a dry twig or small animal now that they knew something was there.

"I'm assuming that's a king?" Katha did not wait for an answer for the obvious. "I don't see a head. Think we can kill it?"

Cerina nodded, pulling the box off her back and pulling out half a dozen intel-laden scrolls. "Unknown King, assumed Great Circle. If you can pierce the hide of something at the Sixth Pillar stage, it can be killed," she answered, lines of thought weaving together as she juggled multiple variables. Katha can probably do it with the Hornsword if she gets a clean run up. Distortion of terrain implies Wood and Earth aspecting, possibly Wood and Stone.

She starts unrolling the scrolls and scanning them with her lidded gaze. Diagrams of the Great Glacier Bear, a massive two headed bear-beast that seemed partly made of ice, and many other creatures were pushed aside until she came to several handwritten reports and started reading aloud. "Hundredth and tenth year of Era Konstantinos, reports of shifts in Deep Forest ecology, Great Glacier Bear disturbed and forced east. Reports of incongruous alterations in landscape and mapping, changes consistent with large scale Wood-Qi usage. Loss of three teams, one with a Third Pillar Centurion, in the Deep Forest west of the Bear's territory. Speculated rise of a third Beast-King, situation stable…," she puffed a breath.

"Right, it goes on from there, but in summary it didn't bring down Core attention. No solid grasp on what it can do, leading to it gaining epithets such as; the Elusive, the Hidden, and the Shifting Forest King," she shrugged. "My suggestion would be watching it to learn more of its capabilities, then making either a hamstringing attack or a blinding one. I think its head is buried."

"Even a Third Pillar Centurion went down, huh…" Katha did not mean it, but words that did not describe its abilities slid in through one ear and out the other. As she focused, all she considered were its capabilities and its weaknesses. Her thoughts went momentarily back to Shu's crazy aunt, that true battle to the death against an Expert. That was… problematic. Ultimately, she lacked the speed to keep up and the power to overwhelm. Cutting open this king's back was probably not an option.

If her hunch was right and that ridgeline was part of its back, it would be problem enough. If it were a crest on its head, they were screwed. In that case, the only way she could cut its head off is with extensive windup time, elemental superiority, stretching herself to the absolute limit, and multiple attempts with all the above.

So if it was actually that big, she would carry Cerina and run for the edge of the forest. It was the only sensible thing to do.

But you are a Scion of Theodora

You can do much better

You can kill them all​

She blinked again, harder this time. Her thoughts shifted, recalling a canticle she never properly demonstrated against Wulong. Why wield a monster-killing power against a man? She looked up at Cerina, mind made up. "If that isn't its head, I can probably kill it. I might rip my arms open - or off - doing it, but it's doable. Just need some distance and an opportunity."

Cerina looked back over her shoulder, head rotating like an owl to look at the stationary king and its surrounding clearing. There was the tree they were on right now, about a hundred meters from it, that if it fell could fall in the king's direction. But it was too far to just cut it down. "Hmmm… this tree right here. If you got in the canopy while I stood at the bottom, we could entice the king to charge at us. I could weaken this tree's base as set up and when it smashes into it, it probably won't care, but the momentum should help you get a cut…," she mused, head rotating back to look at Katha. "You could also cut it down and give it a push, alternatively."

Katha held up the Hornsword. She looked at it, then at the tree, and then at the base of the tree Cerina wanted to drop on the giant sleeping monster. "I think asking me to climb anything right now is a terrible idea. But this is also the best idea we have, short of going home and coming back with more people. So." Swinging once, lightly, the Hornsword bit hard into the base of the tree, sinking halfway into the trunk. Pulling it out was simple enough, and she swung it deep again, enough to carve out a triangular chunk of spirit wood. Then, she turned to Cerina as she sheathed it. "Right, uh… Think you can hold the tree steady while I climb?"

Cerina flexed, grinning. "My Mountain-Tossing Art can do the trick, no worries!" She said. She was worried, but that could go neatly in its box along with the tiny voice screaming that this was insane which had been bugging her for the past month. She dropped down to the base and with a huff of breath jammed her hands into the tree. "Ready!" She called up, feet planted and fingers sunk in like claws, a field of Qi expanding through the tree to give her impossible leverage.

The Iron-blooded took a deep breath, then jumped. Katha's fingers sank through the bark with ease, but it seemed to bear her weight well enough. Climbing proved easier than expected, and it was only a matter of minutes before she reached the top. The Hornsword was already in her hands. She had exhaled, then inhaled again, following a rhythmic breath cycle. Power came from the breath, said the Theodoroi annals. Right breathing would lead to right action. Breath rightly, and you could cut through steel as if it were cotton.

All she had to do was execute the Canticle of Theodora and split the beast, once it awoke, from head to tail, or some other combination thereof. Simple in concept, horrifyingly complicated in practice. If it wasn't a killing blow, it would be difficult to set up a second strike. Speed and power did not make technique. Controlled speed, harnessed power. It came back to control, focus. Something that currently fought her at every step.

And she only had a vague idea of where to cut, too. So she quite literally had to wing it in freefall. At least Cerina could bonk it, giving her maybe a split second to aim. It would have to do; there wasn't another tree big enough and close enough to throw at it first.

Doubt later, Kill now

You are a Scion of Theodora

And it is an Enemy of the Imperator

Die trying or don't, just Kill it​

One last breath. If it came down to a one-in-a-million strike, then just make that one-in-a-million strike. Or don't, and make two strikes. Or three. Or three hundred. Kill it, or kill it and die trying - but kill it.

Resolved and resigned, all she had left to do was signal Cerina below by rattling the tree branches, the leaves rustling loudly. I'm ready, drop the tree.

Cerina laughed, a joyous shout that transformed into a roar as veins pulsed across her body and her muscles swelled. Her eye snapped open, bloodshot, and she heaved as her roar twisted into a scream. The tree groaned, and the sound of hundreds of tons of shattering wood obliterated all other sound as the tree tilted. Cerina almost tripped as the weight suddenly disappeared off her arms, gasping in surprise. Instinct saved it and forced her hands up, tossing the tree in loosely the right direction. With her head ringing from the sound and the strain, she collapsed to her knees and fixed her eye on the beast king.

***​

There was no sound in Katha Theodoros' realm. All of it had been blasted away, leaving a hollow, vacuous void in its stead. There was no noise but the wind, no sensation but the wind, the only thing it did not invade was the destination she held in her mind's eye. The beast king that began to fill her vision, with every aching second that swallowed her peripheral vision.

But though she heard no sound, not even her voice, Katha felt the song that sang the origins of the Vanguard.

There once was a maiden who challenged the sky
Upon a mountain of dead she held defiance high
The sky screamed back, it offered swift death
In the form of a dragon of light

With amber scales and golden eyes
And wings so wide the firmament lie
The dragon bade murder, it offered swift death
To the maiden who dared to fight the sky

The maiden laughed high, her joy sublime
With sword held high she dared it to die
And when they fought, neither side stepped back
As the clouds themselves turned black as night

In the final hour as the storm did rage
The maiden carved history into its page
She laughed as she won, the future mythmaker
'Death to the enemies of the Imperator!'​

There was no mistaking the truth of the poem, though she had never read it once in her life. It was kept in no archives, no surviving copies made. The best that the modern Theodoroi managed were references to it, yet Katha now knew it in its totality. The Song of Theodora, the founding myth of the Vanguard. Her first great act, that which hewed the iron blood into the stars.

She was no worthy successor, a fortunate child that lucked into an inheritance. But she knew enough to know that Theodora found no slight in mimicry, cared little for imitation and much for intentions. And when one intended to bring low a beast, an enemy of the Imperator, that was all that mattered to her. That was all she sought. Victory through the deaths of the enemies of the Imperator.

As the ground approached, Katha's legs kicked out. The tree, in free fall and accelerating to terminal velocity, surpassed it in an instant. The wood struck the ground hard, the boom-roar of the impact like a falling star. The ground churned as she did so. Tusks tore out of the earth like closing jaw-fangs, a spade-like snout broke free of the treeline. The Viridian Boar, the third of the Beast-Raising Forest's Beast Kings, screamed skywards at the impact that roused it from slumber to a world of pain.

It was large, even for a spirit beast in Foundation Establishment. It was large enough for a century to barrack in, were it a building. Katha was sure that somewhere, someone - possibly Cerina - was already appraising its potential value and considering what would be its most valuable parts. Such things slid off Katha's consciousness as she approached the ground at terminal velocity herself, the Hornsword held tightly in both of her hands.

The Viridian Boar turned faster than its size would imply, spotted her - but she was not one, but seven falling bladed meteors. In each of Katha's hands was a sizeable sword of nascent beetle chitin, unbreakable by creatures like the beast king, its destruction inconceivable on a fundamental level. Each of them aimed at a different part of the king's parts; legs, snout, ears, eyes, tusks, teeth and tail. All viable targets. All important targets.

When the trees on its back rustled and unleashed a rain of blade- and needle-like leaves, waves of force and spheres of soul-power, one by one Katha's copies were blasted away. They were nothing, false existences only given motive force by a simple technique, one that played on deceit more than material power.

But one slipped through. The true legionnaire. The only one that mattered. For the truth of such a deceitful technique was that all were true, and all were false. The one whose blade met its mark would be the true practitioner, the true Katha Theodoros.

And her blade struck hard, and sank through the ridge on the boar's back that joined left and right together.

[Canticle of Theodora: Slayer's Sky Song]​

One swing, one crescent moon, one blow like a cresting wave. Immaculately cut at the ideal angle, undeterred by bone and gnarled skin that would otherwise knock the cut off its line of contact. With a single blow of immense power, the young Iron-Blood bit deep into the viridian boar's spinal column. Not enough to sever it, but enough to hurt it, to bleed it, to impede crucial functions.

Functions like moving. Functions like turning. Functions like unleashing another wave of soul attacks that would punch through her solid iron body.

But, unfortunately, not functions like tossing its back and sending her flying.

And Katha did fly, smashing through trees and skipping off mud and soil like it was water until she finally sank partially beneath it, Hornsword still in hand despite all that, her hands like vice grips that refused to let it go ever again. She broke free, gasping for breath, and it was only by terror-gripped instinct and the intent to survive that she avoided another two more emerald fan-blades of leaves and hate.

"I think that made it mad!" Katha cried out over the din, the beast king crying out in pain and anger. "Cerina, Cerina where are you? We need to keep our distance until I can try a second cut!"

Cerina was already running the hells away, head turned to look back at the beast unerringly as she navigated by feel and sound alone. One part of her mind was turning over the words Katha had screamed as she came down.

Unfortunately she couldn't ponder them, as it was not dead.

Her course skidded through the muck past Katha, wrapped around her wrist and pulled her upright. "Pick me up and run!" She shouted at her companion. Before she could react a huge force tipped her over and she found herself ass over teakettle on Katha's shoulder. With some wiggling and scrambling and joints twisting further than they really should, Cerina flipped over, still looking back at the beast.

The big ass mountain of pig was getting closer. "GO FASTER PLEASE!" She screamed. "That way!" Cerina pointed towards a defile that dropped, shielded by tangled growth in a sort of floral tunnel.

Legs pumping, her vision had long turned into a smear of green, brown and black hues. But somehow, Katha kept running. With the threat of death on their heels and a hazardous obstacle course ahead of her, with a fellow Legionnaire on her shoulder and an unwieldy-yet-indestructible sword in hand, her body performed to exact specifications, an ideal motive engine for pursuit and escape.

But they weren't here to leave a mark on a giant forest-pig and then run for it. The finder's fee for discovering and confirming the existence and capabilities of the third Beast King was not what she was looking for. Katha and Cerina were here to kill something, and she very, very much wanted to prove to herself that her feat at One-Boat, One-River Pass was no fluke.

Even if this was foolhardy in the extreme, there was no place for caution in the here and now. Caution against an enemy in the peak of the Great Realm after yours lead to death. Riding the red-hot line between success and death - that was survival. That was her aim.

Resolved, Katha began to formulate a plan.

And then she coughed, hard enough to have tears in her eyes. Hard enough to leave a bloodstain - a very hefty one - on her bracer.

Her eyes opened sharply wide, her irises like pinpricks. For the moment she felt no different, but coughing blood was no laughing matter. Poison, it had to be. They had to purge it, find antidotes - Cerina probably had some but they needed time. She could manage it for now, but if she got poisoned, Cerina might be in danger too. But how did the poison even get in, every leaf and needle shot at her just bounced off her skin, how did--

There was a sharp rap on her shoulder and then Cerina's hand flashed in the Legion sign for 'Aerosol, spore/pollen,' in her peripheral vision. Another sign, 'Get us away.' Then there was a sound like vomiting, but redder and meatier as Cerina spat out a ball of phlegm and bloody tissue over Katha's shoulder. She coughed heavily, much worse off than Katha. A huge blast of wind surrounded the duo as she tried to clear the air around them and failed, their hair flying wildly.

"Ooooof course," Katha said, a hefty sigh that turned into a grunt as she jumped a small ledge. It was obvious. Pollen, pollen everywhere. It was a giant plant-boar with trees growing out its back, and this was a forest. Why wouldn't it have already seeded the entire forest with its pollen, ready to poison hunters and threats and prey at its discretion?

Poison did not activate on a tripwire like that. It was a long-term problem. The blood, that had to come from somewhere else. How--

Another cough. Another wad of blood. Katha felt it, this time. The wave, the spirit-strike. Of course, the pollen was also a vector for spirit attacks. Damn. She was probably fine, the Twelfth Heavenstage would keep her alive long enough if her body could not handle it - but Cerina. And she was the lynchpin to the plan with the Withering Eye, and she needed line of sight with the beast king, so what could she do to help her and also keep her alive--

Wait. Cerina had fantastic eyesight. She just needed line of sight, not visual acuity.

She stomped one foot into the ground, digging a deep furrow that slowed her down just enough. Getting charged in the back and thrown a fair distance was not about to hurt anyways. Honestly, the boar might get a concussion first. She should have enough time if she times it right. "Cerina, try to hold onto something. And cover your mouth first!"

One hand hooked under her armpit, the other lightly pressed on the other shoulder, Katha jumped into the air, until she was upside down and looking the beast king in the eye. An instant later, contact. The beast king struck her full on, the pain less than the jarring impact. Finally, Katha pushed off with two legs and an arm, letting go of Cerina at the same time.

Momentum carried. Momentum was preserved. Cerina and Katha both went flying, but Katha was near enough to chase, and Cerina went right to the canopy line. Beyond the beast king's awareness and attention. Possibly beyond the pollen, if she was lucky.

Katha barely got to think well-wishes for Cerina Polya before she hit the ground face-first again. She spat the mut out of her mouth, with just enough time to lament her life choices before the thumping of the ground and the third beast king's angry guttural growls came close enough to spur her to movement once again.

It was a good thing she was a Theodoros. Running forever was easy enough. All she had to do was drag the damn thing around in a circle while the Withering Eye got to work.

Hopefully Cerina didn't get knocked out by being body-checked through a forest.

***​

Crashing, shattering wood and several hundred impacts in the span of a quarter of a second across Cerina's back heralded the blue sky. Cerina didn't notice, as her brain was currently quite busy shorting out from pain that screamed up from her Dantian to explode in her skull. Her next breath not lighting her brain and optic nerves on fire kicked her out of the daze, like slamming face first into a pool and she realized she was tumbling wildly through the air.

With a twist and blasts of wind shooting from her joints, she re-oriented and pressed her hands into a mudra of her 36 Purifying Winds.

[Wind Number 8: Storm's Disregard]

The wind blasted from her hands, a technique meant to repel a blow instead shooting her even further into the sky. The trees receded away as her arc went ballistic. She grinned as her next breath came through clear, shooting pains in her lungs no longer worsening. Down below she could see the humped back of the boar-king rushing through the forest like a fish in a stream; it knocked down the trees directly in its unerring path towards Katha, but the rest flowed around it by bending and fusing and twisting unnaturally.

As she descended she got to see the treetops shake and dance, heard the ground rumbling, and through the forest she caught glimpses of it. She landed heavily, smashing through the first twenty feet of canopy, still uncoordinated and weak from the soul-poisoning pollen. Her hand clawed at the bark and stopped her however. Reaching up, Instructor Vasto's voice running through her head, Cerina jammed her hand into her mouth and down her throat. Gagging and spitting, she hacked up a clod of plant-like material and felt most of the fire fade. That'd be most of the physical anchor removed, she hoped.

Cerina took a moment to pause and listen, hanging there while she set her Qi to cycle and try to fight off the spiritual contaminant.

She couldn't see the boar-king below the canopy, except as fleeting flickers of something huge in the distance, heading past her at an angle. But she could hear its footsteps shaking the earth, and she felt all the beasts around her fleeing as fast as they could. Even the ones in this tree were fleeing all around her.

Right, that made this straightforward. She just had to go back up. She was still out of range of the pollen too.

Reaching up, she grabbed a passing dog-lizard Spirit Beast and shoved it down her abused throat as quickly as possible. Hopefully the influx of fresh Qi and flesh would help her body repair the damage. But she had places to be.

By the time the lizard's tail slurped down her throat, she was already above the treeline again, leaping into the air and parallelling Katha's path. Expert combat could take days or weeks, and with her Eye it would continue to weaken as they ran. Maybe it'd die like that, or Katha could cause more harm to weaken it further.

Whatever the case, Cerina just had to keep the beast in sight, and meet back up with her Iron-blooded friend.

***​

Meeting up would prove to be something of an overstatement, considering that the beast king did not seem to visibly tire in its pursuit. It had a peculiar gliding technique, allowing it to essentially sail through the forest without needing to care about petty things like 'there is a tree in the way', or 'the vegetation is too thick to simply walk through'. It was something like three days before the Third Beast King was anywhere slow or distracted enough to give Katha the space to break off for a moment, when she lucked out and found a swarm of chickens - Razor-Wind Chickens, the ones who could fly and unleash wind attacks - that it tried to gorge itself on. To little avail, Katha would note to Cerina, as they both sat in the sheltered nook of a tall pile of boulders.

"It's not healing, thankfully," said Katha to her traveling companion and new friend, even as Cerina's gaze remained firmly fixed upon the beast king. "Its still bleeding, no matter how much it tries to plug the wound with fallen trees and vines. It's eating, but all that Qi it gets is going to go to waste soon enough. I'm giving it another five to seven days before we can attempt another go at it - if it doesn't starve to death before that."

Katha herself was not all sunshine and roses, however. She did not have the luxury of space Cerina had to purge the poison from her system, and she was in pollen range for the last three days. By now there was enough buildup in her lungs and lining her throat that she was starting to get affected by the poison. Just wooziness for now, maybe the slightest bit of tingling on her extremities, but that was just over three days. And poison ramped up faster than one would think.

Which was why she was taking the opportunity right now to violently expel the poison out her mouth and nose, hacking up globs of green-brown plant matter mixed with blood and other disgusting body viscera. She might not have time for proper pill antidotes, so instead she was crushing herbs and filling her waterskin with them. Disgusting flower juice was disgusting, but it was also healthy. Well, probably healthy. Enough to keep her going for the next week or so.

"All in all, be prepared to drag me home." A roar, a wave of Soul Qi. Katha felt her mouth fill up, swallowed, and grimaced as she licked the blood off her teeth. If nothing else, gaining the True Blood of Iron has also given her excellent dental health. Otherwise, she would be missing at least a few teeth with all the bashing and getting thrown around. "That's me. Any way for you to wither it faster, Cerina?"

"No. One weakness of the technique is that it goes at one speed," Cerina groused, throat still harsh from the pollen damage.

"...Well, it's worth a try. Be back in however long it takes for it to pass out and die." Katha paused thoughtfully. "Or however long it takes for me to pass out, so I can later cut my way out of its insides. Eurgh. Hopefully it won't come to that." She stood up, the Hornsword firmly tied to her back; no sense holding onto it, since she was not about to fight it head on anyways. With one step, she fell back to the forest floor, and the chase began anew.

"... Thank Old Gold's conniving curses its not healing," Cerina whispered, then through the fog of fatigue she remembered something important. "Katha! We can't keep going east, or we'll hit the Glacier Bear King! Get it going north if you can!" She shouted, sticking her head out of the rubble as she watched her friend depart.

Katha, sputtering as she hit the ground, dutifully did so, the Beast King pivoting perfectly in its pursuit.

The second phase of the battle against the Beast King was proving to be every bit as frustrating as coughing out poison was.

***​

The third and - hopefully - final phase of the battle, mercifully, arrived within five days, not seven. The Viridian Boar finally exhausted itself of all its Qi and had collapsed to the ground in peaceful slumber, perhaps not even cogent enough to realise that sleep was synonymous with death now.

Which was just as well, because Katha had lost feeling in her arms two days ago and was starting to feel tightness in her chest. And not the usual way, the dangerous, 'Might-be-having-a-heart-attack-soon' way. The fighting would soon end, but the problem was that the only one who could cut through the damn thing was her, with the Hornsword. And you normally needed hands to use it.

Figuring out a solution quickly before it woke up was, then, important. Especially considering that the Twelve-Legged Centurion Scorpion was not too far north from here and the longer they dallied the more likely it would pick up the scent of its rival and get ready to fuck them up.

"But there ith no way in hell I'm holding ith witht my mouth," Katha said, slurring slightly now that her tongue was also numb. More problems. A numb tongue meant that poison was invading upwards. "My jaw ithn't that throng dammit!"

Cerina from where she lay beside Katha propped up on a stump, exhausted and frustrated after eight days of constant running, no sleep and uncooked beasts for meals, had an epiphany. "Your legs are stronger than your arms and your face. Use your fucking feet, dumbass!" She growled up at her friend. It was a last ditch effort. The thing was right fucking there and Katha didn't need to aim that well. So why the fuck not, they were kind of out of ideas.

"Gonna need a running thart, and the damn thing ith big. Th'o!" Katha nodded with her head at the Hornsword on her back, for Cerina to take. "You can probably throw it, which mean'th that I can kick it. Hopefully I can thtill - still, fuck - aim." She shook her head, gritting her teeth after she made sure she wouldn't bite through her tongue. That would probably not kill her anymore. But it would suck. "Get ready for retrieth."

"Yeah, yeah, bloody hells," Cerina grumbled, using Katha's leg as a climbing aid as she hauled herself up. Reaching around she undid the Hornsword and with some effort set it on her shoulder and walked towards the Viridian Boar. All throughout its pollen range, which had been slowly growing as it slept, were a great many trees. Finding a suitable specimen just on the edge of the cloud, she pointed at the tree. "Up we go, I want height for this," she said, scuttling up the tree slowly with one hand and two feet.

Hopefully the damn beast wouldn't wake up in the next two minutes. She sent a rude gesture Heaven-ward in her mind. You do that and I swear to god Jade Emperor, I'm going to find a way to wither off something painful.

Blasphemy complete, her and Katha were up in the tree and out on a limb. Steadying herself Cerina hefted the gigantic sword in a two handed overhead stance. The power of the Mountain-Tossing Art ran up her feet, through her back and out her arms, swelling muscle and veins as she bent back. Then she heaved and the Hornsword went spinning through the air towards the boar.

Katha had retreated a fair distance away by then, the first fresh breaths she had taken in something like a week. Nothing that would help against the poison building up in her at the moment, but it was welcome relief. She was already in motion when Cerina began her Mountain-Tossing Art, already spiraling through the air at the moment it was invoked and her Hornsword was sent upwards in a majestic spiral. Her arms, numb and hanging slack, tossed around as she went, but they were what they were and she could not feel them either way.

She threw herself forward a moment before impact, tossing her head down. The weight carried, pivoting around her hips and bringing her legs upward. Her judgment was sound and the back of her heel made contact with the pommel of the Hornsword, and the moment it did so Katha shoved. Her leg went out, the blade shot out like a javelin, and as Katha fell to the earth in a spin she saw the deep trench carved out where the Viridian Boar's head and throat used to be.

That would do, she thought, before she landed face-first in soft loamy forest dirt. And found that she was too numb to feel or even move anything. Well shit, she thought next, before her thoughts went black.

***​

Clunk, clunk, rattled the sled Cerina had rigged up to lug her heavy companion out of the poison zone. She was still watery eyed and heaving from the momentary exposure she'd faced digging Katha out of the dirt about an hour ago. Thankfully the girl had hung onto her sword even in unconsciousness, and the pollen immediately started losing potency with the death of the soul guiding it.

Cerina stopped atop a ridge, an actual ridge this time, she'd checked. It was about a mile from the corpse of the beast-king, which everything was sensibly leaving alone. Getting situated she sat down next to Katha and dug out a reinforced tent peg mallet from her pack. Squaring up, she swung, whacking Katha's head. The mallet's head shattered into dust on her friend's forehead as her skull rang cleanly, like a pure and well shaped bell, and the sound echoed across the clearing.

"Wake up soldier, there's still shit to do and I can't have you sleeping in it!" She yelled in her best Instructor Agatha absolutely disgusted drill teacher's voice.

Katha groaned, but there was not much she could do. Now that she was fully paralysed, given the rigors of dealing with eight days of poison and regular soul attacks, she couldn't even cycle and expel the poison out the normal way. Well, no, she might be able to do that. But she'll choke to death before all the poison got out. Thankfully, it… probably wasn't fatal.

That said, right now fatal poison might be a mercy. "Are we home yet?" She moaned.

"No. I'm hungry and I want to eat the King before some pissant beast does, so I need you up and about soldier ASAP," Cerina answered bluntly. At this point she wanted more out of this venture than what Katha was paying her and a King's core? Hell yes she was eating that.

"Noooo, I'm paralysed… Wait." A memory from the last time they ate together came to mind. An image of Cerina, eating an entire spirit horse, cut into smaller - but still inordinately large - chunks. A horse that was big enough to feed the entire contubernium for three days. Then, she considered the size of the boar. "The entire thing? The building sized monster?"

Cerina did not bother to answer. She was already starting a fire, large enough that were it not for the clearing it might threaten to consume the entire forest. Katha just looked on in horror at the bonfire her junior Legionnaire continued to build, stacking larger and larger pieces of wood on top of one another, as the pile began to tower over even Cerina's own prodigious height, and never stop.

The Viridian Boar, it should be emphasized, is large enough to house an entire century. And Cerina wanted to eat the whole thing. Not the beast core. Not the eyes. Not choice bits. Everything, presumably including the entrails usually reserved for alchemy!

The worst part was, she probably could finish the whole thing, too. Because Cerina Polya was, as far as Katha Theodoros knew, an endless vortex for edibles. Not even food, because while all food was edible, not all edible things were food.

Or so she thought.

"C-Could you at least get me the pill antidotes," Katha pleaded in a small voice. But it was too late. Cerina was hungry.

Well, Katha thought, as the bonfire came to life and Cerina began to cackle, at least Cerina Polya is a good person.

(Final Wordcount: 14970 Words)

 

[BungieONI]

Thank you a bunch for writing this with me Swordo!

Hmmph... this junior is a good seed [Cultivation Management Quest] Original - Fantasy

Cerina Polya Side Story 6/Katha Theodoros 23 - Dinner with a Shepherd Year 261 Springtime in the Beast-Raising Forest was a raucous and bustling time. Animals darted across through the underbrush, beast hunting beast, or beasts seeking mates, and the trees oversaw it all as they towered...

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[Quest]

Xiao Yingzi Extra 9
[Turn X]
[An Old Desert Rhyme]

The baby cries and cries away
His job is to ruin his mother's day
But then he'll slowly learn to crawl
And to walk and to climb the wall
The time will come when the baby grows
Then to the the farm with dad he goes

The child knows only to run and play
Chase the chicken, jump into the hay
But he too grows up strong and tall
There's work to do, he'll handle it all
There is a joy to work along with dad
But his childhood's end is always sad

For the young man's place is to ponder
To look beyond his home and wander
The world he knew is not enough
To live and learn and seek out love
But he too will come back one day
And a new baby will cry and cry away

But in time, the man will begin to age
And his children step up to take the stage
His body wil ache, his bones will creak
His strength will flee and leave him weak
The old man will no longer grow
To Old Cannibal's gullet he will go​